We conduct cutting-edge computer science research in bioinformatics, machine learning, smart healthcare, computer networking, real-time systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, interactive computer graphics and visualization, and innovative electrical engineering research into controls, nano- and opto-electronics, communications, antennas, GPS, and navigation related topics. Our primary EECS research units, the Avionics Engineering Center and the Center for Scientific Computing and Immersive Technologies, are actively involved in sponsored research with industry and government agencies.
Research
Our Research Units
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Avionics Engineering Center
The Avionics Engineering Center at Ohio University conducts the world’s foremost research into aviation-related electronics. Our work helps keep the National Airspace System safe and furthers the development of the next generation of air transportation systems.
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Center for Scientific Computing and Immersive Technologies
From today’s medical imaging technologies to tomorrow’s supercomputers, the Center for Scientific Computing and Immersive Technologies conducts basic research to develop new applications and advancements in information technology.
More about EECS Research
Research Topics
Algorithms and Complexity Theory
Algorithms provide a foundation for most, if not all, of computer science. Efficient algorithmic solutions determine whether practical applications such as web-search scale appropriately at national or global scales. These are the practical reasons why we examine algorithms and the theory of complexity.
Current research at the Russ College focuses on parameterized and instance based algorithmic solutions to computational hard problems, algorithmic solutions to problems within the realm of bioinformatics, and algorithmic research that employs proof assistants to build computer verified algorithms along with computer verified performance guarantees.
Faculty Researchers
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial agents, such as today's smartphone personal assistants or tomorrow's self-driving cars, need to be able to make sense of their environment in order to behave in an intelligent manner. Russ College faculty conduct innovative research in artificial intelligence areas such as computer vision and natural language processing, while also making novel contributions to underlying machine learning and pattern recognition techniques.
The high impact of these innovations is predicated on mutually beneficial interactions between the AI research pursued by EECS faculty and a growing number of diverse application areas including health, computer architecture, software engineering, and autonomous vehicles.
The high impact of these innovations is predicated on mutually beneficial interactions between the AI research pursued by EECS faculty and a growing number of diverse application areas including health, computer architecture, software engineering, and autonomous vehicles.
Faculty Researchers
Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics and Control
Autonomous vehicles and robots, such as unmanned aircraft, un-crewed ships, self-driving cars, and autonomous planetary rovers, are becoming reality and promise great future growth in technology maturation and economic return.
All such autonomous agents have one thing in common: feedback control/decision loops at different levels of the command hierarchy and on different reaction time-scales. Each feedback loop entails: a command/goal generator, which could be either a human operator or computational intelligence that resides in a higher level of the decision-making hierarchy; a sensor set that assesses the situation and the state of the agent; a decision maker or controller that proposes an action using computational algorithms based on the discrepancy between the commanded and the sensed situation/state, as well as the capability and characteristics of the agent; and a vehicle actuator that will carry out the action.
The first three items are also known as Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC), with the last item being a feedback loop with the control decision as its guidance command. The Control Systems Group at the Russ College studies and develops the GNC algorithms using theories of dynamics, hybrid systems, machine cognition, artificial intelligence, and neural networks, with applications in automatic and autonomous vehicles and robots.
Faculty Researchers
Avionics and Navigation
Russ College faculty conduct the world’s foremost research in aviation-related electronics and navigation, in partnership with agencies such as the FAA and NASA, and with private industry. As part of Ohio University’s Avionics Engineering Center, their work offers not just technical data, but customized, on-demand practical solutions for navigation and landing systems, surveillance, flight control, and other challenges worldwide.
Faculty Researchers
Biomedical Informatics
Russ College biomedical informatics researchers conduct state-of-the-art electrical engineering and computer science research in areas with high potential impact on health and wellbeing.
In the SmartHealth Lab, researchers push machine learning boundaries to aid in the management of type 1 diabetes. Other faculty, focused on machine vision, develop novel techniques to track the progression of dementia and diagnose diabetic retinopathy.
Faculty researchers in the Vital Lab build iPad apps to help patients manage migraine headaches. Finally, bioinformatics researchers seek to enhance the scientific understanding of life itself – they develop new software tools to assist life scientists with such tasks as discovering biomarkers of disease.
More information on these and other biomedical informatics projects is available on the individual lab or faculty web pages.
Faculty Researchers
Communication and Signal Processing
Modern digital communication and signal processing systems encompass applications ranging from cell phones, Netflix, and Fitbits to satellites, MRIs, and autonomous vehicles.
Digital Signal Processing is the use of digital computer algorithms to sample, process, and interpret “signals,” which can include audio signals, video, photographic images, brainwaves, biological signals, radar images, and countless other examples. These digitized signals are transferred and/or stored using communications technology, which consists of devices such as antennas, transmitters, receivers, and optical fibers, as well as compression and encoding algorithms, and networking protocols which lie at the heart of the internet.
This vast range of current and potential applications, as well as their supporting technologies, are benefitting from both fundamental and applied research conducted at the Russ College. Active research projects include wearable antennas, sensor integration for autonomous vehicles, emergency communication networks for disaster response, improving the reliability and security of wireless communications, and the use of innovative image processing algorithms to support medical diagnoses.
Faculty Researchers
Computer Systems, Software, and Security
Computer systems are ubiquitous, from our phones and laptops to our cars, airplanes, and even “Internet of Things” appliances such as smart thermostats. Russ College faculty investigating Computer Systems, Software, and Security conduct cutting-edge research in electrical engineering and computer science that will make future systems more reliable, more secure, and easier to use.
Their research spans work in reconfigurable hardware and Network-on-Chips; software-defined, wireless, and delay-tolerant networks; software engineering; distributed systems; programming languages; and formal methods.
Faculty Researchers
Nanoelectronics and Photonics
Nano-scale electrical and optical materials and devices are critical to further miniaturization and capability expansion of highly integrated electronic and photonic systems. From novel solar cell technologies and sub-10nm transistor architectures, to printed electronic systems, on-chip communications, magneto-optical sensors based on quantum effects, and multi-core computational architectures, Russ College faculty are actively involved in the ongoing revolution in nano and micro technologies.
The common denominator in this multi-faceted activity is the will to push boundaries of what is possible in extremely compact electronic and optical systems through a better appreciation of novel material, fabrication tools, and design principles both experimentally and by modeling/simulation approaches. Aided by state-of-the-art equipment and computational tools, development of the nanoelectronic, photonic, and optoelectronic systems of tomorrow is supported by state and federal agencies as well as interdisciplinary collaborations.
Faculty Researchers
Sponsored Research
Our primary EECS research units, the Avionics Engineering Center and the Center for Scientific Computing and Immersive Technologies, are actively involved in sponsored research with industry and government agencies. Developing relationships with research partners like the National Science Foundation, AMD, the Federal Aviation Administration, Northrup Grumann, and the U.S. Air Force means we have the opportunity to see how our findings affect people's daily lives, whether it means making our national airspace safer or developing virtual learning environments in finance and health care. For more info. on our research partnerships or to become a sponsor, contact Chair Avinash Karanth.