Research centers and laboratories
Faculty research
The EECE department is home to a wide range of active research projects, associated with numerous research labs and centers as well as six outstanding teaching laboratories. An overview of these labs is given below.
More information on EECE research activities can be found at the Research and Faculty pages.
Advanced Computing Technology Laboratory
Director: Dr. Xin Feng
The Advanced Computing Technology Laboratory is equipped with a Silicon Graphics IRIS workstation and several PCs networked together for research in the area of advanced computing technologies. A variety of virtual reality, neural network and expert systems software is installed in the network.
Electric Machines and Drives Laboratory
Director: Dr. Nabeel A.O. Demerdash
This electric machines and drives laboratory is a facility for research on modem electric machinery in adjustable speed drives, and electromechanical systems in general, including associated electromagnetic and power electronic studies and simulation model developments. The laboratory includes a dynamometer facility for testing electric machinery in modern adjustable speed drives of the induction, brushless-dc, conventional-dc, synchronous and other motors and for verification/validation of simulation results. It includes several systems with modern vector control drives of induction machines and brushless dc machines for servo- control and aerospace applications. Computation facilities and in-house software for finite- element analysis of magnetic fields in electric machinery are included in this laboratory facility with PC based computation hardware.
Center for Intelligent Systems and Controls Laboratory
Director: Dr. Ronald H. Brown
Associates: Dr. George Corliss, Dr. Xin Feng, Dr. Michael Johnson, Dr. Richard Povinelli and Dr. Edwin Yaz
The Center for Intelligent Systems and Controls is a multi-disciplinary center incorporating faculty research in the areas of controls, optimization, signal processing, and time-series modeling/forecasting. More detailed descriptions of these efforts can be found on individual Faculty research pages.
Electromagnetic Simulations Laboratory
Director: Dr. James E. Richie
The Microwave & Electromagnetic Simulations Laboratory is a facility for research on electromagnetic scattering, antennas and microwave engineering. One RF/Microwave lab station is available consisting of a Vector Network Analyzer (Agilent 8714ES) and calibration kit, a Spectrum Analyser (Agilent E4402B ESA-E series), a signal generator (Agilent 8648B), a frequency counter (Agilent 53150A), and an oscilloscope (Agilent 54642A), along with DC power supply and other meters, components, etc.
The laboratory also includes computational facilities for electromagnetic analysis including in-house GMT codes and moment method codes. Current and recent research includes development of modeling rules and guidelines for GMT methods in two and three dimensions; the use of the MIT MEEP code for simulation of microwave engineering devices and systems; and a variety of electromagnetic simulation tools for special purposes.
GasDayTM Laboratory
Director: Dr. Ronald H. Brown
Associates: Dr. George Corliss, Professor Thomas Quinn
Marquette University’s GasDay Laboratory has been researching and refining natural gas demand forecasting models since 1993. One way the lab’s research is disseminated is through software products developed at Marquette and licensed to more than 20 natural gas utilities across the country. The GasDay Lab provides custom data mining and mathematical modeling studies to those utility customers. We use modern software architecture and tools, including databases, multi-tiered systems, distributed computing, automated testing, and user interface design. We make extensive use of MATLAB mathematical computing tools to develop and evaluate our models.
Residential, industrial, and commercial customers use natural gas for space heating, cooking and water heating, as feedstock in industrial processes, as fuel for industrial and commercial operations, and hundreds of other purposes. Theoretically, heat replaced is lost through convection and conduction, with delays, so one could do first-principles architectural and thermodynamic modeling of buildings. Viewed as a function of temperature (adjusted for wind, humidity, and other weather conditions), consumption is a very noisy signal. Data availability is critical for any modeling activity. GasDay has over 500,000 days’ worth of data on weather and consumption for operating areas across the US and over 7 M days’ worth of weather and consumption data for individual customers.
Knowledge and Information Discovery Laboratory
Director: Dr. Richard Povinelli
Members of the KID lab focus on analyzing signals/systems using nonlinear and dynamic methods in combination with machine learning techniques in order to classify the types of systems that generated the signals or to predict the future trajectory of the systems. These methods have been applied to a wide range of signals/systems, including speech, heart, motor and financial.
Microsensor Research Laboratory
Director: Dr. Fabien J. Josse
Associates: Dr. Jeanne Hossenlopp, Dr. Susan Schneider
The Microsensor Research Laboratory performs both theoretical and experimental work in acoustic wave, solid-state devices and Optical waveguides gas- and liquid-phase chemical and bio-sensors. The laboratory has state-of-the-art equipment for the design, characterization, and evaluation of these sensors and extensive computation facilities for theoretical modeling, analysis, and data processing.
Speech and Signal Processing Laboratory
Director: Dr. Michael Johnson
The Speech and Signal Processing lab focuses on the areas of signal processing, speech analysis, and natural language understanding. Current and past projects include application of speech technology to bioacoustics/animal vocalizations, speech enhancement, and speech recognition using dynamical systems models. In addition to computing and conferencing resources, the speech lab has an enclosed sound booth for speech testing and data collection in a noise-free environment. The lab is a member of the Linguistic Data Consortium, providing access to an extensive database of speech and language corpora.
Solid State Device Laboratory
Director: Dr. Shrinivas G. Joshi
The Solid State Device Laboratory is well equipped for the fabrication of silicon based solid-state devices, surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices and sensors, and simple microelectronic circuits. Test equipment available in the laboratory can be used to evaluate performance of the fabricated devices at frequencies ranging from dc through the VHF range.
Nanoscale Devices Laboratory
Director: Dr. Chung Hoon Lee
The Nanoscale devices laboratory is a facility for research on micro/nano scale devices, including Nano differential scanning calorimeter, Silicon Nanowires, tip based nanofabrication, molecular electronics, and AFM/SPM probe development and characterization. Lab equipment includes: high temperature oxidation furnace for thermal SiO2 growth, MILA-5000 Mini Lamp Annealer, Reactive Ion Etcher (RIE) for thin film etching, mask aligner, HMDS vapor coating, photoresist spinner, metal evaporator and sputtering system, silicon anisotropic wet etching system, anodic bonding system, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) system for nanowire growth, and measurement system with Labview control.
Affiliated Research Laboratories
Biomedical Telemetry and Wireless Sensing Research Laboratory
Director: Dr. Dean Jeutter
The laboratory is a resource for the design, implementation, and characterization of wireless remote sensing devices and systems and is available to faculty and graduate students. Radio Frequency (RF) electrical and biomedical telemetry (both implantable and externally placed systems) and transcutaneous RF power transfer systems, often enhanced with microprocessors, are laboratory specialties. State-of-the-art instrumentation coupled with personal computer CAD packages enables novel systems development. Integration of printed circuit board software (NI Multisim / Ultiboard), hardware tools (T-Tech board routing machine), and surface mounted component fabrication capability provides a seamless pathway from idea to device realization.
Embedded Systems Laboratory
Director: Dr. Dennis Brylow
The Embedded Systems Laboratory is a facility for research on embedded, real-time, and networked computer systems. The emphasis is on building, testing, and studying complex computer systems with limited computational resources. This laboratory contains specialized hardware for prototyping embedded software on a variety of architectures including embedded MIPS 32, PowerPC, Freescale/Motorola 68HC12, Zilog Z86, and Atmel AT91 series machines. Current and recent research includes resource-constrained operating systems and networking, embedded internet telephony, and software transactional concurrency control.
Teaching laboratories
There are six teaching laboratories used by students in the electrical and computer engineering programs. These laboratories are equipped with the latest “standard” electrical test and measurement instrumentation, including multimeters, function generators, DC power supplies and digital oscilloscopes. Each laboratory station has a computer running LabVIEW software. Each laboratory also houses unique equipment used to support the learning goals in various courses.
The Instrumentation Laboratory — EN 395
In this laboratory, students learn best practices associated with electrical measurement methods and modern measurement tools. This laboratory also has a number of dynamometers, motors and drive systems used to measure the performance of fractional horsepower electric motors.The Analog Electronics Laboratory — EN 391
Analog circuit design and test is the focus of this laboratory, including transistor amplifiers, both small-signal and large-signal amplifiers and operational amplifier characteristics and op-amp applications focusing on control. GPIB communication for equipment control is also available in the laboratory as well as a spectrum analyzer for high-frequency testing.The Digital Electronics Laboratory — EN 365
This laboratory houses the equipment needed to design, build and test digital circuits — combinational and sequential logic circuits using discrete components as well as programmable logic devices. Microprocessor programming is also a heavy focus in this laboratory.The Microwave/RF Laboratory — EN 369
Equipped for high-frequency experiments, this lab is used to support students' work in the electromagnetic fields classes, the antenna theory and design course and wireless communication.The Computer Engineering Laboratory — EN 388
The types of experiments conducted in this facility include designing, implementing and tested embedded systems. Pocket PCs are used as the current target device for these experiments. In addition, digital signal processing hardware is available for student projects and course work.The Project “Open” Laboratory — EN 379
This lab is used by students to work on projects for classes and for senior design outside of “normal” laboratory class times. This room is supervised by graduate teaching assistants and is open every day of the week, including evenings and Saturday. The project laboratory is equipped with two stations representative of each of the laboratories described above.
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