The discipline of information and communication engineering was approved to initiate the master’s degree program in communication and information system in 1999, set up a second-level master’s degree program in communication and information system in 2001, and was approved as the first-level master’s degree program in information and communication engineering in 2005. After the construction and development over years, the degree program has gradually established a characteristic scientific research team composed of young and middle-aged backbone teachers, and has successively received funding from one 973 subproject, three subprojects of national science and technology major projects, 22 programs supported by MSFC and 23 provincial and ministerial projects; has won two first prizes of teaching achievements award in Hubei Province and one second prize of teaching achievements award in Hubei Province, one second prize and one third prize of Hubei Natural Science Award, and two second prizes for scientific and technological progress in Hubei Province.

In the degree program, there are 55 full-time teachers, including 8 professors, 7 doctoral supervisors and 28 associate professors. The rate of doctorates is 62%, the proportion of teachers under 45 years old is 60%, the rate of teachers going abroad is 40%, and 3 teachers have obtained doctorates abroad. Focusing on the application of signal processing methods, communication system integration, intelligent instrument research and development, sensor network and other technologies in the fields of geology, environment and resources, the program has realized the intersection and integration of information science and earth science, with outstanding characteristics and obvious disciplinary advantages. It has formed four stable training directions: signal analysis and processing, next generation communication technology, intelligent information system of Internet of Things and modern digital system.

Signal analysis and processing: the research mainly focuses on noise analysis and data processing, high-speed and high-precision all-optical sampling, intelligent video analysis and visual tracking applications, and hyper-spectral image processing. The research contents include: gravity experiment data processing in extreme precision measurement, high-precision extraction of torsion scale motion cycle in G-measurement experiment, detection and tracking of multi-class targets in video, location and recognition of various abnormal events in video, remote sensing image processing and geological monitoring, spectral analysis of double optical comb, etc.

Next generation communication technology: the research mainly focuses on the key technologies of coherent optical fiber communication, ultrafast laser light source, free space optical communication, encoding and decoding of chaotic wireless communication, advanced modulation format, computational intelligence technology and its application in MlMO antenna design. It involves mode-locked laser, integrated optical communication module, 5G wireless communication system, high-dimensional constellation design, etc.

Intelligent information system of Internet of Things: the research mainly focuses on the related fields of Internet of Things, such as sensor interface technology, optical fiber sensing technology, wireless sensor network, unmanned aerial vehicle visual perception technology, and intelligent terminal application. The research contents include: abnormal data detection in sensor networks, compression and transmission of sensor node data, distributed management and retrieval of monitoring data, collaborative scheduling of mobile sensor nodes, environment intelligent visual perception, location and tracking of pollution sources, APP development, etc.

Modern digital system: the research mainly focuses on on-chip system, geological structure detection system, broadband wireless communication system, spectrum analyzer and other fields. The research contents include: simulation and design of parallel processing system, in-situ analysis of geological samples, OFDM digital baseband processor, polarization code encoder/decoder, high-speed ADC/DAC converter, embedded NC interpolation, etc.