Record Research Grant for USC

USC has received a five-year research grant for $100 million -- its biggest research deal ever -- from the Army to continue developing high-tech training technologies for U.S. troops.

University officials, in announcing the grant Friday, said that it will expand upon a previous five-year, $45-million deal between the Army and USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. An interdisciplinary research center, it brings together USC’s engineering, cinema-television and communication schools and other units on campus, along with Hollywood and the video game industry.

The institute’s researchers are developing “virtual reality” simulated environments and sophisticated games to mimic the kinds of complicated situations soldiers face in battle zones.

“It’s strategic,” said Cornelius Sullivan, vice provost for research. “In all of these games and in all of these various immersive environments that are created, the player never has a gun.... You have people, you have materiel. You might move weapons about, like tanks or Humvees, but you’re not shooting.”

Sullivan said that he did not know how many researchers or other employees USC might hire as a result of the grant, but that some specialists in behavior-related fields could eventually be added.

Richard Lindheim, executive director of the Marina del Rey-based institute, estimated that about 70% of the work funded by the grant would be performed at the institute or elsewhere at USC, and the remainder would be subcontracted to other universities or private industry.

The institute has a permanent staff of more than 80, but also draws on researchers from around the USC campus to work on such areas as artificial intelligence, computer graphics and sound.

Separately, USC also announced that researchers with the Information Sciences Institute, a unit of the campus’ engineering school, won three grants that will bring the school about $26 million to develop robotic machinery to perform construction and other tasks in space.