Section News

On Wednesday, March 31 at 7:30, the Faculty of Engineering at Memorial is holding its annual "IEEE Student Night". This event is an opportunity for graduating engineering students to present and demonstrate their senior design projects. The evening will begin at 7:30 sharp in the Engineering Boardroom (room EN4002) in the Engineering Building at Memorial and will begin with to three project presentations as chosen by classmates and instructors.

Following the presentations, there will be an opportunity to see demonstrations of all projects. Finally, the evening will conclude with the presentation of awards and consuming of pizza and drinks.

Any interested parties are encouraged to attend the evening. Students certainly will appreciate an opportunity to show to their future colleagues, the accomplishments of their final year projects.

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Dr. Dennis Peters at dpeters at engr.mun.ca.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 1-2pm

S.J. Carew Building, Engineering Boardroom (EN4002), 4th Floor (Parking available in Lot 16A)

Speaker: Dr. Klaus-Werner Gurgel

During the last decade, High-Frequency (HF) radar remote sensing of oceanographic parameters became more and more important. These radar systems are able to monitor large areas of the ocean, far behind the horizon, and are now included in coastal monitoring systems. This presentation will give an introduction to the basic physics relevant for radars operated in this specific frequency range between 5 and 30 MHz, including electromagnetic wave propagation, both groundwave and skywave, dependency on ionospheric conditions, scattering processes at the ocean surface, algorithms to derive surface current maps, ocean wave spectra, and wind direction. Besides the oceanographic applications, over-the-horizon ship tracking can be provided by HF radars.

Speaker Biography:

Klaus-Werner Gurgel (IEEE M'94) received the diploma in electrical engineering from the University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany, in 1980 and the Ph.D. in geosciences from the University of Hamburg in 1993. From 1980 to 1985, he was responsible for the technical development and deployment of the University of Hamburg's HF radar during numerous experiments, which at that time was based on NOAA's Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar (CODAR). From 1985 to 1993, he was working on a shipborne version of the CODAR for applications at the Arctic Front. In 1996, he developed a new HF radar system called WEllen RAdar (WERA) within the European Union (EU) funded project "Surface Current And Wave Variability Experiment" (SCAWVEX), which was later on used within the EU funded projects "European Radar Ocean Sensing" (EuroROSE) and "Weather Information Network, Guidance, and Supervision onboard Ships" (Wings-for-Ships). After a technology transfer to industry, WERA is now commercially available and applied by several Universities and Institutions worldwide.

Dr. Gurgel currently is a research scientist at the University of Hamburg, Institute of Oceanography, and involved within numerous projects on radar remote sensing. Since November 2004, he is Adjunct Professor at the Division of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Fl, USA. Dr. Gurgel is a member of IEEE Oceanic Engineering, Geoscience & Remote Sensing, and Antennas and Propagation Society.

Rescheduled: Thursday, January 28th, 2010 February 11th, 2010, 7:30pm

S.J. Carew Building, Engineering Boardroom (EN4002), 4th Floor

The Teacher In-Service Program (TISP) enables IEEE volunteers to share their technical expertise and demonstrate the application of engineering concepts to support the teaching and learning of science, mathematics and technology disciplines.

The IEEE Newfoundland and Labrador Section is looking for a team of volunteers to help bring this initiative to teachers in our province. This session will give an overview of the program, its goals and suggestions for approaching teachers in our area. It is an opportunity for you to learn more about TISP and how you can be involved.

Please contact Brian Kidney (Email: bkidney at ieee.org) for further information.

Monday, January 18, 2010, 7pm

S.J. Carew Building, Engineering Boardroom, 4th Floor (Subject to Change)

Presenter: James C. Kinsey, Ph.D., Assistant Scientist, Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Ocean Robotics have remarkable progress in the last 20 years - transitioning from experimental vehicles to valuable assets for a tasks ranging from oil platform maintenance to marine archaeology. This talk focuses on the impact robotics research is having on deep-ocean science - specifically advances in controls and navigation. Recent adaptive identification and nonlinear observer research - motivated by ocean robot navigation - are presented. These advances are enabling engineers and scientists to obtain oceanographic datasets previously unachievable, including using AUVs to measure gravity anomalies resulting from small density changes in the Earth's crust.

Speaker Biography:

James Kinsey is an Assistant Scientist in the Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His research focuses on the development of novel parameter identification and state estimation techniques for nonlinear systems, with a focus on systems related to underwater robotics and oceanography. He received his B.E from SUNY Stony Brook and his M.S. and Ph.D from The Johns Hopkins University - all in mechanical engineering. His current projects include the development of in-situ calibration techniques for navigation sensor calibration, dynamic model-based nonlinear state estimators for underwater robot navigation, and exploiting advances in underwater vehicle navigation to obtain fine spatial resolution gravity maps. He is actively involved in the development of the Sentry AUV and the Nereus HROV, serving as the navigation lead for both robots. In addition, he regularly goes to sea with these vehicles where he collaborates with other scientists to use ocean robots to obtain data essential to advancing our knowledge of the ocean and the processes occurring within.

Please contact Lori Hogan (Email: lori.hogan at ieee.org) or Dr. Ralf Bachmayer (bachmayer at mun.ca) for further information.