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           COLLOQUIUM OF THE COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE CENTER
                              College of Science
                       (CDS Department CSI 898-Sec 001)
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 Deformable Autonomous Vehicles; ongoing research and challenges

			William C. Sandberg
  Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), McLean, VA

The last two decades have seen exciting technology developments 
resulting from the push towards autonomous unmanned vehicles.  
MEMS sensor and actuator technology, functional nanomaterials 
design, novel battery technology, and onboard microprocessor 
computing are among the drivers that have provided the impetus. 
Complementing the specific component and vehicle technology 
developments has been the investigation by the biological community 
of Nature's strategies for operating in challenging environments 
in the air, on the ground, and on and under the sea. The aspiration 
to create vehicles with similar capabilities to sense and respond to 
their environment demands that we address a myriad of challenges, 
both physical and computational, in order to adapt Nature's 
strategies to our purposes.  Recent unmanned vehicle research and some 
computational challenges facing vehicle designers, particularly as 
vehicle size decreases, will be presented. 

                        Monday, March 23, 2009
                                  4:30 pm
                     Room 301, Research I, Fairfax Campus

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 PM.
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Find the schedule at www.cmasc.gmu.edu/seminar/schedule.html
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