Fred J. Looft

Biography

Education: BS University of Michigan 1973 MS University of Michigan 1976 PhD University of Michigan 1979 When I first came to WPI/ECE, I was involved in the modeling of sensory receptors and neural coding—a field of study at the interface between electrical engineering, communications systems, biomedical engineering, neurosciences, and sensory systems. For about 20 years I published papers and worked on research grants related to sensory systems and neural coding, advised undergraduate and graduate projects, and collaborated on several projects with a colleague at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester. Around 2000 my interests evolved to include the general area of off-campus student project advising (both senior capstone projects and third year qualifying projects), the development of space flight systems and small satellites, and other more mainstream ECE areas. For example, during this time I worked with a large team of students on a small-satellite grant from the Air Force and collaborated with faculty on a project center we operated at the Goddard Space Flight Center. More recently my interests are in the areas of graduate capstone projects for Robotics Engineering (RBE 594) and Systems Engineering (SYS 585), off campus project advising as part of the WPI global program, on campus projects in the areas of alternative energy and socio-technical interactions and systems, s well as teaching courses BS and MS level in systems engineering.

Research Interest

Instrumentation; Digital and analog systems; Robotics engineering; Biomedical engineering; Microprocessor systems and architectures; Space-flight systems