The Computer Vision Laboratory (CVL), located in LME 314, was established in 1998 to conduct pure and applied research in computer vision. Its goal is to pursue a wide range of applied and theoretical problems across many areas. Members of the lab include faculty, postdoctoral research fellows, as well as graduate and undergraduate students from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, and various other units from the University of Nevada, Reno. CVL collaborates extensively with many national laboratories across the country as well as with industry.

Research projects span a broad range of multidisciplinary topics, such as object recognition, visual motion analysis, 3-D reconstruction, face detection/recognition, biometrics (fingerprint, hand), tracking and pose estimation of human body/head/hand/eye-gaze, surveillance and human activity recognition. This research is supported by extensive funding from government agencies (NSF, ONR, NASA) and private industry (Ford, Motorola).

The laboratory has extensive state-of-the-art facilities for performing research, such as high-performance computers, image capture and display devices, software packages, robotic devices, and peripherals. The faculty and students of CVL actively publish their research results in many journals and conferences. Faculty members offer a wide variety of courses in computer vision and related areas such as pattern recognition and machine learning.

Current projects: Bioinformatics Research

The Evolutionary Computing Systems Lab (ECSL), located in SEM 211, was established in 1996 to investigate and develop evolutionary computing theory and applications in science, engineering, and the arts. We are particularly interested in evolutionary computing based machine learning and its applications to military training and decision support, computer gaming, and modeling and inversion. Members of the lab include faculty and students from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, and various other units from the University of Nevada, Reno. ECSL collaborates with scientists, engineers, and artists from UNR and other institutes across the world. Current research projects focus on combining learning with human modeling for creating competent opponents in decision support and training, mapping environmental context to desired action in human computer interaction, learning autonomous entity controllers from demonstration in virtual worlds, predicting mining activity, and tuning physics models of hydrogen fusions. ONR, NSF, DOE, and the USGS support our research.

The laboratory has extensive state-of-the-art facilities including graphics workstations, clusters, and image capture and display devices. Publications in journals and conferences disseminate our work and faculty affiliated with the lab offer courses in AI, machine learning, evolutionary computing, and robotics. Please visit our website for more information.

The Introduction to Computer Engineering Lab is available to all students enrolled in the Introduction to Computer Engineering course. Located in SEM 340, the lab houses all equipment required for students enrolled in the course to complete the laboratory aspect of the class.

The Microprocessor System Design Lab is available to all students enrolled in the Microprocessor System Design course. Located in SEM 323, the lab houses all equipment required for students enrolled in the course to complete the laboratory aspect of the course.

The Real-Time Computer Systems laboratory, located in SEM 342D, facilitates projects, assignments, and in-class demonstrations for students enrolled in the Real-Time Systems course.

The Robotics Research Lab, located in SEM 246, was established in 2004 and currently includes undergraduate, Master's, and Doctoral students from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering. The goal of the Robotics Research Lab is to advance the current state of the art in robotics and artificial intelligence by performing research in a broad range of topics:

• Mobile and articulated robotics
• Machine learning
• Human-robot interaction
• Robot control
• Biologically-inspired robotics
• Human activity recognition

The Robotics Research Laboratory has tight collaborations with the Evolutionary Computing Systems Lab (ECSL), the Computer Vision Laboratory (CVL) and with the Goodman Brain Computation Lab, all of which are affiliated with the Department. The research is supported by funding from government agencies (ONR, DOE) and private industry (Nevada Nanotech, Inc.).

The Robotics Research Lab has state-of-the-art facilities, including:

• Articulated and mobile robots
• High-performance dual-processor computers
• High-end pan-tilt-zoom cameras

The robotics teaching facilities include 16 Dell workstations, each with a LEGO robotic kit and a Handyboard microprocessor. Students are offered introductory and advanced robotics courses, covering a wide range of topics and providing the motivation for pursuing robotics research.

The SOftware Engineering LAboratory (SOELA), located in SEM 205, is a part of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering within the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. Research here is focused on several areas of software engineering, including:

Software specification

Languages

Techniques and tools for requirements specification

Software design

System and subsystem testing

Management of large software projects

Software metrics

Metrics visualization

Dynamic systems models

Project planning

Environments for software development

Programming environments

Tool support for combinations of modeling notations

Techniques and environments for lightweight application of formal notations)

In addition, SOELA serves as a research lab for several topics on human-computer interaction (with software emphasis) such as virtual reality and simulation environments, software solutions for assisting the learning of students with disabilities, and general tool support for computer-aided education.

SOELA is also the main laboratory for students working on their final year Senior Projects in Computer Science & Engineering, and is intended to become a major hub for multidisciplinary software-intensive research projects.

Collaboration with local and national research and industry is actively sought after, and projects involving joint work with experts from outside the University of Nevada, Reno have already begun and thus far include:

• Checklist-Based Software Verification and Validation Approach with Dr. Kendra Cooper of the University of Texas at Dallas
• Framework for Understanding the Open Source Revolution with Mr. Jeff Elpern of the Reno/Tahoe Software Quality Institute

Funding for SOELA and its current projects has been received from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, the Office of the Provost of the University of Nevada, Reno, as well as from other intramural (e.g. UNR Junior Faculty Research Award 2003-3004, UNR International Activities Grant 2004-2005, Undergraduate Research Awards 2004-2006) and extramural sources (The National Institute for Systems Test and Productivity, Quadrant One, Inc. — Washington, and University of South Florida/SPAWAR).

Located in LME 321, this lab is named in honor of Robert N. Tompson, retired chair of Mathematics, for his support of computer science before a separate department was formed. It is comprised of 20 student workspaces with custom designed computer desks.

Each of the workspaces has a computer with a 17-inch LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Students build computers from components at the beginning of the semester and then change over to higher performance computers in order to study programming, algorithms, robotics, networks, and other Computer Science concepts for the remainder of it. In either configuration, the computers are on a separate LAN from that of the rest of the university, connecting to the Internet via a gateway. In addition to the computers, the laboratory has equipment sufficient for individuals or pairs of students to work with robots, routers, soldering stations, and other tools as needed to support the laboratory component of the Introduction to Computing (CS 105) course.