California Baptist University

Equipment will be purchased to develop an advanced “green” computing, teaching and research laboratory with field programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware and robotics equipment.  Using the new laboratory and equipment, undergraduate engineering students will study bioinformatics; robotics (enhanced recognition, ethics-based decision making and sensor interface development); and computer energy optimization.  Currently, study in these areas is limited by speed, efficiency and/or cost of computing.  Students will explore hands-on hardware/software co-design approaches emphasizing efficient hardware designs combined with flexible software structure (mainly for microcontrollers).  Use of the laboratory, FPGA hardware and other equipment, concepts and applications will be integrated into all four years of the undergraduate Electrical Computing Engineering (ECE) degree curriculum by augmentation of eleven existing engineering courses, thereby facilitating faculty communication and, as a result, student outcomes and learning.  Engineering education at CBU will be more “relevant, attractive and connected,”  allowing expanded recruitment, retention, and graduation of qualified electrical/computer engineers, an engineering specialty documented to be suffering from a shortage of qualified engineers.