The Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS) is focused on developing the next generation enabling technologies that will facilitate both human and robotic space exploration. Since its inception in 1983, the Institute has conducted basic and applied computer science research across a variety of aerospace-related disciplines, including supercomputing, computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, high-performance networking, and artificial intelligence.
Today, RIACS scientists are engaged in five core research areas: Autonomous Systems and Robotics, Collaborative & Assistant Systems, Discovery & Systems Health, Robust Software Engineering, and Small Spacecraft Systems. Research in these areas, conducted in partnership with NASA Ames Research Center, will provide the fundamental technologies to enable manned and unmanned space missions. Some examples of technologies developed by RIACS are the Remote Agent, the first artificial intelligence software to control a spacecraft, and EUROPA-MAPGEN, an artificial intelligence application used to generate daily activity plans for the Mars Exploration Rovers.
Much of the Institute's technology portfolio has broad application beyond the aerospace community, so RIACS is working with non-NASA government and industry customers to develop and deliver innovative and intelligent information systems. Through the creation of strategic partnerships, technology licensing agreements, and cooperative agreements, RIACS is leveraging its technology for the benefit of humankind.
Dr. David Bell, RIACS Director
RIACS Director Dr. David Bell has fifteen years of experience conducting research on collaborative and intelligent systems for technology organizations, with nine patent applications and over 30 academic papers. Prior to joining RIACS in 2002, Dr. Bell worked for ten years at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the Scientific & Engineering Reasoning Area, and held a two-year term at MIT where he led a research program in the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Innovation in Product Development. Dr. Bell received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1993, with a dissertation on product development process dynamics.
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