Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept

WiSe-Net Lab | Wireless Sensor Networks Laboratory


5708 Barrows Hall, University of Maine,
Orono, ME 04469, USA
Office:207-581-2231,
Lab: 207-581-2133

PROJECTS

Mathematical foundations of communications was formally established in 1948 by Claude Shannon. His famous channel capacity concept was topic of major research effrots around the world in the quest for finding a capacity acheiving code for reliable communication over noisy channels. The breakthough happened in 1993, when Claude Berrou and Alan Glavieux introduced Turbo-codes in ICC conference. Turbo-codes, being capable of performing very close to Shannon limit, enable new applications in communications and are used in the next generation of high speed wireless systems. In the recent years, another class of codes called LDPC codes were also introduced that are capable of performing close to channel capacity. Performance evluation of these high performance codes, created a challenge for researchers in communications area. Imagine how many bits are required to pass through a system model to provide a fairly accurate estiamte of bit error rate. Conventional methods such as Monte-Carlo simulation, proved to be extremely time consuming and impractical for evaluating performance of these new classes of capacity acheiving codes. Therefore, a new wave in research focused on analytical performance evaluations and simplified simulation techniques was created. This was started with finding performance bounds and then evolved to analytical methods relating the code weight distribution to the probability density of log-likelihood-ratio, and finally to the BER performance of the code. My research deals with analytical performance evaluation of high performance codes as motivated above, with several sub-directions including performance evaluation of wireless sensor networks, broadband wireless communications systems, and applying the coding and information theory concepts into network of passive sensors.

Over $4.8M in research grants has been received and managed to date. Here is the list of active projects:

  1. A New Design for Universal Rural Wireless Connectivity to Fixed and Mobile Users, MTI, $2.2M, 2009 (Co-PI, in collaboration with Dielectric Communications Company)
  2. NASA Exploration Systems, Senior Project Design, NASA/MSGC, $10,000, 2009 (PI, 100%)
  3. I Mentor K-12 Students (iMeK), MSGC/NASA, $9,892, 2009 (PI, 100% in collaboration with A. Brickley at CLC of ME)
  4. Improving the Signal to Noise Ratio of Event-Related EEG Signals in High Risk Newborns, MSGC/NASA, $14,443, 2009 (PI, 50% in collaboration with M. Hayes at MIHGH)
  5. Flight Test of Wireless Accelerometer Sensors Using Aero-Spike Rocket, NASA/MSGC, $80,000, 2009 (PI, 50% in collaboration with E. Besnard at CSULB)
  6. Real-time Wireless Shape Monitoring of Space Structures, $1,554,126, NASA, 2008-10 (PI, 50% in collaboration with M. P. da Cunha at ECE, M. Shahinpoor & V. Caccese at MEE depts)
  7. Battery-free wireless communication for harsh environments, $410,483, NASA and Mainely-wired LLC, 2008-10 (PI, 50% in collaboration with M. P. da Cunha at ECE dept)
  1. Mobile Media Antenna Software Planner, $29,000, Dielectric Co., 2008 (PI, 100%)
  2. IR Sensor Network for Biological Research, $3,800, UMaine Biology Dept, 2008 (PI, 100%)
  3. Development of a Lunar monitoring system, $240,000, NASA/MSGC, 2008-9 (Co-PI, 25%)
  4. MSGC Fellowship and Scholarship Program, $88,843, MSGC, 2008 (Co-PI, 50%)
  5. Application of wireless sensors in space explorations, $180,000, MSGC, 2007-8 (PI, 50%)
  6. Wireless compost temperature monitoring system, $12,000, MTI, 2007 (Co-PI, 20%)
  7. Application of error correction codes in wireless sensor nets, $15,000, MSGC, 2006 (PI, 100%)

 

 

 

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Copyright 2008, Dr. Ali Abedi
Last update: Oct 10, 2008