Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology
School of Engineering
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
The Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering has research focus areas in advanced computing and embedded systems, bioengineering, control systems, distributed sensor networks, electromagnetism, electronics and microelectronics, energy systems, industrial electronics and electric drives, optics and photonics, power systems, broadband wireless multimedia communication, signals and digital communications, as well as the work of the Intelligent Systems Group. The Carl and Emily Fuchs Institute for Microelectronics, the Advanced Computing Centre, the Centre for Telecommunications Engineering in an Information Society, the Centre of New Energy Systems, the National Hub for Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management, the Centre for Radio and Digital Communication, the Centre for Electromagnetism and the Sentech Chair In Broadband Wireless Multimedia Communications are associated with the department.
The Bioengineering Group made contributions related to cochlear implants, such as the estimation of stimulus attenuation in cochlear implants, the reduction of crosstalk in surface electromyography (EMG) recordings using spatial filtering, the modelled temperature-dependent excitability behaviour of a single ranvier node for a human peripheral sensory nerve fibre, as well as on sentence recognition in noise. The Control Systems Group continued their work on HIV by characterising the effect of robust multirate model predictive control (MPC)-based treatment schedules on HIV dynamics. Projects related to the minerals industry included a survey of control and economic concerns in grinding mill circuits and an economic performance assessment of two ROM ore milling circuit controllers. A modelling methodology for natural dam-river network systems was also developed.
The Distributed Sensor Networks (DSN) Group followed its contributions on energy management in DSN with further work on the efficient management of clock drift in preamble sampling Mac protocols for wireless sensor networks and a comparison of two routing metrics in optimised link state routing (OLSR) on a grid-based mesh network. The applications, challenges and design principles of industrial wireless sensor networks were evaluated. The contributions from the Electromagnetism Group included an analysis of retro-directive cross-eye jamming, an alternative formulation and application aspects of the generalised projection method for array antenna synthesis, gaussian process modelling of coplanar waveguide (CPW)-forward error correction (FEC) slot antennas, the design of a linear non-uniform CPW-fed slot array with reduced sidelobe levels, the fast and efficient calculation of mutual admittance between CPW-fed slots on electrically thin substrates, as well as the extended reciprocity-based computation of mutual admittance between CPW-fed slots on conductor-backed two-layer substrates, the frequency-independent performance of elliptic profile transverse electromagnetic (TEM) horns, an improved diffraction model and numerical validation for horn antenna gain calculations, a log periodic bandstop filter, and a double dipole antenna for dual-band wireless local area network (WLAN) applications.
The Electronics and Microelectronics Group further developed light-emitting silicon devices through the INSiAVA initiative with the support of the University and the South African Intellectual Property Fund, with the aim of developing integrated silicon photonic circuits. Nanoporous silicon explosive devices were evaluated. Contributions on integrated circuit (IC) design included the development of a design approach to complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-based class-e and class-f power amplifiers, and the mathematical modelling of the LC-ladder and capacitive shunt-shunt feedback low-noise amplifier (LNA) topology. The Energy Systems Group developed an optimal control model for load shifting with application in the energy management of a colliery. The Broadband Wireless Multimedia Communication Group reported the modelling of a spatially correlated multiple input multiple output (MIMO) wireless channel.
Contact person: Prof FW Leuschner.
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