Speeding towards the future

The IEEEP, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Pakistan, Karachi Center was formed in 1979, as the local chapter in the country’s economic and business hub. Their aim has been to not only solve any problems that the country may face in the field of engineering, but in fact also “entails a wholesome approach towards improving the standard of living of their fellow countrymen.” Following on the promises that they made out, the IEEEP also planned out an event, the 26^th IEEEP All Pakistan Student Research Seminar at the Pakistan Navy Engineering College, NUST University campus. The aim of this event, now in its 26^th showing, was to allow budding engineering students from universities across Pakistan to launch a project that would help solve any specific problem that they felt needed attention, and a solution.

Subject to the terms and conditions, a number of prospective electronic and electrical engineers tried their luck and entered the ensuing contest. Amongst all the projects submitted, six were given out awards for being the most feasible and useful projects that could help to improve a variety of problems that Pakistan currently faces. Energy conservation is an urgent need of the times, and not just Pakistan, but across the world. If there is any way that countries and governments could feasibly use to save or reduce even an iota of their energy consumption, they are willing to try it. Tapping in on this potential, Summayyah Waheed, Azka Khalil and Shezana Zulfiqar Ali, students at the PNEC (Dept. of EPE) at NUST designed a project that would help control the speed of mechanical instruments, while at the same time helping to conserve energy. Titling their project the ‘Simulation Speed Controller’, the students hoped to market their idea soon.

While talking about their project, the three students spoke of how a number of industries use “gear boxes and throttles” to cut off, or alter the speed of their machines. The downside of this is that the gears or throttles cause a lot of energy loss and is consequently that much costlier. The project focuses on simulating “a variable speed drive. This drive controls the speed of a three-phase induction motor, and by stimulating the drive so as to be able to automatically control the speed of any machine, a lot of energy could be saved as compared to manually controlling the speed of the motor.” The energy conserved would not only help to improve the efficiency of the machine, it would also make the machine more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. “The benefits of using the Simulation Speed Controller are that it is cheaper, more cost effective, and the interfacing is also really cheap on this software, besides it is available more indigenously,” further elaborated one participant.

However, it wasn’t all joy for the group of three winners of the ‘Best paper Award’. They had to face a number of challenges while designing the project that they eventually spent months working on. For one thing, they did not have the relevant literature to write out their paper, or begin to work on their project. “The literature is only available in the modular form and has to be purchased from other countries,” they explained. The faculty and especially the supervisor helped to make the project a success. They group plans on inter-phasing the project soon, adding a “controller (either FPGA or microcontrollers or PLCs etc) and the relevant hardware before launching it into the market.

The question now arises that as a huge industrialist or businessman, why should you buy this particular product? In the words of the project builders, ‘there are a lot of speed drives available in the market already, but the problem is that they are not manufactured indigenously, they have to be exported from international manufacturers, consequently, they are extremely expensive. Manufacturing them locally would make them more cost effective.” Furthermore, exported products are off-the-shelf, hence there is problem individually inter-phasing them to local products. With this product though, there would no longer be any problem about that. The product is customizable to individual machines, and then again, it would be easier to get back to the local manufacturers incase of any problems.