The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering This Report Was Produced with Funds from the Harry Lynde Bradley Foundation

ECE 2009 The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering This report was produced with funds from the Harry Lynde Bradley Foundation.

Photography : Josh Armstrong: p. 5 Rick Griffiths: p. 9 Michael Kiernan: p. 16 John McCormick: pp. 3, 7, 10, 28 Christina O’Connor: pp. 6, 10, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Jim Stroup: pp. 2, 4, 8, 13, 20, 21 Cover illustration by Christina O’Connor. 3 Changing the way electricity is used FEATURES 7 Will Edison win in the end? 8 Removing a barrier to technology transfer 9 Resilient sustainable infrastructures 12 Extreme voltage scaling 16 Next generation genome 20 Cognitive radio goes jammin’ 22 Making assistive technology engineer-friendly

24 Lab-in-a-box goes online 24 Cyber security masters EDUCATION starts in Northern Virginia 25 Dominion donates smart grid equipment 25 Solar-powered sun teaches kids about energy

25 Space@VT RESEARCH 28 Electromagnetics 29 Photonics 30 Embedded systems 32 Computer systems 33 Networking 34 Wireless@VT 36 Power and energy 37 Biomedical applications UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH 15 Seeking the encryption key in sub-threshold voltage circuits 22 Making assistive technology engineer-friendly 30 Creating a visual environment for safety-critical embedded software 34 Improving GPS performance indoors

2 From the Department Head 38 Bradley Fellows 40 Bradley Scholars 42 Ph.D. degrees awarded 43 Corporate & industrial affiliates 44 Donors to ECE 45 ECE industrial advisory board 46 Honors and achievements 48 ECE faculty

Produced by Uncork-it Communications PERfSrom tPhe DEepCarTtmIeVntEHeS ad

s the country seeks energy independence, While our efforts and successes continue to a sustainable infrastructure and an envi - grow, the tremendous growth in faculty since ronmentally friendly lifestyle, much of January of 2005 slowed this year. This fall, we Athe technology needed will be developed welcomed Mike Ruohoniemi and Joseph Baker, by electrical and computer engineers. ECE at Vir - who completed our hiring for the Center for ginia Tech is ready for that challenge. We believe Space Science and Engineering Research. With our work and ideas will also generate opportuni - their arrival, ECE became the lead on the Super - ties and jobs to help build a robust economy. DARN network, an international collaboration Much of the work to be done harkens back to map space weather phenomena. Mike also ob - to the roots of our field – manipulating and trans - tained a new $2 million grant to build more radar mitting power and energy. We take pride that we stations in the United States (p. 27). have one of the largest and oldest power engi - Our faculty members continue to be hon - neering programs in the country. The first “smart ored for their efforts. Sandeep Shukla has just re - grid” technology was built here, and we continue turned from serving as an invited professor at the to be leaders in transmission and power network French National Institute for Computer Science technology. Our engineers are also involved in and Automation. The Homboldt Foundation of developing energy storage technology, alterna - Germany honored him with the prestigious tive energy technology, and technology that re - Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Fellowship for lifetime James S. Thorp duces energy use. achievement within 12 years of completing a Department Head In this issue, you’ll read how a huge 10-year Ph.D. and he will spend the summer in Germany effort by the Center for Power Electronics Sys - as a fellow. In the teaching arena, Jaime de la Ree tems changed power processing with modular was awarded the university Wine Award for a his - electronics technology that can help the country tory of teaching excellence. save 30 percent of its electricity use. You’ll read I offer my thanks to Dan Sable, who finished about Leyla Nazhandali’s NSF CAREER award his second term as the chair of the Advisory Much of the technology (p. 12) that will help her develop technology for Board, and to Gino Manzo, who is the new chair. needed for energy mobile embedded systems to operate at less than Dan was responsible for the early success of our independence, 10 percent of the power they now require. And Space program and Gino hopes to make a similar sustainable don’t miss the article on how Lamine Mili, impact on our microelectronics program. Sandeep Shukla, and Yilu Liu are working to ex - I will be retiring this summer, but intend to infrastructure, and tend complex systems theory to making our stay in Blacksburg and take advantage of all the environmentally power and communications infrastructures more nation’s new-found interest in research in energy. friendly lifestyles resilient (p. 9). I leave the ECE Department in good hands. In the communications area, Tamal Bose, We conducted a national search for department will be developed co-director of Wireless@VT is involved in sev - head this year and had several strong and exciting by electrical and eral stimulus projects with Virginia firms (see candidates. We are delighted that our own Scott computer engineers. p. 20). Wireless@VT is also building the largest Midkiff has accepted the position. Scott is an ex - ECE at Virginia Tech cognitive radio network testbed in the country, cellent choice to lead the department to increased installing nodes in a new building on campus. stature and future success as we tackle the tech - is ready for ECEs are also critical to solutions in bio - nological issues the country faces today. that challenge. medical applications. On page 16 we describe how Yue (Joseph) Wang is applying bioinformat - ics and systems theory to unravel the mysteries of cancer and other diseases.

2 CHANGING THE WAY ELECTRICITY IS USED decade ago, Virginia Tech power electronics researchers adopted three verbs – standardize, modularize, and inte - Power grate – and developed a concept that not only triggered a multi-university, multi-million-dollar center, but also impacted billions of dollars of commercial technology Aand has the potential to slash U.S. electrical use by up to electronics 33 percent. Power electronics is the use of electronic circuits to convert and control electricity. The technology is used to process and convert can slash raw, generated electricity into the voltage, wave form, and type (ac or dc) needed by today’s machines, motors, and electronic equip - ment. In 1998, power electronics was a $60-billion industry world - electricity wide that impacted another $570 billion in hardware electronic sales. Power electronics systems were typically custom-designed, non- standard units containing 300-400 electronic components. They use 33% were expensive and required long development times, plus there was little integration and fairly low reliability, according to Fred Lee, director of the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES).

The integrated power module In the late ’90s, Virginia Tech’s power electronics researchers were tackling a problem for Intel, trying to boost the speed of the power processing so the Pentium II chip could achieve its design speed. The solution came from “taking the complicated solution and breaking it into small, modular pieces, then making it scalable,” Lee says. “We gave the idea – the multi-phase voltage regu - lator module (VRM) – to industry and today every mi - croprocessor in the world is powered by the technology.” The VRM, he says, helped to revitalize the U.S. power electronics industry. During the ’90s, power sup - ply manufacturing was being moved offshore with the rest of electronics equipment. “The industry was bot - tom-line oriented, and there was little focus on research. Today, just the power modules for microprocessors alone comprise a couple billion-dollar industry.” The VRM success triggered the Virginia Tech team to propose Right: Fred Lee, director of the that power electronics technology for all-sized electrical applications, Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) and co-director from aircraft to portable phones, could be made more efficient by Dushan Boroyevich, left. integrating intelligent power electronics modules (IPEM). The con - cept met with approval among researchers and industry.

3 quired technical advances in mul - tiple areas simultaneously, from semiconductor adhesives, to sys - tem integration models. In pur - suing these advances, CPES has generated more than 1700 tech - nical papers, theses, and disserta - tions, 131 invention disclosures, 50 patents, and 331 licenses. CPES demonstrated the first IPEM in 2000 and the concept moved quickly into the market - place. Today, many power elec - tronics firms manufacture some version of an IPEM, according to Lee. The concept has seen the most impact in three applica - tions, he says: motor drives, elec - tronic ballasts, and information Long-term NSF support Integrated Power Electronics technology. These are also three applications that Modules (IPEM) developed at In 1998, the Virginia Tech researchers teamed can have the most impact on energy consumption. CPES that could improve effi - up with power electronics researchers at the Uni - ciency and reliability of future versity of Wisconsin-Madison and advanced Motor drives electric energy systems while power semiconductor researchers at Rensselaer Motor drives account for about 50 percent of decreasing costs. The top Polytechnic Institute to form CPES, one of 20 En - the electricity use in the United States and have IPEM uses embedded power gineering Research Centers (ERC) sponsored by been a targeted application for IPEMs since the technology and the bottom the National Science Foundation (NSF). They start, with a focus on variable-speed motors. Vari - uses flex power. were joined by researchers at North Carolina A&T able-speed drives that match the output to the load State University and the University of Puerto can often achieve an energy reduction of 30-35 Rico-Mayagüez, institutions with solid reputa - percent. The larger motor drives that power fac - tions in undergraduate engineering and power tories and large equipment typically use variable electronics-related research. speed technology. However, smaller applications, “This is an enabling technology that could such as residential air conditioning and other have such high impact for both energy savings home appliances, typically do not use variable- and U.S. industry, that it was a perfect can - speed drives in this country, according to Lee. didate for long-term funding,” Lee explains. “A constant-speed drive has a cheaper instal - NSF ERC funding was a 10-year commit - lation cost, even though it costs 30 percent more in ment, contributing $30 million to the ef - energy use,” he explains. In Europe and Japan, fort. Another $47 million was contributed where energy costs are higher, manufacturers offer by industry partners and other funding agencies. variable-speed equipment, and Lee expects more offerings in the United States, now that IPEMs are The paradigm shift reducing the initial purchase cost. The paradigm shift from custom, complex The development of motor drives with inte - systems to modular, integrated building blocks re - grated power electronics is a major success for the

4 Standardize Modularize Integrate

CPES integration concept, Lee says. “The Univer - portable electronics, including cell phones, PDAs sity of Wisconsin had the strongest reputation in and GPS systems, that’s another multibillion dol - U.S. motor drives research,” he explains. “Once lar industry zeroing in on the same solution.” they started working with the IPEM concept, the The technology is currently being incorpo - Wisconsin researchers developed a unique modu - rated in the telecomm industry, he says. “It’s such lar integrated approach in the motor. A motor was an obvious solution, whether it is wireless or always a ‘lump of iron,’ plus a separate electronics wired. When we came up with the multiphase drive. Now, Wisconsin has an approach that inte - idea, power supplies in switchboards were very grates both parts together. They sliced the power customized with no standardization.” The old electronics functions into pieces and integrated the switchboards had converters that converted 48 drive module with the motor module. This is a volts to various other voltages, he explains. huge advance.” “Today, they are leveraging the VRM technolo - gies and infrastructure developed for computers. Electronic ballasts They no longer need the highly customized and The country’s second biggest use of electric - bulky 48 volts dc-dc converters often referred to ity – 20 percent – is in lighting. As the United as ‘bricks’ in the switchboard, and the industry is States moves away from incandescent lighting, saving 15 to 25 percent in the cost of telecomm more lights will be using ballasts, which are used in power equipment.” fluorescent, LED, and other lighting. In 2002, So many CPES developed IPEM technology for electronic firms are using ballasts for high intensity discharge (HID) lamps the concept that and continues to develop technology to replace it is very hard to magnetic ballasts with power electronics. quantify the im - “With our developments, the electronic bal - pact of the idea last can now compete in cost with magnetic bal - that triggered lasts, and it is small enough to fit into the lamp the technology, fixture,” Lee says. “This will lead to even greater he says. energy savings.” He cites Tech’s recent replace - ment of all the ballasts on campus with electronic Power devices and the resulting 30 percent savings in elec - electronics tricity usage. education The NSF Information technology funds an ERC Computing technology consumes between for 10 years, av - 10-15 percent of the country’s electricity. Starting eraging about with the success of the VRM, the CPES integrated 15 such centers at any one time. The goal of the Fred Wang, right, with student module concept has taken off throughout the ERC program is not just scientific and technolog - Luis Arnedo, is applying the computing industry, Lee says. “We proved the ical advancement, but also technology transfer and modularized power electronics concept with the VRM for microprocessors, then increasing the diversity of the scientific and engi - technology to high-power similar technology was developed for memory, neering workforce. CPES has been cited as a model applications that range from tens of kW to megawatts of servers, and other components. All the solutions ERC for both education/outreach and for indus - power. Applications include are evolving around scalability, modularity, stan - trial collaboration and technology transfer. ships, factories, homes, and dardization, and integration. When you add in the The technology transfer is evident not just in even microgrids. movement to incorporating the technology in the commercialization of so much technology

5 based on the CPES concept, Lee says, but also clude a 3.5 kW wind-turbine generator, 5 kW PV through the 149 industrial internships and 250 tech - solar panels, a lithium-ion battery bank for energy nology transfer activities. “One of our own meas - storage and a hybrid electric car with bidirectional ures of success was to see the technology moved energy flow. quickly to market,” he says. University of Wisconsin researchers are devel - When the ERC was first formed, few students oping a high-frequency (400 Hz or greater) ac power across the country specialized in power electronics. distribution testbed. With a high-frequency ac ar - In its 10 years of operation, CPES graduated 105 chitecture, low-cost frequency converters can be Ph.D. students and 181 master’s students. The cen - used to efficiently power key motors in a home, ter developed 15 new power electronics courses and such as the furnace fan, air conditioner compressor 27 distance courses across the five universities, plus and fan, refrigerator, and heat pumps. The use of instituted an undergraduate minor to encourage un - high-frequency systems may also reduce the cost of dergraduates to enter the field. lighting converters while enabling the use of com - mercial-grade ac switchgear and protection devices. Next up: sustainable buildings Rensselaer researchers are developing an inte - The NSF ERC funding ended in 2008, but the grated energy system architecture that can provide five CPES universities plan to continue collaborat - and optimize the energy supply to portable enter - ing. “Almost unanimously, we all want to stick to - tainment and information appliances. The energy gether and work on energy efficiency. We want to system module will be able to interact simultane - tackle alternative and energy efficiency solutions,” ously with multiple energy sources, such as energy- Lee says, “and we believe that future, sustainable harvesting MEMs, solar cells, and micro-fuel cells. buildings is an ideal application.” CPES researchers expect these efforts and oth - Virginia Tech researchers are developing a dc- ers to have a major role in the country’s transition power distribution testbed, with a high-voltage to sustainable development. “Our goal is to develop (~300 V) bus powering HVAC, simulated kitchen electronics that can reduce electricity use while en - loads, and other major appliances; and a low-voltage abling new technologies to evolve,” Lee concludes. (48 V) bus that coincides with telecommunications and computer loads. The system’s energy sources in -

6 WILL EDISON WIN IN THE END?

“Hell, there are no rules here— we're trying to accomplish something.” —Thomas Edison

dison was probably right: we should use dc distribution sys - tems, says Fred Lee, director of the Center for Power Elec - Etronics (CPES) and a University Distinguished Professor. “Using dc probably makes better sense today because of power electronics and alternative energy sources,” he says. “To run a motor today, you start with power from the ac grid and you first rectify the ac into dc,” he explains. “When you rectify, you need to make a power factor correction to make sure your current works with the voltage, in phase and with a compatible wave shape.” Without this correction, 130 watts that come into the home may only contain 100 that are usable. “That’s a total waste,” Lee says. “Taking ac, rectifying it to dc, then inverting it into ac again for a variable speed drive … “Using dc probably makes better sense today because that process is totally unnecessary with dc power and alterna - of power electronics and tive energy sources.” alternative energy sources.” He cites another example: “Computers all run on low volt - —Fred Lee age. The first thing we do is convert our ac power to 400 V, then convert it into the 12 or so volts needed by the computer. Every conversion wastes energy. If I work with dc directly, I can save all that wasted energy.” The ac infrastructure took 100 years to build and would back to ac. The ac then flows into the servers. Then, each server take years to change, he admits. He expains, however, that off- takes the ac and rectifies it into dc. “You could probably save 20 the-grid or power sub-systems may be cost-effective in the near percent of the electricity by eliminating those conversions. If you future using dc systems. add the heat and air conditioning, you can definitely save more A large data center could be converted to a dc sub-system, than 20 percent,” he says for example. “Data centers were all built without considering “It’s all talk right now; nobody is doing anything commer - the optimal power system. The internet era erupted so abruptly cially,” he adds. that they quickly grabbed components off the shelf and set them CPES researchers are exploring the concept of dc systems up,” he says. with a new dc distribution testbed being established in Whitte - Right now, data centers using utility ac install an online more Hall. Four rooms are being converted into a “living lab” for uninterruptible power supply to make the data center fault tol - students, faculty and staff, with a conference room, library/lounge, erant. They take the ac voltage, convert it to dc, then invert it kitchen, and utility room.

7 REMOVING A BARRIER TO TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

PES has developed an in - searchers and interested indus - ganize a teleconference, and ask tellectual property (IP) trial firms, according to Lee. for a vote. If the IPPF members process that is almost as Furthermore, universities typi - determine it is worthwhile and Cfast as industry’s and may cally claim ownership of all IP has market value, VTIP sends developed in their labs, but do the patent information to a not always have the resources or patent lawyer. The legal ex - market knowledge to select penses are paid from the IPPF. which inventions to pursue. “Now, there is no delay; we are In some fast-moving fields almost as fast as industry,” Lee like electronics, speed can be an noted. issue. Lee says he recalls several Each of the IPPF members cases in which his team lost the gets non-exclusive, royalty-free patents on discoveries. “We like access to the IP (without addi - to publish our research discov - tional cost or licensing fees). ery as fast as we can to help our “Engineers can use the technol - graduate students. If we can’t ogy without involving corpo - protect the idea quickly, then it rate lawyers and without having becomes public domain. This is to develop their own propri - how we set our priorities.” etary technology. The firms can In 2003, CPES instituted a use the technology in any way new IP process that taps expert - they desire, and we don’t have to ise from industry partners and go back and monitor it,” Lee helps university technology said. Firms that leave the pro - move quickly into commercial - gram do not get any new IP in - ization. Funding for patents is formation developed afterward. contributed by a group of in - “We won’t get personally CPES has been be adaptable for other university dustrial partners called “Princi - wealthy with this process, but it cited by the research groups, according to pal Members, and Principal is very good for our program,” National Science CPES Director Fred Lee. Members Plus,” who each con - Lee said. CPES receives gener - The NSF has cited CPES as tribute $5,000 a year above and ous industrial membership con - Foundation a model Engineering Research beyond their respective mem - tributions in excess of $1.5 as a model Center for technology transfer bership contribution. Those million a year. The system also Engineering and industry collaboration. Lee funds are then pooled to estab - negates the need to protect IP, says he suspects part of the lish the Intellectual Property he said. “As university profes - Research Center CPES technology transfer suc - Protection Fund (IPPF). sors, we don’t really want to sue for technology cess is due to the novel process it “Working with Virginia a company.” transfer and has developed for patents and Tech Intellectual Properties The system has worked industry invention disclosures. (VTIP), we have established a well, he said. Currently, 32 The interests of protecting very effective process,” Lee said. firms are Principal Members and outreach. IP while publishing research re - When a CPES researcher devel - Principal Members Plus. sults in a timely manner often ops technology that may have Visit www.cpes.vt.edu for conflict. IP issues sometimes IP value, we send the informa - more information. frustrate both academic re - tion to the IPPF members, or -

8 RESILIENT SINUFSRATSATRINUCATBURLEE S

hile smart grids, microgrids, and even dc-power grids are being discussed to improve the nation’s infra - structure, a team led by ECE researchers is exploring how a complex systems perspective can make power and communications networks less vulnerable to cat - Wastrophic failures. They hope to ultimately develop a safety net that incorporates local alternative energy generation and energy retail markets. The $2-million effort, headed by ECE Professor Lamine Mili, is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under its Emerg - ing Frontiers in Research and Innovation program. ECE’s Sandeep Shukla is a co-principal investigator (PI), along with Michael von Spakovsky of mechanical engineering, Benjamin Hobbs of Johns Hopkins and Arnold Urken of Stevens Institute of Technology. ECE Professor Yilu Liu is also on the project. “Our goal is to improve the resilience of interdependent com - plex networks, such as power and communications, when facing cat - astrophic failures and natural disasters,” Mili said. (Continued on next page.)

9 “...the local microgrids could tap the smaller amounts from alternative energy sources to keep the lights on locally...”

“Currently, the monitoring, protection, and control of electric power systems rely heavily on computer-based communications net - works. Consequently, the failure of one can affect the functioning of the other. A series of cascading events may have a catastrophic impact on the whole society,” he explained. The risk of such events is in - creasing, he said, because of the current trend in operating infra - structure systems closer to their stability and capacity limits.

Simple rules grow complex systems When viewed locally, complex systems seem to have grown by basic simple rules, explained Shukla, who is a co-PI. “For example, a network grows by simply connecting another node to existing nodes, or a forest grows by having its seed grow more trees in its neighborhood,” he said. “Such simple local phenomena give rise to very complex dynamics.” Fractals are an example of such a system. Complex systems that develop without central planning are usually tolerant of defects and faults that are expected or planned for, but are not resilient to unanticipated problems. “Such systems are Lamine Mili susceptible to cascading failure – like a wide area blackout on the power grid – where a failure in one location spreads through domino effect to cover larger and larger parts of the system,” Shukla said.

Extending the HOT model The problem gets more complicated when two systems are intertwined, as with the power and communications networks. The team has selected the highly optimized tolerance (HOT) model, which was developed for a single complex system, and plans Sandeep Shukla to extend it to accommodate the interdependencies of the power and communications systems subject to cascading events within and across these infrastructures. They will validate their new models with data from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and from Central Florida and Southern Brazil testbeds. “The reason for such modeling,” Shukla said, “is that by un - derstanding the dynamics, we can take safety measures against the unanticipated failures.” Since both the communication network and Yilu Liu the power grid are complex systems and have cascading failure pos - sibilities, “we have to optimally place guards to contain the failure lo - cally. This must be done in a way that the cost of guarding for fault containment does not exceed the projected cost of failure. In our costs, we include resources, dollars, and human lives,” Shukla said. Once the possibilities and vulnerabilities can be measured and protective actions identified, a computerized control system will be developed. The team from Stevens Institute of Technology is work -

10 ing on software agents and decision theories that will enforce the protection mechanism, look for vulnerabilities and make decisions about emerging problems.

Microgrids with alternative energy sources The team anticipates that local distribution grids incorporating non-traditional energy sources – called microgrids – may be part of their strategy, according to Shukla. “In a cascading blackout, if a part of the power grid gets disassociated from the rest of the grid, the local microgrids could tap the smaller amounts from alternative energy sources to keep the lights on locally,” he said. Furthermore, they will provide a power system with an enhanced level of resiliency that will enable it to recover from a blackout in a speedy and less costly way. A sustainable power grid involves not just reliability and resiliency issues, but also environmental and economical issues. Michael Von Spakovsky of mechanical engineering is exploring various sce - narios of fuel mix and technologies that are more efficient and generating less pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. The revenue model for such locally generated energy provided by local energy sources should be economically viable without public subsidies. So, economists and environmentalists from Johns Hopkins are on the team, working on new environmentally friendly electric energy market models. “We expect the communication network to play a crucial role, as the price of microgrid-enabled energy will be based on auction strategies in virtual markets and the price negotiations will be done over the microgrid’s associated communication network,” Shukla said.

Meeting the grand challenge All of the efforts, from network stability to auction markets and environmental assessment, are needed to meet what Mili calls the Fractals are well known representations of complex grand challenge. “We need to discover how to design, manage, and systems. The two shown here describe the dynamics and operate in a robust and sustainable manner such a complex mul - complexity of the power system. Top: A low resolution tilayered system of systems, where each layer contains millions of representation of a true fractal, showing that the compu - components switching on and off in a random manner and spreads tations in the power system are not necessarily clear cut. over a continental or global scale,” he said. Bottom: A truncated fractal color coded according to “This work will provide a basis for using the communications where the energy flows.

11 90%+ Less EXTREME VOLTAGE Energy SCALING CE’s Leyla Nazhandali hopes to cut the energy consumption of Improving security of some embedded systems by more than 90 percent with an ex - Etreme version of a well-known power-saving mode that is cur - embedded systems rently used in many digital devices including laptops. She is applying subthreshold voltage technique, which she expects will also improve while cutting energy the security of embedded microprocessors by protecting them from power side channel attacks. use by 90%+ She received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award to support her ef - forts. CAREER grants are NSF’s most prestigious awards for cre - ative junior faculty members who are considered likely to become academic leaders.

Operating in the twilight zone In subthreshold operation, the voltage is reduced below the level that turns transistors on and off. “Subthreshold voltage technique can be considered the extreme case of voltage scaling, which lowers the voltage source of the hardware,” she says. “As you reduce the voltage, energy consumption is reduced quadratically. That is a very good gain for what you are losing.” Traditional voltage scaling typically is limited to about half the circuit’s nominal operating voltage. In subthreshold-voltage design, however, the voltage is reduced below the level needed to turn the system on. “Designers typically avoid this twilight zone region,” she ex - plains. When you operate in this region, the switch is not completely off and you are left with leakage current.” The transistors are not switching as usual, but are able to com - plete the computation by modulating the leakage current that passes through them. “Your computation is fine, it’s just much slower,” she com - ments. “In fact, the performance degradation becomes exponential in subthreshold region as you lower the voltage.”

12 Parallel construction Subthreshold-voltage operation with its unique advantage of lowering the power consumption by several orders of magnitude has opened new avenues of low-power design, according to Nazhandali. Most of the work to date has been simple FFT chips and micro - processors with low performance. “They have been targeted for ap - plications that can tolerate a low speed, such as environmental or structural health monitoring sensors that wake up once a day, then go back to sleep,” she explains. Her goal is to achieve the energy savings through subthreshold operation, but boost the performance by using parallel coprocessors – making it possible for applications such as image and signal pro - cessing. “The subthreshold cores combined will deliver the per - formance expected from a single superthreshold core while collectively consuming less than 10 percent of its power consump - tion,” she says. Top: Leyla Nazhandali won an NSF CAREER award to pursue Nazhandali’s team simulated a prototype design for a popular work in subthreshold voltage investigations. DSP application. Using the same settings as a superthreshold em - Bottom: Nazhandali prepares a circuit board for a hands-on bedded system, the multi-processor system at subthreshold will last unit to introduce younger students to embedded systems 30 days running on a AA battery. The compar- (Continued on p. 15) technology and design.

13 Encouraging women in computer engineering

very CAREER grant has an educational component, and Nazhandali’s goal is to encourage women and underrepresented Egroups to pursue studies in computer engineering. “The under- participation of women and minorities in computer engineering sig - nificantly impacts society,” she says. “It threatens the competitive vitality of the workforce and the profession, limits the creativity of future technologies, and restricts employment opportunities of more than half the U.S. population.” From a number of studies on the issue, she has concluded that illustrating how computer engineers benefit society is important to SMART VEHICLE PROJECT recruiting and retaining women students. “We suspect this is im - Students are asked to program a “smart” portant for all other students as well,” she says. She also believes that car that was built by Nazhandali’s team a lack of role models and mentorship is an important reason why to achieve several tasks including steer - women leave the field. ing over a curvy black line. The car To combat this problem, she is developing an outreach program sports two independently controlled she calls “embedded for life.” Her team is developing three discov - motors. By turning one motor slower ery-based teaching modules for pre-college and early college stu - than another, the car can steer left or dents. Each module presents a problem that can be solved with right. The car has two infrared sensors embedded systems and offers a hands-on project that engages stu - that can detect if they are over the black dents in problem solving with embedded systems. line. The students do not need program - The first module involves highway safety, discussing embedded ming skills and only need to solve the systems such as anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, and problem in general terms, such as decid - cruise control. Students then are asked to program a “smart” car to ing which motor should run faster. steer along a black line. Another module describes using biometrics for security authentication and involves the students in work with Students eventually improve on their photo sensors and simplified fingerprints. solution as they try to increase the Nazhandali is arranging for the modules to be used with ongo - speed of the car and steer through ing Virginia Tech campus outreach programs sponsored by the Na - sharper turns. In addition to learning tional Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers, about how embedded microprocessors Association of Women in Computing, and Center for Enhancement can better our lives, the students dis - of Engineering Diversity. The modules will also be offered at the cover actual physical constraints when national level in collaboration with the IEEE Teacher in Service Pro - designing such systems, including the gram. tradeoff between speed of the car and The smart vehicle project won an IEEE Real World Engineer - accuracy of steering. ing Award in 2007 and is posted at www.realworldengineering.org .

14 Freshman engineering students work with the smart vehicle project developed by Nazhandali.

SEEKING THE ENCYRYPTION KEY IN SUB-THRESHOLD VOLTAGE CIRCUITS Nazhandali meets with Steven Griffin, an undergradu - ate working in her laboratory. Griffin spent last semester using attack techniques to attempt to discover the encryption key in sub-threshold voltage circuits. This semester, he is developing a hands-on project for high school students to illustrate how important encryption is to everyday life. Griffin says that doing research as an undergraduate helps the students learn the skills they’ve used “while develop - ing new and cutting edge ideas that may even have real world applications.”

able conventional superthreshold system will last 10-12 days. “That’s power consumption of a device running at subthreshold. Plus, we a big difference. The longer battery use is particularly important in can drown out the subthreshold operation with higher power else - applications where battery access is difficult, such as heart defibril - where and still remain in low power.” lators or remote operations,” she says. While the energy savings are significant, there are several chal - E-passports and credit cards lenges to overcome with her technique. Her 16-core system is six While subthreshold technology can improve security and en - times larger than a conventional system. “We are working to im - ergy use, it is slower than conventional operation. “We are initially prove this, but the larger chips will still be the same size or smaller targeting applications where security is important, but speed is than the battery. When you add the sensors, the chip size becomes not,” she says. even less important,” she says. Potential applications include hand- She suggests e-passports and credit cards as ideal candidates for held land mine detectors and security cameras. the technology. “Being low-power is an important factor for e- passports as they are either running on a small battery that should Thwarting side channel attacks last as long as the passport is not expired or they are getting power Saving energy isn’t Nazhandali’s only goal. She also wants to from tiny amounts of remotely induced power. However, speed is improve the security of embedded systems. She expects her tech - not critical because the interview and questions take longer than nique will help protect against power side channel attacks in which processing the passport,” she explains. “When security is very high, the secret key and data can be inferred by analyzing the power con - you are able to compromise on speed.” sumption pattern. Before the technology can be widely used in any application, “In subthreshold operation, there are fewer peaks, because most however, “we need to develop architectures that can exploit the of the power is leakage power. The power profile is not as revealing concept, along with design and simulation tools,” she says. as with superthreshold technology,” she explains. “We can more eas - Nazhandali is collaborating with fellow ECE CAREER award ily hide the information that is given away by power consumption in recipient Patrick Schaumont on the security issues. “This is one of regular designs.” the wonderful aspects of Virginia Tech,” she says. “I wasn’t in - Her designs and architectures are partitioned into security-crit - volved in security issues, but after talking with him about his work ical and non-critical regions, with security-critical running at sub - on side-channel attacks, I realized my technique had strong security threshold voltage. “You need very sensitive tools in order to measure potential.”

15 NEXT GENERATION GENOME

ancer is notoriously different for every patient. Many men who get prostate cancer die of other causes before the cancer grows harmful. Other prostate cancers are ag - gressive, grow quickly, and spread to other parts of the body. Ovarian cancer, although noted for its lethal char - Cacter, also has variable degrees of aggressiveness. If doc - tors could know the aggressiveness of each patient’s cancer, treatment could be tailored for better results. A team of ECE researchers led by Yue (Joseph) Wang has helped identify biomarkers that can differentiate between aggressive and slow growing prostate cancers and between different levels of ag - gressiveness in ovarian cancers. Wang’s group at ECE’s Computational Bioinformatics and Bio- imaging Laboratory (CBIL) applies electrical and computer engi - neering methodologies, computational, and modeling tools to solve biomedical problems that influence cancer and diabetes, and to gain a deeper understanding of the structure and function of the genome. Wang collaborates with medical researchers at Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and Wake Forest universities as well as with National Chil - dren’s Hospital. CBIL is based at the Advanced Research Institute (ARI) in Ar - lington, Va. and its faculty and students conduct about $1.2 million in research each year.

16 NEXT GENERATION GENOME

A team of ECE researchers led by Yue (Joseph) Wang has helped identify biomarkers that can differentiate between aggressive and slow growing prostate cancers and between different levels of aggressiveness in ovarian cancers.

Biomarkers for aggressive cancers The biomarkers for aggressive prostate and ovarian cancers are based on different copy numbers of a segment of DNA. Humans should normally have two copies of each strand of DNA, Wang ex - plains, one from each parent. “This is a nice, built-in redundancy that engineers can appreciate. It helps keep our system stable,” he says. “If one copy gets deleted for some reason, you still have a copy to sustain normal function.” Researchers continue to delve deeper in the human genome and recently discovered that strands of DNA segments can get partially or completely deleted (or in contrast amplified) and that many dif - ferences can exist between populations and individuals. These changes can be inherited and are called copy number variation (CNV), or, if they occur through local mutations after birth, they are called copy number alternations (CNAs). Copy number changes can cause disease. Wang provides an ex - ample of critical cancer suppressor genes in the human body: “If that gene or part of that gene has been deleted, the person’s risk of The two figures cancer increases. If one copy is deleted, the person may be ok, but if shown here and both get deleted, the person will almost definitely get cancer.” on the opposite Cancer genes – called oncogenes – also exhibit copy number page show potential changes. “Once a person has cancer, the cancer evolves and the onco - patterns of metastatic gene gets amplified. A gene may have three, four, or five copies,” he prostate cancer spread. says. “We have seen either some deletions or amplification in differ - The team reports in a ent DNA segments.” Spring 2009 Nature The segments contain sequences of nucleotide base pairs, whose Medicine article that measured hybridization intensities can be treated as signals by elec - their results show trical and computer engineers. Wang’s team applies signal process - most, if not all, ing, pattern recognition, and computational modeling to analyze metastatic prostate the sequences in the cancer genes to extract the gene copy number cancers have clonal differences. “What we do is to identify where those changes occur origins. and how often,” he says. (Continued on p. 18)

17 Wang is collaborating with three groups on pair of DNA. When a single nucleotide, an A, C, this problem. Working with Dr. Steve Bova at G, or T in the genome is different between mem - Johns Hopkins, the team is investigating the pat - bers of a population, it is called a single nucleotide terns in copy number changes between metastatic polymorphism, or SNP (pronounced snip). prostate cancers across subjects. “Our research shows that the copy number changes are structural Genetic information as signals markers,” he says. The results of this research will Wang’s team has several projects using bioin - be published in the up-coming issue of Nature formatics to analyze SNPs. They are working with Medicine. Wake Forest researchers (a team led by Dr. David Wang is also working with Dr. Ie-Ming Shih Herrington) to understand SNP influence on car - at Johns Hopkins on ovarian cancer. The team col - diovascular disease and (with a team led by Donald lected a group of patients that have highly aggres - Bowden) in populations with high incidence of di - sive and less aggressive ovarian cancers. “Our abetes, such as African Americans and Hispanics. analysis clearly revealed that the copy number They are also working with Eric Hoffman at Chil - changes or the mathematically defined genomic dren’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. to instability index clearly can differentiate between study diabetes in young children. “Because of the aggressive and less aggressive forms of ovarian can - morbidity of metabolic syndrome, diabetes is in - cer,” he says. The research will be published in the creasingly important. We want to understand it upcoming issue of Cancer Research. and find ways to prevent and treat it,” Wang says. GC CG Wang is involved in a third study of the copy The difficulty with SNP research is its com - AA C T A ACnumber analyses with a group at Wake Forest Uni - plexity, Wang says, noting that there are an esti - TT C G A T TGversity led by Dr. Jianfeng Xu. Instead of studying mated 3 billion nucleotides in the human genome. G GC metastasis, they are exploring whether they can “When we first worked analyzing genes with mi - identify the genetic origin of the prostate cancer, croarrays, we dealt with about 30,000 genes and that is the consensus regions in relation to either had to find the 50 genes responsible for the issue oncogenes or cancer suppressor genes. being studied,” he says. Gene chip technology has 1 changed dramatically in the past five years to SNP Next generation genome where an SNP microarray can process 1 million 2 Wang’s work with copy number changes SNPs, “and we have to find 10-15 causal SNPs. It’s stems from a broader effort called the next gener - extremely difficult if not impossible.” ation genome. “When the mapping of the human The combined effects of SNPs add to the C G genome was completed, we thought that the basic complexity of the problem. “When we find two, CG building blocks were known and we just needed or three, or five SNPs working together, we can AA T T A AC to figure out how they worked,” Wang says. With identify their nonlinear, higher order interactions TT C A A T TG G microarray technologies, researchers began study - within relevant biological pathways. We are still at GC ing downstream effects, such as gene expression, the beginning of understanding the form and proteomics, and metabolism and changes in the order of the complex gene-gene or gene-environ - cell. ment interactions,” Wang says. The molecules that make up DNA “We hoped we could use reverse engineering A SNP sequence, or signal, is intrinsically dig - are called nucleotides, repre - and the vast new measurement capability to un - ital, according to Wang. “They are not continu - sented by the letters A, C, G, and derstand the initiation and progression of disease. ous. This makes it a good, firm playground for us T. When the sequence of nu - It turns out it may not be so simple,” he says. “In electrical and computer engineers,” he says. Some - cleotides differs between two or the past eight years, biomedical researchers have times even a single SNP or a subset of SNPs cannot more genomes, it is called a single made many discoveries, but unfortunately, all the explain the whole issue, so researchers look at the nucleotide polymorphism or SNP biomarkers from molecular analysis can only ex - construct’s alterations. “We need to look at how (pronounced snip). plain less than 15 percent of common diseases.” and which part of the genomic waveform or se - Now, many researchers are going back to the quence they have changed,” he says. genome again, studying sequencing. “We’ve come Wang’s dream is a personalized medicine in full circle,” Wang says. The next generation se - which doctors can precisely determine how an in - quencing is moving in multiple directions. One is dividual patient’s cancer or other disease will be - the copy number variation. Another is the investi - have, then target a precise treatment plan based on gation of differences on a single nucleotide base expected outcomes. He is working to help achieve

18 that dream, but also enjoys the fun of solving a later,” he explains. “Some girls have denser breasts, mystery. “I have so much curiosity about the indicating that development wasn’t as complete. biological system,” he says. Why is that a higher risk? Because that particular person has a lot of stem cells left over.” Stem cells Decoding the genome’s software can easily become any kind of cell, including That curiosity is leading him into a third area cancer. of research called epigenetics, which he describes as the software of biology. “The genome, the DNA, thed ownstreame ffects on gene expressions, proteins, and metabolic processes — thos eare al lthe hardware”, he says. “We know little about the software that works on the combined genetic and envi - ronmental base to determine various complex phenotypes.” Wang and his wifeh ave sons that rae iden - tical twins. “They have identical DNA and come from the same cell, but they are not the same person. This is an indication that the hardware of the genome in the cell nuclei does not determine everything,” he says. He is interested in helping to figure out the mechanisms that guide the human genome to develop a complete organism. “This is going to be challenging,” he says. He describes two mechanisms that researchers currently suspect might explain how the software works with the hardware to determine which characteristics are expressed by the genome in a particular cell, organism, or individual. One mechanism, called methylation, could control how a gene is turned on or off. The other mechanism, called histone modification, can affect a gene’s activity level. “This is the fine tuning mechanism.” Wang’s dream is a personalized Wang is developing a project with Leena Clarke medicine in which doctors can of Georgetown University Hospital to in - precisely determine how vestigate the epigenetics effect on breast cancer. an individual patient’s cancer “We want to figure out how the software works so The transformation from stem cell into or other disease will behave, that a prevention strategy can be developed,” he mammary gland cell would be heavily affected by then target a precise treatment says. The epigene tics effect would occur during the epigenetics.“ If ther egulators– D NAm ethy - plan based on expected outcomes. developmental phases. “Epigenetics are more active lation or histone modification – malfunction, we during youth – when the human genome is trying end up with enough leftover stem cells to cause to develop a fully mature human being.” During problems later,” he says. “We are trying to in - puberty, epigenetics are active in transforming stem vestigate which markers, which segment of DNA, cells into mature mammary glands. is affected by methylation or modifications.” “We believe that if the development during Wang describes how many areas of in - puberty is complete, which is normal de - vestigationh aveo pened up for electrical and computer velopment, there is much less risk of breast cancer engineers in biomedical research. “We face an For more information: www.cbil.ece.vt.edu

19 COGNITIVE JARADMIO MGOEISN ’

According to the Cyberstates 2008 report by the AeA (formerly American Electronics Association), Virginia has the highest density of high-tech workers in the country. Initiatives across the state aim to build on this base and develop the technol - ogy that keeps Virginia firms competitive. ECE’s Tamal Bose is working on two projects with firms in central Virginia — jammers for IEDs and remote kill switches with geolocation technology.

rom jamming radio- triggered explosives to building the country’s first-of-its-kind cogni - tive radio testbed, Tamal FBose is applying signal processing technology to business Tamal Bose (left) and Jeff Reed (right). demands of today and to the needs of tomorrow’s technology. Tamal Bose is an expert in Bose’s team is working on signal processing, with jamming and kill-switch technol - mers that don’t wipe out the entire frequency band,” he said. “In - funding support from ogy that will help build the tech - stead, the jammer can look at the statistical properties of the signal NASA, NSF, CAER, Rock - nology and competitive base of and decide what to jam and what not to jam. They learn from their well Collins, U.S. Army, Virginia firms. The projects are past experience in the radio environment.” DISA, and ICTAS. funded by the Center for Ad - Jammers have been used with convoys in Iraq, he noted. “They vanced Engineering and Research have used jammers to create a bubble around the convoy, but com - (CAER), an organization that teams university research with growth munication within the convoy could be disrupted. With smart jam - industries in central Virginia. mers, communication does not get disrupted and enemy communications can be jammed without them realizing it,” he said. Cognitive jammers Bose is working with Advanced Management Technology, Wireless features for kill switches Inc., (AMTI) to create smart, collaborative jammers that prevent Another business development project – with Blue Ridge Tech - detonation of radio-triggered IEDs (improvised explosive devices). nologies – involves designing an architecture for incorporating wire - The electronic triggers for IEDs are often radio signals, according to less technology in a remote kill switch. Most electrical kill switches Bose. have a hard physical interface between the device and the controller “By using cognitive radio techniques, we can design smart jam - or use low power, short-range, wireless technologies.

20 Cognitive radio network testbed ose is co-director of Wireless@Virginia Tech and is involved in building the teams and the technology for large research ef - Bforts in wireless communication. He serves as the lead investi - gator at Virginia Tech for the Wireless Internet Center for Advanced Technology (WICAT), headed by the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. WICAT is one of 40 I/UCRC multi-university re - search centers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Virginia Tech’s involvement with WICAT focuses on cognitive radio based wireless networks and building a cognitive radio net - work testbed. The testbed will be the first of its kind in the country, employ - ing 48 cognitive radio nodes in the ceiling of the new ICTAS (Insti - tute for Critical Technology and Science) building on campus. Built with funding from ICTAS, the testbed is currently six nodes, but with a new $347,000 DURIP award from the Department of De - fense, the system will be expanded this year. Jeff Reed is the princi - pal investigator, and Bose is co-investigator. The testbed will be used for experiments such as dynamic spec - trum access, where secondary users share the same frequency as li - censed users. “We’ll be able to do jamming projects, test interoperability of different radios, and test the effectiveness of al - gorithms for many different applications,” Bose said. Wireless@Virginia Tech is also hoping to make the testbed a community resource, allowing groups across the country to log in and control the nodes remotely.

“This technology would use existing networks to remotely control equipment,” Bose said, adding that applications would be in commercial, residential, industrial, and military situations. “Leasing and rental firms would like to be able to deactivate equipment with past due payments, for example. Or large industrial complexes can shut down critical equipment from a central location during emer - gencies.” The kill switch would include geolocation technology so that the firms can locate their equipment and disable it when needed. The challenge is including all the features, but keeping it ex - tremely simple to use. “If it is too complex, it won’t be used; also it will be more expensive,” he said.

For more information on Wireless@VT, please visit www.wireless.vt.edu . For more information on WICAT, visit www.wicat.poly.edu . For information on CAER, please visit Reed and Bose examine the features of nodes that will be http://region2000.org/the-caer.html . installed in the ceiling of the new ICTAS building.

21 Making Assistive Technology ENGINEER-FRIENDLY ason Grieves (ECE ’08) loves a challenge. Legally blind for his first 16 years, Grieves and his family were told he’d never func - Jtion without his thick lens glasses and that getting his high school diploma would be extremely difficult. He enlisted the help of friends, family, faith, and assistive tools – and graduated first in his Chesapeake, Va., class. Wearing contact lenses but still with limited sight, Grieves de - cided upon a career perfecting assistive technology for students with disabilities and enrolled at Virginia Tech. He majored in computer engineering, although some warned that visually impaired students aren’t built for engineering and math – complicated equations and Commercial software block diagrams seem inherently visual and aren’t easily translated by computerized assistive technology. was costly, hence, Open “But I knew tools could be developed,” Grieves said, “and I have a passion to help others.” Scan & Read was born. Grieves did a joint internship with Microsoft and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, working with students with a variety Assembling a team of five undergraduate of disabilities. Then he worked with IBM and, finding their AIX cohorts with strong communication and servers had no assistive tech support, worked to remedy that. He also engineering skills, Grieves set about served on the Virginia Tech’s Americans with Disabilities Act board investigating existing solutions for and trained students with a variety of disabilities at the university’s students with disabilities, particularly Assistive Technologies Lab. learning disabilities. “I had a vested interest in assistive technology,” he said. “So I decided to do my undergraduate research project in this area.” Assembling a team of five undergraduate cohorts with strong communication and engineering skills, Grieves set about investigat - ing existing solutions for students with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities. Lynn Abbott, a faculty member with a strong image-processing background, was their advisor. Although their ini - tial goal for the research was focused on the interpretation of printed mathematical functions, after research, the group decided to develop a broader prototype. They brainstormed ideas for new software. The group found the most useful technology employed bimodal learning, allowing students to hear and see printed material. Concerned with the lack of user-friendly materials for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, they decided to develop a graphical user interface (GUI) that provided several features including scanning, OCR, and organization integration. “Also, the commercial software was extremely expensive,” Grieves said. “We felt it was important to develop a new solution. Hence, OSR (Open Scan and Read) was born.” The group worked on an open source and free software project

22 that anyone could experiment with and modify. They agreed to pro - vide bimodal learning in math and technological formats, with a time management component. “The ultimate goal of our project is that our software can sim - ply take any scanned images (with text characters, math symbols and other symbols) and convert them into descriptive expression. The software would have a TTS (Text to Speech) feature where the text can be read to the users using a speech engine,” said team member Tran Pham, (CSE ’09) who realized the tools would also be useful to ESL (English as Second Language) students for improving their ar - ticulation. Team member (ECE ’09) Katherine Smith continued the proj - ect with a new team of students this year. “I believe that a pilot pro - gram created by students, targeted for students is the ultimate design and prototype opportunity,” she said. Grieves, who graduated in May, is now working at Microsoft as Top photo from left: Bill Holbach, director of the Assistive a program manager in their accessibility group. He’s still learning Technology Lab, Jason Grieves, Derrick White, Hal Brack - about various disabilities and he’s still working on the design and ett, Lynn Abbott, Katherine Smith, and Tran Pham. testing of new software. It is still a passion for him. —by Su Clauson-Wicker

23 Lab-in-a-box goes online team of faculty members led by Kathleen Meehan has received $500,000 in NSF funding to extend the Lab-in-a-Box curricu - Alum online. Lab-in-a-Box is the name for a personal laboratory kit devel - oped by a team of ECE faculty and first used in the curriculum in 2004. The kit can be used anywhere and was developed to give stu - dents hands-on experience and to encourage exploration and exper - imentation outside the classroom-laboratory. “The kit’s primary goal is to instill self confidence and improve self reliance in the students, when they build a circuit with physical components rather than symbolic parts,” Meehan said. Students purchase the Lab-in-a-Box kits and build circuits and systems for their homework and project assignments. The kit in - cludes a digital multimeter, a software oscilloscope, a powered circuit trainer with an attached breadboard, wires, and various electronic components. This represents the major measuring equipment and tools that once were restricted to laboratory benches, according to line multimedia learning materials. Online availability will also en - Robert Hendricks, who led the initial development. able community college programs that have no classroom laborato - The kits are used by students starting in the sophomore-level ries to incorporate the hands-on experience in their curricula. courses in Electric Circuit Analysis (ECE 2004) and Introduction to “Getting this experience to community colleges is critical,” Meehan Computer Engineering (ECE 2504). said. “Many community college students transfer to full-time ECE The new effort extends the functionality of the kits, adding on - programs and need this experience for a successful transition.” Cyber security master’s starts in Northern Virginia s the Conficker worms its way into national cyberfears and 18 months. Face-to-face weekend classes and seminars will be sup - lawmakers craft proposals to empower the government to en - plemented by online information. The program includes extensive Aforce security standards for private industry, Virginia Tech is hands-on laboratory experience, case studies, and a final project. laying out plans for a master’s degree in information security. Field study will be coordinated with international industrial and The proposed eMISA (executive Master of Information Secu - academic partners in Europe and Asia — where students will be ex - rity Assurance) program will integrate information assurance engi - posed to information assurance standards at the global scale. neering, management, technology, and policy studies and is aimed The eMISA program targets the working professional with an at working information assurance professionals. It will be offered at undergraduate background in science and/or engineering. A mini - Tech’s Arlington (Ballston) facility starting in spring 2009. mum of five years of job experience in an information-assurance- The eMISA program was conceived acknowledging that in - related field is required. formation assurance is a multi-disciplinary field shaping security The program conception is guided by an international advi - measures in the design, implementation, deployment, management, sory committee from institutions such as the U.S. National Security and operation of the ICT-integrated infrastructure systems. The Agency, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of degree will require foundational expertise in areas including com - Commerces, SAIC, Booz Allen, Boeing, Fraunhofer Institute of puter science, software engineering, telecommunications, infor - Secure Information Technology in Germany, as well as other US mation technology, management, policy, and infrastructure studies. and European institutions. Students will also study forensics, cryptography, and information The eMISA program will be supported by faculty members security and trust technologies while developing student manage - from ECE and computer science. For more information, visit ment skills. www.emisa.vt.edu . The entire eMISA program is designed for completion within —by Su Clauson-Wicker

24 Dominion donates smart grid equipment E ominion Virginia Power has donated $400,000 in Richmond-based power company. smart-grid equipment and started a $45,000 fellowship Virginia Tech has a long history of power engineering D Dfund for ECE graduate students to gain experience excellence and has one of the largest and oldest power pro - using state-of-the-art technology to help improve the U.S. grams in the country. The first smart grid technology, pha - power infrastructure. sor measurement units (PMUs) now being used worldwide The equipment is the “latest and greatest” generation of to improve reliability of power grids, was built at Tech. ECE U microprocessor-based high-voltage transmission protection researchers also deployed the first national network, the Fre - systems, said Matthew Gardner (BSEE ’03,MSEE ’05, Ph.D quency Monitoring Network (FNET), to monitor fre - ’08), an electric transmission planner for Dominion. quency of the power grid. The equipment – identical to what is being installed on “Thanks to Dominion, our students will have experi - C Dominion’s power system – is used to monitor the opera - ence and expertise in the technology needed to build smart, tions and power flows on the transmission grid, as well as sustainable power grids. Dominion’s support in this tough detecting and locating system faults, Gardner said. economic climate signals their approval and confidence in The four units are large, 3 feet by 8 feet each, cost up - our students and our programs,” said De La Ree. A ward of $140,000, and will be installed in the power engi - Left: New neering laboratories in Whittemore Hall. digital relays

“This brand new, state-of-the-art equipment will allow under con - T our graduate and undergraduate students to implement ad - struction vanced protection schemes that take advantage of intelligent for ECE. electronic devices,” said Jaime De La Ree, assistant depart - Right: Rear ment head. view showing I The $45,000 Dominion Virginia Power fellowship the relay O fund will support a master’s student in power engineering. interconnec - It would pay for tuition, fees and a stipend for a master’s stu - tion. dent who would intern and then possibly work for the Solar-powered sun teaches kids about energy N

or their project in Senior Design in Power Engineering, a group of ECE students designed and built a solar-powered

sun for a preschool program – and used it as an educational tool to teach four-year-olds about solar energy in the Fprocess. Whitney Bopp, Marko Cruz, and Christa Hixson worked with Virginia Tech’s Child Development Center for Learning and Research to build a solar-powered unit for a playground outside Wallace Hall. The ECE students built the solar-powered “sun” to help teach the young children how they can gather energy from the sun and put it to good use, how weather affects the amount of energy collected from solar panel, how light energy is transformed into electricity, and how other forms of energy are converted into electricity. “Sunny” is 36 inches high and sports LED facial features. A sound module causes LED strips on the rays to blink when it senses sound or vi - brations. Two solar panels generate the power for the demonstration.

Whitney Bopp and Marko Cruz demonstrate a solar-powered “sun” built to teach young children about solar energy.

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2011 Aleutian Islands, AK Super 2012 DARN Azore Islands, Portugal SuperDARN is the sole instrument that is capable of providing direct measurements of plasma OSU – 2010 Corvallis, OR convection and electric fields in the ionosphere on global scales with high temporal resolution. FHSU – 2009 Hayes, KS

or the past 15 years, engineers and scientists have gained a greater bances in the magnetosphere. understanding of global warming, the effects of geomagnetic “During these events, the magnetosphere-ionosphere system Fstorms, the impact of the solar wind interacting on the magnet - passes through a range of states that can be described as quiescent, ized region around the earth, and other dynamic processes that occur mildly disturbed, and storm-like. As each transition takes place, the in the Earth’s near-space environment. effects of disturbance reach to ever increasing fractions of the Earth’s Among their tools, they use a high-latitude network of radars plasma environment. The consequences of these solar-induced dis - to obtain increasingly sophisticated views of electric fields, plasma turbances are often described as space weather and they can threaten structures, atmospheric waves, and other effects in the ionosphere harm to humans in space, perturb spacecraft orbits, damage space - and atmosphere. craft electronics, and disrupt radio, radar, and GPS operations.” The radars have an elaborate technical name –– the Super Dual Virginia Tech has operated a midlatitude radar at the Univer - Auroral Radar Network –– providing an acronym with a humor - sity’s Blackstone Agricultural Research and Extension Center since ous touch, SuperDARN. The network is an international collabo - February 2008. Ruohoniemi and Joseph Baker are responsible for its ration with support provided by the funding agencies of more than daily operation and share in the responsibility for the operation of a a dozen countries. The radars combine to give extensive views of radar at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility located at Wallops Island. the upper atmosphere in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Ray Greenwald, considered the “godfather” of the SuperDARN The view is about to get much bigger. group, is now retired from JHU/APL, but continues to work as a ECE’s J. Michael Ruohoniemi is the lead principal investigator research professor with Space@VT. The ECE group also manages on a new $6 million grant to build additional radar units. Nearly $2 two older SuperDARN radars located at auroral sites in Labrador million of the award will go to the Center for Space Science and En - and northern Ontario. gineering Research (Space@VT). With the new midlatitude infrastructure, researchers will be Other participants in the grant from the National Science Foun - able to observe substorm processes at lower latitudes than is currently dation (NSF) are Dartmouth College, University of Alaska at Fair - possible. They will also be able to merge overlapping measurements banks, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics from pairs of radars to map the structure within substorm flows at Laboratory (JHU/APL). The ECE group is directing the first con - high spatial and temporal resolutions. struction that will take place at a site in Kansas later this year. Other —by Lynn Nystrom potential sites are currently being reviewed in Oregon, the Aleutian Islands, and the Azores. Construction of the new radars will occur in pairs at a rate one pair per year at each of four sites, for a total of eight radars over four years. The new radars will join three existing mid-latitude radars to make up a continuous chain of coverage that extends from Europe to eastern Asia. As Ruohoniemi explained the science, “The Earth’s magnetos - phere is immersed in the tenuous, fully-ionized outer atmosphere of the sun, which is responsible for the solar wind and its structured and dynamic magnetic field. In the aftermath of severe solar distur - SuperDARN bances, such as solar flares, energized solar wind plasma impinges on array at the Earth’s magnetic and plasma environment and initiates a broad Blackstone, range of interactions. These reactions lead to the onset of distur - Virginia.

27 ELECTRO ECEs invent world's smallest UWB antenna

CE researchers have developed an efficient compact ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna (CUA) for a range Eof home, automotive, medical, and military appli - cations. The antenna has achieved a near optimal performance for There are also complex and critical applications for such tech - size and bandwidth, according to inventor Taeyoung Yang. nology, said Yang. Examples are pulsed radar systems to prevent col - Yang, a Ph.D. student, developed the antenna with professors lisions between cars; medical imaging systems to detect tumors; and William Davis and Warren Stutzman. “To our best knowledge, our military applications, such as unmanned aircraft. invented antenna is the world’s smallest with more than a 10:1 band - The inventors’ strategy to reduce the size and increase the adapt - width. It has more than 95 percent efficiency for signal transmission ability of the antenna was to configure it as a structure that can be and a fairly constant omni-directional radiation pattern,” said Yang. printed on the inner side of the protective housing, which can be UWB antennas are designed for low energy, short-range trans - light plastic. mission of lots of data. Wireless transmission of data from a cell The design also makes it cheap and simple to produce. “The re - phone or digital camcorder to one’s computer is one potential use. A quired material expense is low, the fabrication process is simple, and smaller antenna that can send large movies is easily appreciated. it is versatile for mounting on curved surfaces,” said Yang. “It is con - Wireless transmission from a DVD to a high-definition television venient to install and disassemble.” (HDTV) offers a boon to room décor. — by Susan Trulove Overcoming ignorance of terrain for predicting signal strength

errain affects communications signals and other electromag - lution of topographical information. Topographical data points are netic waves, but topographical maps are simply not precise seldom closer together than 30 meters, he explains. The elevation in Tenough for planners to predict signal strength in many cases, rough terrain can change significantly between 30-meter-apart meas - according to Gary Brown, a remote sensing expert and director of urements from features such as steep ravines, rock outcroppings, and ECE’s ElectroMagnetic Interactions Laboratory. small hills. “The loss of signal strength on a communications path that Brown’s team quantifies the level of uncertainty in predicting travels over terrain is currently unknowable, yet there are a number the path attenuation. “Based on probabilities of what we know about of users – commercial and military – who really need this informa - the roughness, we can provide an average attenuation loss and a stan - tion,” he says. dard deviation. If we need more precision, we can target an area for Brown’s team has developed a quick, memory-efficient method gathering more topographical data.” that helps solve this problem and is applying it to help the National Brown is working with federal agencies to help eliminate in - Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, W.V. terference signals at the Green Bank Telescope from other locations maintain its radio quiet zone. in the National Radio Quiet Zone. “With more precise under - Other users who need similar data include military patrols head - standing of how signals travel in the zone, regulators can allow or ing into unknown territory who need to stay in constant communi - prevent other radios from coming online,” he says. cation and military spectrum planners trying to avoid friendly radio The Army Research Office and Naval Surface Warfare Center interference over a given land region, he says. are providing funding for the effort. The problem, Brown says, stems from the relatively low reso -

28 RESEARCH Optical fiber sensors for the next generation coal-burning power generation

hotonics researchers are developing “Distributed sensor capability is critical and components. Increased and accurate fiber sensors to operate in the super for these new generators,” he said. “The monitoring is critical to keeping efficient Pharsh environment of coal generation larger coverage will enable models to more and reliable operation, Wang said. “Our new systems that emit 30-35 percent less CO 2 accurately identify operating conditions that sensors must perform in the boiler with the than the conventional technology. can impact boiler reliability and plant avail - same or better accuracy and long-term op - The fiber sensors will measure strain, ability.” USC boilers have an efficiency tar - erating reliability as their lower-temperature temperature, and pressure at temperatures get between 45 and 47 percent – a 10 percent predecessors.” greater than current sensor capabilities. increase in efficiency that results in a 25-30 To meet the stringent requirements, the The sensors will be capable of operat - percent decrease of CO 2 emissions com - CPT team is developing a suite of sensors for ing in a distributed network, providing the pared with current technology. a measurement network based on a technol - first such capability for ultra-super critical USC boilers are targeted for operation ogy recently demonstrated at Virginia Tech. steam (USC) designs, according to Anbo at 760° C and 5000 psi. These extreme con - The project is funded by an $850,000 Wang, director of the Center for Photonics ditions lead to accelerated degradation and grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Technology. places new challenges on all the materials For information: www.photonics.ece.vt.edu .

Photonics group Extending fiber sensors selected to join Pratt & Whitney beyond temperature and strain Center of Excellence he Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) is developing sensor technology for long- he Center for Power Photonics span, fully-distributed measurement of pressure and transverse stress – two parame - (CPT) has been selected as one of Tters that cannot be measured by any available conventional technology, according to Tthe first year five members in the CPT director Anbo Wang. The technology will extend fiber-optic distributed sensor tech - Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence nology beyond its traditional functions for temperature and longitudinal strain only. established at Virginia Tech. CPT joins The breakthrough technology is expected to find a wide range of applications in oil and the other groups in applications, in - gas production and delivery, real-time highway assessment, earthquake prediction, volcano cluding combustion, materials, aerody - monitoring, and structural health evaluations. namics, heat transfer, structural analysis, The research team is combining specially designed optical fibers with a novel technol - design, and test. Specifically, CPT’s ob - ogy recently developed at Virginia Tech: grating-assisted polarization-optical time-domain jective is to develop single-crystal sap - reflectometry (GA-POTDR). GA-POTDR interrogates the fiber in a fully distributed man - phire fiber based sensors for multiplexed ner with high resolution and high accuracy. measurement of high temperatures at “The technology provides a large degree of freedom in system design, which can be ex - multiple locations. ploited to achieve previously unattainable performance,” Wang said. “By controlling the Pratt & Whitney, a United Tech - fiber reflections, we will achieve a uniform signal-to-noise ratio along the fiber regardless of nologies Corporation, has established the power consumptions from previous sensor sections. By optimizing the fiber design, we strategic university partnerships with could greatly enhance the measurement sensitivity while maintaining its low temperature Georgia Tech and Penn State in addition cross-sensitivity.” to Virginia Tech. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation. For more information, visit The program supports the design www.photonics.ece.vt.edu . and development of state-of-the-art gas turbine propulsion systems used in com - mercial, military and emerging technol - ogy, and environmental programs. PHOTONICS

29 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS Creating a visual environment For safety-critical embedded software new process is needed for writing (CPE ’10) and Lemaire Stewart (CPE software for complex, distributed ’09). Both students spent the summer Aembedded applications such as with Shukla at the Air Force labs in flight-control, missile control, even au - Rome, N.Y., capturing the embedded tomobile control, according to ECE’s control problems from a data-flow per - Sandeep Shukla. He has a research team spective using a mathematical model working with the U.S. Air Force Labo - called Multi-Rate Instantaneous Chan - ratories to do just that. nel Connected Data Flow Actor Net - “In these systems, the computation work (MRICDF). In the model, the takes place in a distributed set of micro- time to compute or communicate is as - controllers and microprocessors that are sumed to be zero, and the only way time Lemair Stewart (CPE ’09) and Jason Pribble connected over a bus or an interconnec - passes is by the arrival of a certain set of (CPE ’10) spent the summer at the Air Force tion network. Based on inputs from sen - events. The next steps involve analyzing labs in Rome, N.Y. sors that are distributed throughout the the MRICDF model of the problem, system, or from the driver, the complex concurrent real-time com - creating and analyzing the mathematical representation, creating putations take place.” he says. “The concurrent real-time processing XML models for storage and exchange of data with other tools, and environment becomes too complex for a software designer to hold developing sequencing of computations and the code generator. in mind and the software becomes error-prone and riddled with bugs There are several challenges in developing the code generator, that are hard to discover by traditional testing methods.” according to Shukla. “The synthesized code must be optimal, clean His team is tackling these issues by creating a visual environ - code. It must be capable of handling the real-time constraints of ment, called CodeSyn, in which designers create the specifications multi-processors and operating efficiently in a mult-core, parallel through a graphical interface, use a visual debugging tool, and gen - processing environment.” erate code automatically. Graduate students for this project are supported by an AFOSR The implementation of the visual framework was developed funding. Bijoy Jose, Bin Xue, and Zeng Wu are the Ph.D. students this past year by two undergraduate research assistants, Jason Pribble working on developing the theory involved in the project.

VLSI chips for structural health monitoring group of computer engineering re - which can lead to failure, he said. “Cost-ef - quarter, and would operate for several years searchers, led by ECE’s Dong Ha, is fective monitoring can save millions of dol - with a coin-sized battery or use energy har - Aworking on next-generation technol - lars annually,” he said. vested from ambient sources, he explained. ogy to monitor the health of the country’s Ha envisions a system where all critical “The UWB radio will have an antenna di - structural infrastructures, including structures are monitored continuously with mension of 2 cm x 2 cm and be able to bridges, plants, and buildings. tiny wireless sensor nodes that report the communicate more than 50 meters, he “The integrity of these structures is status of their structural health to central said.” typically assessed by visual inspection, offices. The complexity and high installa - The sensor node is highly versatile and which is time consuming and requires sea - tion cost of today’s structural health mon - can be applied to virtually any SHM appli - soned experts,” he said. “Most critical, itoring (SHM) technology has been a cation, including bridges, buildings, wind however, these assessments provide mostly stumbling block, according to Ha. turbine blades, airplane wings, and space - qualitative – and often subjective data.” His team is developing an ultra low- craft. Ha’s group has developed several pre - The lack of quantitative assessment power, wireless SHM sensor node with a vious generations of SHM sensor nodes, can lead to early replacement, which wastes tiny ultra wideband (UWB) radio. The sen - each one smaller and more energy efficient funds and resources, or late maintenance, sor would be low cost, about the size of a than previous ones.

30 RESEARCH

Ant behavior may help semicon industry to verify design

ne of the hardest problems in validating designs is getting the system to reach all the possible states it will experience during Circuits for Ouse. The hard-to-reach “corner cases” are compared to finding a needle in a universe of haystacks – or finding a particular state Energy within a space of more than 10 3000 states. Michael Hsiao’s team has developed an approach that finds Harvesting many of the hard-to-reach states where existing methods fail. Their CE researchers are designing power conditioning circuits for heuristic is based on ant colony optimization, biologically inspired by a system, in which a piezoelectric patch harvests energy from swarm-intelligence. Evibrations in a bridge. Dong Ha’s team is collaborating with In their model, artificial ants start from their nest (the initial Dan Inman, Director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Intelligent state) and attempt to find a path to reach food (the target state). In Material Systems and Structures (CIMSS) on a project to develop so doing, all the ants will converge to the path most likely to reach a suite of new technologies to provide continuous, energy-inde - the target state. pendent monitoring of the structural integrity of bridges. CIMSS “This is an important problem to solve,” Hsiao said. “Finding is partnering with Physical Acoustics Corp. of Princeton Junc - these hard-to-reach spaces will make design validation and verifica - tion, N.J. on the $14 million project funded by the National In - tion more robust and more efficient.” Up to 70 percent of the effort stitute of Standards and Technology (NIST). of the semiconductor industry is spent checking if the implemented circuit conforms to the design intent, he noted. Speeding up software testing by several orders of magnitude team of computer engineers has developed a scalable approach that can speed up testing of software to ensure software relia - Ability by several orders of magnitude. “With the increasing importance of software in our everyday life, software reliability has become a critical issue,” said Michael Hsiao, who heads up the team. One method of testing software re - liability is a formal verification method called model checking. This Power line communication goes mini involves systematically exploring all the possible behaviors of the hile most people think of power line communications in the system to determine whether it satisfies a specific property in all context of home networks or communication over thousands cases, he explained. “If the property is violated, it also returns Wof miles of the electric power grid, embedded systems re - counter-examples to explain how.” searchers are applying the technology at the micro level – on an in - However, the rapidly growing complexity and size of software tegrated circuit (IC). could result in an exponentially growing state space, making static- “An IC has a mesh of power lines to supply power to underly - only verification both infeasible and impractical, he said. “Abstrac - ing circuits,” says Dong Ha, who leads the effort. “These power tion techniques, which reduce system complexity by removing wires can deliver data as well as power.” The technology could be irrelevant information, hold tremendous promise in this situation.” used for various applications, such as on-line testing, system debug - He and his students, Xueqi Cheng and Nannan He, are explor - ging, fault diagnosis, monitoring transient logic values during a ing first-of-their-kind hybrid approaches that integrate both dy - built-in self test, he notes. namic and static techniques for efficient program abstraction. “We Power line communication at the IC level and wireless com - are leveraging the lightweight, dynamic techniques that are usually munications systems face essentially the same challenges, according associated with program execution. Dynamic program execution, in to Ha. His group is working with methods adopted for wireless com - combination with knowledge/pattern discovery mechanisms, such munications, such as DS-CDMA (Direct Sequence – Code Division as data mining and swarm intelligence, provides means for extract - Multiple Access) combined with UWB signaling. ing extremely useful information regarding program behaviors with The work has been supported by Intel through the Semicon - respect to the property under verification.” The approach is also ductor Research Corp. (SRC) and is currently funded by a grant being applied to validate cognitive radio software. from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

31 COMPUTER SYSTEMS Personalizing computer architectures irst there was personal computing; now ECE re - cessing) and the dominant websites they follow,” she explains. searchers led by JoAnn Paul are exploring personal - Most people use their computers for different reasons at differ - Fized computing – how computer architectures can ent times, the most dominant separation being that be - be customized to individual usage patterns. tween work and play, she says. “We are initially “The relationship between users and computers has investigating how to optimize language recognition changed dramatically in recent years, due to the for those specific contexts,” she explains. combination of wireless communications, With a nod to chemical analysis, her team has de - smaller computer sizes, longer battery life and the veloped what they call a spectroprocessor. “Instead ubiquity of Web pages,” Paul says. “At the same time of identifying the composition of matter by sort - content – particularly Web content – has changed and ing according to concentrations across a set user access to it has become more individualized. The need of elements, we identify the meaning to more efficiently access the Internet from ever-smaller of data by sorting according to its rel - computing devices suggests that the time has come for per - evance across a set of user interests,” she says. sonalized computer architectures, based on the way indi - In a first step, her team is developing recogni - viduals use their computers.” tion algorithms for search queries that work with The research team envisions devices that are more personalized contexts. “The content of a query and responsive to user needs and are faster while using less the context in which that content is searched, is power. “A lawyer who follows baseball could use a dif - strongly related to the user,” she says. “If we can ferent cell phone architecture from that of a stock bro - develop search methods that cut through all the ker who enjoys travel and fine dining, just based on the data depending on context and user, we can ex - way each would interact with their device (language pro - tend that to personalized architectures.” Speeding up FPGA application development ield Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) Current FPGA tools often require com - says. “In the software domain, this would be are ubiquitous in systems requiring plete re-implementation of a design when a analogous to recompiling all libraries when - Fhigh-speed communication, video, module change affects other modules, he ever a change is made to application code. cryptography, or digital signal processing. Unfortunately, the conventional approach While off-the-shelf FPGAs avoid the fabri - does not exploit the inherent ability of cation costs, delays and risks incurred by cus - FPGAs to rapidly update portions of the cir - tom chips (ASICs), application development cuitry while other parts remain unchanged time is escalating. and even operational,” he adds. An ECE team led by Cameron Patter - The team is investigating the use of son is investigating methods to speed up im - run-time reconfiguration (RTR) to add a plementation of large-scale FPGA designs. software-like module linkage step, reducing The work is supported by a grant from the the time required to add or replace a module Defense Advanced Research Projects by up to three orders of magnitude. “RTR Agency (DARPA). has not previously been used in this way,” “The size of available FPGAs – well over Patterson adds. The new tools will proac - 2 billion transistors – is adversely affecting tively generate a variety of new layouts to productivity due to the time required for the quickly accommodate module changes, FPGA tools to generate a new configuration much like chess-playing programs anticipat - after a design change,” Patterson says. ing the human player’s future moves.

32 RESEARCH Ensuring the trustworthiness of cognitive radio networks N s the national discussion progresses on search assistants are investigating involves a and carries out policy analysis and process - spectrum access and reallocation, many tamper resistance scheme that is designed to ing. The policy enforcement function mon -

Aoptions under consideration require thwart unauthorized tampering of CR soft - itors the channels that the CR is attempting E technological advances in cognitive radios ware. Their approach uses code encryption to use and pro-actively applies enforcement (CR) and related dynamic spectrum access and branch functions to obfuscate the tar - mechanisms to ensure that the transmissions T technologies. ECE’s Jung-Min “Jerry” Park get program while enabling the program to originating from the radio conform to the is working to make sure cognitive radio de - meet its performance requirements. regulatory and system policy requirements.

vices remain trustworthy and operate The challenge in developing security The policy analysis and processing function W within the boundaries set by regulatory solutions for CR software is to operate is based on a graph-theoretic approach and frameworks. within stringent real-time constraints, Park carries out conflict detection and resolution. “Cognitive radios are frequency-agile says. “To deal with such constraints, our “It is critical to avoid policy conflicts,” Park devices that can adapt their operating char - scheme uses a technique called the random says. “They can cause serious security O acteristics based on local observations,” he branch function call, which enables a user breaches or degrade network performance.” said. “To ensure that cognitive radios can to control the tradeoff between the in - Park’s work is sponsored by the NSF, R coexist with existing wireless infrastruc - tegrity checking frequency and the over - SCA Technica, and Samsung Electronics. tures and devices in a harmonious way, a head,” he says. For more information, please visit number of security solutions are needed.” The team is also devising a CR policy www.arias.ece.vt.edu . K One project Park and his graduate re - reasoner that assists in policy enforcement I

Too many routing choices N can lead to catastrophe G hen choosing paths to send traffic in a wireless network, designers can se - lect from a wide selection of routing metrics, depending on specific goals Wand constraints. This rich collection, however, creates significant compat - ibility issues that can lead to disaster, according to Yaling Yang, an assistant pro - fessor of computer engineering and a networking expert. “A combination of arbitrary, incompatible designs of routing components can create a catastrophe on a network’s normal operations, such as instability, net - work isolation, management difficulties, routing loops, and performance degra - dation,” she says. The plethora of routing designs arose when multiple organizations developed independent wireless network designs at the same time. “It was a rich time of creativity and problem solving,” she says, “but now with our layers of networks and growing interconnections we need to understand the compatibility issues and develop theory and practices to avoid problems.” Yang and co-investigator Thomas Hou have been awarded a $350,000 grant from the NSF to investigate the issue and establish a theoretical foundation for the design of compatible routing systems. Yaling Yang (front) and Current network compatibility knowledge is based on several IP routing pro - students test the possible tocols deployed for the Internet, she notes. The ECE team plans to move beyond problems of incompatibility traditional linear wireless routing metric design into non-linear modeling and un - over a multi-hop wireless derstanding. mesh network “We hope our work will lead to methods of developing flexible wireless routing architectures so that engineers can avoid designs that put too many re - strictions on the development of routing metrics,” she says.

33 WIRELESS@VT ECEs are 2-time winners Improving GPS performance indoors in Smart Radio Challenge ndergraduate researchers Jerry Towler tween multiple devices, etc.) for improving CE students took first prize for one and Bryan Farley worked last summer position location indoors. Graduate assis - of three problems at this year’s Uwith Michael Buehrer on improving tants Haris Volos and Tao Jia provided as - ESmart Radio Challenge competition performance of GPS-based position loca - sistance. at the annual Software Defined Radio in tion for indoor sites when other informa - October. The team was last year’s grand tion such as WiFi signals and accelerometers prize winner in the competition. are available. The project builds on recent The students successfully developed work by doctoral candidate Swaroop a smart radio system that will automati - Venkatesh and two previous undergraduate cally create an ad-hoc extension to an ex - projects on indoor position location that isting communications network, so that mitigates multipath propagation effects. voice communications can be relayed be - GPS is the primary source of position tween the incident site and existing com - location information, with an accuracy up munications systems along a path like a to 3 meters in environments with an open subway tunnel where signals can travel view of the skies and access to satellite avail - only short distances. ability. However, in many indoor environ - The team is led by Ph.D. student ments, GPS performance is degraded due to Mark Silvius and advised by Charles W. an obstructed view of the sky and propaga - Bostian. Members are Terry Brisebois, tion effects such as attenuation and multi - Qinqin Chen, Al Fayez, Feng Andrew path fading. Ge, Bin Phillip Li, Gladstone Marballie, The students developed techniques for Sujit Nair, Rohit Rangekar, Yongsheng exploiting additional information (such as Jerry Towler (left) Sam Shi, Ying Wang, and Alex Young. and Bryan Farley WiFi signal strength and range data be - For information, visit: www.cogni - tiveradio.wireless.vt.edu . the hidden HUNTING wireless network attacker he widespread deployment of wireless networks and the in - area of all wireless access points in a subnet. To be truly creased availability of attack tools on the Web have enabled ad - effective as an attack deterrent, a traceback scheme for Tversaries – from “script kiddies” to experienced hackers – to a wireless network must be combined with accurate lo - launch sophisticated network attacks against remote critical infra - calization techniques to estimate the adversary’s phys - structures with relative ease and anonymity. A team of ECE re - ical location,” she says. searchers wants to unmask these adversaries, help bring them to The team’s approach is a proactive, cross-layer justice and prevent others from trying such attacks. localization design that integrates a num - Yaling Yang, with co-investigators Michael Buehrer and Jung ber of diverse disciplines, includ - Min Park are developing a system to trace back to the true sources of ing localization, security, wireless network attacks. Supported by a $330,000 grant from the wireless networking and distrib - NSF, they are seeking a method of finding an adversary that is ac - uted system design. The results tively trying to disguise its location in a wireless network by dis - will help ensure the security of torting its signal features. cyber applications in critical aspects Most existing approaches for finding network adversaries were of the society, such as telecommu - designed for tracing back to the edge routers in wired networks, ac - nications, banking and finance, en - cording to Yang. “These approaches are ineffective for wireless net - ergy, transportation, and essential works, since the attacker can be anywhere in the unified coverage government services, she says.

34 RESEARCH Digital Extravehicular Activity Radio aimed for space

arl Dietrich and Jeff Reed are leading processing module of the radio to interface tion based on NASA’s STRS standard for a project for AeroAstro, Inc. to de - with signal processing and radio frequency software defined radio (SDR). Availability Cvelop a digital extravehicular activity modules under development. Other Tech of this software is expected to foster SDR radio (DEVAR) for manned space explo - students contributing to the project are: education, research, and prototyping simi - ration. Hoda Darwish, Dileep Kumaraswamy, and lar to that of ECE’s OSSIE open-source im - Doctoral student Sahana Raghunan - Lillian Le. plementation based on the U.S. dan is developing infrastructure and appli - A byproduct of this effort is Open Department of Defense Software Commu - cation software that runs on the general Space Radio, an open-source implementa - nications Architecture.

Global MANIACs compete in futuristic wireless network ith inspiration ranging from information theory to mongoose Other teams came from the Charles University of Prague, behavior, university teams from seven countries and three Czech Republic; the Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia; the Wcontinents tested network cooperation – and noncooperation University of North Carolina at Charlotte; the University of De - – strategies in March at a competition organized by a group from troit Mercy; and Virginia Tech. ECE. The MANIAC Challenge 2009 was organized by Luiz DaSilva The MANIAC Challenge 2009 (Mobile Ad-hoc Networking and Allen MacKenzie. They were joined by Michael Thompson Interoperability And Cooperation) investigates cooperation and self - (Ph.D. 2007), an assistant professor at Bucknell University. Student ishness in ad hoc networks. These networks of the future are ex - travel grants were provided by the College of Engineering. For more pected to be established anywhere on demand and could involve information, visit www.maniacchallenge.org . thousands of phones, radios, and other mobile devices. The competition was held in Galveston, Texas, in conjunction with the IEEE PerCom conference. It is funded by the National Sci - ence Foundation (NSF) to better understand cooperation and inter - operability in ad hoc networks – and to encourage student interest in solving the complex issues involved. Each student team participates in the competition with two lap - tops, which act as nodes in the network. Teams program their par - ticipation strategies, deciding when to forward data packets for others and when to seek more favorable routes that avoid selfish nodes. Heiko Will, The team from the Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany won the from the Freie Performance Award and received a set of pervasive computing sen - Universitaet Berlin sor platforms donated by Sentilla Corporation. Marcello Caleffi, tries to get a from the Universita di Napoli Federico II, Italy, sought inspiration stronger wireless in information theory to design his strategy, which applies concepts signal to improve of diversity and mutual information to the problem of whether and his data throughput when to forward packets for one’s neighbors. His strategy won the during the MANIAC Design Award. Challenge competi - The team from the Arab Academy of Science and Technology tion. His team won in Egypt was inspired by the behavior of the mongoose to design the Performance their strategy. Just as a mongoose will act as a sentinel, “climbing to Award. a vantage point and scanning to surrounding area,” their strategy used a node that scanned neighbors to assess who was dropping pack - ets. The youngest team to compete in MANIAC was composed of three third-year undergraduates from the University of Cyprus.

35 POWER & ENERGY Tightening trip protection in spite of information delay

s power systems across the country operate closer and closer to changing system conditions, either automatically by sensing the maximum capacity, the strategies that control operation and proper parameters, or in response to a control signal. Aprotection must be enhanced, or blackouts and brownouts will The team is attacking the problem on four fronts. They are de - become more common. vising schemes for supervising back-up zones with remote phasor Protecting power system equipment requires high-speed deci - measurements so that back-up protection is not allowed to operate sion making that is incompatible with delays of even tens of mil - when it is not appropriate. liseconds. Protection decisions are weighted in favor of protecting “Instead of letting a single protection relay open a circuit at its the millions-of-dollars worth of equipment and long-term power first hint of trouble, we’re saying, ‘Let’s vote: if two relays say open, capability over keeping the lights on in the immediate moment. This we’ll open,’” said ECE Department Head James Thorp, who is means that sometimes local and widespread blackouts may occur un - working on the project. “Using data-mining and other analysis, necessarily. we’ve determined that this concept works remarkably well.” The phasor measurement unit (PMU) technology that was first The team is also devising algorithms and simulations to produce built at Tech in the 1980s is becoming the global standard for power recommendations on load shedding, as well as techniques to adjust utilities to get wide-area, real-time data across their grid. However, loss-of-field relay settings automatically. Finally, they are also de - there is a milliseconds-long delay, or latency, involved in getting re - signing a robust damping controller using remote phasor measure - mote or distant phasor measurements and relaying stations do not ments to control dc-power lines to damp ionter-area oscillations. have the complete information for their decisions. “All of these measures are within the capabilities of today’s technol - Led by the developers of the PMU, a power engineering re - ogy,” said Thorp. search team is working with California utilities to overcome this Virgilio Centeno is the principal investigator on the project. He issue and to determine optimum protection policies and settings for and Thorp are joined by Arun Phadke, an emeritus university dis - critically located relaying stations. The team is developing adaptive tinguished professor and Jaime De La Ree. The project is funded by relaying technology with slow speed-protection in which the delay the California Institute for Energy and the Environment (CIEE) and in remote phasor measurements is not an obstacle. Adaptive relaying is being done in conjunction with Pacific Gas & Electric Company systems use digital relays that can change their setting to adapt to and Southern California Edison. Fuel Cells for Sustainable Homes esearchers in the Future Energy Electronics Center (FEEC) renewable energy sources. are developing a demonstration unit for an energy independ - The heart of the system is a high-efficiency advanced power Rent home using an integrated fuel cell power system based on conditioning system that can convert power from either variable ac or dc sources to a clean sinusoidal ac that can power a hydrogen generator. The power conditioning system achieves efficiencies higher than 98 percent. The demonstration unit will take solar and wind energy Natural Energy Sources sources and convert them into 120 V ac power for real-time use and convert any extra power into 240 V ac to power a “reversed” fuel cell that can produce hydrogen with 99.9995 percent purity at a rate of 40 ft 3/hour of gas. The hydrogen can be stored for later use in an attached fuel cell power system when the demand exceeds the power supplied by the solar and wind energy sources. The same Real-time household use power conditioning system will convert the fuel cell output to HOGEN 120/240 V ac for household use. Power Hydrogen Conditioning generator System Hydrogen Funding for the demonstration unit was received from Tech’s fuel cells Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Sciences (ICTAS) and through the College of Engineering SHEV competition.

36 RESEARCH B Battling cancer I

Understanding signaling networks O n 2008, more than 41,000 American women died of breast can - that can be applied to gene expression data to unravel the func - cer and almost 173,000 others were newly diagnosed with the tioning of the estrogen receptor signaling network for both antie - Idisease, according to Jason Xuan, an associate professor who is strogen responsive cells and resistant cells. The ultimate goal of M working on breast cancer research. understanding this network is to identify new drug therapies for One of the major therapies to combat this cancer is the ad - estrogen resistant cancers, which would have a major impact on ministration of antiestrogen drugs. Although most patients with breast cancer mortality and improve the quality of life for breast E hormone-responsive breast cancers will respond positively to this cancer survivors. treatment, many of these cancers will recur and become resistant The work is to antiestrogen drugs, requiring alternative treatments. funded by a $350,000 D Xuan and ECE’s Yue Wang are working with colleagues in grant from the Na - molecular biology and clinical oncology at Georgetown Univer - tional Institutes of I sity Medical Center to understand why cancer cells become antie - Health. strogen resistant. It has long been known that estrogen can bind to C estrogen receptors within cancer cells and initiate a signaling cas - cade that ultimately causes proliferation. Accordingly, antiestro - A gen drugs work by binding to estrogen receptors and preventing A human estrogen from binding, but many details of the signaling network mammary remain unknown as does the cause of antiestrogen resistance. L cell Xuan and Wang are developing new computational methods

RNA MOLECULES P Noise model overturns accepted notions odeling the effects of noise on a cells typically have reliable communica - small numbers are a problem: they create system helped a Virginia Tech tions for essential processes such as DNA too much noise.” The team concluded P Mteam of biologists and engineers replication and cell division. that since experimental data revealed long

discover an inconsistency in two com - Because of the randomness of the lifetimes, there had to be higher numbers L monly accepted notions about single mRNA numbers, the team investigated of mRNA molecules than conventionally cells: how many messenger RNA the system through a stochastic modeling accepted. I (mRNA) molecules are in a cell, and how perspective. For yeast cell-cycle genes, “We came to our conclusion based long they live. Their results affect the un - the literature reported, on average, only on our model of a yeast cell, and recent C derstanding of how cells process infor - one mRNA molecule per gene per cell experimental work agrees that the num - mation and were published this spring in and that each mRNA molecule lives, on bers of molecules had been underesti - A the Proceedings of the National Academy of average, for 15-20 minutes before it de - mated in the past,” Baumann said. Sciences (PNAS). grades. Electrical engineers typically model In a cell, information is processed ECE’s Bill Baumann worked on the the effects of noise for radio receivers and T through a molecular network of genes model with John Tyson, University Dis - other communications applications.

and proteins. Messenger RNA is the mol - tinguished Professor of biology, Mark “This is a different application of the I ecule that carries information from the Paul of mechanical engineering, and same theory, except that as a biological O gene to the cell’s ribosomes, where pro - Sandip Kar, a postdoctoral associate. system, it’s highly nonlinear,” he said. teins are made. Because of their small “When we looked at the effects of noise Tyson, Baumann, and Paul are inves -

size, cells are sensitive to random fluctu - on our calculations, we found a tradeoff,” tigators on a National Institutes of Health N ations in the number of molecules being Baumann said. “If the mRNA molecules (NIH) funded research project to build created or destroyed at any given mo - are short-lived, then a small number of more elaborate and more accurate models

ment. Yet, despite the noise in the system them are sufficient for the cell to func - of noise in the control system of yeast S from variations in mRNA molecules, tion. If they are long-lived, however, cells.

37 2008 BRADLEY 2009 FELLOWS

William C. Ryan Irwin Nathan Evan M. Lally Headley BSCPE ’07, Kees BSEE ’03, BSEE ’06; Mississippi BSEE ‘08 MSEE ’06, Virginia Tech State Virginia Tech Virginia Tech Advisor: Advisor: Advisor: Advisor: Claudio R.C.M. Luiz DaSilva Hardus Anbo Wang da Silva Research: Odendaal Research: De - Research: Clas - Cognitive net - Research: velopment of a sification and works. He is Railgun en - high-resolution parameter estimation of asynchro - involved in development of a MAC ergy recovery. He is developing a particle imaging system and a nously received PSK/QAM modu - protocol for a dynamic spectrum method of capturing energy sapphire pressure sensor for ultra lated signal in flat-fading access (DSA) environment, related wasted in the use of a large-scale high-temperature, harsh environ - channels. He developed a classi - to the Wireless Network after Next railgun. Application would be ap - ments – operating up to 1500°C. fier and the necessary signal pa - (WNaN) project. He is investigating plied to U.S. Navy new ship-based Investigating a new method of rameter estimators for classifying the tradeoffs and techniques of indirect fire railguns to improve sensor construction through a asynchronously received merging these traditionally inde - the efficiency of future defense novel combination of etching and PSK/QAM modulated signals in pendent functions in a cross-layer systems. bonding techniques applied to sin - flat-fading channels. cognitive networking scheme. gle-crystal sapphire components.

Nathaniel August (BSCPE ’98, Steve Bucca (BSEE ’87, Kevin Cooley (BSEE ’02) MSEE ’01, Ph.D. ’05) MSEE ’90) Industrial Automation Specialists Mixed Signal Engineer (IAS) Corp.; Hampton, Va. BRADLEY Advanced Design Group, Intel Mark Bucciero Portland, Ore. (BSCPE ’01, MSCPE ’04) Cas Dalton (BSCPE ’03) Designing mixed-signal circuits Argon ST, Inc.; Fairfax, Va. for test chips on Intel’s newest Phillip Danner (BSCPE ’91) ALUMNI process technologies. R. Michael Buehrer (Ph.D. ’96) Associate Professor Bradley A. Davis (Ph.D. ’01) Carrie Ellen Aust (BSCPE ’98) Virginia Tech JoAnn M. Adams (BSEE ’94) Daniel Davis (BSEE ’03) Co-owner, Big Fish Design William Barnhart Charles F. Bunting (Ph.D. ’94) Centreville, Va. (BSEE ’00, MSEE ’02) Associate Professor Scott Davis (BSCPE ’00) Raytheon; Denver, Colo. Oklahoma State University Vice President of Operations Robert J. Adams (MS ’95, Ph.D. ’98) Exodus International Associate Professor, ECE Carey Buxton (Ph.D. ’02) Davis operates a program for trou - University of Kentucky Mark W. Baldwin Electronics Engineer, FBI bled youth and their families and Lexington, Ky. (BSEE ’93, MSEE ’05, Ph.D. ’08) oversees organization’s technical Scott C. Cappiello (BSCPE ’94) infrastructure. J. Shawn Addington (BSEE ’90, Brian L. Berg (Ph.D. ’01) Senior Director MSEE ’92, Ph.D. ’96) Director of Engineering and of Program Management; Brian M. Donlan (MSEE ’05) Department Head, ECE Product Development MicroStrategy, Inc. Virginia Military Institute DTS; Agoura Hills, Calif. Carlsbad, Calif. Joel A. Donohue (MSEE ’94) Lexington, Va. Ray A. Bittner, Jr. J. Matthew Carson (BSEE ’98) Thomas Drayer (Ph.D. ’97) Sarah S. Airey (BSCPE ’01) (BSCPE ’91, MSEE ’93 Ph.D. ’97) Microsoft Engineer, Engine Dept. Joe Gibbs Racing Bradley D. Duncan (Ph.D. ’91) Christopher R. Anderson Redmond, Wash. Huntersville, N.C. Professor, ECE (BSEE ’99, MSEE ’02, Ph.D ’06) Working in Microsoft Research Team won 10 races last year. University of Dayton, Ohio Assistant Professor, ECE on topics spanning FPGAs to United States Naval Academy portable devices. Ricky T. Castles (BSCPE ’03, Gregory D. Durgin Annapolis, Md. Kirsten Brown (BSEE ’94) MSCPE ’06, MSISE ’08) (BSEE ’96. MSEE ’98. Ph.D. ’00) Ph.D student, Virginia Tech Associate Professor, Georgia Tech Matthew Anderson (BSCPE ’04) Chief of Staff to the CEO MicroStrategy Inc. Alexandria, Va. Eric Caswell (Ph.D. ’02) 38 38 Former Bradley Fellow R. Matthew Gardner (back), an electric transmission planner, was one of three Dominion Power employees and Virginia Tech alumni who visited campus this semester to present a contribution from Dominion that in - cluded funding for a fellowship and state-of-the- art equipment for the power engineering laboratory. See the story on p. 25.

Parrish David Reusch Ben York Phillip A. Ralston BSEE ’04, BSEE ‘08 Zellner BSEE ’06, MSEE ’06, University of BSEE ’07, MS ’08 Virginia Tech Alabama Virginia Tech Virginia Tech Advisor: Advisor: Advisor: Advisor: Fred C. Lee Jih-Sheng Lai Masoud Agah Sanjay Raman Research: Study Research: Research: Research: De - of alternative Investigation of Previous work sign and verifi - power electron - highly efficient on mechanical cation of liquid metal vertical ics topologies and designs that power conversion techniques for and electrical property differences interconnects for RF flip-chip as - improve the current practice and renewable energy applications. between cancer cells and healthy sembly. Develop consistent tech - capability of future electronics to Currently developing adaptive con - cells. Using common MEMS fabri - niques to build, model, simulate operate more efficiently and with trol algorithms for use in photo - cation techniques, a low power, and perform testing on vertical RF higher power density. Current re - voltaic installations. high-yield separation device may flip-chip assemblies that use a search is a three-level converter be conceived. Currently investigat - gallium-based alloy, which is liquid that can offer improved perform - ing three dimensionally independ - at room temperature. Such as - ance in point of load applications ent buried channels for semblies do not experience by the use of smaller magnetics microfluidic networks and dielec - thermo-mechanical stresses of and better performing low voltage trophoresis for the separation of typical solder joints. devices. cancer cells from blood.

W. Ashley Eanes (BSEE ’95) Daniel J. Gillespie (BSCPE ’95) Jennifer J. Hastings (BSEE ’96) Russell T. Holbrook (BSCPE ’03) Duke Energy; Burlington, N.C. Brian Gold Dwayne A. Hawbaker (MSEE’91) Andrew Hollingsworth (BSCPE ’02) Richard B. Ertel (Ph.D. ’00) (BSEE/MATH ’01, MSCPE ’03) Senior Staff Engineer Ph.D. Student Carnegie Mellon Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Ryan Hurrell (BSEE ’03) Brian F. Flanagan Electrical Engineer (BSEE ’97, MSEE ’98) Jonathan Graf Matt C. Helton (BSEE ’01) Northrop Grumman/Remotec (BSCPE ’02, MSCPE ’04) Plant Engineering, Coal Gasification Clinton, Tenn. Kevin P. Flanagan Director of Trust Technologies Eastman Chemical Co. Currently completing program to (BSCPE ’00, MSCPE ’01) Luna Innovations; Blacksburg, Va. Kingsport, Tenn. provide remote operated, explosive Design Engineer, Numonyx Graf works on computer security Became registered PE in 2006. ordinance disposal vehicle to Yuma Folsom, Calif. technology for the U.S. DoD. Proving Ground. Benjamin E. Henty (MSEE ’01) Todd Fleming (BSEE ’94, Timothy Gredler (BSCPE ’03) John Todd Hutson (BSEE ’93) MSEE ’96) Jason Hess (BSEE ’97 MSEE ’99) Christopher R. Griger Manager HW Engineering Madiha Jafri (BSCPE ’03) Ryan J. Fong (BSCPE ’02) Cisco Systems (BSCPE ’01, MSCPE ’04) Senior Digital Hardware Engineer Austin, Texas Daniel A. Johnson (MSEE ’01) Senior Firmware Engineer, ITT National Instruments Elkridge, Md. Austin, Texas H. Erik Hia (BSCPE ’99, MSCPE ’01) Adam Kania (BSEE ’01) Software Engineer Jayda B. Freibert (BSEE ’98) Daniel Michael Hager (CPE ’08) Hatteras Networks David A. Kapp (Ph.D. ’96) Research Triangle Park, N.C. Daniel Friend Alex Hanisch (BSCPE/Math ’03) Dimosthenis C. Katsis (BSEE ’95, (BSEE, MSEE ’98, Ph.D. ’09) Simulation and Modeling Scientist James Hicks (Ph.D. ’03) MSEE ’97, Ph.D.’03) Communication Systems Engineer Joint Warfare Analysis Center President, Athena Energy Corp. Northrop Grumman Dahlgren, Va. Hugh E. Hockett (BSCPE ’03) Bowie, Md. Developing analysis and modeling Developing new products for the Bradley H. Gale (BSEE ’97) capability to solve problems for the Janie Hodges (BSCPE ’01) alternative energy market and consult - warfighter. ing on defense-oriented power supply Robert M. Gardner Spencer Hoke (BSCPE ’03) designs. (BSEE ’03, MSEE ’05, Ph.D. ’08) Abigail Harrison (BSCPE ’04) Software Engineering Team Leader Electric transmission planner Garmin International David Kleppinger (BSCPE ’04) Dominion Virginia Power Kansas City, Kan. Richmond, Va. Became team leader this past year. 339 9 2008 BRADLEY 2009 SCHOLARS

Benjamin A. Ross Brittany Beasley Benjamin Clore EE/Music ’09 Clay CPE ’10 Kernersville, CPE ’09, Minor Fairfax, Va. N.C. in Economics Gamma Beta J.B. West Raleigh, N.C. Phi; Hypatia En - Scholarship; Pratt Scholar - gineering Com - National Merit ship; Dept. of munity; HKN Scholar; Robert Energy Student Honor Society C. Byrd Scholar; Sam Walton Undergraduate Laboratory Intern - Secretary and Climate Committee Community Scholar; BPO Elks ship Fellowship; IEEE; Outstanding Chair; Gamma Beta Phi Honor and Walter “Buddy” Green Scholar; Poster Presentation in Engineer - Service Society. Guilford County Schools/Harris ing, Los Alamos National Lab Stu - Career goals: working as a sys - Teeter Scholar; New River Valley dent Symposium 2007; ECE tutor. tems engineer with embedded sys - Symphony; Horn Ensemble. Career aspirations: partner tems. Why ECE: “Electrical engineering in/owner of a diverse set of soft - Why Virginia Tech: “I love the cam - is the ideal combination of math, ware startups. “My interests have pus atmosphere, and even after science, and tinkering. It man - gravitated to software, but I am three years the food still doesn’t ages to be both abstract and pleased to have been trained as get old. It’s the only place I could practical in a very appealing way.” an engineer. I enjoy the problem see myself and I have no regrets.” solving and application...”

Charles Lepple Michael Mattern (BSEE ’02) Stephen Nash (BSCPE ’03) (BSEE ’00, MSEE ’04) Senior Software Engineer Senior Research Engineer Christopher Maxey (BSCPE ’02) Lockheed Martin; Rockville, Md. BRADLEY Johns Hopkins University APL Laurel, Md. Eric J. Mayfield (BSEE ’97) Troy Nergaard (MSEE ’02) Senior Electrical Engineer Jason Lewis (BSEE ’99) Patrick McDougle (BSEE ’03) Tesla Motors; San Carlos, CA ALUMNI Manages the Charging Systems Continued Joseph C. Liberti (Ph.D. ’95) Brian J. McGiverin (BSCPE ’96) group for electric car development. Research Scientist Bellcore, Red Bank, N.J. John T. McHenry Michael H. Newkirk Paul A. Kline (Ph.D. ’97) (BSEE ’98, MSEE ’90, Ph.D. ’93) (BSEE ’88, MSEE ’90, Ph.D. ’94) Zion Lo (BSEE ’94) Senior Electronic Engineer Assistant Group Supervisor in the Gregory Kozick (BSCPE ’03) Sr. Software Engineer/Architect U.S. Department of Defense Air and Missile Defense Dept. IQNavigator, Denver, Colorado Applied Physics Laboratory William B. Kuhn David McKinstry (MSEE ’03) Johns Hopkins University (BSEE ’79, Ph.D. ’96) Daniel L. Lough Laurel, Md. Professor, EECE (BSCPE ’94, MSEE ’97, Ph.D. ’01) Garrett Mears (BSCPE ’00) Newkirk is involved in analysis of Kansas State University Head of Software Development environmental effects on RF sys - Research projects include Mars Mi - Andrew Love Open Vantage Ltd. tems, particularly radar and com - crotransceiver radio. Graduate student, Virginia Tech London, U.K. munication systems, as well as Leading software development for testing, upgrading radars, and RF Jeffery D. Laster Cheryl Duty Martin (BSEE ’95) new mobile entertainment product. propagation modeling. (BSEE ’79, Ph.D. ’97) Head, Cyber Information Assurance Principle Technical Manager and Decision Support Vinodh Menon (BSCPE ’02) Paul Erik Nguyen MentorGraphics, Addison, Texas Applied Research Laboratories (BSCPE ’98, MSCPE ’99) Responsible for technical programs University of Texas at Austin Michael Mera (BSEE ’03) with Raytheon Technical Lead, Electrical Engineer J. Eric Nuckols Stephanie Martin (BSEE ’04) U.S. Army; Picatinny, N.J. (BSEE ’97, MSEE ’99) Mark A. Lehne Associate Professional Staff Currently leading a team working on Communications Engineer Graduate student, Virginia Tech Johns Hopkins University Applied R&D for Army weapon systems. Zeta Associates Physics Lab; Columbia, Md. Fairfax, Va. Provide electronic warfare support Carl Minton (MSCPE ’99) to the U.S. military. John Morton (MSEE ’98)

40 40 Thomas Alan Zachary David C. Cooper La Celle Mazur EE ’10 CPE ’09 EE ’11 Oak Ridge, Lansing, N.Y. Pittsburgh, Pa. Tenn. IEEE; Intramu - IEEE; U.S. Soc - Galileo Engi - ral soccer. cer Refereee. neering Com - Study abroad: Career aspira - munity; HKN Spring 2008, tions: My own Honor Society; Lorraine, engineering IEEE; Student Engineers’ Council; France. firm. Video Problem Solving Editor; In - Career goals: Robotics and AI nav - Why ECE: “I was interested in the tramural soccer. igation and decision making. different electronic components... Career goals: Communication Most memorable: Embedded Sys - This sparked my passion for elec - systems. tem Design. It was exciting to take tronics.” Why ECE: “I’ve been intrigued by a concept and work on every as - Why Virginia Tech: “The EE power circuits, computers, radios, and pect, coming up with a fully work - program is very strong and com - other electronic systems...” ing product. petes with the best in the nation.”

Chelsy Wynn Jerry A. Matt Welch Smidler Towler EE ’09 EE ’11 EE ’08 Richmond, Ky. Lafayette, Ind. Greenville, S.C. IEEE; HKN Career goals: “I Hillcrest Honor Honor Society would enjoy an Community; Vice President; electrical engi - Student Tech - TBP; SEC; neering career nology Council. Galileo Learn - Bradley Scholar Jerry that allows me Career goals: ing Community. to travel the world.” Graduate school to explore com - Career goals: Completing the Edi - Towler worked on an Most memorable: “One of my plex robotics and automation. son Engineering Development Pro - undergraduate research most memorable moments at Why ECE: Wanted to develop ro - gram at General Electric Energy project with improving Tech was enjoying the musical trib - botic devices, but then discovered and working internationally. ute at “A Concert for Virginia an interest in combining mechani - Why Virginia Tech: “Being in a uni - indoor reception of GPS. Tech.” cal development and software- versity that has such a dedicated See p. 34. based automation. and close-knit community.”

Neal Patwari Amy Schneider (BSCPE ’03) Scott Stern (BSEE ’93) Wesley Wade (BSEE ’93) (BSEE ’97, MSEE ’99) Program Manager University of Utah Steven Schulz (MSEE ’91) Compunetix Kristin Weary (BSEE ’03) Monroeville, Penn. Electrical Engineer Joseph Allen Payne (BSEE ’00) David C. Schroder (BSEE ’05) Manages development efforts Bechtel- Knolls Atomic for mission-critical conferencing Power Laboratory W. Bruce Puckett (MSEE ’00) Jeff Scruggs (MSEE ’99) systems. Niskayuna, N.Y. Responsible for designing equipment Yaron Rachlin (BSEE/Math ’00) Kashan Shaikh (BSCPE ’02) Samuel S. Stone (BSCPE ’03) and controls for remote operation. Researcher R&D Engineer Accenture Technology Labs GE Global Research Center Anne (Palmore) Stublen Michael L. Webber (MSEE ’03) Chicago, Ill. Niskayuna, N.Y. (BSEE ’91) Newark, Del. Jason Wienke (BSEE ’02) Christian J. Reiser (Ph.D. ’05) Raymond A. Sharp (BSEE ’02) Seema Sud (Ph.D. ’02) Thomas Williams (BSEE ’00) Steve Richmond (MSEE ’01) Rebecca Shelton (MSEE ’08) Ethan B. Swint William J. Worek Jamie Riggins (BSEE/BSCPE ’04) Jacob Simmons (CPE ’08) David Tarnoff (MSEE ’91) (BSCPE ’99, MSCPE ’02) Assistant Professor Senior Engineer Pablo Max Robert (Ph.D. ’03) Roger Skidmore Computer & Information Science SAIC, Arlington, Va. (BSCPE ’94, MSEE ’97, Ph.D. ’03) East Tennessee State University Focus on network optimization for Thomas W. Rondeau Distinguished Innovator RF communications pathways to in - (BSEE ’03, MS ’06, Ph.D. ’07)) Wireless Broadband Group Daniel Tebben (Ph.D. ’06) clude routing, reliable data, and net - Research staff, Center for Motorola; Austin, Texas work management. Communications Research Rose Trepkowski (MSEE ’04) Princeton, N.J. Jeff Smidler (BSEE ’98) Kai Xu (BSEE ’95) Christian Twaddle (BSCPE ’01) Thomas M. Rose (MSEE ’96) Amanda (Martin) Staley Program Manager, ITT Corporation Jason Jon Yoho (Ph.D. ’01) Radar Analyst (BSEE ’99, MSEE ’01, ) Columbia, Md. Electro-Optics and Physics Group Gregory A. Zvonar (MSEE ’91) Boeing Company Graham Stead (BSCPE ’93) Matthew C. Valenti University City, Mo. (BSEE ’92, Ph.D. ’99) Richard Zimmerman (BSCPE ’07) Douglas R. Sterk (MSEE ’03) Associate Professor, CS & ECE Applications Programmer Jon Scalera (MSCPE ’01) Ph.D. student, Virginia Tech West Virginia University Virginia Tech Transportation Institute Morgantown, W.V. Blacksburg, Va.

4141 2007 PH.D. DEGREES 2008 AWARDED Baldwin, Mark Walter Lee, Kisun Sun, Juanjuan Modal Analysis Techniques in Advanced Control Schemes Dynamic Performance Analyses Wide-Area Monitoring Systems for Voltage Regulators of Current Sharing Control Committee Chair: Lui, Y. Committee Chair: Lee, F. C. for DC/DC Converters Committee Chair: Lee, F. C. Blumer, Aric David Mathaikutty, Deepak Register Transfer Level Simula - Abraham Suris, Juan Emilio tion Acceleration via Hard - Metamodeling Driven IP Reuse Cooperative Game Theory and ware/Software Process for System-on-chip Integration Non-convex Optimization Analy - Migration and Microprocessor Design sis of Spectrum Sharing Committee Chair: Patterson, C.D. Committee Chair: Shukla, S. K. Committee Chair: DaSilva, L. A.

Chen, Chen Raymond, David Richard Thirugnanam, Rajesh Electron Temperature Enhance - Denial-of-Sleep Vulnerabilities Power Line Communications ment Effects on Plasma Irregu - and Defenses in Wireless Sen - over Power Distribution Net - larties Associated with Charged sor Network MAC Protocols works of Microprocessors – Dust in the Earth’s Mesospher e Committee Chair: Midkiff, S. F. Feasibility Study, Channel Committee Chair: Scales, W. A. Modeling, and a Circuit Design Roberson, David Gray Approach Chen, Ruilang Environmental Tracking and Committee Chair: Ha, D. S. Enhancing Attack Resilience Formation Control for an in Cognitive Radio Networks Autonomous Underwater Vehi - Thomas, Ryan William Committee Chair: Park, J. M. cle Platoon with Limited Com - Cognitive Networks munication Committee Chair: DaSilva, L. A. Craven, Stephen Douglas Committee Chair: Stilwell, D. J. Structured Approach to Dy - Wang, Yongxin namic Computing Application Rondeau, Thomas Warren High Speed Fiber Optic Development Application of Artificial Intelli - Spectrometer Committee Chair: Athanas, P. M. gence to Wireless Communica - Committee Chair: Wang, A. tions Fan, Dawei Committee Chair: Bostian, C. W. Zhang, Junhong Synchronized Measurements Bidirectional DC-DC Power and Applications During Power Rosado, Sebastian Pedro Converter Design Optimization, System Dynamics Voltage Stability and Control in Modeling and Control Committee Chair: Centeno, V. A. Autonomous Power Systems Committee Chair: Lai, J. S. with Variable Frequency Fang, Lei Committee Chairs: Boroyevich, D. Zhao, Jun Exploring Constraint Satisfi- & Wang, F. Silicon-Based Ultra-Wideband ability Techniques in Formal RFIC Transmitter Front Ends Verification Shi, Yi for Communications and Committee Chair: Hsiao, M. S. Algorithms and Optimization Sensor Applications for Wireless Networks Committee Chair: Raman, S. Gardner, Robert Matthew Committee Chair: Hou, Y. T. A Wide-Area Perspective Zhu, Yizheng on Power System Operation Steiner, Neil Joseph Miniature Fiber-Optic Sensors and Dynamics Autonomous Computing Sys - for High-Temperature Harsh Committee Chair: Liu, Y. tems Environments Committee Chair: Athanas, P. M. Committee Chair: Wang, A. Kim, Jina Low-Power System Design for Suh, Jung Wook Zuo, Jian Impedance-Based Structural Deformable Registration of The Frequency Monitor Health Monitoring Supine and Prone Colons Network (FNET) Design and Committee Chair: Ha, D. S. for CT Colonography Situation Awareness Committee Chair: Wyatt, C. L. Algorithm Development Le, Bin Committee Chair: Liu, Y. Building a Cognitive Radio – Suhaib, Syed Mohammed From Architecture Definition to Formal Methods for Intellectual Prototype Implementation Property Composition Across Committee Chair: Bostian, C. W. Synchronization Domains Committee Chair: Shukla, S. K.

42 CORPORATE AND INDUSTRIAL AFFILIATES CPES Members Associate Members Fuji Electric Advanced Wireless @VT Principal Members Plus BAE Systems, Inc. Technology Co., Ltd. Analog Devices ABB, Inc. – Corporate Crown International GM Advanced Technology Applied Signal Technology, Inc. Research Dynapower Corporation Center Digital Receiver Technology Inc. AcBel Polytech, Inc. Hitachi Computer Hamilton Sundstrand DRS Technologies Alstom Transport Peripherals Co., Ltd. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. EF Johnson, Inc. Analog Devices Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Honeywell International Corp. Qualcomm Inc. Crane Aerospace Intel Corporation Ingersoll-Rand Company Rockwell Collins & Electronics Johnson Controls JRI Solutions, Ltd. Samsung Telecommunications Delta Electronics KEMA, Inc. KEMET Corporation America Emerson Network L-3 Communications, Power Kohler Company Syracuse Research Corp. Power Co., Ltd. Paragon Inc. LEM USA, Inc. Thales Communications FSP Group, Inc. Microsoft Corporation Magnetek, Inc. Tyco Electronics GE Global Research NetPower Technologies, Inc. Miller Electric Mfg. Co. Zeta Associates, Inc. Hipro Electronics Co., Ltd. Nippon Chemi-Con Corp. Milwaukee Electric Infineon Technologies Northrop Grumman Tool Company WICAT-VT International Rectifier OSRAM SYLVANIA, Inc. MPC Products Corporation Partners Intersil Corporation Panasonic Electric Works MTS Systems Corporation Applied Signal Technology, Inc. Linear Technology Laboratory of America, Inc. National Instruments Center for Advanced Engineer- Lite-On Technology Corporation Schneider Toshiba Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. ing and Research (CAER) MKS Instruments, Inc. Inverter Europe Oak Ridge National Laboratory DRS Signal Solutions, Inc. Monolithic Power Systems Semikron International GmbH Oshkosh Truck Corporation EFJohnson Murata Power Solutions Shindengen Electric Pacific Scientific EKD Intel National Semiconductor Corp. Mfg. Co., Ltd. Phoenix International Qualcomm NXP Semiconductors TDK-Lambda Corporation Plexim GmbH Rockwell Collins, Inc. Primarion Corporation Textron, Inc. Regal Beloit SCA Technica Renesas Technology Corp. Toyota Motor Corporation Sauer Danfoss Syracuse Research Corp. Richtek Technology Corp. TRUMPF Photonics, Inc. S&C Electric Company Tyco Electronics Rolls-Royce Schneider Electric – Square D Zeta Associates, Inc. Siemens Corporate Research Affiliate Members Simplis Technologies, Inc. Texas Instruments ABB Inc., Drives & Power Synopsys The Boeing Company Products Div. TECO Westinghouse Future Energy TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. Ansoft Corporation Toshiba International Corp. Electronics VPT Energy Systems AO Smith Corporation Trane Company Center Baldor/Dodge/Reliance Unico, Inc. Corporate Affiliates Principal Members (Rockwell Automation) United Technologies APC Eaton Corporation Caterpillar, Inc. Research Center Ansoft – Innovation Center Continental Automotive VPT, Inc. Electronic Concepts Groupe SAFRAN Systems Whirlpool Corporation Elgar Electronics Corporation Maxim Integrated Products Cree, Inc. Yaskawa Electric America, Inc. International Rectifier Rockwell Automation – Curtis Instruments IXYS Allen-Bradley Danfoss Drives Space@VT SEW EURODRIVE DRS Power and Control GmbH & Co. KG Technologies, Inc. Affiliates Vacon, Inc. Electronic Concepts, Inc. Orbital Sciences Corporation Emerson Motor Company Northrop Grumman Corp. Ford Motor Company VPT Incorporated

43 DONORS TO ECE During the Fiscal Year 2008 Alumni who contributed to ECE Glenn Michael & Rebecca S. Mary C. & Tom M. Evers Hyung-Jin Lee Theodore Gale Rothman Allen Gilbert Lawrence & Jewell C. Clovis Emanuel & Rosa H. Karl David & Susan Salnoske David E. & Linda R. Ames Faison Linkous James Franklin & Nancy J. Donald W. Armistead Ryan Joseph Fong Samarina Lowrie Schooler Brian Douglas Bailey Robert William Freund James Patrick & Rana Margaret Ficklen & Thomas A. Charlotte Marie Baker & R. V., Jr. & Sandra C. Geabhart Marraccini Schubert, PE Christopher M. Mitchell Jane Ann Gilbert Ronald Lewis & Edith D. Marsh Hugh David Scott Frederick W. & Diane J. Barney Michele Urban & Mark J. John Rouse Marshall, Jr. Thomas Alexander & William Charles & Karen S. Greenwood Samuel L. Martin & Sherri L. Susan O. Shull Beam James Thomas Griffin Whitlock Michael Elliot Sockell T. Wayne & Colleen F. Belvin Jeffrey Glenn Hadley Joseph Walter Matzen, Jr. Gary Lee & Julia G. Spadin Kenneth S. & Nancy Berger Paul Stephen & Mary Hamer Joe T. May & Roberta D. May Harold Harrington, III & Timothy Joseph Edgar D. Harras Robert J. McNeal Tracey B. Speed Bernadzikowski Kurt Michael & Christine Hinds David N. & Grace L. Meadows Charles W., Jr. & Ruth G. K. A. & Dot G. Blakeley John G. & Madonna E. Hoecker Jeffrey Lemonte Meekins Stewart Stephen Allen Bowman Hsien Lu & Hui-Lein P. Huang Christopher & Michelle M. Munk Martha Smith & Scot H. R. D. Brenckman, Sr. K. Brian & Mary Ann Humm Stewart Lindsey, Jr. & Stewart Robert Francis & Connie E. Lynn Hellbaum Huntt Sharon L. Ocheltree Harvey Lee & Agnes Sutton Bruce Ryan Ellis Hurrell Jeffrey Thomas Olson John Joseph Tobak Leslie Haden & Pauline H. Stephen Edward & Anne L. Lowell Thomas & Carolyn C. B. & Barbara Towles Christian Ingram Overby Ashton L. & Marion Trice F. Jerry & Susan D. Cline Kenneth Lee Johnson Mark Alan Parenti C. Hyde Tucker Julian M. & Dorothy B. Coleman Edward L. Johnson Dung Anh Phan Matthew D. Turner Doyle C. Counts John Leonard Joynes Maj. Gen. Milton A. Pilcher Michael Allen & Charlotte A. Ernest Dyson & Jackie A. Crack Michael F. Kalanick John Norman & Carole D. Pratt Walker Kenneth Emil & Lisa Cutler Ashok Nagar & Sudha N. Katti Jeffrey Allen & Martha Prideaux Charles R. Waskiewicz & George S. & Kathryn Y. Davis Paul Joseph, Jr. & Joyce G. Steve Cameron & Sharon Deborah A. Talbott Nithin Dhananjayan Kauffmann Pulliam Robert Grayson Whitman Vincent Robert & Rose M. Joel Edwin Keys, Jr. S. M. Query, Jr John Wicks DiLosa John A., Sr. & Karen Kise Eugene John & Michaele K. Robert E., Jr. & Gale Wilber Steve Otho Dixon James Warren Koiner Rackel Robert F., Jr. & Garnett B. W. Douglas & Peggy J. Joseph E. & Maryann W. Christopher Goodman Ranson Woody Drumheller Kusterer Gerald F. Ricciardi Joseph Douglas Ellena Ting-Pui Lai Carlos V. & Linda Roberts G. Stephen & Debbie J. Ellis William Kenneth Lamp Col. George Hewes, III & Samuel M. & Jeffra D. Estill Thomas A. & Jean L. Lauzon Marti H. Ross

ECE Friends who contributed to ECE

Anne D. & Paul F. Barber James M. & Penelope H. Scott F. & Sofia Z. Midkiff Edith L. & Charles Schultz, Jr. Donald M. Benjamin Goodrich Michael L. Miles John L. & Sara R. Seelke William Allen & Sherry Frederick W. Gorbet Julie A. Morgan Richard P. Sergel Blackwell Debra E. & David W. Hilt Mitchell E. & Donna B. F. William Stephenson Richard C. Byrne Stanley Honda Needham William R. & Terri M. Sweeney Joseph K. & Jeanmarie Conner Ira & Irene Jacobs David R. & Joan M. Nevius David W. & Chris A. Taylor Robert W. & Martha D. Stanley L. & Caryl C. Johnson Kenneth G. Peterson Thomas J. & Carla A. Cummings Sung Hwan Kim Krishnan Ramu Vandervort Richard Drouin Mark G. Lauby John Gilbert & Patricia A. Carol C. Warlick & John R. James A. & Kathleen M. Eder David M. & Luwanna S. Lofe Rebholz Warlick Jeanne C. Melone Richard & Patricia Schneider David A. & Donna Whiteley

44 ECE INDUSTRIAL ADVISORY BOARD Corporate Donors Miroslav Begovic ’89 Dave Marsell ’88 Professor Vice President of Engineering ABB, Inc. School of Electrical and Pressure Systems, Inc. Accenture Foundation Inc. Computer Engineering American Electric Power Jeannette Mills ’88 Georgia Institute of Technology BAE Systems Information & Electronic Warfare Senior Vice President Baker Hughes ProductionQuest, Inc. Richard Brisbin Gas Business Operations Dominion Virginia Power Vice President & Planning Electronics & Telecommunication Research Institute Southeast Region Baltimore Gas and Electric ICM, LLC L-3 Communications Behnam Moradi Intel Corporation Titan Group Senior Member Long Consulting Christopher DeMarco of the Technical Staff Manitoba Hydro Professor, Electrical and Micron Technology Microsoft Computer Engineering National Semiconductor Corporation Michael Newkirk ’88, ’90, ’94 University of Wisconsin- North American Electric Reliability Corporation Principal Professional Staff Madison Orbital Sciences Corporation Johns Hopkins University Power Electronics & Magnetics Designers Association Corp. Robert Fulton ’82 Applied Physics Laboratory Riverain Medical Group Vice President Lew Roufberg ’87 Rohm and Haas Company Business Development Supervisor, Spacecraft Power TechSmith Corporation Space Systems Group Electronics The Radio Club of America, Inc. Orbital Sciences Corp. Johns Hopkins University John Wiley & Sons Inc Truls Henriksen ’90 Applied Physics Laboratory Consultant, Ecto, LLC Dan Sable ’85, ’91 Mike Hurley Advisory Board Chair, Program Manager President and CEO Satellite Programs VPT, Inc. Naval Research Laboratory Dennis Sweeney ’86, ’92 Michael Keeton ‘71 Engineering Specialist Senior Program Director Aerospace Corporation Orbital Science Corporation C. Hyde Tucker ’56 Stephen Larson ’90 Retired, President and CEO Manager, St. Louis Area Bell Atlantic International Schneider Electric Timothy Winter ’81 John Logrando Director, Air and Missile Director, Electrical Power Defense Department Systems Engineering Systems Development & Although every effort has been made to ensure the Lockheed Martin Technology Division accuracy of this report, we acknowledge that errors may have occurred. If your name was omitted or listed Space Systems Company Northrop Grumman Corporation –Electronic incorrectly, please accept our sincere apologies and send Gino Manzo Systems Sector corrections to the Office of University Development at Director, Microelectronics 540/231-2801. Technology and Products Brandon Witcher ’01, ’03 Manassas Site Executive Senior Member BAE Systems of the Technical Staff Sandia National Laboratory 45 HONORS & ACHIEVEMENTS International & Honors & awards national service Jaime de la Ree received one of three 2009 Virginia Tech Wine Saifur Rahman has been appointed by the NSF to serve on its Awards for his record of teaching excellence. Advisory Committee for GPRA Performance Assessment to de - Tom Hou received best paper awards for papers presented at termine whether NSF-sponsored programs are meeting the IEEE INFOCOM 2008 and the 2008 IEEE International Confer - foundation’s strategic outcome goals. ence on Communications (CC) – Wireless Networking Sympo - William Davis was elected as the international vice-chair of sium. the URSI/Commission A. Krishnan Ramu won the IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 2007 Best Paper Award. He and co-authors C.W. Lee and N. Lobo won second prize for their paper from the IEEE Industry Applications Society Electric Machines Committee.

Conference chairs Sandeep Shukla received a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Fellow - Thomas Hou is serving as technical program co-chair of IEEE IN - ship for lifetime achievement within 12 years of completion of FOCOM 2009. He also served as technical program co-chair of Ph.D. from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Ger - IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing many. He will be spending the summer of 2009 at the Univer - (NPC), October 2008 and technical program chair of the Interna - sity of Kaiserslautern in Germany as a fellow. He also served tional Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and as an invited professor at the French National Institute for Mobile Computing (WiCOM), September 2008. Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) from August 2008- Scott Midkiff served as general chair of the International Con - April 2009. ference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Devel - Dushan Boroyevich gave the keynote address at the 2nd IEEE opment of Networks and Communities (Tridentcom), April 2009. International Power & Energy Conference, December 2008. He Sandeep Shukla is program committee co-chair for the 4th Inter - also gave the keynote address at the AIST Symposium on Net - national Workshop on Formal Methods in Globally Asynchronous work Society and Energy, January 2008. and Locally Synchronous Designs (FMGAL), April 2009.

Books published A.G. Phadke and James S. Thorp pub - lished Synchronized Phasor Measure - ments and Their Applications , Springer, 2008.

Sandeep Shukla published the following books this year: H.D Patel and S. K. Shukla, Ingredients for Successful System Level Automation and Design Methodology , Springer, 2008; D. A. Mathaikutty and S. K. Shukla, Meta- Modeling Driven IP Reuse for System-on- Chip Design , Artech House, 2009; and S. S. Ravi and Sandeep Shukla, eds., Fundamental Problems in Computer Sci - ence: Essays in Honor of Daniel J. Rosenkrantz , Springer, 2009.

46 Patents awarded

“Nonlinear Observers in Electric Power “Method for Forming an Electronic De - “PMBDCM and Two Phase SRM Motor, Two Networks ,” R. Broadwater, C. Wells. vice ,” M. Orlowski, B. Goolsby. Phase SRM Rotor and Stator, and Coil Wrap for PMBDCM and SRM Motors ,” “Location Determination of Power System “Laterally Grown Nanotubes and Method K. Ramu, A. Staley. Disturbances Based on Frequency Re - of Formation ,” M. Orlowski, S. Rauf, sponses of the System,” R. Gardner, P. Ventzek. “Method and Apparatus for Identifying an Y. Liu, Z. Zhong. Operational Phase of a Motor Phase Wind - “Method of Making a Multi-Bit Non-Volatile ing and Controlling Energization “Process for Forming an Electronic Device Memory (NVM) Cell and Structure ,” of the Phase Winding ,” K. Ramu, Including Semiconductor Fins, ” M. Orlowski and S. Goktepelli. A. Bhanot. M. Orlowski and S. Venkatesan. “Multi-channel Transistor Structure and “Apparatus for Drive Control, Power Con - “Semiconductor Process for Forming Method of Making Thereof, ” M. Orlowski. version, and Start-Up Control in a PMB - Stress Absorbent Shallow Trench Isolation DCM or Two-Phase SRM Drive System ,” Structures, ” M. Orlowski, M. Foisy, “Semiconductor Process with First Transis - K. Ramu. O. Adetutu. tor Types Oriented in a First Plane and Sec - ond Transistor Types Oriented in a Second “Method and System for Identifying “Method for Forming a Semiconductor De - Plane, ” M. Orlowski, B. Nguyen Essential Configuration Bits, ” vice Having a Fin and Structure Thereof ,” C.D. Patterson M. Orlowski. “FinFET Structure with Contacts ,” M. Orlowski and T. Stephens. “Dual Surface SOI by Lateral Epitaxial Overgrowth ,” B. Winstead, O. Zia, “Discharge Lamp Lighting Control Device ,” M. Sadaka, M. Orlowski. F.C. Lee, J. Zhou, Y. Jiang, M. Okawa, D. A. Tran, H. Eriguchi.

Editorships Tamal Bose is associate editor for Research Letters in Signal Michael Hsiao is on the editorial board of IEEE Design & Test of Processing, IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Computers; the Journal of Electronic Testing: Theory and Applica - and Communications and Computer Sciences . tions ; and the Journal of Embedded Computing .

R. Michael Buehrer is associate editor for the IEEE Transactions T.-C. Poon is associate editor for IEEE Communications Letters , on Wireless Communications . focus issue editor of Chinese Optics Letters , and feature issue editor of Applied Optics . Luiz DaSilva is associate editor for IEEE Communications Letters and on the editorial board of Computer Networks . Sandeep Shukla is associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Design & Test , and IEEE Embedded Systems Let - Thomas Hou is technical editor of IEEE Wireless Communications ters . He was guest editor for a special issue of ACM Transac - and editor of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, tions on Emerging Technologies in Computing , and a co-guest ACM/Spring Wireless Networks (WINTET) , and Elsevier Ad Hoc Net - editor for a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Computers . works Journal . Alumni honors

James M. Russell III (BSEE ’62) was named a 2008 Virginia Out - SAVER experiment on the TIMED satellite as well as PI on the AIM standing Scientist. He is a Hampton University professor and co- mission to study noctilucent clouds. directs the Center for Atmospheric Sciences. Thomas Rondeau (Ph.D. ’08) was awarded one of two distin - His career has ranged from performing ground and rocket reentry guished dissertation awards by the national Council of Graduate tests of heat shield material used on the Gemini and Apollo cap - Schools for his 2007 Ph.D. dissertation on “Application of Artificial sules to instrumentation for characterizing the Martian atmos - Intelligence to Wireless Communications.” This is the nation's phere during entry. He is currently the principal investigator on the most prestigious honor for doctoral dissertations.

47 ECE FACULTY A. Lynn Abbott C. Robert Clauer Jason Lai Marius Orlowski Associate Professor Professor Professor Professor, VMEC Chair Illinois ’89 UCLA ’80 Tennessee ’89 Tuebingen ’81 Masoud Agah Claudio da Silva Brent Ledvina Jung-Min Park Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Michigan ’05 University of California Cornell ’03 Purdue ’03 San Diego ’05 Peter Athanas Fred C. Lee Cameron Patterson Professor Luiz DaSilva University Distinguished Associate Professor Brown ’92 Associate Professor Professor; Duke ’74 Calgary ’92 Kansas ’98 Scott Bailey Douglas Lindner JoAnn Paul Assistant Professor William A. Davis Associate Professor Associate Professor Colorado ’95 Professor Illinois ’82 Pittsburgh ’94 Illinois ’74 Joseph Baker Yilu Liu Paul Plassmann Assistant Professor Jaime De La Ree Professor Professor Michigan ‘01 Associate Professor & Assis - Ohio State ’89 Cornell ’90 tant Department Head G. Q. Lu T.C. Poon William T. Baumann Pittsburgh ’84 Associate Professor Professor Professor Johns Hopkins ’85 Steven Ellingson Harvard ’90 Iowa ’82 Assistant Professor Allen MacKenzie Timothy Pratt A. A. (Louis) Beex Ohio State ’00 Professor Assistant Professor Professor Colorado State ’79 Mohamed Eltoweissy Cornell ’03 Birmingham ’68 Associate Professor Majid Manteghi Saifur Rahman Amy E. Bell Old Dominion ’93 Associate Professor Assistant Professor Joseph Loring Professor Michigan ’97 Louis Guido UCLA ’05 Virginia Tech ’78 Associate Professor Tom Martin Sanjay Raman Dushan Boroyevich Illinois ’89 American Electric Power Associate Professor Associate Professor Professor; Virginia Tech ’86 Dong S. Ha Carnegie Mellon ’99 Michigan ’97 Professor Kathleen Meehan Krishnan Ramu Tamal Bose Iowa ’86 Professor Assistant Professor Professor Southern Illinois ’88 Robert Hendricks Illinois ’85 Concordia ’82 Professor Scott F. Midkiff Binoy Ravindran Charles W. Bostian Cornell ’64 Alumni Distinguished Professor Associate Professor Professor; NC State ’67 Thomas Hou Duke ’85 UT Arlington ’98 Associate Professor Lamine Mili Jeffrey H. Reed Robert P. Broadwater Polytechnic Univ. ’98 Professor Professor Willis G. Worcester Professor Virginia Tech ’77 Michael Hsiao Liege ’87 UC Davis ’87 Professor Leyla Nazhandali Sedki Riad Gary S. Brown Illinois ’97 Bradley Distinguished Assistant Professor Professor Professor of Electromagnetics, Chao Huang Michigan ’06 Toledo ’76 Illinois ’67 Assistant Professor Khai D.T. Ngo J. Michael Ruohoniemi Princeton ’05 Michael Buehrer Professor Associate Professor Associate Professor Mark Jones Caltech ’84 Western Ontario, ’86 Virginia Tech ’96 Professor Hardus Odendaal Ahmad Safaai-Jazi Duke ’90 Virgilio Centeno Associate Professor Professor Associate Professor Rand Afrikaans ’97 McGill ’78 Virginia Tech ’95

48 Wayne Scales Jason Xuan Professor Associate Professor Cornell ’88 Maryland ’97 Patrick Schaumont Yaling Yang Assistant Professor Assistant Professor UCLA ’04 Illinois ’06 Sandeep Shukla Associate Professor SUNY Albany ’97 Daniel Stilwell Research Associate Professor Faculty Johns Hopkins ’99 & Instructors Kwa-Sur Tam Associate Professor Kristie Cooper Wisconsin ’85 Instructor James S. Thorp Carl B. Dietrich Department Head Research Assistant Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelly Professor Professor; Cornell ’62 Leslie K. Pendleton William H. Tranter Instructor Bradley Professor of Arun G. Phadke Electrical Engineering & University Distinguished Assistant Department Head Professor Emeritus Alabama ’70 Gerald Reid Joseph G. Tront Instructor Professor SUNY Buffalo ’78 Warren L. Stutzman Thomas Phillips Professor Anbo Wang (Emeritus) Clayton Ayre Professor Dalian ’89 Jason Thweatt Instructor Fred Wang Associate Professor Dan Weimer USC ’90 Research Professor Yue (Joseph) Wang Professor Maryland ’95 Chris Wyatt Associate Professor Wake Forest School of Medicine ’02 Ming Xu Associate Professor Zhejiang ’97 Yong Xu Assistant Professor Virginia Tech is an equal Caltech ’01 opportunity employer. The Bradley Department Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage of Electrical & Computer Engineering PAID Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24060 302 Whittemore Hall Permit No. 28 Blacksburg, VA 24061