rocket science - the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

electrical & computer engineering at brigham young university
rocket science
E
ngineering Solutions That Push
the Boundaries of Space
Department Updates
Alumni & Faculty News
Student Accomplishments
2007 | vol 4
ICU2. A front-mounted
camera detects lane
lines and lane position.
byu team competes in the darpa grand challenge
This year, for the first time, a team of BYU students participated in the 2007 DARPA Grand
Challenge competition. Building on recent successes in vision systems and unmanned air
vehicles, the team of six graduate students and 30 undergraduate students applied their
past experiences to the field of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). The Brigham Young
Urban Challenge (BYUC) team was mentored by Dr. Doran Wilde, Dr. D.J. Lee, and Dr. James
Archibald. The vehicle, named “Ynot” was a 2005 Dodge Caravan outfitted with a drive-bywire system that was donated by a Utah industry consortium called CAVATI. It is completely
autonomous, meaning that it navigates and drives entirely on its own with no human driver
and no remote control. The vehicle is also equipped with various sensors, including cameras, LIDAR, compass, wheel encoders, and GPS. Through the use of these sensors and six
CPUs, the vehicle perceives its environment and makes intelligent decisions based on the
available information.
contents
2007 | volume 4
02
messages from the dean and the chair
03
highlights from the past year
Awards, Grants, Recognitions
06
rocket science
Engineering Solutions That Push the Boundaries of Space
10
alumni
Honored Alumni, Alumni Stories, Advisory Board
12
faculty
Contributions, Directory
publisher Michael Jensen
photographers Mark Philbrick, Bradley H. Slade
ece@byu is published by the Department of Electrical
editor Michael Rice, Randy Beard
production assistant Houston Trueblood
and Computer Engineering, Brigham Young University.
associate editors Marla Sowards,
external relations committee
Copyright 2007 by Brigham Young University.
Karen Seely, Lee Ann Long
David Comer, Aaron Hawkins, D.J. Lee, Greg
All rights reserved.
art director Jon Woidka
Nordin, Mark Ormsby, Doran Wilde
10/07 | 07-249 | 4500 | 22804
Cover photo was taken by Mark Philbrick.
message from the dean
W
e are pleased to bring
you the latest issue of
ece@byu. The Electrical
and Computer Engineering programs remain strong and vibrant.
Last year the department reached
a new high in external research
funding. This represented more
than 20% of the funding to the
entire university. This funding is
being used to provide outstanding
mentoring opportunities for students.
Besides strength in research, the college and department
continue to address the challenges and opportunities relating to
the globalization of engineering and technology. The college has
identified five areas of strategic focus: technical excellence, leadership, global awareness, character development, and innovation. Last year, for example, the college conducted study abroad
and engineering service programs in Mexico, Tonga, China,
Romania, and France. These experiences will help leverage the
unique strengths of our students and prepare them to be leaders
in this global environment. We invite you to help us meet these
challenges by supporting the goals of the ECE department.
With regard,
Alan Parkinson
Dean
message from the chair
T
he past year has been one
of substantial change for the
department. First, faces have
changed as we have had several
members of the faculty and staff
leave either for retirement or to
pursue other opportunities. These
individuals have contributed significantly to our efforts, and we
will miss them. We welcome those
who have or will come to fill those
vacancies and are excited to be able to get to know them and
benefit from their creativity and devotion.
Second, the department continues to make progress in
terms of providing an outstanding educational environment for
students and developing internationally recognized research
programs. We have given students new opportunities for learning about globalization, professional ethics, and leadership and
have implemented novel hands-on learning approaches aimed at
improving the student experience. We have continued to enhance
the involvement of undergraduates in research activities and
have enjoyed increased success in obtaining financial support for
students and recognition for the work being accomplished.
Hopefully the highlights provided in this issue of ece@byu
will give you some appreciation for the many activities underway
in the department. I hope you will conclude as I have that the
department is moving in the right direction and continues to provide an environment where students can flourish and creative
ideas can develop into significant scientific contributions.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Jensen
Department Chair
P.S. We invite you alumni to keep us informed of your successes
and achievements.
2 ece@byu
highlights
from the past year
faculty highlights
dr. beard receives the technology
transfer award
At the 2006 annual university conference,
BYU honored Professor Randy Beard with its
Technology Transfer Award for his work on
navigation, guidance, and control of micro
air vehicles. Professor Beard’s work has
resulted in several licensed technologies
including the Kestral autopilot system. He
is a cofounder of Procerus Technologies in
Vineyard, Utah, which markets the autopilot
technology, and is on the technical advisory
board for Flying Sensors, Inc., which utilizes
BYU’s technology to provide aerial surveillance, videography, and mapping services
in industrial and commercial applications.
dr. beard’s paper recognized by esi
Professor Randy Beard’s May 2005 IEEE
Transactions on Automatic Control article,
“Consensus Seeking in Multiagent Systems Under Dynamically Changing Interaction Topologies,” was selected by Essential
Science Indicators (http://esi-topics.com)
as one of the most cited recent papers in
engineering as part of their “Fast Breaking
Papers” series for February 2007.
mark ormsby honored with
matt brown award
Mark Ormsby, current president of the
Utah Rugby Union, received the annual
Matt Brown Award, which recognizes distinguished BYU rugby alumni and boosters
who have given much to promote and sup-
port the game at BYU and beyond. Ormsby
was honored at BYU’s 2007 rugby kickoff
dinner. Mark, who hails from Tauranga, New
Zealand, is a former BYU football and rugby
player. He has worked in the department for
the past seven years. He is responsible for
hiring student teaching and research assistants, making purchases, and keeping the
department finances balanced. He has also
proven quite useful in keeping wayward
students in line.
dr. nelson invited speaker
Professor Brent Nelson was one of two
invited presenters for a special session on
Configurable Computing Machines at the
2006 IEEE Conference on Application-Specific Systems, Architectures, and Processors (ASAP 2006) held September 11–13 in
Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The invited
session was a part of the activities marking
the 20th anniversary of the ASAP conference. In his talk, Dr. Nelson presented the
results of BYU research over the past decade
on configurable computing machines, specifically focusing on the development of
the JHDL hardware description language
and its use for the design, debugging, and
deployment of high-performance computing applications on configurable computing
platforms.
dr. clark taylor wins young
investigator award
Professor Clark Taylor received the Young
Investigator Award given by the Air Force
Office of Scientific Research for a threeyear effort entitled “Vision-Assisted Navigation for Miniature Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles (MAVs).” Dr. Taylor was one of
21 recipients selected this year from 145
different applicants. The AFOSR’s Young
Investigator Research Program supports
scientists and engineers who have recently
received PhD or equivalent degrees and
who show exceptional ability and promise
for conducting basic research.
book coauthored by
dr. warnick hits the market
The book Problem Solving in Electromagnetics, Microwave Circuit, and Antenna Design
for Communications Engineering, coauthored by Professor Karl Warnick and Peter
Russer (Technische Universität München,
Munich, Germany) was released by Artech
House in August 2006. The book contains
solution methods using differential forms
notation for problems in basic electromagnetics, potentials and waves, static fields,
waveguides, periodic structures and filters,
antennas, and numerical electromagnetics.
dr. hawkins receives nih
and darpa grants
Professor Aaron Hawkins, in collaboration
with Professor Holger Schmidt at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was recently
awarded grants from the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) and DARPA to continue
research on integrated hollow optical waveguides. The $1.3 M dollar NIH grant is aimed
at optically investigating biomolecules in liquid-filled tubes made on silicon substrates.
The $800 K DARPA grant involves sealing
alkali vapors into hollow waveguides to
study photon-atom interactions including
optical effects like slow light.
Professor Warnick’s book, published by Artech House,
hit the market August 2006.
ece@byu
3
highlights
undergraduate research program celebrates
fifth year with new logo and new name
Professors Aaron Hawkins and Stephen Schultz began their
undergraduate research program in 2003 after hearing the
university’s administration championing mentored learning
and research for undergraduates. Starting with a handful of
students, they have now employed a total of 51 undergraduates in the last five years. One of the early goals of the program is to have every student researcher publish some type of
scientific paper. Of the 51 participants so far, over 80% have
authored or coauthored a journal or conference paper, and the
vast majority have gone on to graduate school. Funding for
student salaries has come from a combination of BYU mentoring funds, the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, external research project
sponsors like the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, and corporate donors. Originally called MME
(Microfabrication Mentoring Environment), the program’s
name was officially changed in 2007 to IMMERSE (Intensive
Mentoring and Micro-Electronics Research for Students in
Engineering) to more accurately reflect its goals and structure.
Moving forward, Hawkins and Schultz will continue to expand
the program and make it available to more students. To learn
more about IMMERSE, visit www.ece.byu.edu/ugresearch.
The model will be developed by Professor
Penry’s research group.
dr. oliphant contributes to
hugely successful book
Dr. Mark Ormsby (left) and Professor David Penry (right).
david penry joins faculty
David Penry joined the department fall
semester 2006. Professor Penry received
his BSE and MS degree in computer engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1992, an MBA from The Ohio State
University in 1994, and his PhD in computer science from Princeton University
in 2006. From 1995–2000 he was a design
engineer at Sun Microsystems, where
he participated in the design of several
microprocessors and computer systems.
His interests include computer architecture, microarchitectural simulation, parallel optimization, and VLSI design.
dr. penry receives donation
from sun microsystems
David Penry received an Academic Excellence Grant from Sun Microsystems. This
equipment grant, released by Sun as part of
their OpenSPARC Initiative, is worth $21,000
and provides a Sun Fire T2000 Server for
use in validation of a cycle-accurate microarchitectural model of the UltraSPARCT1.
4 ece@byu
The book Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think, published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., and released
June 2007, has risen to the #1 seller in
three categories at amazon.com. Professor Travis Oliphant contributed a chapter
entitled “Multi-Dimensional Iterators in
NumPy” to the book edited by Andy Oram
(O’Reilly Media) and Greg Wilson (University of Toronto).
dr. jensen and dr. warnick
cochair conference
Professors Michael Jensen and Karl Warnick
served, respectively, as general cochair and
technical program cochair for the 2007 IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium held June 10–15, 2007, in
Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference involved
presentation of approximately 1,500 papers
and had well over 1,400 attendees. The faculty members received formal expressions
of appreciation from the IEEE Antennas and
Propagation Society for their service.
dr. jeffs appointed guest editor
Professor Brian Jeffs has been appointed
as a guest editor for the IEEE Journal of
Special Topics in Signal Processing published by the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He and four other guest editors are
organizing a special issue of the journal
on the topic “Signal Processing and Space
Research Applications.”
dr. wirthlin honored with
outstanding faculty award
On March 8 the Ira A. Fulton College of
Engineering and Technology presented the
Outstanding Faculty Award to Dr. Michael J.
Wirthlin. Professor Wirthlin was recognized
for his publication record, his service to the
department (he is currently serving as the
graduate coordinator), and his impressive
collaboration with other universities and
national laboratories.
editorships
Several faculty have been appointed to editorships or continued their service as editors over the past year: David Long, associate editor for IEEE Geoscience and Remote
Sensing Letters; Randy Beard, unmanned
systems editor for the Journal of Intelligent
and Robotic Systems; Michael Jensen, associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation; Lee Swindlehurst,
editor in chief, IEEE Journal on Selected
Topics in Signal Processing, editorial board,
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, editor,
EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking; Clark Taylor, associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits
and Systems for Video Technology; Michael
Rice, technical editor for command, control
and communications, IEEE Transactions on
Aerospace and Electronic Systems.
highlights
student highlights
>> jacob huckaby and bryan haslam have been awarded scholarships by the
National Consortium for MASINT Research (NCMR). As members of the NCMR Scholars
Program, Jacob and Bryan will each receive a $10,000 annual stipend to support his
research developing chemical and biological sensors based on phtotonics, micromachines, and microfluidic “lab-on-a-chip.” Jacob’s and Bryan’s research is mentored by
Professor Greg Nordin. MASINT is the Measures and Signature Intelligence organization
and is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
>> tom nelson won second place in the graduate student category for his paper
“Reduced Complexity Trellis Detection of SOQPSK-TG” as part of the student paper program at the 2006 International Telemetering Conference held in San Diego, California,
October 2006. The award includes a $500 prize and travel expenses to the conference.
Tom’s faculty advisor is Professor Michael Rice.
>> The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory has established
a multiyear student fellowship program at Brigham Young University to support graduate students in science and engineering. brandon call was awarded the fellowship
for the 2005–2006 academic year and joseph palmer was awarded the fellowship for
the 2006–2007 academic year. The fellowship includes a $15,000 stipend for the final
year of graduate research. After graduating, Brandon took a permanent job with Lincoln
Lab, joining five other recent BYU alumni working there.
micron scholarship
recipients named
2006–2007 marks the sixth year of the
Micron Scholarship program in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Funded by the Micron Technology
Foundation, the scholarships are awarded
to five outstanding juniors each year. The
most prestigious scholarship awarded by
the department, the Micron Scholarship is
a full-tuition award that students receive
in addition to any other scholarships they
have been awarded. Recipients continue to
receive the scholarship through the completion of their undergraduate degrees—most
through two years and some through an
optional third year. Micron scholars are chosen based on academic standing, leadership
experience, and potential to make an impact
in their profession. Our department is grateful to Micron for their generous support in
recognition of our outstanding students.
>> The paper “An Improved High Resolution Wind Ambiguity Removal Procedure for
SeaWinds” by brent williams and Professor David Long was selected for the IEEE
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Interactive Session Prize Paper Award. The
paper was presented at the 2006 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Symposium in Denver, Colorado, in August, and included a $350 prize. Brent Williams
won the student paper contest at the 2007 IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium in Barcelona, Spain, for the paper “Hurricane Wind Field Estimation from SeaWinds at Ultra High Resolution.”
>> barrett edwards and wade fife won the best student paper award at the IEEE
International Symposium on Computation Intelligence in Robotics and Automation for
their paper “A Vision System for Precision MAV Targeted Landing.” The symposium was
held in Jacksonville, Florida, in June 2007. The presentation given at the symposium featured a video clip showing a UAV/MAV using an on-board vision system to hit a stationary tarp and to land in the back of a moving truck. The paper, coauthored by James Archibald and Day-Jye Lee, was the first time this capability has ever been demonstrated.
2006–2007 Micron Scholars, left to right: James Carroll,
Caleb Waugh, and Matthew Washburn
past micron scholars:
2005–2006 Daniel Chan, Steven Roberts,
Eric Sortomme, Jonathan Leininger, Jeffrey Boyd
2004–2005 Seth Lloyd, Haitao Wang, Christopher
Archibald, Neil Crapo, Craig Christenson
2003–2004 Aaron Pace, Tyson Lowder,
Jared Hill, Evan Millar, Brandon Call
2002–2003 Paul Cuff, David Madsen, Christian
Marchant, Isaac Wagnert, Sarrah Wilson
2001–2002 Clayton Davis, Rebecca Hollingsworth,
Jared Marcum, Nathaniel Rollins, Ran Wang
2000–2001 Nicolas Bikhazi, Brent Nordick,
Nathaniel Shelton, Nolan Wright
Left: Faculty and students interact in the department’s classrooms and labs. Student competitions
add to the challenge and excitement of electrical and
computer engineering.
ece@byu
5
r
h
c k e t
ow do you lose an iceberg the size of Rhode Island? NASA did, and BYU
researchers helped them find it using innovative remote sensing. Can you
detect a faint star even though someone is shining a spotlight in your eyes? BYU
researchers think they can. Can you repair a bug in a spacecraft’s circuits after it
has been launched? Again, BYU researchers can tell you how. Faculty and students
in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at BYU are making significant contributions to space-related applications involving remote sensing, radio
astronomy, and space-ready reconfigurable computing platforms. In this article we
highlight some of the recent advances made by BYU researchers in these areas.
earth remote sensing
In 1990, Professor David Long founded the
Microwave Earth Remote Sensing (MERS)
laboratory at BYU. He and his students
have developed advanced radar scatterometry techniques and innovative microwave
sensors to conduct studies of the earth’s
atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, land, and
vegetation. They have also developed a
series of low-cost, compact synthetic aperture radar systems for deployment on small
aircraft and UAVs for land-based remote
sensing applications.
Microwave remote sensing is a valuable
tool in monitoring the earth and its climate. A
s c i e n c e
Engineering Solutions That Push
the Boundaries of Space
by Randy Beard
key element of Professor Long’s research is
to exploit the long time series of microwave
observations to conduct climate studies.
His research into resolution enhancement
and calibration facilitates the use of older
datasets that act as a baseline for measuring global change. Dr. Long and his students
retrospectively examined old scatterometer
data to detect and monitor the number of
icebergs around Antarctica to investigate the
apparent increase in the number of icebergs.
They found that early records undercount
the number of icebergs and that most of the
increase in the number of icebergs recorded
in the National Ice Center archives is the
photography by mark philbrick
result of improvements in tracking technology. By using scatterometer data to track
large Antarctic icebergs, they have been able
to help navigate ships toward safe routes.
Using scatterometer data to track icebergs and to study climate change has presented many challenging problems, since
scatterometers were originally designed
to measure wind over the ocean via surface roughness measurement and not for
climate and land-use studies. However,
NASA’s earth-orbiting scatterometers such
as Seasat, SeaWinds, ERS-1/2, and ASCAT
also make observations of radar backscatter over land and ice regions. Due to the
irregular sampling of the scatterometer
data, Professor Long and his students have
developed new algorithms for image reconstruction and resolution enhancement. In
order to compare data between sensors with
different sampling strategies, new modeling
methods have been developed that account
for temporal and spatial variability of the
surface at the scales of the measurements.
In particular, scatterometer data exhibits
sensitivity to wind-related structures such
as snow and sand dunes. The azimuthal
modulation of backscatter with wind direction can be exploited to extract wind direction. Compensation for wind variations is
essential for long-term climate monitoring
for both scatterometers and other microwave sensors like SARs and radiometers.
Algorithms and software developed
by Professor Long’s students are currently
used at NASA and NOAA for operational
processing of scatterometer data. Over the
past five years Dr. Long has received several
million dollars of research funding primarily
from NASA and the Department of Defense.
He and his student have published numerous papers in venues like the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing,
the Journal of Geophysical Research, the
Journal of Glaciology, and the International
Journal of Remote Sensing. In 2005 Professor Long and his student David Draper were
awarded Best Paper from IEEE Transactions
on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. Professor Long’s students placed 1st and 3rd in
the student paper contests at the 2007 and
2005 International Geoscience and Remote
Sensing Symposium (IGARSS).
origins of the cosmos. One of the primary difficulties with radio astronomy is that the signals from the emitting sources are extremely
faint by the time they reach the earth. The
difficulty of detecting these weak signals is
even greater today due to the abundance of
man-made signals from wireless networks,
communications satellites, navigational
aids, aircraft radars, digital television, overhead satellites, and a host of other sources
of electromagnetic radiation.
Professors Jeffs and Warnick and their
important information about physical processes in the universe. One high-priority
goal for radio astronomers is to detect faint
background radiation associated with an
early period of the universe where subatomic particles united to form atoms—
known as the epoch of reionization. In addition to ionospheric interaction mentioned
above for this highly red-shifted signal, it is
unusually weak, and sophisticated interference cancellation will be required to detect
it. Results obtained by Professors Jeffs and
The research at BYU will benefit
radio astronomers by enabling them
to receive deep space signals that
were formerly undetectable due to
interference or ionospheric distortion.
radio astronomy
Imagine the difficulty of seeing a faint star
while someone is shining a spotlight in
your eyes. This is essentially the problem
that electrical and computer engineering
professors Brian Jeffs and Karl Warnick
and their students are addressing in a
$1.2-million-dollar project funded by the
National Science Foundation. The goal is to
use signal processing techniques to remove
man-made interference from deep space
signals received by radio telescopes.
Rather than collecting light in the visible
spectrum, radio telescopes collect microwave radiation emitted by stars, gas clouds,
nebulas, galaxies, and black holes surrounded by hot matter. This data is used by
astronomers to understand the nature and
Masters student Chad Hansen
at the Green Bank Telescope
(GBT) in West Virginia. This
100 m diameter dish is the
largest steerable radio telescope
in the world. BYU students
removed satellite transmission
interference seen at the GBT.
8 ece@byu
students are working on technologies
to detect and remove these interference
sources from radio astronomy signals. They
are building high speed signal processing
systems to excise interference in real time,
and are also developing multi-antenna systems to replace the single antennas traditionally used as feeds for large radio telescopes.
These array feeds can be used to cancel
interference and may even outperform the
traditional technologies in other ways.
The research at BYU will benefit radio
astronomers by enabling them to receive
deep space signals that were formerly
undetectable due to interference or ionospheric distortion. Cosmologists will also
benefit because radio astronomy provides
Warnick and their students on array feeds
and signal processing may also provide a
technology that will be useful in the nextgeneration instrument planned by the international radio astronomy community–the
square kilometer array, so-called because
the collecting area will approach one square
kilometer in size, far larger than any instrument currently in operation.
The BYU team faces numerous technical challenges. One of the biggest problems
is ensuring that the signal processing used
to remove interference does not perturb
the extreme receiver sensitivity required
to detect weak astronomical signals. As
an interferer moves, the signal processing
algorithms adapt to follow the interference
and cancel it as its signal characteristics
change over time. As the algorithm tracks
the interferer, the desired signal received by
the antenna fluctuates slightly over time. For
a standard radio communications system,
this effect would be completely unnoticed.
But for radio astronomy, where signals are
smaller than other noise sources by factors
of 106 or more, the fluctuations can make
the signal much harder to detect. The group
is studying sophisticated new algorithms
that remove the fluctuations and restore the
high stability required for radio astronomy.
The radio astronomy project has provided significant educational opportunities
for students, including the opportunity to
spend part of the summer at the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green
Bank, West Virginia, working with the radio
astronomers. Students have designed and
built both the antennas and the signal processing systems and have developed and
tested the algorithms used to process the
data from experimental measurements. The
group also regularly collaborates with the
international radio astronomy and antenna
communities and has ongoing joint work
with researchers in the Netherlands, South
Africa, and Germany. The BYU team has
published numerous articles that have
appeared in IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE Transactions
on Signal Processing, Astronomical Journal,
Radio Science, and at several prestigious
conferences in the field.
Prof. Long and several students
use a ground penetrating radar
to search for two snowboarders
caught in an avalanche.
Graduate student Jonathan
Heiner and undergraduate student
Nathan Collins prepare their FPGA
prototype board for singe-event
upset (SEU) testing within the UC
Davis Crocker Nuclear Laboratory.
reconfigurable
computing platforms
In 2006, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor had a
battery failure that was the result of a series
of events linked to a computer software
error. Until recently it has been impossible
to change the computing platform after the
launch of a satellite or planetary probe into
space. Research being conducted by Professor Mike Wirthlin and his students is changing all of that. Professor Wirthlin’s research
group investigates the behavior of Field
Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) circuits
operating in harsh radiation environments.
They also develop techniques for improving
the reliability of these circuits.
FPGAs are digital integrated circuits that
can be programmed by a user after the device
has been manufactured. This reprogrammability reduces the design time of a complex
digital circuit and facilitates rapid digital circuit prototyping. FPGAs are very appealing in
space applications because the digital circuit
can be reprogrammed after the launch of a
spacecraft and customized to the changing
needs of the spacecraft mission. Circuit bugs
or problems can be repaired after launch, and
the circuits on these devices can be modified
to respond to permanent device faults.
Unfortunately, off-the-shelf FPGAs are
very sensitive to single event upsets caused
by high energy particles found in a typical
satellite orbit. Professor Wirthlin and his
students have developed a number of tools
for analyzing and automatically improving
circuit reliability. The use of these techniques will allow spacecraft engineers to
reliably exploit the benefits of FPGAs.
One of the challenges faced by Professor Wirthlin’s team is that they must demonstrate measurable improvements in circuit
reliability while minimizing the associated
cost. Their work involves the customization
of standard reliability techniques such as
circuit redundancy (especially triple modular
redundancy) to the unique properties of FPGA
architectures. A novel feature of their work
is the ability to apply partial redundancy to
a digital circuit. The tools developed by the
BYU team will automatically replicate circuit
resources as much as allowed by the limited
resources of the FPGA device. This allows the
user to apply some form of redundancy without worrying how many circuit resources are
available for redundancy.
Students trained in Professor Wirthlin’s
lab are in high demand in industry because
of their FPGA design skills and understanding of highly reliable FPGA design. Recent
graduates have been hired by a variety of
organizations including Los Alamos National
Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory
and commercial organizations developing FPGAs for military and space applications. While in school, Professor Wirthlin’s
students have been involved in a variety of
activities, including development of software for modifying FPGA circuits, design of
FPGA circuits, and the development of new
reliability techniques for FPGA systems. Students are also developing tests at high-energy facilities such as the UC—Davis Crocker
Nuclear Laboratory to understand FPGA
behavior and test their ideas within real high
energy environments. High-energy particles
are applied to their circuits to demonstrate
the improvements in reliability provided by
their techniques. Students are also working on FPGA circuit designs that will operate
on the Cibola Flight Experiment launched in
March of 2007.
Professor Wirthlin’s work has been
funded by Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Sandia
National Laboratory. His results have been
published in a variety of venues including IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science,
Radiation and Its Effects on Components
and Systems (RADECS), and the NASA International Conference on Military and Aerospace Applications of FPGAs.
ece@byu
9
alumni
alumni notes
honored alumnus—fall 2006
Dr. Will Curtis (PhD ’02), a research scientist
at the Munitions Directorate of the Air Force
Research Laboratory and a recent alumnus of
the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, has recently received an honorable mentions for the prestigious John L. McLucas Basic
Research Award, which recognizes individuals making significant achievements in basic research activities supporting the
Air Force mission. Dr. Curtis received the award for pioneering work in the synthesis of control laws for autonomous aircraft and smart weapon systems. Competition for the award is
extreme and the honorable mention places Dr. Curtis among
the top four engineers and scientists performing basic research
in the Air Force.
Randy Steck (BS 1980) is widely known for his
contributions to microprocessor design and
development. He is currently the CEO of Stexar
Corporation, a company he founded in 2003
that focuses on designs for the digital TV and
set-top box markets. From 1982 through 2001
Randy worked for Intel Corporation in Hillsboro,
Oregon. At Intel he led a design team responsible for the Pentium Pro Processor. The designs his team created
were so revolutionary that they extend into processors still being
built by Intel today. After this success, Randy was made an Intel vice
president and managed the group responsible for the Pentium II,
Pentium III, Pentium 4, and Celeron. At its peak this group employed
2,500 people, had a budget of over $300 million a year, and was
responsible for products with revenue of $25 billion a year.
Steven Meyer (BS ’87) is currently serving as
the navy deputy for the Joint Advance Missile
Instrumentation (JAMI) project. Prior to this he
was the lead design engineer for JAMI. Under
the JAMI program Steve oversaw the upgrading
of missile tracking technology. In the old days a
missile was tracked using radar and optical telescopes. Data
reduction and consolidation after a test were used to produce
time-space position information, or TSPI. Reconstructing TSPI
was a huge, time-consuming effort. Under JAMI, Steve developed a system that used an onboard GPS system to generate
the TSPI and helped define the radio interfaces and standards
used to transmit this TSPI to the ground-based tracking system. Steve holds the patent on the overall concept of the JAMI
GPS TSPI system.
Todd Moon (MS ’88) was named interim chair
of the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at Utah State University on 1 August
2007. Todd has been with USU since fall semester 1991. Todd has worked in signal processing
and communications since completing his PhD
at the University of Utah in 1991. He has authored two popular
textbooks: Mathematical Methods and Algorithms for Signal
Processing (Prentice-Hall, 2000) and Error Correction Coding:
Mathematical Methods and Algorithms (Wiley, 2005). Todd is
looking forward to serving the students at Utah State and helping to make a difference.
10 e c e @ b y u
honored alumnus—winter 2007
Lynn Watson (BS 1982) has been a successful
designer and developer of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for the past 25
years. He began his career at Hewlett-Packard
in Boise, Idaho, working with laser printer systems. During his time with HP he earned an MS
degree from Cornell University. In 1994 Lynn
founded In-System Design (ISD), which specialized in USB interface ASICs. He served as ISD’s CEO, managing all
aspects of the company’s operations. By 2000, ISD had annual revenue of over $50 million and was sold to Cypress Semiconductor,
where Lynn continued to work as a vice president before starting
Silicon Eagle, another ASIC-based company, in 2005. He has been
an active part of the Boise community throughout his career, serving on the Boise Philharmonic Board of Directors and as an adjunct
professor at the University of Idaho.
stay in touch
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
would like to hear from you. We would be delighted to run
a minifeature on significant contributions that you have
made to the profession. Please visit our Web site:
http://www.ee.byu.edu/alumni
alumni
advisory board chair
Mike Thompson (BS, ’82) graduated from
BYU in April 1982 with a BSEE in the computer option. He worked for 22 years at
Motorola in various positions including a
lead developer of the first 900 MHz twoway radio and led the development of the
first Linux-based cellular phone prototype
and the first PTT-enabled Microsoft Smartphone. Since 2006 he has been with Microsoft Corporation working as a software
architect, leading development teams supporting cellular phone OEMs in Korea and
Japan. Mike married Nancy Emmons while
at BYU, and they are the parents of five children; one has graduated from BYU and two
are currently enrolled.
advisory board committees
abet/toolbox
• Mike Thompson, BS ’82—Chair
• Darrell Ash, MS ’68—Vice Chair
• Chris Barnes, PhD ’89
• David Graham, MS ’91
• Todd Moon, BS ’82
• Randy Mooney, MS ’87
• Brian Moore, MS ’86
• Randy Steck, BS ’80
alumni
• Lynn Watson, BS ’82—Chair
• Steve Barham, BS ’85
• Jim Eldredge, MS ’93
• Clyde Griffin, BS ’86
• Randy Mooney, MS ’87
• Mike Thompson, BS ’82
senior projects/
teamwork
• Brett Remund, MS ’88—Chair
• Travis Ball, BS ’94
• Doug Clifford, BS ’68
• Rob Muir, PhD ’88
• Randy Sylvester
student outreach
• Andrea Eyring, MS ’87—Chair
• John Dougall, MS ’91
• Jake Gunther, PhD ’98
• Brian Moore, MS ’86
• Glen Morrell, MS ’90
• Stacey Son, MS ’96
• Lamoyne Taylor, BS ’74
• Aimee Wood, MS ’96
program objectives
This past year we have reorganized our Department Advisory Board which meets once a
year and is a critical part of our degree certification process. They provide insights into job
markets and trends in the profession. They also give valuable feedback about the workplace performance of our graduates. Mike Thompson currently chairs our Advisory Board,
which consists mostly of alumni who are leaders in industry and academia. In consultation
with our Advisory Board, we have recently defined the following educational objectives. For
more information, see www.ece.byu.edu/objectives.
The BYU Electrical and
Computer Engineering Program
prepares graduates to:
1.
Apply knowledge in service
to community and family and engage
in lifelong learning through personal
study and continuing education.
2.
Develop a fulfilling profession
that may include employment in
industry or academia, technology-based
entrepreneurship, and postgraduate
study in engineering or other disciplines.
3.
Make innovative contributions
to science and technology and serve
in responsible positions of leadership.
4.
Be an example of
faith, character, and
high professional ethics.
ece@byu
11
faculty
byu team wins mav competition
A BYU student team was one of eight university teams from North America and Europe
that participated in the 2nd-annual U.S.–European Competition and Workshop on Micro
Air Vehicles (MAV) held at Eglin Air Force
Base, Florida. The BYU team duo Brett Millar and Nathan Knoebel designed the BYU
MAV to meet strict requirements for “manportable” aircraft: smaller than 17 inches
and not more than one pound in weight.
The competition was defined by a fully
autonomous “reconnaissance mission” that
required takeoff and landing, flight to threewaypoints (the farthest 875 yards from the
base), target identification, and dropping a
paintball on the target. The spectators were
spellbound as the blue and yellow BYU MAV
completed its mission in less than the 20
minutes allotted. Guided by an onboard GPS
receiver, the MAV beamed video back to a
portable DVD player at the base. “We don’t
have a fancy looking plane,” said Millar.
“We focus more on autopilot systems.” Professor randy beard, the students’ faculty
mentor, believes the BYU team displayed
the world’s smallest autopilot.
The competition was cohosted by the
Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International and Eglin’s Air Force Research
Laboratory Munitions Directorate. The Air
Force is interested in MAVs for applications
in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. There are plenty of civilian uses as
well. The directorate is interested in MAVs as
military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance machines. Such “man-portable”
aircraft could be used by soldiers to look
over a hill or around a corner. If a train derails
and spills chemicals, an MAV could be sent
to determine what’s leaking from where.
BYU undergradute student Brett Millar hand launches
the MAV that won the Micro Air Vehicle competition
at Eglin AFB, Florida. Two of the vehicles used in
the competition are shown in the bottom image.
hallway displays make a comeback
Many of our program alumni will remember the interactive displays created by our
department and located in the 4th floor
hallways of the Clyde building. One of the
most popular was the “Quick Draw” display
that used a simple circuit to test the reflex
response of those walking by. Quick Draw
was retired years ago, but a new display was
recently added that lets passersby interact
with a digital laser communications system.
The display uses components built as part of
the Free Space Communications senior project and transmits digital music along a laser
beam path. Observers can move a knob to
align the laser beam to an optical receiver in
order to hear music. The display was built by
students working in the IMMERSE undergraduate research program as part of an NSF technology outreach program lead by Professors
aaron hawkins and stephen schultz.
archibald, james k.
Computer systems architecture;
modeling and simulation; parallel processing; performance
evaluation. PhD: University of
Washington, CS, 1987
beard, randal w.
Systems and control
theory; cooperative control;
micro-unmanned air vehicles.
mergist joins the team
Janalyn Mergist joined the department as the student advisor in fall
2005. Janalyn comes to us from Utah Valley State College, where
she had been a counselor and coordinator of the Educational Talent Search Program, an Upward Bound outreach advisor, and a
TRIO programs coordinator. She grew up in Erath, Louisiana, and
Heber City, Utah, and brings some of that “down-home” common
sense to the advice she gives students. Janalyn has found great joy
in helping our majors become successful students.
12 e c e @ b y u
PhD: Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, EE, 1995
christiansen, richard
Digital Signal Processing.
PhD: University of Utah,
EE, 1976
faculty
comer, david j.
long, david g.
selfridge, richard h.
Analog circuit;
Microwave remote sensing;
Optical engineering; electromag-
design/filter synthesis.
radar theory; estimation theory;
netics; semiconductor devices.
PhD: Washington State
mesoscale atmospheric dynamics.
PhD: University of California, Davis,
University, EE, 1966
PhD: University of Southern
EE, 1984
California, EE, 1989
comer, donald t.
nelson, brent e.
stirling, wynn c.
Mixed signal VLSI; phase locked
FPGA’s; reconfigurable
Decision theory; control theory;
loops; wideband and precision
computing; VLSI design and CAD.
stochastic processes.
circuits; D/A and A/D converter
PhD: University of Utah,
PhD: Stanford University,
architecture. PhD: University of
CS, 1984
EE, 1983
hawkins, aaron r.
nordin, greg
swindlehurst, a. lee
Solid-state physics and devices;
Nano-technology; integrated
Estimation theory;
semiconductor processing;
optics; MEMS.
signal processing;
optoelectronics and photonics.
PhD: University of Southern
wireless communications.
PhD: University of California,
California, EE, 1992
PhD: Stanford University,
Santa Clara, EE, 1968
EE, 1991
Santa Barbara, EE, 1998
hutchings, brad l.
oliphant, travis e.
taylor, clark
FPGA’s; embedded systems;
Inverse problems;
Multimedia Communication,
high performance computing.
magnetic resonance; ultrasound.
Image/Video Processing,
PhD: University of Utah,
PhD: Mayo Graduate School,
Digital Systems.
CS, 1992
Biomedical Imaging, 2001
PhD: University of California,
San Diego, EE, 2004
jeffs, brian d.
penry, david a.
warnick, karl f.
Digital signal processing for
Computer Architecture;
Electromagnetics;
radio astronomy; wireless
Simulation; VLSI Design.
numerical methods.
communications; imaging.
PhD: Princeton University,
PhD: BYU, EE, 1997
PhD: University of Southern
CS, 2006
California, EE, 1989
jensen, michael a.
rice, michael d.
wilde, doran k.
Electromagnetics and optics;
Digital communication theory;
Regular array architecture;
high-frequency circuits;
software radio algorithms;
VLSI design; computer arithmetic.
wireless communications.
telemetry systems;
PhD: Oregon State University,
PhD: University of California,
error-control coding.
CS, 1995
Los Angeles, EE, 1994
PhD: Georgia Tech, EE, 1991
lee, dah jye (d.j.)
schultz, stephen m.
wirthlin, michael j.
Biomedical Imaging and
Defractive optics; integrated
Configurable computing systems;
bioinformatics; robotic vision;
optics; fiber optics.
system performance modeling.
machine vision applications.
PhD: Georgia Tech,
PhD: BYU, EE, 1997
PhD: Texas Tech University,
EE, 1999
EE, 1990
ece@byu
13
electrical and computer engineering
459 clyde building
brigham young university
provo, ut 84602
change service requested
nonprofit
organization
u.s. postage paid
brigham young
university