Overview of ECE's Technical Interest Groups

ECE's faculty is organized into 11 technical interest groups (TIGs) that collectively represent the major research thrusts of the School. These areas are highly interrelated, and many faculty members engage in research in multiple TIGs. Following is a brief description of each TIG, with a bulleted list of their major areas of research.

Technical Interest Group	Research Areas
Bioengineering: Bioengineering is concerned with the application of engineering principles to the study and control of biological processes. In this area, mathematical and physical concepts are developed which are applied to medicine and biology Bioengineering Faculty members	Biosensors/BioMEMS Neuroengineering Medical Imaging and Signal Processing

Computer Systems and Software: The computer systems and software group carries out activities that span from high performance microarchitecture to integrated hardware/software systems to large-scale distributed software and internetworks. Computer systems and software activities focus on the optimization of cross cutting characteristics, such as power/energy consumption and security, within application domains such as health, high performance computing, and embedded real-time systems. Computer Systems and Software Faculty members	Computer Architecture Multi-core Systems Embedded Systems Computer Networks and Internetworking Distributed Systems System Software Large-scale Simulation Dependable Computing Computer System and Network Security Software Analysis

Digital Signal Processing: Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is concerned with the representation of signals in digital form, and with the transformation of such signal representations using digital computation. Digital Signal Processing Faculty members	DSP Theory Image and Video Signal Processing Multimedia Signal Processing and Networking Signal Processing for Communications and Security Radar and Array Processing Speech and Audio Processing Statistical Signal Processing Hardware/Software Systems for Signal Processing

Electrical Energy: Electrical Energy is primarily concerned with meeting the future demand for electric energy while satisfying environmental constraints. Electrical Energy Faculty members	Power System Monitoring, Analysis Protection, Operation and Control Distributed Generation Power System Simulation and Visualization High Voltage Engineering and Power System Components Electric Machine Control, Condition and Monitoring and Protection Power Electronics

Electromagnetics: Electromagnetics involves the study of Maxwell’s equations and their application to the analysis and design of devices and systems. Electromagnetics Faculty members	Microwave Circuits Remote Sensing of Obscured Targets RadioScience, Plantary Remote Sensing, and Space Communications Analysis and Design of Antennas Computational Techniques for Electromagnetics Signal Integrity in Digital and Mixed Signal Systems Terrestrial Radio Wave Propagation

Electronic Design and Applications: Electronic Design and Applications involves device and integrated circuit fabrication, circuit and system design and simulation, and instrumentation and testing techniques Electronic Design and Applications Faculty members	MEMs Circuit Technology Analog VLSI Radio Frequency/Wireless Integrated Circuits (RFIC) High Speed Mixed Signal Analog

Microelectronics/Microsystems: Microelectronics is concerned with the design, analysis, growth, and fabrication of micron/sub-micron feature length devices Microelectronics/Microsystems Faculty members	Microsystems and Nanosystems Photovoltaics Microelectronics Systems Packaging Manufacturing and Gigascale Integration Compound Semiconductors Biomedical Microsystems

Optics and Photonics: Optics and Photonics involves the study of lasers, optics, and holography. Optics and Photonics Faculty members	Optical Communication Networks Nonlinear Optics Photonics and optoelectronics Diffractive and holographic optics

Systems and Controls: Systems and controls is concerned with mathematical and computational techniques for modeling, estimation, and control of systems and processes Systems and Controls Faculty members	Mathematical systems theory Discrete event systems and hybrid system Nonlinear control Computer vision Intelligent control Sensor technologies Robotics

Telecommunications: Telecommunications is concerned with the characterization, representation, transmission, storage, and networking of information over various media including space, optical fiber, and cable. Telecommunications Faculty members	Wireless Communications and Networking Communication Theory Information Theory and Adaptive Systems Multimedia Networking Inter-networking, Network Management, and Network Security Optical Networks

VLSI Systems and Digital Design: The VLSI systems and digital design technical interest group carries out activities involved with designing and testing complex digital and mixed-signal electronic systems. These techniques optimize power, performance, and reliability metrics across a wide range of applications. VLSI Systems and Digital Design Faculty members	Design of ultra low power circuits and systems Embedded systems and hardware-software codesign Microarchitecture and memory design for performance, power, and reliability Design and test of Systems on Chips (SOCs) and Systems in Packages (SiPs) Low power/high-speed interconnect and design automation for physical design VLSI testing and fault tolerant computing Data acquisition systems for vision/sensing applications Self-tuning/self-calibrating circuits for wired and wireless communications Design of nanotechnology and other emerging computational fabrics

Last revised on December 15, 2010.