The Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) is a major scientific research laboratory at the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univers ...
. With deep roots in information technology, CSL has invented and deployed many landmark innovations, such as the electric vacuum gyroscope, the first computer-assisted instructional program and the plasma TV. Today, research thrusts include computer vision, economics and energy systems, information trust, neuroengineering, parallel computing, robotics and more.
History
Established in 1951 as a classified defense laboratory, the Coordinated Science Laboratory (or CSL) was originally designed to be a center for research i
remote sensing and space sciencessignal, image and speech processing
an
thin film electronics
Faculty and funding
Research at CSL is conducted by more than 100 faculty members spanning 11 departments in the University. The lab also employs more than 500 graduate and undergraduate students.
CSL is funded by many federal, state and private programs. It receives the majority of its operating and research budget from DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
, the National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
, NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
, and from private corporations. Corporate funders have included AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...
, Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
, Hewlett-Packard, Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
, Lucent
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
, Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
, NVIDIA
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
, and Sun Microsystems.
Major centers and institutes within CSL
Advanced Digital Sciences Center
Center for Exascale Simulation of Plasma-Coupled Combustion
CompGen
Health Care Engineering Systems Center
Information Trust Institute
National Center for Professional and Research Ethics
Parallel Computing Institute
Systems on Nanoscale Information fabriCs (SONIC)
Notable research contributions
* Electric vacuum
A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or " void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often di ...
gyroscope (the central component of inertial navigation systems, primarily used by submarines)
* Portable radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
systems
* PLATO
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
(the first computer-based education system)
* Flat panel plasma displays
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be releas ...
* Deuterium
Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being protium, or hydrogen-1). The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one ...
Method for processing microchips
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny M ...
(extends the life of microchips by 10 to 50 times normal length)
* Quantum wire laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...
s
* Quantum dots
See also
* Universal Parallel Computing Research Center-Illinois
* UIUC College of Engineering
The Grainger College of Engineering is the engineering college of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was established in 1868 and is considered one of the original units of the school.
Every engineering program in the college is ...
* Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology is a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dedicated to interdisciplinary research. A gift from scientist, businessman, and philanthropist Arnold O. Beckman (1900–2004) an ...
* Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) is ainterdisciplinaryfacility for genomics research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Institute was built in 2006 to centralize biotechnology research at the University o ...
* National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale computer infrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a ...
External links
Coordinated Science Laboratory
History of the Decision and Control Laboratory
a research group within CSL
{{Authority control
University and college laboratories in the United States
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign centers and institutes