•RECENT EXPERIENCE: R.F Engineer - I

• TITLE:
  
• R.F Engineer -I (Sep 2007 - Present)
  
• R.F Engineering Intern (Aug 2006 - Apr 2007)
  
• COMPANY: Ericsson Inc
• COMPANY WEBSITE: www.ericsson.com
• DURATION: See above
  
• PROJECT: Ericsson was working on a project for their client "Cingular". Ericsson's RF team was responsible to tune the 3G network in various markets across US and optimize them in order to minimize parameters such as dropped calls and call set-up failures. The Plano,TX location was established as the central tuning center(CTC) for this project .
• DESCRIPTION: The drive testing team would collect data using equipment such as GPS recievers, MS (Mobile station) -Cell Phone and a scanner. This data would be logged into a computer, which would generate files called LOG files. These log files contained entire information about each and every call made by the drive testing team. The drive testing team would transfer this data over secured internet connection to the CTC from various markets around US, where the RF Engineers would analyze this data and determine reasons for any drop call, access failure, set-up failure etc and recommend any changes to the network such as antenna tilt or addition of a site etc in order to overcome any problem.
• JOB FUNCTIONS: Ericsson is using an internal tool called OMEGA for processing this data. This tool would generate some reports which would give the number of drops, set-up failures etc. In the preliminary stages, the RF intern was responsible to generate these reports using the OMEGA tool and submit them to the senior RF Engineers for analysis. Eventually the RF Interns were encouraged to start analysis of data using the TEMS tool (Ericsson). A detailed report would then be submitted to the manager explaining each and every problem. The RF intern was also responsible in assisting the OMEGA programmer in making the tool more efficient and reliable. An extensive self study was involved in order to understand the technology and the processes involved. Some other duties were designing drive routes, site verification, documentation of new changes in OMEGA tool (into the user manual) and data management.The following responsibilities were assumed as an RF Engineer -I,
  
• Responsible for design of drive test routes intended to be used by drive test teams for collection of data in a UMTS network.
• Responsible for analysis of drive test data (TEMS) for SSV (Single site verification) drives and the outputs from the analysis tool (OMEGA/Actix) to make useful inferences from it, based on Layer 3 messaging, to narrow down the problem areas. (UMTS/WCDMA)
• Validating the dropped calls, access failures, missing neighbor using TEMS to help in better analysis of KPI’s for Single Site Verification drives.
• TOOLS USED: Actix, Mapinfo, Omega, TEMS Investigation, Street & Trips, Street Atlas, Topo USA.
  
• DOWNLOADS: Report submitted to University (Internship Report)
  

• EXPERENCE: Graduate Assistant

• TITLE: Graduate Assitant
  
• COMPANY: St. Mary's Univeristy
• COMPANY WEBSITE: www.stmarytx.edu
• DURATION: Jan 2006 - Aug 2006
• PROJECT: The Electrical Engineering department of St. Mary's University was setting up a new lab for Control System and Data Acquisition.
  
• DESCRIPTION: The new Control Systems and Data Acquisition lab required about 10 computers, each equipped with LabVIEW software and NI ELVIS workstations. The experiments for the lab were to be designed and tested with the equipment. Moreover, it was required to include some special equipment so that the students get hands on experience with real time implementation.
• JOB FUNCTIONS: The primary function was to determine which equipment would be most suitable for the given lab and resources. A limited budget and a minimum number of equipment to be included was provided by the department. An extensive research was done along with a comparison of products from various vendors and the most appropriate vendor was chosen for the given budget. Once the equipment was ordered, it was required to test them on LabVIEW workstations to make sure that they are fully functional. A set of 15 experiments along with detailed documentation was then implemented. Each of these experiments had to be tested and the consistency with documentation had to be verified.
  
• DOWNLOADS: Lab POSTER (For Introducing the Lab to the university), Inital report on equipment selection, Final project report, Lab Status File
  

•PROJECT: VHDL implementation of PONG game

• AIM: The project was intended to get familiar with interfacing external components such as VGA monitor, keyboard and mouse with a FPGA board. Also, high level of VHDL programming was required to accomplish the project. The primary aim was to design a video game with a graphical display on the monitor and control via keyboard or mouse.
• IMPLEMENTATION: The implementation of the project required an ALTERA FPGA board (FLEX10 FPGA chip) which was programmed on the Quartus II platform. Modules for generating control signals for the VGA monitor (horizontal sync, vertical sync etc) and keyboard were designed. The keyboard module was responsible for determining an occurrence of key stroke, detecting the scan code and decoding the scan code corresponding to the key pressed. The VGA module was responsible to generate vertical and horizontal sync signals according to the standard timing and provide means to input RGB signals and output the current pixel position. A state machine was then designed in order to implement the game. The game displayed two paddles on each side of the screen which could be controlled independently by the same key board (with a direction of UP/DOWN). A ball would move randomly, bouncing off the screen walls. The aim of the players is to make the ball bounce off the paddle. On losing the ball, the game restarts.
• STATUS: The project was completed successfully
• DOWNLOADS: Design Files, VHDL code

•EXPERIENCE: Circuit Design Engineer

• TITLE: Circuit Design Engineer
• COMPANY: Eikone Inc
• COMANY WEBSITE: www.eikone.com
  
• DURATION: Aug 2003 - Dec 2005
• PROJECT: Eikone Inc was designing a Skin Analysis Kiosk (SAK) which would be used for diagnosing facial ailments such as acne, sun burn, dry skin etc.
  
• DESCRIPTION: The SAK consisted of 6 UV lights which would turn on when a user inserts cash or completes an authenticated credit card transaction. The user observes the face in a mirror under the UV lights. Based on the color of the skin in a particular part of the face the user enters this information into a GUI via a touch screen. On completion of process (or time out), the system generates a printed report with the ailments the user is affected with and some recommended cosmetics.
• JOB FUNCTIONS: The SAK required all the UV lights to be ON during the diagnosis process to have the face evenly lit up. It was therefore important to monitor these lights constantly to detect any failure in one or more of the lamps. A circuit was designed to monitor the lamps constantly. The circuit was designed to send a signal to the computer via LPT port whenever a malfunction occurs in the UV lights. The computer would use this signal to shut down the system and send an SMS/e-mail to the owner of the system about the malfunction. Another aspect of the circuit design was to design a circuit to turn the lamps ON and OFF using a computer signal. Also, the diagnosis signal to the computer was supposed to be available only after the UV lights are fully ON (to avoid flickering of UV lights on power on to be taken as malfunctioning). In order to do this some timing and logic control was implemented within the circuit. Once the circuit design was completed, an analysis was done in Multisim environment and using ORCAD p-spice. The process included capturing the schematic using ORCAD Capture tool, simulation using ORCAD P-spice and board layout using ORCAD Layout. Files such as BOM, Cross reference etc were generated . Next, the circuit prototype was constructed in order to verify its functionality. With successful testing, the circuit was finally approved for PCB layout design. Gerber Files were generated to send the PCB design for fabrication. The first PCB fabrication was given to pad2pad.com. On the arrival of PCB board, another prototype to test the PCB board was constructed. With some revisions in the PCB, a final prototype was constructed. The entire system was then ordered for fabrication.
  
• DOWNLOADS: Circuit Data Sheet (Un-official)
  

•PROJECT: Wall Following Robot

• AIM: The primary aim of this project was to get master the HCS12 micro-controller. The project helped in getting familiar with interfacing sensors and high current devices (such as motors) with the micro-controller. It provoked self-study for designing respective circuitry and algorithm in order to build the project.
• IMPLEMENTATION: There were no specifications given for the project in terms of what equipment to use or what circuit to use. The students were only asked to design a wall following robot using HCS12. The students were encouraged to understand design parameters and implement them practically. Robot design was also a part of the assignment. A HCS12 evaluation dragon board was used which was interface with four IR sensors and two differential drive DC motors. The DC motors were interfaced via L293D motor drive IC's. HCS12 was programmed in ALP using an appropriate algorithm that was designed. Utilization of I/O ports and A/D conversion was employed in the design.
  
• STATUS: The project was successfully completed.
• DOWNLOADS: Project Report, Project Video Demo
  

• PROJECT: Elevator design and control simulation using LabVIEW

• AIM: The project design consists of an elevator model which is being controlled by Lab VIEW software, using the digital port of the NI ELVIS development system. The project was designed keeping in mind applications of data acquisition in real time and its real time implementation. It helped in understanding the practical problems that occur in real time implementation and served as a driving force to seek for answers to solve them
• IMPLEMENTATION: The project was implemented on a LabVIEW platform, where a VI program was developed to control an elevator prototype. The elevator prototype was constructed using general purpose hardware and a DC-motor assembly. Photocells were used as sensors to determine the current floor of the elevator car. An interface circuitry was designed and fabricated to make the hardware compatible with the NI ELVIS workstation which was controlled by the LabVIEW program.
• STATUS: Successfully Completed
• DOWNLOADS: Project report (PDF Format) , PPT Presentation, Demonstration Video
  

•MASTER'S PROJECT : Evaluation and real time implementation of different techniques for a wireless communication channel

• AIM: This primary aim in developing this project was to get more familiar with embedded systems and their application in wireless systems. Also, the project helps in understanding some basic wireless concepts, which are very useful in making a wireless system more robust and error free.
  
• IMPLEMENTATION: An evaluation module from Texas Instruments is being used for implementation purposes. The EVM TRF6903 consists of the TRF603 transceiver chip and the MSP430 micro-controller on a single board. A JTAG interface is used to program the micro-controller and the data to be transmitted is given via the RS-232port. Window based program called Kickstart is available to program the micro-controller chip. The programming platform is embedded C and some ALP.
  
• DETAILS: Implementation of wireless schemes such as convolutional encoding, Viterbi decoding and block interleaving was performed. A comparative study of each of these schemes with respect to BER was done in order to determine the reliability of the scheme and integrity of the data while changing the distance of transmission and reception. It was noticed that for higher distances the channel resulted into fading and for such cases interleaving helped in improving the data integrity by a huge factor. On the other hand convolutional encoding and viterbi decoding also improved error rate by forward error correction techniques.
  
• STATUS: The project was completed successfully in August 2007 .
• DOWNLOADS: Project Report (PDF FORMAT)