University College Dublin Professor, Dr. Eleni Mangina joined us at CUSP on Friday, March 31th to discuss emerging technologies (including VR, AR, and UAVs) for humanitarian applications.
Abstract
In this talk we reviewed emerging trends and technologies such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, mobile apps and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that are transforming humanitarian applications for efficient delivery of response in emergency situations and/or first responder’s management. In situ observations from UAVs or other cyber physical sensors can enhance ground level intelligence and aid in the creation of real time models to capture and estimate the extend of a disaster. Using a virtual command & control centre communicating with sensors in the field, up-to-date information from weather stations and satellite images can be incorporated in a dynamic feedback loop in order to determine the best action. The talk included the implementation of two case studies.
Bio
Assoc. Prof. Eleni Mangina carried out her PhD work at the University of Strathclyde (UK), Dept. of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, working on Agent-based applications for intelligent data interpretation. The research area focused on software analysis, design and development of multi agent systems, which utilise different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques (Knowledge based systems, Artificial Neural Networks, Case Based Reasoning systems and Model based Reasoning systems). Dr Mangina holds an M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence from the Department of Artificial Intelligence at University of Edinburgh in the UK and an MSc in Agricultural Science from Agricultural University of Athens in Greece. Dr Mangina joined School of Computer Science (UCD) in 2002 and is an active researcher in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in domains like engineering, power industry, bioinformatics, education, agriculture and supply chain management. She has a track record of more than 150 publications in national and international peer reviewed workshops and conferences and international journals, including in IEEE and ACM and a number of book chapters and contributes as a committee member for reviews to many international conferences. Recent research focus includes Robotics, Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, Virtual and Augmented Reality applications as well as mobile applications for digital humanitarian applications. In 2014 she was certified in Robotics Academic Training from Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Lab. Dr Mangina is a member of the drone working group of European Emergency Number Association (EENA), UAV coordination group of World Food Programme (WFP), and Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Data IG group and has collaborations with Irish Red Cross (IRC) and International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC).
