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Worcester Polytechnic and MITRE: A Two-Way Education April 2013
The official motto of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), a technical and engineering college located an hour west of Boston, is "Lehr Und Kunst." It's a German phrase that loosely translates as "theory and practice." "That mirrors what MITRE is all about," says Joe Chapman, a hardware engineer at MITRE and WPI alumnus. Chapman leads an initiative that has built a bridge between MITRE and WPI. The program both brings eager, engaged students to MITRE and offers higher visibility of the type and impact of our work to the college, which offers more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degrees in science, technology, management, and other areas. The seeds were sown during the summer and fall of 2011, when two students performed their Major Qualifying Projects in a sensors pilot program at MITRE. Chapman became interested in growing the connection further; he knows both institutions inside and out, and he recognized that MITRE could enjoy a greater presence at WPI. Chapman worked with MITRE management to set up a formal agreement between WPI and MITRE that establishes an official academic "project center" at the college. "The school takes pride in its approach to an engineering degree," Chapman explains. "It's a project-oriented education. Everyone must complete three major projects to graduate, usually including an offsite project with a partner organization." As a result of those efforts, a total of 16 students requested MITRE as a location to complete their senior capstone projects in 2011. In 2012, the numbers rose even higher: "There were 34 applicants, and 18 named MITRE as their first choice," Chapman reveals. "MITRE has risen to the third most popular project center at WPI." In 2012, four students were accepted to work on projects at MITRE during their summer break. One pair helped evaluate a new receiver architecture for a project in support of bistatic radar technology. The other pair assisted in the design of "network-on-chip" infrastructure for an advanced Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) prototype. Six more will arrive during the summer of 2013, working on electronic system development projects and ground based radar challenges. An Academic Arrival An interesting byproduct of this academic partnership is the relationships developed with WPI professors. Professor Alexander Wyglinski, a world-renowned expert in cognitive and software-defined radio, gave a presentation at MITRE last spring, on the subject of cognitive radio and the scarcity of RF spectrum. After his talk, he toured MITRE's labs. But it didn't end there. A few days later, Chapman received an email from the professor of electrical and computer engineering. "I was wondering about taking a sabbatical at MITRE," he wrote. Chapman quickly approached his supervisors. This summer, Wyglinski's wishes will come true. He will be working on two high-level, high-impact challenges facing MITRE's customers during a six-month sabbatical at the Bedford, Mass., campus. The first is to develop a more robust, jamming-resistant Media Access Control (MAC) scheduling algorithm that's compatible with commercial handsets. This would help warfighters and first responders to use smartphones for critical communications. Wyglinski will also help design a high-performance acquisition and tracking loop, in support of the High Data Rate-Radio Frequency (HDR-RF) program, intended for use on an airborne platform. "This gives the professor an opportunity to work closely with a multi-disciplinary team outside of academia and with state-of-the-art hardware in MITRE's labs," says Chapman. It's also great for MITRE because we're getting a well-respected expert in the field of wireless communications to help solve a very challenging issue. This two-way cooperation opens the doors to further collaboration and research." While MITRE also fosters these kinds of relationships at other technical and engineering universities, Chapman believes that WPI-MITRE is a mutually beneficial model for engagement. "It's a triple-win situation," he laughs. "For MITRE, WPI, and ultimately, our sponsors." —by Cheryl Scaparrotta Page last updated: April 5, 2013 | Top of page |
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