Communication and Networks

Radar and Sensor Networks, Internet of Things, 5G/6G Wireless Communications, Spectrum and Energy Efficient Communications, Communications and Information Foundation

Recent Highlights

16 September

Efficient networking technology

Computer scientist increasing efficiency of operating systems in high-speed networking environments

18 May

A better experience for mobile users

UTA computer scientist earns grant to enhance user experience on mobile devices

31 October

UTA researcher developing chip-scale system for quantum communications

22 October

UTA researchers optimize electricity distribution networks

Research Highlights

Creating a sensing environment without a supercomputer

A UTA electrical engineer is working to create a sensing environment that uses many simple, off-the-shelf devices to process data that currently requires the use of a supercomputer.

Chip-scale system for quantum communications

A UTA electrical engineer is working to address the challenges of large-scale deployment of quantum communication systems by developing chip-integrated devices and sub-systems for preparation and detection of quantum photonic signals.

Monitoring natural gas leaks

A UTA civil engineer is developing a protocol to monitor known gas leaks in urban and rural pipelines, help assess their severity, and determine what to do about them in real time so companies can make critical decisions about how to address the situation.

A better experience for mobile users

A UTA researcher is developing a framework for wireless carriers and internet providers to incorporate data obtained through context-aware sensing that factors in user location, the type of applications being accessed and even a user’s emotional state, which would allow companies to make adjustments to optimize the user experience.

Controlling ultrasound waves to detect structural damage

A UTA mechanical engineer is designing ultrasound transducers that can be glued to ships’ hulls to detect and monitor material degradation and is also investigating the use of optical fibers as ultrasound waveguides to create sensor networks that can be implemented to detect when and where damage occurs within a structure.

Developing a headset that allows persons to point to objects of interest using their eyes

A computer scientist at UTA has patented a headset that is able to scan a user’s eye movements and enable them to navigate mobile platforms, such as electric wheelchairs, without the use of hands and communicate to a robotic platform when they would like to use an object, such as a glass of water.

Using AI to better assess structural health of bridges

A civil engineer at UTA is working to better assess a bridge’s structural health by combining machine learning with traditional weight-in-motion sensor systems.

Sharing sensor data

A pair of UTA computer scientists is working to create a framework for businesses that would encourage the owners of existing sensors to share their data through the cloud, reducing the cost for everyone, under a sensing-as-a-service model.

Building EKG jackets for fish to study heart attacks

A UTA bioengineer and his team have developed a special EKG jacket for zebrafish, in collaboration with researchers at UC Irvine, that is made of flexible electronics and attaches to the fish via nanotubes that can adhere underwater. It recharges as the fish moves, monitors how physiological signals develop and sends data to a cloud system, so no wires are necessary.

Resources

Wireless Communications and Networking Lab

Wireless communications and networking development and test equipment including spectrum analyzers, arbitrary waveform generators, Infiniium oscilloscope, network analyzers, handheld RF power meter and Log Periodic Antenna X. The Lab is doing research in spectrum efficient waveform design with application to wireless networks.

Signal Processing and Learning in Sensing Systems (SPLSS) Lab

SPLLSS focuses on the development and analysis of machine learning algorithms with application in multimodal sensor data fusion, artificial intelligence, remote sensing and hyperspectral imaging. Recent research activities include dynamic building of similarity graphs for multimodal data/signals via reinforcement learning with applications in data mining, decision making and tactical situational awareness.

Radar Sensor Network Lab

Equipment includes Lab Time Domain’s PulsON UWB radars, Log Periodic Antenna X, and wireless sensor network professional developer’s kit. The lab performs research in compressive sensing for radar and radar sensor networks because data compression has become a bottleneck for information processing and integration. The lab also performs research in practical co-prime and nested samplers and arrays for radar and radar sensor networks.

Abacus Cloud and Edge Systems (ACES) Lab

The ACES Lab has established a virtualized middle-scale cluster to support cloud-oriented research. The lab has 10 servers serving as cloud computing nodes, each of which is configured with 2 Intel Xeon E5-2650 processors, 64GB of RAM, a Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57810 10Gb NIC and 4x1TB SATA HDDs, and four cloud storage servers, each of which is equipped with a RAID-0 SSD array with five 800GB SATA MLC SSDs, consolidating all the multi-replica data for cloud computing nodes. All the servers are interconnected by six Dell Networking N4032F switches with peak bandwidth of 10 Gbps. A pool of 30 Raspberry Pi’s with temperature and humidity sensing capabilities are also connected to the cluster to allow for the testing of edge and IoT-based sensing applications.