Date: MONDAY November 1, 2004

Time: 3:00 pm

Location: GCATT Room 325

Speaker(s): Gerald Cain

Title: Rapid Digital Filter Design for Instrumentation and Communications

Abstract:
Increasingly, conventional “textbook” targets for digital filters are being supplanted by the need for oddball arbitrary gain and phase wiggles - where past design practice provides little guidance. Minimum-phase, fractional-delay, complex-coefficient filters, point time and frequency-domain constraints, IIRs with linear phase over passbands - all in various mixes - are emerging elements in customers’ wish-lists for a more sophisticated class of filters and the tools that can reliably design them!
Bearing in mind well-recognized progress in interactive graphical manipulations, it seems strange that the human has been consigned such a back-seat role in design. Basically the scene has been - and continues to be - that much intellectual power is expended in devising clever algorithms which unearth obscure but potent optimization procedures and then a hands-free algorithm is set to churn along automatically. People have mostly just harvested the results (the coefficients), take-it-or- leave-it.
The tools and a couple of new techniques described here put the person firmly back in the design-shaping loop, but suppress the drudgery of building the test harness and the ways of interacting decisively with the design flow.
A special Simulink-based LabKit which embraces these filter design tools is also described, allowing on-line manipulation of filter characteristics in a wider simulation setting. Time-varying Matched Filtering for pulse-event detection in instrumentation and communication systems is a particular strength of the LabKit which is demonstrated.

Bio:

Gerald D. Cain was born in Anniston, AL and is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the IEE. He received the B.S.E.E. degree from Auburn University, Auburn, AL, in 1963, and the M.S.E.E. degree from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in 1965. In 1970 he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in communication theory from the University of Florida at Gainesville.
He participated in the Technical Development Program of Sandia National Laboratories, refining early laser radars and developing test range timing and control instrumentation. He joined Teledyne Brown Engineering Company at Huntsville, AL in 1965 and led a small team of radar analysts engaged in system modeling, simulation and electronic countermeasures studies. In 1971 he took up a lecturing post at the University of Westminster in London, England, developing courses in signal processing and coordinating joint research activities and educational exchange programs with a number of international partners.
He became Head of the University’s School of Electronic and Manufacturing Systems and Director of its Centre for Microelectronic Systems Applications. While building a research team active in VLSI realization of DSP and communications subsystems as Professor of Digital Signal Processing, Cain and his colleagues pioneered a flexible range of course packages combining postgraduate qualifications with Continuing Professional Development study routes for industry-based engineers.
From 1999 to 2001 he was with The MathWorks Limited at Cambridge, England, as Business Manager, DSP and Communications. In this capacity he oversaw delivery of consultancy projects employing the MATLAB family of DSP software, identification of new software product opportunities in communications and instrumentation areas, customer training, and specialist product development.
Since 2001 Cain has been a Director of two companies: Signalytics (a training company) and DSP Creations Limited (a DSP software firm).

Date:	MONDAY November 1, 2004
Time:	3:00 pm
Location:	GCATT Room 325
Speaker(s):	Gerald Cain
Title:	Rapid Digital Filter Design for Instrumentation and Communications
Abstract:	Increasingly, conventional “textbook” targets for digital filters are being supplanted by the need for oddball arbitrary gain and phase wiggles - where past design practice provides little guidance. Minimum-phase, fractional-delay, complex-coefficient filters, point time and frequency-domain constraints, IIRs with linear phase over passbands - all in various mixes - are emerging elements in customers’ wish-lists for a more sophisticated class of filters and the tools that can reliably design them! Bearing in mind well-recognized progress in interactive graphical manipulations, it seems strange that the human has been consigned such a back-seat role in design. Basically the scene has been - and continues to be - that much intellectual power is expended in devising clever algorithms which unearth obscure but potent optimization procedures and then a hands-free algorithm is set to churn along automatically. People have mostly just harvested the results (the coefficients), take-it-or- leave-it. The tools and a couple of new techniques described here put the person firmly back in the design-shaping loop, but suppress the drudgery of building the test harness and the ways of interacting decisively with the design flow. A special Simulink-based LabKit which embraces these filter design tools is also described, allowing on-line manipulation of filter characteristics in a wider simulation setting. Time-varying Matched Filtering for pulse-event detection in instrumentation and communication systems is a particular strength of the LabKit which is demonstrated.
Bio:	Gerald D. Cain was born in Anniston, AL and is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the IEE. He received the B.S.E.E. degree from Auburn University, Auburn, AL, in 1963, and the M.S.E.E. degree from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in 1965. In 1970 he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in communication theory from the University of Florida at Gainesville. He participated in the Technical Development Program of Sandia National Laboratories, refining early laser radars and developing test range timing and control instrumentation. He joined Teledyne Brown Engineering Company at Huntsville, AL in 1965 and led a small team of radar analysts engaged in system modeling, simulation and electronic countermeasures studies. In 1971 he took up a lecturing post at the University of Westminster in London, England, developing courses in signal processing and coordinating joint research activities and educational exchange programs with a number of international partners. He became Head of the University’s School of Electronic and Manufacturing Systems and Director of its Centre for Microelectronic Systems Applications. While building a research team active in VLSI realization of DSP and communications subsystems as Professor of Digital Signal Processing, Cain and his colleagues pioneered a flexible range of course packages combining postgraduate qualifications with Continuing Professional Development study routes for industry-based engineers. From 1999 to 2001 he was with The MathWorks Limited at Cambridge, England, as Business Manager, DSP and Communications. In this capacity he oversaw delivery of consultancy projects employing the MATLAB family of DSP software, identification of new software product opportunities in communications and instrumentation areas, customer training, and specialist product development. Since 2001 Cain has been a Director of two companies: Signalytics (a training company) and DSP Creations Limited (a DSP software firm).