Award Abstract # 1531070
US Ignite: Collaborative Research: Cloud Computing and Software-Defined Networking Enhancements to Support Collaborative, Problem-based STEM Education

NSF Org: CNS
Division Of Computer and Network Systems
Recipient: THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON
Initial Amendment Date: August 12, 2015
Latest Amendment Date: August 12, 2015
Award Number: 1531070
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Bruce Kramer
CNS
 Division Of Computer and Network Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: September 1, 2015
End Date: August 31, 2019 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $239,862.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $239,862.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2015 = $239,862.00
History of Investigator:
  • Shivakumar Sastry (Principal Investigator)
    ssastry@uakron.edu
  • Huu Nghi Tran (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Akron
302 BUCHTEL COMMON
AKRON
OH  US  44325-0001
(330)972-2760
Sponsor Congressional District: 13
Primary Place of Performance: University of Akron
OH  US  44325-0001
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
13
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): DFNLDECWM8J8
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): CISE Research Resources
Primary Program Source: 01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 015Z, 110E, 8818, 9150
Program Element Code(s): 289000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

Innovative ideas are needed to improve the relevance of STEM education and student engagement. It is known that student motivation and engagement can be improved by challenging them with open-ended, real-world problems and having them work in multi-disciplinary teams. The proposed research will achieve these objectives and impart STEM knowledge and 21st century skills by connecting course content and assessments to deep STEM learning and real-world engineering problem solving. Using cloud-based software infrastuctures, students can use the proposed C3STEM environment to collaborate with their peers on knowledge intensive tasks, conduct joint experiments, and solve complex problems by decomposing them into smaller, more manageable tasks. This approach will improve the technological competence of students and help them to develop into global leaders.

The project will research, design and validate new technologies that will enable ubiquitous and collaborative STEM education. The team will design new software systems by exploiting the Cloudlet and Locavore patterns in conjunction with Cloud Computing. New techniques for Software Defined Networking (SDN) will be designed and validated to dynamically create and manage network bandwidth in support of the envisioned applications. Resource allocation, scalability and Quality of Service issues will be addressed in the integrated context of SDN blended with Cloudlets. The investigation will address insights and scientific foundations that inform new directions in Cloud Computing and Network Virtualization as applied to collaborative engineering problem solving. The team will design STEM curricular units using real-world applications, such as traffic flow in city streets and discrete manufacturing systems that are directed at high school and undergraduate students. The investigators will design, instrument, and validate next-generation test beds for remote access using multiple mobile devices and computing platforms for performing experiments and problem-solving by remote teams. For example, high school student teams in Nashville, TN will be able to collaborate with graduate and undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University and interact with students in Akron, OH while using a manufacturing test bed located at the University of Akron. The distributed team will be able to collaboratively collect real-time data from the test beds via mobile devices, program new behaviors, validate their designs and engage in solving complex problems of real-world significance.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Akram Hakiri and Aniruddha Gokhale "Data-Centric Publish/Subscribe Routing Middleware for Realizing Proactive Overlay Software-Defined Networking" 10th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-based Systems (DEBS) ACM publisher, Irvine, CA, USA , 2016
B. Tran, M. Elamin, N.H. Tran and S. Sastry "Performance Analysis of Software Defined Networking Concepts in Networked Embedded Systems" Industrial Networks and Intelligent Systems , 2019 , p.99
M.K. Chippa, M. Elamin, S. Sastry and N.H. Tran "Dynamic TDMA for Networked Embedded Systems" Information Science and Applications (ICISA) , 2016 , p.259
M.K. Chippa, M. Elamin, S. Sastry, and N. H. Tran "Dynamic TDMA for Networked Embedded Systems" Proc. International Conference on Information Science and Applications (ICISA) , 2016
Prithviraj Patil, Akram Hakiri, and Aniruddha Gokhale "Cyber Foraging and Offloading Framework for Internet of Things" 40th IEEE Computer Society International Conference on Computers, Software & Applications (COMPSAC) Symposium on IT in Practice (ITiP), IEEE publisher, Atlanta, GA, USA , 2016

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

This collaborative investigation between the University of Akron and Vanderbilt University focused on improving the relevance of STEM education and student engagement. The investigations into Cloudlets at Vanderbilt were completed with a focus on Software Defined Networking (SDN) concepts in networked embedded systems at the University of Akron. Two graduate students were supported on this investigation. Two additional students benefited from activities on this project. Connectivity to the Microfactory testbed was demonstrated in the US Ignite meeting in 2016. Two conference papers and two more follow-on papers have already been published based on the outcomes of this investigation. Two publications focused on the design and performance of a dynamically reconfigurable mechanism for predictable communications. The other two publications built on this work to integrate an SDN controller to regulate the flow of traffic. The results were validated both through simulations and a lab testbed. In addition, one of the students supported on this project is finalizing his doctoral dissertation. Building on the outcomes, he is investigating an alternative backbone for future Internet of Things systems. Beyond the domain of advanced networking, the results of this investigation are likely to offer new insights into the design of future systems that are networked and dynamically reconfigurable. This investigation offered a unique opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Akron to interact with students and researchers in Vanderbilt University.

 


Last Modified: 12/15/2019
Modified by: Shivakumar Sastry

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