Systems & Communication | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Advances in technology are improving capabilities of analyzing diverse information sources such as audio (speech, acoustics, music), image (video, multimedia, medical scans), medical signals (heart rate, blood pressure, brain activity) and remote sensing data (geophysical, radar, sonar). Examples of systems that manipulate signals are speech recognition, video streaming, cellular networks and medical scans such as MRI. The disciplines of signal and image processing are concerned with the analysis and synthesis of signals and their interaction with systems.

In communications, the objective is to transfer information (signals) from one or many sources to one or many destinations, which requires the design of transmission schemes (e.g., modulation and coding), receivers, and filters. The Signal Systems and Communications area covers the fundamentals of analog and digital signals and systems, the mathematical tools for the analysis of deterministic and random signals, and applications to digital signal processing, digital image processing, and digital/analog communications. Oregon State faculty in signals and communications specialize in areas such as wired and wireless communications, ecological and medical research, cellular communication, data and information sharing.

Employment opportunities range across a large variety of areas such as the cellphone industry, fiber optic communications, ADSL and broadband cable communications, sound and audio engineering, speech recognition, medical imaging systems (X-Rays, CT, MRI, PET), DSP hardware and software design, printing industry, digital displays (CRT, LCD, plasma), digital cameras and camcorders, image compression standards (JPEG, MPEG).

Potential Job Opportunities

Signal processing engineer: development of software and hardware for signal processing in areas such as audio, image, medical, and remote sensing for companies like Texas Instruments, HP, Intel, Google, Samsung, LT, MATLAB

Communication engineer: design, develop and maintain communications systems for companies like Broadcom and Cisco, or national labs like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, MIT Lincoln Labs, or MITRE.