Department of Electrical and Computer and Engineering

Computer Engineering Program Attains ABET Accreditation

jthomas1 — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 19:41:31 +0000

DigiPen Institute of Technology’s Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering degree program has been accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, the global accreditor of college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology.

ABET accreditation assures that programs meet standards to produce graduates ready to enter critical technical fields that are leading the way in innovation and emerging technologies, and anticipating the welfare and safety needs of the public.

“This is an important step forward for DigiPen,” Dr. Xin Li, Dean of Faculty at DigiPen, said. “ABET is widely recognized as the standard of quality for engineering programs, and the distinction of having their accreditation will provide new career opportunities for our graduates. We are proud of what our faculty and Computer Engineering students have accomplished, and we are committed to the continuous improvement of our program curriculum, as well as contributing to innovation in the field.”

“DigiPen’s Computer Engineering program is particularly notable in that it includes authentic, design-based project classes in the first year of the program and each subsequent semester. These projects engage students and prepare graduates for engineering careers and lifelong learning,” Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Chair Jeremy Thomas said. “We want our students to understand that academic theory and practical application do not exist independently of one another and that engineering innovation requires both.”

Sought worldwide, ABET’s voluntary peer-review process is highly respected because it adds critical value to academic programs in the technical disciplines, where quality, precision, and safety are of the utmost importance.

Developed by technical professionals from ABET’s member societies, ABET criteria focus on what students experience and learn. ABET accreditation reviews look at program curricula, faculty, facilities, and institutional support and are conducted by teams of highly skilled professionals from industry, academia, and government, with expertise in the ABET disciplines.

ABET is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. It currently accredits almost 3,500 programs at nearly 700 colleges and universities in 28 countries.

More information about ABET, its member societies, and the accreditation criteria used to evaluate programs can be found at www.abet.org.

DigiPen is dedicated to growing the BS in Computer Engineering program and will award up to 20 scholarships per year based on merit and need to highly-qualified applicants who commit to pursuing the degree program. These scholarships cover up to 75 percent of tuition and are renewable for up to five years. Recipients of Computer Engineering scholarships are also eligible to earn an additional $1,500 stipend for summer research projects at DigiPen following their sophomore and junior years.

For more information about DigiPen Institute of Technology’s Computer Engineering program, visit our degree information page.

Jeremy N. Thomas, Ph.D.

jthomas1 — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 04:52:15 +0000

Dept. Chair and Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA.
Research Scientist, NorthWest Research Associates, Redmond, WA.
Affiliate Associate Professor, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Contact info: jnt at uw.edu; 1 (206) 947 2678
Mailing address: DigiPen Institute of Technology, 9931 Willows Rd NE, Redmond, WA 98052

Curriculum Vitae
Publications
Invited Presentations

Overview of Research Interests:
Numerous natural processes drive geophysical electric and magnetic fields. In my research, I study these fields to further our understanding of Earth’s atmosphere and space environment. My work has focused on a diverse group of electric and magnetic field sources, including lightning, middle atmospheric discharges, solar-terrestrial effects in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, and sources within the Earth’s crust. I have experience in both experimental techniques and theoretical modeling. This includes designing, building, and testing instrumentation and acquisition systems, analyzing data, and developing numerical simulations. My work plans include projects related to in situ measurements inside and above thunderstorms, ground-based sensing of middle atmospheric discharges that affect the ionosphere, investigating geomagnetic perturbations from dc to low frequency radio bands, and fusing lightning and satellite radiometer data to study tropical cyclones. All of my research plans include opportunities for students to design, build, and test complete sensor systems, as well as analyze data using signal processing techniques.

In addition to geophysics related research, I have worked with DigiPen students to design, build, and test numerous embedded systems platforms, including autonomous robotic toys, human interface devices, and hand-held gaming consoles.

In the News:
No link between earthquakes and solar activity
Earthquake prediction in National Geographic
Loma Prieta earthquake in Susan Hough’s book “Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction” (see Chpt 10)

Links:
DigiPen Computer Engineering Program
DigiPen: Introduction to Robotics — Robotic Scorpion Project
Bard College: Atmospheric Science
U. Washington: ESS 102 — Space and Space Travel
Student-driven study of urban effects on lightning activity in New York City
Word Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN)

Hello world!

lmobrand — Fri, 08 May 2015 20:32:33 +0000

Welcome to DigiPen Departments Sites. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Music Instrument Training Device

jthomas1 — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 05:31:05 +0000

The purpose of this project is to make instrument learning software available to anyone and for any instrument. We present a hardware implementation of a sound to MIDI converter. A Piezo sensor is used to get better quality sound data from acoustic instruments. By combining a Piezo pickup, a high performance microcontroller, and Fast Fourier Transforms we can determine the notes played on the instrument. The paper will also discuss the techniques used to get more accurate data, such as Harmonic Product Sum from the Fast Fourier data. The use of HAL drivers will be discussed to allow programming in C++ on the STM32F4 ARM chip. Power consumption is another major topic that will be discussed, as well as sending data wirelessly with XBEE.

The device can clip on to an instrument and pick up the vibrations from the instrument using the Piezo sensor. The built in processor calculates the note that the player of the instrument is playing and send it out wirelessly in MIDI format. This means is that any instrument learning software that Uses MIDI format can be used with this hardware. Aside from the hardware there is custom software for this project made by Shivam Kumar, a Software Engineer student at DigiPen. This software works with the hardware to help teach the player how to play their instrument. The software has been developed for Windows operating system with the hope of supporting Android, Mac and Linux in the future. One mode of this software will have random sheet music notes scroll in from the right and the player will need to hit the correct note before it reaches the far left. This is just one of many modes that the software allows. A few more modes consist of ear training and song practice. The software works separately from the hardware and is usable by other MIDI devices but it is designed to work especially well with the hardware that is being described in this paper.

Cody Harris “A Musical Instrument Training Device” Digipen Report, 17 pages, 2015, (PDF)

Project RADAR

jthomas1 — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 01:22:12 +0000

Student: Kevin Secretan

The goal of Project RADAR is to use radar imaging to possibly detect human survivors in burning or collapsed buildings. The project focuses on using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), as SAR images are a useful tool for picking out possible humans. Recording the information for a SAR image using this radar system requires moving the radar in a straight line over ten feet, in two inch increments, acquiring range data at each point. To move the radar automatically a time lapse dolly was constructed out of PVC pipes, rollerblade wheels attached to a platform, and a DC motor, driven by a MSP430 microcontroller.

CAD drawing of the RADAR Dolly

Project RADAR initially focused on understanding and duplicating one of MIT’s OpenCourseWare projects, which describes how to create a simple radar system for a little over $300 that can sense moving target speeds and moving target ranges. New Python code processes the radar’s data in real-time, and shows live range spectrograms to users wirelessly through their web browser. The web interface decouples the display of data from the physical location of the processor, allowing all software to be run on an embedded device.

By collecting range information in a certain way, a user can generate Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. A Python version of the algorithm which makes the SAR images was written, because MIT’s Matlab script would take many minutes on a powerful PC to process the data, and when using Octave on an even more powerful PC, the script would take half an hour or more. Our Python implementation of the SAR image generation algorithm produces equivalent outputs to the Matlab version.

Project RADAR Printed Circuit Board

A Printed Circuit Board (PCB) was created to reduce weight and size for portability and to improve reliability. An embedded processor board was used to replace the processing computer, so the radar can function as its own standalone unit. It only requires a network connection so that other devices can see its data and make the radar perform certain actions. Cantennas from Quonset Microwave were used and seem to give slightly better results than the panel directional antennas.

Secretan, K. “Project RADAR”, Digipen report, 33 pages, 2014 (PDF)

Direct Abstraction

jthomas1 — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 23:49:42 +0000

Student: Matthew Kaes

Direct Abstraction is a high level scripting language that brings a shared code base to both the PC environment and ARM hardware. In the case of the PC version there is an interpreter that parses the user’s code in a text file and executes it. For the ARM device an embedded virtual machine will look for code on an SD card on boot up to parse and run. In both instances development time is improved by removing the need for long compile times and having to deal with complex tool chains in order to get the code to build. Since the code base is the same for both the PC and the ARM device this means that the developer can write code for the end device without ever running the code on the device. Code can be rapidly developed on a PC environment with instant turnaround time for testing and then the final code can simply be ported to the final device and work.

Direct Abstraction IDE

The project was started as a proof of concept that a high level language can be fast enough, flexible enough, and powerful enough for real world use. Over the course of the project however, a new focus was given on the importance of a unified development environment and how absorbing all parts of the development cycle into a single system can greatly reduce inefficiencies in the development cycle.

Kaes, M. “Direct Abstraction” Digipen report, 24 pages, 2014 (PDF)

Kaes, M. “Direct Abstraction User Manual”, Digipen report, 17 pages, 2014 (PDF)