Institute of Signal Processing and Wireless Communications (ISC)
About us
In teaching and applied research & development (R&D), the ISC focuses on the following main topics
- «Sensor Electronics – Radio Frequency Technology»
- «Communications Engineering – Wireless Communications»
- «Digital Signal Processing – Image Processing».
We support knowledge and technology transfer in signal-based information processing, especially when it comes to the development of innovative products in the I4.0, IoT, photonics, medical technology, measurement technology and sensor technology.
We have a new and modern laboratory infrastructure for sophisticated R&D work. Our team of more than 30 experienced and qualified engineers is looking forward to your questions. These can be carried out in the context of bachelor or master's theses, in workshops, or as joint R&D projects - in some cases with the help of funding.
Main topics in R&D
Sensor Electronics - Radio Frequency Technology
The field of activity includes the design of high-quality hardware for analog and mixed-signal sensing and signal processing from lowest signal levels up to the highest frequencies.
Competencies:
- Sensors and sensor frontends
- Low-power and low-noise electronics
- RFID and energy harvesting
- RF transmitters and receivers
- 3D Time-of-Flight (3D ToF)
- 3D antenna design (CST studio)
- RF measurements (antenna measurement room)
- Optoelectronics and photonics (with ZHAW-IAMP).
Communications Engineering - Wireless Communications
The field of activity includes R&D work for communication and localization, from low-rate, low-power applications for IoT and I4.0 to high-rate data links.
- RFID, NFC, Bluetooth (BLE, 4.x, 5.x, 5.1 AoA/AoD
- WLAN, WiFi
- LoRa (169/868 MHz/2.4GHz, ranging), sub 1-GHz, LPWAN
- UWB (RTLS, TDoA, Radar)
- Avionics (e.g. ADS-B, FLARM)
- mobile com (4G/LTE Advanced, NB-IoT, LTE-M, 5G)
- GNSS (GPS/Galileo, RTK)
- radar (X-/K-band/mm-wave, FMCW, MIMO)
- software defined radio (SDR, Rx und Tx, GNU radio)
- radio propagation simulation (Radio Mobile)
- div. communication (e.g underwater, POF, Power-Line(PDF 454,8 KB))
Digital Signal Processing - Image Processing
The field of activity includes the development of solutions for processing radio, measurement, sensor, geo, bio, voice, audio, image and video signals.
Competencies:
- classical DSV (FFT, filter, multirate)
- stochastic DSV (LMS, RLS, Kalman)
- digital image processing
- computer vision (stereovision, 3D-profilometry, SLAM)
- DNN-based classification
- Matlab/Python simulations.
- efficient algorithms for FPGA, MCU/DSP, GPU, CPU.
Studies and continuing education
Bachelor's program
In teaching, the ISC mainly supports the «Electrical Engineering» and «Systems Engineering» degree programs.
The ISC is responsible for various modules in the areas of «Electricity EL1 & EL2», «Electronics EK1 & EK2», «Optoelectronics OPTEL», «Advanced Electronics ADEL», «Signals&Systems SiSy», «Digital Signal Processing DSV1 & DSV2», «Image Processing DIP» and «Wireless Communications WCOM1 & WCOM2».
In the sense of a practice-oriented education, project lessons (ET-PM1, PM3 and PM4) and laboratory lessons (internship) are of great importance.
In cooperation with industrial partners, we carry out project or bachelor theses with the students every semester.
Supervised Bachelor thesis 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012
Master’s program
The MSE Switzerland is a practice-oriented cooperation master of the seven Swiss universities of applied sciences and is aimed at students with a very good bachelor's degree. At ISC you can complete the MSE on a full- or part-time basis in the profiles «Electrical Engineering», «Computer Science», «Photonics and Laser Engineering», «Data Science», or «Medical Engineering» if you are interested in one or more of our focal R&D topics.
Further information about MSE at ISC can be found here.
Supervised Master thesis at ISC 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017
Contact: Dr. S. Wyrsch, wyrs@zhaw.ch and Prof. Dr. L. Sarperi, sarp@zhaw.ch
Advanced training courses
The ISC offers the following continuing education courses at the ZHAW - School of Engineering:
- WBK Digital Signal Processing
- WBK Radio Frequency Technology