INEP Power Electronics Institute in Florianópolis, Brazil

While this blog in focused on the Electronics sector in Africa, there are a number of areas where it is very advantageous for universities or companies in Africa to collaborate with world leading institutions or companies. One such area is Power Electronics, particularly with regards to switchmode supplies and converters. One such leading institution is the INEP Power Electronics Institute associated with Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis.

The INEP website, all in Portuguese, is http://inep.sites.ufsc.br/

INEP – UFSC | LinkedIn

At present, only one of their books is in English, rest are in Portuguese.

Power Electronics books published by INEP

Many of the papers presented at international conferences by INEP researchers are in English.

I got to know of this institution in 1994 when I went to Curitiba, Brazil to assist with the final specification of a telecom power supply being designed for our telecom project in South Africa. At that time, INEP had 22 students doing masters degrees in switchmode power supplies.  Switchmode Power supply/converter design  involves various disciplines including electromagnetics (including EMC, EMI) , heat transfer, mathematics, control systems.  Traditionally, the kind of expertise required was developed or acquired by a team of 5-20 engineers, and normally only companies in telecoms or military electronics could afford such large teams.

PV-Solar-lighting system: Why not made in SA?

Here at CommunityLED.co.za we market a simple solar-powered lighting system designed to replace candles and paraffin as part of a poverty alleviation program.

The system is made in China using design inputs from us and we often get asked, why isn’t this being made in South Africa? That’s a good question. We’d love to market a locally produced unit but no-one seems to be able to do this here. In meetings with tech companies I’ve been told flat out – “no way is that possible in South Africa at that price”.

There are around 4.5 million people in South Africa who live without electricity in the context of informal settlements or shack housing. This community uses candles, paraffin and firewood to provide lighting. The typical shack is 5x5m, is full of ‘stuff’ including foodstuff, clothes and flammable materials. Shacks are in close proximity so when one shack catches fire, other soon follow. And so every few days we read of shack fires and the human misery they create.

Our solution is a 6V Solar powered system that provides light for up to 12 hours a night using 3 LED bulbs totalling 3.5 Watt. There’s no risk of shorting or fires and people don’t have to inhale the gasses and fumes produced by paraffin.

So, we’d like to source these locally and would like to challenge the inventive minds out there: The following specifications are for a lighting unit designed to replace a 20Watt CFL bulb. Can you build this in South Africa using as much local content as possible from scratch and provide it or something with similar performance for less than R330 for each unit AT A PROFIT. The system we have is a complete solar power station and includes:

4 Watt solar panel with 5m cable

 Base unit with 3 light fittings and switches for each light and solar panel connector

3 x 6V DC LED bulbs (2Watt, 1Watt, 0.5Watt) each with 5m cable

1 x USB Charge port 800MAh

1 x 0 – 5v volt meter

1 x 6 volt  C123 battery

Solar charge controller

Packaging

Looking forward to hear your ideas and you needn’t limit yourself to solar energy in your feedback. Also, if it isn’t possible to build something like this in SA for this price, what IS possible using local components?

Steve

steve@storytelling.co.za    www.storytelling.co.za

Neuromorphic Engineering

Neuromorphic Engineering seeks to replicate the brain’s extraordinary computational abilities using innovative hardware and software applications. At the forefront of this field is Stanford professor Kwabena Boahen, who is originally from Ghana. He is director of the Brains in Silicon research laboratory. You can read more about him here

His laboratory’s most recent accomplishment is a new computing platform called Neurogrid, which simulates the activity of 1 million neurons in real time. This energy  efficient brain simulator outperforms supercomputers, yet consumes only 5 watts – more about that in this article.

For additional information see  Boahen’s website  Brains in Silicon

Lung-on-a-chip : human, breathing lung tissue on a chip

Last year, a Lung-on-a-chip was announced.  Here is a video of the project. In February this year, the Lung-on-a-chip project won a prize from from the U.K.’s National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research.  Lung-on-a-chip is an amazing innovation that permits many types of lung research without using humans or animals.

Self-taught African Teen electronics enthusiast wows M.I.T

Kelvin Doe, is a 15-year-old from Sierra Leone who visited the U.S. as a guest of M.I.T. under their Visiting Practitioner’s Program for international development.

With no engineering or electronics education, this fascinating young man taught himself how to build batteries, power generators, transmitters and many other devices from things he found in the neighborhood’s garbage cans. He used scrap metal, baking soda and acid to create a battery to power his family’s home. He also broadcasts news and music on his own radio station, using an RF transmitter he created.

Researchers at the M.I.T. recognized Kelvin’s gift and invited him to be a guest resident for three weeks. He is the youngest person ever to be invited to M.I.T..

Full article here, includes video clip

Partsim, a free web based electronic circuit simulator

PartSim is a free and easy to use circuit simulator that runs in your web browser

PartSim includes a full SPICE simulation engine, web-based schematic capture tool, and a graphical waveform viewer.

 

Hearing aids designed and built in Botswana

I was intending to write my own article on the need for lower cost hearing aids, and that these could be designed and made in Africa, for reasons already mentioned in the very first blog post Complex electronics systems can now be developed with relatively small budgets At the time I was unaware that hearing aids had in fact already been designed and made in Africa.

The article Something to Shout About , originally published in Newsweek, gives a short history of the company Godisa Technology Trust, which produced the first hearing aids in a small town on the edge of the desert in Botswana.  The business was originally established by a Canadian businessman Howard Weinstein with a background in plumbing. He said that when they started, there are around 250 million hearing impaired people in the world, but only 10 million hearing aids were being made every year. These were high end, cost units, costing up to $10 000 each.  One reason for the low demand in developing countries, was that just the cost of replacing non rechargeable button batteries made hearing aids unaffordable for the poor. Godisa introduced a major innovation, a rechargeable button size battery, with an associated solar PV battery charger.  The Hearing aid with charger retailed fore less than $100, less than a fifth of the cost of the lowest priced conventional unit.  In 2008, Weinstein was working with engineers from the University of São Paulo on a second-generation, digital hearing aid.

Companies and universities in Africa however should have the expertise to develop a modern, multi-channel digital hearing aid.

Why study Electronics Engineering at university?

The text below is from the Electronics Engineering web page of one university. 

You enjoy maths and science and want to make the most of your excellent grades.
You want to learn more about quantum effects and their application in security and computing.
You’re fascinated by electricity, energy and electronics.
You want to reduce our carbon footprint by developing more efficient renewable energy solutions, rolling out smart energy grids, and designing hybrid and all-electric vehicles.
You love the latest gadgets and want to design mobile phones, set-top boxes, music players and 3D TVs.
You’re inquisitive and want to explore how things work, invent things, and design things that  benefit society.
You want to develop innovative real-time software solutions that run on embedded computers and processors.
You’re passionate about medical electronics, and want to contribute to the development of life-saving instrumentation.
The Internet amazes you and you want to learn more about terabit optical communications and gigabit wireless handsets.
You’re creative and want to work in the digital media industry.
You’re looking for generous sponsorship options, interesting summer placements, and exceptional employment prospects.
With an electrical and electronic engineering degree you’ll have no trouble earning money. The technology is all-pervasive and present in every  aspect of modern life. Electrical and electronic engineering is embedded in all other engineering disciplines (particularly mechanical and aerospace).

The skills we teach are highly transferable and starting salaries for our graduates are currently around £30k a year.

The above was taken from the website of the University of Bristol in the UK. I chose it as it happened to be near the top in a Google Search listing.   If any university in Africa has a webpage covering a comparable depth of focus areas in Electronic Engineering, please e-mail me or post a comment, and I will replace the text above with that of the African university.

Synthetic Biology

The following is an extract of the Wikipedia definition of Synthetic biology. “Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research and technology that combines science and engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a variety of definitions. The common goal is the design and construction of new biological functions and systems not found in nature.”

Note that Synthetic Biology is distinctly different from Genetic Engineering.

Synthetic biology is taught in different faculties at different universities. At MIT, Synthetic Biology is a research theme in the faculty of Electronic Engineering.

Just as Electronics developed rapidly with the development and production of standard electronic components, so is Synthetic Biology being advanced by the development of standard components. Here is an online Registry of standard biological parts that “can be mixed and matched to build synthetic biology devices and systems.”

Synthetic Biology can be taught at high school, and be demonstrated in high school laboratories. Refer to webpages Synthetic Biology and the High School Curriculum

Quantum Computing

Quantum Computing is way beyond what can be done in a home or high school laboratory at present. In fact, commercially available Quantum Computers have yet to be built. Some experimental Quantum Computers may require a room full of supporting equipment to make up a complete system. Is possible that Quantum Computers may never become small enough in our lifetimes, to be able to fit in one’s pocket like today’s Smartphones.

Quantum Computing, first postulated by Richard Feynman in 1982, offers great promise for the future. Quantum Computing is a major research theme in some Electronic Engineering departments, such as MIT.  This is why this post was written – there is a link between Quantum Computing and Electronics.  No doubt, some youngsters will be inspired to study electronics because they would like to research and develop Quantum Computers one day.

You can get an overview of the basic here Quantum Computer .  Here is a timeline of Quantum Computing

In Africa, universities teaching and researching Quantum Computing, and research organizations  researching Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications include:

University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Centre for Quantum Technology

UNISA Quantum Information and Computation (QuIC) Research Group

CSIR CSIR National Laser Centre (NLC)