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SUGGESTED
TOPICS FOR DIPLOMA THESIS
(INDEPENDENT STUDIES)
by George Economakos
Electrical Engineer NTUA
currently a PhD Student at NTUA
The Digital Systems and Computers Laboratory suggests
for the current academic season 1996 - 1997 the following
student project topics:
Automated Synthesis of Computer Architectures
- One position in the field of high-level synthesis
for the development of a behavioral into
structural (structural VHDL preferred)
description translator, using generalized
building blocks (adders, registers, buses, i.e.
register transfer level building blocks), based
on attribute grammars. The project has two main
goals. The first is the formal description of the
major synthesis algorithms (scheduling,
allocation) using attribute grammars. The second
is the selection and exploitment of the most
suitable attribute grammar evaluator.
- One position in the field of high-level synthesis
for the synthesis of structural descriptions with
generalized building blocks (register transfer
level) using CAD tools such as Alliance, Cadence,
WorkView PLUS. The descriptions will be in VHDL
and the first example descriptions will be the
benchmarks of the 1992 High Level Synthesis
Workshop. Next, the output descriptions from the
above project will be used, in an effort to
construct an integrated and generalized
high-level synthesis environment.
- One position in the field of logic minimization
for the exact or at least optimal AND-XOR
minimization without formalization or polarity
constrains. This is a hard research activity and
so there are no development environment
limitations (MS-DOS or UNIX and any suitable
programming language, according to the student's
experience). Since the exact solution is a hard
problem, ESPRESSO like heuristics (widely used
AND-OR minimizer) can be used in the worst case.
Two and multi level cases will be studied.
Generalized Telemedicine Applications
- Two one year positions for the development of a
general purpose digital signal processing
platform, focusing on telemedicine applications.
The development environment will be Windows 3.x
and the programming language Visual C++ Version
1.51 (or greater). The basic services the
platform will support are:
- Connection with a recording instrument
for digital signal acquisition using as
an example serial communications.
- Signal preprocessing (compression,
waveform interpretation, extraction of
basic characteristics).
- On screen signal presentation using an
appropriate scale.
- Printing of characteristic snapshots.
- Implementation of a generalized data
base.
- Communication with remote hosts using TCP
and UDP packet protocols.
The students who will work for this project
must be very efficient with the specification of
the functional requirements of the platform and
the extensive design phase, in an effort to
develop a highly flexible laboratory prototype
which will support the development of many
specialized related applications. In case more
students are interested, the two students can be
enforced by another two who will follow all of
the development phases and port the platform,
after it is finished, on Windows 95 using Visual
C++ Version 4.0 (or greater).
- One position for the maintenance and extension of
the generalized ECG handling telemedicine
platform of D.S.C. Lab (in case more students are
interested, a second can also get involved or the
project can be split into more independent
sub-projects). The development environment will
be MS-DOS and the programming language Borland
C++ Version 2.0 (or greater).The basic extensions
to the platform will be:
- Development of a serial device driver for
the 16550AFN UART chip.
- Connection with an analog ECG recorder
using an A/D PC card (continue a
preexisting project) and possible design
of a simple analog amplifier.
- Development of printer device drivers for
laser printers (the dot-matrix case has
been implemented).
- Modification of all existing code and
translation from C to C++ using
object-oriented design to obtain greater
upgradeability.
- Communication with remote hosts using TCP
and UDP packet protocols.
This project has the advantage that a lot of
resources are available (software and books).
Special care will be taken for the documentation
of the project which is the expansion of an
innovative activity of D.S.C. Lab with many
practical applications. There will be many
opportunities for cooperation with the above
project's team.
- One position for the development of a computer
simulator for the CRITIKON (Johnson & Johnson
Medical Inc.) DINAMAP PLUS biosignals (ECG, blood
pressure, temperature, heart rate) monitor. The
development environment will be MS-DOS and the
programming language any version of C, with a
preference in Borland C++ Version 2.0 or 3.0 (in
order to make extended use of the existing serial
communication libraries). The simulator is
required to work in real time, that is to
transmit data in the same rate as the monitor,
which is the 200Hz sampling rate. The simulator
must implement as many as possible of the
commands that compose the special communication
protocol of the PLUS.
Computer Architecture
- One position for the development of a computer
simulator for the TRN training microcomputer,
presented for educational purposes to the
students who attend the course of Computer
Architecture, under Windows. The simulator will
gradually replace the older MS-DOS version
presently provided to the students. The main goal
of this project is the development of a new user
friendly and more stimulating student assistant
which will take full advantage of what new
information technology has to offer. The
development will be performed using either Visual
C++, or Multimedia Toolbook.
Information
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