Areas of Research

Applied Electrostatics & Electromagnetics

This is the oldest area of research in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. It involves two parts: applied electrostatics and electromagnetics, and in both the Department is internationally acclaimed. The record of achievements includes a large number of publications, many patents, three IEEE fellowships, two honorary doctorates, merit awards, a high level of research grants and numerous industrial contracts. One part of this research is organized in the Applied Electrostatics Research Centre (AERC), which is one of the few in the world specializing in the application of electrostatics to interdisciplinary problems. The members of the Centre cover all the engineering disciplines. The majority of the research activities undertaken have been primarily motivated by an interest in applying electric force phenomena to industrial and societal problems. The other part is in the general area of electromagnetics: this includes radio-wave propagation, radars and stochastic electromagnetics. Much of this work is also interdisciplinary and involves collaborative work with researchers in the Department of Physics.

[K. Adamiak, G.S.P. Castle, W.D. Greason, A.R. Webster]

Biomedical Systems

An interdisciplinary group of active researchers collaborate under the auspices of Biomedical Systems Research. The researchers in this area are members of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and in addition, have formal affiliations with other departments and research centres on campus, in particular, the Robarts Research Institute, the Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics research centre, the Lawson Health Research Institute, the National Centre for Audiology, the Department of Medical Biophysics, and the Faculty of Health Sciences. The common vision shared by these researchers is to approach the modeling of Biomedical Systems through the development of software systems, computer hardware and specialized devices -- under a framework enriched by the interplay between mathematical formalism and empirical investigation.

[R. Eagleson, H. Ladak, J. Lacefield, V. Parsa, R.V. Patel, A. Samani, J. Samarabandu, A. L. Trejos]

Communication Systems and Data Networking

The research projects in this area are concerned with modeling of communication channels with fading, channel-coded CPM signals with asymmetric modulation parameters, optimizing and designing wireless and optical access and metropolitan network architectures and protocols, investigating vulnerability of large-scale electronic systems to external electromagnetic fields and interference, study of mobile ad-hoc networks, wireless high data rate channels and quality-of-service issues. The Bell Centre for Information Engineering (BCIE) has been established with support from Bell Canada, to coordinate and enhance the Department's research activities in this area. The Centre is dedicated to fostering innovative basic and applied research in information engineering, working with industry, and government organizations to develop new communications and data networking technologies, and train the next generation of researchers and practitioners. The faculty members working in this area carry out intensive collaborations with industrial and academic partners. They have been successful in attracting research funds from NSERC, IBM, CRC, CFI, CITO, and others.

[A. Dounavis, J. MacDougall, A. Ouda, S. Primak, Q. Rahman, A. Reyhani-Masoleh, A. Shami, R. Sobot, X. Wang]

Microsystems & Digital Signal Processing

Emerging highly qualified researchers, recently recruited by the Faculty of Engineering constitute many of the faculty members working in this area. The faculty members have expertise in high-speed and low-power VLSI circuits, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, modeling and simulation of high-speed interconnects, cryptographic hardware and computer arithmetic, time-frequency signal processing for diagnosis, industrial applications of FPGA, speech and audio signal processing; photonic crystal integrated micro and nano sensors; and MEMS. The laboratory facilities include several newly funded CFI laboratories, DSP equipment donations from Texas Instruments and also access to the UWO Nanofabrication Laboratory and, Hybrid Microsystems chip design and fabrication capabilities provided by the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation (CMC).

[Z. Abid, A. Dounavis, J. Jiang, H. Ladak, V. Parsa, A. Reyhani-Masoleh, J. Sabarinathan, S. Salisbury, R. Sobot]

NSERC CREATE Program in Computer-Assisted Medical Intervention (CAMI)

This program is funded by an NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) grant awarded for a six-year period starting from 2009. The CAMI program focuses on transdisciplinary "hands-on" clinically-motivated research. The training emphasis is on providing engineers, scientists, and clinicians a common language and understanding of the other respective disciplines, with the aim of developing skilled researchers who can participate effectively in multidisciplinary research teams. The program provides funding for highly qualified graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

[R. Eagleson, M. Kermani, J. Lacefield, H. Ladak, K. McIsaac, R.V. Patel, S. Salisbury]

Power Systems Engineering

The University of Western Ontario (UWO), in its Strategic Research Plan, has committed to develop a world-class power systems engineering research and education program. As a part of this endeavour, the Faculty has recruited internationally known faculty members, one being a Hydro One senior industrial research chair in power systems and another as NSERC-UNENE Senior Industrial Research Chair. This has made UWO one of the leading centres for power systems engineering research in Canada and around the world. The expertise and strength of the faculty members in this area are in power electronic (ac-dc) conditioning technologies, control systems and protection and automation technologies. Although, this area has been established very recently, intensive industry collaborations have already been established, mainly because of the unique capabilities that exist. Extensive laboratory facilities include a state-of-the-art real-time digital simulator and industry-sponsored protection and automation laboratories.

[T.S. Sidhu, J. Jiang, R.K. Varma, G. Moschopoulos, M. Dadash Zadeh]

Robotics & Control

Approximately 40 individuals who include five faculty members and their graduate students, research assistants and postdoctoral fellows work in this area. Key strengths of the researchers in the area are in the design, control and application of advanced robotic systems, the use of smart materials and intelligent control techniques for vibration suppression in mechanical systems, fault-tolerant control, applications of modern control strategies in welding processes, design and applications of the next generation of mobile robotic systems including underwater robots. An area of particular interest as well as research effort is in exploring robotic and other mechatronic applications in surgery and therapy. In this context, it is worth mentioning that one of the faculty members, Dr. Patel is a principal investigator in Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics (CSTAR), a centre that has been recently established by the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) with over $17 million in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust (CFI-OIT) and the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund (ORDCF). The research facilities include over 6,000 sq. ft. of research laboratory space for 6 laboratories in the new Thompson Engineering Building (TEB).

[R.V. Patel, J. Jiang, M. Kermani, K. McIsaac, L. Brown, I. Polushin, S. Salisbury,
A. L. Trejos]

Software Engineering

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has recruited a number of highly qualified faculty members in the software engineering and intelligent systems. There are several projects currently underway that deal with improving maintainability of software systems, software evolution, component-based software engineering, large-scale project management, software product lines, software life cycle models and human factors in software engineering. This research is investigating the theoretical foundations and practical applications of computational intelligence with a specific focus on agenthood, coordination and cooperation in distributed "systems" environments. A key focus is on promoting the evolution of cooperative distributed systems engineering from an ad hoc, labour-intensive activity to a discipline that is managed and supported by technology. Recently the EK3 Innovation Lab was established in the department supported by the successful Western spin-off high-tech London Company that specializes in digital signage and "intelligent marketing".

[L. Capretz, M. Capretz, R. Eagleson, H. Ghenniwa, K. Kian-Mehr, A. Ouda, Q. Rahman, J. Samarabandu, A. Shami]


	Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Western Ontario room 279 Thompson Engineering Building, London, Ontario Canada N6A 5B9 519-661-3758