The Department of Electrical Engineering under the College of Intelligent Science and Technology at ISU continued to shine at the Green Idea Invention and Design Fair 2023. With the integration of expertise in smart technology and medical resources, faculty and students have created several outstanding inventions and designs. Their achievements include two silver awards, two bronze awards, and a special award recognized by the judging panel. This success placed them ahead of competitors from universities across the nation.
Hung-Wei Hsu, a first-year graduate student at the Department of Electrical Engineering, made an impressive contribution with two remarkable inventions. One of them,titled “Epilepsy Detection System Based on Embedded Device to Establish Blink Characteristics,” earned him a silver and special awards from the judging panel. This invention, driven by the goal of addressing clinical care challenges, leveraged computer vision to monitor the frequency of seizures in patients with epilepsy.It offers a solution to the limitations of human observation and provides much-needed relief to patients’ families or healthcare institutions. This innovation ultimately enhanced the healthcare quality for epilepsy patients and garnered significant recognition from the judges. Another noteworthy invention, “Infrared Thermal Imager System with Mask Recognition and Temperature Calibration Built on Raspberry Pi,”clinched a silver award. This project achieved the same level of temperature accuracy as professional medical thermography devices, which typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, even when using lower-grade camera equipment. This innovation successfully addressed the issue of inadequate accuracy in existing thermography devices in the market. At the height of the pandemic, this system was deployed at the entrances and exits of various buildings at ISU, aiding in crucial infection prevention efforts.
The bronze award-winning invention, “Web Development for Diagnosis of Duct Obstruction Based on Telemedicine,” was a collaborative effort led by a team of students from the Department of Electrical Engineering, including Chun-Yang Lin, Hung-Wei Hsu, Yi-Wen Chang, Chih-Yang Lin, and Tsung-Wen Chiu, aiming to enhance the existing fistula assessment system by establishing a remote medical system. This allows patients to analyze obstruction at their homes through AI technology. Another bronze award-winning invention, “A Novel Driver Circuit for Piezoelectric Ceramic Actuators,” developed by Wen-Yi Yen, Lung-Fu Lan, and Hao-Fang Hsu, improved the traditional driver circuit for piezoelectric ceramic actuators. It can be applied to equipment such as ultrasonic metal welding machines, ultrasonic fabric pressing machines, ultrasonic line showers, and plastic welders.
Hung-Wei Hsu explained that the epilepsy detection system leveraged the abundant resources in smart technology and health medicine at ISU. It directly integrated the leading-edge AI technology into the clinical setting, making AI more accessible for various applications. This advancement directly benefited patients by harnessing AI technology. Chun-Yang Lin, a junior student at the Department of Electrical Engineering, mentioned feeling a bit nervous during his first international competition. Luckily, after thorough preparation and showcasing professionalism during interactions with the judges, he found the experience to be highly beneficial. Wen-Yi Yen, also a junior in the Department of Electrical Engineering, expressed that participating in the competition enabled her to observe other schools’ entries and learn from various fields of expertise. She hopes to continue participating in more competitions in the future to enhance her competencies further.
Dr. Rong-Ching Wu, who led the Department of Electrical Engineering student team, stated that the entries in the Green Idea Invention and Design Fair 2023 were all research outcomes from medicine-centered research projects and student industry-oriented special projects. Their recognition from the competition demonstrated success and underscored the Department’s capacity to integrate innovation with interdisciplinary medical research. Dr. Wei-Yuan Tseng mentioned that the competition entries have potential future applications in hospitals, clinics, health centers, and other healthcare facilities. These innovations will allow healthcare professionals to continuously monitor and manage patients’ conditions with the assistance of AI technology, enabling them to make necessary adjustments to treatment plans based on individual cases. Dr. En-Chih Chang pointed out that ISU has actively integrated resources from various departments and colleges in recent years, combining smart technology and healthcare. Leveraging the advantage of having a college of medicine, which is relatively rare among comprehensive universities in Taiwan, ISU has facilitated interdisciplinary collaborations between medical and technological research resources. The competition entries align with ISU’s distinctive development directions, allowing academic and practical knowledge to benefit from each other mutually. Dr. Chun-An Cheng expressed that through participating in the competition, there was a valuable exchange of creative ideas and design concepts in the fields of energy conservation, carbon reduction, and renewable energies among the competing teams and the faculty members. Both the faculty and students have greatly benefited from this interaction.
