Lab Facilities

Center of Excellence in Research and Education for Big Military Data Intelligence (CREDIT)

The CREDIT Center was established in 2015 with a $5M seed-funding from the US Department of Defense. The mission of the CREDIT center is to accelerate research and education in predictive analytics for science and engineering to transform PVAMU’s ability to effectively address and solve many complex problems posed by big data, and train PVAMU students to become next generation data scientists and engineers. CREDIT center has a multidisciplinary team of faculty researchers from Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, research scientists and postdocs, and many graduate and undergraduate research assistants. The core facilities include the Deep Learning Lab and the Cloud Computing Lab. The Deep Learning Lab features four NVIDIA DGX-1 Deep Learning systems totaling 32 Tesla P100 GPUs with more than 112,000 CUDA cores plus 4 Dell R730/R730xd storage servers (> 400TB). Each DGX-1 system has eight Tesla P100 GPU accelerators connected through NVLink, the NVIDIA high-performance GPU interconnect, in a hybrid cube-mesh network.

Together with dual socket Intel Xeon CPUs and four 100 Gb InfiniBand network interface cards, DGX- 1 provides unprecedented performance for deep learning to solve many challenging problems in big data analytics and artificial intelligence. For example, a team of students from the CREDIT center won the 2021 AI Tracks at Sea Challenge organized by the US Navy and the center faculty members are leading curriculum development in big data science and deep learning such as development of a new Graduate Certificate in Deep Learning for AI that is approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The Cloud Computing Lab was established in 2011 and consists of 24 SMP nodes with 12 cores and 128GB memory each (4 GPU nodes), 8 SMP nodes with 16 cores and 128GB memory each, 4 SMP nodes with 32 cores and 64GB memory each, 54 IBM blade servers with 4 cores and 4GB memory each, FPGA boards, and embedded devices (10 Raspberry Pi 3, 7 NVIDIA Jetson TX2 Developer Kits, 7 Xilinx PYNQ-Z1). The CREDIT center has sponsored 12 senior design projects in the past 7 years. To address contemporary issues, several senior projects have been focused on mitigating the impact of the pandemic, such as “Intelligent Face Mask Detection System using Deep Learning” and “Real-Time Crowd Size Detection System using Raspberry Pi and Deep Learning” offered in 2020 and 2021 that allow the students to explore innovative solutions to societal needs.

Center of Excellence for Cyber security (SECURE)

The SECURE center is a multidisciplinary research institute funded by the Texas A&M University System’s Chancellor’s Research Initiative program and has dedicated cybersecurity labs for investigating malware threats, intrusion detection and prevention systems, cloud security, and SCADA security issues. The Center host various networking/testing equipment such as the Integrated Service Routers (Cisco 2800 and Cisco 1900 Series), Switches (Cisco Catalyst 2960 and Catalyst 3561 Series), Cisco ASA 5505 Firewall, IPT Phones, Avaya Network Platform, Call Manager and Voice Mail Platform, traffic generators, simulation software, logic analyzers, Linux Server and workstations. The Networking Security Lab also hosts the Spirent CF20 CyberFlood system for generating realistic application traffic and attacks to test the performance, scalability, and security of today’s application-aware network infrastructures. The NSF MRI funded IBM iDataPlex HPC cluster consist of twenty dx360 M4 CPU node, 2-socket 6-core 2.3GHz E5-2630, 64G memory, 500GB HDD; dual IB adaptor; four dx360 M4 GPU node, 1xnVidia Tesla M2090, one 48-port GbE BNT switch, and one DS3512 with 24x2TB SATA HDD. The computing cluster is installed with the latest computing software stack including MPI, OpenMP, Apache Hadoop and Spark with a variety of numerical analysis, statistics, image processing, machine learning and deep learning packages to support the big-data-analytics research on distributed systems with high-level parallel programming models. All SECURE laboratory facilities connect to the PVAMU’s Research Network via Gigabit Ethernet and Infiniband interconnection, which is a part of the Science DMZ project funded by NSF CC* project. These labs also have virtual environments: Windows and Linux Virtual Machines. In the last two years, the center has supported over 40 minority students through undergraduate/graduate research assistantships, scholarships and by sponsoring senior design projects (i.e., about 2 to 3 senior design projects are supported each academic year). In addition, a team of five SECURE students also secured the 1^st place at the recently concluded 2022 Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster competition (https://www.winterclassicinvitational.com/).

Smart MicroGrid Advanced Research and Technology Center (SMART)

The vision of the SMART Center is to develop smart microgrids that are reliable, sustainable, secure and environmentally safe. The center is focusing on the following areas: (i) enhancing the power quality for the microgrid, (ii) optimizing the electromagnetic compatibility of electronic devices in the microgrid, (iii) providing secure and robust data collection and exchange in the microgrid, (iv) designing novel fault detection, protection, and control of the microgrid, and (v) designing a test bed for experimental validation. The SMART Center provides laboratory facilities for senior design projects, MS thesis and projects, and PhD dissertation work. It has been supervising several senior design projects during the past several years. The center has state-of-the-art equipment and lab facilities (two laboratories in the Electrical and Computer Engineering building and another two laboratories in the Greaux Engineering building) that will be of benefit to the faculty and students. The Nuelle Training Systems for Smart Grid and Micro Grid have the following modules: Smart Grid Control Center, Smart Grid Energy Management, Smart Grid Trainer, Professional Photovoltaics, Transformers, High-voltage Transmission Lines, Generator Control and Synchronizing Circuits, and Wind Power Plants. The Power Lab is equipped with dSPACE power controllers, power converters, Chroma programmable AC and DC power sources, synchronous and induction motors, and Lab Volts training systems.

Center for Computational Systems Biology (CCSB@PVAMU)

The CCSB center brings together faculty in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Agriculture and Biology to accelerate biomedical informatics research, train students and also commercialize discoveries. This multidisciplinary research center employs state-of-the-art computational and engineering tools and approaches to study complex biological processes such as cancer, head injury, Parkinson’s disease, pulmonary hypertension, and herbicide-resistant weeds in conjunction with external collaborators such as Translational Genomics Research Institute, Salk Institute, University of Pittsburg Medical Center, and the University of Cambridge. The core facilities of the CCSB include the Cell Biology Lab and the Next Generation Sequencing Center. The Cell Biology and Sequencing Center share 1,612 square feet of wet lab space for molecular and cellular studies and can validate computational results. The sequencing center is equipped with short read technologies for RNA and DNA sequencing and microarray technologies to analyze RNA expression and analysis of data. The major equipment at the center include: (1) high throughput sequencing equipment (Illumina NextSeq 550, Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, Nanodrop, Qubit 4, real-time PCR, thermal cycler); (2) cell biology equipment (Sony SH800S flow cytometer and cell sorter, BSL2 biohazard containment hood, temperature controlled incubators, autoclave, orbital shaker, 765 Starr Mouse oximeter, 5331A YSI Oxygen probe and tissue tearer, 5810R eppendorf tabletop centrifuge, 5415 R Eppendorf tabletop centrifuge with F45-24-11 rotor, inverted brightfield and phase contrast microscope with Olympus LC30 digital color camera and LC micro software driven by a Dell Intel Core i9, 3.1 GHz, 64 GB RAM, 3 upright refrigerators, 2 upright freezers, and one each -80 degree C freezer and liquid N2 freezer); (3) protein analysis equipment (4 vertical SDS-PAGE gel boxes, 2 dual-output power supplies, one orbital platform shake and a sonicator); (4) molecular and genetic studies equipment (rotor gene Q light cycler real time qPCR system, GMI Amplitronix 4 thermal cycler, Bio-Rad S1000 thermal cycler, 2 horizontal electrophoretic gel boxes, vacuum concentrator centrifuge); (5) microarray analysis equipment (Agilent and Illumina hybridization ovens, microsample incubators, GenePix Axon 4300 Scanner); and (6) high performance computing cluster and data storage systems (shared with CREDIT center). The center has supported a few senior design projects and undergraduate students focusing on data visualization over the last five years.

Center for Radiation Engineering and Science for Space Exploration (CRESSE)

The CRESSE center is focused on developing materials and technologies (by obtaining detailed dosimetry data and particle spectroscopy data for use in prediction of risks of space radiation in environment and health) that would keep astronauts and their critical electronic equipment safe from the effects of harmful space radiation. Major equipment at the CRESSE labs include: Keysight Technologies B1500A semiconductor device parametric analyzer system, Hitachi SU 3500 high resolution scanning electron microscope with Bruker electron dispersive spectroscopy, Hewlett-Packard 4145 and 4156 parametric analyzers, Keithly probe station with Keithly System 8100 parametric analyzer, scanning probe microscopy (ATM, STM), radiation testing using gamma rays, protons, neutrons and heavy-ion ground-based radiation sources to simulate the space environment, radiation and flight dosimetry instrumentation and data analysis, fume hood and vacuum oven for device annealing and materials processing. The Radiation Testing Equipment includes a 160 kV x-ray source with a tungsten target that provided a broad spectrum x-ray spectrum with energy peaks at 44 keV and 55 keV with a maximum ionizing dose rate of approximately 5.9 krad/min and a 15 MBq Cs-137 source with educational demonstration kit. The CRESSE center has involved a large number of ECE and physics undergraduate students in its research activities over the last decade.

Center of Excellence for Communication Systems Technology Research (CECSTR)

CECSTR laboratory facilities support research activities in the areas of mixed signal systems, testing and characterization of high-speed communication systems, wavelets, and compressive sampling systems. The TI Mixed Signals Lab within CECSTR was sponsored by Texas Instruments, and has 10 workstations with various testing equipment for testing and measurements of analog and mixed signals. The High-Speed Communications Lab was donated by Sprint Communications and is equipped with the necessary instrumentations for automated testing and characterization of digital subscriber line products, including a network analyzer for cross-talk analysis. The TI Digital Signal Processing Solutions Lab contains a host of signal generators, high-speed digital oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and logic analyzers needed for DSP hardware development. Other major equipment includes a wireless testbed comprised of USRP radios, NI wireless system testers and various networking elements such as routers, switches, and network management tools. CECSTR regularly supports senior design projects for undergraduate students in the ECE department.