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Communications Laboratories & Groups

Communications News

There is a wide range of communications research activities in the department that may be broadly characterized into three major areas:

• Wireless Communications,
• Digital Signal Processing, and
• Fiber Optic Communications.

The research is inherently interdisciplinary, and not only cuts across these areas, but is also coupled with related device, circuit and networking technologies. It is common for faculty interests to span multiple areas, and for multidisciplinary teams to form to address major topics.

In general, communications research is directed towards understanding the basic limitations on communication system performance; analyzing, modeling, and characterizing performance; devising, implementing and evaluating new techniques for improving performance; and contributing to a broad range of communications applications.

Wireless Communications

The largest research activity is in wireless communications. This has progressed from a long-standing involvement in radio technology to fundamental propagation and antenna studies for satellite communications, to wireless networking across distances and applications. Wireless researchers today model mobile communications channels, develop multiuser modulation and detection techniques to improve performance in interference environments, and devise communications techniques and applications for new spectral bands and, indeed, across spectral bands. New efforts involve developing ultra wideband techniques and cognitive radio systems.

Closely related and contributing to wireless communications is research on antennas, RF integrated circuits, digital integrated circuits, and wireless networking protocols.

Digital Signal Processing

Today, digital signal processing is an important component of wireless research in implementing communications functions in DSP chips, thereby achieving greater efficiency and functionality. However, DSP research reaches well beyond software radios, and covers fundamental understanding of efficient signal representation, compression, and interference cancellation, whether the application is for X-ray images, speech or speaker recognition, sonar detection, electro-encephalogram analysis, or spatial beamforming. New efforts in this area are applying signal processing to microscope signals in biomedical research.

Fiber Optic Communications

Communications is one aspect of a broad departmental fiber optics research activity in fiber fabrication, fiber-based devices, and sensors as well as telecommunication applications. Research in fiber communications centers on the interrelation between technology, system architecture, and applications. Recent activities have included new modulation techniques to counter the effects of dispersion and non-linearity in long distance systems, subcarrier multiplexing and coding techniques for extending the bit rate limitations of multimode fiber systems, and architectures for survivable communications. Of current interest are issues involving broadband access and interfaces between wireless and fiber systems.

Recent News Items Regarding Communications

• What does a host cell do when a virus comes calling? (April 2004)
• Hardware abstraction of middleware (April 2004)
• Game theory & wireless networks (April 2004)
• Radio based on human learning developed for emergency situations (April 2004)
• ECE Team Developing Channel Models for UWB System Simulation, Planning (Fall 2003)
• Cross-Layer System Optimization (April 2003)
• UWB: Radar Technique With Communications Potential (April 2003)
• Testbed to Provide Navy With Mobile, Secure Network (Feb 2003)

2-page description of ECE communications research from the 2004 Annual Report. (406 KB PDF)

Faculty Members Conducting Research in Communications

Research in Primary Areas