Keynotes

Monday, January 9, 2017, 8:30am

Brian Markwalter

SVP of Research and Standards for the Consumer Electronics Association - CEA

 

Title: Trends at CES Shaping Our Future

Presentation Now Available

 


Abstract: CES provides an unparalleled view of the latest in consumer technology, product launches from startups and big name companies, automotive technology and even the technology latest from universities and incubators. Brian Markwalter, svp research and standards at the Consumer Technology Association, which owns and produces CES, will provide his take on the trends seen at CES and how they reflect the year ahead in connected products for consumers.

 

Bio: Mr. Brian Markwalter has been the Senior Vice President of Research and Standards at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) since May 2011. Mr. Markwalter served as Vice President of Technology and Standards at the Consumer Electronics Association. Mr. Markwalter is responsible for overseeing CEA's ANSI-accredited standards development operation and provides key engineering support to the association and its membership groups. Mr. Markwalter began his career with CEA in 1993 as a Staff Engineer. He left in 1996 to work for Intellon Corp. in Florida as a Director of Program Management before returning to CEA in 2002 to become the Director of CEA's Technology & Standards department and was promoted to Vice President in 2005. Mr. Markwalter has participated in joint U.S.-China development programs on standards and presented at FCC workshops on a variety of subjects. Mr. Markwalter has a long history of standards activities, including participation in ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 SC 25 on home electronic systems and IEC TC100 on Multimedia Systems. Mr. Markwalter also participates in standards activities in the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, and Advanced Television Systems Committee. Prior to joining CEA, Mr. Markwalter served as Director at Intellon Corporation, a semiconductor company specializing in power line communications. In this role, he helped develop and launch the technology adopted by the HomePlug Powerline Alliance for data networking over residential power lines and holds several patents in this area. He serves as a Director of Advanced Television Systems Committee,Inc. Mr. Markwalter holds BS and MS EE degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology and is a licensed professional engineer.

 

 

Tuesday, January 10, 2017, 8:30am

Katia Sycara

Professor in the Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Robotics and Semantic Web Technologies

 

Title: Networked Human-Robot Systems

Presentation Now Available


Abstract: Robots and multi-robot systems are attracting increased attention due to recent advances in making robotic platforms robust and cheap. Robots are envisioned to be part of human home and work life, collaborating proximally or remotely with humans. In this talk, we will focus on various challenges that human and multi robot coordination face in terms of multi-robot collaboration, cognitive demand on the human as well as issues of overall human-system performance. Potential applications of multi-robot systems include environmental exploration, monitoring of critical infrastructure, border protection, search and rescue, environmental cleanup, agriculture and others. The presence and interaction of human operators with multi-robot systems is common and necessary. The human in the loop is an important component in real applications since humans (a) are better than the robots at many visual object and pattern recognition tasks, (b) may have out-of-band information, and (c) impart mission and goal changes to the robots. However, multi-robot human monitoring and control presents difficulties due to (1) multi-robot dynamics and scale, (2) limitations imposed by the environment (e.g., limited bandwidth, noise and latency) and (3) cognitive operator limitations. In particular, we will discuss the interactions of human supervisory control with (a) robots that operate independently, and (b) robots that are coordinating autonomously. Drawing from multidisciplinary research in control theory, dynamic systems, and human factors, this talk will present work that addresses the above challenges and identifies open problems and opportunities.

 

Bio Katia Sycara is a Professor in the Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and the Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Robotics and Semantic Web Technologies. She held the Sixth Century Chair in Computing at the University of Aberdeen, UK from 2005-2015. She earned a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University, M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Aegean. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the recipient of the ACM/SIGART Agents Research Award and the recipient of the Research Award of the Group Decision and Negotiation section of the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She has received multiple best paper awards and multimillion dollar research grants. She has served as General Chair and Program Chair of multiple conferences, has given numerous invited talks, authored more than 700 technical papers dealing with multi-agent and multi-robot systems, human robot interaction, complex systems, negotiation, game theory, and data mining. She is a founding member of the International Foundation of Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS), and a founding member of the Semantic Web Science Association. She is a founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems” and is currently serving on the editorial board of 5 additional journals.

 

 

Tuesday, January 10, 2017, 7:00pm

James Kimery

Director of Marketing for National Instruments Wireless Research and SDR initiatives

 

Title: 5G – From Theory to Practice

Presentation Now Available


Abstract: 5G has generated much excitement because of its potential to transform all of our lives and unlock tremendous economic value. 5G promises many benefits, but it also presents unprecedented technical and system challenges with a goal of developing a commercially viable, multi-vendor standard. In order to expedite commercialization, researchers must prototype 5G concepts in real world settings to assess the technical and economic viability of specific research. This talk will overview the latest 5G developments including new technologies such as mmWave, Massive MIMO, and New Radio architectures and share recent experimental results of these test beds in practice.

 

Bio James Kimery is the Director of Marketing for National Instruments Wireless Research and SDR initiatives. In this role, James is responsible for company’s 5G strategy encompassing both research and business initiatives. In this role, James leads NI’s RF and Communications Lead User program which works with leading researchers across the world to accelerate the transition from theory to prototype. James also manages the company’s software defined radio business including the Ettus Research subsidiary acquired by NI in 2010. In 2014, James chaired the IEEE Globecom industry committee which was held in Austin, Texas. Prior to joining NI, James was the Director of Marketing for Silicon Laboratories' wireless division. As Director, the wireless division grew revenues exceeding $250M (from $5M) and produced several industry innovations including the first integrated CMOS RF synthesizer and transceiver for cellular communications, the first digitally controlled crystal oscillator, and the first integrated single chip phone (AeroFONE). AeroFONE was voted by the IEEE as one of the top 40 innovative ICs ever developed. James also worked at National Instruments before transitioning to Silicon Labs and led many successful programs including the concept and launch of the PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) platform. James was a founding member of the VXIplug&play Systems Alliance, VISA working group, and PXI System Alliance. He has authored over 40 technical papers and articles covering a variety of wireless and test and measurement related topics. James holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (MBA) and Texas A&M University (BSEE).