DEPARTMENT OF
The University of Akron
College of Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Summer 2015
Message from the Acting Chair
“Until we meet again . . . ”
This is the time of the year when we bid farewell to our departing seniors. It is always exciting to see the
glow on their faces when they realize that they have completed a rigorous 4 year program (or 5 years for
those who completed co-ops), and that they are highly sought after by either industry or graduate schools!
Given the quality of the senior projects I observed (more on this on page 4), this is not surprising!
This year we were well represented at the 26th Annual College of Engineering Honors and Awards Banquet.
Students recognized for their high GPA’s were (from left to right), George Adam Fries and Jordan Koppelberger
(both majoring in Computer Engineering), Jeffrey Blair, Justin Fiser, Robert Medina, Zacharay Morehead and
Kellen Reusser (the latter group majoring in Electrical Engineering). Of these students, Jordan Koppelberger
and Robert Medina also received Engineering Trajectory Awards, each worth $10,000!
To these students — and all those going to work in industry or federal research labs — we wish you well!
Brian L. Davis, Ph.D
bdavis3@uakron.edu
Factoid
Electrical and Computer Engineering currently has about 500 undergraduate students,
and in the last four years has grown by 55%
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
Professor of Electrical Engineering joins elite class for ELATE at Drexel
Dr. Joan Carletta, professor of electrical and
computer engineering,
has been selected as a
2015-16 Fellow for the
Executive Leadership in
Academic Technology
and Engineering
(ELATE at Drexel) program. This elite, one of
a kind professional development program is
designed for women
who are in STEM disciplines at academic institutions. Fellows are
Professor Joan Carletta
nominated and then
mentored by their dean with the goal of developing
diverse and strong leaders who are prepared to address emerging issues within their colleges, universities, and professional communities.
Dr. Carletta joined the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering at The University of Akron in
1999. She earned a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering
from Case Western Reserve University in 1996, and
a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1988.
In 2009, Dr. Carletta was on the team that won the
Moody Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Fluids Engineering Division. She is a
senior member of the Institute for Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Dr.
Carletta served as a member of IEEE Women in Engineering Committee and the IEEE Educational Activity Board. In 2010, Carletta led the IEEE effort to
develop first-year student curriculum that shows societal impact of engineering.
ELATE at Drexel is a core program of the International Center for Executive Leadership in Academics
within the Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership at Drexel University College of Medicine in PhilThe incoming class for ELATE at Drexel includes 31
adelphia, Pa. For more information on the ELATE
experienced and diverse women faculty from 22 difcurriculum, faculty and participants, visit
ferent institutions across the country.
www.drexel.edu/engineering/ELATE.
Note: Reprinted from UA News
ECE Teams take part in NSF I-corps site summer program
This summer, 13 teams are participating in the NSF I-corps site program, including two from ECE.
Dr. Ryan Toonen and his team are focusing on commercial applications of sensor systems for detecting corrosion even before it becomes a problem!
Dr. Seungdeog Choi and hos team are focusing on an energy-efficient electric bike motor wheel.
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
Professor Veillette earns Outstanding Teacher Award
Dr. Robert Veillette is this year's recipient of the
Outstanding Teacher Award. The associate
professor of electrical and computer engineering
joined UA’s College of Engineering in 1990.
Veillette is described as having “a laser focus on
helping engineering students succeed,” both inside
and outside the classroom.
In addition to advising many undergraduate
electrical engineering students, Veillette has
directed five Ph.D. students on their dissertations
and 22 master’s level students on their theses. He
has served on more than 70 other doctoral or
master’s committees, and helped direct at least 18
senior projects, involving more than 60
undergraduates.
Veillette served as the Accrediting Board for
Engineering and Technology coordinator for the
department’s 2013 program accreditation
evaluation, which resulted in the maximum
accreditation awarded by ABET.
He was previously honored with the College of
Engineering Chemstress Outstanding Teacher
Award in 1999, and the Honors College Advising
Award in 2014.
In summing up his professor, Matt Granger, a
senior EE student, writes this: “There are educators
who teach because it is a job, and then there are
educators who teach because it is their calling. After
being his student and advisee for half a decade, I
can say with absolute confidence that Dr. Veillette’s
passion is education.”
(Top) At the start of a class he was about to teach, Prof.
Veillette was surprised by an unannounced visit from
President Scott Scarborough and Provost Mike Sherman.
(Bottom) Prof. Bob Veillette with his award.
Photos courtesy of Scott Horstman Photography.
Firestone Award to Dr. Jin Kocsis
Dr. Jin Kocsis was one of three faculty in the College of Engineering to receive
a 2015 Firestone Research Initiative Fellowship Award. There were 14
proposals submitted this year, and the top three were selected. Dr. Kocsis’
research focuses on “Big Data” analysis, cyber-physical security, and
biologically inspired intelligent system design.
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
Zips Aero Design team lands in 1st place, breaks own world record
The University of Akron's Zips Aero design team
once again earned the top prize at the 2015 SAE
Aero Design West competition in Van Nuys, California April 24-26. The team finished 1st overall and set
a new record for accuracy in the Advanced Class
competition — breaking their own world record from
2014—and finished 3rd overall out of 41 teams competing in the Regular Class competition.
“We brought home seven awards this year,” says
electrical engineering student and team cocaptain Elizabeth Hammell. “Team morale is quite
high!”
The object of the Advanced Class competition is to
drop three-pound sandbags onto targets on the
ground from 100 feet in the air. UA's Advanced Class
plane, “Thunder,” features an on-board camera and
sensors, which transmit data including airspeed and
altitude to the ground station. In order to release the
sandbag at the right moment, a co-pilot watches the
camera and data and instructs the pilot when to drop
the bag.
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With a better camera and improved camera feed in
tow this year, the team managed to hit 7’ 3” from the
target, improving upon last year’s 7’11” record-setting
drop. According to Hammell, the next closest team
dropped a bag more than 20 feet from the target.
Mechanical engineering senior Evan Heinrich led the
team in aircraft design, focusing on a brand new fuselage with aerodynamic fixtures to reduce drag as
part of his senior design project.
“We made the wing much stronger this year,” says
Heinrich. “Plus, it was designed to handle crosswind
better. Our goal was to build a more stable, aerodynamic plane.”
In the Regular Class competition, the team was
scored on their aircraft’s reliability, weight and payload, as well as a technical report and presentation to
Lockheed Martin employees. The goal is to design
and build a plane that can carry as much payload as
possible, and also to be able to predict well what that
payload will be.
Zips Aero is led by faculty adviser Dr. Greg Morscher,
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
Faculty Promotions: Drs. Arjuna Madanayake and Hamid Bahrami
Two faculty recently received tenure: Dr. Arjuna Madanayake and Dr. Hamid Bahrami. To get a glimpse into their backgrounds, each was asked a series of questions:
Question 1: Can you briefly describe your research interests?
AM: My research includes analog and digital signal processing, multi-dimensional systems and signal processing, wireless
communications, radar and FPGAs systems. I have particular interests in antenna arrays and RF processing using highspeed digital systems.
HB: My research is mainly in the general area of wireless communications and signal processing. I am interested in advancing the science of communications networks to make them more spectral and energy efficient.
Question 2: What led you to choose UA for your faculty appointment?
AM: I enjoyed my on-campus visit because everyone I met was both friendly and welcoming. I
could see that there was ample opportunity for collaboration in a dynamic and rapidly-growing department. The department was supportive of new faculty via a competitive Startup Package on par
with the best universities in the country. So when I received an offer, it was a no brainer.
HB: When I came to UA to interview for my job position, I was convinced that the ECE department
(and the UA College of Engineering) is a good environment to teach and do research. It has excellent faculty and necessary facilities and infrastructures to help me do my job and be as productive
as possible.
Question 3: What courses do you teach?
AM: Digital Logic Design is my favorite. I also teach Active Circuits and Programmable Logic. I
have two graduate courses on "Advanced Array Signal Processing" and "Fast Algorithms and
VLSI for DSP".
HB: Digital Communications (fall), Advanced Wireless Communications (fall), Introduction to
Communications Systems (spring), and Wireless Communications (spring). Last fall I also taught,
for the first time, Tools for Electrical Engineering Laboratory.
Drs. Madanayake (top) &
Bahrami (lower panel)
Question 4: What are your plans going forward?
AM: I will work with colleagues to build up the millimeter wave and terrahetz research strength in our department. It
is important to improve our facilities and research capacity to cover sensing, electronics, and communications in the 50 GHz1 THz band. I truly believe the future is in high frequency research and we need to be working on related areas now.
HB: First, keep doing what I’m doing (sometimes you should just be persistent)! I also would like to expand my research to
span multiple (isolated) research areas such as communications, security, big data, and smart grid. I would also like to enhance our course offerings in my area at the graduate and undergraduate level. For example, I have been contemplating on
establishing an undergraduate communications lab for some time now.
Question 5: Any key people who helped you succeed towards tenure?
AM: Yes, many. But I think my graduate students played the biggest role. I truly am grateful for their untiring efforts and dedication in the lab. Having such wonderful students is truly a blessing
Question 6: What is missing in our department?
HB: I think we need to continue hiring high-caliber young faculty members in emerging and fundable areas. To be successful, we need to create more synergy and traction between different research areas. As I said, we have excellent faculty members, but we should increase our interaction internally and also with external world. One simple mechanism is to invite renowned researchers for seminars and for attending PhD defense committees.
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
24th Annual Faraday Banquet
The evening is named for Michael Faraday, a founder
of electrical engineering. His discovery of
electromagnetic induction is the basis for
electrodynamics machinery, generators, motors, core
memory and transformers.
The Faraday Evening is an annual event, bringing
together the students and faculty of the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering. The purpose of
the evening is to enjoy each other’s company and to
honor several student leaders. This year the award
recipients were:
Undergraduate scholars:
 Benjamin Riggs (CpE) and Edward Robertson
(EE)
Undergraduate Student Engineers:
 Jordan Koppelberger (CpE)
 Andrew Forchione (EE)
Graduate Teaching Assistants:
 Mike Gasper
 Matt Granger
Graduate Researcher:
 Marcus Horning
Faraday showing that magnetism affects light.
(Published before 1923 and in the public domain in the US.)
2015 C.F. Chen Senior Design Awards
 First Place: Electronic Learning Guitar (Justin
Fiser, Kellen Reusser, Jacob Barb & Mike Bolin)
 Second Place: Disc Golf Locator (Shane Gamble, Brandon Linhart, Noah Sanor & Chris
Wallenfelsz)
 Third Place: Self-balancing Two-wheeled Robot
Butler (T. Garabedian, D. Laubli, N. Patel, J. Paul
& M. Redle)
Licensing Opportunities
Method for Real-time Implementable Local Tone System and Method for Polarimetric Wavelet
Mapping for High Dynamic Range Images. Patent Fractal Detection and Imaging. Patent Publication
Publication No. US 2009/0041376. Inventor(s)
No. US 2013/0308132. Inventor: Giakos, George
Carletta, Joan E. / Hassan, Firas H.
Molecular and Photonic Nanostructures, Optical
Battery Pack Manager Unit and Method for Using Biomaterials, Photo-Sensitizers, Molecular
Same to Extend the Life of a Battery Pack. Patent Contrast Agents, and Metamaterials. Patent
Publication No. WO 2010/118039. Inventors: Hartley, Publication No. US 2010/0133488 Inventor: Giakos,
Tom T. / Magistro, Benjamin W. / Gras, Courtney A. / George.
Clester, Rick / Faustick, Andrew
Thermal Energy Harvesting Device. Patent
Publication No. US 2014/0083095. Inventors:
Engeberg, Erik D. / Hariharan, Subramaniya I. / Li,
Yinan
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If anyone would like more information on these
licensing opportunities, please contact Sue Dollinger
at sed@uakron.edu.
Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
NASA Robotics Mining Competition
NASA’s Sixth Annual NASA Robotic Mining
Competition is for university-level students to design
and build a mining robot that can traverse the
simulated Martian chaotic terrain, excavate Martian
regolith and deposit the regolith into a Collector Bin
within 10 minutes. The complexities of the challenge
include the abrasive characteristics of the basaltic
regolith simulant, the weight and size limitations of the
mining robot, and the ability to tele-operate it from a
remote mission control center.
The final overall placement amongst the 46 schools
will be announced at the end of June, but as of the
end of the competition The University of Akron was in
4th place for the mining portion. They were also
The Zips Robotic Mining Team — photograph taken at
awarded second place for team spirit, which
Kennedy Space Center, Florida in May this year.
demonstrates positive attitude and a willingness to
help other teams.
New Advisory Board Member!
We welcome a new member to our department’s
Advisory Board: Mr. Michael Terry:

President and co-founder of Sanctuary Software
Studio, Inc., a software applications developer
and multimedia content producer for business,
since 1994

Software engineer for FORRY, Inc. from
1991 – 1994

Consultant with Goodrich Aerospace from
1988 – 1993

Patent holder (#6384611), along with five others,
for an ice thickness detector

Member of The University of Akron Computer
Science Advisory Board

Graduate – The University of Akron, B.S.E.E.,
1991, minor in computer science
 Member of the Honors College
 Extracurriculars: Eta Kappa Nu (Electrical
Engineering), Institute of Electrical Engineers
(IEEE)
Mr. Michael Terry
President, Sanctuary
Software Studio, Inc.
Akron, Ohio
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Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
Thoughts from Alumnus Scott Boswell
Sco Boswell was recently on campus to a end a presen- ta on that his daughter gave to the Board of Trustees. Q1. When did you study at UA? I started in the fall of 1985 and graduated in the spring of 1990 with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. Q2. What are your favorite memories here? Studying in Bierce Library with my future wife (Melissa's mom), hanging out in the Chuckery (the old student un- ion) commisera ng with classmates a er a tough exam, and playing around with the computers in the engineer ing labs. Q3. Favorite and least favorite courses? Scott Boswell with his daughter at the Board of
Trustees meeting in April.
I enjoyed most of my elec ve courses, such as computer architecture and ac ve circuits. Electromagne c circuits and transmission lines were not quite as enjoyable, but they were s ll be er than Western Culture, and Eastern Civiliza on! My wife is a registered nurse so we compromised and made her go into Biomedical engineering. Actually, she knew a er high school that college was the only op on, and based on her strong interest and talent for math and science, she ul mately decided that biomedical engineerQ4. Did your parents influence me in my decision to ing was a good fit for her. go into Electrical Engineering? Q6. You were recently on campus to a end a My Dad was always working on DIY projects around the presenta on your daughter gave to the Board of Trushouse such as adding a family room addi on, fixing cars tees. What was that like? and lawn equipment, etc. I really enjoyed helping out and nkering around with electrical/mechanical devices. My It was nice to see the range of people, including students dad also bought a Coleco Adam computer when I was in and professors that were involved with the board mee ng. high school that supported the Basic programming language, from which I developed a strong interest in programming. My parents did not a end college, but knew the opportuni es it could open, so there was never any ques on that I would go to college. I ended up picking electrical engineering since it offered a broad range of interes ng special es such as circuit design and computer architecture. Q5. Did you encourage your daughter to enter the engineering field? 10
Q7. Can you describe your current work? My first job was doing embedded so ware development for communica on equipment at the NSA, and I have con nued with embedded so ware development throughout my career. I have worked with hea ng and cooling control systems and building automa on at Novar Controls (now part of Honeywell), and I am currently working as a so ware engineer developing wireless access points for Cisco Systems in Richfield. Electrical and Computer Engineering | The University of Akron
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DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Auburn Science and
Engineering Center
(ASEC) 156
The University of Akron
Akron, OH 44325-3904
330-972-7649
Senior Presentation Day
Web: ece.uakron.edu
Senior Design Projects were on display on Friday, April 17 at Quaker Square Station. Teams showcasing their efforts included students who had designed and built an LED learning guitar, a portable aerial RF repeater, a virtual
co-pilot system, a monitoring system for electric motors, an upright robot that could balance on two wheels and an
elephant tracking system!
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