ECE News

NIJ Funding to make Smart Antennas a Reality

2009-10-26T15:18:00.002-06:00

The Office of Justice Programs recently awarded ECE Assistant Professor Dr. Bedri A. Cetiner a grant for $640,317. The funding is a result of an invitation Dr. Cetiner received from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) to submit a proposal in response to the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program and Recovery Act: Law Enforcement Technology Research and Development opportunity. Dr. Cetiner will be doing research set forth in his NEMS Integrated Reconfigurable Antenna operating at 150, 400, 700, 800, and 4900 MHz bands for Interoperable Public Safety Communications proposal. Over the last several years, the National Institute of Justice has played a key role in the development of cognitive radios, which can benefit not only the public safety community, but also the military, other federal agencies as well as the commercial wireless industry.

Cetiner will hire a research scientist and two PhD students to design, microfabricate, and characterize the proposed Smart Antennas, which will be used for interoperable wireless communications. A cleanroom microfabrication facility is needed for fabricating these antennas, which use proprietary NEMS technologies. USU does not have a cleanroom at the present time, so the research scientist and one PhD student will spend half of their time at Cornell University, where the microfabrication facility will be pivotal in executing the proposed research. Cetiner says, "As we become more self-sufficient as an institution, the more competitive our faculty become in securing federal research funding."

The potential for increasing radio communications services, law enforcement efficiency, and public safety communications systems during catastrophic events, when demand for communications system capacity is huge and system overload and failure are common, is tremendous with the proposed new Smart Antennas. September 11, 2001 is just one example where all the bands were occupied and incompatible standards among the various agencies made the catastrophe even more challenging as firefighters and other rescue personnel were unable to communicate with each other. Cetiner says that, "Smart antennas can adapt themselves to changes in their environment, which is the typical scenario for emergency situations." This adaptation capability enables the communication system to maintain its performance regardless of changes in the environment.

The NIJ funding will help Cetiner deliver integrated, reconfigurable antennas for handheld SDR radios using Radio Frequency (RF) nanoelectromechanical systems (RF-NEMS) technology. The proposed antenna element will be compatible with multiband/mode communications systems operating within the public safety radio bands of 150, 400, 700, 800, and 4900 MHz’s. They will provide a spectrally efficient, low-cost, robust, and compact solution to the interoperability, adaptability, and reliability needs of public safety wireless communications systems, which will be ready for use in harsh environments. Testing will include working with public safety personnel in the field as well as in emergency simulations.

Dr. Cetiner discusses bandwidth capacity watch now

USU's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Team Takes National Competition

2009-07-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

USU OSAM-UAV prepares its plane for a test flight west of Logan in preparation for the competition.

Another test flight in the Cache Valley sky.

Team members with award. (left to right) Haiyang Chao (grad supervisor), Long Di, Yiding Han, Jeff Anderson, Aaron Avery, Daniel Morgan and Chris Hall (team leader). Not pictured, Cal Coopmans, Kaylon Anderson and faculty advisor YangQuan Chen.

Students from Utah State University's College of Engineering seem to be proving a point in recent months to the nation's other engineering programs.

The college's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Team just took the first-place prize at the 7th Annual Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Student Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition in Maryland against many of the top programs in the nation and even from around the world. That first-place award comes just after the USU rocket team took top prizes at NASA's 2008-2009 University Student Launch Initiative in May. The rocket team also won "Best Vehicle Design" and the "Project Review Award."

Looking to improve from last year's second-place performance, Team USU's Open Source Autonomous Miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Team (OSAM-UAV, pronounced "awesome U-A-V") received the highest score in competition history. The team also won the first prize in flight performance, first in journal paper and third in the Test Review Design presentation.

"The team nailed the competition," said team leader Chris Hall. "We had an excellent flight and were very organized, even ready to take care of problems on the fly. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a direct result of the amount of preparation, testing, and forethought we put into the project. Our team really deserved to win, and we won very definitively."

There were teams registered from Canada, India, Puerto Rico and the United States, including teams from the University of California at Los Angeles, University of Texas, Cornell University, University of Delhi, MIT and University of Alberta.

In the recent competition, USU's OSAM-UAV received $14,000 in prize money and an invitation to visit Patuxent River Naval Base for a tour of the Global Hawk UAV.

"This first place award is one of the indicators of our research excellence in unmanned aerial vehicle research programs that we have been building since 2006," said faculty advisor YangQuan Chen, an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering. "Research excellence can be achieved when faculty spend quality time with students and research team building."

The purpose of the competition was for undergraduate students to work with and build Unmanned Aerial Systems capable of flying waypoints, covering search areas, real-time target recognition and in-flight re-tasking with an emphasis on producing these results quickly and efficiently.

"This year the competition was more competitive than ever before, with the majority of the teams capable of flight and many of the targets successfully identified by the different teams," said Hall.

The team designed and built a robotic airplane or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle capable of flying autonomously along a pre-defined flight path, while transmitting flight information and images to a ground control station, where targets from the images were located and their GPS coordinates reported to the judges. Targets for the competition consisted of plywood shapes with a letter on them. Collectively the targets spelled out "Semper Fi #1." Team USU OSAM-UAV identified all of the targets in the allotted time.

The team began this project in July 2008 and worked on it continuously throughout the school year, with weekly team meetings to discuss progress and make decisions.

"The competition is a motivation to speed up our research progress and an opportunity to test ourselves against competitors in the whole United States, or even around the world," said graduate supervisor Haiyang Chao.

In the overall competition, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and University of California at San Diego tied for second, and University of West Florida placed fourth.

"The competition gave us the opportunity to make contacts with people who work higher up in the aerospace and UAV industry and to see many of the UAVs the government is currently using," said Hall. "AUVSI-UAS competition has really helped prepare us to work as engineers in teams."

Team members of USU OSAM-UAV include: Chris Hall (team leader), Yiding Han, Long Di, Daniel Morgan, Cal Coopmans, Aaron Avery, Jeffery Anderson and Kaylon Anderson. The group was mentored by graduate supervisor Haiyang Chao and faculty advisor YangQuan Chen.

Video of a test flight is available online. (video download takes several minutes)

Related links:

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

College of Engineering

Writer: Latashia Redhouse, 435-797-1530, lottie.red@aggiemail.usu.edu

Contacts: Chris Hall, 435-770-2951, chris.hall@aggiemail.usu.edu; Haiyang Chao, 435-754-6511, haiyang.chao@aggiemail.usu.edu; YangQuan Chen, 435-797-0148, yqchen@ieee.org;

Jennifer Carroll, 435-797-8123, jennifer@engineering.usu.edu

Summer Offering of ECE 6930

2009-04-17T14:38:00.004-06:00

ECE 6930 Solving Mathematical Problems with MATLAB will be offered this summer from the department. To view details about this offering please view this document. Also, the syllabus can be downloaded here.

Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles Help Farmers Manage Irrigation

2009-03-06T12:00:00.002-07:00

By Jacie Fasselin
Utah Statesman Staff Writer

When watching the skies around Utah State University, students can rest assured that those UFOs are not piloted by aliens. Rather the UFOs are actually UAVs, Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles, created by USU scientists. Researchers at USU's Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL) and researchers at the Center for Self-Organizing Intelligent Systems teamed-up to produce the unmanned aircrafts that have the technology to help Utah farmers better manage precious irrigation water, said Mac McKee, director of UWRL.

As residents of the second driest state in the nation, Utah agriculturists can afford to waste very little water. The project began when scientists recognized a need for more accurate data relating to irrigation systems, he said. McKee said the research team consisting of Mckee, YanQuan Chen, Wei Ren, Hi-Fang Dou and several engineering students. Director of the UWRL Mac Mckee said that without realizing the amount of money it would take and without knowing how hard it would be the team looked to UAVs to solve the problem. There would be a lot of learning to do.

"Two years ago this month we had never flown an aircraft," he said.

Satellite technology existed but could not provide specific information, Mckee said.

"We needed finer resolution in space and finer resolution in time," Mckee said.

The unmanned airplanes are able to take pictures of irrigated lands at a resolution high enough to determine the amount of moisture on the surface of the soil. The UAVs are also equipped with artificial intelligence. This intelligence allows researchers to load flight plans and landing sequences. The procedures are completed without assistance from researchers on the ground.

Software also developed by researchers at USU is installed on the planes to collect soil surface moisture data. The data is then used to project the amount of moisture in the soil profile.

Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering said, "The ability to acquire decision-relevant data on soil moisture and evapotranspiration in a timely fashion and at a low cost will enable canal companies and irrigation districts in the state to provide highly detailed information to farmers about soil moisture condition in individual fields."

The goal is to use the new technology to determine areas that are currently being over watered and to project future water demands allowing canal companies to better manipulate canal water levels for less seepage or lost water. Water savings could be as much as 5 percent or more of current deliveries - that kind of savings is invaluable, Chen said.

Agriculture is not the only application for UAVs, "There is a huge array of applications, we just picked the hardest one to start with," said McKee, "We are now developing and testing the electronics that will allow us to track radio-tagged game and fish."

This application will allow trackers to find fish in a 40 mile stretch of river in under an hour. UAVs will save time and money. Traditional methods of fish tracking entailed floating rivers in boats searching for fish for hours, Mckee said.

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has also expressed interest in utilizing the UAVs to monitor roads and surrounding vegetation, Mckee said.

USU is not the first to develop UAVs, Austin Jensen research engineer acknowledged, but, "Everything everyone else is doing is military-related."

The UAVs designed at Utah State are not only effective but they are also relatively inexpensive, "Unmanned autonomous vehicles, or UAVs, can help provide objective information . . . on the cheap," said Mckee.

Instead of creating a UAV for $150,000 military budget, the UWRL team had to do something similar for under $1,000 per unit.

The UAVs' wings are constructed from Styrofoam and have a six foot wingspan and weigh four pounds on average, explained Mckee. The light weight aircrafts can carry up to three pounds of payload and each aircraft is equipped with an on-board computer and GPS unit.

Mckee believes that the attributes of this particular design will allow the University to start a successful business venture, "If the research and development efforts can produce or are successful in producing a series of products that have value in the private sector, I can see the University spinning this into a private company. It [the project] would basically pay for itself."
- jacie.fasselin@aggiemail.usu.edu

Engineering Lecturer Always Knew He Wanted to Invent

2009-02-23T12:00:00.007-07:00

by Catherine Meidell
Utah Statesman Staff Writer

The only thing that lecturer, Don Cripps, wishes he could change about his job are the sad faces that come with end-of-semester grading. Cripps is not a professor, but engineering students consider him to be because of the effort he puts in to making sure that those who attend his lectures understand the concepts being portrayed. He said his only goal for the next 10 years is to not only teach engineering, but become the best teacher that he can be.

Steve Guest, freshman in electrical engineering, took a class from Cripps last semester and said that it was one of his favorite.

"He was always willing to explain things and take as much time as I needed so that I could gain the understanding I needed," Guest said. "He explained everything in a funny way so it was easy to understand him through his lighthearted approach."

Cripps said he loves seeing the light come on in students' faces when a difficult idea has been grasped and that understanding makes his occupation satisfying.

"His office hours were anytime, so if I didn't get my questions asked in class, I was never worried that they would go unanswered," Guest said.

Cripps attributes part of his teaching style to his wife, who is also an educator. He said she believes it is important to emphasize the big picture and then follow it with the ugly details. Grades are not the most important thing in college, he said. It is most important to truly seek knowledge and then "let the grades fall where they may."

For those wondering how to get an A throughout the semester, conceptual questions must be able to be answered. Being computationally correct constantly isn't even the half of it, Cripps said. He said the rigid course work that comes with being an engineering student all pays off in the end when a career worth getting excited about every morning is finally achieved.

"You will get to create things that the world has never seen before and you will likely be very happy," Cripps said.

Cripps said he always knew that he wanted to be an inventor of some kind and he also knew that he wanted a career that had nothing to do with the farm work he did as a child growing up in Preston, Nev.

"It took me a long time to figure out that engineers are today's inventors," he said.

When he decided to pursue this career path at the University of Utah, he graduated with his bachelor's degree and then immediately began work for companies like Boeing and Autonomous Solutions. He assisted in a project which "made an old Jeep Cherokee drive itself at over 50 mph." After 20 years, Cripps said he went back to school here at USU to earn his Ph.D. and begin teaching.

Freshman James Beukers, computer engineering major, also said he appreciated Cripps' unique teaching style.

"He is a funny guy and makes class super interesting," Beukers said.

Electrical engineering sophomore, Jon Jensen agreed.

"He's electrifying," he said. "His class is shocking."
-catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu

Department News the Blogger Way

2009-02-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Well, we've made another change for the better. Starting today the news for the ECE Department will be posted here on this news blog. This will provide a more flexible and uniform way of posting news and events. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment. Thanks for reading.

A Lecture from Microsoft Special Guest

2009-01-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Randy Guthrie, Microsoft Academic Relations Manager, gave a full 75 min lecture at Dr. YangQuan Chen's class ECE5320 Mechatronics on "Entrepreneur." Dr. Gunthrie also briefly introduced MS Robotics Studio, Microsoft's IMAGINE Cup competition and MS Windows 7 demo.

View a picture here.

2008 ECE Magazine Released

2009-01-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

This year's department magazine has now been posted with an update on the department and an annual report. View it here.

Student rocket launch team wins NASA competition

2008-09-19T12:00:00.000-06:00

USU’s student rocket launch team won NASA’s national student rocket launch competition in Huntsville, Ala., in April. USU was one of nine universities selected by NASA as a highly competitive school to participate in this competition at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Read more here.

New ECE Department Head

2008-04-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

Dr. Todd Moon says it's an interesting balance to wear two hats, one as professor, the other as the new department head for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in the College of Engineering at Utah State.

Read more here.

Dr. Wei Ren Recipient of Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

2008-01-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.

Read more here.

New! Department Blog for Senior Design Ideas

2008-01-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

A new project has been launched which allows faculty to easily post good ideas they have had for senior design projects to a place where any student can access them. View it here.

USU Department Head Going To Virginia Tech

2007-07-12T12:00:00.000-06:00

The head of Utah State University’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department is moving on to a new position at Virginia Tech. Tamal Bose will leave USU in August to head the world’s largest wireless research center, which is part of Virginia Tech. He called the decision to leave "bittersweet."

Read more here.

2006 ECE Magazine Released

2006-11-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

This year's department magazine has now been posted with an update on the department and an annual report. View it here.

USU tool will help protect astronauts

2006-08-01T12:00:00.001-06:00

It looks like a metallic cross and researchers joke that its purpose is to ward off space vampires. Actually, the Utah State University-built instrument to be installed Thursday on the outside of the International Space Station will play a role in protecting astronauts from a dangerous invisible force: static electricity.

Read more here.

Two USU professors discover NASA grants in their future. Image data, mission computing processes get more than $725,000

2006-02-03T12:00:00.001-07:00

NASA announced Thursday two Utah State University professors have been awarded research grants worth more than $725,000. The grants are part of the Applied Information Systems Research Program, which applies emerging technologies for scientific returns.

Read more here.

USU robots to work security detail at this year's Super Bowl

2006-02-01T12:00:00.003-07:00

Six robots developed at Utah State University will be deployed to Detroit to help with security at the Super Bowl. Built by Kuchera Defense Systems of Windber, Pa., the mobile Omni-Directional Inspection System (ODIS) robots use high-resolution cameras to scan the undercarriages of vehicles for explosives and contraband.

Read more here.