UTAR wins at Innovate Malaysia 2012

A team of three electrical and electronics engineering students from the Faculty of Engineering and Science won third prize in the category of National Instruments (NI) track at the Innovate Malaysia 2012 held in Penang on 14 July 2012.

Supervised by Associate Professor Dr. Lim Yun Seng and lecturer Chua Kein Huat, the members of the winning team, Pang Yap Seng, Kong Kie Ming and Lim Khim Yan took home RM1,000 cash and NI products worth RM1,500.  Their project, titled "Smart Grid: Improve Power Quality with High Renewable Energy Sources", is a smart energy conditioning system that proposes an intelligent active management system to mitigate the voltage unbalance issue with high penetration of photovoltaic systems in low-voltage distribution network.

"Firstly, we would like to thank UTAR for the facilities provided to carry out the experiments and tests for this project.  Our supervisors, family and friends all encouraged us with their guidance and support for which we are thankful," said team leader Pang.

Lim, the rose among the thorns, said, "Working with two boys was crazy. We think differently and that was tough, but this project did not only help us to improve our engineering skills, but also taught values like cooperation and respect".

With the same, but improved system, the trio will be participating in the NI ASEAN 2012 at the end of July 2012.

Innovate Malaysia is a multi-discipline engineering design competition open to all undergraduate engineering or computer science students in Malaysia. It aims to instill a culture of innovation and creativity among university graduates in addition to enhancing knowledge and skills in practical engineering. The competition encourages greater interest in engineering design, and creates a platform for collaborative activities between the industry and universities.

From left: Kong, Lim and Pang receiving prize from NI Vice President of R&D, Scott Rust