Research

Research and Innovation in Electrical Engineering

Faculty and students in Electrical Engineering are engaged in research in two primary areas — Electrical Circuits and Systems (ECS) and Electronics, Photonics, Materials and Devices (EPMD).

Electrical Circuits and Systems (ECS)

The math-focused subdiscipline comprising:

  • Error control coding and information theory
  • Intelligent robotics and infrastructure
  • Machine learning in sensing and control
  • Networked control systems
  • Signal, image, and video processing
  • Wireless communication and networks

Affiliated Centers and Institutes

Progress in these areas benefits from collaborations among research groups and University centers and institutes, including:

Faculty

Bertrand Hochwald serves as ECS Area Chair.

Electronics, Photonics, Materials and Devices (EPMD)

The physics‐focused sub‐discipline comprising:

  • Biophotonics and biomedical devices
  • Electronic devices
  • Electronic materials
  • High-speed circuits and antennas
  • Quantum computing

Affiliated Centers and Institutes

Progress in these areas benefits from collaborations among research groups and University centers and institutes, including:

Faculty

Anthony Hoffman serves as Area Chair.

Facilities and Resources

Biomedical Photonics Lab
The mission of the Biomedical Photonics Lab is to improve medical care, particularly cancer care, by developing advanced imaging technologies. Our students create innovative medical devices that use safe levels of light to noninvasively interrogate tissue deep beneath the skin. This work, while applicable to many diseases, is presently focused on breast cancer risk assessment, screening, differential diagnosis and predicting individual response to chemotherapy.

Discover Lab
The goal of the Discover (Distributed Cooperative Systems Research) Lab is to build foundations toward scalable formal design theory to enable complex systems such as Internet of Things (IoT), smart manufacturing, future transportation networks, and power grids to function reliably in uncertain and dynamic environments. Using multi-robot systems and human-machine collaboration as working examples, students test design principles for complex systems.

Notre Dame Nanofabrication Facility
The Notre Dame Nanofabrication Facility (NDNF) houses a comprehensive suite of state-of-the-art equipment for designing and manufacturing integrated circuits and devices with geometries as small as a few nanometers. Our researchers which include internal and external academic and corporate users explore a wide range of electronic and emerging materials and processes. The NDNF also supports technologies beyond electronics, such as microfluidic technologies for medical applications and micron-scale mechanical device fabrication.

Wireless Lab
The Wireless Lab provides an environment for students, faculty, and industry to collaborate on evolving wireless technologies and applications. Developing advances in system design, prototyping, data collection, and analytics are at the forefront of the lab’s research mission.

Laboratories and Research Groups