ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
Proposals
2016 / 2017
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
1
Image Processing Techniques for Brain Hemorrhage Detection in
Head CT Scans
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Problem Background
Prof. Ing. Carl James Debono, carl.debono@um.edu.mt
Dr Paul Bezzina, paul.bezzina@um.edu.mt
Dr Francis Zarb, francis.zarb@um.edu.mt
Hemorrhagic stroke is a kind of cerebrovascular disease that causes
vascular rapture and bleeding in the brain region. CT scans can be used
for diagnostics and to determine whether a patient needs surgery,
according to the volume of blood and the location of the hemorrhage.
Accurate diagnostics depend on the quality of the CT scan which varies
with patient positions and imaging artifacts. Moreover, small volumes of
blood can be difficult to detect. Image processing techniques provide
tools to support diagnostics.
•
Project Objective(s):
•
•
Project Resources
•
•
•
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
No
Apply image processing techniques on CT scans to detect the
presence of hemorrhage in the brain
Develop a curve-fitting algorithm to enclose the detected region
Evaluate the accuracy of the algorithm and compare to published
work
Budget: €__0___
CT scans will be made available by Malta’s General Hospital
OpenCV or Matlab
Peer-reviewed literature (journals and conference proceedings)
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
•
•
Software developed
Experimental results
Analysis and comparison of results
Student background /
interest:
•
•
•
Programming
Image processing
Medical engineering
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
■ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
Project will analyse patient medical data
■ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
The CT scans will come from patients at Malta’s General Hospital
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
2
3D Video Content Creation and Display
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Prof. Ing. Carl James Debono, carl.debono@um.edu.mt
NONE
Problem Background
Immersive multimedia communication will play an important role in the
near future. 3D video is part of this experience. Most of the current
technology relies on stereoscopic displays that demand the viewers to
use special glasses. Recently new displays that do not need such glasses
have been developed. In order to value the performance of such displays,
content needs to be generated.
Project Objective(s):
•
•
•
Capture natural video having different characteristics
Process the captured video to transcode it to the necessary format
Display the video content on the Dimenco display and evaluate the
performance
Project Resources
•
•
•
•
Budget: €__0___
Stereo camera + SDK (available)
Dimenco 3D display (available)
Visual studio
Industrial Partners
involved:
No
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
•
•
Software developed
Video sequences
Analysis of the results
Student background /
interest:
•
•
Programming
Video processing and transmission
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
3
Fingerprint Recognition
Supervisor(s):
Dr George Azzopardi george.azzopardi@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Fingerprints are among the most popular features that are used in biometric
systems for the identification of persons. For instance, every person that goes
to USA has his fingerprints recorded in their databases.
In this project we will use the FVC2000 benchmark data sets of fingerprints:
http://bias.csr.unibo.it/fvc2000/download.asp. Figure 1 shows examples of real
fingerprints taken from this data set.
Figure 1 - Examples of fingerprints. Each row shows the prints of the same
finger in different arrangements.
Project Objective(s):
•
•
To investigate the B-COSFIRE algorithm that is very effective in the
segmentation of ridges together with other computer vision algorithms that
can be used for the matching of fingerprints.
The B-COSFIRE algorithm has never been used in this application. I
expect that with its robustness to noise (disconnected ridges), there is a
good chance to improve the state-of-the-art.
Downloads:
• Matlab code of the B-COSFIRE algorithm: http://tinyurl.com/pfxcxl5
• Research paper of the B-COSFIRE algorithm: http://tinyurl.com/l43z7oy
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
NONE
Expected Project
Deliverables:
A system that is able to do fingerprint matching
Budget: €__0___
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
4
Student background /
interest:
Interest in image processing, computer vision and/or biometric systems
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
5
Collision Avoidance System for the RP Survey and Visual
Inspection Train in the CERN Large Hadron Collider
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Problem Background
Dr Gianluca Valentino gianluca.valentino@um.edu.mt
None
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is a state-of-the-art particle
accelerator located at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is capable of
accelerating protons and heavy-ions up to a record-breaking energy of 7
TeV to explore the fundamental constituents of matter. It is housed in a
27-km long circular tunnel lying around 100 m below the ground. The
tunnel is equipped with a remote controlled monorail train, which is able
to carry out Radio-Protection (RP) survey and visual inspections. The
train is composed of 5 wagons, one of which is equipped with a
retractable arm for RP measurements.
The TeraRanger sensor, produced by Terabee, will be used to obtain
measurements of the proximity of the robotic arm from nearby objects. It
is based on the Time-of-Flight (TOF) principle, where the device
measures the time between the emission of the signal and its return after
being reflected by an object. It uses infrared light and provides a reading
of up to 1 kHz. An embedded Linux board will be connected to the
sensor(s), which will process the received signals and decide whether the
safety volume is breached and stop the arm in case of an imminent
collision.
Project Objective(s):
The aim of this project is to build a 3D model of a safety volume around
this arm in order to detect any object on the path (such as magnets,
collimators or beam instrumentation) and avoid a collision. The collision
avoidance system will be implemented on an embedded Linux board
which will work in conjunction with an array of ToF sensors.
Project Resources
•
CERN and Terabee will provide the TeraRanger One sensor for the
readout of the ToF measurements.
•
Up to €200 for an embedded Linux development board (e.g.
Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard) for onboard signal processing and
implementation of the collision avoidance system.
Industrial Partners
involved:
CERN, Terabee
Expected Project
Deliverables:
A working prototype of the collision avoidance system.
Student background /
interest:
The ideal student would be knowledgeable and interested to work on an
FYP in embedded systems, Linux and C/C++ programming as well as
control theory.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
6
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
7
Design of a Multistage Noise Shaping (MASH) Converter using the
0.18 µm CMOS Process
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Prof. Ivan Grech ivan.grech@um.edu.mt
None
Problem Background
ADCs are an important element for most systems in order to interface the
analogue sensors to the digital processing section. Noise-shaping
converters are widely used since they rely on low-precision components
and can still achieve high resolution. The multistage approach achieves
st
nd
high order noise filtering using only 1 and 2 order closed loop
modulators, eliminating problems with stability.
Project Objective(s):
The scope of this project is to design a 1-1-1 or a 2-1 noise shaping
converter using the 0.18 µm AMS CMOS process.
Project Resources
•
Cadence with AMS 0.18µm hit kit (available).
Industrial Partners
involved:
•
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
•
Literature review on MASH conveters
Design of ADC building blocks and simulation results
Student background /
Interest:
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
•
Analogue circuit design
Please tick if any of the following apply
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
8
Design of a MEMS R.F. Switch for Microwave Operation
Supervisor(s):
Prof. Ivan Grech ivan.grech@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
R.F. switches are important devices in the application of mobile
transceivers, coarse tuning and also configurable R.F. circuitry. This
project entails the design of an electrostatically actuated R.F. switch for
microwave tunable circuitry.
Project Objective(s):
Familiarisation with a MEMS process suitable
implementation (e.g. MetalMUMPS)
Design of switch at mask level
Development of an electrical model for the switch
Project Resources
•
•
Coventor MEMS design software (available)
Cadence simulator (available)
Industrial Partners
involved:
•
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Literature review of MEMS R.F. switches
Switch design according to process rules
Simulation using finite element software
Electrical model for the switch
Analogue circuit analysis
MEMS / IC design
Student background /
interest:
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
for
R.F.
switch
Please tick if any of the following apply
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
9
Algorithm Implementation on Highly Parallel Architectures
Supervisor(s):
Dr Johann A. Briffa johann.briffa@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
CUDA is an interface for general-purpose programming on Graphical
Processing Units (GPUs) from NVIDIA. The architecture of GPUs
emphasises massive parallelism of arithmetic units at the expense of
control units and memory caching. This allows a very high speed-up for
classes of computationally-intensive data-parallel problems, often found
in scientific computing. This is an implementation project, with a
significant research orientation.
Project Objective(s):
Implement a compute-intensive algorithm on GPUs and optimize for
speed. Suitable algorithms to be discussed with supervisor; possible
examples include algorithms used in high energy physics from an
ongoing collaboration with the ALICE experiment at CERN. Examples of
prior work by the supervisor can be seen in:
•
Johann A. Bri
a. A GPU implementation of a MAP decoder for synchronization
error correcting codes. IEEE Commun. Lett. , 17(5):996{999, May
th
27 2013.
•
Johann A. Bri
a. Graphics processing unit implementation and optimization of a
exible maximum a-posteriori decoder for synchronisation correction.
IET Journal of Engineering , June 11th 2014.
Project Resources
•
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
None
Student background /
interest:
•
•
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: €__0___
Interest in parallel computing.
Aptitude and willingness to program (the project requires the use of
C++ and NVIDIA CUDA; prior OO development experience in another
language is suitable).
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
10
Motion Analysis with High Speed Video
Supervisor(s):
Dr Johann A. Briffa johann.briffa@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
The project is intended to trial the use of recently available low cost high
speed cameras in a sports application and develop the necessary
software to enable that use. Similar systems have existed for some time,
though at significantly higher costs (in the order of several tens of
thousands to hundreds of thousands of euros per unit). Recent advances
in sensor technology also means that cameras are now able to operate
with less light, which has always been a limiting factor in high frame rate
video. While some software is already available as open source products,
it is envisaged that its functionality will not necessarily cover all the
requirements for the intended application. Therefore, some programming
effort will be required to implement the necessary updates. The chosen
camera platform exposes the embedded microcontroller, allowing us to
modify how the hardware operates, as needed.
Project Objective(s):
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•
•
Consider off-the-shelf software for motion tracking and will apply this
to a sports application (target archery) with the available high speed
camera.
Suggest improvements, listing upgrade features and performing a
preliminary analysis of how these could be implemented.
Design, implement, and test a selection of additional features
identified above.
Project Resources
•
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
Archery Association of Malta
Expected Project
Deliverables:
None
Student background /
interest:
•
•
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: €__0___
High frame rate camera
Interest in image processing and/or embedded systems.
Aptitude and willingness to program (the project requires the use of
C++; prior OO development experience in another language is
suitable).
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
11
Automatic Ahead-of-Time Compiler Generation
Supervisor(s):
Dr Joshua Ellul joshua.elllul@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Intermediate representations (IR) are useful for code distribution due to
their platform independence and smaller size. Upon receiving code it is
often beneficial to translate received IR into the underlying native
architecture instruction set so as to benefit from execution gains (as
opposed to having to interpret the IR). This process is called Ahead-OfTime (AOT) compilation. Writing an AOT compiler is a non-trivial task. It
involves mapping from a source language or instruction set to the
underlying target native instruction set.
LLVM is a modular and reusable compiler infrastructure that is source
language and target architecture independent. New languages can be
supported by writing a frontend for LLVM, and new target platforms can
be supported by writing a backend for LLVM. LLVM has gained extensive
interest from both academia and industry which has resulted in quite a
number of frontends and backends being made available.
In this project we aim to investigate techniques to facilitate automatic
generation of AOT compilers for different architectures by analysing how
the different input IR instructions are translated to native instructions for
different target architectures using available LLVM backends. Heuristics
will then be proposed that given the input IR instructions and the
generated native code instructions, will output an AOT compiler for the
respective architecture.
Project Objective(s):
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•
•
•
Understand LLVM internals
Analyse how source IR is compiled to target architectures
Define simple heuristics that can map AOT compiler constructs to
different architectures
Create an LLVM pass that can generate an AOT compiler for a given
architecture
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
•
•
Student background /
interest:
C/C++ programming
Operating System Internals
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: €__0___
LLVM source to target analysis
Heuristics to map AOT compiler to a given target
Tool that generates AOT compiler based on heurestics
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
12
Language-Independent Native Address Spaces for the MMUless
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Dr Joshua Ellul joshua.ellul@um.edu.mt
None
Problem Background
The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to enhance and augment our lives
by enabling connected devices to monitor and react to our daily routines.
It is envisaged that users will be able to download apps onto their
different de- vices in aim of customising and getting the most out of the
devices as possible. Downloading applications from untrusted (and even
trusted) sources introduces the potential for malicious and/or buggy
applications to disrupt behaviour of other applications. Traditional
processors provide memory management units (MMUs) that enable
operating systems to provide protection between address spaces of the
different executing processes. Many microcontrollers used in the IoT
domain do not have MMUs.
Software-based approaches to enable process memory protection for
such resource constrained devices have recently been proposed that are
either language-dependent, require a virtualisation layer or are no longer
supported or available.
LLVM is a modular and reusable compiler infrastructure that is sourcelanguage and target-architecture-independent. A compilation pass that
inserts run-time memory-access checks can be implemented in LLVM so
as to provide programming language-independent process memory
protection that is executed natively. In this project we aim to investigate
software-based techniques to enable process memory protection that are
programming language-independent and natively supported.
Project Objective(s):
•
•
•
•
Understand how LLVM works
Understand how MMUs work and how to define a software based
MMU
Implement memory access checks
Implement an LLVM pass that can change memory accesses for
safe memory accesses
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
Student background /
interest:
C/C++ programming
Operating System Internals
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: €__0___
LLVM compiler pass that inserts memory access checks into
compiled code
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
13
Hospital Admission Pattern Analysis, Bed Resource
Requirements Forecasting, Allocation and Management
Supervisor(s):
Dr Lalit Garg lalit.garg@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Healthcare resource planners need to develop policies that ensure
optimal allocation of scarce healthcare resources. This goal can be
achieved by analysing admission patterns to forecast daily resource
requirements to ensure optimum allocation and management of available
resources. If resources are limited, admission should be scheduled
according to the resource availability. Such resource availability or
demand can change with time. We here model admissions and patient
flow through the care system as a discrete time Markov chain. In order to
have a more realistic representation, a non-homogeneous model is
developed which incorporates time-dependent covariates, namely a
patient’s present age and the present calendar year. However, more
sophisticated models are required to better manage changes in
admission patterns and resource requirements. As our previous work, we
have already developed many such sophisticated models for better
modelling admission patterns and resource requirements [1-4]. In this
final year project (FYP), we will extend our work to develop novel
approaches to effectively solve the problem using AI/ML based methods.
1. Garg L, McClean SI, Meenan BJ, Millard PH (2010). A nonhomogeneous discrete time Markov model for admission scheduling
and resource planning in a care system. Health Care Management
Science. 13(2):155–169.
2. Garg L, McClean SI, Meenan BJ, Millard PH (2009). Nonhomogeneous Markov Models for Sequential Pattern Mining of
Healthcare Data. IMA journal Management Mathematics. 20(4): 327344.
3. Garg L, McClean SI, Meenan BJ, Barton M, Fullerton K (2012).
Intelligent patient management and resource planning for complex,
heterogeneous and stochastic healthcare systems. In press. IEEE
Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics--Part A: Systems
and Humans.
4. Garg L, McClean SI, Meenan BJ, Barton M, Fullerton K (2013). An
Extended Mixture Distribution Survival Tree for Patient Pathway
Prognostication. Communications in Statistics: Theory and
Methodology. 42(16):2912-2934.
Project Objective(s):
1. Review of literature on hospital admission pattern analysis, bed
resource requirements forecasting, allocation and management and
hospital waiting lists.
2. Understand approaches for forecasting and scheduling.
3. Understanding of advanced AI and machine learning methods,
including phase type survival tree analysis, survival analysis, Markov
process model, Bayesian Analysis.
4. Problem analysis and design.
5. Pattern analysis and mining of hospital admission data.
6. Developing novel models for characterizing hospital admissions and
its interrelationship with bed resource requirements, enhancing/
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
14
improving on the existing models.
7. Implementing these models characterizing hospital admissions and
its interrelationship with bed resource requirements using Matlab/
C/C++.
8. Evaluating the model using a real database from a hospital.
9. Report writing
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
Budget: €__0___
A computing device (PC or Laptop), Internet Access, Matlab, C/C++, UM
Library access, Access to high quality literature resources.
•
•
•
•
Student background /
interest:
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Literature review on hospital bed occupancy and requirements
forecasting
A fully properly tested working implementation of characterizing
hospital admissions and its interrelationship with bed resource
requirements.
Critical evaluation of the model
Results, analysis and conclusion
A Report
Knowledge of basic probabilistic methods, Good programming skills in a
language of your choice. strong analytical and problem solving skills and
fast learning abilities, reliable, responsible, hardworking, enthusiasm and
determination to learn and acquire new skills.
Please tick if any of the following apply.
■ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
15
Machine Learning Methods for Handling Missing Data in Medical
Questionnaires
Supervisor(s):
Dr Lalit Garg lalit.garg@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
The proposed project is a part of a University funded project. Self-report
questionnaires are used as an extremely valuable instrument to assess
the quality of life of a patient, its relationship with socioeconomic and
environmental factors, disease risk/ progress, treatment and disease
burden, treatment response and quality of care. However, a common
problem with such questionnaires is missing data. Despite enormous
care and effort to prevent it, some level of missing data is common and
unavoidable. Such missing data can have a detrimental impact on
statistical analyses based on the questionnaire responses. A variety of
methods have been suggested for missing data imputation.
Nevertheless, more research is desperately needed to assess and
improve the reliability of data imputation. We have already developed/
proposed some novel methods to handle missing data [1-4]. In this final
year project (FYP), we will extend our work to develop novel machine
learning procedures enforcing collaborative filtering to complete missing
data in medical questionnaires. Empirical datasets would be used to
assess these novel methods against existing methods.
1.
Garg L, Dauwels J, Earnest A, Pang L (2013) Tensor based
methods for handling missing data in quality-of-life questionnaires.
IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. In press. doi:
10.1109/JBHI.2013.2288803.
2. Asif MT, Srinivasan K, Garg L, Dauwels J, Jaillet P (2013) Lowdimensional Models for Missing Data Imputation in Road Networks,
ICASSP 2013, May 26 - 31, 2013.
3. Dauwels J, Garg L, Earnest A, Pang LK (2012). Tensor
Factorizations for Missing Data Imputation in Medical
Questionnaires, The 37th International Conference on Acoustics,
Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Kyoto, Japan, March 25 30, 2012.
4. Dauwels J, Garg L, Earnest A, Pang LK (2011). Handling Missing
Data in Medical Questionnaires Using Tensor Decompositions. The
Eighth International Conference on Information, Communications,
and Signal Processing (ICICS 2011). Singapore 13-16 December,
2011.
Project Objective(s):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Review of literature on missing data imputation, types of
missingness in data, missing data in medical questionnaires and
novel machine learning methods for collaborative filtering.
Understand approaches for missing data imputation.
Understanding of advanced probabilistic, mathematical and machine
learning methods, including Singular vector decomposition, extreme
learning machine, tensor decomposition methods.
Problem analysis and design.
Acquiring real data and simulating data with different proportions,
patterns and types of missingness.
Rigorous testing and comparison of existing missing data techniques
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
16
for application to medical questionnaires
Developing novel missing data techniques, specifically designed for
repeated medical questionnaires.
8. Implementing these techniques using real and simulated datasets
using Matlab/ R/ C/ C++.
9. Evaluating these techniques using real and simulated datasets.
10. Report writing
7.
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
Budget: €__0___
A computing device (PC or Laptop), Internet Access, Matlab, C/C++, UM
Library access, Access to high quality literature resources.
•
•
•
•
Student background /
interest:
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Literature review on missing data handling in survey questionnaires
and missing data imputation techniques.
A fully properly tested working implementation of tools for missing
data handling in medical questionnaires.
Critical evaluation of the model
Results, analysis and conclusion
The project Report
Knowledge of basic AI methods, Good programming skills in a language
of your choice. Strong analytical and problem solving skills and fast
learning abilities, reliable, responsible, hardworking, enthusiasm and
determination to learn and acquire new skills.
Please tick if any of the following apply.
■ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
17
An Automatic Projection Correction System for Corner
Surfaces
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Nicholas J. Sammut nicholas.sammut@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Video projected images are skewed when projected onto wall or ceiling
corners or round surfaces. This creates challenges for video immersion
applications and projections of advertisements on corner surfaces or
round surfaces due to misalignments between the projector and the
screen.
Project Objective(s):
This project involves the setting up of the necessary hardware to detect
and measure the image skew as well as the programming of the
calibration system, the image reconstruction, the image rendering and the
overall correction of the skew effects on the uneven surfaces. This very
interesting practical project may have commercial value and may be
patentable.
Project Resources
Budget: €750 + license fees
(Video projector, video camera, tilt sensor, Matlab or LabVIEW Vision
toolbox license)
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Hardware and software system to correct the skewed images of
projectors on corners and/or round surfaces.
Student background /
interest:
Computer Engineering
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
18
Automatic Automotive Mirror Correction System
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Nicholas J. Sammut nicholas.sammut@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
The wrong adjustment of vehicle side and room mirrors results in blind
spots that are the cause of several road accidents. Drivers often forget to
adjust the mirrors correctly especially when they change their position in
the car or when they use a different vehicle.
Project Objective(s):
This project involves the setting up of the necessary hardware and
software to automatically find the optimum mirror angle for vehicles. The
system includes a camera system to detect the position of the driver a
software system to perform the image processing and the control system
to control the mirror angle.
Project Resources
Budget: €1000 + license fees
(2 automatic side mirrors with controllers, video camera, proximity sensor,
Matlab or LabVIEW Vision toolbox license)
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Hardware and software system to correct the projector mirror angles
Student background /
interest:
Computer Engineering
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
19
FPGA Based Gravitational Multi-Particle Simulator
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Owen Casha owen.casha@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
When evaluating a high performance computing platform, we have to
consider several aspects. The cost of cluster computers and
supercomputers can be prohibitive. Area and power consumption can
also be a major problem with these computing platforms. For such
reasons, various acceleration technologies are being considered. FPGAs,
for instance, offer the high performance of a dedicated hardware solution
of a particular algorithm, with a fraction of area and power consumption of
a microprocessor-based counterpart solution. Moreover, the continuous
development in transistor integration levels mean that it is now possible to
implement considerable number of floating point arithmetic units on
modern FPGAs.
Project Objective(s):
The objective of this project is to design an FPGA based gravitational
multi-particle simulator to solve Newton’s law of gravitation in full form
and display a 3-D representation of the particle’s interaction at high frame
rates on a VGA monitor. This project is to simulate particles of different
masses interacting with each other due to gravity. The system is to be
designed to accept any set of initial conditions. Additionally, the system
must display a portion of the 3-D space on a VGA monitor for
visualization of the particle’s interactions. It is recommended that all of the
calculations are done in a mantissa floating point format allowing any
scale of initial conditions to be simulated.
Project Resources
FPGA development board
Xilinx SDK Platform
ModelSim
Matlab
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Prototype of hardware computational platform
Matlab Simulation
VHDL Codes
Dissertation
Student background /
interest:
Hardware Description Languages
FPGA Systems
Computational Physics
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
20
2-Axis PID Sun Tracker
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Owen Casha owen.casha@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Photovoltaic solar systems are considered to be as a renewable energy
solution for energy crisis and environmental pollution. In order to improve
their efficiency, it is required to maximize the output power by keeping the
solar panels aligned with sun. Consequently, a tracking of the sun’s
position with high degree of accuracy is required. The main purpose of a
solar tracking system is to track the movement of the sun during the day
in order to orient the solar panel to the maximum radiation at times. Large
numbers of tracking systems have been developed and reported in
literature. Sun tracking algorithms can be classified into closed loop and
open loop systems, according to their control mode. Each system
acquires relative advantages and disadvantages which strongly affect
their performance.
Project Objective(s):
The objective of this project is to design a dual axis PID (proportionalintegral-derivative) controlled sun tracker using a general purpose
microcontroller.
Project Resources
Microcontroller development board
Matlab
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Prototype of 2-axis PID Sun Tracker
System Modelling
Matlab Simulation
Dissertation
Student background /
interest:
Embedded Systems
Control Theory
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
21
Face Anti-Spoofing based on Texture Analysis
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Reuben Farrugia reuben.farrugia@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Existing face recognition systems are vulnerable to spoofing attacks
where malicious users try to bypass a face biometric system by
presenting a fake face in front of the camera. Research on face spoofing
detection has mainly been focusing on analyzing the texture of the grayscale component of facial images.
Project Objective(s):
In this project, the student will investigate the use of the Local Binary
Pattern (LBP) texture descriptor to extract the texture information from the
face images. The histograms of LBP features of each cell are
concatenated to form the final descriptor. The decision of whether a face
image is a natural image or a fake can be done using a classifier.
Experiments will be conducted using the CASIA face anti-spoofing
dataset which is available. The algorithm can be implemented in
MATLAB, but other programming languages can be considered.
Project Resources
•
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Budget: €0
Open dataset available
• Well commented code of the developed algorithm.
• A demo of the developed face anti-spoofing method.
Student background /
interest:
Signal Processing
Image Processing
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
22
Exemplar-Based Digital Image Inpainting
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Reuben Farrugia reuben.farrugia@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
The term inpainting comes from art restoration where Medieval artwork
was restored in an unobtrusive way during the Renaissance period.
Digital image inpainting (aka inpainting) is the natural extension of
inpainting, and is a process used by existing image editing software, such
as Adobe Photoshop, to fill cracks, conceal undesired objects and
remove text and logos from an image. Inpainting methods can be
categorized in three groups: i) classical Partial Derivative Equation based
methods, ii) Exemplar-based methods and iii) Low-Rank methods.
Exemplar-based methods currently represent the state-of-the-art and try
to approximate unknown pixels using the known parts of the image.
Project Objective(s):
In this project the student will implement an algorithm which allows the
user to select a region to be removed or filled. An Exemplar-based
inpainting method will be implemented which tries to automatically fill the
unknown pixels using a best-first filling strategy. The performance of the
developed method will be compared to the inpainting method adopted by
Photoshop. The project can be developed using either C++, Python or
MATLAB.
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Budget: €0
• Well commented code of the developed algorithm.
• A demo of the developed inpainting method.
Student background /
interest:
Signal Processing
Image Processing
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
23
Massive MIMO in 5G
Supervisor(s):
Prof. Ing. Saviour Zammit saviour.zammit@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Massive MIMO is a technique which will feature in future 5G networks.
The technique will allow very high bit rates to be delivered to mobile
devices using low power, whilst conserving bandwidth.
Project Objective(s):
The aim of the project is to simulate an OFDM/MMIMO system in Matlab
to investigate how spectral efficiency will be impacted by antenna array
size at the base-station.
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Literature Review
Matlab Simulation Code
Report with results
Student background /
interest:
Matlab
Telecommunications
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: €__0___
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
24
Indoor Location System
Supervisor(s):
Prof. Ing. Saviour Zammit saviour.zammit@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
GPS does not extend within buildings, yet many location based services
and applications stand to benefit from a reliable and accurate indoor
location system.
Project Objective(s):
The aim of the project is to study the state of the art in indoor location and
design, prototype and test an indoor location technology based on
smartphone technology.
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Literature Review
Matlab Simulation Code
Report with results
Student background /
interest:
Matlab
Telecommunications
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: €__0___
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
25
Fast Block-Matching Motion Estimation Search on FPGA
Supervisor(s):
Dr Ing. Trevor Spiteri, trevor.spiteri@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Most of the processing time in video compression algorithms is taken by
the motion estimation search, making this search suitable for
optimization and acceleration.
A macroblock is a rectangular block of pixels. A motion estimation search
for a macroblock in a video frame involves searching for the most similar
macroblock in a reference video frame. In exhaustive searches, all the
possible blocks in a particular window in the reference frame are
compared to the macroblock. In fast searches, only macroblocks at
specific relative locations are compared, which greatly reduces the
amount of comparisons to compute.
Project Objective(s):
The aim is to develop a fast block-matching motion estimation search on
FPGA that can be used to accelerate a video coding application. If there
is enough time, different block-matching techniques can be implemented
and compared.
Project Resources
•
•
•
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
•
•
•
•
VHDL code
Simulation results
Testing
Performance analysis
Student background /
interest:
•
•
Image processing
Hardware design using VHDL
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Budget: €0
FPGA development board (available in labs)
Xilinx ISE WebPACK design software
Test video sequences
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
26
VHDL Code Generator for Digital Filter Implementation
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Problem Background
Project Objective(s):
Project Resources
Industrial Partners
involved:
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Student background /
interest:
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Dr Ing. Trevor Spiteri, trevor.spiteri@um.edu.mt
None
Digital filters can be implemented either in software on a processor or on
hardware platforms such as FPGAs. After the filter coefficients are
obtained using filter design techniques or software tools like MATLAB, an
implementation strategy is chosen for the implementation.
This project involves writing a software tool in a high-level language such
as C, C++ and Python that reads the filter coefficients from a file and
generates a hardware design in VHDL. This design can be implemented
on an FPGA for the filter to be tested. Different filter implementations can
be targeted and compared.
The aim is to develop a software tool that converts a digital filter
specification into code in VHDL, a hardware description language. The
design is to be verified by running the generated designs on an FPGA
platform and physically testing the digital filters.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Budget: €0
MATLAB for design of filter coefficients
IDE for program development
FPGA development board (available in labs)
Xilinx ISE WebPACK design software
Signal generator and oscilloscope
None
•
•
•
Software tool that generates HDL for digital filters
Testing
Performance analysis
•
•
Digital filters
Hardware design using VHDL
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
27
GNU Radio-Based Teaching System
Supervisor(s):
Prof. Ing. Victor Buttigieg victor.buttigieg@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
GNU Radio is a software framework that allows the user to develop highly
modularized radio or signal processing systems through the use of an
extensive library of basic building blocks. Special drivers can then be
used to drive specific hardware to generate the signals in real-time.
Further details may be found at http://gnuradio.org.
Project Objective(s):
The objective of this project is to build a number of systems to teach
fundamental techniques in communications and signal processing from a
practical point of view using GNU Radio as the underlying platform.
Project Resources
•
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
A set of experiments (with suitable documentation) to illustrate
communications and signal processing fundamentals.
Student background /
interest:
Communications, signal processing, programming (in Python and C++).
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
GNU Radio software is open source
Additional hardware may need to be bought depending on specific
objectives set by the student.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
28
Automatic Electronic Programme Guide Updating
Supervisor(s):
Prof. Ing. Victor Buttigieg victor.buttigieg@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Most modern TV platforms offer an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)
that helps user find suitable TV programmes to watch. In many
instances, this is also used to record future programmes. However the
EPG is usually set up several days before the programmes actually go on
air and the scheduled times are not always very accurate, leading to
missed programme segments when recording.
Project Objective(s):
The objective of this project is to automatically detect the start of
programmes and to update the EPG accordingly.
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
A computer program that analyses a TV broadcast channel and
associated EPG stream and adjusts the EPG times accordingly.
Student background /
interest:
Programming, image/video processing.
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
The project is software based using freely available packages.
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
29
Home Automation Systems
Supervisor(s):
Prof. Ing. Edward Gatt edward.gatt@um.edu.mt
Co-supervisor (if any):
None
Problem Background
Home Automation systems are commonly found in electronic form today.
A system of sensors is connected to a controller, which in turn connects
to the network. Remote sensing has many applications in real life; one of
these applications is for home automation. A low cost controller with a
large number of inputs and outputs that can be used either for
controlling or sensing the remote devices. The system is based on
designing and implementing using an FPGA chip that is interfaced to a
network.
Project Objective(s):
The hardware of the controller chip will be designed using VHDL and
tested using Xilinx FPGA .
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Controller chip implemented on an FPGA together with interfacing
electronics
Student background /
interest:
VHDL
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: € 200
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
30
Remote Sensing
Supervisor(s):
Co-supervisor (if any):
Prof. Edward Gatt edward.gatt@um.edu.mt
None
Problem Background
The use of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for autonomous
sensor network monitoring and control is an interesting research domain
in which low FPGA logic utilization, low power consumption, and accurate
sensor readings are the major metrics for evaluation. An autonomous
sensor network is a special application for system monitoring, which is
composed of several components such as a transducer, conditioning
circuits, processing units, and data communication.
The on-chip sensor network can read electrical quantities such as
voltage, current, and power consumption of a circuit, while relaying the
data remotely.
Project Objective(s):
The hardware of the controller chip will be designed using VHDL and
tested using Xilinx FPGA .
Project Resources
•
Industrial Partners
involved:
None
Expected Project
Deliverables:
Controller chip implemented on an FPGA together with interfacing
electronics
Student background /
interest:
VHDL
Ethical and Data
Protection Issues
Please tick if any of the following apply.
□ The project has data protection issues; please specify.
□ The project has ethical issues; please specify.
□ The project involves human subjects; please specify.
Budget: € 200
ICT3903 – Final Year Project in Computer Engineering
B.Sc. (Hons.) in Computer Engineering
Faculty of ICT, Final Year Project Proposal
31