The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University has established a testbed for the study and evaluation of networked multimedia systems. The testbed was initially formed by a grant that was awarded by the AT&T Foundation.

Research areas supported by the testbed include video and image compression, computer networks, multimedia authoring, media capture, wireless systems, and a wide variety of applications. Some specific research projects are:

Scalable Video Compression Algorithms

ATM Network Modeling and Performance Evaluation

Low-Bit Rate Video Compression

ATM Cell Loss Concealment for Video

Video Server Design and Performance Evaluation

Video Transmission Over Wireless Networks

Image and Video Databases

Operations on Compressed Data

Variable Bit Rate Video Compression

Multimedia Authoring

Distributed High Performance Computing

Telemedicine

High-Fidelity Video Conferencing

Network Congestion Control Algorithms

Applications areas include the use of networked multimedia in K- 12 education, engineering education, and the dissemination of engineering research results.

The testbed consists of high performance workstations, an ATM network, a HIPPI network, and digital media capture and processing hardware. A prototype video server is under development and we have received funding to develop a wireless network. The wireless network will be deployed in the second quarter of 1998 and will consist of two wireless systems to study medium data rate (2-15 Mb/s) multimedia delivery and low date rate (20Kb/s) packet video. Current sponsors of the laboratory include:

AT&T

National Science Foundation

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Kodak

Thomson Consumer Electronics

Intel

Rockwell

Fore Systems

Essential Communications

We have received in excess of $800,000 in funding to support the testbed in the last two years.