News

ANDRO Supports 60th Annual AFCEA Golf Tournament

ANDRO continues to proudly support the AFCEA Erie Canal Chapter and by sponsoring at the silver level the 60th Annual Golf Tournament held on August 3, 2022. The ANDRO team, represented by Carmen Luvera and Dan O’Connor, enjoyed hitting the green and supporting an incredible organization.

The AFCEA Erie Canal Chapter is focused around the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), military/civilian employees and associated contractor communities throught our Chapter region. Events supported by our Chapter include: Middle and High School Teachers’ Teaching Tool Award Luncheon; a Science Fair with Awards; a STEM Scholarship Award luncheon; Mohawk Valley Engineering Executive Council (MVEEC) participation and awards, Cyber & Info Challenges Technology Conference, and golf tournament.  Our Chapter reaches out from Albany to Buffalo (thus Erie Canal name) and Binghamton to the Northern Boundary of NY State.

The chapter co-sponsored the 2018 C4I and Cyber Technology Review Days and Exposition in partnership with the CYBER New York Alliance, the Mohawk Valley Chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Griffiss Institute and the Cyber Research Institute. The conference explored challenges and research opportunities at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) in C4I and cyber technologies for Air Force and Department of Defense applications. Plenary sessions were conducted each morning and technical workshops in the afternoon. The chapter hosted a technology expo that showcased C4I and cyber research and demonstrations. The event attracted over 250 attendees and participants from government, industry and academia from throughout the country.

For more information, visit: eriecanal.afceachapters.org

Dr. Andrew Drozd – Invited Panelist for IEEE CQR

Dr. Andrew Drozd, President & Chief Scientist of ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC, has been invited as a panelist at The 36th IEEE International Workshop on Communications Quality and Reliability (IEEE-CQR)

Dr. Drozd will join David Lu (AT&T) and Mallik Tatipumala (CTO, Ericsson Silicon Valley) on September 14th at the in person conference in Arlington, VA. Time of the panel TBD. View full panel details here

Panel: Machine Learning for Real-time Network Optimization – What Can Go Wrong?

Panel Moderator: Carol Davids, Research Associate Professor, CS Department and Founding Director, Real Time Communications Laboratory, Illinois Institute of Technology

Panel Description: Data and telecommunications networks produce enormous volumes of operational data.  Researchers today are exploring ways to apply ML/AI techniques to these data to develop self- regulating networks that can predict and respond to network events and trends in real-time.  As the network traffic increases in volume and complexity, and new networked applications place new demands, we can expect that the research of today will produce solutions that the network operators will be eager to adopt.  These applications could prove very helpful.  What do we need to do to avoid the problems that applications created using ML/AI techniques have produced in other areas?

Self-driving cars, for example, demonstrate that when their ML/AI-developed applications fail, they fail in spectacular and deadly ways, magnifying their errors rapidly and without self-correction.  Applications to determine the length of jail terms, the amount of bail, the terms and conditions of loans, university admissions, and hiring choices have tended to magnify social biases rather than help eliminate them.  Applications created using ML/AI techniques and applied to the output of surveillance cameras have been unable to identify women with dark skin as even humans!

Can applications that aim to provide real-time network management fail in similar ways?  We look at different types of potential failures: Technical failures in which a small wrong decision might escalate bringing a network down or amplifying rather than correcting the initial problem, and also the Societal failures: Could low numbers of Internet users in an underserved community, result in fewer network resources allocated to that community, amplifying rather than improving the available service?

These and related concerns will be addressed by our panelists, a diverse group of experts from the research and development, service provider, vendor, legal and advocacy sectors.

The 36th IEEE International Workshop on Communications Quality and Reliability (IEEE-CQR), will be held in-person in Arlington, VA, September 13-15, 2022.  All speakers and most registrants will be on-site. Please see the registration page (https://cqr2022.ieee-cqr.org/registration/) for the various options.  The workshop offers technical sessions, original paper presentations, and keynotes panels designed to further career opportunities and the in-depth understanding of key issues impacting communications networks quality and reliability.

ANDRO Presents at the 2022 International Conference on Machine Learning

We are looking forward to the International Conference on Machine Learning, 2022 #ICML where Nicholas Polosky, the lead author will be presenting our work on Wednesday (20th). Please join him if you are planning to participate this year.

As many of you are aware, an area of expertise in our MR Lab is applying machine learning for vision-based UAV autonomy. We have been developing some of these capabilities for our Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) customer.

In such cases, when the risk associated with the agents learning online is high, we have to resort to offline learning with an emphasis on applying safety-related constraints. In such deployment scenarios, a robust guarantee on the cost of a policy is paramount in real-world scenarios where breaking a cost budget may carry extreme consequences. To address some of the associated challenges, in this paper, we introduce Constrained Offline Policy Optimization (COPO).

N. Polosky, BC. da Silva, M. Fiterau, J. Jagannath, “Constrained Offline Policy Optimization”, in Proc. of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Baltimore, MD, July 2022

Reach out of you are interested in learning more about our #autonomy solutions for #unmanned systems!

For more information, visit: Getting Started (icml.cc)

ANDRO Awarded Patents

ROME — ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC has been awarded four individual patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for inventions designed to improve Fifth Generation (5G) and Next-G wireless communication systems performance.

The patents address methods for increasing radio frequency transmission rates and information-handling volume (U.S. Patent No. US 11,271,681 B2), assuring secure machine-to-machine (M2M) communications in autonomous radio networks (U.S. Patent No. 11,272,513 B2), optimizing radio spectrum allocation in real time (U.S. Patent No. 11,240,673 B2), and hardening wireless protocols against electromagnetic interference attacks (U.S. Patent No. 11,115,090 B2).

According to ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC President Andrew L. Drozd, 5G communications system performance can be affected by various technological and environmental factors. U.S. Patent No. US 11,271,681 B2 titled, Rate-2 Full-Diversity Complex Space-Time Block Codes, applies massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna techniques to exploit transmitter diversity with novel code schemes to attain higher transmission rates in 5G systems. The ANDRO inventors, led by Anu Jagannath, include Jithin Jagannath and Drozd.

Drozd adds that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently assigns licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands for mobile communication devices to exchange data. ANDRO has studied the associated limitations in wireless network performance during such exchanges. U.S. Patent No. 11,272,513 B2 titled, Adjudication of Access Policies in Wireless Device Networks, leverages block chain technologies to enable secure and efficient M2M crypto transactions in decentralized wireless mesh networks.

The ANDRO inventor team includes local area residents Drozd, Joseph McCoy, Chris Maracchion, Timothy Woods, John Hrabik, and Sean Furman. A related patent applies a policy-based approach to continuously monitor and govern a communication device’s spectrum use in real time providing a considerable spectrum advantage.

U.S. Patent No. 11,240,673 B2 titled, Real Time Spectrum Access Policy Based Governance, enables radio devices in a wireless network to operate over special access frequency bands to alleviate spectrum confliction and eliminate interference that could degrade communication services.

To address interference threats that could hinder communication and pose security risks to wireless systems, U.S. Patent No. 11,115,090 B2 titled, Apparatus and Method for Jammer Resistant Protocol Stack Design, establishes a new protocol method that protects radio devices against such threats. The inventor team includes Jithin Jagannath, Anu Jagannath, and Drozd. The patent is the basis for the design of a new type of compact, interference-resilient adaptive transceiver being developed by ANDRO.

“ANDRO is leveraging its growing portfolio of patents and its military heritage of products to expand its operations,” said Drozd. “The company will be relocating its headquarters from its present location at the Beeches Business Park to a new headquarters facility in Rome during the latter half of 2023.”

ANDRO has been providing research, engineering, and technical services to defense and commercial industries since 1994.

ANDRO also has offices in Syracuse at the Central New York Biotech Accelerator and in Dayton, Ohio.

The independently-owned company is dedicated to research, development and the application of advanced computer software and hardware solutions for secure wireless communications, software defined radios, advanced radar and multi-sensor data fusion, and sensor resource management.

Visit www.androcs.com for more information on ANDRO’s technologies, products, and patents including job placements.

Read the full story here

Direct SBIR Phase II Awarded by AFOSR

ANDRO Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Innovation Lab has been awarded Direct SBIR Phase II by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). This will help us explore the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of jammer resilience for multiple communication systems and GPS. 

This is a key area of interest for us because of the persistent use of jammers in the contested environment to debilitate GPS and wireless systems.

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ANDRO Participates in Scoping Session at Innovare Advancement Center

Dr. Andy Drozd, President & Chief Scientist of ANDRO, was one of the over 65 innovators, industrials & inspirational thinkers that came together this week at Innovare for a scoping session hosted by the Griffiss Institute and Cantina, on how to best respond to a recent National Science Foundation (NSF) solicitation.

The group joined forces to sharpen key messages and coalesced the business and research communities’ needs and desires to advance research, workforce development, and economic opportunity in the broad lens of #cybersecurity

Included were representatives from SUNY Polytechnic InstituteAir Force Research LaboratoryNew York State Technology Enterprise Corporation (NYSTEC)Indium CorporationRochester Institute of TechnologyPeraton/Peraton LabsResilienXAssured Information Security (AIS)Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteBinghamton UniversityArch Street LLCMACNY – The Manufacturers AssociationFuzeHubThe Research Foundation for SUNYSecurborationSyracuse UniversityANDRO Computational Solutions, LLCCNY Defense AllianceMohawk Valley Community CollegeMohawk Valley EDGE, and more.

Learn more here

ANDRO Scientist Receives Award

ROME — The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association recently named Dr. Jithin Jagannath of ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC a recipient of the AFCEA International Meritorious Rising Star Award for Achievements in Engineering and the AFCEA 40 Under 40 Award.

Jagannath’s research led to his appointment as chief scientist of technology at ANDRO and the founding director of its Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Innovation Lab in Rome, which continues to perform groundbreaking research in signal intelligence, waveform classification, and radio frequency fingerprinting towards new and innovative radio product development. One recent product developed and commercially launched by the AI/ML lab that Jagannath leads is ANDRO’s SPEARLink radio.

The AFCEA 40 Under 40 Award is given annually to 40 individuals ages 40 and younger for their significant contributions to the technical science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields by providing innovation, thought leadership, and support to their clients or organizations using information technology.

Jagannath also holds a position as part-time adjunct assistant professor at the University of Buffalo’s Electrical Engineering Department where he instructs virtual classes and shares his innovative research in wireless communications, machine learning, and data science with students pursuing STEM careers.

AFCEA is a member-based, non-profit association for professionals that provides highly sought-after thought leadership, engagement, and networking opportunities. The association has helped members advance information technology, communications, and electronics capabilities since 1946. Its main focus has been on cyber, command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence to address national and international security challenges.

Jagannath said he is proud of his lab’s accomplishments in applying innovative machine learning to solve some of the hardest problems in wireless communication and computer vision, a notable achievement that contributed to his AFCEA award selection. His lab has been at the forefront of developing a suite of first-of-kind signal intelligence solutions namely DeepSPEC, DeepeRFind, and DeepForecaster, all funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) just over the past year, the announcement said, adding these patent-pending technologies are unique as they strive to be lightweight for tactical edge deployment while outperforming the state-of-the-art.

As part of a Department of Homeland Security research effort, Jagannath’s lab also devised a technology that will provide 5G/6G systems the ability for secure spectrum sharing with Wi-Fi 6/6E. Jagannath envisions benefits to the DoD’s Beyond 5G networks where security will become crucial.

“Understanding and predicting the radio frequency spectrum using signal intelligence and then capitalizing on it to improve efficiency and security will keep us ahead of the game,” Jagannath said.

According to ANDRO’s CEO Dr. Andrew Drozd, the AFCEA organization viewed his innovations in AI/ML for wireless and the SPEARLink radio as Jagannath’s most noteworthy accomplishments, further adding that the same technology can be customized to serve any remote area that has limited broadband access.

“We are pleased that AFCEA has recognized Dr. Jagannath for his contributions and are grateful for the work he has done to leverage SPEARLink and other technologies in a variety of civilian applications such as drone delivery, telehealth, public safety, municipal services, and remote education,” said Drozd.

Beyond wireless communication, ANDRO’s Marconi-Rosenblatt lab has made considerable impacts using the power of AI-enabled computer vision to enhance autonomous drones for the U.S. Navy.

“We at ANDRO are very proud of Dr. Jagannath’s achievements and are inspired by his leadership as Chief Scientist and lab director, keeping in mind that the AFCEA awards are international recognitions and are highly competitive,” Drozd said.

The local Erie Canal Chapter of AFCEA will recognize Jagannath at an upcoming event.

In addition to his AFCEA recognitions, Jagannath is an IEEE Senior Member and recipient of the IEEE’s Region 1 Technological Innovation Award for contributions in machine learning techniques for the wireless domain. He has led more than ten SBIR and other federal/defense contracts for ANDRO issued by the U.S Army U.S. Navy, U.S. Special Operations Command, Department of Homeland Security, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Jagannath is co-Inventor of 12 ANDRO patents both awarded and pending in the field of machine learning and wireless communication. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals and conferences and is often invited to give scholarly talks, including keynote speeches, at leading international conferences and events globally.

Jagannath is an invited technical reviewer providing more than 100 paper reviews for leading journal and conference publications. He holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University, master’s of science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University at Buffalo and a bachelor’s degree in technology, electronics and communication engineering from the University of Kerala in India.

Read the full story here Daily Sentinel

Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Team Earns Best Paper Award at ACM WiseML

Dr. Jithin Jagannath, Director of the Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Lab at ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC is proud to announce his teams paper, MR-iNet Gym: Framework for Edge Deployment of Deep Reinforcement Learning on Embedded Software Defined Radio, won the Best Paper Award at the ACM WiseML conference.

The team showed how they leveraged their MR-iNet Gym to demonstrate one such instance of distributed power control using an adaptive LPI/D waveform. The entire LPI/D PHY layer and the Intelligent protocol stack that employs the RL engine runs on Deepwave Digital‘s AIR-T SDR.

At the Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Lab, we have further advanced the solutions to provide joint frequency and power allocation in the presence of jammers demonstrating uninterrupted video transmission over-the-air while making real-time decisions. This is just the first step and a lot more exciting work lies ahead at the intersection of machine learning and wireless.

This initial part of our work was presented at ACM Workshop on Wireless Security and Machine Learning (WiseML 2022).

Dr. Jithin Jagannath to Speak at the Industry Expert Sessions at the 2022 IEEE ICASSP

On Wednesday, 11 May, Dr. Jithin Jagannath, Chief Scientist of Technology at ANDRO and Director of the Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Innovation Lab, will present at the Industry Expert Session “Machine Learning for RF Signal Intelligence – Where We Are and What Challenges and Opportunities Lie Ahead?” at the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing.

The International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, & Signal Processing (ICASSP), is the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s flagship conference on signal processing and its applications. The 47th edition of ICASSP will be held in Singapore. The program will include keynotes by pre-eminent international speakers, cutting-edge tutorial topics, and forward-looking special sessions. ICASSP also provides a great networking opportunity with a wide range of like-minded professionals from academia.

More details: https://2022.ieeeicassp.org/view_event.php?mid=11

Anu Jagannath Presents with IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (IEEE TAI)

A great video- IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (IEEE TAI).
Sponsored by IEEE Computational Intelligence Society and presented by authors and leadership of the #ieeetransactionsonartificialintelligence.
Anu Jagannath, Associate Director, Marconi-Rosenblatt AI/ML Innovation Lab at ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC chimes in at 6:36 discussing how deep unfolded machine learning techniques could benefit the future 6G networks.

Click the link to read the full paper.
https://lnkd.in/g8A3tEPW