I am currently an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at WPI after receiving my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. My dissertation advisor was Professor Sandy Hill. I also received a Masters degree from the same department and a Bachelors degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Benin in my home country, Nigeria. My research interests are in the areas of mobile graphics, photorealistic computer graphics and most areas of mobile computing, wireless and sensor networks.

Mobile Graphics: In mobile graphics, we have created and prototyped a programmable mobile graphics API called the Mobile Adaptive Distributed Graphics Framework (MADGRAF) in which a powerful server can assist a mobile device in rendering relatively complex 3D scenes by applying techniques such as polygon simplification, image-based techniques, rendering using various Level-of-Detail (LOD) techniques and remote execution. As part of our efforts, we are developing performance monitoring tools including PowerSpy, a Windows tool for fine-grained power profiling.

Photorealistic Graphics: In photorealistic computer graphics, I work in the emerging area of computer graphics known as appearance modeling in which research tries to create realistic surface reflectance models (BRDFs) and reproduce effects like weathering of stones and aging of paint pigments to make computer graphics images even more realistic while reducing the almost plastic look of previous models. Examples of work that I have done in appearance models include modeling interesting natural wavelength-dependent phenomena like diffraction which produces the color streaks we observe when we look at a CD-ROM and interference which produces color in oil slicks and soap bubbles.

Mobile Computing and Wireless Networks: In mobile computing and wireless networks, I am particularly interested in the design and performance evaluation of wireless data link and transport protocols. Wireless protocols have to be energy efficient and robust in the face of errors. In evaluating protocols, I like to use simulation with tools like the NS2 network simulator to observe how protocols behave in different scenarios. My previous wireless protocol work pertained to the Media Access (MAC) and Application layers. We have also produced a tool called Locus for location sensing techniques in 802.11b WLANs.

I teach the undergraduate and graduate computer graphics, undergraduate computer networks class as well as a graduate seminars in computer graphics and mobile computing.

Classes (Current/Last offering)

• Computer Networks CS 513, Graduate Introduction to Local and Wide Area Networks [ Spring 2010 ] NEW
• Advanced Topics in Computer Graphics CS 563 [ Spring 2010 ] [Past CS 563 Presentations ] NEW
• Computer Graphics CS 4731, Undergraduate graphics [ B term 2007 ]
• Computer Graphics, CS 543 Computer graphics (Graduate) [ Fall 2007 ]
• Computer Networks CS 4514, Undergraduate networks [ C term 2007 ]
• Graduate seminar in mobile and ubiquitous computing CS 525M [ Spring Semester 2006 ]

Note that the above links are to the current or last offering of the above courses. For older offerings of courses, please click [here] .

Major Qualifying Projects (MQPs) (Currently Supervising)

• My MQP Interests 2006-2007 New!!!
• Location Aware Security Application by Andrew Bangs, Shaun Haerink and Aubrey Klaft
• Autonomous Undersea Systems Network (AUSNet) Stale Data Expiration and Store-Forward Routing by Matt Haag
• Pixel Shaders for Mobile devices by Xiaohe Hu and Theodore N. Phillips III
• Power Implications of WLAN Security Attacks on Ad Hoc Routing Protocols by Bill West
• Mobile MPEG Streaming by Zhuo Chen and Aram Dulyan

For more information on what sorts of MQPs I like to advise and information on older MQPs, please click [here] .

Independent Study Projects (ISPs)/Directed Research

• Topics in Computational Photography and Video-based Rendering by Cliff Lindsay
• Real-Time Ray Tracing by Peter Lohrmann and Chen-Hao Chang
• DirectX 10 by Andy Pfeill
• Rendering Participating Media Using Photon Mapping (Global Illumination, Volume Rendering, Image-based lighting) by Zack Waters
• Real Time Rendering Using Spherical Harmonics by Cliff Lindsay

My Research pages

• Mobile Graphics Research Group (MGRG)
• Wireless Multimedia Streaming Lab (WMSL)
• Mobile Adaptive Distributed Graphics Pipeline (MADGRAF)
• Bi-Directional Reflectance Viewer Development (BRAVADO)
• Real-Time photorealistic rendering on programmable mobile GPUs

Selected Publications

• Ali Taheri, Arvinder Singh and Emmanuel Agu, Location Fingerprinting on Infrastructure 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) using Locus, in Proc Fourth International IEEE Workshop on Wireless Local Networks, (in conjunction with IEEE LCN 2004)
• Nathan Sheldon, Eric Girard, Seth Borg, Mark Claypool, and Emmanuel Agu. The Effect of Latency on User Performance in Warcraft III, Technical Report WPI-CS-TR-03-07, Computer Science Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, March 2003. PDF file in Proc. of ACM netGames Conference 2003     Best Paper Award !!
• Agu E. and Hill F.S. "A Simple Method for Ray Tracing Diffraction", in Proc. 2nd International Workshop on Computer Graphics and Geometric Modeling", CGGM 2003, Montreal Canada.
• Awduche D. and Agu E., ``Mobile Extensions to RSVP'', in Proc. Intl Conf. On Computer Communications and Networks (IC3N), Las Vegas, Sept 22-27, 1997

FULL PUBLICATION LIST .

Links

• New BS/MS Course Selection Form
• Graphics Links and Research Page
• Wireless/Mobile Computing Links and Research Page
• My Fun Links
• Advising aids by Dave Brown
• Collected advise on research and writing
• Writing Systems and Networking Articles by Henning Schulzerinne
• Most cited authors in Computer Science at NEC citeseer

mailto:webmaster@cs.wpi.edu