ESM Focus Area
Major Societal Challenges
Major societal challenges impact the direction of environmental sensing and monitoring. Engineering responses to these challenges point towards potential Research & Education (R&E) opportunities.
- Ocean health
- Estimating marine life abundance
- Tracking terrestrial wildlife
- Underwater exploration & mapping
- Efficient agriculture
- Clean water access/pollution
Research & Education Tracks
Research and education programs to be developed to address the large-scale societal challenges noted above.
- Signal Processing and Machine Learning
- Electromagnetics and Acoustics
- Data Analytics
- Underwater Robotics, Controls
- Autonomous sensing and instrumentation
Research Objectives
Faculty members with expertise in multiple ESM areas enable PSU to:
- Enable an integrated approach to identifying and solving environmental problems (from sensing to decisions)
- Enable faculty to develop ESM-related, interdisciplinary, high-impact projects
- Create high visibility within research community
- Consistently attract a balanced graduate student body in signal processing, instrumentation and related areas
Educational Objectives
A diverse ESM engineering faculty permits the ECE department to offer a wide range of ESM engineering courses, with the following objectives:
- Providing solid fundamentals in remote sensing methods (electromagnetic, acoustic)
- Establishing vigorous signal processing and embedded systems MS and PhD tracks
- Expanded coursework in fundamentals and applications of machine learning coursework and applications
- Developing curriculum on underwater robotics
- Emphasizing interdisciplinary curriculum
Research Opportunities
Opportunities exist for both undergraduate and graduate students to participate in ESM faculty research. Please contact a faculty member in our current team listed below to inquire about opportunities.
See our strategic vision.