Society of Engineering Excellence (SEE) organized poster presentation event at the Institute of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering (IEECE), University of the Punjab Lahore on May 25, 2022. The theme of the poster presentation was “Modeling Real-Life Processes Using Logic Design Concept”. Second year students of IEECE participated in the event. They modeled a variety of processes using state machines including but not limited to business models, sustainable systems, biological systems, COVID-19, transportation systems, and others. 

Saad Ullah Bhatti bagged first position for his work on blood glucose monitoring. Ali Tahir secured second position for his work on climate change, while Arsh Alam secured third position for her work on car washing system. 

2022 Society of Engineering Excellence Conference (SEECON’22) was held under the supervision of Patron SEE, Dr. Umar Farooq at IEECE, Oct 19-20, 2022. SEE office-bearers including Mr. Hammad Munir, President SEE, Miss Hadia Khan, Secretary SEE, and Mr. Muhammad Umair Butt, Event Coordinator, managed the event along with 20 student volunteers. Director IEECE, Prof. Dr. Azhar Naeem was the chief guest of the event while organizing committee included Prof. Dr. Kamran Abid (Student Advisor), Dr. Zeeshan Azmat, Engr. Kashif Habib (Deputy Organizer), Dr. Kamal Shahid, Dr. Osama Majeed Butt, and Mr. Raheel Anjum. The event was comprised of five competitions namely Poster presentation (Theme: Control of Dynamical Systems), Simulink Control Design Contest, Circuit Design Contest, MATLAB Programming, and Technical Quiz. A total of 110 undergrad students from different departments registered for the contests including Electrical Engineering, Environment and Energy, Space Sciences, Physics, and Computer Sciences.

The event started with the recitation of Holy Quran followed by the opening remarks from Patron SEE, Dr. Umar Farooq and Student Advisor, Prof. Dr. Kamran Abid. In his remarks, Dr. Umar Farooq emphasized the need of co-curricular activities in building the confidence and sense of achievement amongst the students. He briefed about the history of SEE and the awards won by the members of ISLAF over the years, who were rigorously trained at ISLAF. He also briefed about the alumni of ISLAF serving the national and international institutions (http://sites.google.com/view/islaf).  Prof. Dr. Kamran Abid appreciated the efforts of Patron SEE for sparing time to organize co-curricular events such as SEECON’22 and encouraged students to actively participate in such activities. Later, “Certificates of Appreciation” were distributed to ISLAF members and alumni who presented their research in international conferences (2019-2021) under the supervision of Dr. Umar Farooq. These conferences include 9th International Workshop on Soft Computing Applications, University of Arad, Romania, 13th International Conference on Electromechanical and Energy Systems, Technical University of Isai, Romania, and 4th International Symposium on Advanced Electrical and Communication Technologies, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahad University, Saudi Arabia. A total of 14 ISLAF alumni and members were invited to receive the certificates of appreciation. Prof. Dr. Kamran Abid and Dr. Umar Farooq distributed the certificates. Mr. Muhammad Sabih received certificate of appreciation for presenting their work titled “An Algorithm for Fault Classification in Power Systems”. Engr. Hareem Siddque, and Engr. Iqra Maryam received certificate of appreciation for presenting their research work titled “Enhanced Functionality of Footing Machine Through Deep Learning”. Muhammad Umair Butt and Dawood Imtiaz Jutt received certificate of appreciation for presenting their research work titled “On Simplifying Boolean Expression in Real Time”. Others could not join the event due to their job commitments.

After the opening ceremony, poster presentation contest was held. A total of 19 students presented posters on the control of dynamical systems including control of biological systems, power systems, power converters, electromechanical systems, and chaotic systems. All these students performed research work under the supervision of Dr. Umar Farooq. Experts from control engineering field, Dr. Hassam Muazzam, Director (R&D), TEVTA, Engr. Azeem Javed (LUMS), and Engr. Muhammad Arif Anwar (Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics) were invited to evaluate the students’ work. Based on the cumulative score, Arslan Amjad was declared the winner of poster presentation contest. Faiza Imdad secured the second place while Faheem Abbas Khan Niazi received third position. In addition, a total of three Honorable Mention awards were presented to Mudassar Shahbaz Gondal, Tuba Sehar, and Asra Imran. Prof. Dr. Azhar Naeem distributed the awards.

Simulink Control Design Contest was held after the poster presentation. The contest was designed to assess participants’ ability to simulate nonlinear controller driven dynamical system in MATLAB/Simulink environment. Topic specific workshops were conducted by Dr. Umar Farooq to train the students in simulating a variety of nonlinear dynamical systems modeled by differential equations. Gulbaz Khan was declared the winner of Simulink Control Design Contest, being the only student to complete the task in stipulated amount of time.   

Day 2 of SEECON’22 started with Circuit Design Contest. The contest was designed to assess students’ ability to utilize the concepts of digital logic design to solve real world problem. A set of logic gate ICs were provided to the participants to realize the hardware solution and the wining criterion was the successful hardware implementation in least amount of time. Mahnoor Sharafat was the first one to implement the solution and was declared the winner followed by Zainab Jamil (second place) and Faheem Abbas Khan Niazi (third place).

 Next, MATLAB programming contest was held. The contest was designed to assess students’ ability to implement the given pseudocode in MATLAB programming environment. Participants were asked to code a couple of algorithms and the wining criterion was the successful implementation in least amount of time. Gulbaz Khan secured first place while Suhaib Khan received second position.

Finally, Technical quiz (MCQ based) competition was held. Topics included applied physics, basic electronics, computer fundamentals, linear algebra, differential equations, and integral transforms. Gulbaz Khan secured first place while Faheem Abbas Khan Niazi and Muneeb Ijaz bagged second and third positions, respectively. 

The event was concluded with the distribution of certificates and souvenirs to volunteers, SEE office-bearers, and members of organizing committee. In his closing remarks, Prof. Dr. Azhar Naeem thanked the participants, volunteers, members of organizing committee, and Patron SEE for successfully organizing the SEECON’22. He also ensured his continuous support for organizing such co-curricular events in future. 

Society of engineering excellence held first seminar in "series of seminars on control engineering and applied informatics" at IEECE, PU Lahore on Nov 22, 2022. The distinguished speaker, Dr. Muhammad Azeem Javed talked about the fundamentals of "Sensor Fusion for Robot Perception" and highlighted key issues. The abstract of his talk was as follows:

Perception is the ability to perceive, comprehend, and reason about the surrounding environment. Having a solid perception ability is crucial for autonomous robots to interact with the world. This seminar aims to offer a holistic understanding of fundamentals and the latest trends in robot perception. We will cover various topics, including sensing techniques, probabilistic state estimation, sensor fusion, SLAM, and learning algorithms. We will also discuss open problems and research frontiers in robot perception, such as perception in dynamic environments, open-world perception, sensor disturbances, and perception with provable guarantees.

The seminar ended with a note of thanks from the Patron, society of engineering excellence.   

Society of Engineering Excellence arranged SEECON’23 at IEECE, University of the Punjab Lahore. Dr. Umar Farooq, Patron SEE, was the Chief Organizer of the event while Prof. Dr. Muhammad Azhar Naeem, President ASA and Director IEECE, was the chief guest of the event. Mr. Raheel Anjum, Staff IEECE, and Miss Hania Fatima, Secretary SEE, along with volunteers Noman Javaid and Haseeb Safrdar performed management duties. A total of 5 competitions were held on various dates between April 17 and May 17, 2023. These include circuit design, speed wiring, technical paper, MATLAB programming and Simulink control design contests. A total of 70 students participated in the contests. Dr. Umar Farooq spent several hours in training the students to participate in these contests.

Technical paper contest was judged by Engr. Muhammad Arif Anwar. All other competitions were time-based i.e. students completing the tasks in minimum time were declared as winners. Dr. Umar Farooq checked the completeness of the tasks.

In circuit design contest, students were required to solve the given problem in prescribed amount of time and implement the solution using least number of hardware components. Umair Ali was declared as winner of the contest. In speed wiring contest, students were given a block diagram of a circuit with sufficient details for speedy hardware implementation. Umair Ali bagged first position in this contest. Second place was secured by Moeen Abbas while Syed Zulqarnain received third place. In MATLAB programming contest, students were given an algorithm with all steps and some mathematical details. They were required to implement the given algorithm in MATLAB programming environment. Syed Zulqarnain grabbed first award in this contest.

In technical paper contest, students were required to submit a technical paper to present 2 solutions to the assigned tracking control problem. After the submission process, students were required to present their findings in 3mins using PPT slides followed by questions from the judge. A total of 20 papers were submitted for this competition. Winners were selected based on their performance in the writing and presentation tasks. Saad Ullah Bhatti secured first place. Ali Tahir received second place while Fazeela Irshad grabbed third place.

In Simulink control design contest, students were given a trajectory tracking problem with details on the plant and controller dynamics. They were required to implement the problem using Simulink environment in a prescribed amount of time. Saad Ullah Bhatti secured first place, while Muhammad Faiz Raza received second place. Third award was grabbed by Abdulelah.

In the end, Chief Guest distributed awards and certificates to the winners, judge, and organizers while Dr. Kashif Samee and Engr. Ayesha Jaffer distributed certificates to the participants of SEECON’23. In his closing remarks, Prof. Dr. Azhar Naeem stressed the need of co-curricular activities and motivated the students to participate in these activities. He also congratulated Patron SEE and team to organize SEECON’23. Dr. Umar Farooq briefed the history of SEE and shared success stories of SEE members, who were trained by Dr. Umar Farooq to participate in various national and international IEEE/IET/ACM/ASME technical contests and earned fame for PU by wining over 75 awards in these contests a period of four years only (2008-12). Engr Ayesha Jaffar congratulated the winners and shared her views on the need of organizing co-curricular activities in addition to extra-curricular activities.    

Society of Engineering Excellence (SEE) in collaboration with PU Electronics & Automation Club (PEAC) organized SEECON’24 on June 06, 2024 at IEECE and Physics Department. The organizing team was comprised of Dr. Umar Farooq, Patron SEE, Dr. Abrar Ahmad Zafar, Patron PEAC, Dr. Zeeshan Azmat Sheikh, Advisor SEE, Prof. Dr. M. Azhar Naeem, Director IEECE, Prof. Dr. Mahmood ul Hasan, Chairman Physics Department, Nayab Shahid, President SEE, Mahnoor Sharafat, Secretary SEE, Abubakar Sheikh, Event Coordinator SEE, Muhammad Shoaib, Outreach Coordinator SEE, and a number of volunteers from IEECE. SEECON’24 was sponsored by Sensors Lab, KFUPM and AZ Energy Private Limited.

The conference was comprised of different modules including Techincal Paper Contest (Theme: Control of Dynamical Systems), Simulink Control Design Contest, Hardware Project Contest, Software Project Contest, Circuit Design Contest, and Poster Idea Presentation Contest (Theme: Energy, Environment, and Sustainability). Dr. Umar Farooq, Patron SEE, rigorously prepared students of IEECE and Physics Department to participate in various modules of SEECON’24. More than 70 students participated in the conference. The students were evaluated by a team of Honorable Judges including Dr. Muhammad Azeem Javed, Department of Artificial Intelligence, UMT, Mr. Muhammad Sabih, Software Engineer II-MLOps, Careem, Engr. Azeem Talib, Regional Head (South), PEL, and Engr. Rabia Nisar, Senior Engineer, Corrosion Control Centre, SNGPL. Prof. Dr. M. Azhar Naeem, Director IEECE, and Prof. Dr. Mahmood ul Hasan, Chairman Physics Department distributed shields and certificates to Honorable Judges, organizers, position holders, and volunteers during the closing ceremony of SEECON’24.

In the category of Technical Paper Contest, first award was won by Umair Ali, Ahmad Hassan, Hammad Muneer, and Abdul Aziz for presenting their paper on the design and implementation of PID controller for serial link manipulator. The second position in this contest was secured by Muneeb Ejaz, Mohsin Ashiq, Fatima Alam, and Hajra Imtiaz for presenting their paper on the PID control of parallel link manipulator. The third position was grabbed by Asma Nafees, Wajeeha Khalid, Habiba Kausar, and Majida Akram for presenting their paper on the observer based state feedback control of flexible link manipulator.

In the category of Simulink Control Design Contest, first position was obtained by Umair Ali and Ahmad Hassan for completing the given task in minimum amount of time. Second position in this category was grabbed by Muhammad Shafran and Syed Zulqarnain Haider while third position was secured by Muhamad Muneeb, Moeen Abbas, and Hamza Akbar. The two Honorable Mention awards were also announced for this category and were awarded to Zarmeen, and Aleeza Noor; Alisha Sohail, and Hadia Shahid.

In the category of Hardware Project Contest, first award was won by Jawad Hassan, Mujtaba Sajid, and Muhammad Saleem for their project on developing safety modules for electric bikes. Second position was secured by Ahmad Riaz, Zephaniah Qmar, and Misharib Waheed for their project on video transmission module for robotic car. Third place was grabbed by Shamaim Shafique, Wania Irfan, and Zainab Mirza for their project on EEG controlled robotic car.

In the category of Software Project Contest, first award was won by Haroon Raza and Anees Sohail on account of developing a mobile application for the waste management system.

In the category of Poster Idea Presentation Contest, first position was grabbed by Shankar Lal for his idea on battery health monitoring system using tools from genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. The second place in this category was secured by Fatima Salman and Hafsah Azhar for presenting their idea on drone based environment cleaning. Third place in this category was awarded to Zarmeen, Aymen Naseer, and Aleeza Noor for presenting their idea on the design of handheld meter for detecting carbides from the surface of fruits and vegetables. Four Honorable Mention Awards were also announced for the category of Poster Idea Presentation Contest. Zulqarnain Haider, Muhammad Shafran, and Hadia Shahid received Honorable Mention award for presenting their idea on sustainable kitchen. Musfira Javed, Marwa Yasin, and Moheera Naz received Honorable Mention Award for presenting their idea on power generation using agriculture residue. Hajra Imtiaz and Areeba Aziz received Honorable Mention Award for presenting their idea on green energy as by-product of smog towers. Amna Jahangir and Bisma Sahib received Honorable Mention Award for presenting their idea on E-waste management. Circuit design contest was concluded without any result as participants could not complete the task in the given amount of time.       

Society of engineering excellence held second seminar in "series of seminars on control engineering and applied informatics" at IEECE, PU Lahore on Oct 03, 2024. The distinguished speaker, Dr. Naveed Ashraf talked about the fundamentals and advancements in AC-AC converters. The abstract of his talk is as follows:

The main purpose of an AC-to-AC converter is to govern the output RMS voltage and frequency as per requirement. They may be employed as voltage controllers as well as frequency controllers. These converters can be categorized as indirect and direct. Indirect is a two-stage conversion topology to control the output RMS voltage and frequency by converting AC power to DC in the first stage which is stored in a DC link capacitor. The use of this capacitor has many concerns such as high cost, large space, and system reliability. The second stage of the indirect approach converts DC power to AC. Overall such a system has many power quality concerns, so not suitable for some application that only requires voltage regulation.  

Direct AC-to-AC converter is an alternate approach where AC power is directly converted to AC without involing the use of the DC link capacitor. Unipolar and bipolar voltage gain converters are two types of direct AC-to-AC converters. In unipolar voltage gain converters, the output voltage may be regulated in non-inverting or inverting forms of the input but not both. Such topologies employ low-power applications such as fan speed control at the domestic level. On the other hand, bipolar voltage gain converters are employed with the application that needs the non-inverted and inverted form of the input voltage. Such converters are extensively employed as dynamic grid voltage compensation for the correction of load voltage in case of voltage sag and well problems.

Therefore in this presentation, some basic topologies related to AC-to-AC converters are discussed along with merits and demerits. Then one of the advanced direct AC-to-AC bipolar gain voltage buck converters will be discussed focusing on its advantages as compared to similar topologies