The research and associated literature review contained within this paper provides an overview of Project Based Learning (PjBL) methods globally and its current application in La Trobe University Engineering degrees. The team involved in the project conducted a literature review of PjBL methodologies used in various universities, encompassing descriptions of assessment, the impact reported on students, academics or university, and the challenges encountered. Following the systematic review and taking into account the variety of the methods analysed, a tool to assess the level of PjBL in a subject was created, formed around undergraduate engineering degrees at La Trobe University in Melbourne. Engineering subjects implemented within the La Trobe University Engineering degrees have considerable PjBL elements and have increased the prevalence of contemporary pedagogical approaches (including PjBL) in the degree structure. Abstract and non-specific engineering subjects involving innovation and entrepreneurship have become more prevalent in the La Trobe Engineering structure.. The assessment tool was then applied for three case studies with various levels of PjBL, developed at La Trobe University, Department of Engineering.

Career progression is something all young professionals will experience. However, they can often find themselves facing major challenges for which they are underprepared. This type of role nominally comes with a significant increase in workload and responsibilities that elevate stress levels. Generally, their first attempt is to micromanage every activity, which results in an inefficient use of time. This becomes more evident as the team size and the complexity of the objectives grow and finally become impractical, leading to disastrous failures. An important aspect of leadership is the ability to effectively delegate tasks. Delegation involves handing over the authority, responsibility, and accountability for performing specific duties to others, so that they may act on your behalf. This article highlights six specific aspects of effective delegation for young professionals aspiring to become great managers and leaders.

The detection of partial discharge in GIS plays a pivotal role in preventing and mitigating severe operational failure and damage in insulation elements. Partial discharge progressively degrades the insulating medium and, as a result electrical breakdown can occur in GIS. Despite various techniques used for PD detection, the RF analysis is extensively used because it is highly reliable, has good sensitivity and the largest bandwidth. The objective of this study is to examine two applicable planar antennas for detecting the RF energy of partial discharge in GIS infrastructure. Namely, a planar complex spiral antenna and a fractal tree log-periodic dipole antenna which are located on the GIS junction of segments.

This article raises the case for including learning experiences in the basic skills in the discipline of engineering management. Engineering curriculums tend to cover fundamental and complex topics from electromagnetic theory to quantum mechanics. However, there is little emphasis on the management discipline. Students graduate with an excellent aptitude in applying mathematics, physics and general science to solve problems in industry. However, it is no surprise that industry often evaluates graduates differently, focusing on soft skills. The article concludes with a discussion on the need of effective and collaborative mentoring between engineering managers, educators, researchers, and other practitioners to encourage growth and development of young professionals.

Young professionals and students in the engineering and technology disciplines are predominantly focused on developing their technical attributes in order to succeed in their careers. As their careers progress, they find themselves facing the daunting task of rapidly transitioning into a management role and realise that they need a set of skills which they haven't developed sufficiently. In this article, we address six important qualities of great leaders as a way of increasing the awareness of two crucial topics for young professionals. Firstly, the necessity for early career engineers to identify and develop their own set of leadership qualities and skills. And secondly, to discuss the importance of being a good leader while facing management roles. Furthermore, we discuss whether great managers are also great leaders.

In radar applications, the target velocity is commonly determined using the Doppler effect. By comparing the transmit-receive differential frequency, the Doppler frequency shift can be measured, and as a result, the target velocity can be determined. The Tasman International Geospace Environment Radars (TIGER) form part of an international network of similar HF radars called Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) which explores the impact of solar disturbances on the Earth's upper atmosphere. These radars utilise an Auto Correlation Function (ACF) to measure the changing phase of the ACF between lag times to determine the Doppler frequency and the target velocity. Measured velocity results can show large, and sometimes unrealistic errors. As part of the development of the third TIGER radar at Buckland Park, Adelaide, South Australia, a Spectrum Difference Function (SDF) technique for measuring velocity has been proposed as a means for cross-checking results. The SDF technique uses the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to calculate the transmit and receive signal magnitude spectrums which are then compared to find the Doppler frequency. In this paper the developed technique is compared to existing interpolation techniques using SuperDARN radar parameters. Simulation results show that the accuracy and computational complexity of the SDF technique are comparable to those of other techniques using FFT.

In radar applications, target velocity is commonly determined using the Doppler effect. By comparing the transmit-receive differential frequency the Doppler frequency shift can be measured and as a result the target velocity can be determined. The Tasman International Geospace Environment Radars (TIGER) form part of an international network of similar HF radars called Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) which explore the impact of solar disturbances on Earth by monitoring the location of aurora and related phenomena occurring in the ionosphere. These radars utilise an Auto Correlation Function (ACF) to measure the changing phase of the ACF between lag times to determine the Doppler frequency and the target velocity. This paper presents a novel method to measure Doppler shifts with high resolution and accuracy in radar applications. In the proposed method, a comparison of the transmit and receive signal spectrums is performed to determine the Spectrum Difference Function (SDF). It is shown that the gradient of SDF in the vicinity of the carrier frequency is proportional to the target Doppler shift. Therefore, by examining the SDF, the target velocity can be detected with a high level of accuracy.

The Tasman International Geospace Environment Radars (TIGER) form part of an international network of similar HF radars called Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) which explore the impact of solar disturbances on Earth by monitoring the location and velocity of plasma of plasma irregularities and related phenomena occurring in the ionosphere. These radars utilise an Auto Correlation Function (ACF) to measure the changing phase of the ACF between lag times to determine the Doppler frequency and thus the target velocity. With the development of TIGER-3, an all digital radar platform, a novel method of determining target velocities has been proposed. In the proposed method, a comparison of the transmit and receive signal magnitude spectrums is performed to determine the Spectrum Difference Function (SDF). It has been shown that the gradient of SDF in the vicinity of the carrier frequency is proportional to the target Doppler shift. In this paper we consider the constraints of hardware processing on the implementation of the technique and suggest an alternate architecture for the TIGER-3 radar that will allow a dramatic reduction in computational complexity to allow the real-time determination of velocity in conjunction with the normal operation of the receivers. The proposed technique moves the processing from the RF frequency band to a low frequency IF band to reduce the computational length of the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) without compromising the validity of the technique.

The Tasman International Geospace Environment Radars (TIGER) form part of an international network of similar HF radars called Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) which explore the impact of solar disturbances on Earth. These radars utilise an Auto Correlation Function (ACF) to measure the changing phase of the ACF between lag times to determine the Doppler frequency and the target velocity.With the development of TIGER-3, an all digital radar platform, a novel method of determining target velocities has been proposed. In the proposed methoThe Tasman International Geospace Environment Radars (TIGER) form part of an international network of similar HF radars called Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) which explore the impact of solar disturbances on Earth. These radars utilise an Auto Correlation Function (ACF) to measure the changing phase of the ACF between lag times to determine the Doppler frequency and the target velocity.With the development of TIGER-3, an all digital radar platform, a novel method of determining target velocities has been proposed. In the proposed method, a comparison of the transmit and receive signal magnitude spectrums is performed to determine the Spectrum Difference Function (SDF). The gradient of SDF in the vicinity of the carrier frequency is calculated, from this value the Doppler Frequency Shift fd can be deduced. The result is then multiplied by a precalculated Scale Factor which is necessary to compensate for the systematic error due to the method. This paper will address all the factors which have influence on the value of Scale Factor, therefore minimize the error associated with the process of calculating Scale Factor.d, a comparison of the transmit and receive signal magnitude spectrums is performed to determine the Spectrum Difference Function (SDF). The gradient of SDF in the vicinity of the carrier frequency is calculated, from this value the Doppler Frequency Shift fd can be deduced. The result is then multiplied by a precalculated Scale Factor which is necessary to compensate for the systematic error due to the method. This paper will address all the factors which have influence on the value of Scale Factor, therefore minimize the error associated with the process of calculating Scale Factor.

The TIGER-3 radar is being developed as an “all digital” radar with 20 integrated digital transceivers, each connected to a separate antenna. Using phased array antenna techniques, radiated power is steered towards a desired direction based on the relative phases within the array elements. This paper proposes an accurate phase measurement method to calibrate the phases of the radio output signals using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. The method sequentially measures the phase offset between the RF signal generated by each transceiver and a reference signal operated at the same frequency. Accordingly, the transceiver adjusts its phase in order to align to the reference phase. This results in accurately aligned phases of the RF output signals and with the further addition of appropriate phase offsets, digital beamforming (DBF) can be performed steering the beam in a desired direction. The proposed method is implemented on a Virtex-5 VFX70T device. Experimental results show that the calibration accuracy is of 0.153 degrees with 14 MHz operating frequency.

This paper presents a novel antenna impedance matching system used in the latest Australian SuperDARN class HF radar, at Buckland Park, South Australia. Earlier radar designs used an off-the-shelf log-periodic wideband antenna that is significantly easier to match over the SuperDARN frequency band, but expensive to buy and mount, and had limited capability for azimuthal beamforming. The newer TTFD antenna, used in many recent SuperDARN radars, offers improvement in these areas, but is in essence a narrow band antenna. It is capable of wideband operation at the cost of being difficult to match, frequency dependant, high-impedance and complex load. Previous TTFD matching transformers utilising toroids have been measured and evaluated for their suitability for the Buckland Park radar. A new system based on an LC matching network circuit has been devised to replace them. The design approach and results of the new matching circuit are detailed.

This paper proposes a novel watermarking algorithm in digital images to ensure the imperceptible characteristics of the watermarks, reducing the effects on images quality while maintaining recoverability. The proposed method is performed by embedding watermarks in the DCT domain. DCT coefficients, which are selected to be embedded, or not, are based on an evaluation of watermark robustness during the quantization phase of the JPEG Baseline method. Results of the algorithm have been evaluated using Matlab.

This paper presents a novel FPGA based method to implement the multiplication and squaring of polynomials circuits with an emphasis on their applications in Local Cyclic Code encoders and decoders. The LCC encoders and decoders are designed using VHDL and implemented on Xilinx XC3S500E-4CPG132 platform. The simulation results and hardware implementation results are also described within this paper.

SuperDARN is an international network of HF radars dedicated to the study of the Earth's upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The radars operate between 8 to 20 MHz and thus require broadband antennas for optimal performance. Since the first coherent HF backscatter radar was deployed by The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory these types of radars have utilised large Log-periodic Dipole Array Antennas. In order to increase directivity and provide a wider feld of view alternative antennas have been tested and developed by various research groups. This process has led to the development of the Twin Terminated Folded Dipole which subsequently is now widely used by the community and has well and truly replaced the LPDA for most new radar installations. This paper provides a brief background of the radar as well as the work that has been involved in developing the TTFD concept. Also presented in this paper are antenna characteristics, direct comparison to its predecessor and pros and cons of the design.