The Department is a leader in this important new field. Computer Systems Engineering. This thrust emphasizes the operation of high performance networks, computation with analog neural networks, and special purpose computers for image and signal processing applications. Research includes the development of computers that mimic, as best we know, the function of biological systems that perform signal processing and control tasks in living creatures.

Circuits made to date have been used to process one-dimension visual data and are able to reliably detect the direction of motion and the speed of the stimuli. Research is also underway to greatly improve the routing and scheduling of high bandwidth networks with minimal internal storage as well as time keeping and synchronization in very wide area computer networks.