Lab News

Lab Updates

Dr.  Watson Visits University of Florida for Seminar at ESSIE

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March 6, 2025 – Dr. Bryan Watson recently visited the University of Florida Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering to deliver a seminar at the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment (ESSIE). Hosted by Dr. Sara Behdad, the visit provided an opportunity for engaging discussions with faculty and students on bio-inspired engineering and the broader impact of research. The visit also held special significance, as Dr. Watson’s grandfather graduated from UF’s Civil Engineering program in 1958.

Dr. Watson’s talk explored complex systems and the need for increased resilience, highlighting emergence as a key property and discussing how biologically inspired design (BID) can enhance system resilience. He presented a case study on mitigating peer-to-peer network attacks using strategies inspired by the Zombie Ant Fungus (Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis), demonstrating the application of agent-based models to faulted agents in complex systems. The talk concluded with a discussion of future directions for Biologically Inspired Design for Resilience (BID4R), including insights from the Allee Effect and its implications for system stability. The work presented included contributions from students James Hand, Rasika Ravindra Kale, Isabella V Hernandez, EIT, Mia Jastrzembski, Fayruz Maysha, Jessica Christa Wira Hadipoernomo, Julia Gorthey, and Austen Pallen.

Follow this link to watch his seminar!

Awards, Lab Updates

Lab members win top poster with a faculty at Cyber Rodeo

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February 5, 2025 – Two of our lab members, Jonah Kohlmeyer and James Hand, along with our faculty mentor Dr. Bryan Watson, won top poster with a faculty mentor at Cyber Rodeo! Cyber Rodeo is Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Aviation Cyber Initiative hosted by the Center for Aerospace Resilient Systems. It’s a two-day event focused on enhancing cyber resilience and mitigating cyber threats to aviation. It features technical demonstrations, company recruiting, Capture-The-Flag challenges, and an engaging poster session.

We are honored to have one of our lab’s posters selected as the top poster with a faculty mentor! When asked what the poster highlighted, Jonah Kohlmeyer, who helped create the poster with James Hand and faculty mentor Dr. Bryan Watson, replied:

BID4R’s contribution to this year’s cyber rodeo was an overview of STARS, or the Swarm Test Arena for Resilient Systems. Specifically, it presented a poster on “A Comparison of Biologically Inspired Faulted Agent Resilience Strategy Performance in Computer Simulated Environments Vs. Physical Swarm Test Platform Data.” The poster outlined the current work the BID4R lab is doing with the STARS platform and demonstrated one of our swarm units. – Jonah Kohlmeyer

Congratulations to Jonah, James, and Dr. Watson on a fantastic poster!

Awards, Lab Updates

Dr. Watson’s Paper Recognized as INCOSE Editors Choice!

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We are thrilled to announce that our faculty mentor, Dr. Bryan Watson, along with co-authors Isabella Hernandez, Marc Weissburg, and Bert Bras, had their paper selected as an Editor’s Choice by the INCOSE Systems Engineering Journal!

Their paper employed biologically inspired design to outline key steps for enhancing system resilience. By performing functional decomposition of eusocial insect colonies, they developed innovative approaches to strengthen the emergent resilience of multi-agent systems. Their work resulted in two major contributions: the recognition of six generalized functions which can be applied to systems to increase resilience, and a methodology to identify and translate insect behavior into generalized guidelines for designing resilient systems. They supported their work with a case study, by applying their identified functions to an emergency power service system and suggesting methods to improve its resilience. Their paper contributed several insights to the field of systems engineering, and we are proud to have it recognized by INCOSE!

Congratulations Dr. Watson!

For more information or to read the paper: https://lnkd.in/ePQTw5ve

Lab Updates, Networking Event

BID4R Lab End-of-Semester Celebration

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December 7, 2024 – As the 2024 fall semester drew to a close, our lab joined together to celebrate the numerous accomplishments we have achieved this semester. These accomplishments were made possible by the collaboration, determination, and persistence of our lab members. This semester, we submitted 4 abstracts and 6 conference papers! We are very proud of all the work our dedicated members have produced and look forward to our future growth, learning, and accomplishments!

Lab Updates, Poster Presentation

BID4R Lab at the 2024 Student Research Symposium

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November 20, 2024  – This past fall, BID4R Lab members showcased their work at the ERAU Student Research Symposium! Our researchers contributed to 9 presentations, sharing topics from optimization approaches for agents with limited knowledge to biologically inspired approaches to emergency response systems! Our posters were well received, and we were excited to participate in interesting discussions of our work! Congratulations to our researchers, for their outstanding presentations and sharing their valuable insights!

Conference, Lab Updates

BID4R Lab at IDETC-CIE 2024

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August 28, 2024 – Last month, the BID4R Lab had the opportunity to attend and present at the 2024 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC-CIE) in Washington, DC. The conference, held from August 25–28, 2024, featured networking events, workshops, the CIE Student Hackathon

competition, and over 500 technical presentations across 11 tracks.

Rogelio and Jessica participated in the ASME 2024 Student Hackathon – Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Mechanical Engineering, which was held virtually from August 16-24 and in-person on August 25. They worked on 2 problem sets provided by NIST and UES AFRL. Although they did not win the competition, both enjoyed working on the project and learned various methods of image processing.

Jessica presented her work on a new optimization approach with limited agent knowledge inspired by sandpiper food searching behavior in comparison with other well-known algorithm called the Firefly Algorithm. Besides that, Rogelio also presented his work on his simulation study exploring the transition from private to public transportation. He got multiple questions and had a nice discussion which was eventually stopped due to time constraints.

Moreover, Dr. Bryan Watson and Dr. Alexander Murphy from Florida Polytechnic University co-host the DTM Special Session 3, “Opportunities at the Boundaries between Systems Engineering and Design Theory,” featuring insightful contributions from Dr. Astrid Layton – Assistant Professor at Texas A&M, Diarny Fernandes – Mechanical/Aerospace Engineer at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and Matthew Mueller – Manager of Education Innovation at PTC.

Papers or posters presented in the IDETC-CIE 2024 are the following:

  • Sandpiper Food Search Algorithm: A New Optimization Algorithm with Limited Knowledge – Jessica Christa Wira Hadipoernomo, Dr. Bryan Watson
  • Barriers to Sustainable System Evolution: A Simulation Study Exploring the Transition From Private to Public Transportation – Rogelio Gracia Otalvaro, Dr. Bryan Watson
Conference, Lab Updates

BID4R Lab Presentations at INCOSE IS 2024

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July 6, 2024 – Last July, BID4R Lab had the opportunity to attend and present at INCOSE International Symposium (IS) 2024 in Dublin and our lab members had an incredible experience! The conference focused on Systems Engineering consisted of numerous presentations and

activities for 6 days and had more than 1000 attendees from all over the world.

Rogelio presented his work in the use of bifurcation analysis for complex system resilience (poster). He had the opportunity to engage with a multitude of visitors, going from renowned academics to industry experts. The feedback and comments on the matter that were given are very insightful and has helped him shape his future papers and efforts. Another highlight of the event for our lab was the presentation of Benjamin and Olivier in the scalability of design-for-resilience heuristics, which was clearly done and well received.

Rogelio commented “INCOSE IS 2024 was my first ever experience at a conference and the mix of the people, the discussions, and the city of Dublin itself was very enjoyable, inspiring me to keep advancing in the field and to look forward to the next one. Next stop, IS in Ottawa in 2025!”

Papers or posters presented in the INCOSE IS 2024 are the following:

  • Evaluating the Scalability and Combinatorial Effectiveness of Design-for-Resilience Heuristics – Benjamin Wierzbanowski, Oli Rogoll, Dr. Bryan Watson
  • A Framework to use Bifurcation Analysis for Insight into Complex Systems Resilience – Rogelio Gracia Otalvaro, Dr. Bryan Watson
Conference, Lab Updates

BID4R Lab at the 2024 ASEE Conference

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June 26, 2024 – ERAU’s BID4R Lab had a great turnout at the 2024 ASEE Annual Conference, held in Portland, Oregon. Master of Science in Systems Engineering (MSSYS) alumni Major Jason Newell and Mr. Benjamin E. Chaback both presented conference talks on their papers developed while in the masters program at ERAU under the guidance of Dr. Bryan Watson. BID4R postdoc Dr. Julianna Gesun also presented a conference talk regarding work coauthored with student Rachel Swan and Dr. Bryan Watson. Overall, the 2024 ASEE Annual Conference served as a great networking opportunity for the BID4R attendees with the Military and Veterans Division, the Systems Engineering Division, Student Division, Liberal Education/Engineering & Society Division, and Educational Research Methods Division.

Link to papers presented at the conference:

Conference, Lab Updates

BID4R Lab at CSER 2024

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March 27, 2024 – Members of the BID4R Lab presented at the Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER) 2024 from March 25-27 at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

Below are the title of the papers that are presented by the members of BID4R Lab at CSER 2024:

  • A New Multi-Agent System Consensus Algorithm Inspired by Synchronous Turtle Hatching Behavior – Austen Pallen, Dr. Bryan Watson
  • A Functional Decomposition Summarizing Eusocial Insect Parasite Resistance: A Tool for Biologically Inspired Design – James Hand, Dr. Bryan Watson
  • A New Biological Inspired Resource Allocation Algorithm for Distributed Multi Agent Systems with Limited Knowledge – Julia Gorthey, Fayruz Maysha, Dr. Bryan Watson

Well done Austen Pallen, James Hand, and Julia Gorthey on the well-written paper and great presentations! Big thank you to our mentor, Dr. Bryan Watson! We are extremely proud of their achievements!

Lab Updates, Networking Event

BID4R Lab Showcase at E-Week

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February 23, 2024 – This February, the BID4R Lab had the honor of being one of the highlighted labs during Engineering Week (E-week), specifically on the 21st. What an exhilarating experience it was to showcase our lab’s innovative work and the brilliant minds behind our projects!

We extend our deepest gratitude to all the students, alumni, industry professionals, and enthusiasts who

joined us. Your enthusiasm and support make our work even more meaningful. This event was a fantastic opportunity for networking, sparking collaborations, and discussing the future.

Inspired by the success of our E-week showcase, we’re more motivated than ever to continue our work. Stay tuned for updates on our projects, breakthroughs, and upcoming events.

Thank you for being part of our journey. Here’s to many more milestones and shared successes!