Milwaukee Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

Each year on Thomas Alva Edison's birthday, we celebrate his life by activating an 1880 Edison dynamo generator to power Edison-style lightbulbs. The Edison dynamo is on display in a glass case throughout the year in the lobby of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As part of last-year's celebration of Edison's 150^th birthday, Edison himself gave a talk about his life, summarizing some of his many inventions including the phonograph, motion pictures, the practical incandescent light bulb, and the dc electric lighting system. This talk will be a recreation of that celebration.

Dr. Tompkins received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Maine, Orono, in 1963 and 1965, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in biomedical electronic engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1973. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been on the faculty since 1974. His research interests include applications of microcomputer-based medical instrumentation and on-line biomedical computing. He is editor or co-editor of three books. Dr. Tompkins, a past President of the EMB Society, is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and is a Registered PE.

In the session the following subjects will be addressed:

1. An illustration to the wavelet transforms and its properties.
2. Introducing some of the analyzing wavelets and their characteristics.
3. The ECG analysis techniques.
4. The motivations for using time frequency analysis techniques over that of time or frequency techniques.
5. Show some examples that clarify the strength of wavelet transform in abnormality detection.
6. The use of wavelet transform as a detection and classification tool for the cardiac arrhythmia.

Mr. Al-Fahoum is currently a Ph.D. student at UWM. He completed his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Communication and Electronics, in 1990 and 1995, respectively. His Master's Thesis is entitled "Multiresolution Analysis of ECG Signal." He worked for three years in industry and as a laboratory engineer for five years. His interests include Biomedical signal and image processing in addition to electronic engineering design.

Current flow through a conductor causes an electromagnetic flux field to form around the conductor. The current probe proposed here will be designed to sense the strength of this field to convert it to a corresponding voltage for measurement by a digital voltmeter. The probe will allow the measurement of current through a conductor with a bandwidth that starts at DC and extends to at least 100Hz. The range of currents to be measured will be 0 to 10 amperes.

Mr. Meiller plans to obtain the B.S.E.E. degree in December from UWM. His research interests include electric machines, machine drives, and electromagnetics.

Piezoelectric film can be employed to convert back and forth between electric energy and mechanical energy. These properties can be utilized to create a wide variety of sensors and actuators. One application is ultrasonic distance sensing, where sound energy is bounced off of a target object and the return signal is processed to determine the distance. The purpose of this project was to design and construct a short-range (1 to 5cm.) ultrasonic distance sensor using piezoelectric film samples.

Mr. Brandt, a Milwaukee native, graduated with Honors from UWM in December 1997 with a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering. He currently is a Research Engineer in the Advanced Technology Labs at Rockwell Automation, specializing in device level communications in the factory.

Moving luggage through an airport with today's carts proves to be difficult and inconvenient at times. Through the use of RF tracking and ultrasonic object avoidance, a self-powered cart has been designed to transport luggage. The front-wheel drive system, tracking, and object avoidance are controlled through the use of the Motorola 68HC12 microcontroller.

All four team members are senior electrical engineering students at MSOE planning to graduate this May. Dr. Richard Born is their advisor. After graduation, Mr. Seehaver will be employed with Alcatel Networking, Mr. Van De Leygraaf will be working for Caterpillar, Mr. Feucht will be with Motorola, and Mr. Skare will go on to graduate school.

This senior design project is a fast, "smart" battery charger which charges multiple 3-volt battery packs in 2 to 4 hours. The charger employs a pulse-charging algorithm and is controlled by a MC68HC11 microcontroller, which monitors battery voltage and stops charging the batteries when they are fully charged. It also employs a trickle charge after the fast charging has ended in order to keep the batteries in a fully charged state. Williams Sound Corporation sponsored the project.

All four team members are senior electrical engineering students at MSOE. Mr. Doring is from Apple Valley, MN, Mr. Douroux is from Arlington Heights, IL, Mr. Laudenslager is from Young America, MN and Mr. McHargue hails from Gooding, Idaho. Rob plans to graduate in November while the other three will graduate in May. Their advisor is Dr. Steve Reyer.

The basic problem of blind deconvolution is to reconstruct as nearly as possible the input (magnitude and phase) of an unknown system from the observed degraded output. This reconstruction process cannot be done using second-order statistics because they are phase-blind.

Mr. Houndegla was born in Republic of Benin. He received the B.S. in pure mathematics from the University of Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 1991 and the M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1995. Since 1995, he has been pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at Marquette University. His current research interests are optimization theory, mathematical modeling, statistical signal processing, and stochastic systems analysis (with emphasis on higher order statistics), with applications to digital speech signal reconstruction.

GASDAY is a software package designed by Dr. Ronald Brown and implemented by a team of undergraduate and graduate students from Marquette University. Each day, gas utilities must give their suppliers an estimate of their daily send-out. If the estimate is inaccurate, the utility will face financial penalties. This software is based on many factors that aid in the accurate prediction of gas send-out.

Mr. D'Souza from India is currently a Computer Engineering senior at Marquette University. He wants to continue his education at the graduate level.

Mr. Zielski is a senior at Marquette University majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is currently an intern on the Advanced Development team at Johnson Controls, Inc.

The design of microstrip antennas using low cost printed circuit board (PCB) material is examined. Adding coplanar strips widens the antenna bandwidth and compensates for PCB material variations.

Mr. Wolski received his B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. from Marquette University in 1984 and 1987, respectively. He is currently employed at L.S. Research, Inc. as a design engineer and is working toward a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.

Investigation of the travel time of the leading edge of a pulse-modulated microwave will be discussed. Critics disagree over the nature of this delay. Theoretical and experimental procedures will be used to determine whether it is phase or group delay.

Mr. Awuviri is from Ghana. He is currently working toward his M.S.E.E. at Marquette University.

The theory of genetic algorithms as search engines for the optima in any search space will be examined. Genetic Algorithms, as compared to other search engines, are based on the theory of natural selection and therefore inherently possess many advantages, among them being the robustness of the method.

Mr. Walters received his B.ENG. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Technology, Jamaica in 1993. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Marquette University.

C.L. Fortescue introduced the method of symmetrical components in 1918. According to Fortescue's Theorem, an unbalanced system of n related phasors can be resolved into n systems of balanced phasors called symmetrical components of the original phasors. Applying Fortescue's Theorem to three unbalanced phasors of a three-phase system, a positive sequence component, a negative sequence component, and a zero sequence component can be obtained.

Most of the faults that occur on power systems are unsymmetrical faults. These unsymmetrical faults cause unbalanced currents to flow in the systems. The flow of unbalanced currents affects the system settings and parameters. The methods of symmetrical components are very useful in the analysis to determine the currents and voltages in all parts of the system after the occurrence of an unsymmetrical fault.

This short course will focus on the fundamentals of the symmetrical components and sequence networks. A couple of GUI-based software tools, courtesy of Cooper Power Systems, will be used in this course to help us to better visualize the concept of symmetrical components and sequence networks.

James J. Ackmann, Biomedical Engineer, Associate Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), and Adjunct Associate Professor at Marquette University (MU), passed away on Saturday, February 28, 1998, at the age of 60, after a multi-year battle against colon cancer. Of particular note to the Milwaukee Section was his contribution to the founding (1977), and to the continued growth of, the Annual Great Lakes Biomedical Conference, having earlier this month completed its 22^nd Conference. He also served in other capacities in the Milwaukee Section in the late 70s and early 80s. He received the Section's Memorial Award in 1995. He was also active in many of the International Conferences of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

Jim received the B.S.E.E. (1960) and the Ph.D. (1970) from Marquette University. Subsequently, he was employed at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, with affiliations at MCW (Dept. of Neurosurgery) and MU. He became a full-time faculty member at MCW in 1979, and was promoted to Professor in 1996. He conducted research in the areas of bioelectric impedance spectroscopy, evoked potentials, and EEG. He developed an automated non-invasive computerized system for physiologic monitoring of neurosurgical patients with head trauma and those undergoing neurosurgical procedures. He taught graduate-level courses in computer applications in biomedicine, and directed graduate student in various areas of bioengineering.

Dr. Ackmann is survived by his wife Patricia and two children (Michael and Marie). The funeral Mass was held at the Roman Catholic Cathedral, and internment at Calvary Cemetry, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.