OHSU Recognizes Licensing of Reduced-Dimension Data Assimilation Software

01/02/13 Portland, Ore.

OHSU¹s Technology Transfer and Business Development (TTBD) recently hosted the 2012 Technology Innovation Awards to recognize OHSU researchers who had technologies licensed or optioned in the last fiscal year as well as those who brought in top dollars from industry to support their research.

One of the technologies OHSU recognized was the licensing this past year of the Software for Reduced-Dimension Data Assimilation (RDDA).  Data assimilation methods combine numerical models with data measurements to improve prediction.  The RDDA system uses fast model surrogates to enable ensemble methods for data assimilation in very high-dimensional models such as those for weather and oceanographic currents. 

The RDDA model surrogates accurately mimic the response of full-scale circulation models to tidal, wind, and river flux forcing, but execute thousands of times faster.  Incorporating machine learning technology, the surrogates are trained on databases of full-scale numerical circulation models to reproduce their dynamics.  RDDA uses surrogates with state estimation methods that optimally combine the model with measured data to improve prediction.  This approach is easily portable to new problems, a feature that could result in broad adoption.

RDDA was a collaborative research effort between the Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The algorithms and software were developed by a team led by Todd Leen, Ph.D. and included Rudolph van der Merwe, Sergey Frolov, Zhengdong Lu, and António Baptista, Ph.D..

"The RDDA software is now a part of the research infrastructure at CMOP, U.S. Navy Research Lab, and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute," Frolov said. "A components of this software is now considered for integration into the operational infrastructure at CeNCOOS--an integrated ocean observing system for Central and Northern California."

OHSU's Technology Transfer and Business Development office licenses OHSU's intellectual property; links business with OHSU technologies and expertise; negotiates industry research collaborations; and launches companies based on OHSU technologies. The goal of research commercialization is to bridge the gap between promising research and public benefit.

Written by Jeff Schilling