New courses offered by ECE: Winter 2017

EECS 398: Information Science

Credit Hours: 4 credits
Instructor: Clayton Scott
Prerequisites: MATH 116 and ENGR 101 or equivalent. Suitable for sophomores and above in engineering and other STEM disciplines.

This 4-credit course develops the theory of information, and applies that theory to understand several modern technologies for information processing and analysis. The course introduces students to several of the key technologies underlying today’s information and communication technologies. The course introduces techniques such as how text, music, and pictures can be efficiently compressed into bits, how bits and analog signals, like voice, can be reliably transmitted using coding and modulation, how bits can be reliably encrypted, and how information can be extracted from big data using machine learning.
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EECS 398: Internet Foundations

Credit Hours: 1 credit
Instructor: Mohammed Islam
Prerequisites: ENGR 101 or EECS 183

This one-credit course introduces students to the fundamentals of the internet. You use the internet every day, and in this course we permit you to look under the hood of the internet. We start by reviewing the differences between various applications, such as world wide web, skype, and Bit-Torrent. The 4-layer internet model will be explained, which includes the application, transport, network and link layers. Internet protocol and TCP/IP communication will be reviewed, along with a detailed discussion of how packet switching and routers work. The link and physical layer description will include explanations of how WiFi and Ethernet networks work. By taking this course you will have a better appreciation of how computer networks work and how your computer communicates over the internet.
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EECS 498: Hands On Robotics

Credit Hours: 4 credits
Instructor: Shai Revzen
Prerequisites: MATH 216 or permission of instructor

Hands On Robotics is a 4 credit design course where you learn robotics by building robots using the CKBot modular robot system! Covering concepts in robotics from kinematics, control, to programming, this class is a design course where students build robots through construction.
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EECS 498: Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Project

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: Anthony Grbic or Greg Wakefield

This is a course that can replace EECS 430 or EECS 452. Students will be involved in a real-world multidisciplinary capstone design project with a real customer while learning the technical material for EECS 430 or EECS 452.
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EECS 498: Multidisciplinary Capstone (MDE) Design Pilot

Credit Hours: 3 or 4 credits
Instructor: Brian Gilchrist
Prerequisites: EECS UG senior or graduate student standing or permission of instructor

EECS students, together with ME and MSE students, work on common, interesting, significant major design experience (MDE) projects. This pilot douse is about providing students real-world, multidisciplinary design project opportunities to satisfy their MDE requirement and for ECE masters students interested in meaningful project experiences. Either 3 or 4 credit course.

For WN17, we will have several projects with a biomedical focus as well as energy, sports, spaceflight, and other areas needing EECS students (e.g. sensor/electronics, embedded systems, controls, and wireless).
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EECS 498/598: Grid Integration of Renewable Energy Sources

Credit Hours: 4 credits
Instructor: Ian Hiskens
Prerequisites: EECS 215 or EECS 314 (or permission of instructor), or graduate standing.

This 4-credit course will consider large-scale integration of renewable generation in electricity grids. Wind and solar (photovoltaic and thermal) technologies will be discussed, in the context of their influence on grid operation and control. Wind and solar forecasting will be introduced. Impacts of variability will be considered, with both local (voltage) and grid-wide (frequency regulation) effects being addressed. Methods of accounting for renewable uncertainty in optimal generation dispatch will be developed. The use of energy storage for offsetting variability will also be discussed. At the local level, the course will consider the design of renewable-based microgrid energy systems.
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EECS 598: Advanced Topics and the Design of Power Electronics

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: Al Avestruz
Prerequisites: EECS 418 and EECS 460 or reasonable comfort with classical feedback and control, or equivalents, or permission of the instructor.

Transformative technologies in energy conversion will be smaller, cheaper, and more
efficient.  This class will address some advanced topics and techniques in power electronics and the craft of design through case studies.  Topics may include switched capacitor circuits, resonant power conversion, magnetics, wireless power transfer, and instrumentation, among others.  Advanced methods in the analysis, manufacturing, and control of power electronics will also be discussed.
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EECS 598: Motion Planning

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: Dmitry Berenson
Prerequisites: A linear algebra class and significant programming experience

Motion planning is the study of algorithms that reason about the movement of physical or virtual entities. These algorithms can be used to generate sequences of motions for many kinds of robots, robot teams, animated characters, and even molecules. This course will cover the major topics of motion planning including (but not limited to) planning for manipulation with robot arms and hands, mobile robot path planning with non-holonomic constraints, multi-robot path planning, high-dimensional sampling-based planning, and planning on constraint manifolds. Students will implement motion planning algorithms in open-source frameworks, read recent literature in the field, and complete a project that draws on the course material.
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EECS 598: Optics and Quantum Spectroscopy of Semiconductors

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: Mack Kira
Prerequisites: PHYSICS 240 and (EECS 334 or 434 or 320 or 540)

Ever wondered what the future of technology will look like, and which unexpected answers
enlightened quantum engineering could yield? If yes, this theory lecture might be for you.

Optoelectronic devices are already being revolutionized by the prospects of nanotechnology. At the same time, nanotechnology is facing the full complexity of quantum‐interaction driven processes due to the small size and fast operation of nanocomponents. This lecture welcomes you to the central concepts of quantum engineering of semiconductors to explore optoelectronic, quantum‐optical, and many‐body processes, relevant for nanotechnology.
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EECS 598: Organic Electronics: Fundamentals

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: Steve Forrest
Prerequisites: Senior level quantum physics, electricity and magnetism

Today, there is a revolution in optoelectronics based on organic semiconductors: OLED displays
are used in hundreds of millions of smart phones, televisions, tablets and smart watches
worldwide. It is becoming increasingly clear, for example, that OLEDs have all but displaced
liquid crystal displays in smart phones and tablets, and will soon dominate computer and
television display markets. Organic solar cells are on the cusp of generating a new, ultralow cost
renewable energy source. Yet the foundations for these emerging applications have been a
subject of intense study for over 70 years, and in many cases are still not fully understood. In
this course, we will trace the history, science and modern applications of organic electronic
technology. A follow-on course will be taught one year later.
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EECS 598: Quantum Information, Quantum Probability and Quantum Computing

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: Sandeep Pradhan
Prerequisites: Basic working knowledge of linear algebra and permission of instructor. Suitable for graduate students in all areas of engineering, computer science, system theory, the physical sciences and mathematics.

The introduction of quantum mechanics into communications and computation has produced new paradigms (quantum information) and some unforeseen results in the fields of computation, communications and learning. This course provides an overview of the field, including; linear algebra fundamentals; postulates of quantum mechanics; quantum probability models, quantum circuits and gates; entanglement, teleportation and Bell’s inequality; quantum computation and algorithms, introduction to quantum error-correcting codes; quantum data compression (Von Neumann entropy); and quantum communications (as time permits).
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EECS 598: Waves & Imaging in Random Media

Credit Hours: 3 credits
Instructor: John Schotland
Prerequisites: Basic partial differential equations; some knowledge of probability theory useful, but not essential.

focus is on the theory of wave propagation in inhomogeneous media in various asymptotic regimes including: (i) geometrical optics of high-frequency waves (ii) homogenization of low-frequency waves in periodic and random media (iii) radiative transport and diffusion theory for high-frequency waves in random media. Applications to inverse problems in imaging will be considered. The necessary tools from asymptotic analysis, scattering theory and probability will be developed as needed. The course is meant to be accessible to graduate students in mathematics, physics and engineering.
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