Researchers in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science are working to develop new knowledge in the areas of control, communications, and signal processing. These areas form a theoretical foundation with diverse applications in fields such as aerospace, robotics, power engineering, wireless communications, radar, sonar, sensor networks, and data storage systems. Non-linear control focuses on the controllability and stability of systems with non-linear components. An example is airplane wing flaps, which have a linear response until they reach their maximum deployed angle, at which point their response saturates. Control and design of large-scale dynamical networks focuses on identifying and solving control problems in modern networks so as to permit cooperation among network components. Applications include air traffic flow management, epidemiology, sleep regulation, sensor and vehicle networking, and electric power system analysis. Underwater acoustic communications focuses on joint design of channel estimation, modulation, and error control coding to achieve fast data rates on the shallow water acoustic communication channel. Applications include underwater sensor networks and near shore surveillance.<br>Signal processing for two dimensional optical and magnetic recording focuses on design of combined channel equalization and error control coding schemes to enable the next generation of data storage devices to achieve much higher storage densities.