Top International Conference on Signal Processing Spotlights CAC Leadership

Each year, the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) draws thousands to the world’s largest and most comprehensive technical conference on signal processing and its applications to communications, radar, acoustics, biomedicine, and satellite navigations. This year, Dr. Moeness Amin, director of the Center for Advanced Communications (CAC), achieved the distinct honor of delivering one of the conference’s Plenary Talks.

“It was a privilege and an honor to have been selected to deliver the Plenary at ICASSP. It was indeed an opportunity to help further promote the CAC’s international standing and its impressive research capabilities,” says Dr. Amin, who presented “Recent Advances in Radar Imaging of Building Interiors” on March 19 in Dallas, Texas.

The CAC is widely recognized as a global leader in through-wall imaging by international academic, government, and industry communities. Approximately 2,000 conference participants from these areas attended Dr. Amin’s presentation, which covered advances in research and applications for this technology and outlined the state-of-the–art, as well as existing difficulties and continued challenges it faces.

Considered an emerging technology with important practical applications for police, fire and rescue, first responders, and the military, through-wall imaging is an innovative extension of how signal processing can be applied. “This Plenary talk provided an opportunity to reflect on almost a decade of extensive sponsored research conducted at the CAC and also at other academic, industrial, and government organizations in this area. I was able, during the Plenary, to clearly demonstrate the CAC’s leadership and imaging capabilities which will hopefully lead to new opportunities for funded research and productive collaborations,” says Dr. Amin.

The CAC’s achievements in through-wall imaging research were also recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Signal Processing Society, which presented a “Best Paper Award” to Dr. Amin and Dr. Genyuan Wang, a former postdoctoral fellow, for a paper entitled “Imaging Through Unknown Walls Using Different Standoff Distances” (published in the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing in 2006). This award is given for research that demonstrates a positive impact over time. Dr. Amin accepted the award at a recognition ceremony held during the ICASSP conference.