News 2009

Boeing Corporation: Invited CECS to participate in Boeing Preferred School Program (proposal submitted: October 2009)

Oct 28-31, 2009
First Place Winners
"Floating Cabinet Design" $3,000

Team Members: Eduardo Ekmekgian, Mario Servin, Maurycy Sarosiek
SHPE Team Advisor: Hector Perez
SHPE Faculty Advisor: Prof. Shraibati
Faculty Advisors: Profs. Robert Ryan, Mike Kabo, CT Lin

Karla Pelletier, CSUN's Louis Stokes-Alliance for Minority Participation Bridge to the Doctorate Program, CSU Sacramento, $486,000, August 2009.

Conceptual design, Supporting Engineering and Cost Estimates of a Solar Tracker mechanism supported by Boeing Corporation in summer 2009.

We have a signed agreement with Boeing to install, operate, provide student interns, and likely further faculty research on the 100kW POM (proof of manufacturing) high efficiency (product to be delivered is operating at 29% PV efficiency) installation to be completed early next year.

Projections are in the works to expand this project to a total 450kW. This is reported to be the first triple junction high efficiency grid connected PV plant of its kind in the world.

Sharlene Katz and James Flynn, Senior Design Project Using Software Defined Radio, Edwards AFB, $52,449, July 2009

In the IGV (Intelligent Ground Vehicle) Competition of 2009, CSUN NorMAN Jr. (Northridge Mobile Autonomous Navigator Jr.) took

5th place, out of 52 vehicles, in the Design Challenge, with the best design presentation among the top six finalists.
12th in the Navigation Challenge, and
19th place in the Autonomous Challenge.

C. T. Lin, Faculty Advisor Mechanical Engineering

Karla Pelletier, CSU Louis Stokes-Alliance for Minority Participation, Phase IV, CSU Sacramento, $102,653, May 2009; and CSU-LSAMP Student Scholar Program 2009-10, CSU Sacramento, $ 10,000, June 2009.

Stewart Prince and Bruno Osorno, Conceptual Design, Supporting Engineering and Cost Estimates of a Solar Tracking Mechanism, Boeing Corporation, $24,331, June 2009

Ron Mehler, Redundant Array of Inexpensive Sensors for Wind Shear Detection, Wolf Aviation Fund, $2,200, May 2009.

National Award, Best Paper in the ECE Division for the 2009 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition for paper entitled "USING SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO (SDR) TO DEMONSTRATE CONCEPTS IN COMMUNICATIONS AND SIGNAL PROCESSING COURSES". Paper entered in the Professional Interest Council I Best Paper Competition for the 2009 Conference to represent the ECE Division

SDR Student Team:
GUI: Jack Sun (Project Leader)
SSB: Youssef Chedid, Kaveh Hajimohammadreza, Efrain Mendoza, Silvestre Sanchez
AM: Kaveh Hajimohammadreza, Efrain Mendoza
FM: Efrain Mendoza, Kinal Vachhani
Digital Modulation: Youssef Chedid, Silvestre Sanchez
Faculty Advisors: Profs. Sharlene Katz, James Flynn, David Schwartz

Manufacturing the next big thing
By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer
Updated: 03/31/2009 12:17:28 AM PDT

The 23rd WESTEC Student Manufacturing Challenge by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers at the L.A. Convention Center pitted innovative designs from a dozen college teams across the country…….
Such as a better turbo jet turbine generator submitted by California State University, Northridge…. It took seven students from CSUN four months - and about 1,400 hours, mostly out of class - to build their 120-pound, 14 horsepower turbo jet turbine. Simple, elegant and beautiful, it could power a range of industrial uses…

The CSUN entry took second place among four year schools: http://www.dailynews.com/20090331/manufacturing-the-next-big-thing

Behzad Bavarian and Roger Di Julio (Co-PI's), with James Ricles and Richard Sause (Lehigh), Felipe Perez (Cal Poly Pomona) NEESR-CR: Performance-Based Design for Cost-Effective Seismic Hazard Mitigation in New Buildings Using Supplemental Passive Damper Systems, National Science Foundation, $ 746,691, for 2009-2012 (36 months)

• Dale Conner, 2009-2010 CECS Research Fellowship
• Ashley Geng, 2009 Distinguished Engineering Educator Award
• San Fernando Valley Engineers Council Annual Awards Banquet, February 25, 2009.
• Sembiam Rengarajan, Elected Fellow of the Electromagnetics Academy, 2008 Elected Vice-Chair of Commission on Waves and Fields, United States National Committee of the International Union Radio Science (USNC/URSI) for the triennium 2009-11.