Onderzoek

IT GOVERNANCE FOR SMES  < J. Devos >

IT Governance is placing IT on the agenda of boards and CEOs. Research on the IT value proposition is broad and elaborate but mostly focussed on large enterprises. Despite the numerous successes illustrating the advantages of bringing IT/IS into organizations it is broadly accepted that the processes of designing, developing, implementing and using IS are cumbersome and not straightforward. Recent and older reports show that IS projects frequently fail. The focus of our research is the relation of IT and SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) in an outsourced environment.

We have chosen for a qualitative and positivistic IS case study research strategy based on multiple cases. Considering the current state of the research we have formulated two general research objectives: 1) to extend our knowledge of IS failures in an outsourced SME environment and 2) to clarify the link between the insights of failed IS projects and the principles of IT governance.

QUERY BY SELECTION IN DIGITAL VIDEO : WYCIWYG  < S. Verstockt >

Extension of iDTV architecture to support an interactive application for brand recognition and information retrieval (within the framework of product placement). Recognition of brands in digital video will be based on new algorithm for segmentation and recognition of objects selected by pointer.

WYCIWYG (what you click is what you get) will improve the viewer possibilities a lot. If the viewer is interested in a company or product, he simply clicks the trademark logo and gets all the desired information about that brand or company. < More... >

VERIFICATION THE ADVANCED RECONFIGURABLE SYSTEM ON CHIP  < J. Beke >

As Moore's Law has successfully predicted, the verification complexity of an electronic design grows faster than the design complexity. The remedy for this productivity gap is moving to higher levels of abstractions. SystemC and SystemVerilog are used to describe and simulate the design at this Electronic System Level (ESL). At this level the designer can find and solve the costly high level bugs.

New techniques like assertions based design and testbench design for optimal functional coverage are explored during this project. The next step in the verification process happens at a lower level of abstraction like register transfer level (RTL). The last step in the design cycle is the test on the FPGA themselves. Sophisticated techniques like hardware/software codesign and real time debugging are applied to make the design bug free.

This project is funded by the IWT and is a cooperation between the electronic division of Howest and 14 SME's surroundings of West-Vlaanderen. Starting date is 1 october 2007 and two electronic engineers are working on this project for a period of 2 years. < More... >

HIGH FREQUENT COMMUNICATION  < C. Stevens >

Within the department Electronics Chris Stevens is doing research activities in cooperation with Prof. D. De Zutter and Prof. H. Rogier (University Ghent, department Information Technology, INTEC) in the field of high frequency wireless MIMO transmission systems.

The research focuses on the design, simulation and implementation of an experimental demonstrator system that makes it possible to link the theoretical aspects of wireless MIMO systems to practice by means of a usable test bed and test system for real time HF-communication between array antennas at transmitter and receiver side. Within these research activities the goal is to design and implement real time programmable HF MIMO wireless data links for ISM-band applications with low cost and commercial available components and integrated circuits.

Low-cost RF-instrumentation  < W. Vantomme >

At the moment there is a brand new evolution in the world of electronics. Everyone knows in the past electronic devices where often bulky and immovable, but today there is a trend to build a new generation of mobile, low-power electronics. These devices often need to communicate with other devices or with an underlying communications network (e.g. GSM/ WLAN...). To communicate this new generation of electronics often uses high-frequency radio waves. As of today there are huge concerns about the long term effect of those radio waves upon the human body.

To measure those effects there is one big issue namely there is a lack of easy to deploy measuring systems for high-frequency radio waves. Today one must use rather bulky and expensive equipment to get reasonable good measurement data. So the goal of this doctoral study is to invent some cheap solutions for mobile, multi deployable measurement equipment tailored to much used wireless applications. One very usable device would be something that could register how much GSM-radiation an individual absorbs during the day. With such a device scientists would get invaluable data to estimate the influence of radiation upon the human body. This doctoral study is in cooperation with INTEC-design a researchgroup of the departement of informationtechnology at the University of Ghent.