Real Time Spring/Summer 2002 Issue ()

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Spring/Summer 2002
UAH/34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory
Featured Invited Speaker, Professor Rudolf E. Kalman
Professors John Stensby, C. D. Johnson, Rudolf E. Kalman, and Reza Adhami at the Huntsville Marriott Hotel for the 34th SSST.
Prof. R. E. Kalman, discoverer of the famous Kalman-Filter and
many other fundamental principles in modern system theory, was the
invited speaker at the banquet event of the 34th annual meeting of the
Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST), hosted this year
by the UAH ECE Department and held at the Huntsville Marriott Hotel
on March 18-19, 2002. The 34th SSST was dedicated to Prof. Kalman
in recognition of: “…his unparalleled influence on the evolution of
System Theory to the scientific discipline it is today.”
Prior to his talk, Dr. Kalman was introduced by his long-time
friend and another pioneering researcher in modern control and system
theory, Dr. R.W. Bass (Ph.D. Mathematics at age 25, Johns Hopkins
University). Dr. Bass provided some interesting recollections of
system theory research activities in the period 1955-1960 when
Kalman began his rise to fame, after joining the staff of the Martin
Company’s Research Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS) in
Baltimore. Dr. Bass, acting as a talent scout for the world famous
Princeton University Mathematics Professor Solomon Lefschetz,
“discovered” Kalman and was instrumental in bringing him into the
RIAS research group in 1957. The full text of Dr. Bass’s presentation
is contained in a separate article in this issue of Real Time.
Dr. Kalman’s talk, entitled “Research: Then and Now; Some StraightTalk About Randomness,” was broadly concerned with the concept of
“randomness” and how the traditional textbook introduction of that
concept is ineffective from the point-of-view of system theory.
Never known as one who avoids rocking-the-boat, Dr. Kalman
briefly summarized the thrust of his talk with the following provocative,
pre-conference abstract of his talk: “Looking back on a 50-year
commitment to research, the speaker will explain how this commitment
became a dominant concern after the discovery of Kalman filtering and
led, inevitably, to a deep examination of the basis for (and limitations
inherent in) that invention. It is now known that modeling randomness in
the real world by means of, or as a consequence of, probability theory is
not only naïve but unscientific; a fresh start must be made and is now
well underway.”
Available space here does not allow an appropriate coverage of
Dr. Kalman’s stimulating remarks on the concept of “randomness,” but
the interested reader can find the technical details presented in several of
his recently published scientific papers listed under Further Reading at
the end of this article.
The Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST) is an
annual technical meeting of educators, graduate students, and
professional researchers in the field of System Theory, who meet to
present technical papers on advances and applications of system theory
in traditional engineering areas such as: computer and information
systems, communication systems, guidance/navigation and control
systems, radar systems, power systems, etc., as well as non-traditional
engineering areas such as economic systems, healthcare systems,
environmental systems, educational systems, security systems, etc.
(Continued on page 2)
CubeSat: Student Satellite Program
The National Space Grant Student Satellite Program (NSGSSP) is allowing students across
America to design, build, fly and operate a broad range of spacecraft. Through its strategy
of "Crawl, Walk, Run and Fly" students with different levels of skill, knowledge, and
experience are given the opportunity to build payloads ranging from the simple "soda-can
satellites," small payloads for launch from small rockets or balloons, to building
sophisticated satellites. Missions of growing complexity provide students the opportunities
to acquire baseline skills and then to build on them. This is a student-driven enterprise.
Students experience the entire "Design - Build - Fly - Operate - Analyze" cycle of a space
mission. By bringing together university, industry, military and government resources to
train America's future scientists and engineers, the program has set a goal to make aerospace
history and send the first student-built satellites to Mars. If you are interested in the program
at UAH, please contact Dr. Joiner (EB217B, [email protected]) or Dr. Corsetti (EB265,
[email protected]). CubeSat is a concept for student-built satellites developed by
Professor Bob Twiggs of Stanford University and has been adopted for use by the National
Space Grant Alliance.
Some Reminiscences of Control and System Theory in the
Period 1955-1960: Introduction of Dr. Rudolf E. Kalman
The following is the text of Dr. R. W. Bass’s talk, Some
Reminiscences of Control and System Theory in the Period 1955-1960, as
presented (3/18/02) at the banquet/speaker event of the 34th
Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, hosted by the UAH/ECE
Dept. Real Time would like to express appreciation to Dr. Bass for
providing this written text and granting permission to reproduce it here.

It is a singular privilege and honor and also a great pleasure to
introduce to this distinguished audience my old friend & colleague Prof.
Rudolf Kalman.
The Kalman Filter provides a critical enabling technology of the
Space Age!
It is well known that by now more than 100,000 papers have been
published with the key words "Kalman Filter" in the Title or Abstract, and
the last time I checked (about 1995) there were appearing some 200 issued
Patents per year from the US Patent Office which carried the same Key
Words in either Title or Abstract. More importantly, an official Raytheon
statement credits the information-theoretic architecture of the Kalman Filter
as critical to the success of the Patriot Missile in shooting down Iraqui
SCUDS over both Israel and Saudi Arabia, and others have opined that the
essential role of the Kalman Filter in Project Apollo's manned soft lunar
landing combined with President Reagan's subsequently credibly-proposed
SDI initiative convinced the former USSR to transform itself into a lessthreatening nation -- indeed for a decade Russia has been no longer
regarded as a potential military adversary, and presently is actually an ally.
Kalman not only discovered what many people have recognized as
the most important innovation in systems engineering since World War II
but almost single-handedly laid the foundations for the modern mathematical
Dr. Robert W. Bass and Dr. Rudolf E. Kalman at the 34th SSST.
Press in book form and in which I had reviewed scores of published papers on
the subject. But Kalman's approach struck me as so stunningly original that
as I said at the time, "I nearly fell out of my chair!"
I soon learned that Rudolf was an MIT-trained electrical engineer
who after designing and building an adaptive control system at DuPont was
now pursuing a doctorate at Columbia University.
On that occasion I gave Rudolf a copy of a paper which I had
submitted to the following month's Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute
Symposium on Nonlinear Circuit Analysis in which I employed state-variable
techniques that I had learned from Wintner, Hartman & Lewis at JHU and
from their and Lefschetz's former student Richard Bellman. In that paper I
used Liapunov's Second Method and the Gronwall-Bellman Lemma to define
what I called then the "amount ρ of [structural] stability" of a linear system
but which in today's terminology would be called a Stability Robustness
Margin ρ = ρ(F). Specifically, if Φ(t) = exp(F.t) is the system's statetransition matrix, then
|| Φ(t) || ≤ γ.exp(-λ.t), λ > 0, γ ≥ 1, ρ = λ/γ ≤ 1/µ,
where µ is the celebrated 1986 robustness criterion of Caltech's famed MuSynthesis creator John Doyle, who was gracious enough some 35 years later
to tell his graduate students in my presence that he had been "amazed" to
learn that in 1956 I had published a lower bound to the reciprocal of his Mu
criterion for robust synthesis which had partially anticipated his own
important discovery by some three decades.
Accordingly I flatter myself that it was from my 1956 paper that
Kalman first appreciated the power of two of the three perspectives which he
used in order to discover the by now ubiquitous Kalman Filter, namely the
State Space approach and Liapunov's Second Method. But regarding the
third perspective, namely Wiener Filtering and related stochastic-process
oriented results developed and fostered at MIT, I had known nothing and
therefore would never have been able to conceive of, much less even
conjecturally formulate, Kalman's epochal discovery. But today, as you will
soon hear, Kalman regards the stochasticity aspects as of less significance
than mere uncertainty, whether probabilistic or determninistic.
approach to linear systems analysis & synthesis  an achievement
comparable to Euclid's axiomatization of geometry or Newton's formulation
of a comprehensive theory of dynamics.
Speaking of achievements I am reminded of what Sir Humphrey
Davy replied when asked what he considered to be his life's greatest
achievement: without hesitation he answered that his greatest achievement
had been that "I discovered Michael Faraday!" Similarly I flatter myself that
my own greatest achievement was that "I discovered Rudolf Kalman!"
In a moment I'll explain what I mean by that claim. However I
should preface my remarks by the comment that I have been asked to
provide by means of personal reminiscences and anecdotal nostalgia some
flavor of the early days when so-called Modern Control & Estimation
Theory was being discovered and established.
During the academic year 1955-56 I was a postdoctoral student of
Solomon Lefschetz in the mathematics department at Princeton University.
In March 1956 I attended an on-campus ASME meeting at which I heard a
speaker named Rudolf Kalman make a presentation regarding analysis of
piecewise-linear systems (such as linear-saturating systems). At that time I
fancied that I knew something about this subject because while at Johns
Hopkins I had written a 356-page report on Relay and Discontinuous
Systems which had been accepted for publication by Princeton University
(Continued on page 3)
34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (continued from page 1)
Further Reading
The SSST conference is hosted, on a rotating basis, by various
Universities in the Southeastern US. However, participants in the
SSST come from throughout the US and from many countries abroad.
For instance, at the 2002 SSST in Huntsville which was technical CoSponsored by the IEEE and the Control Systems Society of the IEEE,
there were 105 technical papers presented representing the work of
authors from the states of Alabama, Arkansas California, Connecticut,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North
Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, West
Virginia, as well as from the countries of Australia, France, Germany,
Japan, Greece, India, and Switzerland. The Proceedings of the 34th
SSST, containing all the papers presented, were published in a 510page bound volume. Copies of that Proceedings volume are available
from IEEE Customer Services @ 1-800-701-4333 [ISBN# 0-78037339-1; IEEE Cat. No. 02EX540].
Dr. Kalman’s critique of the conventional concept of “randomness,”
and related technical details, are presented in several of his recent
scientific papers. The interested reader is referred to the following:
1. R. E. Kalman, “Randomness Reexamined,” Journal of
Modeling, Identification and Control, Vol. 15, p. 141-151,
1994.
2. R. E. Kalman, “Randomness and Probability,” Mathematica
Japonica, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 41-58, 1995.
3. R. E. Kalman, “Probability in the Real World as a System
Attribute,” Special Issue of CWI Quarterly on Control and
System Theory, 1996.
4. Steve Pincus and R. E. Kalman, “Not All (Possibly) ‘Random’
Sequences Are Created Equal,” Proc. National Academy of
Sciences of the USA, Vol. 94, pp. 3513-3518, April 1997.
Other researchers have addressed the same issue, but from different
points of view. See, for instance:
5. Edward Beltrami, What is Random? (book), Copernicus imprint
of Springer-Verlag Publishers, New York, 1999.
6. Gregory J. Chaitin, “Computers, Paradoxes and the Foundations
of Mathematics,” American Scientist, Vol. 90, No. 2, pp. 164171, March-April 2002.
The first meeting of SSST was held at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute (VPI) in 1969. Further details of the history and organization
of the SSST may be found at the official SSST website: SSSTUSA.org. The next meeting of SSST will be hosted by, and held at,
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV on March 16-18, 2003
(contact: [email protected]).
ECE Dept., UAH
2
Real Time
Reminiscences: Bass and Kalman
College of Engineering’s Highest
Achievement Award
(Continued from page 2)
Most systems engineers know that all modern aerospace and marine
transportation systems, both civilian and military, depend upon the Kalman
Filter as a mission-critical component of their guidance, navigation and
control (GNC) systems. Likewise Kalman Filtering is essential for Fire
Control in modern artillery. This state-variable estimation algorithm works
online in real-time to estimate the unmeasured state-variables from the overall system's known dynamics together with feedback of those variables
actually instrumented for real-time measurement. Accordingly the Kalman
Filter algorithm's embodiment can be likened to a sort of synthetic supersensor suite. In Kalman's own words, the dynamics-based Kalman Filter
turned out to be more important than the purely stochastic Wiener Filter
because "Newton is more important than Gauss!"
Janice Cicero Rock
Ms. Janice Rock is graduating with a
Bachelor of Science in Engineering with a
major in Electrical Engineering. She has
maintained a perfect GPA at UAH.
In 1955 Vice President George Trimble of the Martin Co. (later
Martin-Marietta and now Lockheed-Martin) sought to establish an industrysponsored Research Institute for Advanced Studies (RIAS) in hopes of
basic-research-derived technical breakthroughs that could assist our national
defense in what was then called the Cold War for containment of expansive
communism. Trimble appointed Martin's accomplished electronics manager,
Welcome Bender, to recruit, staff and direct RIAS in a Baltimore residential
suburb. Bender's first appointment was a recent JHU Ph.D. in physics, Lou
Witten, an internationally recognized expert in gravitational physics whose
son Edward Witten is today a renowned string theorist at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton. Noting that it was commonly acknowledged
that the USSR was far ahead of the West in the field of nonlinear mechanics,
Lou Witten recommended that Bender seek assistance from Solomon
Lefschetz at Princeton, who was by then highly active in translating Russian
papers in this field into English and in promoting nonlinear mechanics in the
USA from his status as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Janice is an Amateur Radio Operator who holds the highest amateur class
license. She is an on-call member of ALERT, the Birmingham SKYWARN
group. During the April 1998 Jefferson County tornado, Janice relayed many
vital weather reports via amateur radio and also helped rescue efforts at the
site, including saving victims from the rubble of demolished homes. She was
awarded the ARRL (American Radio Relay League) Emergency
Communications Commendation for her efforts during this event. Janice is a
Volunteer Examiner for the FCC, and an avid amateur meteorologist.
She is a competitive figure skater who holds over 50 gold medals from
regional events and now teaches figure skating. Janice is a former ice-dance
partner of Olympian skater John Zimmerman who placed fifth in pair’s figure
skating in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. She enjoys snowboarding,
white-water kayaking, rock climbing, hiking. Janice was an Assistant Race
Marshall for the Mulberry Fork Canoe and Kayak Race in 1997. She held
two Alabama Cups in white water slalom racing during 1996 and 1998.
Lefschetz, a Fields Medalist, was already a world-renowned pure
mathematician of the highest stature and a Professor Emeritus at Princeton.
When Bender and Witten visited Princeton to make an informal presentation
of their plans regarding RIAS, in hopes of recruiting Lefschetz to direct an
activity in nonlinear mechanics and related fields, such as control theory, I
was in the audience and by asking positively-worded questions about their
plans made it clear that it sounded good to me -- though at the time
Lefschetz himself was understandably reluctant to leave Princeton for
Baltimore.
Her Senior Design Project (with two other students) was to design and build a
yagi antenna system that will bounce VHF signals off the moon to extend
"line-of-sight" communication to its greatest limits. Through her efforts as
team leader, her design team received approximately $1,000 in donated
equipment for their project from the Cushcraft Corp., NH. Only about 100 of
these systems in the world. Now the only operational system of its type in the
State of Alabama. She is a member of Phi Theta Kappa (Junior College honor
society), Eta Kappa Nu (Electrical Engineering honor society), Tau Beta Pi
(National Engineering honor society), and Phi Kappa Phi (Multi-discipline
honor society). Upon graduation, Janice plans to work at AMCOM in
research and development and return to UAH for her graduate degree.
When Lefschetz appeared to be unreceptive to any putative RIAS
offer, they made me an offer of employment at RIAS which I accepted in
June 1956 though it was a hard decision to select RIAS over a by then
formally-awarded NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue at Princeton
during 1956-57.
Later I was able to persuade Lefschetz to accept an offer from RIAS
to commute by train to Baltimore and direct an activity in nonlinear
mechanics whose initial goal was to compete with Soviet activity in the
same field. Years later I counted out that of the first 22 theoreticians to
whom Lefschetz had made permanent or visiting offers at RIAS, about 11 of
them had already been Lefschetz colleagues or proteges, such as Joseph
LaSalle and Lamberto Cesari, but the other 11 of them (including Andre &
Seibert, Kalman, Hale & Gambill, Pipino, Bucy, and Kushner) had been
theorists whom I had first called to Lefschetz's attention directly or indirectly
(e.g. by recommending Kalman who in turn recommended Bucy, etc.).
Kalman's nomination of Bucy was particularly inspired because
Bucy soon proved that the well-known Ricatti Equation of the Calculus of
Variations was in the case of finite-dimensional systems equivalent to the
Wiener-Hopf Equation of stochastic filtering theory, and collaborated
fruitfully with Kalman in generalizing all of Kalman's discrete-time results
to the continuous-time case, where one now speaks of the Kalman-Bucy
Filter. Also Kalman, Bucy and Englar produced at RIAS, under contract to
NASA, the grandfather of all Automatic Synthesis Programs, the famous
ASP-C program of 1965, which in FORTRAN could cope with dimensions
as high as n = 30. Today the Peacekeeper ICBM is known to employ an
onboard real-time Kalman Filter of state-space dimension n exceeding n =
100!
I well remember that when at Princeton in 1957 I first tried to tell
Lefschetz how brilliantly original Kalman was, a world-famed and prizewinning European mathematician turned to me and said: "Tell me: WHY are
you so interested in this little engineer?"
Daniel S. Lynn, Janice C. Rock, and Joel P. Booth with replica of “Moon Bounce.”
List of Scholarships for Janice:
•
•
•
After I had worked at RIAS for less than a year, and just before
Lefschetz did actually hire Kalman, I had to take a two-year leave of absence
in order to fulfill my ROTC obligation by active duty service in the Air
Force starting in May 1957. When I returned to RIAS in May, 1959 I
became absorbed in my own efforts to find a closed-form formula for the
nonlinear state-variable feedback control law of Time-Optimal or "bangbang" control systems and therefore was not aware of what Rudolf Kalman
had been working on.
•
•
•
•
(Continued on page 4)
ECE Dept., UAH
3
UAH Super Scholar Transfer
Reggie F. Gilland Memorial
Foundation for Amateur Radio:
• Rose Ellen Bills Memorial (awarded twice)
• Lawrence E. and Thelma J. Norrie Memorial
ARRL Charles Clarke Cordle Memorial
Consulting Engineers Council of Alabama
Linly Heflin Scholarship for Women
Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association:
• General John A. Wickham Scholarship (awarded twice)
Real Time
Reminiscences: Bass and Kalman
(Continued from page 3)
Dennis Hite,
ECE Lab
Manager
One day I said to Kalman quite naively, "If you have n state variables then you
need n sensors."
"No, Bob, that's not true," replied Rudolf. "If a system satisfies my
criterion of Observability, then you can optimally estimate all unmeasured state
variables by using the ones that are measured together with the system's known
dynamics. I have been shouting that from the rooftops for the past year!
Haven't you been listening?"
Later I asked Rudolf how one could be sure that one actually "knew"
the dynamics of the system being controlled. Quoting something else which he
had learned at MIT and which I had never heard of, Rudolf replied, "In
principle, that's easy! You just take the cross-correlation of the system's output
with its command input and then in a suitable sense divide it by the input's autocorrelation in order to get the input-output transfer function!"
During the years just before and after Kalman accepted a professorship
at Stanford in 1964 he published algebraic results pertaining to realization
theory, or modeling of linear input-output systems, which laid the groundwork
for a stunning discovery by his graduate student B. L. Ho. I am referring to
Ho's doctoral dissertation's main result, published in 1966 as a joint paper with
Kalman, which I regard as the most profound theorem pertaining to the Systems
Identification (ID) problem. Firstly, if noise is negligible, then from inputoutput measurements one may compute the so-called Markov parameters, or
coefficients of a Taylor-series expansion in the complex frequency domain of
an empirical transfer function. Secondly, arrange the Markov parameters into
an infinite Hankel matrix, each of whose elements is an l by m matrix in the
case of l outputs and m inputs. Then the rank n of this matrix defines the
minimal dimension of a state-space model of the system! Moreover, by
elementary matrix algebra one may compute from the principal n × n sub-block
of the Hankel matrix a triad of matrices (F, G, H) having respectively
dimensions n × n, n × m, l × n and which are called the dynamical coefficient
matrix, the input coupling matrix (or actuator kinematics matrix) and the output
coupling matrix (or sensor kinematics matrix). Furthermore the pair (F, H)
satisfies Kalman's criterion of Observability (which enables applicability of the
Kalman Filter to estimate optimally all n state variables from the l sensed
outputs) and the pair (F,G) satisfies Kalman's criterion of Controllability (which
enables one to derive the optimal Kalman Regulator Law for state-variable
feedback control). Furthermore, by Kalman's important Principle of Duality,
results in asymptotic estimator theory may be converted into results in control
theory, and conversely, by simple matrix transposition operations. By my own
Algebraic Separation Theorem, one may design the control system as if all n
state-variables were measured and available for feedback, then design a Kalman
Filter to estimate them, and combine the two results into an over-all stable
system whose 2n poles combine those of the ideal regulator and the optimal
filter. Moreover it can be proved by Stochastic Optimzation Theory, in what
some term the Guidance/Navigation Separation Principle, that such a 2n-pole
system is a genuinely optimal system of the so-called LQG type. Here L refers
to the assumption of linearity employed in the Ho-Kalman Identification
Lemma, while Q refers to the fact that the Kalman Regulator Law minimizes
the integral over future time of a prespecified arbitrary quadratic form in the
state-variables and control variables. Finally, the G refers to the fact that the
Kalman Filter provides unbiased minimal-variance estimates of the state
variables when the process disturbances and measurements noises are all
Gaussian white-noise processes.
The only fly in the ointment of LQG theory is that the resultant
"optimality" is very fragile if the actual disturbances and noises have covariance
intensity matrices different from those assumed during the design. Here I and
my collaborator Dean Zes have published a theory of Robust Tuning of a
Kalman Filter in which we showed how to choose fictitious covariances that
maximize my 1956 Robustness Margin ρ to produce a system optimally
insensitive to whatever the off-nominal noise may be. The dual of this enables
us to engage in Robust Tuning of a Kalman Regulator by maximizing its
closed-loop Robustness Margin ρ = λ/γ . This can be understood as forcing the
system to have the relatively fastest response time or largest λ > 0 possible
while simultaneously constraining increases in its overshoot coefficient γ ≥ 1,
i.e. by selecting the "most negative" real parts of its closed-loop poles that are
compatible with simultaneously minimizing the associated residues. In short, a
"rhobustified" system behaves like a scalar system of transfer function γ/(s + λ)
wherein ρ = λ/γ is maximized.
Another aspect of rendering a system insensitive to uncertainty is that
of replacing the usual stochastic noises and disturbances by waveform-based
disturbances modeled by a priori defined auxiliary linear systems whose states
can be identified by a Kalman Filter and thereby provide synthetic disturbance
feedforward capability. This Disturbance Accommodating Control (DAC)
theory of C.D. Johnson is an effective way to accommodate random-like
disturbances having a strong component of systematic or semi-deterministic
time-behavior, and my collaborator Dan Hill and I have incorporated it in our
"grandson-of-ASP-C" RhoSyn/DAC public domain MATLAB Toolkit.
I hope everyone had a good Spring semester and is ready for a
refreshing Summer. You have probably noticed a lot of changes going on
around the Engineering Building. Several new Pentium 4 computers have
been purchased, and most all the labs in the Engineering Building have
been or will be upgraded with the new systems.
In addition, new equipment such as scopes, power supplies,
multimeters, and training boards are being purchased and several of the
Electrical and Computer Engineering instructional labs will be upgraded
over the summer. The Virtual Control (instructional) Laboratory is closer to
being a reality. Ten Pentium III systems have been set up with remote
access software in EB262 to provide access to the Virtual Laboratory
systems in EB124, pictured below. According to Dr. Shtessel the lab is in
it's final phase of preparation.
Virtual Controls Lab: The Development of the Virtual Control and
Dynamic Systems Laboratory is funded by the NSF grant DUE9952801. Principal investigator (PI) is Dr. Y. Shtessel (ECE), Co-PIs
are Dr. C. D. Johnson (ECE), Dr. R. Fredrick (MAE), and Mr. R.
Middleton (MAE). Graduate student Sergei Pleckhanov (ECE) is
working on laboratory manuals under the supervision of Dr. Shtessel.
Six laboratory units: Position Servomechanism (three units),
Flexible-joint Servomechanism, Magnetic Levitation Unit, and
Linear Inverted Pendulum equipped with a corresponding software
are already installed in the EB124. The lab units will be available for
experiments soon. Please visit our Web Site,
http://www.eb.uah.edu/~controls/index.htm
In the last issue of Real Time I made the comment " I have noticed a lot of
activity around Engineering Building. In particular, I have noticed several
students and professors working in the ECE labs..." This is about to grow
exponentially if CubeSat (see page 1) gets the response expected.
_______________________________________________________
2002 Linda M. Hooper ECE Staff Awards
Recipients of the 2002 Linda Mauldin Hooper ECE Staff Awards, Linda Grubbs
(left) and Pat Smith (right), with Linda Hooper (center).
ECE Dept., UAH
(Continued on page 6)
4
Real Time
IEEE Student Robot Competition
Outstanding Undergraduate in the
Electrical Engineering Program
Three teams built independent entries to vie for the honor of
representing UAH at the IEEE SECON 2002 robot competition. A few days
before leaving for the competition, the teams competed against one another
at UAH. Two of the teams (Silver Streak and Head Banger) were enrolled in
section 2 of the senior design class EE 494, and the third team (Brand X)
consisted of four students enrolled in CPE 496 and two students who
participated in the SECON 2001 student hardware competition.
This year’s competition was modeled after the old computer game,
Pong. Practice golf balls were introduced at the center of the table and the
robots batted them back and forth trying to score points by placing a ball in
the scoring bin behind the opponent’s robot.
After six matches the Silver Streak team emerged undefeated and
traveled to Columbia to represent UAH. Judges were Drs. Charles Corsetti
and Laurie Joiner of UAH, and Eric Grigorian, IEEE Huntsville Section.
The Silver Streak team built a unique robot that used one 5 inch
diameter wheel driven along the table surface to intercept the ball, which
was returned with a pneumatically driven paddle. The robot used a pillow
block riding on a shaft above the rear of the table to keep it within the back
10 inch zone allocated for the robot. Silver Streak members are Derrick
Cameron, Preston Chidebelu, Wykeisa Jackson, Daniel Miller, Miranda
Parton, Robert Sawyer, Scot South, James Stafford, and Julie Troup.
Joel Patrick Booth
Mr. Joel Patrick Booth is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in
Engineering with a major in Electrical Engineering. His Senior Design
Project was to design and build a yagi antenna system (page 3) that will
bounce VHF signals off the moon to extend “line-of-sight”
communications to its greatest limit. Only about 100 of these systems
are in operation around the world. Now it is the only operational
system of its type in the State of Alabama
Joel is a determined individual. He is a recipient of the Dr. Wernher
Von Braun Award and a 2-time recipient of the Radio Club of America
Award.
Joel is an Amateur Radio Operator, a member of ALERT, the
Birmingham SkyWARN group. Joel works with the group relaying
vital information to the National Weather Service by either groundlevel storm spotting or as a Net Control Operator. He is a volunteer
examiner for the FCC. He is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, Eta Kappa
Nu, Tau Beta Pi, and Phi Kappa Phi. Upon graduation, Joel will be
working at the Propulsions and Structures Directorate on the Redstone
Arsenal.
Joel enjoys snowboarding, white-water kayaking, rock climbing, and
hiking.
Success of the 34th SSST: A Result of Combined Efforts of Many
The success of the 34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory,
hosted by the UAH ECE Dept., was made possible by the combined efforts of
many individuals and organizations who generously contributed their time,
labor, and skills, as well as financial and logistical support. The members of
the 34th SSST Organizing Committee and their areas of responsibility were:
General Chairman – Dr. Reza Adahmi; Technical Program Chairman – Dr.
John Stensby; Planning, Coordination, Accommodations, and Publications –
Dr. C. D. Johnson; Registration – Dr. Michael Oliver, Director of Continuing
Education; Reception – Dr. Laurie Joiner; Publicity – Dr. Alex Poularikas;
Donations – Dr. Reza Adhami and Dr. Ned Audeh.
The wide range of typing, word-processing and graphics efforts
associated with preparation of the SSST Proceedings volume, the Technical
Program booklet, the Program for the Dinner Banquet and Speaker event, and
numerous other documents were provided by ECE Technical Secretary, Mrs.
Linda Grubbs, who also spent many hours running the Conference
Registration Table, ably assisted by ECE secretaries Mrs. Jackie Siniard and
Mrs. Linda Hooper (formerly “the” secretary of the ECE Dept., now retired).
Each of the four meeting rooms, in which the conference Technical
Sessions were held simultaneously, was equipped with UAH-provided
equipment consisting of an overhead projector, an LCD projector, and a
desktop PC to accommodate a variety of speaker presentation formats. The
daunting effort required to set-up, check-out, and provide continuous
operational support and security for that equipment, throughout the
conference, was provided by Mr. Dennis Hite, ECE Technical Services and
his several assistants. Mr. Jason Winningham, Computer Systems Engineer,
UAH ECE Dept., also provided valuable help in establishing the SSST
website. Ashlee Phillips, ECE student and webmaster for the ECE site, was
diligent in keeping the SSST material updated on a timely basis.
Generous financial support for the 34th SSST was provided by the
following Huntsville-area companies:
Dynetics Inc., Z/I Imaging
Corporation, Applied Data Trends Inc., Sigmatech, Adtran, The Colsa
Corporation, and by the UAH Office of University Relations, Dr. Derald
Morgan, VP; the UAH
ECE Dept., UAH
Division of Continuing Education, Dr. Michael Oliver, Director; the UAH
College of Engineering, Dr. Jorge Aunon, Dean; and the UAH Dept. of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Reza Adhami, Chairman.
Other persons who provided critical logistical support for SSST
activities are Mr. Joel Lonergan, Director of University Relations and his
staff: Ms. Susan Carlson, graphics and still photography; Mr. Ray Garner,
news service; and Mr. David Denton, video. In addition, Mrs. Joyce Bryant,
UAH Division of Continuing Education, provided essential pre-registration
support and reporting services.
Ms. Michelle Buckelew of Allied Photocopy contributed greatly to
smoothing-out the many hassles associated with printing and binding the
conference proceedings volume. Mr. Lynn Britton of GlobalDocugraphiX,
Huntsville, provided valuable advice, patience and support in creating and
supplying the gift-memento given to each registered SSST attendee.
The introduction and timely coordination of speakers at the 24
technical sessions was critical to the success of the 34th SSST. The volunteer
Session Chairpersons who provided that valuable service were: Dr. Jeffrey
Kulick, UAH; Dr. W. D. Blair, Georgia Tech; Dr. Tom Jannett, UAH: Dr.
Dennis Irwin, Ohio University; Dr. Jim Zhu, Ohio University; Dr. Nagendra
Singh, UAH; Dr. Laurie Joiner, UAH, Dr. Reza Adhami, UAH; Dr. Alex
Poularikas, UAH; Dr. John Stensby, UAH; Dr. Jennifer English, UAH; Dr.
Derald Morgan, UAH; Dr. Bassem Mahafza, Colsa Corp.; Dr. Richard
Gordon, Ole Miss; Dr. Charles Corsetti, UAH; Dr. Earl Wells, UAH; Dr.
John Gray, Naval Surface Warfare Center; Dr. Dan Hahs, Dynetics Inc.; Dr.
Yuri Shtessel, UAH; Dr. Asad Davari, West Virginia University; Dr. Emil
Jovanov, UAH; and Dr. Arlynn Wilson, Adtran Corp. Mr. William (Buddy)
Bishop, UAH part-time faculty, provided valuable “stand-by” support for
any emergency and/or “no-show” situations that might have arisen at the
SSST; fortunately, there were none.
The synergistic efforts of all these persons enabled the 34th SSST to
reach a new level of effectiveness and professionalism that will serve as the
standard-for-comparison in the future.
5
Real Time
Fall 2002 ECE Course Listing
Introducing
Dr. Jamshid Nayyer
Professor of ECE
Dr. Jamshid Nayyer joined the UAH ECE Department in February 2002
as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Nayyer
received his Ph. D. in Electronics Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of
Technology in 1976 where he was involved in research works on optical
multimode fibers.
During September 1986 to September 1987, he was a visiting scholar at
the Tokyo Institute of Technology where he conducted original research
works on high-speed optical switching. He joined the central research
laboratories of Sumitomo Cement Co. in January 1990 where he designed
the fastest Ti:LiNbO3 optical modulators (10GHz) exhibiting lowest
thermal drifts. In March 1997, he was assigned to the Electro-technical
Research Laboratories of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry
(MITI) of Japan where he carried out research works on ultrafast optical
devices until March 1999. He served at the Department of Electrical &
Electronics Engineering of Kanazawa University (in Japan) as an
Associate Professor from April 1999 to September 2001. Dr. Nayyer is
well experienced in optical devices such as modulators, switches,
branches, etc. and has published dozens of reviewed papers in
internationally recognized journals. He holds one issued patent and a few
in pending status.
Dr. Nayyer’s recent interests are in wide-band optical devices and optical
communication networks. He enjoys and spends his spare time on
jogging, table tennis and easy-listening music.
_____________________________________________________
Reminiscences: Bass and Kalman
(Continued from page 4)
In 1960 Rudolf and I journeyed to the first IFAC in Moscow and one
of my most-cherished memories is that of sitting next to Rudolf while Premier
Kosygin was extolling the virtues of the 1958 Pontriagin Maximum Principle
(whose main special case, namely that of the Adjoint System approach to
Time-Optimal Control, I had anticipated in my 1956 paper).
In 1961 I gave a short-course at NASA Langley on "Modern Control
Theory." After returning I mentioned to Rudolf that I had proved that "if a
system is Controllable according to your criterion of Controllability, then one
may compute a control law which places the closed-loop poles in any
prespecified stability-constellation."
Rudolf responded, "that's very
significant, Bob, because it establishes how fundamental my criterion of
Controllability is!"
Indeed, every contribution of Kalman to modern control & estimation
theory has turned out to be truly fundamental.
In summary, Kalman's seminal contributions include:
The Kalman Filtering Theory
The Linear Quadratic Optimal Control Theory
The Control/Filter Duality Principle
The Canonical Decomposition Theorem for Linear Input-Output
Systems
The Algebraic Realization Theory
The Ho-Kalman Lemma re System ID via a Minimal Realization
The discovery of a Liapunov Function for the Lur'e Problem
Numerical analysis enabling an Automatic Synthesis Program
(ASP-C)
For these and other contributions to systems theory Kalman has received
many well-deserved prizes and medals. These include (as well as various
European awards too numerous to mention):
A Kyoto Prize in High Technology
An IEEE Centennial Medal
An IEEE Medal of Honor
Membership in the US National Academy of Science
Membership in the US National Academy of Engineering
A Steele Prize of the American Mathematical Society
An Oldenburger Medal of the ASME
A Bellman Heritage Award of the ACC
Accordingly it is now my privilege to introduce to you the true
Father of Modern Systems Theory, Professor Rudolf Kalman!
ECE Dept., UAH
6
Electrical Engineering
EE100
EE201
EE202
EE300
EE301
EE305
EE307
EE310
EE313
EE315
EE321
EE382
EE383
EE384
EE410
EE411
EE412
EE414
EE420
EE421
EE424
EE425
EE426
EE427
EE436
EE447
EE448
EE451
EE452
EE454
EE461
EE468
EE494
EE500
EE504
EE505
EE506
EE510
EE516
EE521
EE527
EE528
EE532
EE534
EE541
EE542
EE548
EE607
EE609
EE610
EE612
EE616
EE619
EE648
EE654
EE691
EE697
EE699
EE701
EE704
EE706
EE744
EE710
EE799
Concepts/Digital Signals Sys
Digital Logic Design Lab
Intro Digital Logic Design
Electrical Circuit Anal I
Electronic Measurement Lab
Electronic Devices & Design
Electricity & Magnetism
Solid State Fundamentals
Electrical Circuit Anal II
Intro Electronic Anal & Design
Computer Organization
Analy Meth Continu Time
Analy Meth Multivariable
Dig Signal Process Lab
Selected opics/ECE
Electrical Power System
Sr Design Proj Elec Engr
Analog & Digital Filter Design
Random Signals & Noise
Microcomputers
Intro Data Commun Networks
Intro Control/Robotic Sys
Communication Theory
VLSI Design I
Digital Electronics
Electromagnetic Waves
Anal & Comp Meth Elec Engr I
Optoelectronics
Optical Systems Design
Optical Fiber Communications
Optical Systems Design
Intro to Computer Networks
EE Design Projects
Random Signals & Noise
Intro Data Commun Networks
Intro Control/Robotic Sys
Communication Theory
Selected Topics / ECE
Digital Electronics
Microcomputers
Electromagnetic Waves
Anal & Comp Meth Elec Engr I
Optical Systems Design
Optical Fiber Communications
Optics I
Physical Optics
Intro to Computer Networks
Robotic Systems Control
Electromagnetic Field Theory
Selected Topics/ECE
Graduate Design Project
Microelect Dev / Integ Circ
Intro Radar Systems
Digital Signal Processing
Optical Testing
Graduate Seminar I
Master’s Project for Pan II
Master’s Thesis
Adv Linear Control Theory
Nonlinear Control Systems
Kalman Filt Tech Con & Sig Proc
Coding Theory & Spread Spectrum
Selected Topics/ECE
Doctoral Dissertation
Computer Engineering
CPE112 Intro Computer
Prog for Engr
CPE212 Fund Softw Engr
CPE321 Computer Org
CPE412 Intro Paral Prog
CPE421 Microcomputers
CPE427 VLSI Design
CPE431 Intro Comp Arch
CPE438 Real Time &
Embed Systems
CPE448 Intro Comp Nets
CPE490 Spec Topics CPE
CPE495 Comp Eng Des I
CPE512 Intro Paral Prog
CPE421 Microcomputers
CPE527 VLSI Design
CPE531 Intro Comp Arch
CPE538 Real Time &
Embed Systems
CPE548 Intro Comp Nets
CPE619 Model & Anal
Comp/Comm Sys
CPE621 Adv Microcomp
Techniques
CPE626 Adv VLSI Design
CPE695 Projects in SPE
CPE699 Master’s Thesis
CPE799 Doctoral Disser
Optical Engineering
OPE441
OPE451
OPE454
OPE459
Opt Sys Design
Optoelectronics
Opt Fiber Comm
Opt Engr Design
Optical Science Engr
OSE541 Geometrical Opt
OSE542 Physical Optics
OSE655 Optics Solids &
Opto-Elect Dev
OSE656 Lens Design
OSE690 Selected Topics
OSE799 Doctoral Dis
Check www.uah.edu for the latest updates!
Please see an academic advisor before
registering for ECE classes!
[email protected]
Real Time
Commencement 2002
Mark Horton
Doctors of Philosophy
Mohamed A. Aborizka
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Joseph M. Arul
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Vidhyacharan Bhaskar
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Mark Donald J. Brown
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Andrew Scott Keys
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Fenglei Li
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Leemin Pea
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Ilya A. Shkolnikov
Dissertation:
Advisor:
Yi Sun
Dissertation:
Advisor:
College of Engineering
Outstanding Graduate
Student In ECE
Field: Computer Engineering
“An Architectural Framework for the
Specification, Analysis and Design of
Intelligent Real-Time Monitoring Agent
Based Software Systems”
Dr. Krishna Kavi
Field: Computer Engineering
“Implementation and Performance
Evaluation of Scheduled Dataflow (SDF)
Architecture”
Dr. Krishna Kavi
Mark A. Horton received both B.S.E. (1979) and M.S.E. (1999) degrees
from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, ECE Department, where he is
currently pursuing his Ph.D. under Dr. Reza Adhami. Mr. Horton has over 22
years experience in the development of real-time hardware-in-the-loop
simulations that are used to evaluate the performance of U.S. Army air
defense systems. He has spent the last year performing research in biometric
based signal processing. His expertise includes radars, experimental and test
development, signal processing, controls, random signals, and biometrics.
Field: Electrical Engineering
“Adaptive Rate Coding For Asynchronous
Code Division Multiple Access
Communications Over Slowly Fading
Channels”
Dr. Laurie L. Joiner
2000 - Present U.S. Army AMCOM, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama
DB04, Electronics Engineer, Man-in-the-Job Experimental Developer
• Performed doctoral research in biometric based personal identification
system signal processing culminating in two technical papers, passing of
Ph.D. qualifying exams and acceptance of Ph.D. dissertation proposal.
Field: Electrical Engineering
“Continuous and Smooth Sliding Mode
Control”
Dr. Yuri Shtessel
Field: Electrical Engineering
“Multilayered Dielectric Stacks as
Broadband Optical Phase Modulators”
Dr. Richard L. Fork
1981 – 2000
U.S. Army AMCOM, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama
DB03, Electronics Engineer
• Led the design, development, and utilization of five world-class state-of-theart high-fidelity hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) performance evaluation
simulation test-beds for the PATRIOT air defense system.
Field: Electrical Engineering
“An Integrated Amorphous Silicon Photo
Detector for Optical Interconnections”
Dr. Dashen Shen
•
Field: Optical Science and Engineering
“Z-Scan Analysis of Optical Nonlinearities
in Liquid Crystals”
Dr. Gregory Nordin
•
Field: Electrical Engineering
“Output Tracking in Causal NonminimumPhase Nonlinear Systems in Sliding Modes”
Dr. Yuri Shtessel
Bachelors of Science in Engineering,
Electrical Engineering Option
Field: Optical Science and Engineering
“Liquid Crystal Adaptive Lens with
Circular Electrodes”
Dr. Gregory Nordin
Muhammad Ali Anwar, Jana Owens Bladow, Joel Patrick Booth, Doris Ione
Bowman, Tatum Delon Bradley, April Charlene Burgess, Everett Delane
Burner, Joseph Albert Caldwell, Derrick Gibby Cameron, Corey Dwayne
Carter, Preston C. Chidebelu, Gyoung Min Choi, Christopher Cornelius,
William Edward Cruger, Thomas Paul Etheredge, Melvin Demetrius Felton,
Anthony Alan Gipson, Warren Orville Glave, Donn Alan Hall, Willie Earl
Harper Jr., Joshua W. Hester, Kyle Jason Holdmeyer, Cecil Ray Holland Jr.,
Elizabeth Maynard Lampkins, Damien Lindsay Hollier, Buckley Hopper,
Julie R. Hudson, Tabitha Michelle Ivey, Wykeisa DeShay Jackson, Michael
Shawn Jones, Virginia M. Kibler, Ellen R. LaFiore, Martin E. LeBlanc, Larry
Jay Levitt, Jason Alexander Lovely, Daniel Stephen Lynn, Thomas N.
McAllister, Jamison Lee McNees, Bradley Mecklenburn, Brad Eugene
Miller, Justin Len Morgan, Raymond Craig Myers III, Nhan Huu Nguyen,
Daniel Jeremy Nuckols, Patrick Neil Osterc, Ashley Brian Owens, Charlie
Nguyen Tam Pierce, Thomas Jason Puckett, Janice Cicero Rock, Robert
Mack Sawyer III, Lisa Jayne Anderson Seabrook, Martin Dean Serr, Jason
David Setzer, Rajesh Arun Shah, Jeffrey P. Shaver, Stephen Brent Shelton,
James J. Stafford, Michelle Feathers Staggs, Chad M. Stevens, Linda F.
Taylor, Julie Wynne Troup, Audrey J. Woodall, Ri On Yi, Syed Asim Zia
Designed and developed a state-of-the-art research tool for rapid test and
development of improved HAWK missile track and guidance algorithms.
______________________________________________________________
Masters of Science in Engineering
Masters With Thesis (field)
Joseph Booth (Electrical); Thesis Advisor: Dr. J. Kulick
Chakravarthy Deverapalli (Electrical); Thesis Advisor: Dr. L. Joiner
Narendrakumer Patel (Electrical); Thesis Advisor: Dr. L. Joiner
David Sparks (Electrical); Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gregory Nordin
Steven Douglas Vanstone (Electrical); Thesis Advisor:
Dr. R. Adhami
Koon-Kim Jeremy Wong (Electrical); Thesis Advisor: Dr. B. Peters
Computer Engineering Option
Christopher L. Zoeller (Electrical); Thesis Advisor: Dr. L. Joiner
Khalid Al-Zarouni, Nathan Larry Anderson, Michael Keegan Baum, Brentson
Jerome Bell, Yuli Richard Chang, John Christopher Chapman, Toy Jefferson
Cumbie Jr., Andrew Dwight Evans, Warren Orville Glave, Joel Trevor Hall,
Christy Johnson, Bridget Renee Johnston, Paul Edward Kosinski, Jonathan
Manis, Amanda Leigh Montoya, Jacob Lee Noffke, Le E. Pitts, Daniel Paul
Pritchett, Toby Wayne Rimes, Marsha Nicole Robinson, Teresa L. Samuels,
Jeremy Keith Sharp, Lori Lee Sisson, Linda F. Taylor, Ambrey Kamarie
Watkins, Nathan Bradley Wincey, Jana Leigh Woodham, Jeffery Daniel
Wright, Syed Asim Zia
Non-Thesis Masters (field)
Coleman D. Bagwell (Electrical), Alex Boydston (Electrical),
John G. Brooks ( Electrical), Eric T. Broyles (Electrical), Kevin Chan
(Electrical), Chia Chi Chiang (Electrical), Kenneth Collier,
Jr.(Electrical), Daniel T. Corley (Electrical), Craig A. Farlow
(Electrical), James S. Jackson (Electrical), Peter S. Kerr (Electrical),
Young-Ju Lee (Computer), Lixia Li (Computer) Marcus Oni
(Electrical), Zenin Pan (Computer), Alexey Petrenko (Computer),
Nazli Rahmanian (Electrical), Jeffrey P. Rice (Electrical), John W.
Sudduth, Jr. (Electrical)
ECE Dept., UAH
Led the design, development, and utilization of two exceptionally complex
high-fidelity HWIL electromagnetic interference effects test-beds for the
HAWK and PATRIOT air defense systems.
Optical Engineering Option
William E. Berry, Todd A. Bohanan, Jason J. A. Green, Gregory J.
Outerbridge II, Eric J. Tuck, Wade Usry, William E. Walker
7
Real Time
Distinguished Engineers – Alumni Awards 2002
Fredric H. Clark
Dr. Fredric H. Clark received the College of Engineering Distinguished Engineer Alumni
Award for his outstanding contributions in Electrical Engineering.
Dr. Clark earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the
University of Arkansas in 1967, and both his Master of Science in Engineering degree in 1969
and Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1980 from the University of Alabama in Huntsville,
Electrical Engineering Department.
Dr. Clark is an owner, co-founder and President of CAS, Inc., a company that has
specialized in weapon systems analysis and system solutions since it’s founding in 1979. Dr.
Clark has over 30 years experience in management, research and development of complex
systems. He has managed and directed operations at CAS as it has grown from it initial two
founders to over 700 employees.
Dr. Clark’s experience has spanned the spectrum of aerospace systems, missile systems,
radar systems, weapons systems effectiveness analyses, system countermeasures and countercountermeasures, C3I systems, and land combat systems. Many of the simulations developed by
Dr. Clark are utilized on Army air defense, missile defense, and aircraft systems. Additionally,
for the past 20 years, Dr. Clark has been actively working with the US Allied Nations on the
performance and improvements of their defense systems.
Prior to the starting of CAS, Inc., Dr. Clark worked at the IBM Corporation Federal
Systems Division where he designed a Laser Guided Bombing System and digital
navigation/bombing system for the B-52. While at IBM he also conducted analyses on the
Apollo Moon Mission, the Skylab Program and initial designs of the Space Shuttle.
Eric R. Grigorian
Mr. Eric R. Grigorian received the College of Engineering Distinguished Young Engineer Alumni
Award for his outstanding contributions in Electrical Engineering.
Mr. Grigorian earned both his Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree in 1983 and his Master
of Science in Engineering degree in 1987 from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Electrical
Engineering Department. He has continued his education by taking additional postgraduate courses such as
digital communications, digital signal processing, digital image processing, neural networks, as well as
others. He is also a registered Professional Engineer with the State of Alabama, and is President of the
IEEE Huntsville Section.
Mr. Grigorian has over 17 years experience in defense and commercial systems integration and
deployment. He recently joined Z/I Imaging as Director of Computational Hardware Center of
Competence. Previously, he was COO and Vice President of Product Development for Q-PC, Inc. and
Vice President of Commercial Markets for Applied Data Trends, Inc. He worked in multiple ManagerEngineering roles for Intergraph’s Federal Systems Division, being responsible for design and
development of programs such as rugged workstations for shipboard automation (Smartship), and Manual
Air Defense Operations Center (MADOC), which was installed at multiple sites within Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Grigorian was lead engineer for the development and commercialization of a Real Time Video
Scan Rate Converter. He also was Lead Hardware Engineer for several PATRIOT hardware and
communications tasks. As part of his development activities, Mr. Grigorian designed and developed a PC
based expansion card that allowed interface to HAWK and PATRIOT tactical data links.
Robert E. Skelton
Dr. Robert E. Skelton received the College of Engineering Distinguished Engineer Alumni Award
for his outstanding contributions in Electrical Engineering.
Dr. Skelton earned the Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1963 from
Clemson University, the Master of Science in Engineering degree in 1969 from the University of Alabama
in Huntsville, Electrical Engineering Department, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanics and
Structures in 1976 from the University of California in Los Angeles.
Dr. Skelton is currently a Professor at the University of California in San Diego, where he is
Director of the Structural Systems and Control Laboratory and Director of the Aerospace Engineering
Program. Prior to joining the faculty of UCSD, he was a Professor in Purdue University’s School of
Aeronautics and Astronautics for 21 years, where he was Director of the Purdue Structural Systems and
Control Laboratory. He is an internationally known researcher and educator, and has published 3 books
and over a hundred journal papers on control.
Dr. Skelton began his career working on programs at the Marshall Space Flight Center, employed
first with the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company and then the Sperry Rand Corporation, designing
control systems for spacecraft. He received the SKYLAB Achievement Award from NASA in 1974. His
pointing control design for the Apollo Telescope Mount paved the way for the Theory of Covariance
Control, which he developed.
Dr. Skelton served on the National Research Council’s Aeronautics and Engineering Board. He
serves on the External Independent Readiness Review Team for the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Skelton
is a fellow of IEEE and AIAA. He is also an Associate Editor of three journals: the Journal of
Mathematical Modeling of Systems, the Journal of Mathematical Problems in Engineering, and the
Journal of Systems and Control. In 1991 he received the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation’s “Senior
US Scientist Award.” In 1999 the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded him the “Norman Prize”
for his contributions to the subject of Structural Control, a new area in which he is a pioneering researcher.
ECE Dept., UAH
8
Real Time
Alumni of Achievement
Outstanding Undergraduate Student
Computer Engineering Program
In 2001, the UAH marked fifty years of teaching in a year-long
celebration called “Fifty Years of Class.” The UAH Alumni
Association embarked on a project to recognize fifty graduates who
exemplify UAH’s high standards and who personify the university’s
first half century of progress. Winners were chosen to represent alumni
from each of the five colleges who graduated at least ten years ago.
Toby Wayne Rimes
Mr. Toby Wayne Rimes graduated in Fall 2001 with a Bachelor of
Science in Engineering with a major in Computer Engineering. He is a
recipient of a 4 year Scholar Athlete on the UAH Men's Soccer Team.
Toby is employed at Mentor Graphics in Huntsville, AL where he is a
member of the Software Development team. His current assignment
is developing a software for printed circuit board design.
The following three ECE alumni were among the fifty UAH
alumni recognized at the Alumni of Achievement Day celebration on
February 4, 2002.
______________________________________
Outstanding Undergraduate Student
Optical Engineering Program
Marcus J. Bendickson, Ph.D.  Ph.D., Electrical Engineering,
1980. CEO Dynectics, Inc.
Todd Bohanan
James H. Crocker  M.S., Electrical Engineering, 1975.
Program Director, Next Generation Space Telescope Program,
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation
Mr. Todd Bohanan graduated in Fall 2001 with a Bachelor of Science
in Engineering with a major in Optical Engineering. In his senior
thesis, "Pebble Bed Reactor for Powering Mobile Solid State Lasers",
he addressed in part the use of nuclear reactors to power weapons
lasers. Learning was Mr. Bohanan’s top priority. His advisor
indicated that Todd often worked all night and then attended his class
the next morning. Mr. Bohanan is an employee of the TVA Brown's
Ferry Nuclear Plant.
Kelly V. Grider, Ph.D.  M.S., Engineering, 1965; Ph.D.,
electrical Engineering, 1972. Engineering consultant, defense
contractors and government projects
ECE Students Participate in 34th SSST
The Technical Program of the 34th SSST contained a number of papers authored, or co-authored, by ECE students. The students, and titles of their
papers, are
Mark Horton
“The Cost and Benefits of Using 2-D Gabor Filters in a Filter-Based
Fingerprint-Matching System,” M. Horton, P. Meenen, R. Adhami, and Paul
Cox, 34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST), March 18-19,
2002.
Robert Adams
“Modeling of Epicardial Signals in the Human Body,” Robert Adams,
Nagendra Singh, and Reza Adhami, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Ashkan Ashrafi
“A simple Wide-Band Frequency Independent Quadrature Phase Shifter,”
Ashkan Ashrafi, Reza Adhami, and Paul Cox, 34th SSST, March 18-19,
2002.
Joowan Kim
“Performance of Noise Canceller Using Adjusted Step Size LMS Algorithm,”
Joonwan Kim and A.D. Poularikas, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Sin M. Loo
“Handel C for Rapid Prototyping of VLSI Coprocessors for Real Time
Systems,” S.M. Loo, Earl Wells, N. Freije, J. Kulick, 34th SSST, March 1819, 2002.
Coleman D. Bagwell
“A Dynamic Power Profiling of Embedded Computer Systems,” Coleman
D. Bagwell, Emil Jovanov, and Jeffrey H. Kulick, 34th SSST, March 18-19,
2002.
Peter Meenen
“The Cost and Benefits of Using 2-D Gabor Filters in a Filter-Based
Fingerprint-Matching System,” M. Horton, P. Meenen, R. Adhami, and Paul
Cox, 34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST), March 18-19,
2002.
Vidhyacharan Bhaskar
“Adaptive Rate Coding for Image Data Transmission,” Vidhyacharan
Bhaskar and Laurie L. Joiner, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Daniel Corley
“A Low Power Intelligent Video-Processing Sensor,” Daniel Corley and
Emil Jovanov, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Milena Melenkovic
“An Accelerometer-Based Physical Rehabilitation System,” Milena
Melenkovic, Emil Jovanov, John Chapman, Dejan Raskovic, and John Price,
34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Paul Cox
“Multi-Class Support Vector Machine Classifier Applied to Hyper-Spectral
Data,” Paul Cox and Reza Adhami, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Hamid Reza Naji
“On Incorporating Multi Agents in Combined Hardware/Software based
Reconfigurable Systems - A General Architectural Framework,” Hamid
Reza Naji, and B. Earl Wells, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
“A simple Wide-Band Frequency Independent Quadrature Phase Shifter,”
Ashkan Ashrafi, Reza Adhami, and Paul Cox, 34th SSST, March 18-19,
2002.
Narendra Patel
“Improved performance of Space-time Block Codes on Rayleigh Fading
Channel,” Narendra Patel and Laurie L. Joiner, 34th SSST, March 18-19,
2002.
Dan Daniels
“Reusable Launch Vehicle Attitude Control Using A time-Varying Sliding
Mode Control Technique,” Yuri. B Shtessel, Jim Zhu, and Dan Daniels, 34th
SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Brent Priddy
“Wireless Distributed Data Acquisition System,” Brent Priddy and Emil
Jovanov, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Ayman Ghobiel
“Discrete Wavelet Transform Domain Adaptive Decision Feedback
Equalization,” Ayman Ghobriel and Reza Adhami, 34th SSST, March 18-19,
2002.
ECE Dept., UAH
Christopher Zoeller
“Passive Coherent Location Radar Demonstration,” Christopher Zoeller,
Merv Budge, Michael Moody, 34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
9
Real Time
Publications, Presentations and Awards
ELECTROMAGNETICS
CONTROL
(Continued)
Nagendra Singh, Professor
Conference Papers
Journal Articles
Y. Shtessel, J. Zhu and D. Daniels, "Reusable Launch Vehicle Attitude
Control Using a Time-Varying Sliding Mode Control Technique,"
Proceedings of 34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST),
Huntsville, AL, pp. 81-85, 2002.
Boykin, T. B., Dennis Hite, N. Singh, Two capacitor problem with radiation,
Amer. J. Phys. 70, 4125-420, 2002.
Singh, N., Temporal and spatial features of electron holes emerging from double
layers formed in a density cavity, Geophys. Res. Lett., in press, 2002.
J. Zhu, D. Laurence, J. Fisher and Y. Shtessel, "Direct Fault Tolerant RLV
Attitude Control- A Singular Perturbation Approach," Proceedings of 34th
SSST, Huntsville, AL, pp. 86-91, 2002.
Singh, N., Space-time evolution of electron-beam driven electron holes and their
effects on the plasma, Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, in press, 2002.
Ilya A. Shkolnikov, Yuri B. Shtessel and Sergey V. Plekhanov, "Analog-toDigital Converters: Sliding Mode Observer as a Pulse Modulator, "
Proceedings of the 40th Conference on Decision and Control, Orlando, FL,
December, 2001.
Conference Papers
Nagendra Singh, Spontaneous Formation of Current-Driven Double Layers in
Density Depletions and Its Relevance to Solitary Alfven Waves, AGU Fall
Meeting, San Francisco, Dec. 2001.
HARDWARE & SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Nagendra Singh, Nonlinear Waveforms Generated by Electron Beam-Driven
Instabilities, AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, Dec. 2001.
Aleksandar Milenkovic, Assistant Professor
Robert D. Adams, Nagendra Singh, Reza Adhami, Modeling of Epicardial
Signals in the Human Body, Proc. 34th Southeastern Symposium on System
Theory, IEEE, March 18-19, 2002, p. 401-405.
Journal Article
A. Milenkovic, V. Milutinovic, "A performance evaluation of cache injection
in bus-based shared memory multiprocessors," Microprocessors and
Microsystems, Vol. 26, 2002, pp. 51-61.
Saikat Saha, N. Singh, P. D. Craven, D. Gallagher, J. Jones, Development of a 3D Hybrid Code and Its Application to M2P2, STAIF Conference, March 2002.

ELECTRON DEVICES
B. Earl Wells, Associate Professor
Fat Duen Ho, Professor
Conference Papers
Journal Article
"Handel C for Rapid Prototyping of VLSI Coprocessors for Real Time
Systems ," S. M. Loo, B. Earl Wells, N. Freije, and J. Kulick, Proceedings of
the 34th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST), pp. 6-10,
Huntsville, AL, March 18-19, 2002.
T. C MacLeod and Fat Duen Ho, “Electronic Model of a Ferroelectric Field
Effect,” Integrated Ferroelectrics, Vol. 40, pp. 55-64. 2001.
Conference Papers
"On Incorporating Multi Agents in Combined Hardware/Software Based
Reconfigurable Systems -- A General Architectural Framework," Hamid Reza
Naji and B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 34th Southeastern Symposium on
System Theory (SSST), pp.344-348, Huntsville, AL, March
18-19, 2002.
Andrew B. Phillips and Fat Duen Ho, “Potential Charge Balance Model for a
Floating Gate EEPROM Cell,” Accepted for publication, Proceedings of the
IEEE International Symposium on Circuit and Systems, Arizona, May 2002.
Mark A. Bailey and Fat Duen Ho, “A Metal-Ferroelectric-Semiconductor FieldEffect Transistor Memory Cell,” Accepted for presentation, 14th International
Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics, May 27-June 1, 2002, Japan.
"On the Use of Distributed Reconfigurable Hardware in Launch Control
Avionics," B. Earl Wells and Sin Ming Loo, Proceedings of the 20th Digital
Avionics Systems Conference, Datona Beach, FL, October 14-18, 2001.
[Session 8B Re-usable Launch Vehicles -- Awarded Best Paper of Session]
Todd MacLeod and Fat Duen Ho, “Simulation Model of a Ferroelectric Field
Effect Transistor,” Accepted for presentation, 14th International Symposium on
Integrated Ferroelectrics, May 27-June 1, 2002, Japan.
"Case Study: On Performing Efficient Highly Parallel Three-Dimensional
PIC based Simulations in Constantly Changing Computing Environments," B.
Earl Wells, Sin Ming Loo, and Nagendra Singh, Proceedings of the 2001
Huntsville Simulation Conference (HSC), Huntsville, AL, October 3-4, 2001.
CONTROL
"SADL: Simulation Architecture Description Language,"Kenneth Ricks, John
Weir and B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the ISCA 14th International
Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS-2001) ,
Dallas, Texas, August 8-10, 2001.
Yuri Shtessel, Associate Professor
Journal Articles
"Exploring the Hardware/Software Continuum in a Computer Engineering
Capstone Design Class using FPGA-based Programmable Logic," S. M. Loo,
B. E. Wells, and R. K. Gaede, Proceedings of the 2001 Int’l Conference on
Microelectronic Systems Education, Las Vegas, NV, June 17-18, 2001.

I. A. Shkolnikov and Y. B. Shtessel, "Tracking a Class of Nonminimum Phase
Systems with Nonlinear Internal Dynamics via Sliding Mode Control using
Method of System Center," Automatica, Vol. 38, Issue 5, May 2002, pp. 837842.
Y. Shtessel, J. Buffington, and S. Banda, "Tailless Aircraft Flight Control Using
Multiple Time Scale Re-configurable Sliding Modes," IEEE Transactions on
Control Systems Technology, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2002, pp. 288-296.
S. M. Yoo, Associate Professor
Conference Papers
I. A. Shkolnikov and Y. B. Shtessel, "Tracking Controller Design for Nonlinear
Nonminimum Phase Systems via Method of System Center," IEEE Transactions
on Automatic Control," Vol. 46, No. 10, 2001, pp. 1639-1643.
Z.H. Zhou and S.M. Yoo, "An All-to-All Multicast Routing Decreasing
Channel Overheads in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks," ISCA 17th Int'l Conf. on
Computers and their Applications (CATA-2002), San Francisco, pp. 228-231,
April 2002.
I. A. Shkolnikov and Y. B. Shtessel, "Aircraft Nonminimum Phase Control in
Dynamic Sliding Manifolds," AIAA Journal on Guidance, Control, and
Dynamics, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 566-572, 2001.
ECE Dept., UAH
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Publications, Presentations and Awards
OPTICS
SIGNAL PROCESSING / COMMUNICATIONS
(Continued)
Emil Jovanov, Associate Professor
David Pollock, Assoc. Research Professor
Conference Papers
Conference
Colemann D. Bagwell, Emil Jovanov, Jeffrey H. Kulick, A
Dynamic Power Profiling of Embedded Computer Systems, 34th
Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (SSST), March 18-19,
2002.
Co-Chair Session I, “Traceability of Absolute Radiometry in
Remote Sensing to SI Units with Steven Brown of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology,” Conference
on Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote
Sensing being held at Utah State University April 29 - May 2,
2002.
[This is the third year for The University of Alabama in
Huntsville to co-sponsor this conference.]
Daniel Corley, Emil Jovanov, A Low Power Intelligent VideoProcessing Sensor, 34th Southeastern Symposium on System
Theory (SSST), March 18-19, 2002.
Milena Melenkovic, Emil Jovanov, John Chapman, Dejan
Raskovic, John Price, An Accelerometer-Based Physical
Rehabilitation System, 34th Southeastern Symposium on System
Theory (SSST), March 18-19, 2002.
SIGNAL PROCESSING / COMMUNICATIONS
Reza Adhami, Professor and Chair
Brent Priddy, Emil Jovanov, Wireless Distributed Data
Acquisition System, 34th Southeastern Symposium on System
Theory (SSST), March 18-19, 2002.
Conference Papers
“The Cost and Benefits of Using 2-D Gabor Filters in a FilterBased Fingerprint-Matching System,” M. Horton, P. Meenen,
R. Adhami, and Paul Cox, 34th Southeastern Symposium on
System Theory (SSST), March 18-19, 2002.
SOLID STATE
Timothy Boykin, Associate Professor
Journal Articles
“A simple Wide-Band Frequency Independent Quadrature
Phase Shifter,” Ashkan Ashrafi, Reza Adhami, and Paul Cox,
34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Timothy B. Boykin, Dennis Hite, and Nagendra Singh, “The twocapacitor problem with radiation,” American Journal of Physics
70, 415 (2002).
“Discrete Wavelet Transform Domain Adaptive Decision
Feedback Equalization,” Ayman Gobriel and Reza Adhami,
34th SSST, March 18-19, 2002.
Book Chapter
[Although copyright date is 2000 the book itself did not appear
until Late Spring 2001.]
“Multi-Class Support Vector Machine Classifier Applied to
Hyper-Spectral Data,” Paul Cox and Reza Adhami, 34th SSST,
March 18-19, 2002.
Timothy B. Boykin, “Tailoring Empirical Tight-Binding Models
for Semiconductor Heterostructures,” in L. M. Gaggero-Sager and
S. Vlaev, eds., Some Contemporary Problems of Condensed
Matter Physics, (Nova Science Publishers, 2000).
“Modeling of Epicardial Signals and Human Body,” Robert
Adams, Nagendra Singh, and Reza Adhami, 34th SSST, March
18-19, 2002.
Presentations
___________________________________
Fabiano Oyafuso, Gerhard Klimeck, R. Chris Bowen, and
Timothy B. Boykin, "Atomistic Electronic Structure Calculations
of Unstrained Alloyed Systems Consisting of a Million Atoms",
8th International Workshop on Computational Electronics,
October 15-18, 2001, Univ. of Illinois.
Laurie Joiner, Assistant Professor
Conference Papers
Patel, N. and L. L. Joiner. “Improved Performance of Spacetime Block Codes on Rayleigh Fading Channel,” Proc. 34th
Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, March 2002,
pp.128-132.
Gerhard Klimeck, Fabiano Oyafuso, Timothy B. Boykin, and R.
Chris Bowen, "Multi-million Atom Electronic Structure
Simulations using NEMO 3-D", March Meeting of American
Physical Society, March 17-22, Indianapolis,IN (2002).
Bhaskar, V. and L. L. Joiner. “Adaptive Rate Coding for
Image Data Transmission,” Proc. 34th Southeastern
Symposium on System Theory, March 2002, pp.251-255.
Dashen Shen, Professor
Joiner, L. L. and J. J. Komo. “Soft-decision decoding of
nonbinary codes,” Proc. MILCOM 2001, November 2001.
"Tetrahedral amorphous carbon thin film for silicon-on-insulator
application", Z. R. Song, Y. H. Yu, C. L. Li, S. C. Zou, F. M.
Zhang and X. Wang; D. S. Shen; E. Z. Luo, B. Sundaravel, S. P.
Wong and I. H. Wilson, Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol 80, p. 743, 2002.
ECE Dept., UAH
___________________________________________________
Journal Article
11
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ADTRAN TDP Class of 2002
Pictured above at the ADTRAN graduation ceremony (left to right): Jorge Aunon (UAH Dean of Engineering), Reza Adhami (UAH Chair of ECE), Jerry Moore (ADTRAN Vice
President Emeritus), Leif Sandstrom (ADTRAN TDP graduate), Marcus Oni (ADTRAN TDP graduate), Alex Boydston (ADTRAN TDP graduate), John G. Brooks (ADTRAN
TDP graduate), Coleman (Chip) Bagwell (ADTRAN TDP graduate), Daniel Corley, (ADTRAN TDP graduate), James Scott Jackson, (ADTRAN TDP graduate), Kenneth Lee
Collier, Jr. (ADTRAN TDP graduate), Peter Kerr, (ADTRAN TDP graduate), Lewis Radonovich (UAH Provost, VP Academic Affairs), Mark Smith (ADTRAN CEO,
Chairman), and Howard Thraikill (ADTRAN President, COO, Director).
We celebrated the graduation of the third group of Master's students from our
new ADTRAN Technical Development Program (TDP) in Electrical and
Computer Engineering on May 24, 2002. Seven students graduated from
TDP in Spring/Summer 2002. This was not simply a worthy achievement for
these individual students, but it is a milestone for a unique partnership
between UAH and ADTRAN, and a tribute to a new kind of alliance between
academia and industry.
Kenneth Lee Collier, Jr. received his B.S. degree from the University of
Alabama in Huntsville in December 1999. Kenneth began working for
ADTRAN in January 2000, when he became a full-time TDP participant.
Kenneth received his M.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering in May 2002.
Daniel Corley received his B.S. degree from the University of Missouri in
May 1998. Daniel became a full-time employee with ADTRAN in June
1998, and a TDP participant in August 2000. Daniel received his M.S.E.
degree in Electrical Engineering in May 2002.
The TDP is a two-year program that integrates engineering design work
experience with university graduate study. TDP participants are full time
employees at ADTRAN while active in the program. Participants receive
paid, 50% released time from work during academic terms when taking nine
semester hours. Both internal and external candidates may apply to the
program (e.g., current employees, new graduates, and experienced nonemployees). TDP participants are selected using the normal evaluation and
selection process utilized by ADTRAN.
James Scott Jackson received his B.S. degree from Clemson University in
May 2000. James became a full-time employee and TDP participant with
ADTRAN in June 2000. James received his M.S.E. degree in Electrical
Engineering in May 2002.
Peter Kerr received his B.S. degree from the University of Alabama in
Huntsville in May 2000. Peter became a full-time employee and TDP
participant with ADTRAN in August 2000. Peter received his M.S.E. degree
in Electrical Engineering in May 2002.
Coleman D. (Chip) Bagwell received his B.S. degree in Computer
Engineering from Mississippi State University in May 2000. Chip began
working for ADTRAN in January 1998 as participant in the Mississippi State
University Cooperative Education program. He became a full-time employee
and TDP participant in May 2000 after the completion of his B.S. degree.
Chip received his M.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering in May 2002.
Marcus Oni received his B.S. degree from Auburn University in August 1999.
Marcus became a full-time employee with ADTRAN in September 1999, and
a TDP participant in August 2000. Marcus received his M.S.E. degree in
Electrical Engineering in May 2002.
Alex Kim Boydston received his B.S. degree from The University of
Alabama in Huntsville in June 1992. Alex became a full-time employee and
TDP participant with ADTRAN in Spring 2000. Alex received his M.S.E. in
Electrical Engineering in December 2001.
Leif Sandstrom received his B.S. degree from Tennessee Technical
University in May 2000. Leif became a full-time employee and TDP
participant with ADTRAN in August 2000. On completion of a Thesis, Leif
will be receiving his M.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering in December
2002.
John G. Brooks received his B.S. degree from the University of Alabama in
December 1999. John began working for ADTRAN in March 2000, when he
became a full-time TDP participant. John received his M.S.E. degree in
Electrical Engineering in May 2002.
UAH
Congratulations ADTRAN Grads!
We want to hear from you!
The ECE Department looks forward to hearing your views and your success stories.
Contact us to share your news and comments about your career and interests. Your
story should be sent to [email protected]
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Huntsville, AL 35899
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12
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