Coordinated Science Laboratory

The Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) is a major scientific research laboratory 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 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 in remote sensing and space sciences, signal, image and speech processing and 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 National Science Foundation, NASA, and from private corporations. Corporate funders have included AT&T, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NVIDIA, 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 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