Research Activities

Current Research Interests

• Rate control, adaptive streaming and caching for multimedia communications
• Multiple description coding for speech, images and video
• Overcomplete signal expansions and frames
• Application-specific compression for recognition, classification and tracking
• Fault-tolerant compression algorithms
• Variable complexity compression algorithms

Research Funding

• National Science Foundation (Grant MIP-9502227 (CAREER) 1995-98, Grant MIP-9804959, 1998-2002)
• Department of Energy (DOE), Next Generation Internet (NGI) program. Application- and Network-Cognizant Proxies
• NASA - under NRA-99-OES-08 (AIST Program), Grant number AIST-99-0005 in collaboration with JPL.
• USC Annenberg Center for Communications
• USC Zumberge Research Initiation Fund
• Integrated Media Systems Center
• Sierra Semiconductor
• Rockwell Semiconductor Systems
• Texas Instruments
• Hughes Research Labs
• Hitachi

Research Group

• Faculty
  • Antonio Ortega

• Graduate Students
  • Nazeeh Aranki (JPL), Multispectral image coding
  • Ngai Man Cheung
  • Hyukjune Chung, Fault resilient compression
  • Alexandre G. Ciancio,
  • Jae Hoon Kim
  • Yoon Hak Kim,
  • Roger Pique
  • Hsinyi (Ivy) Tseng,
  • Lavanya Vasudevan , Compression for sensor networks , co-advised with Urbashi Mitra.
  • Huisheng Wang , Multiple Description Layered Coding
  • Hua Xie, Compression for distributed classification

• Visitors
  • Joaquin Lopez (Polytechnic University of Catalonia)
  • Dr. Kang-Sun Choi (Korea University)
  • Prof. Antonio Navarro (University of Aveiro)

• Undergraduate Students
  • Sam Bagwell
  • Rahul Maini
  • Merrick Mosst

• PhD Alumni (with current affiliation)
  • Dr. Liang-Jin Lin, U-lead Inc., Redondo Beach, CA. Ph.D. Thesis: Video Bit-Rate Control with Spline Approximated Rate-Distortion Characteristics Feb. 1997.
  • Dr. Youngjun Yoo, Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX, Ph.D. Thesis: Adaptive methods and Fast Rate-Distortion Optmization Techniques for Efficient Quantization , May 1998.
  • Dr. Chi-Yuan Hsu, Broadcom, San Jose, CA, Ph.D. Thesis: Rate Control for Video Transmission over Variable Rate Channels , May 1998.
  • Prof. Woontack Woo, Virtual Reality Lab, Information Systems Dept., Kwangju Instute of Technology, KJIST, Korea. Ph.D. Thesis: Rate-Distortion Based Dependent Coding for Stereo Images and Video: Disparity Estimation and Dependent Bit Allocation Dec. 1998.
  • Dr. Christos Chrysafis , Divio, Inc. San Jose, CA, Ph.D. Thesis: Wavelet Image Compression: Rate Distortion Optimizations and Complexity Reductions , Dec 1999.
  • Dr Wenqing Jiang Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA, PhD Thesis: Contributions to transform coding system implementations , Dec. 1999.
  • Dr Krisda Lengwehasatit, Packet Video, San Diego, CA, Ph.D. Thesis: Complexity-Distortion Tradeoffs in Image and Video Compression , Dec. 1999.
  • Dr Raghavendra Singh, IBM Research, Delhi, India, Ph.D. Thesis: Source level sequence based processing for signal compression and reliable transmission. , Summer 2001.
  • Dr Zhourong Miao, Sony Research Labs, Santa Clara, CA, Ph.D. Thesis: Algorithms for Streaming, Caching and Storage of Digital Media , May 2002.
  • Prof David W. Pan, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL, Ph.D. Thesis: Variable complexity algorithms and adaptive computation control in video coding and communications. , Aug. 2002.
  • Dr. Baltasar Beferull-Lozano, Audiovisual Communications Lab, EPFL, Switzerland, Quantization Design for Structured Overcomplete Expansions, , Sept. 2002.
  • Dr. Sang-Yong Lee, Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX, Color processing and rate control for storage and transmission of digital images and video , Jan. 2003.
  • Dr. Phunsak Thiennviboon, Trellisware, San Diego, CA. 2D Optimization techniques for image halftoning (Co-advised with K.M. Chugg)
  • Dr. Kemal Demirciler, Contributions to efficient vector quantization and frequency assignment design and implementation , May 2003.
  • Dr. Phoom Sagetong,, Qualcomm, San Diego, CA, Contributions to Image and Video Coding for Secure and Reliable Communications
  • Naveen Srinivasamurthy , Qualcomm, San Diego, CA, Compression for distributed speech recognition (Co-advised with S. Narayanan).

• Past visitors and MS Students
  • Fabio Carignano
  • Carlo Torniai
  • Jussi Kangasharju
  • Lionel Perret
  • Yong-Goo Kim
  • Hyungsuk Kim
  • Paul Fernandez
  • Young-Gap Kwon
  • Hironori Komi
  • Julian Cabrera
  • David Comas
  • Patrick Kehoe
  • Yifan Liu
  • Jose Ramon Gimeno
  • Marco Fumagalli
  • Bae-sy (Brian) Lan
  • David Romacho