Penn State Behrend
    School of Engineering
    5101 Jordan Road
    Erie, PA  16563-1701

    Office:  REDC 242C
    Phone:  (814) 898-6153
    Fax:(814) 898-6125
    Email: Ralph-Ford@psu.edu

 

Ralph M. Ford
Research Scholarship

My main research focus area is in the areas of Image Processing, Computer Vision, and Machine Vision.  I also conduct research in engineering design as it applies to the fields of computer, electrical, and software engineering.  Below are some of my projects

---

Electrical and Computer Engineering Design. Design for Electrical and Computer Engineers: Theory, Concepts, and Practice, McGraw-Hill, 2008 by Ralph Ford and Chris Coulston.

Machine Vision and DSP for Industrial Applications. Applications of machine vision and digital signal processing in industrial applications.  Several of the projects are listed below.

• Advanced Techniques for Machine Vision Inspection.   Sponsored by PITA Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance). Explored methods of non-contact thickness measurement for glass containers.
• Machine Vision Algorithms for Plastic Bottle Inspection.  Sponsored by AGR International. The algorithms developed significantly improved AGR's ability to inspect plastic beverage containers.  1999-2001.
• Digital Signal Processing Techniques for LVDT Signal Conditioning. Sponsored by Lord Corporation, 1999. Developed a new algorithm to provide better LVDT signal conditioning than are reported solutions.  

Video Indexing & Retrieval. Developed techniques to detect and classify shot boundaries in video sequences.  The reason you would want this is for automated analysis and browsing of digital video.

Fluid Imagery Analysis & Compression. Developed imaging and pattern recognition algorithms for the detection of important features of fluid flows, and for the compression and visualization of fluid flows fields.