Research

Labs

RF MEMS TRANSDUCER Research Group
Dr. Jing Wang
Website

This research group is working to explore new physics at the nanoscale and apply this knowledge to realizing advanced tools for the biomedical and life sciences. Our group's efforts span from very systematic nanodevice engineering for practical applications, to biological investigations enabled by novel devices and quantum measurements with nanosystems at ultralow temperatures.

RFID Center for Applied Research
Dr. Ismail Uysal
Website

The USF RFID Center for Applied Research is situated along the I-4 corridor which connects key cities and world class universities of the Central Florida High Tech Corridor. The expertise of the research faculty and staff of the RFID Center for Applied Research concentrate around the applications of RFID in transportation, supply chain (cold chain and perishables), and pharmaceuticals. Center researchers have backgrounds in electrical and computer engineering, agricultural and biological engineering, biosystems engineering, food engineering, mechanical engineering and business. Completed and current projects involve various government agencies such as the Department of Defense and United States Department of Agriculture, as well as a variety of industry partners throughout disciplines. Work at the RFID Center for Applied Research aims to be the perfect realization of the vision of USF where academia and industry works together in a collaborative research and teaching environment.

In addition to research projects, the RFID Center for Applied Research provides learning opportunities with undergraduate and graduate level courses. The RFID and NFC Technologies course was first offered in the fall of 2011 under the Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) program and will be offered every Fall semester. The curriculum under development for an undergraduate degree in engineering also includes courses such as: Identification Technologies and Applications, RFID Technology: Theory and Certification, Object and Component Oriented Programming for RFID Application Development, Data Mining and Processing for ID Technologies, and Economics and ROI for RFID Applications. For more information on programs, please contact the center director.

Smart Grid Power Systems Lab
Dr. Lingling Fan & Dr. Zhixin Miao
Website

The Smart Grid Power Systems (SPS) Lab, including faculty members Lingling Fan and Zhixin Miao, has focus areas of modeling and control of wind and solar energy systems, high power electronics applications in smart grids, microgrids and wide area measurement applications. In renewable energy grid integration areas, the lab's research provides analytical tools and power electronic control based solutions to achieve fast and flexible power routing. Research also tackles potential dynamics that could lead to system blackouts. Researchers are currently working on setting up supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for solar PV and battery systems. In wide area measurement applications, the lab's research has the potential to enhance electric system monitoring by real-time dynamic system estimation using state-of-the-art computing hardware and techniques.

The smart grid power system lab is equipped with state-of-the-art power system computer simulation tools, including PSCAD/EMTDC and Matlab/SimPowersystems, on two Dell servers, a digital control (dSpace) based electric drive set with a variety of electric machines, National Instrument data acquisition and real-time control systems, and hardware-in-the-loop test beds based on an Opal-RT real-time digital simulator. The lab is a member of OSIsoft's pioneer program, the Schweitzer Engineering Laboratory university program and JMAG. Industry donations include a $250K PI enterprise system capable of real-time monitoring and archiving, JMAG finite element analysis software packages, and SEL transmission and distribution protection devices. Current research projects are funded through the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. Collaborators include utility companies (Progress Energy and Tampa Electric), transmission organizations (Midwest ISO), manufacturers(Beckwith) and R&D institutes [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Draper Laboratory and Alstom China Center].

Lab student researchers are highly demanded by the industry and R&D institutes. Recent graduates found employment and internships in consulting firms (Pwr Solution at Dallas, Texas) and PNNL.

iCONS (interdisciplinary communications networking and signal processing)
Dr. Ravi Sankar

The iCONS research group, led by Dr. Sankar, conducts research and development in the areas of communications networking, wireless communications, signal processing, and their applications. The group's members comprise of visiting research faculty, post doctoral researchers and Ph.D. student researchers in collaboration with local, national and international researchers. The group is currently involved in projects from the design, development and performance study of wireless networks, as well as applying networking and signal processing for telemedicine and processing. This includes coding and recognition applications in speech, image, biomedical and other signals, as well as integrating intelligent techniques like the use of neural networks and fuzzy logic in the simulation, modeling, and design of high performance and robust systems.

Recent projects include:

• Investigation of opportunistic scheduling in multi-hop wireless relay networks
• Development of wireless social sensor networks in which we investigate how the information gathered by data mining of social networks to collaborate and verify data collected by the traditional wireless sensor networks
• Investigation of methods that can defend against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks in wireless ad-hoc or sensor networks and detect compromised nodes
• The exploration of new signal processing techniques to detect sources of atrial fibrillation (AF), one of the most common arrhythmia encountered in clinical practice
• Development of signal processing and speech recognition algorithms for brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and man-machine interfaces, respectively

As stated in the name of our group, all these projects are of interdisciplinary nature and involve collaborations between engineers, computer scientists, cognitive psychologists, speech scientists and medical doctors. The group's effort is sponsored by several industry partners, local, state and federal agencies.

AMBIR Advanced Materials Bio & Integration Research Laboratory
Dr. Sylvia Thomas
Website

The AMBIR laboratory is focused on investigating advanced materials that can enhance structures and devices used for alternative energy sources, sustainable environments, aerospace aircraft or bio-applications from micro to nano scales. The interdisciplinary research efforts in the AMBIR Lab explore the use of inorganic and organic thin films, as well as synthesizing and integrating advanced materials into nanofibers. The laboratory collaborates with the USF Nanotechnology Research and Education Center (NREC) to fabricate, characterize and test research materials and structures.

Center for Wireless and Microwave Information Systems (WAMI Center)  
Dr. Larry Dunleavy and Dr. Jing Wang Co-Directors
Website

The Center for Wireless and Microwave Information Systems (the WAMI Center) started at the University of South Florida in 1997. For over 20 years, the center has pursued excellence in research and education across many areas of wireless engineering, with a dual focus on advanced hardware technologies and communications systems. The fields of application are diverse and include collaborators in marine science, medicine, transportation, materials science, computer science, mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering. Among its notable achievements, the center has:

• Produced over 400 refereed publications and 50 U.S. patents in just the past 7 years
• Supported approximately 40 Ph.D. and M.S. students per year on a continuing basis
• Created two internationally-recognized instructional laboratories with support from the National Science Foundation
• Established the IEEE Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (WAMICON), an international event hosted in Florida each year that averages ~150 attendees and ~25 industry exhibitors
• Helped bring the IEEE International Microwave Symposium to Tampa in 2014, with the center co-director serving as its general chair, attracting an attendance of approximately 8,000 delegates and exhibitors
• Created Modelithics Inc., the world’s leading provider of microwave CAD models now in its 15th year of operation
• Secured a $120K gift from Mini-Circuits for a series of fellowships and other support
• Helped to secure a $250K donation from Mini-Circuits to establish the Design for X Laboratory in the USF College of Engineering, now used by students across all departments within the college
• Secured the largest in-kind donation in the history of the University of South Florida (Keysight Technologies) resulting in a renaming of the “WAMI Lab” teaching space to the “Keysight Wireless Lab”

Current center activities support a strong research curriculum in wireless, microwave and electromagnetics disciplines. Faculty members are pursuing a wide range of research activities that include advanced antennas, novel 3D printed circuit and system solutions, microwave semiconductor modeling, advanced microwave measurement techniques, digital wireless communications for 5G and IOT among many other areas.

The USF Surface Science Lab 
Dr. Rudy Schlaf 
Website

The Surface Science Lab, led by Dr. Schlaf, focuses on the investigation of phenomena at interfaces involving macro-molecular materials. Macro-molecular materials range from nano-crystalline semiconductors and metals to bio-molecules and electronic polymer materials. These materials are crucial for the development of advanced devices like molecular transistors, plastic solar cells or bio-sensors. The Surface Science Lab uses photoemission spectroscopy integrated with in-vacuum sample preparation methods such as electrospray thin film deposition. Photoemission spectroscopy gives direct insight into the electronic structure of materials. Combined with its high surface sensitivity, detailed information of the interaction between materials at interfaces such as electrical contacts or exciton separation layers in solar cells can be investigated. Such insight is crucial for the development of novel devices and the synthesis of new materials.

Other current projects at the Surface Science Lab include the investigation of spray processes for the rapid fabrication of biosensor substrates, the development of a patterning device for macro-molecular materials and the investigation of atomic layer deposition processes. Most projects at the Surface Science Lab are of interdisciplinary nature and involve collaborations between engineers, chemists, biologists and physicists. Dr. Schlaf's research is currently funded through several National Science Foundation grants. Recent graduates of Dr. Schlaf's group found employment at companies like Solvay Inc., Diehl Defence, or National Instruments. The Surface Science Lab also offers opportunities to undergraduate students to work as research associates within the framework of the College of Engineering Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

iWINLAB In vivo Wireless Information Networking Laboratory 
Dr. Richard Gitlin 
Website

The iWINLAB group focuses on studying novel in vivo channel models and signal processing that will facilitate the creation of new communications protocols accommodating the limitations of implanted devices, which are more restricted, from a communication and computing standpoint, than any devices that have ever been networked by human-created means. This knowledge will be useful to improve the design and implementation of the wirelessly-controlled and communicating Miniature Anchored Robotic Videoscope (MARVEL) video system (i.e., a camera) and other embedded devices that are expected to create a paradigm shift in minimally-invasive surgery. Another area of research is high throughput and robust wireless body area networks (WBANs) that enable information from in vivo devices such the MARVEL camera to be reliably transmitted to external devices through packet-based nodes and gateways that are located on the human body.

Associated faculty members include: Drs. Larry Dunleavy, Jing Wang, Gokhan Mumcu, Sourabh Khandelwal (research faculty), Huseyin Arslan, Stehpen Saddow and Ismail Uysal.