The ECE Department is engaged in funded research, both basic and applied, in the areas depicted in the illustration below. The faculty members in these clusters are experts who possess the depth necessary to impact fundamental problems, but also the breadth and adaptability to work collaboratively across clusters to have an impact on the grand challenges of engineering. They have won prestigious awards such as the IEEE Lifetime Achievement award, NSF CAREER awards, and election to Fellow grade of the IEEE. Their research interests range from the fundamental underpinnings of emerging nanoelectronic devices, circuits, and computing architectures, all the way up to large complex, integrated, electronic sensing systems designed to sense processes ranging from the geophysical to the biological. These complex systems are enabled by ubiquitous computing comprised of embedded systems, managed by wireless communication and computer networks, and understood via mathematical systems modeling.

Some of the research clusters shown above are described below.

Sensing Systems

Based on microwave engineering principles, complex, integrated, systems are designed, prototyped, and deployed for the remote sensing of geophysical processes. Large-scale research activities include three centers: the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, which comprises one of the strongest academic groups in radar meteorology; the Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory, which is one of the nation’s leading university research laboratories in microwave remote sensing of the environment; and the Center for Advanced Sensor and Communication Antennas, a leader in developing antenna technology for national defense, air traffic control, homeland security, and other needs.

ECE Professors: Bardin, DeFonzo, Frasier, Jackson, Janaswamy, Kwon, McLaughlin, Parente, Salthouse, Siqueira, Vouvakis, Zink

Emeritus Professors: Schaubert; Pozar; Swift; Carver

Wireless Communications, Networks, and Systems Modeling

Researchers study the theory and implementation of solutions to systems level problems in wireless communications, communication and computer networks, and complex dynamical systems. The Wireless Communication Center is involved in applications such as personal communications systems, wireless local loop telephony, wireless local area networks, local multipoint distribution systems, wireless multimedia distribution, and radio frequency identification.

ECE Professors: Duarte, Djaferis, Ganz, Gao, Goeckel, Gong, Hollot, Kelly, Looze, Pishro-Nik, Wolf, Zink

Adjunct Professor: Towsley (Computer Science)

Emeritus Professors: Franks, Kilmer

Post-CMOS Nanodevices and Systems

Theoretical, numerical, and experimental problems related to devices, circuits, and computer architectures based on nanotubes, nanowires, memristors, spin-wave structures, quantum cellular automata, and other nanostructures. Current research includes computational nanoelectronics (including numerical issues dealing with 3-D simulation of nanostructures), nanofabrication, 2D and 3D integration, nanodevice-circuit interactions up to very high frequencies (terahertz), physical-information-theoretic description of nanoelectronic information processing, and fundamental physical limits in nanocomputation.

ECE Professors: Anderson, DeFonzo, Moritz, Polizzi, Xia
Emeritus Professors: Tang, Yngvesson

VLSI, CAD, and Embedded Systems

Research topics include reconfigurable computing (FPGA) circuits, architectures, and applications such as: CAD for synthesis and verification; VLSI for signal processing, cryptography, security, and low-power design techniques. As part of a campus-wide initiative in cyber-security, the department conducts research in embedded security including: lightweight implementation of security and privacy primitives; analysis and countermeasures of existing and proposed systems; test-bed deployment of novel systems.

ECE Professors: Burleson, Ciesielski, Koren, Krishna, Kundu, Moritz, Tessier
Adjunct Professor: Paar
Emeritus Professor: Hill