ICT3908 Final Year Project in Computer Engineering

ICT3908 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering 1 B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal

ICT3908 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering

Proposals

2020 / 2021


Johann Briffa

My general research interests involve Coding Theory (both Error Control and Data

Compression), Signal / Image Processing, and High-Performance / GPU Computing. For

recent work kindly look at my publications (link below). In addition, for the supervision of

final year projects, there are also other software development tasks related to

ongoing projects (e.g. for the use of a drone for 3D mapping). While I am happy to supervise

students with any background, keep in mind that suitability for a project topic depends on

the student’s background (e.g. for imaging one would need background in signal or image

processing). In all cases, the student needs to have a solid programming background (any

language) and willingness to learn new languages and APIs as needed. Further details and

publications on my website: https://jabriffa.wordpress.com/research/topics/

Reuben Farrugia

Computer Vision is an increasingly important technology in the field of artificial intelligence. There are endless possibilities and applications in a range of fields including medical, remote sensing, archaeology, the entertainment industry and several others. Students interested in this field can be involved in one of the following projects: - View synthesis from light field images: The aim of this project is to use classical methods to synthesis intermediate views from a light field images. - Depth estimation fro stereo images: The aim of this project is to use classical techniques to estimate the depth in a scene. This method can be applied to in a video light field system or else on remote sensing to estimate the height of objects in a scene. Students interested in this area are advice to contact the supervisor on [email protected].

Saviour Zammit

I would be prepared to supervise students working in the area of IoT and its integration with

Distributed Ledger Technologies, the development of 5G and 6G technologies, and

multimedia transmission over hybrid mobile/fixed networks, also as facilitated by Software

Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation.

https://jabriffa.wordpress.com/research/topics/


Wed-Based Test-bed for Image Understanding

Supervisor(s): Prof Adrian Muscat (Principle Supervisor)

Co-supervisor (if any): Dr Chris Porter (Co- Supervisor)

Problem Background This project is in the area of machine learning models that predict the relation-

ship in between two objects in an image. For example man wearing hat and

person working at the desk. In the former wearing describes the relation between

man and hat, while working at describes the relation in between person and desk

in the latter. Predicting the relation is a sub-task in the area of image

understanding, and finds useful application in visual question answering, image

description generation and robotics. Our participation in this area is ongoing (see

for example [Muscat and Belz, 2017, Birmingham et al., 2018, Belz et al., 2018])

and we are looking into developing an interactive website that can drive this

work forward.

[Belz et al., 2018] Belz, A., Muscat, A., Anguill, P., Sow, M., Vincent, G., and

Zinessabah, Y. (2018). Spatialvoc2k: A multilingual dataset of images with

annotations and features for spatial relations between objects. In Proceedings of

INLG’18.

[Birmingham et al., 2018] Birmingham, B., Muscat, A., and Belz, A. (2018).

Adding the third dimension to spatial relation detection in 2d images. In

Proceedings of INLG’18.

[Muscat and Belz, 2017] Muscat, A. and Belz, A. (2017). Learning to generate

descriptions of visual data anchored in spatial relations. IEEE Computational

Intelligence Magazine, 12(3):29– 42.

Project Objective(s): In this project the student will build a web-based test-bed for the development

and testing of various Visual Relation Detection (VRD) model.

The test-bed would allow interested parties to, for example, (a) upload images,

(b) annotate an image, (c) rate the labels predicted by the machine models or

annotated by humans, and (d) carry out statistical analysis, including inter-rater

agreements.

This project involves considerable software development and in particular the

integration of ready-made open-source models, including R-CNN or YOLO

models and various VRD models. The test-bed will be based on a modular

framework, such that models can be inserted and selected as desired, ideally via

an API.

Project Resources Budget: €0.00 VM machine hosted by ITservices

Industrial Partners involved:

None


Expected Project Deliverables:

Web-site front-end and back-end functions Source Code with appropriate comments Dissertation

Student background / interest:

Computer vision, Machine Learning, Image Understanding, Interactive Web-development

Ethical and Data Protection Issues

Please tick if any of the following apply.

□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.

□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.

□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.


Ambient Acoustic noise monitoring solution based on NB-IoT

Supervisor(s): Prof. Carl James Debono

Co-supervisor (if any): Dr Mario Cordina

Problem Background The Internet of Things (IoT) allows the connection of a large number of

devices to the Internet. This creates a considerable amount of data that need to be transmitted over telecommunication networks. This project will focus on the monitoring of ambient acoustic noise and transmit this data over a narrowband (NB) channel.

Project Objective(s): The objective of this project is to set up a prototype NB-IoT system for ambient acoustic noise monitoring including the use of an LTE base station. A communication protocol needs to be determined together with some processing strategy to minimize the data that needs to be transmitted. Experiments using the prototype system will be done to verify the operation of the system and visualise the data collected. Different communications setups will be tested to study the performance of the system as the channel conditions change.

Project Resources Budget: €__150___ Base station and SIM card supplied by Vodafone NB-IoT modem approximately €70 Acoustic device approximately €80


Vodafone


Setup of prototype Establish communications protocol Experimental results

Telecommunications Remote Sensing








Design of an ASIC interface for capacitive accelerometers

Supervisor(s): Ivan Grech

Co-supervisor (if any):

Problem Background MEMS accelerometers typically use differential capacitors in order to detect

the position of the seismic mass. The scope of this project is to design an ASIC interface using the XFAB technology which includes the transimpedance amplifier and synchronous drive and demodulation stages. In this application, low noise, low power and a reduction in the effect of parastic capacitances is very important.

Project Objective(s): The objective of this work is to design the various analogue stages of an ASIC interface for MEMS accelerometers having a capaciitve output. Critical parameters are low power, low noise, low offset and reduction in the effect of parasitic capacitances.

Project Resources Cadence with XFAB design kit (already available)


None


Literature review of existing capacitive interfaces Schematic design of transimpedance amplifier Schematic design of synchronous drive and demodulation Layout of the interface and post layout simulation Final report


Analogue circuit design and simulation







Design of a small brushless DC (BLDC) motor controller

Supervisor(s): Ivan Grech


Problem Background Brushless DC motors are extensively used because of their high reliability

and weight to torque ratio. An dedicated ASIC controller for a BLDC motor would be useful in order to reduce the computational load of a microcontroller.

Project Objective(s): The objective of this project is to design a universal ASIC controller for small BLDC motors using the XFAB process, capable of position or speed control. The ASIC should also perform monitoring of motor phase current. The ASIC should have a appropriate digital interface for communication with a microcontroller.

Project Resources Cadence with XFAB design kit (already available)


None


Literature review of existing BLDC control techniques Design of the digital section for the control loop and output winding signals using HDL Design of the analogue sections including power drivers and current sensing Integration of the above modules Final report


Analogue circuit design and simulation







Radio Frequency Wideband Microstrip Circuits

Supervisor(s): Dr Inġ. Owen Casha Department of Microelectronics & Nanoelectronics E-mail: [email protected]

Co-supervisor (if any): N/A

Problem Background: Radio frequency (RF) wideband microstrip circuits

represent a class of electronic circuits, designed to operate on signals in the megahertz to gigahertz frequency ranges. Circuit designs beyond 1 GHz are difficult to realize with discrete components because the wavelength becomes comparable with the physical element dimensions, resulting in various losses that severely degrade the circuit performance. Thus, to implement practical high frequency and wideband circuits, the lumped components must be converted into distributed element realizations.

Project Objective(s): The aim of this project is to design, simulate and implement various RF wideband microstrip circuits such as quarter wavelength matching networks, single and double stub matching networks, power dividers and couplers.

Project Resources: QUCS - Quite Universal Circuit Simulator

SonnetLite - Electromagnetic Simulator

Vector Network Analyser (VNA)

MATLAB


None


Literature review

mailto:[email protected]


Modelling and simulation of RF wideband microstrip circuits

Implementation of the microstrip circuit prototypes on a PCB

Testing and Characterization Student background / interest:

Radio and Microwave Theory


Please tick if any of the following apply: The project has data protection issues; please specify. The project has ethical issues; please specify. The project involves human subjects; please specify.


Computer Vision and Image Processing

Supervisor(s):

Reuben Farrugia


Problem Background

Computer Vision is an increasingly important technology in the field of artificial intelligence. There are endless possibilities and applications in a range of fields including medical, remote sensing, archaeology, the entertainment industry and several others. Students interested in this field can be involved in one of the following projects: - View synthesis from light field images: The aim of this project is to use classical methods to synthesis intermediate views from a light field images. - Depth estimation fro stereo images: The aim of this project is to use classical techniques to estimate the depth in a scene. This method can be applied to in a video light field system or else on remote sensing to estimate the height of objects in a scene. Students interested in this area are advice to contact the supervisor on [email protected].

Project Objective(s):

Project Resources Budget: €__0___











Direct Digital Synthesis on FPGA

Supervisor(s): Trevor Spiteri


Problem Background Direct digital synthesis (DDS) can be used to create different shapes of

signals, for example square waves and sine wave, for different frequencies, while using a clock signal with a fixed frequency as the input. The applications of DDS include signal generators and synthesizers.

Project Objective(s): To research DDS techniques

To test the algorithms in software

To design a hardware version of the algorithms for FPGA

Project Resources FPGA boards available in labs

Computer with synthesis and simulation software



Literature review

Software implementation of DDS algorithms for testing

Hardware implementation of DDS algorithms


Digital signal processing

Digital hardware design using VHDL







Command and Control Software for Pico-Satellite

Supervisor(s): Prof Ing Victor Buttigieg [email protected]

Co-supervisor (if any): Dr Ing Mark Anthony Azzopardi

Problem Background

The Astrionics Research Group (https://www.um.edu.mt/eng/ese/astrea) is designing and building Malta’s first pico-satellite (UoMBSat1). The satellite will be used to study the electrical properties of the ionosphere. In addition to the pico-satellite, the group is also building a ground station that is able to communicate with the satellite. The data received through the ground station includes telemetry and payload information. In addition, the commands can be sent to the pico-satellite to control its behaviour and also to update its on-board firmware. The UoMBSat1 project is a multidisciplinary one and offers the opportunity for students to work on a big engineering, team-based project. A list of related projects can be found here: https://www.um.edu.mt/eng/ese/astrea/activeprojects.

Project Objective(s): The project’s objective is to write software that is able to interpret the telemetry and payload data received from the pico-satellite and to display this appropriately on a web page in real-time. The software should also analyse the data to detect and highlight any anomalies. In addition, a suitable control interface is to be designed and implemented so as to send commands and firmware updates to the pico-satellite in a secure and efficient manner.

Project Resources Budget: €0 – A PC (provided) is required to develop the software and to run the implemented system.


None


Software to receive and send data from/to pico-satellite. Web interface is used to interact with the software. Documentation on the use of the software is also to be provided.


The project is software based. Programming language to be discussed with the student. An interest in communication systems would be an asset.







https://www.um.edu.mt/eng/ese/astrea

https://www.um.edu.mt/eng/ese/astrea/activeprojects


GNU Radio-Based Teaching System


Co-supervisor (if any): None

Problem Background GNU Radio is a software framework that allows the user to develop highly

modularized radio or signal processing systems through the use of an extensive library of basic building blocks. Special drivers can then be used to drive specific hardware to generate the signals in real-time. Further details may be found at http://gnuradio.org.

Project Objective(s): The objective of this project is to build a number of systems to teach

fundamental techniques in communications and signal processing from a

practical point of view using GNU Radio as the underlying platform.

Project Resources • GNU Radio software is open source

• Additional hardware may need to be bought depending on specific objectives

set by the student.


None


A set of experiments (with suitable documentation) to illustrate

communications and signal processing fundamentals.


Communications, signal processing, programming (in Python and C++).







http://gnuradio.org/


Automatic Updating of Electronic Programme Guide



Problem Background Most modern TV platforms offer an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)

that helps users find suitable TV programmes to watch. In many instances, this is also used to record future programmes. However, the EPG is usually set up several days before the programmes actually go on air and the scheduled times are not always very accurate, leading to missed programme segments when recording.

Project Objective(s): The objective of this project is to automatically detect the start of programmes and to update the EPG accordingly.

Project Resources The project is software based using freely available packages


None


A computer program that analyses a TV broadcast channel and associated EPG stream and adjusts the EPG times accordingly.


Programming, image/video processing.








Construction of LDPC Codes

Supervisor(s): Prof Ing Victor Buttigieg


Problem Background Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes are a class of error-correcting

codes that offer excellent error correcting performance approaching Shannon’s limit. It is possible to construct both binary and non-binary codes. Efficient decoding algorithms exist making use of iterative techniques, where the decoded output is improved at each iteration. LDPC codes are used in many applications and included in a number of standards, such as DVB-S2 for satellite digital video broadcasting, 10GBASE-T 10Gb/s ethernet and 5G. A number of different constructions techniques exist in the literature, optimized to specific use-cases (for example block size, i.e. size of codeword, required).

Project Objective(s): The objectives of this project is to first research some of the existing construction techniques with a particular application in mind. The specific application can be determined by the student. Then it is required to implement one or more of these techniques and verify that the resultant codes are correct using simulation.

Project Resources Budget: €__0___ - The project is software based using freely available compilers and simulators.


None


A program that gives as output a file that describes an LDPC code with the specified parameters.


Programming. An interest in telecommunications is considered an asset but is not essential.


Please tick if any of the following apply. □ The project has data protection issues; please specify. □ The project has ethical issues; please specify. □ The project involves human subjects; please specify.

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ICT3908 Final Year Project in Computer Engineering