B. Earl Wells, Ph.D., P.E.

Professor
Electrical & Computer Engineering

 Personal Website

Education

Biography

Dr. Wells' research focus is to exploit concurrency in its various forms to improve the performance, real time responsiveness, reliability and energy consumption of computationally-intensive applications through the intelligent utilization of modern commercially-available system hardware and software.

Research Expertise

• High-Performance Multi-core and Clustered Computing
• GPU-Accelerated Computing
• FPGA-based Reconfigurable Computing
• Real-Time, Embedded, and Distributed Computing

Honors & Awards

• IEEE Outstanding Educator Award 2013 (IEEE Huntsville Section)
• Best Paper Award 2005, International Symposium of Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunications Systems  (co-authors Zexin Pan, Jaunjo Nogurera)
• Best Paper of Session Award 2001, 20^th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (co-author Sin Ming Loo)

Recent Publications

Chapter in Book

“Digital Design – Combination Logic, ” B. Earl Wells, Sin Ming Loo, chapter 20 in – Industrial Electronics Handbook, 2nd Edition, CRC Press, 2011.
 

Journal Papers

“Heuristically Driven Task Agglomeration in Limited Resource Partially-Reconfigurable Systems,” David Austin and B. Earl Wells, International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms, Las Vegas, NV U.S.A, July 22-25, 2013.

“Doppler effect on target tracking in wireless sensor networks,” Youngwon Kim An, Seong-Moo Yoo Changhyuk An, and B. Earl Wells, Computer Communications, Vol. 36, 2013.

“Noise Mitigation for Target Tracking in Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks,” Youngwon Kim An, Seong-Moo Yoo, Changhyuk An, Earl Wells, KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems, pp. 1166-1179, Vol. 7, No. 5, May. 2013.

“Applying a Genetic Algorithm to Reconfigurable Hardware using a Traditional HDL Approach” Jessica Mintz and B. Earl Wells, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 36th Annual SIAM Southeastern Atlantic Section Conference, University of Alabama in Huntsville, March 24 - 25, 2012.

“Space Weather Phenomena Simulation using a Graphics Processing Unit”, Patrick Gilbert, Scotty Bridges, Jason Schansman, Frank Richard, Nagendra Singh, and B. Earl Wells, 36th Annual SIAM Southeastern Atlantic Section Conference, University of Alabama in Huntsville, March 24 - 25, 2012.

“Features of electron current layers: Comparison between three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and Cluster observations”, Nagendra Singh, Manish Yeladandi, Trinath Somarothu, B. E. Wells, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 115, 12 pp., 2010.

“Parallel electric fields in mixing hot and cold plasmas in the auroral downward current region: Double layers and ambipolar fields, Nagendra Singh, Kalyan Arcot, and B. E. Wells, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 114, March 2009.

[J.1] “Hardware Supported Task Scheduling on Dynamically Reconfigurable SoC Architectures”, Zexin Pan and B. Earl Wells, in press, to appear as a full length paper in the IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems, Vol. 16, No. 11, November 2008.

[J.2] “Guidelines for Unified System Specification for Co-Design of Embedded Systems,” Kenneth G. Ricks, D. Jeff Jackson, B. Earl Wells, The International Journal of Computers and Their Applications, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 128-141, September 2006.

[J.3] “A Task Scheduling Methodology within Resource Constrained Reconfigurable Hard­ware Environments,” Sin Ming Loo, B. Earl Wells, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Vol. 18, No. 2, Spring 2006.

[J.4] “Applying Stochastic Static Task Scheduling to a Reconfigurable Hardware Environ­ment,” Sin Ming Loo, and B. Earl Wells, The International Journal of Computers and Their Applications, Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2005.

[J.5] “Creating An Adaptive Embedded System by Applying Multi Agent Techniques to Reconfigurable Hardware,” Hamid R. Naji, B. Earl Wells, and Letha Etzkorn, Future Gener­ation Computer Systems.Volume 20, Issue 6, pp. 1055-1081, August 2004.

[J.6] “Applying Multi Agent Techniques to Reconfigurable Systems,” Hamid R. Naji, Letha Etzkorn, B. Earl Wells, Advances in Engineering Software, Volume 35, Issue 7, Pages 401-412, July 2004.

[J.7] "SADL: Simulation Architecture Description Language," Kenneth G. Ricks, John M. Weir, and B. Earl Wells, The International Journal of Computers and Their Applications, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 126-138, September 2002.

Conference Papers

[C.1] “Dynamic Power Management in Power-Aware Reconfigurable System-On-Chip Architectures,” Swathi T. Gurumani and B. Earl Wells, accepted for publication as a regu­lar research paper in theProceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Embedded Systems  and Applications, Las Vegas, U.S.A., June 25-28, 2007.

[C.2] “Energy-Efficient Dyanamic Task Scheduling Algorithm for Reconfigurable System-on-Chip Architectures,” Swathi T. Gurumani and B. Earl Wells, accepted for publication as a regular research paper in the The 2007 International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms, Las Vegas, U.S.A., June 25-28, 2007.

[C.3] “Performance Analysis of Coarse-Grained Parallel Particle Swarm Optimization,” Swathi T. Gurumani, Mathew M. Noel, B. Earl Wells, Thomas C. Jannett, Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS-2006), San Francisco, CA, September 20-22, 2006. 

[C.4] “Re-configurable Hardware Based Fractal Neural Processor,” A. H. Abou-Ali, S. M. Abd-El-Moetty,B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Paral­lel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS-2006), San Francisco, CA, September 20-22, 2006.

[C.5] "Microarchitecture Support for the Dynamic Scheduling of Task Systems with Data and Control Dependencies on Reconfigurable Architectures," Zexin Pan, B. Earl Wells, and Juanjo Noguera,Proceedings of the 2005 Summer Simulation Multiconference (SPECTS'05) [Winner of a Best Paper Paper Award one of three such awards given out of 169 papers that were accepted for the conference], Philadelphia/Cherry Hill, PA, July 24-26, 2005.

[C.6] “Improved Microarchitecture Support for Dynamic Task Scheduling on Reconfig­urable Architectures,” Zexin Pan, Juanjo Noguera, B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms (ERSA-05), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, June 27-30, 2005.

[C.7] “Applying Fuzzy-Reinforcement Learning to Track a Mobile Target using a Wireless Sensor Network,” Yahya Tahtoush, B. Earl Wells, and Thomas C. Jannett, Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Wireless Networks (ICWN-05) , Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, June 27-30, 2005.

[C.8] “Exploiting Fine-Grain Parallelism present within the International Data Encryption Algorithm using a Xilinx FPGA,” Zexin Pan, Srikanth Venkateswaran, Swathi Tanjore Gurumani, and B. Earl Wells,Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS-2003), Reno, Nevada, USA, August 13 - 15, 2003.

[C.9] “The Application of Software Process Precedence Relationship Formalisms to Con­current Hardware Systems,” Kenneth G. Ricks, D. Jeff Jackson, and B. Earl Wells, Pro­ceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA’ 03), Las Vegas, Nevada, June 23-26, 2003.

[C.10] “An Agent Inspired Reconfigurable Computing Implementation of a Genetic Algo­rithm,” John Weir and B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the International Conference on Par­allel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA’ 03), Las Vegas, Nevada, June 23-26, 2003.

[C.11] “A Survey and Analysis of Precedence Relationship Formalisms for Client-Server Systems,” Kenneth G. Ricks, D. Jeff Jackson, and B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computers and Their Application (CATA 2003), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, March 26-28, 2003.

[C.12] “More Accurate Semantics Defining Constraint Combination for Client-Server Sys­tems,” Kenneth G. Ricks, D. Jeff Jackson, and B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 18th Inter­national Conference on Computers and Their Application (CATA 2003), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, March 26-28, 2003.

[C.13] “A Genetic Algorithm Approach to Static Task Scheduling in a Reconfigurable Hardware Environment”, S. M. Loo, B. Earl Wells, J. Winningham, Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computers and Their Application (CATA 2003), Hono­lulu, Hawaii, USA, March 26-28, 2003.

[C.14] “A Scalable Three-Dimensional Domain Decomposition Mapping Technique Using MPI,” Saleh H. Al-Sharaeh, B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 18th International Confer­ence on Computers and Their Application (CATA 2003), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, March 26-28, 2003.

[C.15] "Parallel Image Processing with Agent-based Reconfigurable Hardware," Hamid R. Naji, Reza Adhami, Letha Etzkorn, B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS 2002), Louisville, KY., September 2002.

[C.16] " Applying the Multi-Agent Paradigm to Reconfigurable Hardware , A Sensor Fusion Example ," Hamid R. Naji, John Weir, B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the Second International Work Shop on Intelligent Systems Design and Application (ISDA2002), Atlanta ,GA, August 2002. 

[C.17] "Hardware agents: A New Approach to Support Development and Management of Information Systems," Hamid R. Naji, Letha Etzkorn, B. Earl Wells, Proceedings of the 6th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Orlando, Florida, July 2002.