PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (July 31, 2023) — A project at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) focused on “Implementing the Next-Generation IoT Ecosystem with AI Capabilities” has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Initiation Award (RIA) of $300,000. The funding is part of an NSF program to fortify science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
“This research award from the NSF will allow PVAMU’s STEM students the exciting opportunity to participate in leading-edge research and acquire the necessary knowledge and expertise to excel in the burgeoning industries of computer science and engineering,” said PVAMU Vice President of Research & Innovation Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA. “Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed and PVAMU on this great honor and achievement.”
Ahmed A. Ahmed, Ph.D.
Ahmed Abdelmoamen Ahmed, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science (CS) at PVAMU and the sole Principal Investigator (PI) on the awarded project. He’s focused on developing a platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that can initiate and manage Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems.
As Dr. Ahmed explained, “The overarching goal of this research is to develop an integrated approach that has both foundational and practical contributions to address key challenges in supporting IoT ecosystems, leveraging AI capabilities to better collect and understand the tremendous amount of sensor data being generated every day.”
Dr. Ahmed hopes that results from the research will provide a greater understanding of the challenges new computing paradigms like IoT and AI present and how to address them, as well as lead to more innovative IoT applications and services and the democratization of the AI-enabled IoT industry.
“I believe that this project will significantly reduce the risks, cost, and development time of building a capable sensor data fusion system for a plethora of sensors in support of a wide range of IoT applications,” he said.
As PI, Dr. Ahmed is responsible for data collection and manipulation, overseeing student participation in the project, and publicizing project outcomes through conference papers and journal articles. Outcomes will also be introduced in a new IoT class Dr. Ahmed developed for PVAMU’s CS Department.
Students involved in this innovative project will gain exposure to real-world applications and develop skills that will set them up for professional success following graduation. Research results, source code, developed learning modules and teaching materials will also be available to the research and educational community so that the educational development component of the project can be replicated.
“This project serves the national interest by designing and developing learning modules on cutting-edge IoT and AI topics identified by federal funding priorities to respond to the lack of a hands-on-based curriculum in smart IoT and AI education,” noted Dr. Ahmed. “This will have profound impacts on both the CS curriculum and student learning at PVAMU.”