The expanding roles of electrical engineers, computer engineers, and computer scientists in today's society reflect the variety and scope of these exciting professions. In recognition of the distinct qualifications required of engineers and scientists entering these fields, the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department offers undergraduate programs in the following four areas: an electrical engineering program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (Electrical Engineering) - B.S.E. (E.E.); a computer engineering program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (Computer Engineering) - B.S.E. (C.E.); a computer science program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (Computer Science) - B.S.E. (C.S.) offered through the College of Engineering; or a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree offered through the College of LS&A. (Please consult the LS&A Bulletin for information about completing a computer science degree through LS&A.)

Throughout each program, students work with modern laboratory equipment and computer systems, and they are exposed to the most recent analytical techniques and technological developments in their field. Students have many opportunities to associate with outstanding faculty, most of whom are actively engaged in research and/or professional consulting. Such interaction serves to acquaint students with the opportunities and rewards available to practicing electrical or computer engineers and scientists. Our students are encouraged to seek an advanced degree if further specialization and a higher degree of competence in a particular area is desired.

Facilities

EECS departmental academic units, faculty members, and most of the research laboratories are housed in the Bob and Betty Beyster Building, the recently renovated EECS Building, and in several nearby research buildings. EECS is home to nine state-of-the-art research laboratories and centers, and supports other interdepartmental research laboratories. The EECS research environment is strengthened by a University wide computer network infrastructure. The College of Engineering's CAEN network, one of the largest campus networks, supports both instructional and research computing and has links to research facilities throughout Michigan, the nation, and the world.

The departmental facilities include modern instructional and research laboratories in the areas of communications and signal processing, control systems, electromagnetics, electric power, solid-state electronics, robotics, microelectronics and micromechanics, artificial intelligence, optical science, advanced computer architecture, computer vision and cognitive science, and software systems. Our instructional laboratory facilities provide student access to many types of computers, logic design modules, and modern instrumentation for the design of discrete analog and digital circuits and systems.

In addition, there are specialized facilities for communications, signal and image processing, integrated circuit and solid-state device fabrication, electromagnetics and optics, VLSI design, networking, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Department Laboratories

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DIVISION LABS

Advanced Computer Architecture Laboratory  (ACAL)
Computer systems hardware research has strong links with software (operating systems, programming languages), solid-state circuits (VLSI design), and several computer application areas (robotics, artificial intelligence, instrumentation and numerical methods).  ACAL serves as the focal point for an interdisciplinary program of research that includes the theory, design, programming, and applications of advanced computer systems.  ACAL has an extensive network of workstations and advanced test and design equipment to support its activities in experimental research.  Researchers also have access to state-of-the-art experimental parallel computers.  The department operates its own computer-aided VLSI design system.  While VLSI circuits are fabricated primarily by the NSF/DARPA/MOSIS service, our in-house IC fabrication facility, capable of submicron VLSI, is also used.  Research into VLSI design ranges from CAD tools, such as logic simulation programs, to the design of components for advanced computer systems.

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory  (AI)
One of the long-term goals of research in AI is to develop autonomous agents capable of behaving effectively in physical and software environments that may be populated with other agents and/or humans. Achieving this goal requires theoretical, experimental, and applied investigations into many topics in AI including rational decision making, distributed multiagent systems, game theory, machine learning, reinforcement learning, cognitive architecture, automated planning, natural language processing, information retrieval, real-time and intelligent dynamical control, autonomous robotics, and computer vision. Our research in AI is highly interdisciplinary, building on ideas from computer science, information science, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, economics, biology, control theory, and philosophy. Among the various applications currently explored are electronic commerce, robotics, computer games, text understanding, health informatics, and assistive technologies.

Interactive Systems
The goal of the Interactive Systems Lab is to create and study systems that are human-centered. Human-centered systems necessarily include the user-to augment, enhance, or involve humans through computational systems and media. The research foci include human-computer interaction, multimedia, affective computing, educational software, and social computing. Active projects include cognitive models for human-computer interaction, educational software for handhelds, immersive audio displays, singer identification and vocal pedagogy, audio representations and metadata extractions, methods to represent and quantify emotion in audio-visual speech, social computing approaches to user control in pervasive environments, collaborative recommenders, and multi-person awareness in pervasive environments.

Software Systems and Real-Time Computing Laboratories  (SSL/RTCL)
A major focus of SSL and RTCL is on experimental design, implementation, and evaluation of systems software and real-time technologies that enable development of a wide range of emerging applications.  Active areas of research include cluster computing, collaborative computing, compiler design, information retrieval and database systems, wired and wireless network protocols and architectures, network security and smartcards, mobile computing, operating system and architecture interactions, real-time and embedded systems, QoS-sensitive and power-aware computing and communications, and fault-tolerant computing.  Emerging applications enabled by these software foundations include computer-supported workspaces; secure video conferencing; electronic commerce; Internet servers, multi-player games; virtual environments; anywhere-anytime data access; distributed agile manufacturing, automotive and aerospace electronics, and many others.

Theory in Computer Science  (THINCS)
Theoretical computer science provides the mathematical foundation for computer science and computer engineering.  Its goal is to develop the theories and techniques needed to understand computation and communication.  Researchers in THINCS have a broad range of interests within theoretical computer science and collaborate with researchers in other areas such as software, hardware, discrete systems, artificial intelligence, mathematics, statistics, and physics.  Research topics within THINCS include specification and validation of computer systems, finite model theory, complexity theory, parallel computing, design and analysis of algorithms, parallel architectures, quantum computing, scientific and statistical computing, computational linguistics, semantics of programming languages, theories of concurrency, computer security, design and verification of protocols, and combinational methods in computer science.

ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING DIVISION LABS

Optics and Photonics Lab and Center for Ultrafast Optical Science
These laboratories conduct research in the general areas of lasers, quantum optoelectronics and ultrafast optical science.  Specific areas presently under investigation include spectroscopy of quantum dots; quantum computing; spectroscopy of solids; development of new optical materials, integrated optics;, high power fiber lasers, fiber photonics, semiconductor quantum optoelectronics; coherent phonon-driven devices; cavity quantum electrodynamics; biophysical studies of biomolecular structure, biomedical sensing and imaging; 100 terahertz optical communications networks; and production of high power femtosecond laser systems for applications in coherent x-ray generation, particle acceleration, and laser surgery.

In addition, this area is home to the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS), the country's foremost center for academic research in ultrafast science.  The Center's research focuses on the development of high peak-power optical sources; ultrafast electronic and optical science; high field physics and technology; and development and application of short wavelength, short pulse optical sources with intensities exceeding 10E+22 watts/cm2 and pulse widths shorter than 100 fsec.  CUOS is home to the Hercules system, which is the world's highest-intensity laser.

Radiation Laboratory  (RAD)
Areas of focus include antennas, from HF to terahertz frequencies; computational electromagnetics and modeling techniques; electromagnetic wave interactions with the environment; microwave and millimeter remote sensing; plasma electrodynamics and space electric propulsion; polarimetric radars and radiometric imaging; radar scattering computations and measurements; radio wave propagation predictions for mobile communications; RF and microwave front-end design for wireless applications; RF integrated circuit design; and RF/microwave and millimeterwave micromachined active and passive components and subsystems; Terahertz electronics and applications; optically-assisted millimeter-wave integrated circuits; low-temperature plasmas; laser physics and spectroscopy; plasma chemistry; plasma and photochemical materials processing; amorphous thin films; pulse power plasmas; environmental applications of plasmas; fundamental electromagnetic theory; engineered electromagnetic structures (metamaterials, frequency selective surfaces, electromagnetic bandgap structures); antennas; plasmonics and near field optics and imaging.

Solid-State Electronics Laboratory  (SSEL)
SSEL is at the forefront of research in microelectronics, micromechanics, optoelectronics, and micro and nano technologies based on silicon, compound semiconductor, and organic materials.

Silicon-based research includes advanced semiconductor process development, integrated microsystems and micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), and metrology and optical measurement systems.  Research in compound semiconductors is focused on growth and characterization of wide- and narrow-bandgap semiconductors, new high speed and microwave device structures, optoelectronic devices, and millimeter-wave heterostructure devices.  Research in organic and polymeric based devices include thin-film transistors, integrated circuits and light-emitting devices on glass and plastic substrates.  Research in analog and VLSI integrated circuits includes sensor interface circuits, telecommunication and RF circuits, wireless telemetry, low-power microprocessor and mixed signal (microcontroller) circuits.  This research is supported by state-of-the-art facilities, which are housed in 6000 sq. ft. of class 1000, class 100, and class 10 clean space.  Also, included is a fully equipped class 10,000 instructional laboratory dedicated to the education  and training of undergraduate and graduate students specializing in these areas.

The solid-State Electronics Laboratory supports research carried out within the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) on Wireless Integrated Microsystems, and is also a member of the NSF-funded National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN).

Systems Laboratory  (Systems)
Research in the Systems Laboratory focuses on communications, signal processing, and control.  Communications research focuses on system design, optimization, and performance analysis as well as on the development of theory to characterize the fundamental limits of communication system performance, including its mathematical foundations.  Areas of specialization include digital modulation, channel coding, source coding, information theory, optical communications, detection and estimation, spread spectrum communication, and multi-user communications and networks.  Signal processing research focuses on the representation, manipulation, and analysis of signals, particularly natural signals.  Signal processing research overlaps with many other research disciplines, particularly in the areas of communication and biosystems.  Projects include fast algorithms, inverse scattering, wavelets and time-frequency distributions, image and video coding, medical imaging, signal detection and target tracking, parameter estimation and bounds, musical instrument sound synthesis and analysis.

Control studies focus on fundamental properties of dynamical systems and develop algorithms to modify their behavior through control in order to satisfy performance objectives.  Numerous system models are employed, including linear, nonlinear, stochastic, discrete event and queuing models.  The faculty work on a wide variety of applications projects, including automotive powertrain control, manufacturing systems, communication networks, robotics and aerospace systems.  There is an active, inter-departmental control community in the College of Engineering. Faculty in EECS share joint research projects; a seminar series; numerous cross-listed courses; and teaching responsibilities with control faculty in the departments of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.

Accreditation

The Computer Science Engineering program is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.

The Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering programs are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.

Department Administration

Department Chair, ECE Division
Khalil Najafi, Arthur F Thurnau Professor and Schlumberger Professor
2402 Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Building

Department Chair, CSE Division
Marios Papaefthymiou, Ph.D.
3713 Computer Science and Engineering

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