College of Engineering News

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  Student Professional Awareness Conference - Additional Details | Electrical and Computer Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  LOGAN, Utah – March 16, 2015 – The USU local chapter of IEEE, institute of electrical and electronics engineers, will have the privilege of hosting the annual StudentProfessional Awareness conference, SPAC 2015, on March 28, 2015.

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  USU Researcher Lands Air Force Grant to Build Smarter Antenna | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  News Release — LOGAN, UTAH, Feb 27, 2015 — All the amazing functions of your smart phone or tablet would be useless without the tiny antennas inside that receive and transmit information.

  Despite their modern design and capabilities, today’s antennas aren’t nearly as smart as the devices they power. But a researcher at Utah State University’s College of Engineering is trying to change that with new research aimed at making antenna technology work smarter.

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  Just the Facts: A Fresh Look at Undergraduate Engineering Retention | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  The department head and associate dean in the College of Engineering at Utah State University can pull up dozens of detailed spreadsheets and graphs outlining the latest trends in student performance.

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  USU Engineering Professors Headline Electric Vehicle and Roadway Conference | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  Originally posted Feb. 10, 2015 – PARK CITY, Utah – Top executives from the automotive industry and engineering experts from Utah State University and around the world came together this week to discuss the future of electric vehicles.

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  SHPE Students Reach Out to Hispanic Youth | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  Originally posted Jan 31, 2015 – Navigating the college admissions process can be a complicated experience for high school students, especially for young people whose parents are unfamiliar with the system themselves.

  But Utah State University engineering students worked to change that Saturday night with a community workshop aimed at educating Hispanic parents in Cache Valley about the college application process and financial aid programs available for students here in Utah.

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  Utah State University and NASA Launch Probes into Northern Lights | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  In the cold, nighttime skies over Alaska, a NASA Oriole IV suborbital sounding rocket blasted off from the Poker Flat Research Range today at 3:41 a.m. (MST) carrying six research payloads built by the Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory into the Aurora Borealis as part of NASA’s Auroral Spatial Structures Probe mission.

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  USU Alumnus, WWII Aviator Makes Generous Gift to College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  LOGAN, Utah, Jan. 13, 2015 – Longtime Cache Valley resident and World War II veteran John “Burt” Millard and his wife, Alma Millard, are leaving a legacy that will impact future engineering students at Utah State University for many years to come.

  Millard, who turns 95 in March, contributed a gift of $250,000 this month for the creation of a scholarship endowment that will benefit College of Engineering undergraduate students and provide funding for student projects, competitions and special events.

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  ART+ENG Week Dubbed Success

  USU College of Engineering

  A first-of-its-kind collaboration between art and engineering students at Utah State University demonstrated that creativity and technical know-how go hand in hand.

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  Global Leader in Water Treatment Industry Opens Cache Valley Office and New Partnership with College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  An international leader in the water and wastewater industry is opening a new office in Cache Valley to take advantage of what the company calls an ideal location and a talented workforce of new engineering graduates.

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  USU College of Engineering Student Honored by Aviation Week

  USU College of Engineering

  The aerospace industry has its eyes on a group of young engineering professionals, including Utah State University’s Ryan Martineau, who will lead tomorrow’s innovations in space, aviation and defense.

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  Up in Smoke – How Changes in Egyptian Farming Can Help Preserve the Pyramids

  USU College of Engineering

  Along the fertile banks of the Nile River, a researcher from Utah State University is finding ways to turn a useless agricultural byproduct into something valuable, while improving the region’s air quality in the process.

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  Pioneering Next-Gen Wireless Networks

  USU College of Engineering

  A Utah State University engineering professor is part of a collaborative team of researchers developing new technologies that will support next-generation wireless networks. Associate professor of computer and electrical engineering Rose Hu, has secured two National Science Foundation grants along with private funding from Intel to develop tomorrow’s wireless systems.

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  UPEL Student Presents Electric Vehicle Paper at ECCE 2014 | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  UPEL student, Muhammad Muneeb, published a paper at ECCE 2014, the annual IEEE conference for Energy Conversion Congress & Expo. The paper, titled ‘Modular Approach for Continuous Cell-level Balancing to Improve Performance of Large Battery Packs’, highlights research on advanced battery management system (BMS) which improve battery pack lifetime and reduce cost and weight. The work extends existing state-of-charge balancing function to higher level pack performance objectives such as improving power capability and increasing pack lifetime. These advanced capabilities have the potential to significantly reduce initial battery pack cost and weight and increase the value of the battery pack for second use applications. This research work is part of AMPED project for which UPEL is working with a multi-disciplinary team at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado Springs, a team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Ford Motor Company. The project is funded in part by the United States Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects (ARPA-E).

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  IEEE Members Win Department Design Competition | Electrical and Computer Engineering | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  IEEE USU Student Branch members recently won the USU Electrical and Computer Engineering Department award for Outstanding Senior Design Project. The Autonomous Shopping Cart (ASC) stole the show despite stiff competition.

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  Groundbreaking for Electric Vehicle and Roadway (EVR) Test Facility Gets Press Coverage | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  USU officials and UPEL faculty broke ground for the Electric Vehicle and Roadway (EVR) Test Facility. This facility is the first of its kind in the United States and hopes to push the envelope of advanced research in wireless power transfer for electric vehicles in motion. Construction is expected to complete in the Spring of 2015.

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  Utah State University to Break Ground for Electric Vehicle and Roadway Test Track

  USU College of Engineering

  Utah State University will break ground on Sept. 23 for its state-of-the-art Electric Vehicle and Roadway (EVR) Research Facility and Test Track, the first facility of its kind in the United States.

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  UPEL Hosts DOE Review Meeting | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  The USU Power Electronics Lab (UPEL) hosted the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) quarter V program review of AMPED project on April 25th, 2014. In attendance were ARPA-E program managers and reviewers and program team members from University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado Springs, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Ford Motor Company and Utah State University. The review meeting included a laboratory demonstration of all program hardware and a general UPEL lab tour with student presentations.

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  Security Questions Abound as Autonomous Vehicles Emerge

  USU College of Engineering

  With the rollout of Google’s self-driving car, computer security experts at Utah State University are posing new questions about the hardware and software features that will drive tomorrow’s fleets of autonomous vehicles.

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  Groundbreaking Scheduled for Electric Vehicle Test Facility | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  The USU Board of Trustees approved plans to begin construction on a 4,800 square foot facility at 650 E. Grand Ave. This facility will be used to enable research in Wireless Power Transfer technology for electric vehicles. The building will also feature at track to test charging with vehicles in-motion and a high-bay area for research in Wireless Power Transfer.

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  UPEL Presents Paper at COMPEL 2014 | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  UPEL Student, Warren Chen, published a paper at COMPEL this year, the annual conference for Control and Modeling for Power Electronics. The paper, titled "Isolated bidirectional DC/AC and AC/DC three-phase power conversion using series resonant converter modules and a three-phase unfolder", highlights recent research with a Dual Active-Bridge Resonant Power converter. The converter, paired with a three-phase unfolder is able to achieve low AC THD without the need for a bulky LC filter, instead using the large bandwidth of the converter.

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  Students Compete in 1st Annual Electric Bike Race | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  Students in the Electric Vehicle Lab course (ECE 6930) competed in the first annual Electric Bike Race. The students designed and built the bikes as a part of the course, and then had a race at the end of the year to see whose bike was the fastest. The Electric Vehicle Lab is the final course in a sequence of courses on Power Electronics at USU.

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  UPEL Students Awarded Best Poster at APEC 2014 | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  UPEL AMPED team published a paper, titled ‘Active balancing system for electric vehicles with incorporated low voltage bus’, at APEC, the annual conference for Applied Power Electronics and Exposition. AMPED team comprises graduate students Muhammad Muneeb, Kelly Hathaway, Post-doc researcher Michael Evzelman, and Prof. Regan Zane. The work highlights research in control of power converters associated with the battery management system (BMS) in order to improve battery pack lifetime and reduce cost and weight. This paper presented an architecture that uses modular dc-dc bypass converters to perform active battery cell balancing and to supply current to auxiliary loads, eliminating the need for a separate HV-to- LV high step-down dc-dc converter in electric vehicles. The modular architecture, which achieves continuous balancing of all cells, can be used with an arbitrary number of cells in series, requires no control communications between converters, and naturally shares the auxiliary load current according to the relative state-of-charge (SOC) and capacities of the battery cells. This will yield improved performance and actively balance all cells so that they will degrade uniformly to the end of their life. These capabilities have the potential to significantly reduce initial battery pack cost and weight and increase the value of the battery pack for second use applications.

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  UPEL Students Recognized by ECE Department | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab

  USU College of Engineering

  Chandler Austin and Kevin Kennedy were recently recognized by the ECE department for academic excellence.

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  USU Student Branch Hosts S-PAC 2014 | Electrical and Computer Engineering | College of Engineering

  USU College of Engineering

  On March 22, 2014 the IEEE Student Branch at Utah State University hosted the first annual Student-Professional Awareness Conference (S-PAC) at the USU campus. The conference was attended by more than 170 students from Electrical, Computer and Mechanical Engineering. Keynote speakers included Jonathan Chew, a Walt Disney Imagineer, and Mike Andrews from IEEE Region 6. The purpose of S-PAC is to “increase professional awareness among engineering students.” Workshops during the conference focused on teaching practical skills and included “Finding Internships” and “Job Offer Negotiation” by USU Career Services, “Teach Yourself MATLAB” by students in the IEEE council, and “Starting as a Consultant” by Kelly Wigington, a USU alumni. The highlight of the conference was a Q&A session with a panel of Engineers. Students were invited to ask questions from the panel about working as an Engineer, developing professional skills and learning to innovate. The IEEE USU Student Branch is currently in the planning stages for S-PAC 2015. Check back on our branch website for more information as it is available.

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  REU Site Program | EED

  USU College of Engineering

  This ten-week summer program provides undergraduate students in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) discipline with intensive experience in engineering education research, such as how learners’ experience, background, and perception play a role when they learn engineering knowledge and skills. The program provides research experience for undergraduates (REU) and is not an internship. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and hosted by Utah State University (USU) in Logan, Utah, a beautiful city nestled between two mountain ranges.

  The central focus of this summer research program is on self-regulated learning (SRL). When confronted with a problem or task, a learner usually begins with generating thoughts, feeling, and actions to attain the best solution to that problem. The self-generated thoughts, feeling, and actions are called self-regulated learning. Numerous studies suggest that SRL is a significant predictor of a learner’s academic performance. This ten-week program consists of a nine-week research on the USU campus (starting on June 9, 2014) and subsequent one-week at-home activities with research assignments. During the program, REU students will work with faculty mentors and their graduate students on four emerging research projects that focus on self-regulated learning in engineering education. REU students will participate in workshops, a research symposium, and a rich variety of social and recreational activities.