Virginia, Italy and Singapore Students Advance to Texas Instruments DSP Solutions Challenge Finals
HOUSTON (April 27, 1998) -- University students from Virginia, Italy and Singapore scaled another hurdle to capturing a US $100,000 grand prize after being named finalists in Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE:TXN) DSP Solutions Challenge, a worldwide competition to develop the most innovative design using TI digital signal processing (DSP) devices.
Designs that advanced in the most recent judging included uses for wireless communications, multimedia audio systems and higher quality/interactive television broadcasting. They were developed by teams from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and University of Perugia (Italy).
Each of the three finalist teams will divide US$10,000 in winnings to date and continue competition for the grand prize. The winner will be announced May 12 at the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) in Seattle, Wash. These teams were three of the nine semifinalists in the competition who earned US$1,000 each in preliminary competition.
DSPs are specialized microprocessor chips that crunch mathematical calculations and move data at amazingly fast speeds in order to process signals. The devices analyze and make decisions about "real world" analog signals so fast that calculations occur in "real time," or as they occur in real life. DSPs make access to the Internet faster and communication on digital cell phones clearer, among other uses.
All of the project finalists have taken DSP courses at their respective universities. Besides gaining practical experience in their areas of interest, they realize that having DSP experience is required to be competitive in today's job market.
"My experience at the University of Perugia (Italy) during the TI DSP Solutions Challenge project was appreciated for my actual employment in a telecommunication industry where it also will be useful for the future," said Stefan Pielmier.
His team focused on a new television technology called Digital Video Broadcasting, which has higher and more stable quality than Standard Definition TV (SDTV). DVB can deliver interactive services to the home, as well as digital sound and video. The interactive services may be entertainment, health care or educational courses, as examples, and should strengthen the relationship between computers and television.
The Virginia Tech team's adaptive antenna array design would allow wireless service providers to expand coverage, increase cellular system capacity and improve signal quality at the same time they allow customers more "talk time" by using battery power more efficiently. This research could improve traffic monitoring and direction finding capabilities for position locators as well as improve wireless communications.
"Our project required many areas of expertise: system engineering, radio frequency design, antenna design, DSP theory and programming, hardware interfacing, to name a few," said Kim Phillips of the Virginia Tech team. "These are critical skills that are highly desired in the engineering profession."
Nanyang Technological University is making its second appearance at the DSP Solutions Challenge. In 1996, a different team of students from the Singapore university won the US$100,000 grand prize in TI's DSP Solutions Challenge.
"We will continue to explore and develop new approaches for 3-D audio surround sound system to further enhance this system," said Siew Cheng of the Nanyang team. These students converted 5.1 channel Dolby Digital sound (AC-3), commonly found in home entertainment systems with "surround sound" and multimedia environments, into two speakers or earphones with the same quality. Such a design would enable listeners to hear 3-D positional sound from any point in a room (without investing in five speakers to hear it) and would improve the sound technology for multimedia users.
"While many universities teach DSP theory, TI's competition is designed to encourage engineering students worldwide to put the theory into practice with new problem-solving applications," said Michael Hames, TI vice president and worldwide DSP manager. "We are preparing students to compete in the workforce of tomorrow that will serve a market already growing more than 30 percent per year."
TI received 273 entries from more than 800 students in 26 countries. Submittals are judged by TI representatives for their overall creativity, practicality and repeatability, difficulty, completeness, professionalism, as well as operability. In addition to student prizes, advising professors for the grand prize winning team will receive a cash prize of US$15,000 and an offer of a six-month sabbatical program at TI.
"These finalists have demonstrated practical applications of TI's industry-leading DSP solutions that pay off in prizes for them now -- and in hands-on experience for the future, " said Torrence Robinson, TI's DSP solutions university program manager. "Many students are prompted to continue in the specialties selected for their projects."
The DSP Solutions Challenge is one of several TI programs supporting higher education. Recently, TI announced it plans to invest $25 million to encourage top-level DSP research at some of the world's leading engineering schools. In 1996, TI also presented a $7 million cash donation to Rice University, the largest corporate cash contribution the university has ever received, to fund long-term cooperative research projects in DSP and information engineering, particularly in digital wireless and other telecommunications applications used by TI customers. Additionally, TI's DSP University Program has a comprehensive program that supports the establishment of "hands-on" DSP laboratories on campus.
Information on TI's University Program is available online at: 
http://www.ti.com/sc/university
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