News: ECE

A smart baton for conducting an imaginary orchestra, a gesture-controller kitchen carousel, an autonomous luggage following system, and lots of video games. Forty-four student teams were given Raspberry Pi 2040 microcontroller chips to design and engineer their own projects as part of the fall ECE4760 course Digital Systems Design Using Microcontrollers. The course is instructed by Hunter Adams, lecturer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who said the course produced more projects in the fall semester than it has in nearly two decades. “Every year, I’m blown away by the... Read more

Karan Mehta, Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University recently received a U.S. National Science Foundation Early Career Development (NSF CAREER) Award from the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS). The award supports his research proposal, “Fast coherent and incoherent control of atomic ions in scalable platforms” for a five-year period from 2024 through 2029 with a total amount of $550,000. According to the NSF, “The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the... Read more

From exploring the mechanics of early-stage bone metastasis to analyzing price formation policies in wholesale electricity markets, Cornell Engineering’s Sprout Awards are funding unique research projects with the potential to grow partnerships across Cornell. Read more

In this Wall Street Journal Video segment, Khurram Khan Afridi, associate professor in electrical and computer engineering discusses the risks of using infrared transmitters under FCC and FDA safety guidelines. "The general limit these days is about one watt of power, so it's very small. A standard light bulb is 60 watts, so even smaller than that," said Afridi. Companies offering air charging use one of three ways to remotely charge devices; radio waves, microwaves, or infrared light. Infrared light delivers significant power at a distance and while it is a slower charging process than... Read more

A research collaboration has found an efficient way to expand the collective behavior of swarming microrobots: Mixing different sizes of the micron-scale ‘bots enables them to self-organize into diverse patterns that can be manipulated when a magnetic field is applied. Read more

Alyssa Apsel, IBM Professor of Engineering, has been reappointed to a three-year term as ECE director. Read more

Researchers in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering are incorporating elements of physics, circuit design, photonics, systems architecture, information theory and other fields to make quantum devices both practical and scalable. Read more

The university's Board of Trustees elected Apsel to the endowed chair, one of the highest faculty honors at Cornell. Read more

In their latest "Ask the Expert" story, Cornellians tapped Khurram Afridi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, whose areas of expertise include electronic power systems. All-electric vehicles are growing in popularity. But what are their advantages and drawbacks—and how close are we to kicking the gasoline habit for good? Read more

Eilyan Bitar, ECE associate professor and David Croll Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow, has published an op-ed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists arguing "How millions of electric vehicles can help—not hurt—the grid." This week, the Biden Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled groundbreaking climate regulations aimed at clamping down on tailpipe emissions in the US transportation sector. The proposed rules will effectively force automakers to ensure that 67 percent of new passenger cars and 25 percent of new heavy-duty trucks sold in the United States are zero... Read more