Purdue-Based AI Research Aims at Decision-Making in Drones and Robots

Imagine this…

You are leaving your kid to the bus stop – and a drone is following them to ensure that everything is okay.

Believe it or not, our technology is moving closer and closer towards this kind of interventions.

Brain-Inspiring Computing: Making Technology Fully Independent

Right now, the subject of drones and robots being so intelligent is labeled as a new avenue of artificial intelligence – that is supposed to bring technology a new feature known as ‘decision-making’.

After studying the topic for years, a team of researchers at the Purdue University have created brain-inspired computing. This form of computing will allow systems such as drones, vehicles and robots to fully intervene without any human intervention.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, more than 420,000 drones will be in the air by 2021. However, the researchers at Purdue’s Center for Brain-Inspired Computing Enabling Autonomous Intelligence think that drones and other robotic devices could be directed to do even more advanced artificial intelligence tasks.

Purdue has already had giant leaps of celebration, acknowledging the university’s global advancements that have been made in health, space, artificial intelligence as well as sustainability – all part of Purdue’s 150th anniversary.

The Research is Moving Fast and Going Beyond the Traditional Concepts of AI

As one professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the university stated, “our research is going to go far beyond the traditional concepts of artificial intelligence (AI).”

“Most research is focused on perception-centric intelligence. We are going to look at designing smart devices that can read and interpret data, but then take that information and use reasoning to make decisions. Today’s typical computing is unable to do those things very well,” said Kaushik Roy, Purdue’s Edward G. Tiedermann Jr. Distinguished Professor.

Kaushik Roy, a Purdue University engineering professor, is helping to lead a center focused on artificial intelligence

Right now, the researchers at the university are studying and developing algorithms that can allow personal robots, self-driving cars as well as drones to interpret their environments and make decisions based on what they perceive. Aside from this, the researchers are actively studying distributed intelligence, the separation of functions in a system into separate machines and everything related to this form of artificial intelligence and decision-making.

Training video games are among the components being studied by Purdue University researchers tackling brain-inspired computing.

A New Beginning of the Era for Research into Artificial Intelligence

Roy is confident that there will be more advancements in this field of artificial intelligence. As he stated:

“This is only the beginning of the era for research into artificial intelligence. Purdue can use its broad expertise across many disciplines to lead the best team of researchers across the United States to make a huge impact.”

Meanwhile, the Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization is known as one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs and part of the most leading research universities in the US Services – supported by many economic development initiatives from the university and the Purdue Research Foundation, which is known for receiving numerous awards over the years.