Last Updated: 18 Aug 2003
Biography
James R. Zeidler is a Research Scientist / Senior Lecturer of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSD. Until July 2003 he was a Senior Scientist of the Communications and Information Systems Department of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. Since 1989, he has concurrently been Adjunct Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at San Diego where he is involved in teaching and research in adaptive signal and image processing and wireless communications systems. He has supervised/co-supervised seven Ph.D and one MS dissertation. He also initiated a joint research effort on image processing of myocardial defects with the UCSD Medical School and the Nuclear Medicine Division of the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1992. He was a visiting professor at IRESTE, an engineering school of the University of Nantes, France and was president of a Ph.D jury at IRESTE in 1995.
He was elected Fellow of the IEEE in 1994 for "contributions to adaptive signal processing and its applications".
He has published over one hundred and seventy journal, conference and technical publications on a wide range of topics including refereed journal papers in the Proceedings of the IEEE, The Physical Review, IEEE Transactions of Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Annals of Telecommunications, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Electron Device Letters, Journal of Applied Physics, Geophysics, Optics Today, Optics Communications, Solid State Communications, Journal of Electronic Materials, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, and the Journal of Diamond and Related Materials.
Selected papers are reprinted in the IEEE Press book, "Modern Spectrum Analysis, II," the IEEE Press book on "Adaptive Spectral Estimation," and in the Benchmark Papers in Electrical Engineering Series, Vol. 22. He holds ten patents for signal processing, communication, and data compression techniques and for electronic devices. He received awards for the best unclassified paper at the 1995 IEEE Military Communications Conference, for the best independent research paper at Naval Ocean Systems Center in 1991, a best paper award at the Military Operational Research Conference in 1978, and nine other publication awards. He has presented numerous invited papers and chaired technical sessions at engineering conferences in adaptive signal processing, wireless communications, image processing, array processing, and electronic devices. He was local arrangements chairman for the 1984 IEEE International Symposium on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing. He received the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1991 and a distinguished alumni award from the Dept. of Physics, University of Nebraska in 1996. He was Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing from 1991-1994 and a member of the Underwater Acoustics Signal Processing Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Franklin Institute.
He received the B.A. degree in Physics from MacMurray College in 1966; a M.S. degree in Physics from Michigan State University in 1968; and a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Nebraska in 1972. He received a fellowship to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Summer Institute in Space Physics at Columbia University in 1966. His Ph.D. thesis work involved ultraviolet spectroscopy of ferroelectric/ferroelastic materials, pyroelectric detection using ferroelectrics, and low temperature photoconductivity measurements on semi-conducting diamond. In 1973, he was a lecturer in the Department of Physics and a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska where he investigated ellipsometric measurement techniques and the infrared reflectivity of metals for high-energy laser applications. This research resulted in four journal publications, excerpts from which were subsequently described in the book "Ellipsometry and Polarized Light," North-Holland Publishing Co., Azzam and Bashara, which is a standard reference in this field.
In 1974 he began work at the Naval Undersea Center (NUC), San Diego, California. From 1974-1978 he was the principal investigator of programs in adaptive signal processing, underwater acoustic communications, and signal localization and tracking technology. Major accomplishments include participation in the development of the Adaptive Line Cancellation and Enhancement (ALICE) system, the Submarine Sonar Adaptive Processor (SSAP), the Adaptive Line Enhancer (ALE), and the AQUABIT Acoustic Data Compression System. ALICE, SSAP, and the ALE were used on submarine and surface ships, and by various intelligence agencies. AQUABIT was utilized in the ship-to-shore data links for the surveillance towed-array system. Improved localization and tracking technology was transitioned into surface ship combat systems. The ALE is discussed in many textbooks on adaptive signal processing. The results of this work have been used to remove narrowband interference from spread spectrum communications, correct phase jitter in voiceband and data communications modems, develop optimal frequency estimation algorithms, and other applications.
From 1978 to 1983, he was head of the Analysis Branch of the Electronics Division, a group of engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists involved in the development of signal and information processing algorithms and equipment. In addition, he was a member of the Naval Sea Command's Mobile Sonar Technology Panel. He was the program manager of the Office of Naval Technology Block Program in Surface Ship Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Fire Control and worked at the Naval Underwater Systems Center, Newport, RI, on the analysis of surface ship ASW effectiveness. He was also a member of the advisory board for academic assistance programs and a college recruiter.
In 1983, he was selected to serve a one-year assignment as technical advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Engineering, and Systems) in Washington D. C. He was responsible for research and development programs in airborne ASW signal processing, and ASW environmental acoustics. He was the Navy coordinator for a DOD Tri-Service Review of Advanced Signal Processors for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
From 1984 to 1991, he was a staff scientist in the Space Systems and Technology Division of the Surveillance Department, Naval Ocean Systems Center. He was principal investigator of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to develop EHF monolithic devices and arrays, and organized the annual DARPA review of EHF Device Technology from 1985 through 1989. He was program manager of a successful satellite communications signals intelligence program and the satellite communications vulnerability assessment. He was also test director of the initial R & D field tests for these programs. He was a US representative to the US/UK/Australia/Canada Technical Cooperation Program, Technical Panel on Satellite Communications.
He has been a scientist in the Communications and Information Systems Department since 1991. During this period he has served as Chief Scientist for the Department, Chair of the Communications Panel of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) In-House Laboratory Independent Research Program, and a representative to the ONR Communications Systems and Technology Group. He initiated the Joint Wireless Working Group (JWWG) in 1996. The JWWG is composed of representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and the National Security Agency who are interested in the use and adaptation of Commercial off-the-shelf personal communications services and wireless local area network equipment for defense applications.
From 1988-1993, he was also principal investigator of a program to develop electrical contacts and electronic devices using semi-conducting diamond. He developed the first diamond transistor to demonstrate current saturation and pinch-off in 1991and perfected and patented techniques to fabricate ohmic contacts to diamond. This work was described in a 1992 feature article in Diamond Depositions: Science and Technology, a Industrial Trade Magazine highlighting new advances in technology. From 1992-1995, he led an effort to develop adaptive image processing algorithms to detect small objects in spatially distributed clutter. The results of this effort have been applied to a variety of commercial, biomedical, oceanographic and defense applications including the detection of flaws in manufacturing processes, detection of small microcalcifications, stellate lesions and other early warning signs of cancer, detection of myocardial perfusion defects, and tracking objects in correlated background clutter.
His current research involves a number of issues in wireless communications networks. These include signal acquisition and tracking, channel estimation and equalization, multi-path mitigation using spatial/temporal processing, compact antenna array receivers, interference suppression, communications security, and network capacity enhancements in wireless packet networks.
