ECE Research Labs
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
