KUCHING – Two final year projects by Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus engineering students won first prize at the recent Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Malaysia Final Year Project Competition.
The projects – a design and simulation of a trans-Borneo smart power grid, and the design and development of a portable system that detects lead in the environment – came in first in two separate categories of the competition.
The power project proposed by Salim Sulaiman Maaji and Duaa Fatima Saqib Khan won the power and energy category. It considers the simulation of a power grid and its controlling computer network which monitors various points of the grid quicker than the current system. It could take corrective action when needed, making the power grid “smart”.
“Smart grids benefit us in many ways such as preventing severe power outages,” said engineering lecturer Dr Manas Kumar Haldar, who supervised the project along with his computing colleague Mujahid Tabassum.
Winning the top prize of the electronics category was a system that detects lead in the environment, designed and developed by Ling Ting Yang and Kong Kah Hung.
“Lead poisoning is a cause of health problems around the world. To monitor pollutant levels, the current practice requires the use of bulky equipment and has to be carried out in laboratories.
“The system developed by Ling and Kong uses carbon nano-dots and ultraviolet light integrated with a mobile phone with a GPS receiver. So, both measurement and its location are transmitted to a central computer,” said Dr Ng Sing Muk, one of three supervisors of the project.
The other supervisors are Dr Chua Hong Siang and Dr Manas Kumar Haldar.
A video of the projects can be viewed at http://youtu.be/D-I2dewNYQo andhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tqmfiGv8yk
As first prize winners, each of the two teams will take home RM300.
There were eight tracks, or categories, in the competition covering various sub-disciplines in electrical and electronic engineering. Each track had three prizes sponsored by the IEEE chapters relevant to the track.
IEEE is an association dedicated to advancing innovation and technological excellence, and it is the world’s largest technical professional society. It is designed to serve professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic, and computing fields and related areas of science and technology.