Image Registration and Communications Signal Processing Research

Arlene Cole-Rhodes, Associate Professor
Morgan State University
School of Engineering

Abstract:
In this talk I will give an overview of work done under collaborative funded research projects, involving both graduate and undergraduate students. This work ranges from the problem of registering remote-sensing images produced by NASA satellite missions. Such systems generate large amounts of data from multiple-time observations of the same features,data in different spectral ranges and/or at different resolutions from different sensors mounted on a platform which may be simultaneously observing the same features. All this data must be integrated to provide a better understanding of Earth and Space phenomena. Providing a method for automatically registering these images is the first step in this process. A multi-resolution algorithm was developed for this purpose, and is now being tested for the registration of biomedical images of the retina. In a separate project, work is under way in collaboration with the Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems ERC at the University of Michigan to develop a method of detecting pores (or defects) on the surface of machined car parts, based on image scans of these parts. Other work sponsored by the Army Research Labs (ARL) involves the application of signal processing methods to develop an adaptive blind channel equalizer for an unknown signal that has been transmitted over an unknown frequency-selective channel using QAM modulation. An extension to the well-known constant modulus algorithm (CMA) is proposed for this purpose. Its performance is analyzed by measuring the mean square error (MSE) and symbol error rates (SER) between the transmitted and received signals. In addition, work is beginning to design and develop a candidate radio link protocol for the iNET (Integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry)communications network. This project is sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of the Navy, and work is currently under way to determine the requirements of such a radio link in the physical and link layers by using analysis and simulation.