The faculty is dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art in their areas of expertise, and in the process, they provide support to our nation and our state.
The Auburn University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been heavily involved in research for approximately five decades. This research has supported numerous government agencies: for example, entities within the U. S. Department of Defense, such as the Army, Navy, Air Force and DARPA have been supported as well as NIH, NSF, DOE, USDA and Sandia National Laboratories. The faculty of the department has also provided research support to a host of industries, such as Diamler/Chrysler, IBM, Motorola, Northrup/Grumman, Semiconductor Research Corporation, Southern Company, Texas Instruments and the Whirlpool Corporation. Some of the department's laboratories have also provided needed and up-to-date technology to numerous companies within the state of Alabama, some of which were in their startup mode.
The department is also home to three of the College of Engineering's research centers: the Alabama Micro/Nano Science and Technology Center (AMNSTC), the Center for Advanced Vehicle Electronics (CAVE) and the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center (WEREC). The faculty continually track the new and advancing technology and adjust their programs to meet these ever-changing needs. At present, the research focus areas being addressed by the faculty are communication networks, electric power engineering, electronic packaging, embedded systems, high-performance computing, information security, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), mine detection, nanotechnology, signal processing, silicon-germanium electronics, smart antennas, telecommunications, transceiver design and very large scale integration (VLSI) design and test.
Recent Research News
Auburn Engineering faculty part of $4.8 million NSF project to bring AI-powered networks to disaster response
10/19/26 10:00 AM
Three Auburn Engineering researchers — Yin Sun, Shiwen Mao and David Roueche — are part of a $4.8 million national effort to help first responders access essential data when every second counts.
Faculty, staff recognized at Engineering Research Awards banquet
9/25/26 9:00 AM
The awards recognize outstanding contributions that exemplify innovation, collaboration and real-world impact.
The speed of light: Assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering using photonics to accelerate data transmission
9/24/26 7:30 AM
Zihe Gao was awarded $306,524 by the National Science Foundation to increase laser communication speeds by generating quantum states of light.
Auburn Engineering researchers awarded $440K NSF grant to help machines understand intentions
9/9/26 7:40 AM
Bosen Lian, principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Brendon Allen, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, are spearheading the study.
Applied Research Institute, ECE researchers lead $1.4M effort to reinvent MRZR-Alpha 4 communications platform
9/3/26 1:45 PM
The project Mission Command Integration Module–XL (MCIM-XL) will create a commander’s communications suite built from the ground up for the Polaris MRZR-Alpha 4, unifying disparate radios, antennas, satellite links and digital gear into a compact, durable system.
Associate professor in ECE earns $300K NSF award to help intelligent systems learn better from one another
9/1/26 7:35 AM
Xiaowen Gong was recently awarded $300,000 by the National Science Foundation for his three-year study, “Federated Reinforcement Learning: From Heterogeneous Environments to Offline Data.”