The Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) is a major multidisciplinary scientific research laboratory in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 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 screen. Today, key research areas include applied research and technology; circuits; computational and physical electronics; computer systems and architecture; decision and control; intelligent sensing, networking, and cyber-physical systems; remote sensing and space science; robotics; security and privacy; signals, inference, and networks; societal impacts of technology; and more.
History Established during the Korean War in 1951 as a classified military-research laboratory called the Control Systems Laboratory, CSL was originally intended to focus on automated control systems, with a major focus on radar. In 1959 it switched to a much broader civilian-oriented research mission and was renamed the Coordinated Science Laboratory.
Faculty and funding Research at CSL is led by about 150 faculty members spanning over 15 departments and schools at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with over 250 current graduate student researchers.
CSL receives funding from a wide range of federal, state, and private sources.
Some major centers and institutes within or affiliated with CSL Center for Autonomy Center for Networked Intelligent Components and Environments (C-NICE) Health Care Engineering Systems Center Illinois Advanced Research Center at Singapore IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute Information Trust Institute National Center for Professional & Research Ethics
Notable historical research contributions Electric vacuum gyroscope (the central component of inertial navigation systems, primarily used by submarines) Portable radar systems PLATO (the first computer-based education system) Flat panel plasma displays Deuterium Method for processing microchips (extends the life of microchips by 10 to 50 times normal length) Quantum wire lasers Quantum dots
See also Grainger College of Engineering Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology National Center for Supercomputing Applications
References
External links Coordinated Science Laboratory History of the Decision and Control Laboratory, a research group within CSL