| NSF Org: |
EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 28, 2021 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 28, 2021 |
| Award Number: | 2124376 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Dana L. Denick
ddenick@nsf.gov (703)292-8866 EEC Division of Engineering Education and Centers ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2021 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $100,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $100,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2200 VINE ST # 830861 LINCOLN NE US 68503-2427 (402)472-3171 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
Lincoln NE US 68503-1435 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | ERC-Eng Research Centers |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.
Eighty percent of the 24 million Americans without high-speed Internet live in rural areas. This lack of broadband access severely limits the quality of life for rural residents and is a major source for potential global conflict over agricultural resources in the face of climate change and a growing population. The urban-rural digital divide is generally attributed to a lack of economic incentives resulting from low population density. As the population density in rural communities decreases, the density of connected devices in agricultural fields steadily increases. As a result, we are likely witnessing the evolution of a new digital gap between farm fields and rural towns exacerbated by outdated policy that prevents the realization of novel network architectures. As such, existing agricultural practices are limited (and therefore defined) by previous connectivity technologies, which were not designed for the unique characteristics of agricultural fields. The Engineering Research Center for Agricultural and Rural Connectivity (ARC) will unite engineers, computer scientists, agronomists and animal scientists, social scientists, education/outreach specialists, industry, municipalities, government agencies, and community stakeholders to bridge the urban/rural digital divide. ARC will engineer novel rural connectivity architectures and solutions, enhance rural communities' digital literacy to expand and utilize connectivity solutions, broaden participation of underserved and underrepresented rural communities in engineering research and development, and leverage a blossoming Silicon Prairie ecosystem to connect research solutions with commercial enterprises. ARC will advance fundamental research, provide workforce training, and foster the innovation ecosystem required to answer the connectivity challenges of rural communities. Its diverse team will identify economic drivers and policy constraints for rural connectivity (society), associated rural use cases (scientific community), and corresponding connectivity requirements (engineering community) ? all toward solving critical real-world problems.
ARC recognizes that no single existing wireless technology can solve rural broadband connectivity issues. Therefore, this planning grant brings together diverse expertise in agricultural Internet of Things, vehicular networking, UAV communications, agricultural robotics, and precision livestock management to focus on five primary convergent research directions:
1) Farm as an Anchor Institution architectures that combine expertise in wireless technologies, economics, telecom law, and agricultural sciences to enable breakthroughs in rural agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure.
2) Agile technology transfer for continuous integration of new communication solutions in parallel with research and development.
3) Agricultural robotics to replace high-horse-power tractors and boost productivity while reducing negative impacts on the environment.
4) Mobile connectivity architectures for extensive high-speed coverage.
5) Precision animal management to aid animal caretaking with the timing of animal marketing and improve detection of animal health and well-being concerns.
By bridging the digital divide, these convergent research directions will stimulate rural prosperity and improve food security by connecting rural towns, schools, hospitals, farm fields, ranches, roads, and bridges. The ARC team will use the ERC planning grant to complete a series of activities designed to enhance partnerships with native-serving institutions and rural community colleges (DCI), develop a comprehensive engineering workforce development program (EWD), maintain and expand the existing stakeholder community toward a diverse and inclusive vision (DCI/IE/EWD), crystallize convergent research directions (CR), and enhance the ARC leadership and core team (CR/DCI/EWD/IE). To this end, a series of retreats will bring together a diverse stakeholder community from public, private, and academic sectors, along with an engineering student body, all of whom will be integrated into the center's activities.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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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.
The Engineering Research Center for Agricultural and Rural Connectivity (ARC) aims to help bridge the digital gap by engineering novel rural connectivity architectures and solutions, enhancing digital literacy in rural communities to expand and utilize connectivity solutions, broadening participation of underserved and underrepresented rural communities in engineering research and development, and leveraging the blossoming Silicon Prairie ecosystem to bridge the gap between research solutions and commercial enterprises.
The major goals of this planning grant are to (1) seek key partnerships with minority-serving institutions and rural community colleges to increase diversity (DCI), (2) develop a comprehensive engineering workforce development program (EWD), (3) maintain and expand the existing stakeholder community toward a diverse and inclusive vision (DCI/IE/EWD), (4) crystallize convergent research directions (CR), and accordingly, (5) incorporate team science-based team building approaches to build an ERC team that is diverse, convergent, and with expertise that captures each project pillar while enhancing ARC leadership and the core team (CR/DCI/EWD/IE).
Through two in-person retreats, the ARC team has disseminated its vision to stakeholders in the industry, local rural communities, academia, and government. The retreats have provided a unique dialogue opportunity for the team to identify community-driven convergent research directions, education and workforce development needs, innovation ecosystem concerns, and diversity and culture of inclusion challenges in rural and agricultural communities.
The planning grant enabled the ARC Student Leadership Council (SLC) formation. SLC is a student-led organization with Ph.D. and MS students and postdoctoral associates from five universities (UNL, OSU, SMU, UCSB, KU). SLC has been meeting biweekly to analyze activities of existing ERC SLCs, establish a strategic plan for the SLC, and undergo training for SWOT analysis. This activity aims to establish SLC as a student-led organization and create a culture of inclusion within the student community of ARC partners. ARC SLC comprises 19 MS and Ph.D. students and postdoctoral associates from UNL, KU, UCSB, SMU, and OSU.
Partnering with minority-serving institutions and communities we identified team members with complementary expertise in research, education, and industry relations directions. To this end, we collaborated with colleagues from Navajo Technical University (NTU), the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC), and the Picoris Pueblo. The goal of this activity is to identify team members with complementary expertise in research, education, and industry relations within targeted minority-serving institutions and communities. As a result of DCI activities, the ARC team has partnered with colleagues from NTU, UCSB, and UTRGV (UTRGV colleagues recently relocated to other universities but are still part of the team). In addition, we developed a comprehensive DCI plan for the center. This plan includes an enhanced TSA program which will be scaled to the entire center members through dedicated leadership and professional tracks. An intercultural competence development plan will leverage Intercultural Development Inventory to help team members embrace an intercultural mindset. We also developed a plan for an inclusive mentoring hub for faculty and students. Through extensive conversations with core partners, we have identified institutional DCI programs that ARC will leverage and contribute.
As a part of an EWD standing committee, ARC members, including extension officers, education specialists, and engineering education experts, collaborated with Nebraska Public Media (Nebraska's NPR and PBS) representatives to design digital literacy and rural community outreach plans. The goals of this activity are to identify team members from partner institutions with expertise in engineering education; identify partnership opportunities with NPM for public outreach; seek input from stakeholders during the retreats and one-on-one meetings, and develop the ARC EWD program in collaboration with team partners and stakeholders. As a result of EWD activities, we have established partnerships with local and national stakeholders and developed a plan for ARCadamey, a multi-faceted EWD program for industry, community, K-12, and higher education students.
As a part of the ARC community retreat, we brought together representatives from communications, IoT, and the agricultural industry, including start-ups and established corporations, to understand innovation ecosystem opportunities and workforce development needs and discuss intellectual property (IP) concerns. The goals of this activity are to sustain our existing stakeholder community; disseminate ARC's vision to potential stakeholders; identify potential industry partners for ARC; bring together industry, academia, and government sector representatives to initiate a dialogue for technology transfer and IP sharing; and identify workforce development needs of local and national stakeholders in connectivity, IoT, and agriculture. As a result of IE activities, we developed a rural technology transfer plan to engage the value chain of ARC industry partners. The center will develop an inclusive innovation ecosystem to account for the cultural and social implications of center innovations on rural communities.
The core team has solidified a crisp and clear engineering system description along with a 3-plane diagram, which has been utilized in the preliminary proposal submission.
Last Modified: 12/25/2023
Modified by: Mehmet C Vuran
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