 EECS research is conducted in the following 22 Research Labs and Centers
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is directed by Dr. Gomez, in collaboration with Dr. Segami (visiting faculty at CS). Currently, the lab supports 3 Ph.D. students, and has graduated three others. The lab is focused on research projects such as large scale semantic interpretation using WordNet, knowledge acquisition from encyclopedic texts, and intelligent information retrieval. The major funding agency is NASA. Antennas and Microwave Laboratory The laboratory is headed by Dr. Wahid with affiliated faculty members Dr. DeLoach, Dr. Wu and Dr. Schiavone. The lab currently employs 4 Ph.D. students and 2 M.S. students, while 10 Ph.D. and over 35 Masters students have graduated from this lab in the past. Research projects include the design and simulation of microstrip antennas, examples being diversity antennas and adaptive antennas for wireless communications, FDTD analysis of antennas and antenna arrays. Research is also underway on ultra wide band signal propagation and the design of ultra wide band antennas. Funding for the lab activities has been from various sources such as Raytheon/E-Systems, NASA Langley, Harris/Intersil, I-4, FSGC. The lab is equipped with network analyzers, a spectrum analyzer, and other equipment for measurements up to 26 GHz. The lab also has an antenna measurement facility, and a dark room with UV source, camera and spinner for photolithographic fabrication of planar RF/microwave circuits and antennas.
Central Florida Remote Sensing Laboratory (CFRSL) The CFRSL laboratory is headed by Dr. Jones with the following faculty associates: Drs. Kasparis, Georgiopoulos and Wahid. The lab currently employs 7 Masters and 3 Ph.D. students who are pursuing degrees in Electrical Engineering. It performs state-of-the art research in the field of microwave remote sensing of atmosphere, ocean, and land geophysical parameters. Current research projects are: QuickSCAT Ocean Wind Vector Science Team, Tropical Rainfal Measuring Mission Science Team, and NEXRAD Rain Retrievals. The lab has been funded at the annual level of $200K to $400K from agencies such as NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA Langley Research Center, and others.
Chip Design and Reliability Laboratory Dr. Yuan is the faculty involved with this laboratory, and it currently includes 4 M.S. and 7 Ph.D. students, while 8 M.S. and 6 Ph.D. students have graduated over the last few years. Research projects include: asynchronous digital design and CMOS device and circuit reliability. Funding sources for the lab's activities for the past few years include Lucent, Theseus Logic, and NSF. The lab is equipped with semi-automatic cascade probe station, Agilent network analyzer, parameter analyzer, spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, laser scanning scope, etc. worth more than 1.5 million dollars.
Computational Imaging Lab (CIL) The Computational Imaging Lab (CIL) is directed by Dr. Hassan Foroosh, and currently employs 7 Ph.D students. CIL explores the areas of research within Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, Image Processing, and Robotics. Research at Computational Imaging Lab (CIL) focuses on Camera Caliberation, Multiple View Geometry, 3D Modeling, Image & Video Synthesis, Medical Imaging, and Automatic Vehicle Navigation. CIL is currently being supported by Sun Microsystems, ONR, and Florida Photonic Center of Excellence.
Computer Architecture Laboratory (CAL) The Computer Architecture Laboratory is directed by Dr. DeMara with the following faculty associates: Drs. Berrios, Ejnioui, Kocak, and Petrasko. The lab also employs several Masters and Ph.D. students. Research in the lab concentrates on digital architectures from the system-level down to the register-level and gate-level. Research projects include Evolvable Hardware, Memory and Processor System Design, Clockless Logic, and Applications of Distributed Processing Techniques including Ultra-Dependable Computation. Research has been funded at an annual level around $300K from sponsors including NASA, U.S. Army RDECOM, Harris Computer Systems, Concurrent Computer Systems, Theseus Logic Inc., NCR, Lockheed Martin Information Systems and others.
Computer Graphics Lab The faculty involved with the graphics lab are Sumanta N. Pattanaik, Josheph J. laViola Jr., and Charles E. Huges. Currently research involves real-time realistic image synthesis, 3D user interface, material design and high dynamic range imaging. . There are currently six Ph.D. students active within the group.
Computer Vision Laboratory The faculty associated with this laboratory are Drs. Shah and Lobo. The lab currently employs 10 Ph.D. and 5 Masters students and has graduated 7 Ph.D. and 15 MS students over several years. Research projects are: tracking multiple people in the presence of occlusion, object-based segmentation of video sequences acquired with or without camera motion for MPEG-4 compression, monitoring human behavior in an office environment, detecting fire from video sequences, detecting driver alertness, understanding overheads, face recognition using police sketches, age classification using mug shots, and others. Funding agencies include NSF, DARPA, STRICOM, State of Florida, TeraNex, Harris and the Orlando Police Department. The funding level for the lab is now at $500K.
Consortium for Advanced Acoustoelectronic Technology (CAAT) The faculty involved in this laboratory are Drs. Malocha, Richie, Adler (courtesy appointment), and Hickernell (courtesy appointment). The lab has graduated a total of 15 Ph.D. and 40 Masters students. Research projects cover surface and bulk acoustic wave solid state devices, fabrication measurement, design analysis and system integration. The lab has received over $3M over the years, and its current funding its current support comes from the US Army, Motorola, CTS, Sawyer Research, Sawtek, Piezo Technology, and HP.
Database Systems Laboratory The Database Systems Laboratory is headed by Dr. Hua, and employs 10 Ph.D. and 2 Masters students. The lab is involved in a number of projects such as image database management system, video database management system, multicast and broadcast techniques and protocols for multimedia communications, automatic tools for database system analyses, and video data modeling. Work in the lab has been supported by a number of funding sources such as NSF, ORACLE, and State of Florida at a funding level of $400,000 per year. Digital Signal Processing Lab The Digital Signal Processing lab is headed by Dr. W. B. Mikhael. The lab currently employs ten Ph.D and seven M.S. graduate students. Funding agencies include: Harris, Intersil, Globespan Virata, Lockheed Martin, Sandia Labs and the US Navy. Research topics include Adaptive Signal Processing for Signal Detection and Enhancement, Speaker Recognition, Audio and Video Signal Compression, Secure Signal Processing for multimedia, Interference cancellation in wireless communications, Signal recognition and Classification, Software Radio, Biomedical signal processing and Blind source separation. Multidisciplinary Research Areas: Communications, Bioinformatics, Biomedical Systems and Intelligent Systems.
Evolutionary Complexity Research Group The Evolutionary Complexity Research Group is headed by Dr. Stanley. Their research focuses on abstracting the essential properties of natural evolution that made it possible to discover astronomically complex structures such as the human brain. If such properties can be abstracted into computer algorithms, then they can be leveraged to automate the discovery of large-scale neural networks, robot morphologies, building and vehicle architectures, art, and music.
Evolutionary Computation Lab The faculty affiliated with the EC Lab are Drs. Gelenbe and A. Wu. Currently, there are 3 PhD, 1 Masters, and 1 undergraduate students in the lab. Research projects include both theoretical studies on the dynamics of evolutionary algorithms and real world applications. Particular areas on interest include dynamic problem representation, changing landscapes, and applications in control and resource allocation. The primary funding agency for this lab is SAIC.
Florida Power Electronics Center The Florida Power Electronics Center was established in 1998 by Dr. Issa Batarseh to carry out research and development in the area of power electronics. Affiliated faculty members include Dr. Thomas Wu, and affiliated researchers are Drs. Luo, Krnetzky, Wei and Guanghong. The lab employs 3 Masters and 7 Ph.D. students. Examples of current research projects include dynamic modeling and design of high frequency DC-DC converters in distributed power systems, experimental and simulation studies of power factor corrections, soft-switching converters with unity power factor correction, low voltage converters for new generation of computer systems, among others. The funding agencies supporting the lab are Emerson, Intel, NSF and NASA at a level of $1,500,000.
Intelligent Systems Laboratory (ISL) The faculty affiliated with the Intelligent Systems laboratory are Drs. DeMara, Georgiopoulos, and A. Gonzalez. The lab was founded in 1997 and currently employs several Ph.D. and Masters students as graduate research assistants. Some of the current research projects associated with the lab are: modeling computer generated forces, modeling of vehicle behavior in a battle field under degraded states conditions, context based reasoning approaches in modeling and simulation, distributed simulation, neural network algorithm analysis and performance evaluation, applications of neural networks in smart antennas, data mining of law enforcement databases, networked computer security using mobile agents, learning from observation, reinforcement learning for tactical agents, high-level robotic control, net-centric embedded simulation and training as well as others. The lab has received funding for over 1 million dollars from agencies such as NACWTSD, Mishubishi Research Institute, I-4 Corridor, FDLE, US Army STRICOM, RDEComm, DMSO, AFRL and NSA.
Mixed Reality and Media Convergence Laboratories The Mixed Reality (MR) and Media Convergence Laboratories (MCL) are both directed by Charles Hughes. Associated CS faculty members include Hassan Foroosh, Michael Moshell, Sumanta N. Pattanaik, Erik Reinhard and Annie Wu. Current research projects include algorithms and tools for the creation and delivery of MR experiences, real-time realistic illumination and shadows in VR and MR, story-based rendering, video color enhancement, real-time collaboration in multi-person local and distributed MR, and evolutionary agent behaviors. Applications of MR include pre-visualization (especially for entertainment), scientific virtualization, sports and military training, cognitive rehabilitation, free-choice learning, and human experience modeling. Members of the labs are also involved in real-time, distributed algorithms for automatic construction and rendering of synthetic natural environments, multimodal and multi-sensory interfaces and human computer interfaces for artists. On the computational side, there are currently four CS Ph.D. students, two Modeling & Simulation PhD students, two CS MS students and several undergraduates active within the group. Additionally, the group contains faculty from disciplines that include Biology, Cognitive Sciences, Digital Media, History, Economics, Education, Industrial Engineering, Modeling & Simulation, Optics, Psychology and Public Health. Modeling, Simulation and Intelligent Networks Laboratory The faculty who work in this laboratory are Drs. Bassiouni, Gelenbe, Guha, Marin, and Annie Wu and it currently employs 17 M.S. and 20 Ph.D. students. In the past it has graduated 21 Ph.D. and 36 Masters students. Current research projects include cognitive network protocols, ATM Gigabit Network Testbed, Distributed Interactive Simulation, Intelligent Simulation with Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms, Performance Evaluation of RAID Systems, Vehicle Classification from Laser Images, Neural Networks and Image Processing, and Biological Modeling. Current funding totals $3M from agencies and companies such as NAWCTSD, ARO, Stricom, Lucent/Cirent, NSF, Harris, Adaptec,/DPT, I4 Corridor, SEO, Giganet, Trendium, and Thammasat University of Thailand.
Networking and Mobile Computing Laboratory (NetMoC) NetMoC is the networking and mobile computing research laboratory in the Department of Electical and Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida. The research mission of NetMoC is to conduct high quality research in general areas of networking, wireless data technology and multi-agent systems by combining the resources of academia, government and industry. The NetMoc Lab cooperates with local and national industrial partners on research projects, technology transfer and student internship/placements. Our educational mission is to train the next generation of engineers and scientists via graduate research programs, with special emphasis on the needs of the I-4 corridor and the UCF Research Park. The faculty affiliated with NetMoC Laboratory are Drs. Bölöni, Chatterjee and Turgut. We are pursuing projects in the areas of resource management and QoS provisioning in wireless networks, 3G/4G systems, 802.11 WLANs, protocols for ad hoc networks, performance optimization in sensor networks, multi-agent systems, user modelling and knowledge management. Robotics and Controls Laboratory The Robotics and Controls Laboratory is headed by Dr. Qu. The lab currently employs 6 graduate students and 4 undergraduate students. Research conducted in the laboratory has concentrated on three areas: robotics and automation, nonlinear systems theory and various advanced controls, and power systems. Research projects currently conducted at the lab are an OCR robotic system and in-cassette reader for semiconductor manufacturing, Mems-based motion testing system, control design for high-performance guidance systems, robust control for nonlinear uncertain systems, among others. Funding agencies that have supported or currently supporting the lab are Lucent, I4, NASA, KSC, NSF and others. Funding for 1999-2001 is at a level of 566,000. Some unique facilities available are robotic manipulators, a 2000kg 6-DOF electric motion platform, autonomous optical character recognition system, etc. Simulation Device Laboratory Drs. Klee and Bauer are the principal faculty involved with this laboratory, which employs 2 Ph.D. and 4 Masters students. To date 10 M.S. and 4 Ph.D. students have graduated, and the research projects which are currently conducted icover the development of an interactive driving simulator, enhancement work on an interactive simulator, simulator sickness, derivation of simulator transfer functions, innovative numerical integration techniques, multi-platform derivation of simulator transfer functions, automated generation of visual databases, autonomous independent intelligent vehicle modeling, voice controlled computer graphics, and electronic vehicle controls for the handicapped. Past funding has been in excess of $750,000, primarily from the Florida Department of Transportation. The current funding agency for the lab is the Center of Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation (CATTS) at an annual level of $300,000. Solid State and Microelectronics Laboratory The Solid State and Microelectronics Laboratory is headed by Dr. Liou and employs 3 MS and 3 Ph.D. students. Research projects include: development of improved methodology for measurements and SPICE simulation, statistical modeling of integrated circuits for digital, and analog high-speed applications, and others. Current sources of funding include NSF, SRC, Intersil Corporation and Lucent Technologies at a level of $185,000.
VLSI Laboratory The VLSI Design Lab is a 1,320 square feet facility large enough to house up to 20 students. The lab contains 10 high end PCs, 10 Sun Blade workstations, a Dell PowerEdge 2650 server, and two high capacity network HP printers. Among the 10 PCs, two are equipped with ALDEC high-speed co-simulation and verification prototyping boards (1M gate-equivalent each). Two other PCs are equipped with AVNET Xilinx Virtex II Pro FPGA development boards. In addition, a fifth PC is equipped with a Nallatech board carrying two Virtex-II FPGA chips supported by the FUSE development API for C/C++ and Java applications. 12 Altera FPGA development boards are also available. In addition to compilers and debuggers available on Sun workstations, a comprehensive set of EDA tools from Cadence, Synopsys, Synplicity, and Xilinx is installed and available. VLSI Systems Design Laboratory This facility is intended to support teaching and research in various areas related to VLSI design such VLSI layout, computer architecture, parallel processing, reconfigurable computing, asynchronous circuits and architectures, and CMOS device reliability. The lab is equipped with the appropriate software and hardware resources to teach several undergrad and graduate courses in digital design. |