Category: News

ITC Gift of $100,000 for Relay Testers

Six Doble F-6150sv relay testers were purchased thanks to a $100,000 gift from ITC. ECE now has state of the art relay protection thanks to ITC, Doble for price discounts, and SEL for gifted relays. As shown, we have six full racks of equipment for lab sections of 12 students. This gift has had an immediate and tremendous positive impact on workforce development and it is greatly appreciated by all. Pictured are Glen Archer, ECE interim chair, Gordie Halt, ITC, and Bruce Mork, ECE professor.

Havens Discusses Artificial Intelligence in Plain Terms

Timothy Havens
Timothy Havens

Cognitive scientist and Dartmouth professor John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence (AI) in 1955 when he began his exploration of whether machines could learn and develop formal reasoning like humans. More than 60 years later, AI is the hottest tech topic of the day, from the boardroom to the breakroom.

“AI is a mathematical and algorithmic model that allows computers to learn to do tasks without being explicitly programmed to do those tasks.” –Timothy Havens, the William and Gloria Jackson Associate Professor of Computer Systems in the College of Computing at Michigan Technological University and director of the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems.

For those who prefer analogies, Havens likens the way AI works to learning to ride a bike: “You don’t tell a child to move their left foot in a circle on the left pedal in the forward direction while moving your right foot in a circle… You give them a push and tell them to keep the bike upright and pointed forward: the overall objective. They fall a few times, honing their skills each time they fail,” Havens says. “That’s AI in a nutshell.”

Read more at The Enterprisers Project, by Stephanie Overby.

Schulz Receives Prestigious University Professor Award

ECE’s Tim Schulz was presented with the University Professor award at a ceremony yesterday. Schultz was nominated by Dan Fuhrmann, former ECE chair. The prestigious award recognizes faculty members who have made outstanding scholarly contributions to the University and their discipline over a substantial period of time. Standing with Schultz are Provost and Senior Vice President Jackie Huntoon, and Dan Fuhrmann. Read the full article on the awards ceremony in Tech Today https://www.mtu.edu/ttoday/….

Schulz has served Michigan Tech for nearly 27 years and has been a role model for all with his commitment to excellence in teaching, research and administration. He became ECE department chair in 1997, and was promoted to the rank of full professor in 2007, the same year be became dean of the College of Engineering. As ECE department chair, he tripled the size of the PhD program and developed a new BS degree program in Computer Engineering. As dean of the College of Engineering, he led efforts to bring more accountability and transparency to our activities through the establishment of goals in faculty achievement and recognition, in research and in our educational programs; and then putting in place methods for measuring progress relative to those goals.

When Schulz stepped down from the Dean’s Office, he returned to the ECE faculty where he has been a leader in using technology to deliver technical material in electrical engineering and developing new online courses.

Ultrasound-Sensing Based Navigational Support for the Visually Impaired

Ultrasound Sensing-Based Navigational SupportECE graduate student Aliaksei Petsiuk coauthored an article with Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) titled, “Low-cost open source ultrasound-sensing based navigational support for visually impaired,” published in the journal Sensors.
https://doi.org/10.3390/s19173783

Low-Cost Open Source Ultrasound-Sensing Based Navigational Support for the Visually Impaired

Abstract

Nineteen million Americans have significant vision loss.

Over 70% of these are not employed full-time, and more than a quarter live below the poverty line. Globally, there are 36 million blind people, but less than half use white canes or more costly commercial sensory substitutions. The quality of life for visually impaired people is hampered by the resultant lack of independence.

To help alleviate these challenges this study reports on the development of a low-cost, open-source ultrasound-based navigational support system in the form of a wearable bracelet to allow people with the lost vision to navigate, orient themselves in their surroundings and avoid obstacles when moving.

The system can be largely made with digitally distributed manufacturing using low-cost 3-D printing/milling. It conveys point-distance information by utilizing the natural active sensing approach and modulates measurements into haptic feedback with various vibration patterns within the four-meter range. It does not require complex calibrations and training, consists of the small number of available and inexpensive components, and can be used as an independent addition to traditional tools.

Sighted blindfolded participants successfully demonstrated the device for nine primary everyday navigation and guidance tasks including indoor and outdoor navigation and avoiding collisions with other pedestrians.

Read the Open Access article at Sensors.

Joshua Pearce on Solar Energy

Joshua Pearce
Joshua Pearce

West Baton Rouge solar plant with 197,000 panels begins construction: Entergy Louisiana to purchase its power

Some 197,000 solar panels capable of powering thousands of homes are going into one of the largest solar plants to be built in Louisiana on a 560-acre site near Port Allen.

“The economies of scale has finally kicked in,” said Joshua Pearce, director of the Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology lab. “Utilities are actively putting in large-scale solar farms because it’s now a low enough cost. When costs first came down, large industry jumped on it first and now utilities are catching up.”

Read more at The Advocate, by Kristen Mosbrucker.

Floating Solar Panels Are Helping This Mining Company Save Water

Las Tórtolas is a 4.1 square mile reservoir nestled in the sunny, arid mountains of Chile, about 40 miles north of the capital city of Santiago. But it’s not the kind of place you’d want to go swimming. The water in the reservoir is actually the waste (also known as tailings) from the nearby Los Bronces copper mine, and floating on top are 256 photovoltaic solar panels, each one capable of producing about 330 watts of electricity.

“It’s like putting a plastic sheet over the whole lake, or the whole tailings pond,” explains Joshua Pearce, a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Michigan Tech. Pearce has worked extensively in the emerging field of floatovoltaic technology (FVT), or the overlap of solar energy systems and water use. He says that the presence of solar panels over a body of water can provide enough shade to consistently reduce evaporation by 70-80%. That’s precisely what Anglo-American has achieved since the Las Tórtolas array went online in March 2019.

Read more at The Weather Channel, by Thom Dunn.

America’s richest could afford this important investment to help fight climate change, scientist says

The technology exists to “green” America’s electricity grid to fight climate change — and together, the country’s richest people have enough money to pay for it. In fact, they could even make a profit on the investment.

That’s according to a 2019 research paper on solar energy led by Joshua Pearce, a professor of materials science and engineering at Michigan Technological University.

Read more at CNBC Make It, by Catherine Clifford.

Amid energy transition in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, what is solar’s role?

The Upper Peninsula Power Co., which has some of the highest electric rates in the continental U.S., is looking to buy power from a large-scale solar project it says would help reduce costs for its customers.

UPPCO’s case reflects trends elsewhere in Michigan where utilities are pursuing large-scale projects while at the same time being accused of limiting small, customer-owned projects.

“It’s much more acute and much more divisive here than it is downstate,” said Joshua Pearce, an engineering professor at Michigan Technological University in Houghton. “[UPPCO] hates distributed generation, but they love making money.”

Read more at Energy News Network, by Andy Balaskovitz.

Advancement Acknowledges the Recent Passing of Dedicated Alumnus Jim Klungness

James Klungness
James Klungness

James A. (Jim) Klungess passed away on July 16, 2019. Jim graduated from Michigan Tech in 1949 with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering. After graduation, he returned to the Iron Mountain area where he established himself as a business leader. He, along with a partner, built Iron Mountain’s first cable TV system and went on to found Cable Constructors Inc. (CCI), which specialized in constructing cable TV systems both regionally and nationally.

Jim was recognized by Michigan Tech on several occasions. In 1990 he was awarded the Board of Control Silver Medal. He was inducted into the Electrical Engineering Academy in 1997 and was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus award by the Alumni Association in 1998. In 1999 he was Tech’s spring commencement speaker and was presented an honorary doctorate degree.

He was an extremely good friend of the University lending both his time and energy to numerous initiatives. He served three consecutive terms on the Michigan Tech Fund Board attaining Life Trustee status in 2002. He was co-chair for the campaign to fund the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts and served on Tech’s International Advancement Advisory Committee in 2003.

Jim, along with his wife, Verle (who passed away in 2004), were very generous with their philanthropic dollars investing in numerous University programs over the years. These include the Annual Fund, the Rozsa Center, and cultural and international initiatives. In 1991 they established the James A. Klungness Endowed Scholarship to assist Iron Mountain-Kingsford area students attending Michigan Tech. They were members of the Hubbell Society, as well as charter members of the Second Century Society.

View Jim’s full obituary online.

By Michigan Tech Advancement.

Timothy Havens at IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems

Timothy Havens
Timothy Havens

Timothy Havens (CC/ICC) was General Co-Chair of the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems in New Orleans, LA, June 23 to 26. At the conference, Havens presented his paper, “Machine Learning of Choquet Integral Regression with Respect to a Bounded Capacity (or Non-monotonic Fuzzy Measure),” and served on the panel, “Publishing in IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems.” Three additional papers authored by Havens were published in the conference’s proceedings: “Transfer Learning for the Choquet Integral,” “The Choquet Integral Neuron, Its PyTorch Implementation and Application to Decision Fusion,” and “Measuring Similarity Between Discontinuous Intervals – Challenges and Solutions.”

NSF Funding for Zhuo Feng

Zhuo Feng
Zhuo Feng

Zhuo Feng (ECE/ICC) is Principal Investigator on a project that has received a $500,000 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. This potential three-year project is titled, “SHF: Small: Spectral Reduction of Large Graphs and Circuit Networks.”

Extract

Spectral methods are playing increasingly important roles in many graph and numerical applications. This research plan will investigate a truly-scalable yet unified spectral graph reduction approach that allows reducing large-scale, real-world directed and undirected graphs with guaranteed preservation of the original graph spectra.

The success of the proposed research will significantly advance the state of the arts in spectral graph theory, electronic design automation (EDA), data mining, machine learning, as well as scientific computing, leading to the development of much faster numerical and graph-based algorithms.

The algorithms and methodologies to be developed will be disseminated to leading technology companies such as EDA software and network companies for potential industrial adoptions. Spectral graph reduction algorithms/software packages will also be made available to other researchers through collaborations.

Read more at the National Science Foundation.

Kunle Olutomilayo Leads Outreach on True African Story

Kunle Olutomilayo
Kunle Olutomilayo

On May 15, 2019, eight students from the African Students Organization (ASO) chapter of Michigan Tech went to Dollar Bay High School to share a perspective of African history and culture that is often misrepresented or ignored by Western media.

Meeting a class of middle and high school students, Kunle Olutomilayo (PhD student, ECE), president of ASO, opened the floor with introductory remarks. Highlighting the historical significance of Africa to human existence. ASO’s interaction with the Dollar Bay School involved an exposition of West African naming practices, a telling of Asante folklore, a video showing different places in all 54 African countries, and a lesson on some facts about the African continent that are rarely pointed out.

Tolu Odebunmi (PhD student, Humanities) explained how the pronunciation of names worked in Yoruba, one of several languages in Nigeria. By referring to the tonal nature of Yoruba pronunciation, Tolu explained how names were significant in most African cultures. Of particular interest was the meanings attached to names and how the circumstances surrounding the birth of a child could dictate the name that was given to a child. For example, some ethnic groups in Ghana name their children based on the day of the week that a child is born.

While the video served as a means to retell the African story, the lesson led by Alfred Owusu-Ansah (PhD student, Humanities) highlighted rarely mentioned issues; Alfred pointed out how the world’s oldest university was established in 859 C.E. in Morocco by a woman. He also pointed out other firsts, like the first successful heart transplant was achieved in South Africa. In encouraging the students to explore the rich diversity of Africa, he suggested that they could read Nobel Laureates like Wole Soyinka of Nigeria or Nadine Gordimer of South Africa; or follow great scientists like Sameera Moussa (a renowned nuclear scientist) of Egypt, and Philip Emeagwali of Nigeria, who built the fastest computer of the time in 1989.

After the lesson students were invited to ask questions. This led to what was perhaps the climax of the day when a very bright student asked: “We hear that Africans are corrupt, how true is that?” Alfred pointed out that corruption does exist at different levels in the different countries in Africa; the same way that corruption exists at different levels in all countries in the world. Alfred highlighted the importance of checks and balances in any system of governance that seeks to minimize corrupt practices, which is as true for Africa as it is for North America. This led to a conversation on the cultural differences between African countries and the United States of America. It was clear that both Africans and Americans had a lot of respect for each other and were eager to learn new things. Ending the interaction with a song, the president of ASO sees this interaction as one of many that can help both Africans and the people of the great Upper Peninsula understand each other better.

by Bello Adesoji | African Student Organization.