Undergrad research has possible applications in wearable electronics

January 30, 2018

A research project by an undergraduate student from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University was presented at a major international conference.

Yizhi Shi, a graduate of the BEng Electronic Scence and Technology programme, completed the project on flexible radio frequency transmission lines under the supervision of Dr Sang Lam of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

“To have a paper accepted for oral presentation at this major conference demonstrates the exceptional accomplishments of undergraduate students at XJTLU,” said Dr Lam.

As a continuation of project work started by fellow students, Yizhi spent the final year of his undergraduate studies on improving experimental procedures for creating multi-gigahertz passive components using a low-cost screen-printing method.

“After repeated attempts I finally managed to successfully make workable, flexible transmission lines and obtain good measurement results,” said Yizhi, who is going on to further study at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

His work was presented in December 2017 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Electrical Design of Advanced Packaging and Systems Symposium in Hangzhou, China.

Yizhi’s work demonstrates the feasibility of low-cost radio frequency transmission lines and other passive components printed on thin flexible substrates even when bent. This could potentially lead to wearable electronic applications. The paper with Yizhi as the first author will be published in the reputable IEEE Xplore digital library.

The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organisation and serves professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic and computing fields, as well as the related areas of science and technology.

While it is unusual for work done at undergraduate level to be published at IEEE conferences, a few diligent students of XJTLU’s EEE Department have succeeded in producing original research of publishable quality in their Final Year Projects over the past few years. The successes require persistent synergistic efforts of both students and staff in the Department.

Yizhi expressed great appreciation for the help of his FYP supervisor, Dr Sang Lam, for his patient guidance and rigorous supervision.

“I also must give my sincere thanks to Dr Mark Leach and Professor Eng Gee Lim for help with radio frequency measurements and advice on the transmission line design,” said Yizhi.

He also thanked EEE graduate, Zhenzhen Jiang (pictured above), who is currently working towards her PhD degree with the EEE Department having performed similar work for her Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship project. Zhenzhen is second author of the research paper and presented at the conference as Yizhi was unable to attend.

Professor Kaizhu Huang, head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at XJTLU, said:

“I’m pleased with our students’ significant achievements. Our Department is committed to research, teaching, and learning excellence. We have both dedicated academic staff and well-equipped facilities for even our undergraduate students to take part in a broad range of exciting research work.”

For more information on studying and conducting research projects with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering visit the official webpage.

story provided by the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering; edited by Danny Abbasi

January 30, 2018


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