CPS: TTP Option: Synergy: Collaborative Research: The Science of Activity-Predictive Cyber-Physical Systems (APCPS)

Abstract: This project aims to design algorithmic techniques to perform activity discovery, recognition, and prediction from sensor data. These techniques will form the foundation for the science of Activity- Prediction Cyber-Physical Systems, including potential improvement in the responsiveness and adaptiveness of the systems. The outcome of this work is also anticipated to have important implications in the specific application areas of health care and sustainability, two priority areas of societal importance. The first application will allow for health interventions to be provided that adapt to an individual's daily routine and operate in that person's everyday environment. The second application will offer concrete tools for building automation that improve sustainability without disrupting an individual's current or upcoming activities. The project investigators will leverage existing training programs to involve students from underrepresented groups in this research. Bi-annual tours and a museum exhibit will reach K-12 teachers, students and visitors, and ongoing commercialization efforts will ensure that the designed technologies are made available for the public to use. Deploying activity-predictive cyber-physical systems "in the wild" requires a number of robust computational components for activity learning, knowledge transfer, and human-in- the-loop computing that are introduced as part of this project. These components then create cyber physical systems that funnel information from a sensed environment (the physical setting as well as humans in the environment), to activity models in the cloud, to mobile device interfaces, to the smart grid, and then back to the environment. The proposed research centers on defining the science of activity-predictive cyber-physical systems, organized around the following thrusts: (1) the design of scalable and generalizable algorithms for activity discovery, recognition, and prediction; (2) the design of transfer learning methods to increase the the ability to generalize activity-predictive cyber-physical systems; (3) the design of human-in-the-loop computing methods to increase the sensitivity of activity-predictive cyber-physical systems; (4) the introduction of evaluation metrics for activity-predictive cyber-physical systems; and (5) transition of activity-predictive cyber-physical systems to practical applications including health monitoring/intervention and smart/sustainable cities.