Research Interests

My research interests are in the areas of Digital signal and image processing and their applications in geophysics, with particular emphasis on Seismic Data Processing. Additional interests include design and implementation of digital filters including wavefield extrapolation filters, image segmentation and their applications related to geophysical and geological data. I have recently started developing interests in compressive sensing with applications for seismic data.

Research Statement & Contributions

Research is a very important component of a nation's development and progress. Without research, countries would lag in terms of the cutting edge science and technology required to advance their economies and well-being. Therefore, as a Saudi citizen who holds a Ph.D. and feels the duty to contribute his share to his beloved country, I enjoy research and publishing that creates an impact at more than one level that are of interest to the kingdom.  The amount of work and time it takes sharing ideas with reviewers, as well as the process of exchanging points of view with others and seeking opportunities to take such research ideas to the market, is a very important aspect of the development of novel work and solid research contributions. The experience in both academia and industry, which I had prior to joining KFUPM as a faculty member, made me a strong believer in viewing current research problems from a multidisciplinary aspect.  The key challenge in making this vision a reality was and still is seeking and establishing collaboration, joint effort and contributions from professionals with various specializations within the university and industry. This is an achievement that I am proud of. It precipitated strong ties with faculty member from Geosciences at KFUPM as well as Saudi Aramco research fellows. The focused effort on networking with professionals who have well-established careers did not make me lose sight of the opportunities that exist in helping KFUPM students benefit from commercialization of some of my research ideas and attempt to turn them into marketable products.

Read more/less

Despite the demanding administrative work that I have been engaging continuously for the past 11 years and consumed more than 80-90% of my time, I have 48 refereed published papers in well-known journals and conferences as well as three books (two of which are text-books) and many issued/filed U.S. patents, in my area of research (Exploration Seismic Signal Processing). About 90% of them are related to seismic signal/data processing and other geological data.  Particularly, my areas of research includes seismic signal processing, seismic imaging and modeling, seismic wavefield extrapolation using FIR and IIR filters, Radon transform for seismic applications, efficient techniques for seismic data processing. So far, my publications appeared in the following variety of different journals:

1. IEEE Transactions on Geosciences and Remote Sensing

2. IEEE Geosciences and Remote Sensing Letters

3. IEEE Access

4. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

5. IEEE Transactions on Education

6. IET Signal Processing

7. Geophysics

8. Geophysical Prospecting

9. Journal of Applied Geophysics

10. The Leading Edge

11. Optik.

I recently submitted other journal papers and they are working progress. They are mainly about new ways of extrapolating seismic wavefields via filtering and new trending research areas such as Neural Networks and Machine Learning.

 

Beside my publications and books, I have 6 issued patents, of which 5 are for the professorial rank. I have others that were filed and published. Among them, one that was at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4-5 of commercialization by a Startup called CoreEcho (https://twitter.com/coreecho?lang=en). This startup provides innovative solutions to analyze core-rock samples. The analysis aim is to acquire the three most important properties any core analysis process requires, which are porosity, permeability and wave velocity based on the same concepts of my area exploration seismic signal processing. The technology is an ultrasound-based process utilized to study the core property and convey the required results. CoreEcho was founded in 2014, by two KFUPM graduate students and one undergrad. It won many KSA Business Plan competitions prizes as well as the 1^st Place & Golden Feather in the 6^th Student Annual Conference, Ministry of Higher Education in 2015. Core Echo also received a pre-seed/proof of concept money from Dhahran Techno-Valley Company of about SAR 606.5 K.

 In addition, I have been working closely with our Earth Sciences colleagues at KFUPM and Saudi Aramco Researchers on various topics related to processing of seismic data. Such constant scientific discussions and efforts have resulted in many referred published journal papers, two published books, a text-book to appear, a contract for textbooks and a few patents. From the grant we received from King Abdullah University for Science & Technology (KAUST), myself and colleagues from Earth Sciences at KFUPM and KAUST have jointly developed a geophysical model of the Red Sea. The data set is considered as a benchmark model for testing new algorithms for seismic migration and imaging and the models are available at: https://wiki.seg.org/wiki/KFUPM-KAUST_Red_Sea_model.  This research,  in addition to my teaching efforts, have triggered, as I have stated earlier, a very important collaboration between KFUPM and Georgia Institute of Technology, where both will be investing time and money together working mainly on Seismic Signal Processing research and teaching. Many professors now, thanks to these efforts, have started working in the area of Seismic Signal Processing. The collaboration lasted for 8 academic years. (see: http://www.kfupm.edu.sa/departments/ee/Pages/en/EE-Collaboration-with-GIT.aspx and https://cegp.ece.gatech.edu/).

 

---

Publications

Refereed Journal Publications

• [J1].  W. A. Mousa and A. F. Al-Battal, "Computationally Efficient Phase Shift Plus Interpolation Seismic Migration Method", IEEE Geosciences and Remote Sensing Letters, vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 775-778, May 2020

  [J2].  W. A. Mousa and A. F. Al-Battal, "The Design of a Homotopy-Based 1-D Seismic FIR f-x Wavefield Extrapolation Filters", Journal of Applied Geophysics, vol. 173, Feb. 2020

  [J3].  A. A. Al-Mashhor, A. A. Al-Shuhail,  S. M. Hanafy and W. A. Mousa, "First Arrival Picking of Seismic Data Based on Trace Envelope ", IEEE Access, Sept. 2019

  [J4].    W. A. Mousa, "Prestack Imaging of Seismic Data Using Lp Iterative Reweighted Least Squares Wavefield Extrapolation Filters in the Frequency-Space Domain", Geophysics, vol. 83, no. 4, pp. V243-V252 , 2018

  [J5].   Syed Abdulsalam and W. A. Mousa, "The Design of L1-norm Visco-Acoustic Wavefield Extrapolators", Journal of Applied Geophysics, vol. 151, pp. 157-165, 2018

  [J6].   S. Abdulsalam and W. A. Mousa, "The Design of Visco-Acoustic Weighted L1-error Frequency-Space Wavefield Extrapolators",  Geophysical Prospecting, vol. 66, no. 2, pp. 300-310, 2018

  [J7].   A. A. Al-Shuhail, W. A. Mousa and T. Al-Khalifah, "KFUPM-KAUST Red Sea Model: Digital Viscoelastic Depth Model and Synthetic Seismic Data Set", The Leading Edge, vol. 36, no. 6, pp. 507-511, 2017

  [J8].   A. F. Al-Battal and W. A. Mousa, "The Design 2-D Explicit Depth Extrapolators using the Cauchy Norm", IEEE Transactions on Geosciences & Remote Sensing, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 3029-3036, May 2017

  [J9].   A. Latif and W. A. Mousa, "An Efficient Under-Sampled High-Resolution Radon Transform for Exploration Seismic Data Processing", IEEE Transactions on Geosciences & Remote Sensing, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 1010-1024, Feb. 2017

  [J10].     H. Ashraf, W. A. Mousa, and S. Al-Dossary, "Efficient and Accurate Edge Preserving Smoothing for 3D Hexagonally Sampled Seismic Data",  Geophysical Prospecting, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 696-710, 2017

  [J11].     H. Ashraf, W. A. Mousa, and S. Al-Dossary, "Sobel Filters for Edge Detection of Hexagonally Sampled 3D Seismic Data", Geophysics, vol. 81, no. 6, pp. N41-N51, 2016

  [J12].     M. M. Naseer and W. A. Mousa, "Linear Complementarity Problem: A Novel Approach To Design Finite-Impulse Response Wavefield Extrapolation Filters", Geophysics, vol. 80, no. 2, pp. S55-S63, 2015

  [J13].     M.A.U. Khan, W. A. Mousa, T.M. Khan, "Entropy-Constrained Reflected Residual Vector Quantization: A Realization Of Large Block Vector Quantization", Optik, vol. 126, no. (9-10), pp. 888-897, 2015 

  [J14].     W. A. Mousa, "Imaging of the SEG/EAGE Salt Model Seismic Data Using Sparse f-x Finite Impulse Response Wavefield Extrapolation Filters", IEEE Transactions on Geosciences & Remote Sensing, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 2700-2714, May 2014

  [J15].  W. Mousa, "The Design of Stable Sparse Wavefield Extrapolators Using Projections Onto Convex Sets", Geophysics, vol. 78, no. 1, T11-T20, 2013

  [J16].  W. Mousa, "Experiences of a Multidisciplinary Course on Geo-Signal Processing from a DSP Perspective Offered in Electrical Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals ", IEEE transactions on Education, vol. 55, no. 3, August 2012.

  [J17].  W. Mousa, "Iterative Design of 1-D Efficient Seismic L_p IIR f-x Digital Filters, IET Signal Processing, vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 541-545, 2012

  [J18].  W. Mousa and A. A. Al-Shuhail, "Enhancement of First Arrival Picking using Tau-p Transform of Energy Ratio Seismic Shot Records", Geophysics, vol. 77, no. 3, May-June 2012

  [J19].  W. Mousa, "Frequency-space Wavefield Extrapolation Using Infinite Impulse Response Digital Filters: Is it Feasible?", Geophysical Prospecting, vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 504-515, 2012

  [J20].  W. Mousa, A. A. Al-Shuhail, & A. F. Al-Lehyani, "Enhancement of First Arrival Picking of Seismic Data Based on Digital Image Segmentation", Geophysics, vol. 76, no. 5, Sept.-Oct. 2011

  [J21].  W. Mousa, "Seismic Migration"A Digital Filtering Process Reducing Oil Exploration Risks", IEEE Signal Processing Magazine special issue of Geo-Signal Processing, vol.29, no. 3, May 2012

  [J22].  W. Mousa, S. Boussakta, D. C. McLernon, & M. Van Der Baan, "Implementation of 2-D Seismic Migration FIR Digital Filters for 3-D Seismic Volumes Using Singular Value Decomposition", Geophysics, vol. 75, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2010

• [J23] W. Mousa, M. Van Der Baan,  S. Boussakta, & D. C. McLernon, "Designing Stable Operators For Explicit Depth Extrapolation of 2-D & 3-D Wavefields Using Projections Onto Convex Sets", Geophysics, vol. 74, no. 2, March 2009
  

---

Refereed Technical Conference Proceedings

[C1]. W. Mousa, "The Design of a Homotopy-Based 1-D Seismic FIR FX Wavefield Extrapolation Filters",  Proceedings of the 25th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO"17), Kos Island, Greece, EURASIP, pages: 1367-1370, Aug.-Sept. 2017

[C2]. W. Mousa, "The Design of Seismic Migration Complex-Valued Finite Impulse Response Filters",  Proceedings of the 25th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO"17), Kos Island, Greece, EURASIP, pages: 1371-1374, Aug.-Sept. 2017

[C3]. A. Latif and W. A. Mousa, An Efficient And Robust Method For Automatic First Arrival Picking Using Under-Sampled Fast High-Resolution Radon Transform, Proceedings of the 86^th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, USA, SEG, October 2016

[C4]. M. Shahabuddin and W. A. Mousa, 3D Phase Shift Plus Interpolation For Hexagonally Sampled Seismic Data, Proceedings of the 86^th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, USA, SEG, October 2016

[C5]. A. Latif and W. A. Mousa, Efficient under-sampled high resolution Radon transform, Proceedings of the 85^th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, SEG, October 2015

[C6]. M. Naseer, W. A. Mousa, T. Y. Al-Naffouri, and A. A. Al-Shuhail, One Dimensional Wavefield Extrapolation Filter Design Via L1 Error Approximation, Proceedings of the 85^th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, SEG, October 2015

[C7]. A. Jazlan, V. Sreeram, R. Togneri, W. A. Mousa, A Review On Reduced Order Approximation For Digital Filters With Complex Coefficients Using Model Reduction, 3^rd IEEE Australian Control Conference (AUCC), pp. 79-84, Perth, Australian, 2013

[C8]. A. A. Al-Shuhail and W. Mousa, "Processing of seismic reflection data using MATLAB", (an invited paper) Proceedings of the 74th European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers Meeting, Copenhagen, Denmark, EAGE, 2012

[C9]. V. Zeljkovic, and W. Mousa, "An algorithm for petro-graphic colour image segmentation used for oil exploration", Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference of High Performance Computing and Simulation (HPCS), Istanbul, Turkey, IEEE, pages: 498-503, July 2011

[C10]. W. Mousa, "Geo-Signal Processing...A DSP Course Experience in Electrical Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals", Proceedings of the 6th IEEE Signal Processing Education Workshop, Sedona, AZ, USA, IEEE, pages: 216 " 219, January 2011 (an invited paper by the organizing committee)

[C11]. W. Mousa, "Accurate & Efficient Wavefield Extrapolators Using IIR f-x Filters", IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2010 proceedings, Dallas, TX, USA, IEEE, pages: 1210-1213, March 2010

[C12]. R. M. MacDonald, T. Zhang, M. Akbar, and W. Mousa, "Effect of Carbonate Heterogeneity on Core - Log Integration", Kuwait SPE International Petroleum Conference and Exhibition,  Kuwait, SPE, 127290-MS, December 2009

[C13].   W. Mousa, S. Boussakta, M. Van Der Baan, & D. C. McLernon, "Designing Stable Operators for Explicit Depth Extrapolation of 3-D Wavefields Using Projections Onto Convex Sets", Proceedings of the 76th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, SEG, 2006

[C14].   W. Mousa, S. Boussakta, D. C. McLernon, & M. Van Der Baan, "Implementation of 3-D Wavefield Extrapolation Using Singular Value Decomposition", Proceedings of the 76th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, SEG, 2006

[C15]. W. Mousa, D. C. McLernon, & S. Boussakta, "The Design of M-D Complex-Valued FIR Digital Filters Using POCS",  Proceedings of the 14th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO"06), Florence, Italy, EURASIP, 2006

[C16]. W. A. Mousa,  Mirko Van-der-Baan, Des McLernon, & Said Boussakta, "Explicit Wavefield Extrapolation Using Projections Onto Convex Sets with Application to the SEG/EAGE Salt Model",  Proceedings of the 68th European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers Meeting, Vienna, Austria, EAGE, 2006

[C17].   W. A. Mousa, Said Boussakta, & Des McLernon, "Realization of 2-D Seismic Migration FIR Digital Filters for 3-D Seismic Volumes via Singular Value Decomposition",   IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) proceedings, vol. 2, Toulouse, France, IEEE, pages: 801-804, 2006

[C18].   W. A. Mousa,  Des McLernon, Said Boussakta, & Mirko Van-der-Baan, "The Design of Wavefield Extrapolators Using Projections Onto Convex Sets", Proceedings of the 75th Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Annual Meeting, Houston, TX, USA, SEG, 2005

[C19].   W. A. Mousa, Said Boussakta, & Des McLernon, "Design of Complex-valued Seismic Migration FIR Digital Filters Using Pure & Relaxed Projections", the 13^th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO"05) Proceedings, Antalya, Turkey, EURASIP, 2005

[C20].   W. A. Mousa, Said Boussakta, & Des McLernon, "Complex-valued FIR Seismic Migration Filter Desing Using Vector Space Projection Methods", IEEE  International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) proceedings, Genoa, Italy, IEEE, vol. II, pages 189 -192, 2005

[C21].   W. A. Mousa, H. N. Al-Duwaish, and M. A. U. Khan, "Competitive Learning\Reflected Residual Vector Quantization with Application to Angiogram Images", IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) proceedings, vol. I , Barcelona, Spain, IEEE, pages 1101-1104, 2003

[C22].   W. A. H. Mousa, and M. A. U.  Khan, "Performance of Entropy-constrained Reflected Residual Vector Quantization for Generalized Gaussian Sources", Proceedings of IEEE 10th Digital Signal Processing Workshop and the 2nd Signal Processing Education Workshop, Pine Mountain, GA, USA, IEEE, pages: 397 " 399, Oct. 2002

[C23].   M. A. U.  Khan and W. A. H. Mousa, "Image coding using Entropy-constrained Reflected Residual Vector Quantization",  IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) proceedings, Rochester, NY, USA, IEEE, vol. 1, pages  253-256, September 2002

[C24].   W. A. H. Mousa, and M. A. U.  Khan, "Lung Nodule Classification Utilizing Support Vector Machines", IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) proceedings, Rochester, NY, USA, IEEE, vol. 3, pages 153-156, September 2002

[C25] W. A. H. Mousa, and M. A. U. Khan, "Design and Analysis of Entropy-constrained Reflected Residual Vector Quantization", IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) proceedings, Orlando, FL, USA, IEEE, vol. 3, pages: 2529-2532, May 2002

---

 

Books

[B1]. W. A. Mousa, "Advanced Digital Signal Processing of Seismic Data", Cambridge University Press, January 2020: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/advanced-digital-signal-processing-of-seismic-data/D1DC3A6A47A02888325F0F72092E29F9/

[B2]. A. A. Al-Shuhail, S. A. Al-Dossary, and W. A. Mousa, "Digital Image Processing for Seismic Data Analysis",  J. Wiley & Sons, August 2017:http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118881788.html

[B3]. W. A. Mousa and A. A. Al-Shuhail, "Processing of Seismic Reflection Data Using MATLABTM", Morgan & Claypool Publishers, September 2011: http://www.morganclaypool.com/toc/spr/1/1

---

Patents

Issued:

[P1].  W. A. Mousa, and H. Ashraf, "Method for Processing Marine Seismic Data", issued US patent no. US 10436925B2, 8^th October 2019

[P2].  W. A. Mousa, and H. Ashraf, "Method for Processing Seismic Data with A Sobel Filter", issued US patent no. US 10401520B2, 3^rd September 2019

[P3].  W. A. Mousa, and H. Ashraf, "Processing Hexagonally Sampled Seismic Data", issued US patent no. US 10324209B2, 18^th June 2019

[P4].  W. A. Mousa, A. Latif and A. A. Al-Shuhail, "System and Method for Acquisition and Processing of Seismic Data Using Compressive Sensing", issued US patent no. 10094941 B2, 9^th October 2018

[P5].  W. A. Mousa and A. A. Al-Shuhail, "Method of First Arrival Picking of Seismic Refraction Data", issued US patent no. 9103935, 11^th August 2015

[P6].     H. N. Al-Duwaish, Z. M. Al-Hamouz, W. A. Mousa, M. A. Al-Absi and S. A. Zummo, "Contamination Monitoring of High Voltage Insulators", issued US patent no. 2011/00242313 A1, 6^th October 2011

Published:

[P7].     W. A. Mousa and A. A. Al-Shuhail, "Ultrasound Imaging Tool For Rock Cores", published US patent no. 2014/0219058 A1, 7^th August 22014

---

 

Technical Reports

 [R1]. A. A. Al-Shuhail, W. A. Mousa, & G. Vignoli, "A Prototype for Ultrasound Imaging of Geological Cores: Principles, Acquisition, Processing, and Interpretation", KFUPM NSTIP, 2010- 2012, Final Report, Sept. 2012.

 [R2]. I have published 11 classified scientific reports (between July 2006-March 2009) after finishing my Ph.D. and joining Schlumberger Dhahran Carbonate Research. Due to Schlumberger's policy for non-disclosure of classified reports, I am unable to list them here.

---

Projects

Sponsored projects

1. A. Al-Shuhail & W. Mousa, "A Prototype for Ultrasound Imaging of Geological Cores: Principles, Acquisition, Processing, and Interpretation", funded by KACST under the 2^nd Cycle of the National Science, Technology & Innovation Plan (NSTIP) with an amount of about SAR 900,000.00, June 2010-June 2012

2. W. Mousa, A. Al-Shuhail, and T. Alkhalifah, "The KFUPM-KAUST Red Sea Model", accepted for funding by KAUST, Sept. 2012-Aug. 2014.

3. July 2006-March 2009: I have been involved in many internal and external Schlumberger research projects

 

Unsponsored projects

1. Fall 2001: Lung Nodule Classification Utilizing Support Vector Machines (SVM). Basically, the objective of this project was to apply the SVM to classify nodules from non-nodules from chest digital x-ray images

2. Fall 2000: Application of Circulant Matrices to Digital Image Restoration. This was my seminar in Mathematics. It encountered the definition of Circulant Matrices, their properties, and the inversion of a Circulant Matrix. An application to a synthetic digital image was included

3. Spring 99: Applying Residue Theorem of Complex Variables to Find the Inverse Z-Transform for Non-Tabulated Systems. This application of the residue theorem gives an analytical solution for finding the inverse z-transform for systems that have a delay in the denominator of their transfer functions

4. Spring 99: The design of an Audio Scrambling System: software simulation. The software was based on simulating a complete scrambling system using MATLAB software

5. Spring 98: Developed a communication system program using MATLAB software to simulate Modulation / Demodulation processes for AM and FM, design of several types of filters used in communication systems, and some functions to show the usefulness of Fourier Series.