Now in its seventh year, the EW BrightSparks awards see Electronics Weekly highlight and celebrate some of the brightest and most talented young engineers in the UK today. Continuing our series on the latest EW BrightSparks of 2024, we profile Ethan Wilkinson, a UKESF Scholar who is an Engineering Student (MEng) at the University of Birmingham with an internship at ...
University of Birmingham
JAMS music platform brings virtual concerts to reality
Created by researchers at the University of Birmingham, this has the sniff of the future about it. Or should I say the sound of the future...
Birmingham University seeks partners for grid challenges
Birmingham University is looking for licensees and commercial development partners for patented technologies for power system frequency control and forced oscillations which can cause widespread disruption over entire power grids. Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang (pictured) Chair in Electrical Power Systems at Birmingham’s Department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering, and his researchers have developed technologies to overcome these challenges. Grid frequency ...
Liquid gallium alloy micro-fluidic mm-Wave phase shifter
The proposed shifter uses a half-mode substrate-integrated waveguide, with phase shifted in a via-pad-slot structure where a through via is attached to a pad surrounded by an annular slot. “The phase shifter does not need clean room facilities for fabrication,” said lead researcher Dr Yi Wang, and “the liquid-metal enabled phase shifting elements have a passive nature, unlike active semiconductor-based ...
UKESF offers Introduction to Electronic Engineering online course
One for budding Gadget Masters maybe, or for those who want to deepen their electronics understanding - it's the UKESF's Introduction to Electronic Engineering online course, which is currently free.
UKSA’s National Space Innovation Programme funds 21 UK organisations
The UK government is investing £7 million, via the National Space Innovation Programme, in 21 UK organisations working on innovative space technologies. The idea is that it represents cash injections for “high-risk, high-reward” projects of both companies and universities. Areas addressed include monitoring climate change through Earth Observation and satellite communications to provide greater connectivity to remote places. For example, one ...
Cold Atom Space Payload Accelerometer aims to advance climate modelling
Teledyne e2v’s Chelmsford-based Space & Quantum team are working on the development of a Cold Atom Space Payload (CASPA) Accelerometer, for future space missions’ ability to take sensitive measurements of atmospheric drag. The aim is that the sensors will improve scientifc understanding of upper atmospheric dynamics and drive advances in climate modelling, weather forecasting and satellite orbit prediction. The company ...
End to roadworks
The universities of Sheffield, Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol have received a government grant of £26.6 million to develop micro-robots (pictured) which will run through underground pipes to find and mend cracks. “While for now we can only dream of a world without roadworks disrupting our lives, these pipe-repairing robots herald the start of technology that could make that dream a ...
EW BrightSparks 2018 profile: Ivan Krastev
Electronics Weekly has teamed up with RS Components to highlight the brightest and most talented young electronic engineers in the UK today. Here, in our series on the EW BrightSparks of 2018, we highlight Ivan Krastev, a Phd Student at the University of Birmingham. He has shown a deep understanding of power electronics systems and their application to electric vehicles, inventing circuits ...
Ancient Earth-size planets found, by a little bit of Essex
University of Birmingham scientists have found a solar system with Earth-sized planets from the dawn of the Galaxy – 11 billion years ago. They used data from sensors on NASA’s Kepler space telescope, made by E2V of Essex. Kepler’s telescope stares fixedly at a +/-6° cone of space with the largest NASA image sensor ever, assembled by Ball Aerospace, and ...