SOUTH KINGSTOWN – An assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Rhode Island was recently awarded a $400,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his research on developing technologies that can make intelligent decisions.

Haibo He, a North Kingstown resident, received the NSF grant through a program that supports junior faculty members.

He said that most research in the field to date has focused on developing technologies to achieve one of two brain-like objectives – making the right decision (optimization) or predicting what will happen next. Instead, his research is aimed at integrating the two objectives into one technology.

During the five-year grant period, He will create the models and architecture to replicate certain levels of brain-like intelligence, and finally demonstrate its use in simulated applications.

For instance, He said that intelligent power systems could be designed to maintain the power grid. He hopes to use the proposed wind energy farm off the coast of Rhode Island as one example of how his research can be applied.

He is collaborating with URI ocean engineers and Deepwater Wind on this component of the project. •