General Information

The objective of this project is to introduce NASA research and development in the domain of Information System Technology (IST) to Computer Engineering curriculum. Our goal is to expose students to the experience of developing projects on the topics directly related to NASA IST needs.

The students will be first trained in the area of signal and image compression and coding, digital system and circuit design. The real- world problems will be discussed and examples of processing of NASA datasets will be provided. The students then will develop the team projects, and will be awarded for the first, second and the third places, accordingly.

Total number of students: 7

Faculty Involved

Drs. E.Regentova (PI), Y.Jiang (co-PI), M. Yang (co-PI)

Location

University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Dep. ECE

Schedule

• 5 weeks courses :
• June 6 - July 8, 2005
• 5 weeks project development :
• July 11 - August 12 , 2005
• September - November :
• Discussion forums
• End of November :
• Presentations and awards

Stipend/Awards

$1000 stipend per student plus awards of $ 3,000, $1,000 and 500 for group projects

Course content :

June 6 - July 8, 2005
10:00 am - noon, Monday - Friday

1. Introduction to NASA image and signal processing applications and tasks
1. Space telescopes and spectral sensors for space, planetary and Earth applications: images, multispectral and hyperspectrals data.
2. On-board data processing: compression and data analysis: speed, memory and power constraints; quality of data analysis.
3. Data transmission: downlink bandwidth and error detection and correction techniques
2. MATLAB
1. Image and Signal Processing Toolboxes
3. Lossless data compression techniques
1. Real-Time Lossless Data Compression Technology for Remote-Sensing Applications
2. Projects discussion and assignments
4. Lossy compression and image denoising
1. Fast Fourier and DCT transforms
2. Image enhancement
3. Transform-based compression
4. Quality of data analysis
5. Projects discussion and assignments
5. HDL based FPGA design. Design flow and complete design example
1. HDL design (VHDL, Verilog) and introduction of design tools (ALDEC and Xilinx tools)
2. Functional simulation
3. Synthesis process and post-synthesis simulation
4. Design validation/verification and testing
5. Design implementation on FPGA circuit
6. A design example
6. Hardware implementation issues
1. energy efficiency
2. speed
3. radiation hardening
4. fault-tolerance

Eligibility/ Selection criteria

• Has completed sophomore or junior year of study in EE/CE
• Plan to complete a degree program
• Familiar with C programming and/or MATHLAB
• Minorities and women students are especially encouraged to apply

Required Application Materials

• Application form: http://www.ee.unlv.edu/~regent/NASA_appl.doc
• Official college transcript

Selection criteria

Seven students will be selected to attend the summer courses during June-July 2005 and participate in individual and group projects during July-August 2005. The selected participants will receive financial support for during the Summer 2005 and will be additionally awarded for the project development and presentation in Fall 2005.

Send Application Materials to

Dr. Emma Regentova
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 454026
Las Vegas, NV 89154-4026
Voice (702)-895-3187
Fax: (702)-895- 4075
Email : regent@ee.unlv.edu

All materials must be received by 5pm,Monday, February 28, 2005.
Fax/ electronic submission is acceptable.

For questions and clarification contact

• Dr. Emma Regentova : regent@ee.unlv.edu
• Dr. Yingtao Jiang : yingtao@egr.unlv.edu
• Dr. Mei Yang : meiyang@egr.unlv.edu