The ECE Department encourages undergraduate students to become involved in ongoing research activities with faculty and graduate students. Such experiences broaden the student's perspective on his/her chosen profession, complementing the conceptual material covered in the classroom. These research experiences are often arranged by individual faculty members as part of senior projects or senior honors theses performed for credit, or as part-time jobs as part of externally funded research activities.

In a more formally organized program, the Intelligent Structures Group within the ECE Department offers research experiences to groups of undergraduate students in areas such as machine vision, VLSI circuit design, neural networks, and robot control. The National Science Foundation sponsors this program via a two-year grant from the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site Program. These experiences involve carrying out independent research projects, usually as part of a larger project involving graduate students and faculty. Two groups of students participate each year: one group is involved full-time during the summer while the second group participates part-time during the academic year. The following statements, extracted from the NSF solicitation, summarize the purpose of the program. "One of the National Science Foundation's principal goals is to assure an adequate supply of high quality mathematicians, scientists and engineers for the future. This requires continuing efforts to attract talented students into research careers in these fields."

During the summer of 1994, our REU site supported a total of six students from the NSF funds and an additional four students from industry sources. All costs of the program other than student stipends (equipment, research supplies, photocopying and printing costs, etc.) were supported directly by research grants or our Department gift fund. The program required a 40 hour per week involvement of the students for a total of 11 weeks. Students met with their individual research advisors on at least a weekly basis to discuss their progress. Most students were also assigned graduate student "mentors" with whom they interacted on a daily basis. All ten students met as a group with the REU Site director (Dr. W. Thomas Miller, III) on a weekly basis to share research experiences and to discuss anticipated problems in individual projects. At the end of the summer, a REU Site student poster session was held in which each student gave a formal presentation of his or her research, followed by an open discussion period typical of poster sessions at professional conferences. Faculty, staff and graduate students from UNH attended this session.

During the 1994/95 academic year, the REU Site supported the participation of six students on a 10 hour per week basis. Student posters for the academic year research were presented at the annual ECE Department senior project day poster session, which was attended by ECE Department faculty and students, other UNH individuals including top administrators, and industrial friends of the Department including representatives from our Industrial Associates Program. During the summer of 1995, eleven students are participating in the program on a full-time basis. We expect that an additional six students will participate during the upcoming 1995/96 academic year. In addition to UNH ECE students, students from electrical engineering programs at the University of Southern Maine, Merrimack College, and Ohio Northern University have taken advantage of our REU Site program.

A list of some of the student research topics reveals the breadth and depth of their involvement:

A Graphical Quadruped Robot Simulator for Windows NT

Continuous Speech Recognition Using a Massively Parallel Processor

Cursive Handwriting Recognition Using a Massively Parallel Processor

Line Scan Inspection of a Web Printing Production System

Web Printing Winder/Rewinder Simulator

Autonomous Robot Navigation Using an Array of Ultrasonic Sensors

The Design of Force Sensing Feet for Walking Robots

Design Methodologies Using Mentor Graphics

VHDL Simulation of the MC6850 Serial I/O Controller

ISO 9000 Quality Standards and Academia

Watch-Dog Timer for the CATSAT Satellite

Spectral Accumulator for the CATSAT Satellite

Coefficient of Utilization Demonstration for Lighting Studies