2022 ECE Day: Seminars and Student Research Competition

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology held its annual ECE Day event on April 8, 2022. The department hosted research panels, a research seminar, and a student research competition. 

Fifty-seven students competed in various research presentation categories over two days, including 23 undergraduate students that worked in teams from the Major Design Experience course, seven master’s students, and 27 Ph.D. students. There were a total of 32 student finalists.

“The ECE department is dedicated to providing research opportunities to all of our students. Our ECE Day Student Research Panel was a huge success,” says ECE Department Chair and Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie. “Special thanks to our judges including ECE faculty members, the ECE External Advisory Board members, and other departmental faculty.”  

Following faculty-led research panels, the event ended with a research seminar titled “From Studying at Illinois Tech to Co-Founding a Silicon Valley Start-Up” by Vice President (Motor Design) and Co-founder of Turntide Technologies Piyush Desai (M.S. EE ’04, Ph.D. ’09) and an award ceremony announcing the winners of the student competition. 

“We would like to thank Dr. Piyush Desai for his seminar presentation. Dr. Desai is a hands-on technology leader with three success stories in starting, scaling, and commercializing new technology businesses, including Turntide Technologies. Turntide was started in 2014 to commercialize his patented high rotor pole switched reluctance motor technology he developed at Illinois Tech during his Ph.D. Viewers were left with lessons and insights that Dr. Desai shared from his many years of experience in academia and business,” says Saniie.

Congratulations to the following winners:

UNDERGRADUATE TEAM CATEGORY

First Place—Conner J. Shaw (EE 5th Year), Nikhil Aditya Chaganti (CCSE 4th Year), Divyanshu Dilipbhai Kalola (CPE 4th Year)—“Motion Controlled Robotic Arm” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Filip K. Zivko (EE, M.S. CPE 4th Year), Khoa D. Nguyen (CPE 5th Year)—“Digital Oscilloscope and Signal Analyzer” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Eduardo D. Calix-Ortiz (EE, M.S. CPE 4th Year), Matt Nicole C. Fajardo (CPE, M.A.S. TENR 4th Year), Hazim Zain-Edin (CPE 3rd Year)—“Autonomous Drone with LEDs and GPS” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Samuel Michelsen (CPE, M.A.S. CS 4th Year), Bradley Estacio (CPE, M.S. CPE 4th Year), Carlena E. Veller (CPE 4th Year)—“Automated Cat Feeder” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—Brian G. Gallagher (CPE 4th Year), Oumaima Erragragui (EE 4th Year), Mohammed Y. Munshi (CPE, M.A.S. CS 5th Year)—“Smart Mirror” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

MASTER’S CATEGORY

First Place—Alejandro Perez-Vicente (M.S. EE 2nd Year)—“Point Cloud Generation with Stereo and Monocular Depth Estimation on FPGA.” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Taeho Kim (M.S. EE 1st Year)—“3D Object Detection Using Multi-modal Transformers.” Advisor: Associate Professor Joohee Kim

Third Place—Kaitlyn M. Graves (EE, M.S. EE 5th Year)—“Design Flow of mmWave Radar and Machine Vision Fusion for Pedestrian Collision Warning.” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

PH.D. CATEGORY: Digital Systems and Cybersecurity 

First Place—Muyu Yang (Ph.D. CPE Candidate)—“Leakage Power Attack-Resilient Design: PMOS Reading 9T SRAM.” Advisor: Associate Professor Erdal Oruklu

Second Place—Yu Yuan (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“FPGA Implementation of a Meta-Learning Algorithm for Ultrasonic NDE Applications.” Advisor: Associate Professor Erdal Oruklu

Second Place—Tianyang Fang (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Frequency Shift Baseline Removal for Improved Flow Measurement Using Microwave Cavity Resonator.” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—David Arnold (EE ’19, M.S CPE ’19, Ph.D. Candidate CPE)—“Machine Learning Models for Cyberattack Detection in Industrial Control Systems.” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

PH.D. CATEGORY: Networks and Communications 

First Place—Ziru Chen (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“A Deep Learning Based Approach for NOMA Based Random Access Network.” Advisor: Associate Professor Lin Cai

Second Place—Xin Huang (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Architecture of a Reconfigurable Software-defined Ultrasonic Communication Platform for Real-time Video Transmission” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—Suyang Wang (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Security Performance Analysis of Parallel-chain Block Chain System.” Advisor: Professor Yu Cheng

Third Place—Oluwaseun Ajayi (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Classification of Wireless Networking Scheduling Structure with Machine Learning.” Advisor: Professor Yu Cheng

PH.D. CATEGORY: Power Systems and Electronics

First Place—Larissa Affolabi (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Multi-agent Based Transactive Energy Framework for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations.” Advisor: Bodine Chair Professor Mohammad Shahidehpour

First Place—Mahmoud Alashi (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Pulse Transformer with Superconductor Winding for DC Hybrid Circuit Breaker Application.” Advisor: Professor Thomas Wong

Second Place—Mehrdad Sheikholeslami (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Data Communication Interfaces in Smart Grid Real-time Simulations: Challenges and Solutions.” Advisor: Professor Zuyi Li

Third Place—Duo Wang (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Control of Power Converter with port-Hamiltonian Theory.” Advisor: Max McGraw Endowed Chair Professor Qing-Chang Zhong

PH.D. CATEGORY: Signal and Image Processing

First Place—Xinrui Yu (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Holistic Human Machine Interface for Assisting Visually Impaired using Computer Vision.” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Junchi Liu (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Accounting for Inter-subject Variations in Deep Learning for Reduced-dose Studies in Cardiac SPECT.” Advisor: Harris Perlstein Professor Yongyi Yang

Third Place—Xin Zhang (Ph.D. CPE Candidate)—“Unsupervised Learning for Detection of Defects in Pulsed Infrared Thermography of Metals.” Advisor: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Image: Gesture-controlled vehicular arm robot