A new book co-authored by Berkeley Mechanical Engineering graduate student Joel Wilson and Prof. Paul Wright describes the development of new technologies to support first-responders more effectively and more safely manage large urban/industrial incidents.
On June 19 and 20 Professor Ruzena
Bajcsy led a two day workshop in Denmark looking at the future relationships
between machines and humans. This workshop was sponsored by CITRIS and
the University of Copenhagen. Various topics were tackled,
including robot controlled cars, face recognition, virtual communications,
unmanned airplanes and robotics in the home, just to name a few.
Faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz,
have organized a renewable energy program that will bring together U.S.
and Danish students for four weeks this summer in Lolland, Denmark.
Eric Brewer, a professor of computer
science at UC Berkeley, has spent the last five years seeking ways to
use WiFi to improve life in rural communities in the developing world. He shared his views and experiences in a keynote to a group of fellow
academics and engineers at recent workshop
Ming Wu has been appointed the new Chief Scientist for
CITRIS at Berkeley. He is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Sciences at Berkeley, and Co-Director of Berkeley Sensors and
Actuators Center (BSAC).
The June 2008 newsletter is now online, with two stories on key energy projects in both engine development and predicting solar availability for utilities.
Within 15 years, solar power could produce as much as 15 percent of all the energy consumed in California. However, given our current inability to predict reliably the amount of direct solar irradiance available to the state’s energy grid at least a day or two in advance, utility companies cannot risk relying on this highly productive source. CITRIS researchers are working to solve that problem.
CITRIS researchers are developing engines that use 15 percent less fuel than gas engines and emit only 30 percent of the NOx of a typical diesel engine. Thus, they appear to combine the best of both engines. Except for one problem: temperature variations.
Currently, CITRIS has awarded approximately $2 million inseed grants on all four campuses. These projects will help fulfillthe CITRIS mission of creating societal-based research through collaborationsacross the CITRIS campuses.