LKC FES students won merit awards at MSC Malaysia APICTA 2022 Awards

Two teams comprising five students from Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES) won Merit Awards at the MSC Malaysia APICTA 2022 Awards under the tertiary category.

Lim Yueh Sheng’s project titled “Application of intelligent gesture control to simultaneously control multiple remote devices” was supervised by LKC FES lecturer Ir Ts Dr Tham Mau Luen and Dr Lai An Chow. Meanwhile, the project titled “VLC-based indoor positioning system for supermarkets” by Fong Chien Yoong, Ariana Chin Sue Rei, Chow Zhi Onn and Kelvin Low Tuck Wei was supervised by LKC FES lecturer Ts Dr See Yuen Chark.

Lim said, “My project focuses on utilising hand gesture control technology to interact with daily devices in a more intuitive and user-friendly manner. By employing MediaPipe Hands, a high-fidelity hand and finger-tracking solution, I have created tools to design hand gestures and integrate them as controls for various applications. This innovative approach was demonstrated using two applications known as driving mode and precision mode, showcased on a wireless robot car. The project explores the capabilities, practicality, and potential limitations of hand gesture control technology.”

He added, “I am incredibly grateful and humbled to have been awarded merit for the MSC Malaysia APICTA 2022 Awards and I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Dr Lai An Chow and Ir Ts Dr Tham Mau Luen for their unwavering support and guidance throughout this journey. I hope that my work would serve as an inspiration for others to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation and strive for excellence.”

The team comprising Fong, Chin, Chow and Low said, “A supermarket’s convenience is a crucial element in providing a good shopping experience. And one primary issue among customers is the time spent to locate a product. To address this issue, we developed an indoor-positioning system for supermarkets which leverages visible light-based communication to assist customers in locating supermarket products accurately. By incorporating simple LED lights for position estimation, the developed system does not distract users from their shopping activities and is relatively cheap to implement. A “smart” trolley for customers approximates its relative position by processing light signals from the LED transmitters.”

“We developed a mobile app which enables users to scan the trolley’s QR code and connect to it via Bluetooth. The app displays a 3D layout of the supermarket, highlights the user’s current position and dynamically draws the shortest path to any product in the supermarket. A website is also developed for supermarket administrators to edit product listings and monitor the status and positions of all trolleys. Both the app and website mediate direct communication between customers and administrators through a real-time chat system. Our primary principle was to develop user experiences which delight users of all ages and we hope it is reflected in the system that we built. We would like to thank Ts Dr See Yuen Chark for his exceptional mentoring throughout the project and are also grateful to APICTA judges for their valuable feedback,” added the team.

APICTA - Asia Pacific ICT Alliance, is an association of ICT communities nominated by member economies in the region, who come together in the spirit of collaboration, forming a cooperative network to promote technology innovation and encourage the development of indigenous ICT solutions for the global market via an annual awards programme. APICTA’s 16 member economies which include Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam work together to assist in bridging the digital divide amongst themselves. The annual awards programme is unique because it brings together large and small businesses, entrepreneurs, the public sector, start-ups, not-for-profit organisations and students in a single programme.