Research Focus
Research efforts include the exploration of privacy-preserving light-fields for occupancy and activity sensing methods; integration of robotic, autonomous and self-regulating system controls; and the development of algorithms and simulation tools. LESA ‘controls’ methodologies are focused on fundamental pattern recognition such as Bayesian and neural networks, dynamic clustering, and system information disseminate across communication networks.
LESA’s concept of light transport analysis and plenoptic light-field sensing using digitized spectral reflectance and Time of Flight (TOF) or ‘Indoor LIDAR’ for activity mapping, is a transformative and powerful approach to address some of the toughest enginnering challenges in the connected environment. The TOF approach is superior to other occupancy tracking systems (including RF reflection/attenuation sensing) in terms of overall value, cost, benefit and precision. The integrated sensor platforms are developed adaptive and providing rich datasets for machine learning and artificial intelligence enabling embedded autonomous adaptive control of lighting and building systems, such as HVAC – and funded in part by a DOE ARPA-E award.
Illumination Sculpting
This research program is developing of an entirely new platform for automatically and dynamically optimized illumination requiring little or no human engagement yet delivering activity appropriate lighting profiles automatically to minimize lighting-energy use. This powerful, autonomously controlled, and spatially & spectrally adaptive lighting system uses multi-element, beam steerable LED technology combined with real-time sensing of occupant dynamics and advanced control algorithms. The research team is using virtual reality (VR) tools with sophisticated lighting and interior design tools to create the lighting design and control algorithms testing and optimization prior to hardware implementation.
Research Lead
Sandipan Mishra, RPI
Tools & Applications
- Intelligent Building Systems
- Autonomous System Management
- Advanced Sensors & Controls
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine Learning
- Privacy & Security
- Energy Utilization
- Visible Light Communications (VLC)
- Indoor LIDAR
- Occupancy Tracking
- Sentient Spaces
- SMART Cities
- Cognitive Environments
Our Sponsors & Partners
Lead Institution
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Core Research Partners
Boston University
The University of New Mexico
Thomas Jefferson University
Educational Outreach Partners
Howard University
Morgan State University
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Efficient Buildings Publications
Coming soon
2018
M.H.T. Imam, J. Gleason, S. Mishra, M. Oishi, “Estimation of Solar Heat Gain Using Illumination Sensor Measurements” Solar Energy 174 (2018) 296 – 304. Monette H. Khadr, Hany Elgala, Moussa Ayyash, Thomas DC Little, Abdallah A Khreishah and Michael Rahaim, “Security Aware Spatial Modulation (SA-SM),” 2018 IEEE 39th Sarnoff Symposium.
2017
T.K. Woodstock and A.C. Sanderson, “Fusion of Color and Range Sensors for Occupant Recognition and Tracking”, Proceedings of the International Conference on Multisensor Fusion, South Korea, (November 2017).
J. Zhao, P. Ishwar, and J. Konrad, “Privacy-Preserving Indoor Localization Via Light Transport Analysis,” Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Acoustics Speech Signal Processing, (Mar. 2017).
J. Chen, J. Wu, P. Ishwar, and J. Konrad, “Semi-Coupled Two-Stream Fusion ConvNets For Action Recognition At Extremely Low Resolutions,” Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, (Mar. 2017).
Z. Yang, D.T. Pollock, J.T. Wen, “Optimization And Predictive Control Of A Vapor Compression Cycle Under Transient Pulse Heat Load,” International Journal of Refrigeration, 75, pp. 14-25. (Mar. 2017).
W. Qiao, J.T. Wen, and A. Julius, “Entrainment Control of Phase Dynamics,” IEEE Transaction on Automatic Control, 62(1), pp. 445-450, (January, 2017).
J. Gleason, A.P. Vinod and M.M.K. Oishi, “Underapproximation of reach-avoid sets for discrete-time stochastic systems via Lagrangian methods”, IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 4283-4290, (2017).
J. Wen and S. Mishra, “Intelligent Building Control Systems”, Springer Nature Publishing, (2017).
S. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra and J. Wen, “Singular Perturbation Method For Smart Building Temperature Control Using Occupant Feedback”, Asian Journal of Control, in print, (2017).
M.H.T. Imam, S. Afshari and S. Mishra, “Autonomous Lighting Systems”, in Book: Intelligent Building Control Systems, Springer, (2017).
2016
J. Gleason, A. Vinod, M. Oishi and R.S. Erwin, “Viable Set Approximation for Linear-Gaussian Systems with Unknown, Bounded Variance“, IEEE 55th Conference on Conference on Decision and Control, (December 2016).
D. Roeper, J. Chen, J. Konrad, and P. Ishwar, “Privacy-Preserving, Indoor Occupant Localization Using a Network of Single-Pixel Sensors”, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Advanced Video and Signal-Based Surveillance (AVSS), Colorado Springs, CO, 24-26, (August 2016).
C. Okaeme, S. Mishra, J.T. Wen, “A Comfort Zone Set-Based Approach For Coupled Temperature And Humidity Control in Buildings,” IEE CASE, Dallas, TX, (Aug 2016).
Z. Yang, D.T. Pollock, J.T. Wen, “Model Predictive Control Of Vapor Compression Cycle For Large Transient Heat Flux Cooling,” American Control Conference, Boston, MA, (July 2016).
D.T. Pollock, Z. Yang, J.T. Wen, “Charge Management For Large Transient Loads In A Multi-Evaporator Vapor Compression System With Recuperator,” Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm), Las Vegas, (May 2016).
I. Bhattacharya and R.J. Radke, “Arrays of Single Pixel Time-of-Flight Sensors for Privacy Preserving Tracking and Coarse Pose Estimation,” Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision 2016, (March 2016).
MH.T. Imam, S. Afshari and S. Mishra, “An Experimental Survey Of Feedback Control Methodologies For Advanced Lighting Systems,” Energy and Buildings, v 130, p 600-612, (2016).
S. Afshari, L. Moynihan, S. Mishra, “An Optimisation Toolbox For Multi-Colour LED Lighting”, Lighting Research and Technology, SAGE Publications, pp. 1477153516669881, (2016).
L. Lu, J.T. Wen, “Human-Directed Coordinated Control Of Assistive Mobile Manipulator,” International Journal of Intelligent Robotics and Applications, (2016).
S. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra, J.T. Wen, “BEES: Real-Time Occupant Feed-Back And Environmental Learning Framework For Collaborative Thermal Management In Multi-Zone, Multi-Occupant Buildings,” Energy & Buildings, 125, pp. 142-152. (2016).
T. K. Woodstock, R. J. Radke and A. C. Sanderson, “Sensor fusion for occupancy detection and activity recognition using time-of-flight sensors“, 2016 19th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION), Heidelberg, pp. 1695-1701, (2016).
2015
D.T. Pollock, Z. Yang, and J.T. Wen, “Dryout Avoidance Control For Multi-Evaporator Vapor Compression Cycle Cooling,” Applied Energy, pp. 266-285, (December 2015).
S. Afshari, T.K. Woodstock, M.H.T. Imam, S. Mishra, A.C. Sanderson, and R.J. Radke, “The Smart Conference Room: An Integrated System Testbed For Efficient, Occupancy-Aware Lighting Control”, Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Conference on Embedded Systems for Energy-Efficient Built Environments (BuildSys 2015), Seoul, South Korea, (November 2015).
S. Afshari; S. Mishra, “A Plug-and-Play Realization of Decentralized Feedback Control for Smart Lighting Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. PP(99), pp.1-11, (October 2015).
J. Dai, B. Saghafi, J. Wu, J. Konrad, P. Ishwar, “Towards Privacy-Preserving Recognition of Human Activities,” IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Quebec City, Canada, (Sept 2015).
J. Dai, J. Wu, B. Saghafi, J. Konrad, P. Ishwar, “Towards Privacy-Preserving Activity Recognition Using Extremely Low Temporal and Spatial Resolution Cameras,” IEEE Workshop on Analysis and Modeling of Faces and Gestures, CVPR, Boston, MA, (June 2015).
Z. Yang, D.T. Pollock, J.T. Wen, “Gain-Scheduling Control of Vapor Compression Cycle for Transient Heat- Flux Removal,” Control Engineering Practice, Vol 39, pp. 67-89, (June 2015).
D. Kruse, J.T. Wen and R.J. Radke, “Sensor-Based Dual-Arm Tele-Robotic System”, IEEE Transaction on Automation Science and Engineering, 12(1), pp.4-18, (2015).
S.K. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra, and J.T. Wen. “Collaborative Energy and Thermal Comfort Management Through Distributed Consensus Algorithms.” Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on 12, no.4, pp.1285-1296, (2015).
2014
Z. Yang, D.T. Pollock and J.T. Wen, “Dryout Avoidance Control for Multi-Evaporator Vapor Compression Cycles with Transient Heat-Flux”, ASME 2014 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE), Montreal, Quebec, CANADA, (November 14-20, 2014).
Y. Li, Z. Wu, S. Karanam, and R.J. Radke, “Real-World Re-Identification in an Airport Camera Network“, Eighth ACM/IEEE International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras (ICDSC), New York, NY, USA, (November 2014)
S. Afshari, L. Jia, R.J. Radke, and S. Mishra, “Light Field Estimation and Control Using a Graphical Rendering Engine”, 2014 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, San Antonio, TX, USA, (Oct 22-24, 2014).
C.O. Acholo, K. A. Connor, and R.J. Radke, “A Lighting Metric for Quantitative Evaluation of Accent Lighting Systems”, Proc. SPIE 9190, Thirteenth International Conference on Solid State Lighting, (Sept 25, 2014).
A.Liu, M. Sandipan and M. Shur, “LED Illuminant on the Ambient Light”, Proc. SPIE 9190, Thirteenth International Conference on Solid State Lighting, 919004(, Sept 25, 2014).
S.K. Gupta, K. Kar, S. Mishra and J.T. Wen, “Building Temperature Control With Active Occupant Feedback“, IFAC World Congress Vol. 19, pp. 851-856, Capetown, SOUTH AFRICA, (August 24-29, 2014).
Q. Wang, X. Zhang, M. Wang, K.L. Boyer. “Learning Room Occupancy Patterns from Sparsely Recovered Light Transport Models“, 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 1987-1992, (Aug 24-28, 2014).
M. Minakais, S. Mishra, J.T. Wen, “Groundhog Day: Iterative Learning for Building Temperature Control“, IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), pp.948,953, Taipei, (Aug 18-22, 2014).
A. Cunningham, W. Keddy-Hector, U. Sinha, D. Whalen, D. Kruse, J. Braasch and J.T. Wen, “Jamster: A Mobile Dual-Arm Assistive Robot with Jamboxx Control”, Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), pp.509-514, Taipei, TAIWAN, (August 18-22, 2014).
Q. Wang, X. Zhang, K.L. Boyer, “OccupQ. Wang, Xinchi Zhang, K. Boyer, “3D Scene Estimation with Perturbation-Modulated Light and Distributed Sensors”, 2014 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops, pp. 252-257, Columbus OH, USA, (Jun 23-28, 2014).
M. Minakais, J.T. Wen, S. Mishra, Rongliang Zhou; Zhikui Wang; Shah, A., “Office Building Model Identification and Control Design”, American Control Conference (ACC), pp.1051-1056, (Jun 4-6, 2014).
Q. Wang, X. Zhang, K.L. Boyer, “Occupancy distribution estimation for smart light delivery with perturbation-modulated light sensing“, Journal of Solid State Lighting, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2014).
J. Tani, S. Mishra, J.T.Wen, “Identification of Fast-Rate Systems Using Slow-Rate Image Sensor Measurements”, Mechatronics, IEEE/ASME Transactions on, Vol. 19(4), pp.1343-1351, (2014).
D.T. Pollock, Z. Yang, J.T. Wen, Y. Peles, M.K. Jensen, “Model-Based Control of Vapor Compression Cycles Transient Heat-Flux Removal”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol.77, pp.662–683, (2014).
L. Jia and R.J. Radke, Using Time-of-Flight Measurements for Privacy-Preserving Tracking in a Smart Room. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, appeared online (March 8, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TII.2013.2251892
T. Zhang, J. T. Wen, Y. Peles, J.E. Catano, R. Zhou, M.K. Jensen, “Two-Phase Refrigerant Flow Instability Analysis and Active Control in Transient Electronics Cooling Systems”, International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 37(1), pp. 84-97, (Jan 2011).
2010
P. E. Phelan, Y. Gupta, H. Tyagi, R. S. Prasher, J. Catano, G. Michna, R. Zhou, J. Wen, M. Jensen, Y. Peles, “Energy Efficiency of Refrigeration Systems for High-Heat-Flux Microelectronics”, ASME Journal of Thermal Science & Engineering Applications, 2(3), pp. 031004, (Dec. 2010).
R. Zhou, T. Zhang, J. Catano, J. T. Wen, G.J. Michna, Y. Peles, M. K. Jensen, “The Steady-State Modeling and Optimization of a Refrigeration System for High Heat Flux Removal”, Applied Thermal Engineering, 30(16), pp. 2347-2356, (November 2010).
T.J. Zhang, Y. Peles, J. T. Wen, T. Tong, J.Y. Chang, R. Prasher, M. Jensen, “Analysis and Active Control of Pressure-Drop Flow Instabilities in Boiling Microchannel Systems”, International Journal on Heat and Mass Transfer, 53(11-12), pp. 2347-2360, (May, 2010).
M. Ojha, A. Chatterjee, F. Mont, E. F. Schubert, P. C. Wayner Jr. and J. L. Plawsky, “The Role of Solid Surface Structure on Dropwise Phase Change Processes”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 53, pp. 910-922, (2010).
L.I. Rivera, B. Potsaid, J.T. Wen, “Image Tracking of Multiple C. Elegans Worms Using Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM),” International Journal on Optomechatronics, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 1-21 (2010).
A. Chatterjee, J. L. Plawsky, P. C. Wayner Jr, D. F. Chao, R. J. Sicker, T. Lorik, L. Chestney, J. Eustace, and J. Zoldak, “Constrained Vapor Bubble Experiment for International Space Station: Earth’s Gravity Results”, Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, Vol. 24, pp. 400-408, (2010).