Focus Areas

The following focus areas are currently available. To view details on the courses for each focus area, view the Flow of Courses document.

Space Systems / Optics

Space research in the ECE Department is concentrated in the areas of spacecraft instrumentation for space environment characterization, Ionospheric physics, Magnetospheric physics, Space Weather Prediction, Spacecraft Systems Engineering, Spacecraft design, Advanced Materials for Spacecraft Electronics, Nano/Pico-Satellites and Spacecraft-Environment Interactions.

For more information, email easpencer@cc.usu.edu

Control Systems/Robotics

Control and robotics research at USU includes topics such as: cooperative control of multiple autonomous vehicles, autonomous control of robotic vehicles, networked mechatronic systems and their emerging advanced controls, distributed measurement and distributed actuation of distributed parameter systems. Our emphasis is on both theoretical development and real experimental platform validation.

For more information, email yqchen@ece.usu.edu

Signals / Communications

Communications and signal processing research at USU includes topics such as: 3D image formation from fused digital images/Ladar, software radio, development of error-correcting codes, atmospheric tomography, image and data compression, hyperspectral image exploitation, and adaptive echo-cancellation systems. Many aspects of these topics are being investigated ranging from the theoretical to the practical and efficient implementation in interesting applications.

For more information, email scott.budge@ece.usu.edu

Computer Systems

The computer engineering faculty focus on areas related to Reconfigurable computing, Embedded systems, Design automation tools, Fault tolerant designs for FPGAs and 3D integrated circuits. In the area of reconfigurable embedded computing, sub-topics include porting of high performance computing algorithms such as linear algebra kernels, molecular dynamics and other scientific routines onto multi-FPGA-CPU systems, exploring partial and dynamic reconfiguration for space based applications such as autonomous mission planning, navigation algorithms, as well as media processing such as image and video processing algorithms. In the area of design automation tools, sub-topics include C to HDL high level silicon compilers, automated memory sub-system design, model based design approaches, design space exploration and formal methods. In the area of fault tolerance computing, sub-topics include exploration of TMR, DMR with Hold, self healing circuits and related techniques to empower FPGAs with fault mitigation/tolerance features. In the area of 3D integrated circuits, sub-topics include thermal aware migratory logic through dynamic reconfiguration, self checking and healing circuits to recover from dynamic multiple soft errors, design automation tools such as synthesis, placement and routing that are aware of thermal and via connectivity issues in a 3D stack.

For more information, email dasu@engineering.usu.edu

Solid State Electronics

Microelectronics research at USU focuses on miniaturized, integrated implementations of analog and digital systems. Current research topics include integrated circuits for spacecraft instrumentation; efficient architectures for implementing error correction in data communication systems; low-power and low-voltage analog circuits; design automation for mixed signal circuits (particularly analog-to- digital converters and integrated instrumentation); and highly- reliable RAM circuits. These research topics build on a foundation of advanced electronics, and analog and digital VLSI classes offered at USU, where silicon-level implementation and simulation are fully developed.

For more information, see the USU electronics wiki page http://electronics.wiki.usu.edu/ or email Dr. Chris Winstead winstead@engineering.usu.edu

EM / Microwaves

Electromagnetics and Microwave research at USU includes the following topics: computational electromagnetics, electromagnetic and microwave interaction in complex systems such as space enviorenment, bio-tissue, microwave circuits design, radio frequency microelectromechanical systems (RF MEMS), Novel antennas design, reconfigurable antennas for use in adaptive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. These research topics spans numerical analysis and practical implementation, providing a full EM research capability at USU.

For more information, email reyhan.baktur@usu.edu