ECE student wins 2nd at IEEE regional conference

Junior wrote software to monitor police radio traffic

DURHAM, N.H.–A University of New Hampshire student won second place at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Region 1 annual conference April 9 in Buffalo, N.Y.

Nathan Purmort of Newport, a junior studying electrical engineering in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, presented a paper he wrote for Project54, the high-tech police cruiser designed by UNH, in the conference’s Technical Paper Contest. His topic was software he wrote to monitor New Hampshire State Police radio traffic to gauge what impact the Project54 system has on the radio network.

The contest required a paper of no more than 15 pages in length (20 with appendices) and an accompanying 15 minute presentation. Judging the competition were employees of Buffalo-area engineering companies, including several representatives from the children’s toy manufacturer, Fisher Price.

The conference included several teams from the northeast, including the U.S. Military Academy, City College of New York, University of Vermont, and Suffolk University. A team from The Cooper Union, whose presentation on LOQI, a biometric hand gesture recognition system they developed, won first place in the paper contest.

For his second place finish, Nathan will receive $500 in prize money in addition to having his paper published in the next edition of the annual “IEEE Student Papers” publication.

The IEEE was founded in 1963 as a merger between the AIEE and IRE organizations to form an international organization for electrical engineers. Today the IEEE has reached all corners of the globe with its membership and is not only an organization representing engineers but has been instrumental in developing many of the standards and codes for modern electrical devices.

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