Development of power system protection laboratory through senior design projects

This paper describes a novel power system laboratory at Birla Vishvakarma Mahavidyalaya (B.V.M.) Engineering College, Gujarat, India, where every experiment was designed, wired and commissioned through senior design projects. The experiments on power system protection are especially unique in terms of their design and implementation and will be highlighted in this paper. They provide a real substation-like operating environment. Through these projects, the students, in addition to getting familiar with the fundamentals of protection, learned how different protection schemes are wired and how they operate in a real power system. For the institute, a quality laboratory was established at a low cost, which is a crucial issue for most colleges in many parts of the world.     

Power engineering design projects: capstone team projects versus topical design courses

Over the years, Michigan Tech has had two different philosophies for teaching design in the power area. Initially, we integrated design into topical courses, teaching the material the students would need to complete the design. Presently, our students complete year-long, industry-sponsored projects. We will give details on the implementation of the two approaches and compare and contrast the outcomes. Both techniques for teaching design have their advantages and disadvantages.     

Microstrip design laboratory

Design concepts, fabrication, measurements, and optimization of a microstrip filter, directional coupler, and amplifier are presented. The microstrip circuit implementation is simple and easily alterable for optimization. Results from an undergraduate laboratory course are presented which show reasonable agreement with design parameters, and the optimization process adds to the educational experience     

Computer communications student design projects

Three undergraduate design projects in the field of computer communications are described: a microprocessor-controlled private branch exchange (PBX); a ring type local area network; and a computer network design software project. These projects are particularly useful for allowing students to integrate course work in communications, microprocessors, and digital logic and software. Readings for each project which are suitable for undergraduate students are also listed. The undertaking of these projects is divided into four phases. Initially, the students perform reading on the technology in question. This is followed by an initial hardware design and/or software design. During the next (construction) phase, the initial plan is usually modified. Finally, experimentation and modifications are carried out with the completed system. Students typically underestimate the time it will take to produce operational hardware and software. Thus, the faculty advisor's most important task is to see that it is completed in time to allow experimentation     

Research-oriented junior/senior design projects: an analog circuit design example

Briefly, the advantages of offering research-oriented design projects for undergraduate students of particular interest and talent are discussed. A successful research-based analog circuit design project is described as an example. The project is concerned with developing bipolar transistor circuit cells capable of realizing arbitrary nonlinear current transfer characteristics in piecewise-linear form using the Static Translinear Principle (STLP). The obtained results are shown.     

Narrow-band microwave filter design

In this article, Dishal's concepts, EM simulation, and the port-tuning concept are combined as a powerful procedure for narrow-band filter design. When applied to an EM-based filter prototype, port tuning gives a direct indication of the magnitude and direction of the tunings needed to correct coupling errors and resonator frequency errors. An EM-based filter prototype potentially captures all the physics of the real hardware and includes second-order effects that may be impossible to describe using analytical models. After iteratively reducing all the errors in the EM-based prototype, the first hardware prototype that was built will meet performance goals. This design methodology can be applied to simple all-pole Chebyshev filters and to more complex cross-coupled filters that place transmission zeros in the stopbands.     

Woodwind design uses microwave theory

Woodwind musical instruments consist of holes and tubes that enable a musician to play different notes. Woodwinds can be modeled with open holes as short circuits and tubes as transmission lines. An instrument can be designed by modeling all of the sections and fingering configurations. Transmission-line approximations and cascaded transmission-line theory can be used to model woodwind instruments, such as the flute, crumhorn and cornetto. In fact, the same transmission-line equations and approach of breaking a circuit into small sections are used for microwave circuit design. In this article, this approach is applied to design a crumhorn using commercially available Lucite tubing. After fabrication, good agreement is obtained between the measured performance and the theoretical predictions     

A hands-on microwave laboratory course using microstrip circuits

The microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum provides an excellent vehicle for introducing electromagnetic concepts. Unfortunately, the relatively high cost of microwave experiments make it difficult to reinforce lecture material with laboratory exercise. A discussion is presented as to how a CAD program and a nonconventional fabrication procedure have been used in a two-semester microwave course at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY to design and build a variety of low-cost microstrip circuits     

Innovative communications oriented design projects in mechatronicscourses

Microprocessors are fast becoming essential components for the design of communication oriented products. The design of such products is illustrated by projects drawn from microprocessor design courses taught at the George Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. The courses' emphasis is on an integrated, multidisciplinary, concurrent design philosophy: group oriented working and communication skills; independent investigations of new material; and a viewpoint of practical, hands-on instruction. The projects emphasize a concurrent design philosophy where hardware and software design are simultaneously developed. The projects also emphasize low-cost components and user-friendly interfaces suitable for consumer product design     

Engineering education, design and senior projects

The role of senior year projects in engineering education is addressed. The author examines the meaning of design in relation to the senior project experience and offers the distinction between, in the author's terminology, discrete design and continuous design. The ability to do continuous design comes from a sound theoretical background, and expertise in discrete design comes more from experience. On this basis, it is argued that the education of an engineer is a partnership between university and industry, with the university providing the theory and industry giving experientially accumulated instinct. In providing in-house senior design programs, universities have imposed the fiction that they provide true industrial experience and have encroached into what industry can do better. Senior projects should, therefore, be dispensed with and universities should concentrate on teaching the theory, leaving the completion of the engineer's education to industry     

Electrification design for modern housing scheme projects

Global electricity access is a key component of the United States Sustainable Development Goals and recently escalating its global efforts to monitor the electrification development progress. To report these efforts, we present a new housing scheme electrification design, planning and examine the impact of urban electrification on individuals and businesses in the community and explore the theory of resource-based entrepreneurship. The target of this design study is to provide an adequate, stable, reliable and economical electrification design to the prospective consumers of the scheme in an acceptance manner. The scope of this study is to cover the required estimates for the project to install and procure equipment and materials for 11 kV distribution lines, low voltage distribution supply networks and necessary measures for electrification of non-electrified areas, full design of cost estimation and power loss analysis of electric distribution networks. Housing scheme design planners can process the information as a design package and create a variety of formats that can be customized to meet the needs of the customers. For example, cost estimates and the contractor logistics can be used in the pre-design phase of the customer schedule. The electrification design method and conclusion of this work are intended to contribute to the improvement of housing scheme electrification design, and particularly useful for the developing nations.     

An optical communication design laboratory

A senior-level design laboratory course is described, in which an optical fiber communication network is expanded or improved by successive generations of students. In this evolutionary approach, student teams base their work on the final written reports of students in previous course offerings. In addition to its primary goal of providing a high-level technical experience, the course requires multidisciplinary teamwork and provides incentive for the development of effective oral and written communication skills. Results of four offerings of the course are presented     

Photoconductive switch design for microwave applications

A procedure for choosing the dimensions of a photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) for operation at microwave switching frequencies, and particularly at 10.0 GHZ, is described. The critical dimension is the switch length (electrode separation), which must be small enough to force photoinduced charge removal during switch turn-off via sweep out rather than recombination. The switch depth in the direction of turn-on optical pulse absorption must be several optical absorption depths long to ensure absorption of all the incident light, which optimizes optical to electrical signal gain. The switch width is determined in conjunction with the peak intensity of the optical pulse because the switch width-optical intensity product, which represents optical power, determines the turn-on time, the on-state switch resistance and the turn-off delay time. Simulations show that a switch with a 0.5 μm length, 5.0 μm depth, and 20 μm width, illuminated with 1.0 W peak power optical pulses at 10 GHz, will have a 4.8 ps turn-on time, a 0.23 Ω on-state resistance, and a 46 ps turn-off time.     

Power system stabilizers as undergraduate control design projects

The use of power system stabilizers (PSS) to damp power system swing mode oscillations is of practical importance. The design of PSS is taught in graduate level courses on power system dynamics and control, and has been the topic of numerous M.S. and Ph.D. theses. This paper discusses the experience in assigning PSS projects in an undergraduate control design course to provide students with a challenging design problem using three different techniques and to expose them to power system engineering. The details of the PSS design projects using root-locus, frequency-domain, and state-space methods are provided.     

University methodology for internetworking principles and design projects

An undergraduate engineering internetworking learning environment that presents both internetworking principles and laboratory experimentation is described. The learning environment uses the source code availability of the Linux operating system as a case study of the implementation issues and ramifications of internet networking infrastructures. Laboratory use of experimentation with internetworking equipment and software allows interaction with internetworking principles and fundamentals as well as implementation and performance issues. The objectives of this environment include providing a comprehensive mechanism whereby students are exposed to fundamentals and principles that may readily be applied to experimental-based internetwork research and internetwork product development. A follow-on capstone design environment is also briefly described.