Research Projects

LogoYearDescription
2023
CO2 measuring instrument with motor control, temperature and humidity measurement

Measuring of CO2 concentration in the air with a SCD30 sensor from Sensirion.
Measurement of temperature and humidity.
Data processing with a ESP32 microcontroller.
Display of the results in graphical form on an LC display (T-Display-S3).
Driving a motor using MOSFET PWM control.
Management of sensors and actuators by parallel threads using freeRTOS.

Technologies: ESP32, Embedded C/C ++, PlatformIO, T-Display-S3, IRF520-MOSFET, freeRTOS.
2021
Trading systems framework

Development of trading systems framework in PYTHON, PyQt5 and pyqtgraph.
Development of indicators.
Development of trading algorithms.
Development of evaluations functions for traditional trading algorithms and deep learning/reinforcement learning algorithms.
Development of different candle chart types like normal candlesticks and Heikin Ashi candles.
Development of low pass filters, bandpass filters and spectral functions.
Development of EMD indicators.

Technologies: PYTHON, PyQt5, pyqtgraph, pandas, yfinance, numpy.
2021
Reinforcement Learning for autonomous driving

Development of RL algorithms on a Jetson Nano.
Development of ROS nodes for image processing, steering, drive, master control program, Frsky Taranis data transfer.

Technologies: Python, OpenCV, Stable-Baselines3, Linux, Robot Operating System ROS, Jetson Nano, FrSky Taranis X9E, FrSky-XSR.
2021
AI Algorithms for Jetson Nano

Development of AI algorithms for the Jetson Nano.
WIFI and Bluetooth support on Jetson Nano with operating system on SSD.
Distance measurement using 1D lidar sensor and VL53L1X.
Depth images with a global shutter monochrome and an RGB stereo camera.
Depth map generation with a Microsoft kinect depth camera.
360° lidar with a 2-axis lidar system.
Feature detection with OpenMV.
Street lane detection by image processing under OpenCV.
Image feature detection and classification pipelines with RGB to HSV colorspace transform, bilateral filter, Gauß filter, range filter, contour detection, Hough transform, Canny edge detection, Sobel filter, measurement of area, distance and center of gravity.
AI Neural network object recognition by TensorRT.
Development of ROS nodes for steering, motor, MCP, FrSky transmitter and USB-data-receiver.
Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/60FHmETBg6Y

Technologies: Python3, C++, OpenCV, OpenMV, TensorRT, Linux, Robot Operating System ROS, Dual OV2311 Monochrome Global Shutter Camera, IMX219 Stereo Camera, Microsoft Kinect Depth-Camera, RPLIDAR A1M8 360° Lidar, Matek 3901-L0X Optical Flow Sensor, Benewake TFmini-S LiDAR, LIDAR-Lite v3HP, Jetson Nano, Intel 8265AC, OpenMV H7 Plus, VL53L1X, FrSky Taranis X9E, FrSky-XSR.
2020 – 2021
Motor control for dc motors and bldc motors

Troubleshooting motor drivers for bldc motors based on field-oriented control (foc control) with a NUCLEO-F446RE.
Development of a motor driver for dc motors for robotic applications with a NUCLEO-F446RE.
Development of two-pole low-pass filters, time measurement with 0.1 µs resolution, measurement of Hall effect sensors, motor control using an H-bridge circuit.
Development of a PID controller for position control under ARM Cortex-M.
Development of a PID controller for speed control under ARM Cortex-M.
Development of a parser for the implementation of motor commands via the UART terminal interface.
Migration of algorithms under C ++ between different hardware.

Technologies: ARM Cortex-M, STM32CubeIDE, Visual Studio Code, Arduino IDE, STM32F4, GITHUB, C++, simpleFOClibrary, Linux.
2020
STEM drone for universities and schools

Development of a STEM drone with artificial intelligence by using the NVIDIA JETSON NANO board for universities and schools.
The drone will support object and face recognition, self localisation by LIDAR and TOF laser, image processing via OpenCV and PYTHON3.
The projects uses NVIDIA JETSON NANO, STM32F722, BMP280, 32 Bit ESCs, brushless T-Motor, DJI Digital FPV System, OpenCV, Python3, LIDAR, TOF-Laser.
2018 – 2020
Spectral Analysis of Seismic Waves

Development of a seismometer based on a geophone, analog digital converter and an ESP32 and Raspberry Pi. Spectral analysis of the digital output signal based on the discrete Fourier transformation by Dr. Gerald Goertzel and the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) by Dr. North Huang under Python3, C and PASCAL. Data acquisition via interrupt processing and data storage in PostgreSQL, data representation via APACHE web server.
More information at: www.seismometer.info
2017 – 2018
Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) for stock prices

Development of the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) for technical analysis of stock prices. The EMD calculates the decomposition of the price series into a series of intrinsic mode functions (IMF), which, unlike the classic Fourier transform, does not have a fixed period length, and are thus also suitable for the analysis of nonlinear and non-stationary time series. The residuals of the IMFs are similar to the result of bandpass filters.
2016 – 2018
Feature Engineering Algorithms for Robotics

Development of several feature engineering algorithms for Artificial Intelligence (AI) of robots. The algorithms included image recognition using edge detection, play ground recognition using color calibrations, goal post recognition, ball recognition and self localization. All algorithms are based on image data from a camera.
Development of a robot consisting of a track steering system with micro controller and a Raspberry Pi with camera for taking and analyzing of image data.
2017
Spektral Analysis in Quantum Physics

Measurement of interference patterns of light at the double slit experiment and calculation of frequencies of the interference fringes by using autocorrelation algorithms.
2015 – 2016
Robocup SPL

Development of image processing and computer vision algorithms for the Robocup SPL together with the HTWK University Leipzig (Feature Engineering for Artificial Intelligence (AI) models).

Presentation of a Robocup project for children at Dr. Husam Sultan Al Ulama from the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the United Arab Emirates.
2013 – 2014
Hardware RNG

Development of firmware for a random number generator using a microcontroller ATtiny85 and the COM-USB bridge FT232RL.
2004 – 2005
Lectureship

Lecturer at the Technical Academy of Wuppertal, an institute of the Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), Germany. Teaching classes about Computer Graphics, Medical Image Processing, Data Compression and Object Oriented Programming.
2003 – 2005
Medical Volume Explorer MVE

Development of a image processing system for the medical field in cooperation with the Institute for Clinical Radiology and Nuclear Medicine of Professor Köster in Neuss, Germany. The system has a DICOM/ANALYZE file interface and supports CT, MRT and PET data in 2D and 3D by Direct Volume Rendering.
More information at: www.www.mve.info
2002 – 2003
Preprocessing Algorithms

Development of several preprocessing schemes for Burrows Wheeler compression of textual data, DNA structures, data bases and programs in cooperation with the University of Wales at Bangor, United Kingdom using DELPHI, C++ and JAVA.
More information at: www.data-compression.info/Algorithms/BWT
2000 – 2001
Data Base Programs for surveys

Researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Project management for a data base system and statistical analysis of surveys for an industry funded project with VOLKSWAGEN using DELPHI.
1994 – 1999
Simulation of Fuell Cells

Researcher at the Institute for Energy Process Engineering, KFA Jülich, Germany. Development of computer simulations with 80,000 complex variables for admittances and degeneration processes of high temperature fuel cells and ultra capacitors using UNIX, WINDOWS, FORTRAN, C++ and MathCAD.
1990
PETRI Net Editor

Development of a syntax controlled graphical petrinet editor for the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Systems at the Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), Germany, using 8086 Assembler, YACC and TURBO PASCAL.

Monographs

Refereed Journals and Proceedings

Presentations

  • J. Abel, “Electrical conductivity degradation of metal-ceramic composites”, 23.10.2019, International Conference “CURRENT ISSUES OF ELECTROCHEMISTRY, ECOLOGY AND PROTECTION AGAINST CORROSION”, Tambov, Russia, 2019.
  • J. Abel, “A fast and efficient post BWT stage for the Burrows-Wheeler Compression Algorithm”, 30.03.2005, IEEE Data Compression Conference 2005, Utah, U.S.A..
  • J. Abel, “MVE – Medical Volume Explorer”, 22.05.2004, 85th German Congress of Radiology, Wiesbaden, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Visualization of 3D Data – Surface and Volume based Methods”, 27.04.2004, University of South Dakota, U.S.A..
  • J. Abel, “Record-Preprocessing for Data Compression”, 24.03.2004, IEEE Data Compression Conference 2004, Utah, U.S.A..
  • J. Abel, “Lossless Data Compression of Medical Images”, 20.01.2004, IEEE EMB presentation, University Hospital of the Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), Germany.
  • J. Abel, “FMV – A Medical Image Processing System”, 25.11.2003, KFA Jülich, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Research in Lossless Data compression”, 26.08.2003, University of Wales, United Kingdom.
  • J. Abel, “Data compression based on the Burrows-Wheeler Transformation”, 27.02.2003, University of Wales, United Kingdom.
  • J. Abel, “Deadlock at parallel processes”, 04.02.2003, University of Applied Science Duesseldorf, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “University Information Systems”, 27.01.2003, Center for Computing, Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Optimized data compression based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform”, 28.11.2002, University of Duisburg, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Optimized data compression based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform”, 03.07.2002, Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Modeling, simulation and calculation of admittances of two-pols with metal/solid electrolytes”, 28.06.2000, University of Duisburg, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Calculation of admittances in the face centered cubic lattice for the anode of the SOFC”, 10.12.1996, Nuclear Research Center KFA Jülich, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Calculation and simulation of admittances of metal/solid electrolytes”, 17.07.1996, Nuclear Research Center KFA Jülich, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Development of syntax controlled graphical Petrinet editor”, 25.01.1996, Nuclear Research Center KFA Juelich, Germany.
  • J. Abel, “Recursive generation of primes for the RSA algorithm”, 06.12.1989, Technical University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen), Germany.

Referee Activities

  • Journal of Systems and Software, Elsevier Science, Netherlands.
  • Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, Elsev. Netherlands.

Research Interests

Technical Analysis of Financial Data

In the field of technical analysis I have developed many indicators and trading systems using a market model based on the harmonic superposition principle of waves similar to the linear system models of electrical engineering. For a deeper understanding I have developed different algorithms for the spectral analysis of financial data. One analyzer is based on the MESA algorithm of Dr. John Parker Burg, another analyzer is based on the Goertzel algorithm of the discrete Fourier transformation of Dr. Gerald Goertzel and a third analyzer uses autocorrelation (folding of price data phase-shifted with itself).

Feature Engineering for Robotics

Developing feature engineering algorithms for Artificial Intelligence (AI) of robots is another research topic. For the RoboCup I have developed image processing and computer vision algorithms for the Standard Platform League together with the HTWK University Leipzig. Currently I have started a new robot vision project based on a Raspberry Pi computer with a HD camera module. The Raspberry offers a full featured linux platform, which supports many programming languages, and has more computing power than a NAO robot of the RoboCup at the fraction of the price, which is ideal for pupils, students and universities.
The topics of the current algorithms include:

  • play ground recognition using color calibrations,
  • field recognition using edge detection,
  • goal post recognition,
  • ball recognition and
  • self localization.
Image Processing

In order to produce real time 3D graphics on 6502 and Z80 computers, I developed a 3D graphics library, written in assembler. The system could rotate, scale and translate objects as wire-frames in real time. Later, the system was translated to 68000 systems together with an interface to high level languages. The next level was based on OpenGL and the graphic processing unit (GPU) to produce a wider range of 3D applications.
One of my main research projects is the development of the OpenGL medical visualization system MVE in cooperation with the Radiologist Professor Dr. Köster from the Institute for Clinical Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and the Chief Surgeon Professor Dr. Goretzki from the Municipal Clinic Neuss, Germany. The system is based on Direct Volume Rendering for preoperative surgical planning of lung cancer. In contrast to other medical visualization systems, like virtual colonoscopy for example, the 3D visualization of lung cancer needs to display not only the surface of the tumor but also the surrounding areas since the radiologist and surgeon get important information from the kind of tissue allocated around the tumor. In order to achieve real time frame rates along with good visualization quality, I have opted for a direct volume rendering approach, which uses 3D textures and runs directly on the GPU of the Graphics card by using NVIDIAs Cg language (C for Graphics). As a result, not only the radiologist can visualize the tumor and surrounding tissue by expensive graphics workstations from the CT unit but also the surgeon by a normal PC in conjunction with a modern graphics card based on NVIDIAs GPUs.
The MVE system together with free samples of CT scans, pictures and 3D movies are free available at my internet pages http://www.mve.info and http://www.medical-image-processing.info.

Data Compression

In lossless data compression I am involved for many years. For the industry I have developed compression algorithms for real time compression of hard disk data on PCs based on a speed optimised LZ77 derivative. Several versions of my hard disk compression system DOUBLE DENSITY have been presented at the German CeBIT fairs. The systems were sold worldwide in many countries (Germany, USA, United Kingdom, Spain, French, Italy, Mexico e.g.) with more than 100,000 items and had a market share of online compressors of over 30%.
My recent focus in the compression field is concentrated at the Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) along with several preprocessing algorithms, see http://www.data-compression.info/Algorithms/BWT.