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UNO Electrical Engineering News

UNO's Electrical Engineering Robotics Team ADONIS wins IEEE Region 5 Robotics Contest. Ethics Team placed second in the Region.

Fifteen students from UNO's Electrical Engineering department participated in the 2013 IEEE Region 5 Conference and Student Contests, held in Denver, CO, on April 6 and 7. UNO was well represented in the training sessions and all contests.

Robot2013 Two robotics teams from UNO competed and Team ADONIS took first place in the robotics contest. The winning team members are Eliot Casstanza, Jonathan Hooker, Ryan Masanz, Alvaro Varela, and Michael Wren. They received the $800.00 first place award during the award ceremony on the evening of 6 April 2013.

The Ethics team was composed of Rachel Hoffman and Gregory Williamson. They took second place in the Ethics contest and also received a monetary award and were recognized during the awards dinner.

Region 5 of the IEEE consists of 90 IEEE student Branches from the states of KS, CO, LA, TX, MO, NM, OK, SD, WY, AR, and IL.

Electrical Engineering Student Receives IEEE Power and Energy Society Scholarship

Jan. 15, Gregory Williamson, a UNO Electrical Engineering student was awarded a scholarship as part of the IEEE Power and Energy Society Scholarship Plus Initiative.

The PES Scholarship Plus Initiative recognizes undergraduate students who have declared a major in electrical and computer engineering, are high achievers with strong GPAs with distinctive extracurricular commitments and are committed to exploring the power and energy field.

Robotics Team "Envirobot" Places 2nd in 2012 IEEE Region 5 Competition

Team Apr 21, TULSA, Okla. -- The UNO-EE team named "Envirobot," composed of J. Ricardo Cornejo, Kenneth Lane, Mederic (Trey) Meyer, Kenneth Pecquet, and Philip Simoneaux, placed second in the IEEE Region 5 Robotics competition held in Tulsa, OK, on Saturday April 21, 2012. Envirobot competed against teams from Region 5 of the IEEE which extends north from Louisiana and Texas to Wyoming and South Dakota, with 92 student branches in 12 states.

The Region 5 Annual Business Meeting and Student Contests were held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, April 20-21, 2012, with the Robotics Competition being held at Oral Roberts University.

Field According to the published contest rules, the annual competition is open to all undergraduate students attending IEEE Region 5 educational institutions. This year's contest continued the tradition of "compact mobile and autonomous robots operating on a predefined playing field," with the challenge being "to harvest energy from simulated renewal energy sources and deliver via an electromechanical device which will be used to determine how much energy was harvested." The winner is the robot that harvests the most energy in the allotted time. Entries must be fully autonomous, self-contained, with no human or remote computer intervention allowed during play.

UNO-EE Team Places 2nd in 2012 Region 5 Ethics Contest

Apr 21, TULSA, Okla. -- Eliot Castanza and Garrett Fried received second place in the 2012 Region 5 Ethics contest heldin Tulsa, OK, on Saturday 21 April 2012. The UNO team competed against teams from Region 5 of the IEEE which extends north from Louisiana and Texas to Wyoming and South Dakota, with 92 student branches in 12 states.

The Student Ethics Competition is jointly sponsored by Region 5 IEEE and the IEEE Ethics and Member ConductCommittee. It encourages the study and awareness of professional ethics.

The competition includes a presentation and defense of a case analysis by student teams using the IEEE Code of Ethics.

UNO Gets $1.5 Million NASA Grant for Air Traffic Research

The University of New Orleans is the recipient of a 3-year $1.5 million NASA grant to make improvements to the nation's air traffic system.

Electrical Engineering researchers will develop solutions to major challenges that are crucial for improving the efficiency and safety of the next-generation U.S. air traffic system, also known as NextGen. NextGen is the federal government's comprehensive overhaul of the national air traffic system, which will greatly increase air traffic capacity and safety.

A major component of NextGen is giving pilots more power to fly their plans instead of merely following the instructions of air traffic controllers. Researchers on this project will develop solutions for information processing and management that will enable pilots to make informed decisions based on four-dimensional trajectories of their planes and other nearby planes.

The title of the project is "Integrated Trajectory Information Processing and Management for Aircraft Safety."

The principal investigator is X. Rong Li, Research Professor of Electrical Engineering, and the co-investigators are Vesselin Jilkov and Huimin Chen, Associate Professors of Electrical Engineering. The UNO researchers will be joined on the project by colleagues from LSU and Southern University.

"Air traffic demand in the United States has been forecast to double by the year 2025, and the current system is already strained and cannot scale to meet this demand," Li said. "Our project will enable heavier yet safer air traffic. It will not only help pilots but also the entire next-generation air traffic system."