IEEE Workshop on Embedded Systems (Oct 9th – Oct 11th , 2012) The student members of IEEE, in association with PHOENIX, conducted a not-for-profit workshop on embedded systems. The student team was led by Sairam, who along with Phanindra took the lectures; while Mohammad Ghouse, Vamsi Krishna, Sumanth, L.S.Prasad and Srinivas volunteered to help the students build the circuits. The members of PHOENIX association extended their full-fledged support for this endeavour. In this three day workshop, from Oct 9 to Oct 11, about 200 students encompassing all branches of Engineering participated enthusiastically.
The participants were taught the basics of 8051 Microcontroller and the coding concepts of KEIL IDE, which was the software used for programming the chip. The participants not only understood the concepts thoroughly but also implemented them practically by interfacing 8051 with LEDs, LCD, IR Sensors and Motors using respective circuits. All their doubts were clarified there itself by the student volunteers, who kept moving around continually and assisted them in making circuit connections. The fact that almost all the participants were able to get the intended outputs by the end of the workshop stood as a testimony to its success. The commitment of the student team was well appreciated by all participants.
IEEE Prime Asia 2012 Conference
The Asia-Pacific Conference on Postgraduate Research in Microelectronics & Electronics (PrimeAsia) is a new initiative of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society for engaging students. It aims to provide opportunity for postgraduate students (Master and Ph.D) to present their research work and to interact with scientists/engineers in the research community and industry. PrimeAsia 2012, sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, was held during December 5-7, 2012 at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. The research papers in PrimeAsia 2012 were presented by postgraduate students. Researchers from academia and industry attended the 3 day event creating a stimulating environment for exchange of ideas and mentoring of young researchers.
PrimeAsia covered a wide range of topics which include:
- Analog, Digital and Mixed Signal Circuits
- Bio-Medical Circuits and Systems
- Programmable Analog and Digital Systems
- RF, Microwave and Millimeter Wave Circuits
- Power Electronic Circuits
- Computer Aided Design
- Green Circuits and Systems
- Analog and Digital Signal Processing
- Nano Electronics and Giga Scale Systems
- VLSI Circuits and Systems
IEEE NPSS Distinguished Lecturers Program
Ball Lightning--New Physics, New Energy Source, or Just Good Entertainment? Dr. Pace Van Devender is the first to
be invited to India to give a lecture to a gathering as a part of the NPSS DLP (Nuclear
and Plasma Science Society Distinguished Lecturers Program). IEEE Student
branch BITS, Pilani, Hyderabad Campus takes pride to grab the opportunity of
having Vice President Emeritus, Sandia National Laboratories, APS Fellow, AAAS
Fellow, IEEE Senior Member to address them.”Luck is what happens when efforts
meet opportunities”as most of us say. This is what happened when Dr. Pace
responded enthusiastically to a mail sent by the student branch office bearer.
12 th February, 2013 was set as the D day for the lecture. Dr Pace was received by our branch chairperson Samhitha Challa and secretary Prateek Kumar. Back in the campus, he was welcomed by the IEEE student councilor, Dr. Geetha Kumari who escorted him to the lecture hall where he addressed a gathering of around 100 people, of which 30were IEEE members. The crowd included the entire Physics department of the college and a number of interested students as well as faculty. The event was anchored by the student branch editor Swati S.
The lecture began with a reason why the topic had caught the attention of Dr. Pace. Many incidents of this reportedly unexplained reportedly unexplained atmospheric electrical phenomenon, BALL LIGHTNING were discussed in detail. Each of these phenomenon were studied in detail and each study added to improve the understanding of this unsolved mystery. Starting from verifying if the event reported was true to a trip to FORTE satellite observations to Antarctica expedition to use of sensors which were realized using USRP2 processors and Gnuradio software on linux based systems to identifying and eliminating false positives to analyzing the distributions of preferred frequencies was a 15 year long research pieced together, as the awe struck audience applauded Dr. Pace’s perseverance.
Dr. Pace, being an accomplished public speaker, delivered his speech in such a manner that despite being a highly elusive topic, could be understood by both staff and students alike. The random poll conducted gave a 4.3 on 5 for the lecture.The event was successful owing to the efforts of Kalyan Pingali and Sai Nikhil.
As a token of appreciation, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus presented Dr Pace with a memento. We are really grateful to Dr Pace for sharing his knowledge on the subject with the college.
Talk on White Space Networking
The IEEE Student Branch of BITS PILANI Hyderabad Campus had organised a talk show on WHITE SPACE NETWORKING, in association with the IEEE COMMUNICATION SOCIETY on 5th September, 2014.
Distinguished lecturer PROFESSOR SUMIT ROY (Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle) was the one who delivered the lecture and he did so in a splendid fashion. Instead of diving headfirst into the topic, he took his time in getting acquainted with the audience (which largely consisted of 3rd and 4th year students, along with a handful of M.E students and PhD Research Scholars). Impressed by the number of IEEE members who were present at the lecture, Prof. Sumit Roy went on to say that being a part of the IEEE student chapter is of great value, the reason being that it not only exposes students to latest developments in the technological sector but also helps them during placements and research. He mentioned many digital journals which IEEE had published over the years and also various conferences conducted by the IEEE Communications Society such as the IEEE GLOBECOM, IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE CCNC, IEEE PIMRC and IEEE WCNC.
Prof. Sumit Roy then started his lecture with a question: "What are White Spaces?" upon receiving an answer from an eager student, he went on to describe in depth his topic, which was "WHITE SPACE NETWORKING” (Integrated sensing and Database Architecture). He explained how unused or "free" regions in the radio spectrum (called White Spaces) could be harnessed to our advantage in order to solve the global crisis of inadequacy of unlicensed service bands. The difference between supply and demand has become huge and more offload is required in terms of unlicensed service. This could be solved with the use of white spaces. He talked about the advent of 4G in the US due to increasing network traffic and went on to highlight the problem of SPECTRUM CRUNCH, which was caused due to the lack of sufficient network capacity at crucial times. Overall, the presentation was highly enlightening and it gave the students a new area to venture into.
Talk on Social Network Analysis
The IEEE Student Branch organized a session by Ms. Agrima Srivastava on social network analysis on 11th March 2014. The objective of the presentation was to introduce the concept of analyzing social network data to gain deeper insights from it. The talk had three sections all together. In the first section concepts like data representation, benefits of analyzing social network data, Milgram's experiment, Small World Phenomenon, Connections, Centrality, Distance were discussed. The second part of the presentation emphasized on the use of various network models available using which the social network data could be realized effectively. This included discussions on Erdos Renyi, Random Networks and preferential attachment model. The third part had a brief introduction on the different tools available to perform Social Network Analysis. Some of the tools like Gephi, Netlogo and Igraph (an R package) were discussed in details whereas reference to others like the Pajek, SoNIA,NodeXL,NetworkX were also mentioned.
The talk concluded with a demo on analyzing one's Facebook network data and a discussion on interesting research areas like Security and Privacy Issues, Preventing Rumor Spread, Visualizing Social Networks, Link Prediction in Social Networks, Data Mining in Online Social Networks, Text Mining in Social Networks.