September 12 2008 Slide About Me Timothy Ragland

September 12, 2008 Slide About Me Timothy Ragland 9/12/08

September 12, 2008 Slide Timeline • • Born in Amarillo, TX in January 1984 Moved to Knoxville in June 1990 Graduated from Farragut High School in 2002 Graduated from Harding University in Searcy Arkansas in May 2006 with a B. S. in Computer Engineering • Moved to Brookings, SD in October 2006 to work as a Firmware Designer at Daktronics, a company that makes large LED video displays • Returned to Knoxville in August 2008 to obtain my Master’s and Ph. D. at UT

September 12, 2008 Slide Undergraduate Projects • Fall 2005 – Built a battery-powered robot designed to traverse a maze by using a simple wall following algorithm – Used a Motorola 68 HC 12 microprocessor to control the system – Used 3 infrared emitter/detector pairs to sense the walls (on the front and on each side) – Designed a battery charger using Lab. VIEW interfaced with an NI ELVIS board

September 12, 2008 Slide Undergraduate Projects • Spring 2006 – Worked with a team that attempted to design a motion-capture system that had self-tracking sensors – Sensors were meant to track their own motion by using an internal inertial measurement unit (IMU), then use a Bluetooth signal to transmit the data to a nearby computer running capture software – The IMU design consisted of 3 linear accelerometers – The linear and angular motion of the body would be derived from the readings of the accelerometers – Due to several hardware malfunctions and calculated precision requirements that were impractical, an operational physical sensor was never realized

September 12, 2008 Slide Daktronics • Daktronics is a company based in Brookings, SD, which designs large electronic LED displays. – Scoreboards, Billboards, Road Signs, Video Displays • I worked at Daktronics for nearly 2 years in the Video Products Engineering department. • I primarily designed firmware (both microprocessor and FPGA) for control room equipment for creating, modifying, and monitoring the video signal going to the display. • In addition, I did some project-specific work with particular signs.

September 12, 2008 Slide Video Signal Development • I improved and maintained firmware for a device called a Transmitter Card, which received bitmaps from a computer through the PCI bus, formatted them, and converted them to a proprietary video signal called V-Max 4 TM. • I also implemented a modified version of this device to allow it to output a 720 p SDI signal instead of a V-Max 4 TM signal.

September 12, 2008 Slide Video Modification • I worked with the other engineers in developing firmware for the V-Link®. • This device is a video processor that allows many different video sources (SDI, Analog [Composite, S-Video, and Component], VGA, DVI) to be configured and placed on the incoming V-Max 4 TM signal to create the desired output. • I implemented methods to capture and save a frame from any of the incoming or outgoing video signals to allow for diagnostic monitoring.

September 12, 2008 Slide Video Monitoring • I also spent time designing firmware for the VXPort®, a device used to monitor the VMax 4 TM video signal. • This device converted the incoming V-Max 4 TM signal into various standard outputs including NTSC, PAL, VGA, DVI, and SDI in order to allow the video to be monitored.

September 12, 2008 Slide Projects • While most of my work was not sign-specific, I did spend some time doing work for some specific signs. • Heinz Field – Stadium for the Pittsburgh Steelers – First sign to use the Daktronics HD-X technology. • Chase Field – Stadium for the Arizona Diamondbacks • Kauffman Stadium – Stadium for the Kansas City Royals – Largest HD Display in the world (over 8900 sq. ft. ) – First sign to use control-by-video

September 12, 2008 Slide Heinz Field Picture taken from http: //www. daktronics. com/sports_apps/dak_sports_apps. cfm

September 12, 2008 Slide Heinz Field – side view Picture taken from http: //www. daktronics. com/sports_apps/dak_sports_apps. cfm

September 12, 2008 Slide Chase Field Image taken from http: //flickr. com/photos/91357526@N 00/2634330810

September 12, 2008 Slide Kauffman Stadium Sign Left Picture obtained from http: //dakstats. daktronics. com/Spotlights/Pages/Kansas. City. Royals. aspx Right picture obtained from http: //flickr. com/photos/blk 3953/2402719910/

September 12, 2008 Slide Kauffman Stadium Sign Image modified from http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Image: Royals-Kauffman. Renovations 02. JPG

September 12, 2008 Slide What’s next? • Current research interest at UT – Robot Comprehension of Vision • Theoretically, I want to work on designing a machine that knows what it seeing and is capable of utilizing that knowledge. – Ideally, I’d like to minimize preconditions as much as possible, such that the machine would know the same object regardless of its surroundings • 2 D vision – as a more specific application, I’d like to work on designing a machine that can knowingly watch television or film and actually learn or extract information in real time – Example – a machine could watch a baseball game television broadcast, and be capable of giving a play-byplay breakdown. This would involve discerning between live action and replay, figuring out the players involved by their jersey numbers or on-screen graphics, etc.

September 12, 2008 Slide After UT • After I obtain my Ph. D. , I’d prefer to stay in the Academic world as a professor. • However, I’d also be interested in going into research in a few areas – Medical assistive technology • Specifically, technology utilized by the patients. – Example: The v. OICe vision technology – Sports technology • Example: The yellow 1 st Down line on Football broadcasts

September 12, 2008 Slide Questions?