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The COLUMBUS
consortium is unique in its conception and composition. To the best of our
knowledge, COLUMBUS was the first time that in the European scene a balanced
collaboration between U.S. and European institutions for research on hybrid and
embedded system design was proposed. The project participants are six: two from
the US and four from Europe. The project coordinator, the
University of Patras (UPatras), boasts one of the largest control groups in
Europe, with extensive experience in hybrid systems, discrete event systems and
Petri Nets. The
University of Cambridge (UCAM)
is one of the oldest and most famous Universities in Europe. The interest of the
control group in stochastic control of hybrid
systems adds a new dimension to the work on the design of embedded controllers.
The University of L’Aquila (AQUI) and more
specifically the
Center of Excellence DEWS
with its associates collects some of the best talents in hybrid system control,
embedded system design and its applications.
INRIA
is a French government research laboratory, for research in computer science and
applied mathematics. The
INRIA team
that participates in COLUMBUS (located at the Irisa laboratory in Rennes)
focuses on models, algorithms, and methods, for the deployment of distributed
reactive systems and methods for multi-level system design. The team supports
the Signal synchronous language and has a long standing cooperation with
TNI (now TNI-Valiosys), and SME developing and marketing Sildex, a tool
for embedded system modeling and design based on the Signal language. The
University of California at Berkeley(UCB) is
a worldwide leader in the area of hybrid systems and embedded system design. The
team put in place for this proposal is unparalleled in strengths and depth. Its
expertise in hybrid systems, embedded systems, platform-based design and
embedded software is unique. The
ISIS team
from Vanderbilt University (VU) and in
particular its leader, have been at the forefront of research on embedded
software.
Janos Sztipanovits has also led the DARPA effort on embedded computing
giving him a unique vista on the US research landscape.
The danger of
teams dispersed so widely is that they end up working as separate entities and
not leveraging synergies. However, we believe that, among the many strengths of
the team assembled in COLUMBUS, the working relationships that had been already
established over the years stands out. The partners have a history of friendly
mutual collaboration in the framework of other projects, scientific program
committees, expert panels and international academic collaborations. For
example, Berkeley and L’Aquila have had years of joint collaboration in the area
of non-linear and hybrid control. Prof. Di Benedetto has an appointment as
Adjunct Professor at Berkeley. Prof. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli is a theme leader
in the DEWS Center and is the Edgar L. and Harold. H. Buttner Chair of EECS at
Berkeley. The UPatras coordinator obtained his PhD in Berkeley and has worked as
a lecturer in the control group at the University of Cambridge for a number of
years. University of Cambridge and DEWS have a joint research project in the
area of air traffic management under European community sponsorship (project
HYBRIDGE, IST-2001-32460).
Even before
the COLUMBUS project the team had therefore developed a common vision and
research track record on the main research challenges in systems theory and in
particular in the area of embedded systems. This vision was in part summarized
in the brief report “Research
Challenges in Advanced Controls” prepared by the team at the beginning of
the project. The team was also used to collaborating by exchanging visits
whenever possible. COLUMBUS gave an additional opportunity of working more
closely on a number of issues of great scientific and potentially commercial
importance. The fact that the Berkeley and Vanderbilt teams also succeeded in
securing additional funding in the US to support their research effort for
similar topics gave an additional boost to the collaboration. Our experience
working in this transatlantic mode of operation was summarized in the brief
report “The
COLUMBUS Experience: an Experiment in Joint Transatlantic Research” prepared
by the team at the end of the project.
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