The Electronic Communications Laboratory (ECL), under the direction of James Kurtz and Chad Overman, was established in 1943 to conduct research for the national defense and has received funding continuously since then from the Army Research Laboratory and its predecessors, the national Bureau of Standards and the Harry Diamond Laboratories. The ECL contract funding from the Army is believed to be the oldest continuing university-funded contract in the Department of Defense history.

The ECL has a tradition of producing relevant research results that have been incorporated into developmental and operational Army systems. From the Second World War to the Gulf War, the ECL has played a role in national defense. Research and development for the radar proximity fuze was considered one of the three most important scientific developments of World War II. ECL research contributions to the development of the proximity fuze earned a Navy Ordinance Award in 1946.

Most recent ECL research includes the analysis of the Patriot missile fuze radar, automatic target recognition techniques for synthetic aperture and real-beam millimeter wave radar, design of advanced Electronic Counter Measure-resistant radar fuzing systems, computer emulation of real aperture stationary target radar and the design and analysis of ultra-wideband radar systems for foliage and ground penetration applications.

In the area of ground penetrating radar research, the ECL has been performing measurements and analyses to better understand the phenomology of mine detection, including the effects of different soils on mine detection. The ECL is also developing a special user-friendly, software evaluation tool to evaluate image-processing algorithms that will support this research.

Recently the ECL began several industry related research projects and dual-use projects. For the Florida Department of Transportation, the ECL is investigating ground penetrating radar signal processing techniques for road surface anomaly detection and classification. The ECL is also developing a reliable wireless data acquisition system for the Department of Energy at Argonne National Laboratory-West.

Laboratory facilities include radar test stations, anechoic chambers, and a cnsiderable complement of test equipment.

The ECL has eight SUN workstations and many PC's integrated on a high speed network with large storage arrays to support the development of signal processing for radar and communication systems. High speed internet access, a wide selection of signal processing software, and word processing and document distribution support are available to researchers.