Global Utilities

School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences

Department of Electronic Engineering

Digital Signal Processing

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is a field that is concerned with manipulating signals in digital form. Manipulating signals in digital form has many advantages over manipulating signals in analogue form.

It has applications in many areas of engineering including telecommunications, computer engineering, biomedical engineering and multimedia systems. Basically DSP is found in any applications where a signal or waveform is manipulated in digital form.

Take for example the mobile phone which is used to transmit and receive voice signals. Before the voice signals can be transmitted, it must be changed into a form that is suitable for transmission.


It must first undergo a process of conversion from analogue to digital form. It it then compressed so that it can be transmitted efficiently. Before the signal is finally sent into the air, it must be tailored so that it travel effortlessly through the air medium. At the receiver similar manipulations of the signal in reverse order needs to be applied so that the original voice signal can be recovered. All the manipulations of the signal use techniques and technology from DSP.

A small sample of other applications where DSP technology is crucial are:

  • CD music uses DSP for its creation and playback. (You might notice that some CD player manufacturer labels use the words Linear Phase Digital Filter on the actual player to emphasise the use of DSP technology).
  • Radar systems for military or civilian air traffic control uses DSP technology to process and interpret the radar signals bouncing off the airplanes. With sophisticated DSP techniques, not only the location and speed of the planes can be determined, but its make and type.
  • The new generation of digital television systems which will replace the current analogue television system, heavily employs DSP technology.

In fact it is fair to say that one of the factors that fuels the development of more powerful microprocessor chips is the demand from applications that rely heavily on DSP techniques and technology.

The staff members whose research interests lie in this area are;

Prof John Devlin, Professor
BE(Elec) Melb , PhD La Trobe.

Performance studies of digital communication satellite links. Switching and control of SSTDMA systems. Dynamic protocol formats to improve intergration with terrestial networks. Satellite communication gateways. Channel quality of HF communication links. Design of microwave circuits for satellite applications. Antennas and receiver for satellite communication. Mobile communication via satelite. Microwave. Digital receiver design, HF receivers and data transmission, frequency synthesis techniques, high linearity phase receivers. Radar systems: HF radar systems (SuperDARN): HF ionospheric phased array backscatter, real time systems design, data storage, transmission and analysis techniques. Microwave ultra wideband Chirp radars, non invasive testing and imaging, microwave ISAR systems.

A/Prof David Tay, Associate Professor
BE(Hons), BSc(Hons) Melb , PhD Cambridge.

Wavelet Transforms, Multirate filter banks, Multidimensional Filters, Image Compression, Document Image Processing, Time series analysis, Watermarking, Multiuser communicaton, Multimedia signal processing.

Dr Dennis Deng, Senior Lecturer
BSc SunYat-Sen , MSc Acadamia Sinica , PhD La Trobe.

Algebra structures for signal processing. Neural networks. Nonlinear signal processing. Multiresolution signal decomposition and processing. Image processing and image data compression. Medical imaging.

Dr Song Wang, Lecturer
PhD Melb

The research interests of Dr Song Wang lie in the area of Mobile Communications and Control Systems.

Scholarships may be available to well-qualified applicants. For more information on scholarships available at La Trobe University click here . For further information on research degrees at La Trobe University click here .

Detailed information on undergraduate and postgraduate courses is available from the La Trobe University handbook. Further information regarding the Department of Electronic Engineering may be obtained by writing to:

The Promotions Officer The Postgraduate Research Coordinator
Department of Electronic Engineering Department of Electronic Engineering
La Trobe University La Trobe University
Victoria 3086 Australia Victoria 3086 Australia
Phone: +61 3 9479 2036 Phone: +61 3 9479 2036
Fax: +61 3 9471 0524 Fax: +61 3 9471 0524
Email: promotions_ee@latrobe.edu.au Email: pgrad_cord_ee@latrobe.edu.au

 

Content Approved by: Head of Department
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Last Updated: 3 May, 2007