The research programs in Electrical and Computer Engineering are supported by both federal and industrial funding as well as numerous state-of-the-art research laboratories. The research programs of the department cover a wide spectrum of activities in the primary disciplines of communications, electromagnetics, mechatronics, electronics, photonics, computer architecture, power systems, and software-enabled systems. The department is equipped with an extensive computer facility consisting of a variety of state-of-the-art mainframes, workstations, and personal computers located in several open laboratories and in a large number of specialized research laboratories. In addition, there are many specialized research laboratories and centers supporting activities in speech and image processing, communications systems, wireless networks, robotics, control systems, computer architecture, VLSI design and testing, semiconductor materials and devices, photonics, fiber optics, microwave circuits, power systems, power electronics, computational electromagnetics, vehicle electronics, and plasma science.
For organizational purposes, the department’s research activities are clustered into the focus areas given below.
Applied Electromagnetics - Faculty: Anthony Q. Martin, Liang Dong, Todd Hubing, Eric Johnson, Pingshan Wang, Hai Xiao, and Lin Zhu.
Circuits - Faculty: Richard Groff, Liang Dong, Rod Harrell, Pingshan Wang, and Yingjie Lao.
Communications Systems and Networks - Faculty: Fatemeh Afghah, Linke Guo, Carl Baum, Dan Noneaker, Michael Pursley, Harlan Russell, and K.C. Wang.
Computer Systems Architecture - Faculty: Richard Brooks, Jon C. Calhoun, Adam Hoover, Yingjie Lao, Walt Ligon, Robert Schalkoff, Melissa Smith, Ian Walker, and Yongqiang Wang.
Digital Signal Processing - Faculty: Carl Baum, Linke Guo, Dan Noneaker, and Robert Schalkoff.
Electronics - Faculty: W. Rod Harrell, Eric G. Johnson, Goutam Koley, Yingjie Lao, Judson Ryckman, Rajendra Singh, Pingshan Wang, Zheyu Zhang, and Lin Zhu.
Intelligent Systems - Faculty: Fatemeh Afghah, Richard Brooks, Richard Groff, Linke Guo, Adam Hoover, Yingjie Lao, Robert Schalkoff, Melissa Smith, Kumar Venayagamoorthy, Ian Walker, Yongqiang Wang, and Yongkai Wu.
Photonic Devices and Systems - Liang Dong, Eric Johnson, Judson Ryckman, Hai Xiao, and Lin Zhu.
Power and Energy Systems - Sukumar Brahma, Randy Collins, Chris Edrington, Johan Enslin, Ramtin Hadidi, Rajendra Singh, Kumar Venayagamoorthy, and Zheyu Zhang.
Joint programs are maintained with other units within the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. Opportunities also exist for programs of study in conjunction with many national laboratories and technical facilities.