Home page for Kurt Metzger

Dr. Kurt Metzger
The University of Michigan
4244 EECS Building
1301 Beal Avenue
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2122
 
metzger@umich.edu
(734) 764-5226 (phone)
(734) 763-8041 (fax)

Research interests:
         Digital signal processing.
Digital filter design and implementation.
Applications using m-sequences and similar sequences.
Fast algorithms.

Teaching:
         Winter term 2002:  EECS 452.

Biography:
         I received my BSEE in 1963, MSEE in 1965, and Ph.D. in 1983 all from the University of Michigan.
 
In 1962 I started working with Ted Birdsall. A collaboration that continues through today. Most of my career was involved in making acoustic propagation measurements in the ocean. The early work was with the University of Miami as part of the MIMI project. This work was focused on making multipath measurement through the Straits of Florida. Use was made of the Digital Equipment LINC-8 and PDP-8 minicomputers. Jerry Cederquist and I developed a small operating system using LINC tape (a "linear disk") modeled after the University of Michigan's MTS terminal system. I was involved in the 1977 PANOIC experiment making long range propagation measurements using a towed source. This work was performed using the facilities of the ARPA Research Center at Moffett Field. In 1979 propagation multipath measurements were made towing an acoustic source through the gulf stream as part of the FREDDEX exercise.
 
Starting in about 1978 my efforts started to shift to working with Scripps and Woods Hole. The early work in this period was with John Spiesberger. I was one of the Walter Munk's seven dwarfs as part of the 1981 Ocean Tomography Demonstration Experiment. I was responsible for designing the shore station monitoring systems. In 1987 I worked with the Naval Oceanography Office making towed source propagation measurements in the North Atlantic. I participated in the 1988 and 1989 Greenland Sea cruises. A high point in my career was in 1991 being part of Walter Munk's Heard Island Feasibility Test (HIFT) project. This project successfully transmitted acoustic signals from a ship located near Heard Island in the extreme South Pacific to acoustic receivers located on both coasts of the US. Following HIFT I was involved in setting up the transmitters and shore sites for the Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC) project. I worked closely with Jim Mercer and Don Reddaway at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory during this effort.
 
In 1997 I started working with Wayne Stark in the area of communications. As part of this work I've investigated Nordstrom-Robinson error correcting codes and designed and built transmitter and receiver hardware for studying the effectiveness of various forward error correcting codes in real environments. This work continues.
 
I started teaching the DSP Design Laboratory course in 1999. The course was originally developed by Emad Ebbini and Dave Anderson. The course consists of lecture and laboratory. The laboratory is divided into a structured component and project. The project counts as half of the student's grade. Students work hard in this course and I've greatly enjoyed teaching and working with them in the lab.