nus faculty of engineering launches new · pdf file... highly successful programs such as the...

20
Recently, the Design-Centric Programme (DCP), formerly known as the Design-Centric Curriculum, launched its new Aerospace Systems Initiative. Are you bothered by not knowing what to wear when attending the first Chinese New Year reunion dinner at your in-laws? It’s the time of the year when graduating ‘A’ Level, International Baccalaureate (IB), NUS High and polytechnic students make their university and degree programme choices. PAGE 01 NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW INITIATIVE TO PREPARE STUDENTS FOR THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY This initiative focuses on helping engineering students prepare for Singapore’s growing aerospace industry by providing a learning pathway for them to design and develop complex engineering systems for special aerospace missions. PAGE 08 PAGE 12 Click Here A BI-ANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERING ISSN 2010-1651 MARCH 2013 ISSUE 6

Upload: phungdien

Post on 19-Mar-2018

251 views

Category:

Documents


2 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

Recently, the Design-Centric Programme (DCP), formerly known as the Design-Centric Curriculum, launched its new Aerospace Systems Initiative.

Are you bothered by not knowing

what to wear when attending the first Chinese

New Year reunion dinner at your in-laws?

It’s the time of the year

when graduating ‘A’ Level, International

Baccalaureate (IB), NUS High and polytechnic

students make their university and degree programme choices.

PAGE

01

NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW INITIATIVE TO PREPARE STUDENTS FOR THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

This initiative focuses on helping

engineering students prepare for

Singapore’s growing aerospace

industry by providing a learning

pathway for them to design and

develop complex engineering systems

for special aerospace missions.

PAGE

08

PAGE12

Click Here

A BI-ANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERINGISSN 2010-1651 MARCH 2013 ISSUE 6

Page 2: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

Editorial Team Assoc Prof Dipti Srinivasan Assoc Prof Xiang Cheng Assoc Prof Marc Andre Armand Assoc Prof Ng Chun Sum Ms Eunice Wong

Photography Mr Abdul Jalil Bin Din

Advisors Prof Chua Kee Chaing Assoc Prof Tham Chen Khong

CONTENTSDEPARTMENT 01 NUS Faculty of Engineering

Launches New Initiative to Prepare Students for the Aerospace Industry

02 ST Electronics Collaborates with NUS ECE to Develop Plans for Satellite Business

03 ECE Department Pays Tribute to the Late Professor Jacob Phang

04 Faculty Awards

06 New Appointments and Promotions

RESEARCH07 Giving “Touch” Back to Those

Who Lost It

08 Magic Closet, Tell Me What to Wear!

09 Engineering a “Ghost” – A Breakthrough in Scattering Illusion

ALUMNI10 In Conversation with Melvin

Low, Chairman of the NUS ECE Alumni Committee

STUDENT12 NUS Open Day 2013 and

Admissions

12 Eta Kappa Nu Comes to National University of Singapore

13 Presto! It’s Jonathan, Engineering Student and Magician

14 Seizing the Day at NUS Engineering

15 ECE Outreach Workshop – Introduction to Nanotechnology

16 Graduate Students’ Achievements

ANNOUNCEMENT18 DCP Teams Garner Top Prizes

at National Climate Change Competition

18 6th ECE Alumni Family Day 2013

18 ECE Graduation Night 2013

The Department spearheaded the launch of the Aerospace Systems

Initiative within the Faculty’s Design Centric Program in October last

year. This is an exciting initiative that will allow ECE students to work

alongside students from other departments in the Faculty on satellite

and aerospace synthetic aperture radar systems. These are complex

engineering systems that will give valuable design and hands-on

exposure to our students in exciting new engineering fields that

Singapore is keen to develop into key economic sectors. For example,

just last month, the establishment of the Office for Space Technologies

and Industry (OSTIn) was announced by EDB at the Global Space

Technology Convention (GSTC). OSTIn will manage a multi-agency

effort to develop the space industry in Singapore and provide funding

for space technology R&D.

On 5 January 2013, many of us in the Department were saddened

by the passing of a long-time colleague, Professor Jacob Phang.

Jacob was a pioneer in many ways – an early entrepreneur who

commercialized the results of his research, an award-winning

researcher and a leading educator who initiated innovative and (to this

day) highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges

and double degree programs with the French Grand Ecoles.

Many colleagues have continued to do the Department proud

through their excellence in teaching and/or research. We celebrate

the appointment of Professor Nitish Thakor as a new Provost’s Chair

Professor; the teaching excellence of Professor Lee Tong Heng and

Associate Professors Dipti Srinivasan and Mehul Motani, who have

been conferred teaching awards by the Faculty; and the research

excellence of Professor Lian Yong and Dr Yeo Yee Chia, who both

received the Faculty Research Award.

This issue of our newsletter has come out just on time for us to

distribute to prospective ECE students at this year’s NUS Open Day

on 16 March 2013. I hope that the articles within will make interesting

reading and further encourage these students to come and join us

in our exciting programs. To these students, I invite you to also visit

the Department’s website at www.ece.nus.edu.sg where a lot more

information on our education programs and research activities

is available.

HoD SPEAKS...

Prof Chua Kee Chaing Head, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, NUS

Many colleagues have continued to do the

Department proud through their excellence in teaching

and/or research.

Page 3: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

DE

PAR

TM

EN

T

NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW INITIATIVE TO PREPARE STUDENTS FOR THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRYRecently, the Design-Centric Programme (DCP), formerly known as the Design-Centric Curriculum, launched its new Aerospace Systems Initiative. This initiative focuses on helping engineering students prepare for Singapore’s growing aerospace industry by providing a learning pathway for them to design and develop complex engineering systems for special aerospace missions. The programme is open to NUS undergraduates across engineering disciplines and will take in 30 to 40 students per year.

Upon enrolment, students can choose one of two learning components – the Satellite Systems Design and Aerospace Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Systems Design. The first component starts students off to design and build a balloon-based system equipped with data acquisition devices such as cameras, as well as temperature and pressure sensors that continuously transmit images and sensor data to the ground station. During the second year, they learn to simulate space missions, design their own orbits and analyse real data from a published space mission. In their third-year and final-year, students will design various subsystems that could be integrated into a satellite for launch.

The second component introduces students to the basic concepts of radar and the design of airborne radar systems for range detection, which is similar to altimeters in airplanes and level meters in fluid reservoirs. Final-year projects for students in both the Satellite Systems Design and Aerospace SAR Systems Design components will involve students designing, fabricating and testing complete satellite and airborne radar systems.

In a pilot run earlier last year, 48 engineering students started working on related projects, including the development of a nano-satellite to accommodate a payload from NUS’ Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT). Mr Chen Shiyi, a fourth-year Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) student, has even completed a six-month internship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Center in Ames, California, where he joined other interns from Mexico and Italy to participate in NASA’s soon-to-be-launched PhoneSat project.

Professor James Newman, Professor of Space Systems at the Naval Postgraduate School (USA) and former NASA astronaut, delivering the keynote address at the launch of the Aerospace Systems Initiative at NUS

Mr Chen Shiyi, a pilot student in the Aerospace Systems Initiative, who spent six months in NASA working on a PhoneSat project to be launched by NASA

Aerospace enthusiasts talking to Prof Newman

Students from ECE and the Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department have also interned at ST Satellite Systems. Professor Chua Kee Chaing, Head, ECE, spoke at the initiative’s launch about his desire for engineering students to take advantage of this platform. Prof Chua also related his hope that the initiative will help build a sizeable talent pool for Singapore’s aerospace industry. Commenting on the initiative, Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Professor Chan Eng Soon, said that the launch was timely as the aerospace industry is an exciting and promising new growth area for Singapore.

“This is another learning platform that encourages not only creativity, but also teamwork and cooperation across disciplinary boundaries,” he added.

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

01

Page 4: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

DE

PAR

TM

EN

T

ST ELECTRONICS COLLABORATES WITH NUS ECE TO DEVELOP PLANS FOR SATELLITE BUSINESSTHE NUS Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with ST Electronics to research and develop a low-cost, hyper-spectra payload for earth observation. Hyper-spectral images are very useful for the analysis of anomaly detection, target detection and material identification. They are widely used for applications in agriculture, mineralogy, physics and surveillance.

The MOU, inked at the Global Space & Technology Convention 2013 on 21 February, dovetails on ST Electronics’ plans to launch TeLEOS-1 into commercial service in 2015, an earth observation satellite that will be made in Singapore. ECE will be involved in the specification, design and system integration of a 50-kg microsatellite with a hyper-spectral imaging payload. Such a payload employs sensors with special processing algorithms to collect information as a set of images over a range of frequency bands.

Professor Yeo Swee Peng, ECE, said: “Microsatellites are easy to launch and also low cost, compared to the first generation of large-scale satellites. However, the size and weight specifications associated with smaller satellites impose tight constraints on payload capabilities. Various innovative approaches are required to overcome these technological limits. The project we are working on with ST Electronics will be among the world’s first low-cost, hyper-spectral imagers that can possibly be implemented on a 50-kg microsatellite”.

In October 2012, ECE also launched the Aerospace Systems Initiative as part of the Design-Centric Programme. Open to NUS undergraduates across Engineering disciplines, it includes a component on Satellite Systems Design for students to design and develop complex engineering systems for satellites.

The NUS Faculty of Engineering aims to contribute to Singapore’s plan to attract satellite-related investments by training engineers and researchers for the aerospace industry, which has been identified as an exciting and promising new growth area for the nation.

Dean, NUS Faculty of Engineering, Professor Chan Eng Soon (left) with Mr Tang Kum Chuen, President, ST Electronics (Satcom & Sensor Systems) Pte Ltd, at the signing ceremony held at the Global Space & Technology Convention 2013

Professor Yeo Swee Peng (1st on left), says the project is among the world’s first low-cost, hyper-spectral imagers to be implemented on a 50-kg microsatellite

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

02

Page 5: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

DE

PAR

TM

EN

T

Prof Jacob Phang was best known for his research on integrated circuit failure analysis and was the founding Director of the Faculty-level Centre for Integrated Circuit Failure Analysis & Reliability (CICFAR).

Prof Phang’s research focused on fault localisation and defect characterisation techniques. Over the last thirty years, his research had contributed significantly to scanning electron microscopy, photon emission microscopy, scanning optical microscopy and scanning probe techniques for integrated circuit failure analysis. Among his early achievements, Prof Phang and his colleagues developed the Scanning Electron Microscope Image Collection and Processing System (SEMICAPS), which was one of the first systems to digitally control the operation and image processing of scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. This technology was applicable to many of the problems the semiconductor manufacturing industry was facing, and was commercialised by Image Transforms Pte Ltd, a start-up company founded by Prof Phang and three colleagues from ECE. Image Transforms was among the first few “spin-off” technology companies created by NUS academics. Later known as the SEMICAPS Corporation, the company subsequently commercialised several other instrumentation technologies developed by the research team at CICFAR.

Aside from training graduate students as part of his research programme at NUS, Prof Phang was also instrumental in several education initiatives that distinguished NUS as a leading global enterprise. As the founding Director of the NUS Office of International Relations (IRO) from 1996–2001, he was responsible for initiating NUS overseas student exchange programmes for more than 400 (seven per cent of each cohort) incoming and outgoing students with top universities in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australasia. He also initiated double degree programmes between the NUS Faculties of Engineering and Science with several of the top “Grandes Ecoles” in France. Prof Phang also served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of NUS Enterprise (ETP), which brought an entrepreneurial dimension to the university’s core research and educational activities. He was also a keen advocate of technology entrepreneurship and provided students with exposure to the world of high-tech start-up companies. This advocacy led to the establishment of the NUS Overseas Colleges that now operate in Silicon Valley (California), Bio Valley (Philadelphia), Shanghai, Beijing, Israel, Stockholm and Bangalore.

Prof Phang was among the early pioneers who developed the activities of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Singapore and served as its Chairman during the rapid growth of its technical activities. He also played a major role in the founding of the Singapore chapters of the IEEE Reliability Society (RS) and IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS). Besides serving in various positions at the National Science and Technology Board (NTSB), he was also the head of the Technopreneurship 21 (T-21) Secretariat that supported the Ministerial Committee chaired by Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Tony Tan from 1998–2000. He also served as a Board Member of the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) from 2004–2010.

Prof Phang received the National Young Scientist and Engineer Award (1988) and the President’s Technology Award, Republic of Singapore (2009).

ECE DEPARTMENT PAYS TRIBUTE TO THE LATE PROFESSOR JACOB PHANGColleagues and staff at the Department of Electrical & Engineering (ECE) at NUS were saddened by the passing of Professor Jacob Phang on Saturday, 5 January 2013.

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

03

Page 6: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

DE

PAR

TM

EN

T

FACULTY AWARDSSeveral Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) faculty members received teaching and research excellence awards at an award ceremony held at the NUS Engineering Auditorium on 30 Nov 2012. They were presented the awards in recognition of their extraordinary achievements in teaching and research.

ENGINEERING EDUCATOR AWARDAssociate Professor Dipti Srinivasan

Associate Professor Dipti Srinivasan employs a variety of instructional techniques that create new learning environments through the exploration and application of innovative methods that help make the learning process more effective and adaptable to student needs. Assoc Prof Srinivasan combines the power of technology with proven instructional design and innovative approaches to develop course materials, on-line tutorials, animations, quizzes and other interactive platforms to teach her courses. These comprehensive and wide-reaching instruction tools complement and extend the curriculum and encourage critical thinking. To honour her sustained high performance in teaching, Assoc Prof Srinivasan has also been placed on the Honour Roll for winning the Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA) for the third time. She was the recipient of the Engineering Educator Award in 2010 for her outstanding efforts in teaching.

ENGINEERING EDUCATOR HONOUR ROLLProfessor Lee Tong Heng

Professor Lee Tong Heng has been listed on the honour roll for the University-level Annual Teaching Excellence Award (ATEA), as well as the Faculty of Engineering’s Engineering Educator Honour Roll. These awards recognise his consistently exceptional teaching performance. Prof Lee’s teaching initiatives have helped students develop not only discipline and profession-specific knowledge and abilities, but also expand their ideas, mental capacity, mind-sets and habits to go beyond the boundaries of their specific disciplines.

PROVOST’S CHAIR APPOINTMENTProfessor Nitish Thakor

Professor Nitish Thakor is an internationally recognised leader in the field of Neuroengineering. His research interests and achievements include brain monitoring instrumentation, implantable microsensors and integrated circuits, processing and decoding of brain rhythms, experimental studies of brain and spinal cord injury, therapies such as cooling for neuroprotection, brain machine interfaces and neurally controlled prosthetic limbs. His seminal accomplishments include the development of brain monitors for neurological critical care and deciphering brain rhythms to control dexterous prosthetic limbs. Prof Thakor is known not only for his numerous papers in engineering, neuroscience and clinical journals, but also for his patented technologies and entrepreneurial activities. In recognition of his accomplishments, Prof Thakor has been elected as the Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and

Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Founding Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE).

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

04

Page 7: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

DE

PAR

TM

EN

T

INNOVATIVE TEACHING AWARDAssociate Professor Mehul Motani

Associate Professor Mehul Motani believes that engaging students in the classroom is the key to effective learning. He created innovative ways to foster student-student and student-teacher interactions in the classroom by using wireless and mobile computing technologies to ask questions, take real-time polls and get instantaneous feedback. Students praise his interactive teaching style, the clarity of his lectures, the use of real-world examples and his encouragement of self-learning. Assoc Prof Motani is passionate about mentoring students and nurturing their passion for discovery and learning. He has mentored many undergraduate students who have presented their work in international and local conferences and competitions. Assoc Prof Motani’s status as a leading authority in his specialisation is evidenced by his impactful publications and his appointment to the editorial boards of leading international journals.

FACULTY RESEARCH AWARDProfessor Lian Yong

Prof Lian Yong’s research focuses on solving fundamental issues in the design of low-power wireless biomedical diagnostic and therapeutic devices. He demonstrated several of the world’s first low-power biomedical chips. Prof Lian’s research has won a number of awards, the latest being the Institute of Engineers Singapore’s (IES) Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award in 2011. His technology has been licensed to ClearBridge Vitalsigns Pte Ltd, an NUS spin-off company he co-founded. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, making him the first Asian to be appointed to this prestigious role in the Transaction’s 57-year history. Prof Lian Yong is a Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore (AES) and IEEE.

FACULTY RESEARCH AWARDDr Yeo Yee Chia

Dr Yeo Yee Chia engages key challenges faced by the semiconductor industry and advances the frontiers of transistor technology through the innovative application of new materials, physical phenomena and device structures. He pioneered the use of lattice-mismatched materials such as silicon-carbon to strain transistors, which enabled electronics to operate at significantly higher speeds or lower power. His team created the world’s smallest strained transistor at 3 nanometres, among other numerous first-in-the-world demonstrations of technologies for enhancing transistor performance. Dr Yeo’s work has also been incorporated into the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). His other international achievements include 97 US-issued patents, 490 published journal and conference papers, invitations to speak at more than 30 international conferences and numerous local and international awards. He has also attracted more than S$16 million in funding to the ECE Department.

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

05

Page 8: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

DE

PAR

TM

EN

T

NEW APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTIONS

NEW APPOINTMENTSWe welcome the following new members into our ECE family.

PROF LOW TECK SENG joined the Department as Full Professor on 1 November 2012. Prof Low is currently the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Research Foundation (NRF). Prior to this, he was the Managing Director of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), where he played an instrumental role in implementing and furthering A*STAR’s strategic priorities of driving innovative research and developing scientific talent to support Singapore’s economic and industry development goals. He has also held leadership roles in the education sector including Dean of Engineering in NUS in 1998 and, in 2002, Founding CEO of Republic Polytechnic, the fifth polytechnic in Singapore in 2002. Prof Low has won numerous awards for his achievements and contributions to Singapore including the National Science and Technology Medal in 2004, the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 2007 and was conferred the Honorary Doctor of Science by Southampton University in recognition for his contributions to Singapore and his profession internationally in IEEE in 2009. He was also appointed in 2009 as Chairman of the ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology (COST). Prof Low is a Fellow of IEEE.

MS SUN YAJUAN assumed her duty as Teaching Assistant on 7 February 2013.

FACULTY PROMOTIONS DR ADEKUNLE OLUSOLA ADEYEYE – promotion to Full Professor on 1 July 2012

DR LIANG GENGCHIAU, ALBERT – promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure on 1 July 2012

DR TEO KIE LEONG – promotion to Full Professor on 1 January 2013

DR LEE CHENG KUO, VINCENT – promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure on 1 January 2013

DR GUO YONGXIN – promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure on 1 January 2013

DR HENG CHUN HUAT – promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure on 1 January 2013

ADMINSTRATIVE AND NON-ACADEMIC PROMOTIONS (from 1 January 2013)

MDM CHIA HUANG PIAH – Management Assistant Officer (Grade 2)

MDM HEMAMALINI NATESAPERUMAL – Management Assistant Officer (Grade 3)

MR O YAN WAI LINN – Lab Technologist (Grade 2)

MR TAN CHEE SIONG – Lab Technologist (Grade 2)

MDM S MAINAVATHI – Lab Technologist (Grade 2)

MR ANUWAR BIN SHUKOR – Lab Technologist (Grade 3)

MR NEO HONG KEEM- Lab Technologist (Grade 3)

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

06

Page 9: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

RE

SE

AR

CH

GIVING “TOUCH” BACK TO THOSE WHO LOST ITA team at the Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department has made technological headway through innovations in robotics that focus on the needs of amputees in a social context.

Led by Assistant Professor John-John Cabibihan, who obtained his PhD in biomedical robotics, the team is working on robotics under the overarching theme of “giving touch back to those who lost it”.

For a long time, many researchers worldwide have looked into the functionality and intuitive control of prosthetic limbs. But now, it’s time to look at the social aspects of prosthetic hand design. The team started research in this direction in the late 2000s.

The worldwide market for artificial limbs is estimated to reach US$1 billion by 2016. Dr Cabibihan believes that Singapore can position itself as the hub for functionally and socially acceptable prosthetics in Asia.

Dr Cabibihan said he was inspired by a scene in the movie, Tron (1982), where a hacker named Kevin Flynn found himself zapped from the real world only to be recreated through pixels in cyberspace. “Inspired by this scene, I went to a hospital to obtain Computer Tomography (CT) images of my own hand. I then used the CT data to accurately recreate my hand’s geometry in digital format. From this process, I discovered that it was possible to create prosthetic hands and fingers without using a physical measuring tool or even the presence of an amputee,” said Dr Cabibihan.

His team experimented with synthetic materials that have softness comparable to a real human hand. Later, they were able to devise an embedded temperature control system to make artificial skin feel warm to the touch, at a temperature that is reflective of the surrounding environment – just like real human skin. The results of their touch experiments were tested by blindfolded volunteers, who mostly could not differentiate between the feel of the artificial and human hand.

Besides applications in prosthetics, their breakthroughs have implications on the future of robots that may one day collaborate and communicate with humans through touch and feel.

Dr John-John Cabibihan tests the illusory sense of human touch from a prosthetic hand with soft and warm lifelike features. The ECE team developing the next wave of prosthetic technologies is shown (below)

Dr Cabibihan’s work on the human-robot handshake was featured on the BBC’s “The Why Factor” (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0104gvx). His other works on tactile sensing and artificial skin were also featured in MIT Technology Review, New Scientist, Popular Science, PhysOrg and Discovery News among others.

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

07

Page 10: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

RE

SE

AR

CH

MAGIC CLOSET, TELL ME WHAT TO WEAR!Are you bothered by not knowing what to wear when attending the first Chinese New Year reunion dinner at your in-laws? Are you anxious to make a good first impression on your blind date by dressing smartly? If so, an innovative new creation by Dr Yan Shuicheng’s team at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering will solve such problems.

The invention will act as your personal fashion consultant, dishing out advice and suggestions on clothing for different occasions. It can even let you try on different ensembles with just a wave of your hand. You can do away with the hassle of crowded fitting rooms lined with people waiting outside while you tug at zippers or struggle to fit into attire that is a size too small.

It is little wonder that inventors Dr Yan Shuicheng, Dr Liu Si and Mr Tam V Nguyen of NUS have netted the Best Technical Demonstration Award at the 20th Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Multimedia Conference 2012 held in Nara, Japan. Their novel, award-winning invention was coined the “Magic Closet”, which was jointly developed with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

“The Magic Closet can be used as an i-Phone or Android app for personal use, or as a plug-in system for online shops to help customers choose suitable clothes. It can also be applied at clothing stores to let their customers try out different clothes virtually. To the best of our knowledge, Magic Closet is the first application to investigate the task of occasion-oriented clothing recommendation and pairing, which mines the matching rules among semantic attributes from real images automatically,” said Dr Yan.

Given a user-input occasion, for example, weddings, shopping or dating, Magic Closet intelligently suggests the most suitable attire from the user’s own clothing photo album. Magic Closet can automatically pair the user-specified reference clothing (upper or lower body) with the most suitable option from online shops.

The Magic Closet first catalogues clothes in a wardrobe using a Microsoft Kinect camera to identify defining features such as sleeve length, colour and collar type. When the user asks it for an outfit, the software selects the best matches from its database of 25,000 outfit images taken from online shopping websites and the photo-sharing site Flickr.com – and presents the user with pictures of the selected clothing items.

Some clothing combination examples generated by Magic Closet. The various clothing combinations for each occasion are listed with a scoring bar displayed next to it. The various options are arranged starting from the highest score, to facilitate the user in choosing the appropriate attire

Those database images are then fed into Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) labour market, where online workers categorise the outfits. A state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm is utilised to learn matching rules from the large-scale database. An attribute or occasion is then deemed “legitimate” when more than half the workers agree.

A demo of Magic Closet can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eog_Yblt4E

“Magic Closet is almost ready for use commercially. We are currently fine-tuning it to increase its ability to detect users’ shapes and figures from various angles besides the frontal view. We plan to make use of large-scale annotation data collected from Amazon’s MTurk, such as ‘red’, ‘V-shaped collar and ‘long sleeve’, to develop some machine learning algorithms that further refine retrieval performance,” said Dr Yan.

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

08

Page 11: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

RE

SE

AR

CH

ENGINEERING A “GHOST” – A BREAKTHROUGH IN SCATTERING ILLUSIONA team at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) led by Dr Qiu Cheng-Wei has devised an optical scheme to “engineer” ghosts, which are demonstrated in microwaves. Whenever someone claims he has seen a ghost, the phenomenon may actually be caused by an optical illusion occurring through a wild stroke of nature. The actual engineering of such a phenomenon is the “holy grail” of researchers in the field of optical illusions, electromagnetics and radar detection – not only for the thrill and excitement of being able to create a “ghost”, but because of the implications it will have in science and applications.

The team’s research has opened up a completely new avenue for cognitive deception through light-matter behaviour control, which has wide applications in defence and security. The Ministry of Defence has supported this team’s research in further investigating “ghosting” techniques and making larger microwave devices to achieve radar “ghosts” and aircraft camouflage. The findings will pave the way for the design of new optical and microwave devices for detection and communication.

Dr Qiu’s paper entitled “Creation of Ghost Illusions Using Metamaterials in Wave Dynamics”, was co-authored by Dr Han Tiancheng (Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore), Prof Tie Jun Cui, Dr Wei Xiang Jiang (State Key Laboratory of Millimetre Waves, Department of Radio Engineering, Nanjing, China) and Prof Shuang Zhang (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Birmingham, UK). It will be published in Advanced Functional Materials in March 2013.

The paper reported for the first time the realisation of creating ghosts through electromagnetic scattering and metamaterials, which are artificial materials designed with built-in unnatural properties. Their device is capable of creating more than one virtual ghost image from an actual object. The geometric shape, position and equivalent material properties of these ghost images can be pre-designed and controlled. These ghost images also appear in distributed places away from the real object’s location.

The scientific community has always been enthralled with the idea of creating an illusion that potentially transforms an actual perception into a pre-controlled perception. So far, scientists experimenting with metamaterials in “ghosting” have not had much success in changing the perception of the real object and defining where the ghost should appear. Scientists can only create one ghost at the same location where the real object is.

Dr Qiu’s device can create multiple ghosts away from the original location and can make the real object or person “disappear”. Researchers can also determine how the ghosts look, taking on a different shape or size from the actual object.

“As our work solves several major issues associated with ghost illusion, we believe it will pave the way for future applications of advanced optical illusion, camouflage and cloaking in an interestingly new sense. Our work has enormous potential to enhance our ability to mould, harness and perceive waves at will. I believe it can stimulate new thoughts of realising something extraordinary that is counter-intuitive,” commented Dr Qiu.

The schematic of the ghosting phenomenon

(a) The original metallic object. (b) The metallic object covered by the designed ghost device, metamorphosing scattering feature of the original object.

(c) A shrunk metallic object at the original centre with two wing dielectric objects whose signature is identical to (b).

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

09

Page 12: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ALU

MN

I

IN CONVERSATION WITH MELVIN LOW, CHAIRMAN OF THE NUS ECE ALUMNI COMMITTEEMr Melvin Low, a prominent figure from Class of ’86, CEO of Equvo Pte Ltd and Chairman of the NUS ECE Alumni, recently took some time out of his busy schedule to share a little bit about his life and some candid words of wisdom in an exclusive email interview with EConnEct.

Share some unforgettable experiences you had while a student in NUS. The following incident happened while I was in the second year of my undergraduate studies. I was working on a high voltage project in the lab one day when the lab technician told me he needed to lock up the lab to go for lunch. I told him to lock me in as I would like to work through lunch. Half an hour later, as I was tweaking the nodes of the transformer with a screwdriver, it accidently slipped off one node and went towards the other. A loud noise followed and the lights went off. Before I knew it, I found myself holding a screwdriver with one inch of its metal vaporized. Phew! It could have been my fingers. It was indeed unforgettable and I’m glad to be alive! Lesson learnt: potential hazards involved in high voltage work!

An afterthought came to mind: “Perhaps I should skew my majors towards semiconductors and networking instead. I can’t and won’t get zapped by a 5V logic circuit”.

What are the major milestones in your career thus far?I started work at Hewlett Packard (HP) immediately after

graduation, selling printed circuit board testers. It was a great job and the money was good. I had the chance to travel to Thailand to cater to the then booming disk drive industry supported by an evolving contract manufacturing ecosystem.

Three years later, I was headhunted to join Teradyne as a regional manager for their assembly test business for SE Asia, India and Australia. It was a tough decision. HP was a company I admired. I had a lot of fun working there and I had just met the love of my life (who’s now my wife) there. Around that time, I was contemplating signing up for the MBA programme at Stanford University. I was given a referral letter by a product line manager from Colorado. With the MBA referral letter on one hand and the Teradyne job offer on the other, it was a big dilemma. I eventually decided to take up Teradyne’s offer. Upon joining Teradyne, I found myself to be their youngest regional manager at age 27. The others were Caucasian, Americans, close to or in their 40s. It was a big cultural shock to these managers to accept a young chinese kid from the other end of the earth as a peer. In that job, I had to travel to Boston, where the HQ was located, every quarter. The journey was then a 30-hour flight with three stopovers. Getting to the airport had become part and parcel of alternate Monday morning routines. I visited Australia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines for the first time. I “commuted” to Bangkok and Penang on a monthly basis.

Being a manager forces one into a certain mode of maturity. Your staff avoid lunching with you. Everything you say and what they say in response is never off the record. Listening, planning and motivating people replace doing things yourself, which is so much more controllable. It changed my life. Soon after, I got married, moved into my first house, had my son, cut down on hanging out at pubs and discos on Friday and Saturday nights and waking up past noon on weekends.

I joined Comdisco at the age of 34. Comdisco started as a computer leasing company and I was hired to grow the semiconductor leasing business. A week after joining them, the British Egyptian managing director, moved back home. I moved into his office and was appointed as a board member of the Singapore entity. Although I had little knowledge of the company and the wafer fabrication industry back then, I managed to transform the Asia business from a loss-making computer leasing business to a profitable semiconductor leasing and equipment remarketing business in Singapore and Taiwan.

That move on Valentine’s Day of 1996 was a key milestone. I spent the next 17 years doing the same thing, first in Comdisco, then GE Capital (GE Capital acquired Comdisco’s business in 2002), then Equvo (a company I founded with former colleagues in 2009). Cumulatively, we have leased over US$4.5 billion and transacted over a few thousand pieces of used semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Our team was recognised as the pioneers, the experts and the creative deal makers in our segment.

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

10

Page 13: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ALU

MN

I

How has NUS contributed to your success?NUS is a place where I learned, interacted and developed my thinking. It taught me engineering first principles, business fundamentals and, more importantly, interacting with peers. I firmly believe if you only focus on school work, you’re missing out on the holistic university environment. It is a not just a place to learn but a crucible to develop ideas, relationships and character.

Application, articulation and advancement of newly acquired knowledge far outweighs getting good marks for regurgitating that knowledge. NUS was critical in molding that part of me and, I’m sure, my classmates.

What inspires you to serve as Chairman of the NUS ECE Alumni Committee?Keeping in touch with our Class of ’86 was never a chore. Over the years, our class had kept in touch often. We gathered to celebrate our 5th, 10th and 25th anniversaries. We got together often for informal sessions of golf, lunch or coffee and occasionally Prof AC Liew, Prof CC Hang, Prof TS Low and other lecturers joined us.

Prof AC Liew invited me to serve as Chairman of the NUS ECE Alumni Committee. Since then, my team has started organising events for ECE alumni to get together and we attended some alumni events organised by the Department. Incidentally, two of my nieces and one nephew-in-law are among the alumni.

So I wouldn’t exactly say I was inspired to be the ECE Alumni Committee chairman. It was more like an extension of our class gatherings to the entire ECE alumni committee. Prof. Liew and the Head of Department, Prof KC Chua, asked me to do the job and I agreed.

What do you hope the NUS ECE Alumni Committee can achieve in the short to medium term?We’d love to reconnect ECE alumni via social media or in person. Attendance at alumni events only account for a very small fraction of the alumni population. The NUS ECE Alumni Committee plans to grow that number. More importantly, we want returning alumni to have fun, rekindle old friendships, develop new acquaintances and business contacts.

We should all be proud that we are related to an EE school that was ranked by QS as one the best EE schools outside the US and the UK. So let’s help the Department build a better school with the past achievements and legacy it inherited.

What are your hopes and aspirations for the ECE Department and how can alumni help?My wish for the Department is to have successful alumni who can inspire current students and attract the best brains to ECE. Great colleges have great and successful graduates. Success breeds success. So hopefully, those alumni members who have made it in life can come forth and share their experience with younger alumni members.

I work in Taiwan a lot and they refer to their alumni with terms like “学兄 / 学弟 / 学姐 / 学妹” which means “school-brother/sister” or more appropriately translated: “senior / junior schoolmate”. It somewhat eludes warmth, respect and pride of being part of the same school. This, I urge, should be what the Alumni Committee should strive for, making the NUS ECE community one big family comprising alumni, staff and students.

What skills and qualities do you envision an engineering graduate should have to remain competitive in today’s ever-changing landscape?First is the ability to articulate knowledge and ideas. If you are unable to explain or sell your great ideas, they will only be left aside, ignored and forgotten. Second is to know how to execute your ideas. If something costs too much, takes too long or is simply impossible to implement, even a great idea won’t go too far. Third is the engineering knowledge itself. Learn the fundamentals and keep them in your head forever. Most of the technological advancements we have today are creative and/or complex extensions of the fundamentals. First principles don’t change much; learn them well.

Communicating, convincing and execution have always been most engineers’ weaknesses and these need to be addressed in today’s connected world. Therefore, the first two points outlined above should take precedence over the third.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?It is not easy being an entrepreneur. If you can’t take rejection and are afraid to take risks, you should keep your current corporate, academic or government job.

As an entrepreneur, you have to be the chief sales person, the CFO, the head of operations, the spokesperson and everything else, all rolled into one. When you don’t have business, you would be worrying about survival of your business. When you have too much business, you would have to worry about financing it and finding and retaining talented staff. You won’t get to choose. Thinking, worrying, solving, acting and reacting 24/7 is part of being an entrepreneur.

The reward is hopefully more money, greater fulfillment and perhaps building a legacy. It is not for everyone; some are made for it, some are forced into it. For the future Hewletts, Dells, Moritas, Gates, Jobs and Zuckerbergs studying ECE today, I wish you all my very best....er..., maybe, how about finish school first?! ...and be a legitimate member of the ECE alumni with a B.Eng.!

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

11

Page 14: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ST

UD

EN

T

NUS OPEN DAY 2013 AND ADMISSIONSIt’s the time of the year when graduating ‘A’ Level, International Baccalaureate (IB), NUS High and polytechnic students make their university and degree programme choices.

If you or someone you know is in this situation, then read on for a friendly guide to enrollment in NUS.

Firstly, there is no better way to get to know the university degree programme that you are interested in than to speak to the professors who conduct the programme and the students enrolled in it.

That’s possible at the NUS Open Day 2013 event on Saturday 16 March 2013 at the spanking new EduSports complex at University Town. There are four talks on Engineering at the EduSports Auditorium and Town Plaza Auditorium to give you a wealth of information on the courses on offer. Be sure to visit the Engineering Booth located at Hall 1 in EduSports Level 1 and Dept of ECE’s booth, which is located

on the same level at Seminar Room 3, EduSports Level 1, alongside other Engineering departments and programmes. ECE professors and students are present to share with you the unique features of our well-established ECE degree programmes, namely the B.Eng. (Electrical Engineering) and B.Eng. (Computer Engineering). There are also interesting ECE exhibitions and demonstrations, and even goodies you can bring home with you.

Once you have decided that NUS ECE is the choice for you, the next step is to apply for admission to NUS ECE. The ECE website at www.ece.nus.edu.sg contains an Admissions portal, a one-stop shop that connects you to further information on our B.Eng. (EE) and B.Eng. (CEG) degree programmes. Here you’ll also find information on the admission criteria, the ECE Scholarship, special and double-degree programmes, career paths for ECE graduates and some of our well-known alumni. The NUS ECE degree programmes are highly regarded by many employers across a range of industries and our track record speaks for itself!

The actual application and admissions process is administered centrally by the NUS Office of Admissions, so the next place to go is to visit their website at www.nus.edu.sg/oam/. Here, you will find further information such as detailed NUS admission requirements, timeline for applications, tuition fees and the actual online application form. There is also information about other scholarships and financial aid schemes.

We hope to see you at our booth at the NUS Open Day 2013 and look forward to welcoming you to NUS ECE in August 2013!

ETA KAPPA NU COMES TO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORETHE NUS Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Department has established a new chapter of the IEEE Eta Kappa Nu. The Eta Kappa Nu was founded in 1904 by a small number of electrical engineering students at the University of Illinois who saw a need and a purpose for such an organization. This Alpha Chapter was followed by the Beta Chapter at the Purdue University. Eta Kappa Nu recognizes three qualities in its members – Scholarship, Character and Attitude. Scholarship includes outstanding traditional academic abilities, complemented by good common sense. All members must possess impeccable character, exhibiting sound judgment, with capacity and willingness to work hard. Attitude includes positive outlook, a congenial nature and the ability to work in harmony with all people.

The NUS chapter, called Lambda Omega, is the 3rd honour society for Electrical and Computer Engineering and IEEE-designated fields of interest in Asia Pacific. A group of 10 ECE students took a leap of faith in bringing the ideals and mission of Eta Kappa Nu to Singapore – the first in South East Asia.

Kevin Ardian Fauzie, Boon Le Wei, Sun Chen Chen, Dai Zhongxiang, Lim Junwei, Luo Shixin, Nguyen Phan Minh, Nguyen Quoc Phong, Tang Ting Ting and Shubhendra Agrawal were inducted into the founding Chapter of IEEE-HKN at National University of Singapore (NUS), titled – Lambda Omega.

Professor Paul Cheung, 2012 Director of the IEEE foundation installed the chapter on 2 Feb 2013. One of the most exhilarating moments of the ceremony was when a couple of members represented some of the greatest luminaries in the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering like Maxwell, Wheatstone, Faraday and Babbage.

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

12

Page 15: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ST

UD

EN

T

PRESTO! IT’S JONATHAN, ENGINEERING STUDENT AND MAGICIAN There’s something magical about engineering according to Jonathan Low, a 4th-year Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) student and aspiring David Copperfield. When Jonathan graduates this year, he will join a start-up company in the recruitment industry. However, one thing that will not change is his belief that engineering and magic are intertwined.

“One thing I love about magic is that many of the skills I have learned can be applied to other domains. The main similarity between magic and engineering is that they are both about solving problems. Given a problem, I would first try to work out what possible methods I can use to solve it. I would then test various methods and choose the best one. Finally, I would continue to work with that method and refine it to its best possible state,” said Jonathan. He also pursued his passion for magic by starting a company called Meta Illusions with two fellow magicians.

“I can’t say that an engineer would make a better magician or vice versa because the fundamentals guiding the search for a solution are different. For example, an engineer relies on maths and science while a magician relies on psychology and deception. However, I do believe that the process of studying engineering and magic has strengthened my framework in analysing and solving problems,” reflected Jonathan.

Making use of his engineering skills, Jonathan is employing the latest technological innovations in his magic such as magically producing coins from an iPad. “It started out as an exploration of how I could combine my engineering skills with my love for magic,” reflected Jonathan. “It’s something that I’m still discovering about myself,” he said. Jonathan has also found concepts connecting entrepreneurship and magic. “When I attended the NUS College in Silicon Valley back in 2010, our batch was fortunate enough to take a class under Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur,” remembered Jonathan. Mr Blank taught him Customer Development Methodology, which employs an iterative process to understand customers’ needs in order to improve a product. Jonathan believes that the key to developing strong magic is the adoption of a similar iterative process.

Jonathan first dabbled in magic when his father brought his family to watch the famous magician David Copperfield perform in Singapore. Six years later, he is now deeply involved in the art, even managing to garner prizes including 2nd Runner Up at the Street Magic Competition in 2009. Aside from finding magic enthralling, giving back to the community is another activity that has always been close to his heart.

During Jonathan’s junior college days, he volunteered with the North West Community Development Council (NWCDC) under a programme called the Young Leadership Committee (YLC). One of YLC’s goals is to carry out projects that benefit the community. “Being able to make a small positive difference to others is very meaningful to me,” said Jonathan. He now actively volunteers in a group called Computing Voluntary Welfare Organisations (CVWO) at NUS. CVWO builds systems to help voluntary welfare organisations reduce the resources spent on administrative tasks so that they can focus on helping the less fortunate. Jonathan also heads a project at the Feiyue Family Services Centre (FSC) that maintains the organisation’s IT systems.

Aside from participating in magic, Jonathan was also a member of a string orchestra, having played the cello in secondary school and junior college. However, magic has proven to be the stronger interest, and he has hung up his bow for the time being.

Related links:

Razor TV: http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/86600.html

NUS student pulls coin out from iPad: http://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/blogs/singapore-showbiz/m-magic-joakim-gomez-witness-jonathan-low-pull-013121619.html

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

13

Page 16: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ST

UD

EN

T

SEIZING THE DAY AT NUS ENGINEERINGECE student Joanes Tjoa is a well-rounded student with a passion for experiencing all aspects of campus life. He believes that one should make full use of the opportunities offered by NUS Engineering, both inside and outside of the classroom. Aside from the lecture halls, he has frequented just about every location on campus. Joanes has been an active member with the NUS Students’ Political Association (NUSSPA), where he served as vice project director from 2009-2010. He was also actively involved in the ExxonMobil Campus Concert from 2009-2012, starting as a crew member and rising to the position of production manager.

Currently, Joanes is working on his final-year project involving nano-satellites at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE). He is among the 2nd cohort of students participating in the new Nano-Satellite Programme, which aims to design and build a nano-satellite. Joanes, a Singapore Polytechnic graduate, believed that the NUS experience not only improved his design skills, but was a life-changing experience. “I was shortlisted for an ASEAN Scholarship based on my academic results, but I didn’t get it. That was when I realised that scholarly excellence was not enough. After my admission into NUS, I understood that I needed more than just academic excellence to survive, so I decided to expand my horizons by taking advantage of the extracurricular opportunities available at NUS,” he explained.

He took more than the usual three years poly graduates need to achieve their BEng degree because he needed to look after his ill father. However, he appreciated the “extra” time, realising that life is about more than just finishing the race first. Joanes chose to look after his father, a finance officer, because his younger brother had recently begun work after graduating from poly and his younger sister was still in high school. To help support the family, he took half a year off to work as an intern with ExxonMobil and attended evening classes two times a week to catch up with his engineering studies at NUS.

Beyond the classroom

“The wide exposure that NUS provided really widened my outlook on life and enhanced my EQ,” said Joanes. An example was his success in getting an NUS Awards for Study Abroad (NASA) grant to go to Tsinghua University in Beijing for a half-year exchange programme.

“I wanted to challenge myself, so I specifically chose Tsinghua because most of the courses were delivered in Chinese. I initially wanted to take courses taught in English, but upon finding out that they were cancelled, I decided to go ahead anyway. It was very tough, but I wanted to thank my father for teaching me to read and write Chinese when I was younger,” related Joanes. He also believed that having good friends in Tsinghua had helped him through his difficulties.

Clinching the job at Barclays

Better times may be ahead now that he has secured a job with Barclays as a technologist-analyst and will be starting in July, a position which was offered after his internship. On attaining his internship after three interviews, Joannes said: “At Barclays, interns are not stop-gap measures but are viewed as potential employees. The company believes in nurturing them for the job. During my internship, I was provided with financial training and networking skills so that I could interact with industry professionals. I have no difficulties working with a global team, liaising with my counterparts in London, Sydney, Tokyo and those based in Singapore. Barclays also provides opportunities to develop our potential and to nurture a sense of social responsibility through voluntarism with charity organisations.”

Joanes Tjoa believes in making the most out of the opportunities NUS Engineering provides. This picture shows him in Tianjin and Beijing, where he was at studying Tsinghua University as an exchange student

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

14

Page 17: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ST

UD

EN

T

Students counting the number of M&M’s in a jar to learn about the packing efficiency of crystalline lattice structures, as workshop instructor Casey Thomas looks on

Prof Wu Yihong and Prof Adekunle Adeyeye having an engaging discussion with the students over lunch

Students working on their solar cells made with raspberries

ECE OUTREACH WORKSHOP – INTRODUCTION TO NANOTECHNOLOGYFrom 3-4 December 2012, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) organised a two-day workshop to reach out to pre-university students interested in nanotechnology. Over the course of the event, students attended lectures, got to take part in hands-on demonstrations and even conducted real experiments to learn about what nanotechnology holds for the future.

On the first day, the Department welcomed 20 pre-university students from Raffles Junior College, Victoria Junior College, Hwa Chong Junior College and NUS High School who took part in a workshop that focused on linking theoretical concepts that they learned in school to those in nanotechonology. In between lectures, students were engaged in fun activities that reinforced the nanotechnology concepts they had learned. One such activity involved calculating the number of M&M’s in a jar of known volume to help students grasp the concept of packing efficiency in the context of crystalline lattice structures.

A key highlight on the first day was a lunch discussion forum with Prof Adekunle Adeyeye, Prof Wu Yihong and Assoc Prof Albert Liang, who work in nanotechnology-related areas, as students took the opportunity to ask questions about their research and real-world nanotechnology applications. They were also given guided lab tours of the Centre for Integrated Circuit Failure Analysis & Reliability (CICFAR) and the Spin and Energy Lab (SEL), where they were briefed by the Department’s research scholars on the nanotechnology facilities and their capabilities.

The second day of the workshop centered on showcasing nanotechnology applications. Following a lecture on the principles of solar cells, the students headed to the CICFAR lab to construct their very own solar cell, and were amazed that raspberries could be used to make dye-sensitised solar cells. The final event of the day involved a lively debate on the ethics of nanotechnology, sparking creative and impassioned arguments for and against the use of nanotechnology, which made students think about the ethical responsibilities of nanotechnologists.

The workshop was organized and conducted by Asst Prof Ho Ghim Wei and PhD student Casey Thomas of the Microelectronic Technologies & Devices (MTD) area. Through the successful two-day event, students learned about the theory and applications of nanotechnology, interacted with ECE faculty and research scholars and gained hands-on experience creating their own nanotechnology devices.

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

15

Page 18: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ST

UD

EN

T

GRADUATE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENTS

High-speed Transmission of Incoherent Light without Dispersion Compensation

Zaineb Al-Qazwini, a PhD student, received the Best Student Paper award at the 17th OptoElectronics and Communications Conference (OECC) held in Korea in July 2012. Her entry, entitled “Transmission of 10-Gb/s incoherent light over 20-km SSMF without dispersion compensation”, proposed the use of an ultra-narrow spectrum-sliced incoherent light source for the transmission of 10-Gb/s incoherent light signals over 20-km dispersion-uncompensated standard single-mode fibre (SSMF). This is the longest transmission distance reported for a 10-Gb/s incoherent light signal over dispersion-uncompensated SSMF.

Spectrum-sliced incoherent light sources are cost effective, generate multiple wavelength channels and are robust against fibre nonlinearity and optical reflection, making these

sources attractive candidates for wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) passive optical networks (PONs) where deploying wavelength-specific light sources for each channel is costly. In these light sources, a wideband amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) from an optical amplifier is sliced into multiple channels by an arrayed waveguide grating. The conventional approach to accommodating high-speed data using a spectrum-sliced incoherent light source is to increase the optical bandwidth. This approach poses several problems when the data rate is 2.5 Gb/s and higher. For example, a large optical bandwidth makes high-speed optical signals vulnerable to fibre dispersion and makes the incoherent light signal sensitive to optical filtering. Zaineb’s work proposes using ultra-narrow spectrum-sliced incoherent light (3-dB bandwidth ~0.01 nm) for 10-Gb/s downstream WDM-PON systems. A wideband ASE is first generated using an Erbium-doped fibre amplifier and then a fibre Fabry-Perot filter (3-dB bandwidth ~0.006 nm) is utilised for spectrum slicing. The ultra-narrow spectrum-sliced light is intensity-smoothed using a gain-saturated semiconductor optical amplifier, and then modulated at 10 Gb/s. Thanks to its narrow linewidth, the proposed light source can be used for 10-Gb/s downstream transmission in WDM PONs. Zaineb is supervised by Dr Kim Hoon.

Two-dimensional Hybrid-driven MEMS Scanning Mirror

Koh Kah How, a PhD student, emerged as the winner of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Region 10 Postgraduate Student Paper Contest (2012). His paper entitled “A low voltage-driven 2-D MEMS scanning mirror using hybrid actuation mechanism” presented a new actuation mechanism to drive a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) mirror for two-dimensional scanning display applications.

In the optical MEMS regime, microstructures including mirrors, lenses and gratings are driven to move or deform by actuators so that unique functions such as beam steering can be achieved. In recent years, optical MEMS devices have created growing interest, fuelled in part by the emergence of handheld pico projectors, which have intriguing applications in consumable electronics, IT and the amusement industries. Kah How proposed a novel, complementary

metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) compatible MEMS scanning mirror based on a hybrid actuation mechanism that allows for fast line scans to be driven by electromagnetic actuators operating at mechanical resonance. This faster line scan is produced on the horizontal axis, while a slower sweep driven by electrothermal actuators is produced on the orthogonal vertical axis. This is different from prior MEMS scanning mirror designs where the two orthogonal scanning axes are driven by the same actuation method. Furthermore, its CMOS compatible fabrication process allows for easy monolithic integration of integrated electronics to control the actuation. The low operating voltage makes the proposed MEMS scanning mirror potentially suitable for mobile pico projector applications powered by batteries with limited capacity. Kah How is supervised by Assoc Prof Vincent Lee Chengkuo.

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6

16

Page 19: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

ST

UD

EN

T

Anti-reflective and Self-cleaning Packaging Glass for Solar Modules

Mridul Sakhuja, a PhD student, received the Student Award for having the most outstanding research work in the field of “Components for PV Systems” at the 27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition 2012 (EUPVSEC 2012) held in Frankfurt, Germany in September 2012.

His entry entitled “Anti-reflective and self-cleaning packaging glass for solar modules” reported a non-lithographic technique that fabricates nanopatterned glass using metal nanoparticles as an etching template, leading to improved outdoor durability and performance. While previous works in the field of photovoltaics strive to overcome the intricate problems inside the solar cell itself, this unusual and unique research topic focused on improving the performance of

packaging glass. The approach of texturing glass makes it self-cleaning, provides an increase in the transmission of incoming light at all angles of incidence, is scalable up to large substrate sizes and overcomes inherent fabrication problems in techniques such as self-assembly and nano-imprint lithography. Mridul is jointly supervised by Dr Aaron Danner and Prof C S Bhatia.

Bio-inspired Fishlike Underwater Vehicle

Abhra Roy Chowdhury, a PhD student, received the Best Student Paper award for his entry entitled “Implementation of a BCF Mode Biomimetic Robotic Fish Underwater Vehicle based on Lighthill Mathematical Model”, at the 12th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS 2012) held in Jeju, Korea in October 2012.

In this work, Abhra mimicked the propulsion mechanism of the Body Caudal Fin (BCF) carangiform swimming motions of a fish as it efficiently navigates over large distances at impressive speeds. His approach was to integrate a robotic fish model for kinematics and dynamics, with the Lighthill (LH) mathematical model to formulate undulation-based propulsion in a fluid environment. An inverse kinematics-based approach was incorporated for the trajectory generation of the robotic fish’s motion. Through

a comprehensive study of the various parameters affecting propulsion such as the tail-beat frequency (TBF), the propulsive wavelength and the caudal amplitude, TBF proved an effective control parameter for the forward speed of the robotic fish over wide operating conditions. An additional contribution of this work is the modelling of a single rigid body propeller-based vehicle as an n-joint multibody system. Abhra is currently investigating the hydrodynamics of the robotic fish swimming in a straight line and its motion control on a two-dimensional plane. Abhra is supervised by Assoc Prof Panda Sanjib Kumar.

Improved Magnetoresistance in Co/Pd Multilayers with Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotrophy

Taiebeh Tahmasebi, a recently graduated PhD student, won 2nd Prize at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Region 10 Postgraduate Student Paper Contest (2012).

Her paper entitled “CoxFe80-xB20 saturation magnetization effect on observation of improved magnetoresistance in Co/Pd multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotrophy”, presented an improved magnetoresistance signal in pseudo-spin valve (PSV) films after annealing. Previous studies reported magnetoresistance signal degradation upon annealing and explained that this phenomenon resulted mainly from diffusion effects at the interfaces of the Co/Pd layers, between the layers and through the spacer. Taiebeh’s experimental work however showed that with improved interface quality and annealing at a certain temperature, an improved magnetoresistance signal can be obtained. Taiebeh’s paper also provided a comprehensive

study of the magnetoresistance signal’s dependence on the magnetic bilayers’ crystallinity. Taiebeh was jointly supervised by Prof Chong Tow Chong, formerly of the ECE Department, and Dr Seidikkurippu N. Piramanayagam from the Data Storage Institute (DSI).

E.C

ON

NE

CT

M

AR

CH

201

3

IS

SU

E 6

17

Page 20: NUS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING LAUNCHES NEW · PDF file... highly successful programs such as the NUS Overseas Colleges and double degree programs ... Computer Engineering, NUS ... BUSINESS

E.C

ON

NE

CT M

AR

CH

2013 ISS

UE

6A

NN

OU

NC

EM

EN

T

If you have any comments on this issue or would like to contribute an article for subsequent ones, please email to [email protected].

DCP TEAMS GARNER TOP PRIZES AT NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE COMPETITION

ECE GRADUATION NIGHT 2013Looking to strengthen your existing ties with ECE friends and expand your network with new professional contacts? Do you want to enjoy a night of fun with your fellow graduates, parents and loved ones? Grab this wonderful opportunity to enjoy an unforgettable graduation party at ECE Graduation Night 2013 in July. Admission is free!

Date: July 2013 (Date to be confirmed)Time: 6:30 pm to 9:00 pmVenue: Shaw Foundation Alumni House

6TH ECE ALUMNI FAMILY DAY 2013Don’t forget to mark the Department’s alumni homecoming event of the year in your diary! Organised especially for ECE alumni, your family will enjoy a day filled with fun and educational activities and events that everyone will enjoy. Even better, admission to ECE Alumni Family Day 2013 is absolutely free!

Date: Saturday, 24 August 2013Time: 4.30pm to 8pmVenue: To be announced

Two Design-Centric Programme (DCP) teams garnered top prize at the National Climate Change Competition (NCCC) Technology Project Challenge 2012, themed “Singapore: A Climate Change Resilient City”.

Organised by the National Climate Change Secretariat, the competition challenges youths to utilise technology and innovation to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.

Participants spent four months developing theirprototypes. Team Greenerds, comprising Set Zhi Wei (4th-year Electrical Engineering) and Tay Xyian Xiet (4th-year Mechanical Engineering), took home the first prize in the tertiary category with their entry, “Energy Efficient Humidity-Controlled Cooling System”. Team Utopia Sustainis took the second prize in the same category.

Team Greenerds, while researching on air-conditioning, discovered that the idea that humidity affects our perception of temperature has hardly been explored. Explains Zhi Wei: “In our proposed system, the dehumidification process is carried out by the dehumidification add-on. Hence it offloads the task of dehumidification from the air-conditioner, leading to the air-conditioner spending more of its power in cooling rather than dehumidifying.”

Utopia Sustainis, comprising Eric Christianto (3rd-year Environment Engineering), Md Syeem Morshed Joy (3rd-year Electrical Engineering), Shruti Sanjay Tandon (3rd-year Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering) and Benjamin Yap (3rd-year Computer Engineering) submitted their work, “Creating a Rewarding Food Waste Recycling Experience in the Singapore Context”, with the idea of creating an integrated system that encourages food stall owners to recycle food waste.

Mr Set Zhi Wei (left) and Mr Tay Xyian Xiet with their award-winning solution to fight climate change

18