My Research - Dr. Jonathan Hill

My name is Dr. Jonathan Hill, and my specialty is computer engineering.  I am a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Hartford. I will be listing here research projects that I am actively involved in.  You might be interested in the following pages as well:

• The official webpage maintained by the college: Official Jonathan Hill
• The parent page for my website: Personal Jonathan Hill

Hardware-in-loop automobile traffic simulation

In this research we use Xilinx hardware to construct a traffic signal controller interface device.  Such a device will serves as our communications bridge between an Econolite ASC/2100 traffic signal controller and a personal computer running Corsim simulation software.  To connect to the personal computer we will use a USB.  This is new research and has not yet produced any publications.  A webpage with more details of this project will be added.
 

Bowel Sounds Monitor System for Premature Infants

This research currently involves development of a custom electronic stethoscope system for monitoring abdominal or so-called "bowel sounds" in premature infants.  Use of an FPGA to construct the prototype stethoscope as an embedded microprocessor system provides us with the utmost in flexibility.  The stethoscope is an embedded system and we are using the embedded developers kit (EDK) and ISE in this research.  Possible causes of bowel dysfunction in premature infants include bowel obstruction, functional or anatomic, which may be reflected as an abnormality or lack of peristalsis. This peristalsis may be monitored acoustically to determine the health of the patient's digestive tract.
 

• Stethoscope for Monitoring Neonatal Abdominal Sounds, International Journal of Modern Engineering, Fall/Winter 2008, pages 5 - 11,
  http://www.ijme.us/issues/fall2008/IJME_fall08.pdf

 

Discrete Time Signal Processing Toolkit

In teaching signal processing, we find that students typically lack an intuitive feel for discrete time signals.  Basic topics such as sampling have subtleties that plague students.  We are developing the discrete time signal processing (DTSP) toolkit to provide a simple means to demonstrate such principles and provide students with a means to investigate these principles.  The toolkit is also useful to advanced students working on their own projects. 

 

• Project webpage, DTSP Toolkit,
  http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/jmhill/projects/DTSPkit/index.htm
• Educational Discrete Time Singal Processing Toolkit ASEE Summer 2007 Convention, Honalulu, HI,
  http://soa.asee.org/paper/conference/paper-view.cfm?id=4536

 

Fiber Optics Data Communications Toolkit

Optical fiber technology provides very high quality data communications.  Given the common use of optical fiber in the industry and high-end consumer electronics, the use of optical fiber should be more widely taught.  The kit makes use of a custom adapter card that provides transmitter and receiver electronics along with a small solderless breadboard area.  The adapter board attaches to an off-the-shelf field programmable gate array (FPGA) device. 

 

• Project webpage, Fiber Optic Data Communications Toolkit,
  http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/jmhill/projects/fodtk/index.html
• Educational Optical Fiber Data Communications Toolkit, ASEE Summer 2008 Convention, Pittsburgh PA,
  http://soa.asee.org/paper/conference/paper-view.cfm?id=9358