T his is the summer issue of the KlipschSpeaker Alumni Newsletter. Our faculty continue to attract national and international recognition. Professor Kersting recently received an IEEE Third Millennium Medal for outstanding service, Dr. Jaime Ramirez-Angulo and Klipsch School alumnus Dr. Mark De Young of Intelligent Reasoning Systems have received a patent "Digitally Configurable Analog VLSI Chip for Real-Time Solution of Partial Differential Equations" with application number 09/120,986. Alumnus Chris Hickman received the IEEE Power Engineering Society (PES) Walter Fee Outstanding Young Engineer Award for 2000. The faculty continue to secure external support for research and laboratory development. Our ABET 2000 efforts are nearly complete. Our ABET review will take place during October 8-10.

KLIPSCH SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT

Hewlett-Packard recently awarded a grant of equipment valued at $134,274 through HP's University Grants Program. The grant provided fifty HP Vectra VL600 600Mhz Pentium III workstations each with 128 MB of memory, a 15 GB hard drive, a 17-inch monitor, an HP NetServer LC2000, four HP OmniBook 6000 notebook computers, and two HP LaserJet 4050N network printers. The Klipsch School is using 25 of the workstations for the computer-assisted classroom in Thomas & Brown Room 202. The classroom is used by a freshman computer programing class, EE 161 Computer Engineering I, for laboratory and homework assignments, as well as by all other electrical engineering students when an EE 161 laboratory section is not in session. The NetServer is used by the Klipsch School as the new general department server that provides disk space, web services, and email for all Klipsch School faculty, staff, and students. The Computer Science Department is using 25 workstations and the four laptops for two computer-assisted classrooms as well as the Native American Computer Science Program, a National Science Foundation funded summer program.

The HP grant equipment replaced four-year old

computers that did not have the processing power, memory size, and disk drive capacity to run the newest software tools that our students need to complete their assignments. The HP NetServer has the bandwidth and reliability required to serve the general Klipsch School needs.

ABET 2000

Finally, after two years of preparation for the Klipsch School's ABET 2000 review, we can report that our efforts are nearly at an end. Our ABET evaluation will occur during October 8-10, 2000. The ABET Self-Evaluation prepared by the Klipsch School contains 387 pages. We feel that we offer an excellent undergraduate electrical and computer engineering program, and we have done a good job of articulating that in the document. One of the items of particular importance to ABET is outcomes assessment. ABET does not expect perfect programs. However, they expect program outcomes to be assessed and when weaknesses are identified, corrective action is taken.

The Klipsch School assessment process uses data from senior exit interviews and alumni surveys. Data from these instruments indicate that we are doing a good job of meeting almost all of the Klipsch School program educational objectives (www.ece.nmsu.edu/general/klipsch_ school_objectives.html). Two areas of concern noted by our alumni are the oral and written communication skills with which you left NMSU. As a result, we are incorporating more technical writing and presentations as part of design projects throughout the undergraduate curriculum.

The Klipsch School is looking forward to the upcoming ABET 2000 visit with confidence. We want to thank all of our alumni, friends, Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy, and Industrial Advisory Board for their help in making this the best, and best presented electrical and computer engineering program in the Southwest.

THE ACADEMY

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy (ECEA) will hold their annual meeting at the Klipsch School during October 11 - 12, 2000. The Industrial Advisory Group will meet on Wednesday, October 11, and the Academy will meet on Thursday, October 12. The Academy Banquet will be Thursday evening. The 2000 NMSU Homecoming is Saturday, October 14, 2000. Academy president Ben Boykin and Klipsch School head Steve Castillo are currently preparing the agenda. If you wish to discuss the agenda, contact Steve Castillo at scastill@nmsu.edu or Ben Boykin at sabrejet3@zianet.com.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR

PROFESSOR KERSTING

Professor William Kersting was awarded an IEEE Third Millennium Medal for outstanding service. He also received the Distinguished Service Award from the IEEE's Power Engineering Education Committee. Both awards were presented at the IEEE PES Summer 2000 meeting. Professor Kersting, director of the Klipsch School's Electric Utility Management Program (EUMP) recently completed his 37^th year of faculty service at NMSU. The nationally recognized EUMP program leads to the degree of Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and is designed to prepare the student for a future engineering management position in the electric utility industry.

HICKMAN RECEIVES OUTSTANDING

YOUNG ENGINEERING AWARD

Klipsch School alumni Chris Hickman, BSEE '93, MSEE '95, and an engineer with the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), recently received the IEEE Power Engineering Society (PES) Walter Fee Outstanding Young Engineer Award for 2000. The award was established to recognize engineers 35 years of age or under "For outstanding contribution in the leadership of technical society activities including local and/or transnational PES and other technical societies; leadership in community and humanitarian activities; evidence of technical competence through significant engineering achievement." The award, administered by the Awards and Recognition Department of PES, is presented annually. Recipients receive a plaque and a $500 travel subsidy to attend the PES Summer Meeting to receive the award. In addition, recipients have the privilege of designating a college or university to receive a $5,000 scholarship for an electrical engineering undergraduate.

Chris Hickman, who just turned 30, played four years for the Aggie basketball team while obtaining his BSEE. He then received his MSEE in the Klipsch School's Electric Utility Management Program (EUMP). He is currently completing an MBA at the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Business with a concentration in Policy and Planning.

Chris' involvement in the Power Engineering Society is mainly concerned with the effects of lightning. He is a member of four working groups and chair of the Working Group on Estimating the Lightning Performance of Transmission Lines. His society activities include being a local spokesperson to community groups on the effect of electric utility deregulation.

Chris' community and humanitarian activities are extensive. He's a spokesperson and member of D.A.R.E., coordinator and volunteer for the Special Olympics, PNM Engineering Interim Coordinator, PNM "Student-At-Risk" Mentor, Career Counseling Spokesperson, member of Leadership Albuquerque, and TV color commentary announcer for the NMSU Men's basketball games that are televised.

Chris Hickman's technical accomplishments have, for the most part, been in the area of software tool development concerned with PNM's efforts to improve reliability and reduce cost. Included are the creation of Transmission Asset Management Information System (TAMIS), a patented and trademarked, globally marketed Geographic Information System (GIS) based inspection, maintenance, right-of-way management, environmental management and predictive maintenance/budgeting tool of transmission systems; creation of 3 Dimensional Design and Automated Station Layout (3D-DASL), a patented and trademarked, globally marketed Autocad application that reduces unit substation design from five months to five hours. In addition, Hickman has had a major role in lightning research regarding the effects it has on transmission systems, and the location of transmission faults, and where and why they occur. The research included the implementation of new traveling wave fault recorder technology to more accurately locate transmission faults.

PATENT AWARD

The Klipsch School's Professor Jaime Ramirez-Angulo and former student Dr. Mark De Young (PhD 1992) of Intelligent Reasoning Systems have received a patent "Digitally Configurable Analog VLSI Chip for Real-Time Solution of Partial Differential Equations" with application number 09/120,986. This patent can have applications in image processing systems, especially nonlinear adaptive optics.

The patent describes a special purpose analog computer that implements the well known resistive analogy method on a single chip. This method allows very fast, real time solution of partial differential equations. Basically, the chip consists of a two-dimensional array of resistors with individually, electronically adjustable values implemented using MOS transistors.

Each cell in the two-dimensional array includes analog, as well as digital memory elements, which configure each cell individually so that it mimics a resistor, a voltage source or an open circuit which represents a boundary condition. The system can be considered to be a special type of analog field programmable gate array.

Analog computers are coming back, having resurfaced in the form of a family digitally configurable analog signal processors and analog coprocessors which process signals directly in the analog domain and which can be controlled by digital systems. This comeback has been possible due to the tremendous advances in VLSI technology which make it possible now to include very large numbers of analog elements in the same way that thousands or even hundreds of thousands of digital elements can be included in a VLSI system. Most applications of analog signal processors are in image processing and biologically inspired systems like the silicon eye and silicon cochlea.

NEW POWER SYSTEMS LAB

El Paso Electric Company has agreed to make a contribution of $150,000 for the development of a new Power Systems Laboratory at New Mexico State University. The Klipsch School will seek an additional $150,000 from the National Science Foundation to build a state-of-the-art power systems laboratory for undergraduate and graduate educational programs. The effort to obtain the commitment from El Paso Electric was led by Professor William Kersting working together with Professors Satish Ranade and Howard Smolleck.

The new facility will replace the functions of the old large machines lab and the Faraday Law lab. The large machines lab was housed in the Goddard Hall Annex which is currently being renovated. The laboratory was dismantled during the spring 2000 semester in preparation for the total remodeling of the annex. Some of the old machines can now be found in the College of Engineering museum. The remaining machines were sold at auction. With the loss of the large machines lab, that left the Klipsch School with the Faraday Law lab as the only facility for the junior level Introduction to Power Systems course. This lab is now about 25 years old and does not serve the need for laboratory experiments dealing with power systems as opposed to experiments dealing only with machines.

Equipment for this new lab will consist of fractional horsepower machines, transmission line modules, transformer modules, and load modules. All of the instrumentation will be digital. The $300,000 provided by El Paso Electric Company and the pending matching grant from the National Science Foundation will allow us to develop a state-of-the-art laboratory that will not only be used for the junior level power class, but will also be used by the sophomore ac circuits class. The laboratory will also make an excellent facility to be used by senior students working on their capstone design projects.

FACULTY/STAFF HIGHLIGHTS

Dr. Deva Borah, who joined the Klipsch School faculty in January, presented a paper "Adaptive Weighted Least Squares CDMA Multiuser Detection at the IEEE VTC on May 16, 2000 in Tokyo, Japan.

WHAT OUR STUDENTS ARE DOING

Klipsch School PhD student Mr. Habib Gassoumi received the Best Paper Award in Soft Computing Applications for his paper "A Soft Computing Approach to Insect Classification," presented at the World Automation Congress (WAC 2000) in Maui, Hawaii on June 20, 2000. Mr. Gassoumi gave his outstanding presentation in the Session on Soft Computing Applications. His advisor is Dr. Ram Prasad, who is the director of the Rio Grande Institute for Soft Computing.

KLIPSCH SCHOOL NOTES

We now have the KlipschSpeaker on our web site. Locate http://www.ece.nmsu.edu/alumni/ alumni. html, select KlipschSpeaker and bring up the issue you want.

It's important to us that all of the Klipsch School alumni receive the quarterly KlipschSpeaker. We get our mailing labels from the Office of the Vice President for University Advancement, but we know there are Klipsch School alumni who are not in the database. We want to include these alumni, but we don't know how to find them. Please send us addresses of alumni not receiving the KlipschSpeaker.

We can also provide the KlipschSpeaker as an attachment to an e-mail message for those alumni who prefer electronic service. This may be especially attractive to foreign alumni. If you want e-mail delivery, send your name and e-mail address to jtaylor@nmsu.edu. Indicate any special requirements.

If you haven't already, please check the Klipsch School's web page at http://www.ece.nmsu.edu. Our web page tells about the Klipsch School students, faculty, programs, and research. Look us up. The NMSU web page address is http://www.nmsu.edu. You can get to our web page from NMSU's or directly at the address above. The University has a calendar of events web page at http://www.nmsu. edu/general/calendar. If you want to get in touch with us, obtain additional information, or tell us something about you or other alumni, contact the Klipsch School Head, Dr. Steven Castillo at 505-646-3115 or e-mail to scastill@nmsu.edu, or Dr. Javin Taylor, Associate Head and KlipschSpeaker Editor at 505-646-1239 or e-mail to jtaylor@ nmsu.edu, or use the Klipsch School fax number, 505-646-1435.

KlipschSpeaker

Summer 2000 Alumni News

Vol. 4, No. 3 news-q003.wpd

Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

New Mexico State University

Las Cruces, NM 88003