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Peter Dorato, 277-0299 Michael Padilla, 277-1816

November 26, 2001

UNM receives $200,000 NASA grant to fund minority research assistants, equipment

The Center for Intelligent Systems Engineering (ISE) at the UNM School of Engineering has received a $200,000 supplemental grant from NASA to fund minority research assistants and to purchase a master robot for cooperative robotics research.

NASA’s original grant for the center is $1 million for 2001-2002 which was awarded in May.

Peter Dorato, director of the ISE center and Electrical and Computer Engineering professor, said the supplemental grant will be used to strengthen the center, which encourages minority students to go to graduate school and design and develop projects for NASA.

“The supplemental grant is a clear indication that NASA acknowledges that we are meeting our goals,” Dorato said. “We are grateful for the continued support.”

The grant will fund four minority research assistants. Currently there are seven minority master and three minority doctoral students working on research projects in three departments including Electrical and Computer Engineering, Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Projects range from creating cooperative satellite arrays, to creating intelligent biomedical engineering and intelligent image processing.

The master robot will be purchased for educational and research purposes. The master robot is essentially a mobile “base station,” which coordinates the operation of cooperating robots.

The focus of the ISE Center is on research for NASA-related applications of intelligent systems theory. The grant also supports research at three partner institutions: North Carolina A&T, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Highlands University. NASA has been supporting research efforts at UNM since 1995, under the Center for Autonomous Control Engineering (ACE), directed by Professor Mohammad Jamshidi. In its first five years, the program graduated 45 minority master students and 12 minority Ph.D. students. The program works in conjuction with the Preparation for University Research of Students in Undergraduate Education (PURSUE) program.

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