Ha is awarded with a US patent in digital DC/DC converter design

August 2009. Dong Ha, along with four colleagues with Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), has been awarded a US patent (No. 7,570,037) entitled "Hybrid Control Methods for Digital Pulse Width Modulator (DPWM)," They devised a scheme to increase the resolution of the duty cycle D for digital DC/DC buck converters.

Jung-Min "Jerry" Park has been tenured and promoted

August 2009. Jung-Min "Jerry" Park has been tenured and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. His research interests are in network security, applied cryptography, and cognitive radio/software defined radio networks. Jung-Min "Jerry" Park has published his work in leading journals and conference proceedings. He is leading or participating in several sponsored research projects. Current sponsors include the NSF (National Science Foundation), SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Network Security), Samsung Electronics, and SCA Technica, Inc.

Yang and Schaumont receive an NSF grant

August 2009. Yaling Yang and Patrick Schaumont received an NSF grant for research in "Cross-domain Design Tools for Sensor Network and Architecture." The team will develop a novel tool, named Sunshine, to effectively support joint evaluation and design of sensor network (sensornet) hardware and software. The hardware and software communities of sensornet can use Sunshine to efficiently exchange mutual requirements and share the latest technology advances in each other's fields. The amount of the grant is $420K for three years.

Ha collaborates with a Korean team in wireless body area network (WBAN) research

July 2009. A WBAN is characterized as short range, low power, and highly reliable wireless communications for use in close proximity to, or inside, a human body. Those applications require extremely low power wireless nodes so as to last for years without battery recharges or replacements. Dong Ha collaborates with Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea, in WBAN research, and his team investigates low power RF architectures for WBANs. The five-year project is sponsored by Korean government, and the amount of funding for Dong Ha's team is $80K for year 2009.

Schaumont, Nazhandali and Kim are building unique chip identifiers

June 2009. Patrick Schaumont, Leyla Nazhandali, and Inyoung Kim (STAT) have received an ICTAS grant for research in "Unique and Unclonable Chip Identifiers". The team will define novel mechanisms to establish, in a secure and unique way, the identity of electronic chips. Chip-identity technology is useful for a rich and broad set of applications in pervasive security, for example in anti-piracy of software and anti-counterfeiting of products. The team will combine complementary expertise in advanced statistics, digital architectures, and advanced circuit design. The $98K grant is sponsored by the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) at Virginia Tech, and provides seed funding for one year.

Thirteen CESCA students participate summer internships

May 2009. Numerous CESCA students at Summer Internships in 2009, applying their knowledge to real world problems, ranging from hardware and software design, development, test, verification, and security analysis.

• Sumit Ahuja (Cebatech Inc.), Mahesh Nanjundappa (Intel Corporation); Advisor: Sandeep Shukla
• Zhimin Chen (Microsoft Research), Abhranil Maiti (ISI East), Eric Xu Guo (ISI East); Advisor: Patrick Shaumont
• Swati Kanaujia (Qualcomm Inc.), Amol A. Deshpande (Viasat Inc.), Jatin Thakkar (Phoenix Integration); Advisor: Jung-Min Park
• Neha Goel (Intel), Saparya Krishnamoorthy (Intel), Sandesh Prabhakar (Qualcomm Inc.), Percy Dadabhoy (Qualcomm Inc.), Karthik Channakeshava (Bell Labs); Advisor: Michael Hsiao
• Jihoon Jeong (Intel); Advisor: Dong Ha

CESCA honors the following M.S. and Ph.D. awardees, who successfully defended their theses in Spring 2009

• Christian Tergino (Advisor: Patrick Shaumont), " Efficient Binary Field Multiplication on a VLIW DSP," M.S., May, 2009
• Harini Jagadeesan (Advisor: Michael Hsiao), " Design and Verification of Privacy and User Re-authentication Systems," M.S., May, 2009
• Nannan He (Advisor: Michael Hsiao), "Exploring Abstraction Techniques for Scalable Bit-precise Verification of Embedded Software," Ph.D, May, 2009

Ha Receives a Project from Pratt & Whitney

April 2009. Virginia Tech has been one of Pratt & Whitney Centers of Excellence, and Dong Ha has received a research project from Pratt & Whitney through the Center. The project aims to develop a sensor node for monitoring and testing of aircraft engines. The work involves development of network protocols, incorporation of high speed wireless radios and fiber optic communication devices, and implementation of sensor interfaces. Dong Ha's team will collaborate closely with other ME (Mechanical Engineering) teams of the Center and will test the sensor node with a real aircraft engine. The amount of funding for the project is $156K for two years.

Ha Collaborates in Energy Harvesting Research with CIMSS

February 2009. Virginia Tech’s Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures (CIMSS) directed by Prof. Dan Inman has teamed with Physical Acoustics Corporation (PAC), of Princeton Junction, NJ, to develop a suite of new technologies to provide a continuous, energy independent monitoring of the structural integrity of U.S. bridges. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funds $14M for five years for the research, with Virginia Tech’s share at about $2M. The research with Virginia Tech includes development of an innovative method for “harvesting” power from motions and vibrations in a bridge using piezoelectric materials, and Dong Ha’s team is responsible for design of power conditioning circuits.

Two CESCA Faculty Members Were Featured in Virginia Tech Annual Report 2007- 08

December 2008. Improving the security of cognitive radio technology is the goal of Virginia Tech College of Engineering researcher Jung-Min Park. Park, an assistant professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said that cognitive radio technology will be used for two-way communications in a wide range of applications, such as communication systems for tactical military forces and emergency responders. It also might be used in the development of wireless access networks that can provide Internet services to rural areas.

December 2008. Embedded computer work wins awards. Sandeep Shukla's work in designing, analyzing, and predicting the performance of electronic systems, particularly embedded compters, has drawn acclaim from the National Academies, the National Science Foundation, and the White House. Shukla has published more than 100 journal and conference papers and book chapters and has co-authored or co-edited three books. He is an associate editor of two Institute of Electrical and Electionics Engineers journals and has founded a new international journal on embedded software.

Nazhandali Wins NSF CAREER Award

August 2008. Leyla Nazhandali has received an NSF CAREER award for her proposal, "Overcoming Power Challenges in Embedded System Design with Subthreshold-Voltage Technology." Her work will allow her to explore ways subthreshold voltage technology can improve lives, such as reducing energy consumption of handheld landmine detectors. She is the 5th CESCA faculty member to earn this prestigious award.

Yang Receives an NSF Award

August 2008. Yaling Yang and Tom Hou recently received an NSF award titled "Study of the Fundamental Compatibility Space of Wireless Routing Metrics". This three year project worth approximately $350,000 will begin fall, 2008. Yaling Yang, Michael Buehrer, and Jungmin Park were recently awarded an NSF project titled "Proactive Cross-Layer Adversary Localization for Hostile or Harsh Wireless Environments". The amount of funding for the project is about $330K for three years.

Shukla Receives Humboldt Foundation Award

July 2008. ECE's Sandeep Shukla has received a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander Humboldt Foundation of Germany. The Bessel Award is available annually to no more than 25 scientists and scholars, internationally renowned in their field, who completed their doctorates less than 12 years ago.

Ha Receives an NSF Award

July 2008. DONG HA has been awarded with an NSF project titled "A New Approach to Design-for-Testability (DFT) Using Ultra Wideband and Wireless Communication Techniques," which investigates integrated circuits power line communications (PLC) for DFT application. The amount of funding for the project is $250K for three years, and it is a follow-up to research sponsored by Intel through the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC).