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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Last modified: 04.21.1997