USC Professor’s Simulation Software program Teaches Techniques Engineering Subjects

In 2013 the IEEE Life Fellow created the Transdisciplinary Techniques Engineering Schooling (TRASEE) paradigm, by which professors use simulation software program to show matters by storytelling and role-playing strategies, permitting college students to use their engineering classes to real-world conditions.

For that and different “pioneering contributions to model-based methods engineering, schooling, and industrial affect utilizing interdisciplinary approaches,” Madni acquired this yr’s IEEE Simon Ramo Medal.

Ramo was a frontrunner in microwave analysis who headed the event of Common Electrical’s electron microscope. Ramo served as a presidential chair and professor {of electrical} engineering at USC’s Viterbi Faculty of Engineering from 2008 till he died in 2016.

Madni says the award is “the crowning achievement” of his profession as a methods engineer. It’s notably particular to him, he says, as a result of he and Ramo had been colleagues at USC.

From NASA to educating at USC

Madni, who grew up in Mumbai, turned captivated by the U.S. house program after listening to the 1962 “We select to go to the moon” speech delivered by John F. Kennedy at Rice College, in Houston. The president’s speech was designed to bolster public help for his proposal to land a person on the moon earlier than 1970.

Madni, who knew he needed to change into an engineer, determined he needed to be a part of the “house journey,” he says.

He moved to america to pursue a bachelor’s diploma in engineering on the College of California, Los Angeles. Discovering himself drawn to methods engineering after taking a UCLA class within the area, he determined to merge his new curiosity together with his ardour for house.

After graduating in 1968, Madni joined Parsons Corp. in Los Angeles as a full-time methods engineer and analyst engaged on protection applications. At night time, he took graduate programs at UCLA, and in 1971 he earned his grasp’s diploma in engineering.

He went on to pursue a Ph.D. whereas additionally working full-time at Rockwell Worldwide’s house division in Downey, Calif., as a simulation methods engineer.

On the time, the corporate was the prime contractor for NASA’s house shuttle program. Engaged on this system was a dream come true, he says.

He developed a model-based evaluation program to just about take a look at the efficiency of the shuttle’s navigation system. He additionally led the creation of a simulation program that analyzed the navigation system’s efficiency beneath totally different high-stress circumstances. Madni’s model-based strategy lowered the necessity for intensive hardware-in-the-loop testing and consequently lowered prices, he says.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1978 in engineering methods with a focus in laptop methodology and AI, he joined Perceptronics in Woodland Hills, Calif., as director of synthetic intelligence and software program analysis, ultimately rising to government vice chairman and chief know-how officer.

“IEEE is the premier engineering society.”

In 1980 he started engaged on a distributed simulation know-how for the U.S. Military. He led a workforce that was designing a program to coach troopers and permit them to finish observe missions in protected, digital environments. The Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company (DARPA) and the Military sponsored the work.

On the time, the coaching simulators used had been costly to construct, underutilized, and rigid.

Madni says he had two targets for the brand new simulation system: to decrease prices, improve utilization, and permit navy personnel to change the eventualities as wanted. The know-how he and his workforce developed did simply that.

He later returned to the simulation effort, this time targeted on enhancing it with immersive story-telling strategies. The venture was funded by the U.S. Air Pressure, Military, Navy, DARPA, and the U.S. Division of Vitality in addition to a number of aerospace and automotive firms.

Madni modeled the simulations after video video games and flicks, partaking a number of senses to create extra immersive experiences for customers.

In the present day the Military makes use of the 2 methods, referred to as the “game-based coaching simulations for part-task coaching” and the “VR-enabled distributed simulation system for collective coaching.”

Madni left Perceptronics in 1994 to assist discovered Clever Techniques Expertise, an R&D firm in Los Angeles that makes a speciality of modeling and simulation know-how. He served because the startup’s CEO and CTO till 2009, when he joined the USC school as head of the interdisciplinary methods architecting and engineering grasp’s diploma program. Madni is the founding director of USC’s Distributed Autonomy and Clever Techniques Laboratory, which conducts analysis in augmented intelligence, autonomous methods, cyber-physical-human-systems, and transdisciplinary methods engineering.

“My father had a ardour for schooling and instilled that very same ardour in me from a really younger age,” he says. “His dream for me was to sometime be a school member at a prestigious U.S. college. By becoming a member of USC, I’ve fulfilled his dream and have contributed to reworking engineering schooling for twenty first century engineering challenges.”

Life Fellow Azad Madni [middle] proudly shows his IEEE Simon Ramo Medal on the IEEE Honors Ceremony. He’s accompanied by IEEE President-Elect Thomas Coughlin [left] and IEEE President Saifur Rahman.Robb Cohen Images

Educating methods engineering by storytelling

It was at USC that Madni developed TRASEE.

As an alternative of a typical lecture format, college students begin with a brief situation and a technical drawback to resolve. Every member of a gaggle is assigned a job. The groups use a digital twin—a digital mannequin—of a machine related to the story to evaluate how nicely their efforts are succeeding.

Madni says the strategy helps college students decide up info quicker, acquire management expertise, and study to work with others exterior their self-discipline and from different cultures.

“By taking summary engineering ideas and embedding them in tales, I’m in a position to talk the concepts to college students way more clearly,” he says.

Based on a 2018 examine, college students who study by role-playing workouts rating 45 p.c increased on checks than these taught by conventional lectures.

Madni has been acknowledged by a number of organizations for creating TRASEE. This yr he acquired the Nationwide Academy of Engineering’s Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Expertise Schooling. The prize features a US $500,000 award; Madni donated half of the cash to the NAE and half to USC.

Networking with engineers from totally different disciplines

Madni has been an IEEE member for 46 years. Since 1980 he has held a number of management positions and has offered papers at IEEE conferences worldwide.

In 2013, he cofounded the IEEE Techniques, Man, and Cybernetics Society’s technical committee on model-based methods engineering and serves as its chair. The committee creates instructional assets, and members are concerned in standardization efforts. Members additionally hosted panel classes on the 2023 Worldwide Convention on Techniques Engineering Analysis and offered analysis papers. As chair, Madni has led a number of collaborative efforts with skilled engineering societies together with Worldwide Council on Techniques Engineering and the Institute of Industrial and Techniques Engineers.

Madni can also be an energetic volunteer with the IEEE Aerospace and Digital Techniques Society, the IEEE Pc Society, IEEE-USA, and the IEEE Techniques Council.

“IEEE is the premier engineering society,” he says. “It goes nicely past electronics and electrical engineering. It encompasses many disciplines together with biomedical engineering, management methods engineering, cybernetics, methods engineering, and engineering administration.

“IEEE being multidisciplinary makes it a super discussion board for networking with engineers from totally different disciplines.”

Madni says he enjoys mentoring aspiring engineering college students and younger professionals working in each academia and business. He says that is his manner of giving again and he enjoys serving to them to “notice and dwell their dream as I did.”