When it comes to electrified transportation, the sky’s the limit for three electrical and computer engineering students at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Anubhav Bose, Mudith Witharamalage and Omkar Kulkarni have won first place in a prestigious international design competition for electric aircraft: the 2025 ITEC+EATS Student Design Challenge. The ECE student team […]
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Superconducting Motor Could Propel Electric Aircraft > Prototype unit from startup Hinetics uses a high-temperature superconductor
Article written by Glenn Zorpette Glenn Zorpette is editorial director for content development at IEEE Spectrum. Hinetics demonstrated its superconducting motor in April 2025. Of the countless technologies invented over the past half century, high-temperature superconductors are among the most promising and yet also the most frustrating. Decades of research has yielded an assortment of materials that […]
Undergraduate English Student Autumn Williams Visits ECEB, Signs Up at the Energy Kiosk, and Wins a Solar Phone Charger Celebrating Earth Day
Students and visitors in the ECEB lobby have learned about energy efficiency through the Student Sustainability Committee-funded touch-screen energy display since Engineering Open House 2021. Two kiosks present ways to reduce energy use and encourage visitors to commit to one or more of these. In return, their names are entered into a random drawing to […]
PECI 2025: Power and Energy Conference at Illinois – April 11, 2025
The IEEE hosted its 16th annual Power and Energy Conference at Illinois (PECI) on April 11 in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building, Coordinated Science Laboratory and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at The Grainger College of Engineering. We welcomed speakers from UT Austin, MIT, UC-Berkeley and Wisconsin and attendees from across campus and the […]
Stillwell awarded the 2025 Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award
The US Air Force has an increasing need for better (smaller, more efficient, more powerful) pulsed power converters. These systems deliver high power for very short duration to enable directed energy capabilities such as laser excitation, high energy radar, high-power microwave radiation, electronics disruption, and electromagnetic launch. Commercial applications of pulsed power include particle accelerators, […]
Banerjee-led team developing low-cost power engineering lab kits for use around the world
With support from the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) Arijit Banerjee has been leading an effort to design and create affordable, hands-on experimentation kits for college-level power electronics courses. The beta-version kits are already a hit with his U. of I. students, but Banerjee and his collaborators have ambitious plans that go far beyond the […]
iSEE Transportation Project Installs Free EV Stations to Study Charging Data
A view of a new EV charging box installed in Lot B4. This study explores familiar, basic 120V AC outlets as a charging infrastructure alternative. Sometimes, called Level 1 charging, it takes many hours to recharge an EV battery from this basic infrastructure. On the other hand, commuters park their cars all day, so this […]
POETS testbed to be expanded under FAA low-emission aviation technologies grant
For almost a decade, the Center for Power Optimization for Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) has pursued innovations in electric powertrains for transportation systems ranging from cars and trains to ships and small aircraft. Now, a $2.7 million award from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Fueling Aviation’s Sustainable Transition (FAST) program will upgrade the POETS testbed to enable […]
Newcomer ECE Graduate Student Jim Liao Tours ECEB, Signs Up at the Energy Display, and Wins A Solar Phone Charger Celebrating Energy Efficiency Day
Students and visitors in the ECEB lobby have learned about energy efficiency through the Student Sustainability Committee-funded touch-screen energy display since Engineering Open House 2021. Two kiosks present ways to reduce energy use and encourage visitors to commit to one or more of these. In return, their names are entered into a random drawing to […]
Professor Haran Comments on “The Batteries and Motors that Could Help Electric Planes Take Off”in Science
Electric planes that could fly cleaner and transport hundreds of people thousands of miles depend on more powerful batteries and motors than those used in today’s electric cars. Although shorter-range electric planes and electric air taxies, including electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (EVTOL) that carry a few people short distances nearby (from downtown to the airport) could be […]