Chair of General Electrical Engineering

Founding of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Technical Faculty in Banja Luka in 1962 was also the beginning of the Chair of General Electrical Engineering. Professor Borislav Tasić, the first full-time teacher of the chair, and professors Radoslav Horvat and Jovan Surutka from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade, laid the foundations of courses still given today on all studies of electrical engineering. Human resources of the chair grow with time, with Prof. Petar Hinić and Prof. Jelenko Vlajić taking the leading role along with Prof. Tasić and dedicating their whole career to the chair.

From the start of its fifty years of existence, the chair’s teaching process was based primarily on courses essential for the education of an electrical engineer: Introduction to Electrical Engineering, Electromagnetics, Theory of Electrical Circuits, Electrical Network Synthesis and Electrical Measurements. The syllabi and course titles changed and updated over time. Fast development of electrical engineering reflected on introduction of new courses directed to modern fields such as signals processing and multimedia: Analog and Digital Filters, Optimal Filtering, Digital Signal Processing, Multimedia Systems, Computer Graphics, Multimedia Signals Processing and Analysis, Multimedia Content Retrieval, Digital Television and Advanced Techniques of Multimedia Signal Processing.

The fields of research of the chair’s members changed over time, but it can be summarized in two basic directions. The first was based on fundamental research work in the fields of electrical engineering and electromagnetics. The second, more developed, is the field of signal processing, from acquisition to advanced techniques of signal processing and analysis, and signal processing systems. Historically, the chair’s first research work in the field of signal processing was related to signal processing in continual domain. With the emergence of digital hardware and microprocessors, there is a growing interest for digital signal processing and specialized architectures based on signal processors.

In the last ten years, research work in the field of digital image processing and multimedia is prioritized. The work is done in segmentation, classification and image fusion, image data retrieval, biomedical image processing and analysis, aerial and satellite image analysis and speech signal processing, signal compression, video-conference systems, cultural heritage digitalization and RFID technologies.

Science and research work of the chair is conducted in two laboratories: laboratory for general electrical engineering and laboratory for signal processing, both used in teaching process. The labs are equipped through WUS project Equipping the Digital Signal Processing Laboratory and through series of projects with the support of Ministry of Science and Technology of Republic of Srpska. Considerable efforts are invested in support of student involvement in science and research work. Intense work of the chair has resulted in approved patents and in large number of publications, especially in the last few years.

The Chair of General Electrical Engineering aims to become a place of admirable results of research and effective knowledge transfer. Some of its principal tasks are raising the quality of study process while introducing modern program contents, developing science and research work and human resources. In providing constant support to improvement of education and current research, international cooperation and cooperation with business partners, with attention given to interdisciplinary approach, the chair seeks to contribute to the development of knowledge, and to share the results of both its own and international research with students and society in general.

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Dr. Zdenka Babić, full professor