Take the Next Step
Finding the right college means finding the right fit. See all that the College of Engineering and Computer Science has to offer by visiting campus.
Research Areas and Faculty
On this page:
- Overview
- Applied Electromagnetics
- Autonomous Robots
- Control Systems
- Microelectronics
- Power Electronics
- Sensor Signal and Image Processing
- VLSI and FPGA
- Wireless Communication
Overview
What does research in the Department of Electrical Engineering look like?
Electrical engineers turn dreams into reality—in digital technology, wireless communications, electronic surveillance, computing technology, and alternative energy. Become an electrical engineer and be at the forefront of technological advances.
Imagine being part of a team that creates an implant to create an artificial retina, or a non-tethered pacemaker the size of a vitamin pill. How about developing an alternative energy system to give a rural homestead power and wireless access, or designing the next generation of autonomous vehicles that conserve energy, plan routes, and eliminate collisions?
Applied Electromagnetics
Electromagnetic applications enable everyday technologies of wireless communications, autonomous systems, and remote sensing from the microwave through optical regimes. Researchers in this area pursue solutions for 1) novel reconfigurable antenna arrays for communications and includes the underlying machine learning algorithms that control the arrays; 2) microwave and mm-wave radar imaging measurements to support development of object recognition algorithms for autonomous driving and national defense; 3) modeling and simulation methods for wave propagation, radiation, and scattering; and 4) wave-model image analysis methods for novel optical diagnostic methods.
Researcher:
Autonomous Robots
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are dominant technologies of the 21st Century. Our research aims to address the challenges in algorithm development and software design for intelligent robots conducting the most delicate and most critical tasks toward serving mankind. Specific research interests include navigation and control of unmanned aerial vehicles and ground robots, deep reinforcement learning for self-supervised adaptation, and simultaneous mapping and localization under GPS-denied environment, etc.
Researchers:
Control Systems
Modern engineering systems are prone to faults (e.g., as a result of component degradation or combat damage). Our research aims to develop intelligent health management and control strategies for improved maintainability, availability, survivability, and operational performance. Specific research interests include fault diagnosis/prognosis, fault-tolerant control of safety-critical systems, neural-network-based adaptive learning control, cooperative control of distributed large-scale multi-agent systems, and verification and validation of adaptive control system, etc.
Researchers:
Microelectronics
Microelectronics involve developing and applying novel functional materials for high-performance electronic, optical, and biomedical integrated micro/nano devices and systems. Materials include ferromagnetic materials for RF inductive components, ferroelectric materials for RF tunable devices, strained Si/SiGe for high-speed field effect transistor, Ga2O3 for high power electronics, graphene for bio-/chemical- sensors with ultra-high sensitivity, and nano materials with high flexoelectricity for implanted artificial cochlea hearing aid.
Wright State researchers in this field developed i) on-chip CMOS technology compatible magnetic thin film inductor with an operating frequency above GHz, ii) on-chip electric current-controlled tunable passives using MEMs technology, iii) a low-loss meta magnetic/metal superlattice featured skin depth cancellation at RF/MW frequencies. Such material exhibits remarkably higher conductivity than any naturally exist metal alloy, which is believed to have significant impacts in the future 5G technology. In addition, we developed fully integrated bio- and chemical- sensors using single atomic layered two-dimensional materials, and demonstrated a graphene based GIM sensor with extremely high sensitivity up to sub-ppb (part per billion) on detection of ammonia, dimethyl methylphosphonate, sarin (GB) and VX.
Researcher:
Power Electronics
Power electronics deals with DC-DC, DC-AC, and AC-DC energy conversion, which has a wide range of applications, such as power supplies for computers, data centers, and cell phones, wireless battery chargers and propulsion systems for electric vehicles, UPS for financial industry, renewable solar and wind energy technology, medical instrumentation, and power systems for defense industry. Raw energy must be processed to a usable form. Research is performed on the development of high-efficiency, high-frequency power stages, modeling of nonlinear circuits, filtering, EMI/RFI, and applied control techniques. RF power amplifiers are developed for transmitters for communications systems, such as telephone handsets and radio and TV broadcasting circuits. High-frequency magnetic devices are characterized and developed for a wide variety of power electronics and integrated circuits, such as power converter, wireless energy transfer, and radio transmitters and receivers.
Researcher:
Sensor Signal and Image Processing
A wide variety of sensors are becoming ubiquitous in consumer and defense applications, such as home appliances, smart homes, smart cars, smart cities as well as on drones, planes and satellites for monitoring and surveillance purposes. The rise of biotechnology has precipitated in rapid development of smart sensors and smart implants that enhance longevity and quality of human lives. Raw data or imagery collected by sensors must be digitally processed to extract critical information pertinent to particular applications while rejecting and suppressing the undesired parts or false alarms that can lead to unsatisfactory outcomes.
Research in this area includes algorithm development for image formation and signal reconstruction, along with filter design, optimal sampling, detection and estimation, feature extraction, spectral analysis, and machine learning methods. Faculty in this area actively work in a number of application settings including medical imaging, hyperspectral imaging, radar, communication systems, and distributed sensor networks.
Students learn the technical foundations of signal and image processing while gaining application-oriented know-how in processing and interpreting real-world sensor data.
Researchers:
VLSI and FPGA
Research in VLSI and FPGA based on-demand targeted to real-world applications that can make drastic changes in our daily lives. These include digital design from digital portable computing devices/components to embedded system applications such as radar/ultra-wideband digital receivers, radio-frequency mixed-signal design from the individual high-frequency generator, digital direct synthesizer, high speed/resolution ADCs to system-level GPS receiver, and assured and trusted hardware security in VLSI and FPGA.
Researchers:
Wireless Communication
Rapid implementation of 4G/5G broadband Wireless/Mobile Communication technology is contributing to the growth of worldwide reach of technological ecosystem. It is highly desirable that seamless, efficient, secure and trustworthy communication of data, voice, and video occur across smart devices and humans in diverse environments, from homes, to businesses, to roads, and to war zones. With wide availability of broadband internet and Wi-Fi connectivity Internet-of-Things (IoT) are wirelessly connecting billions of devices and machines with other devices or people. The Wireless Program in EE provides comprehensive knowledge of current and emerging technologies in the design and development of Wireless-based systems and networks. This program will provide students with the fundamental theoretical concepts and practical know-how necessary to understand and work with various aspects of wireless communication systems.
Researchers:
