Dr Christopher Gilliam MEng, Ph.D

Department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering
Assistant Professor in Applied Signal Processing

Contact details

Email: c.gilliam.1@bham.ac.uk

Address: Department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Christopher Gilliam is an Assistant Professor in Applied Signal Processing within the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory (MISL) at the University of Birmingham.

His research interests include radar imaging; sampling theory; motion estimation and registration for image sequences; navigation and sensor management.

Qualifications

Ph.D in Signal Processing from Imperial College London, 2013
MEng (1^st Class Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London, 2008

Biography

Christopher Gilliam is an Assistant Professor in Applied Signal Processing in the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham. He received M.Eng. degree (Hons.) in electrical and electronic engineering from Imperial College London, U.K. in 2008, and Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering in 2013.

He was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Image and Video Processing Group, Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, from 2013 to 2017, and a Research Fellow with the RF & Antenna Research Group, School of Engineering, RMIT University, Australia, from 2017 to 2022. He joined the University of Birmingham in April 2022 and is part of the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory (MISL).

He has extensive experience in sensor signal processing and contributed to DSTG sponsored projects on sensor scheduling in multistatic sonar systems, autonomous search algorithms for mobile sensors, decision classification under uncertainty and the design and implementation of UAV mounted SAR imaging sensors.

His research interests include sampling theory and its application in image processing and radar systems, sparse sampling involving signals with finite rate of innovation, motion estimation and registration for image sequences, in particular biological and medical imaging, and sensor management.

Postgraduate supervision

Currently accepting PhD students. For enquiries, please email Dr Gilliam directly.

Research

Sensor signal processing, in particular design of radar sensors and sensor scheduling
Sampling theory and its application in image processing and radar systems
Rotational SAR imaging
Sparse sampling involving signals with finite rate of innovation (FRI)
Motion estimation and registration for image sequences, in particular biological and medical imaging.
Radar and Quantum based navigation

For further details, please see Dr Gilliam’s website.

Currently accepting PhD students. For enquiries, please email Dr Gilliam directly.

Other activities

Member of the Biomedical Signal Processing and Systems (BioSiPS) Technical Committee for the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA)
Affiliate Member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Bio Imaging for Signal Professing (BISP)
Affiliate Member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Signal Processing Theory and Methods (SPTM)
Member of the IEEE and IEEE Signal Processing Society.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Li, W, Gilliam, C, Wang, X, Kealy, A, Greentree, AD & Moran, B 2025, 'Gravity-aided navigation using Viterbi map matching algorithm', Journal of Navigation. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0373463324000250

Bekar, A, Gilliam, C & Antoniou, M 2025, 'Passive SAR Range Resolution Enhancement Using Multiple DVB-T Channels', IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2025.3593815

Nasso, I, Santi, F, Pastina, D, Bekar, A, Gilliam, C & Antoniou, M 2025, 'Target height estimation and shape reconstruction in multiple high-resolution drone-borne SAR images through shadows extraction', IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2025.3570501

Wang, X, Kealy, A, Gilliam, C, Haine, S, Close, J, Moran, B, Talbot, K, Williams, S, Hardman, K, Freier, C, Wigley, P, White, A, Szigeti, S & Legge, S 2023, 'Improving measurement performance via fusion of classical and quantum accelerometers', Journal of Navigation. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0373463322000637

Wang, X, Gilliam, C, Kealy, A, John Close & Moran, B 2023, 'Probabilistic Map Matching for Robust Inertial Navigation Aiding', NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, vol. 70, no. 2, navi.583. https://doi.org/10.33012/navi.583

Conference contribution

Hilton, M, Jelfs, B, Martorella, M, Moran, B & Gilliam, C 2025, Cooperative Sensor Scheduling for Long Term Planning. in Proceedings of the 2025 28th International Conference on Information Fusion, FUSION 2025. International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), pp. 1-8, 28th International Conference on Information Fusion, FUSION 2025, Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 7/07/25. https://doi.org/10.23919/FUSION65864.2025.11123932

Bekar, A, Bryan, J, Gilliam, C & Antoniou, M 2025, Drone-Based Passive SAR With DVB-T Transmissions. in 2025 IEEE International Radar Conference (RADAR)., 11031676, Proceedings of the IEEE Radar Conference, IEEE, 2025 IEEE International Radar Conference, RADAR 2025, Atlanta, United States, 3/05/25. https://doi.org/10.1109/RADAR52380.2025.11031676

Nasso, I, Santi, F, Pastina, D, Bekar, A, Gilliam, C & Antoniou, M 2025, Exploitation of man-made objects shadows in multi-perspective drone-borne based SAR images: preliminary experimental results. in 2024 International Radar Conference (RADAR). 1 edn, 10994169, IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/RADAR58436.2024.10994169

Amjad, B, Pike, S, Barr, J, Kenyon, A, Perree, N, Moran, B & Gilliam, C 2025, Message Passing Scheduler for Hierarchical Autonomous Sensor Path Planning. in Proceedings of the 2025 28th International Conference on Information Fusion, FUSION 2025. International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), pp. 1-8, 28th International Conference on Information Fusion, FUSION 2025, Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 7/07/25. https://doi.org/10.23919/FUSION65864.2025.11123920

Gilliam, C, Amjad, B, Hilton, M, Pike, S, Barr, J, Kenyon, A, Perree, N, Martorella, M, Moran, B & Jelfs, B 2025, Multi-Objective Continuous Sensor Scheduling for Long Horizon Path Planning. in 2025 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop (SSP)., 11073418, IEEE/SP Workshop on Statistical Signal Processing (SSP), IEEE, 2025 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop (SSP), 8/06/25. https://doi.org/10.1109/SSP64130.2025.11073418

Nasso, I, Santi, F, Pastina, D, Bekar, A, Antoniou, M & Gilliam, C 2024, Target shape reconstruction from multi-perspective shadows in drone-borne SAR systems. in 2024 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf24)., 10549373, Proceedings of the IEEE National Radar Conference, IEEE, 2024 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf24), 6/05/24. https://doi.org/10.1109/RadarConf2458775.2024.10549373

Sun, S, Jelfs, B, Ghorbani, K, Matthews, G & Gilliam, C 2022, Landmark Management in the Application of Radar SLAM. in Proceedings of 2022 Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference, APSIPA ASC 2022. Proceedings Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference APSIPA ASC, IEEE, pp. 903-910, 2022 Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference, APSIPA ASC 2022, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 7/11/22. https://doi.org/10.23919/APSIPAASC55919.2022.9980051

Preprint

Li, W, Gilliam, C, Wang, X, Kealy, A, Greentree, AD & Moran, B 2022 'Gravity aided navigation using Viterbi map matching algorithm' arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2204.10492

Sun, S, Jelfs, B, Ghorbani, K, Matthews, G & Gilliam, C 2022 'Landmark Management in the Application of Radar SLAM'.

Sun, S, Gilliam, C, Ghorbani, K, Matthews, G & Jelfs, B 2022 'Mapping extended landmarks for radar SLAM' arXiv, pp. 1-5. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2210.17207

View all publications in research portal