FLINT – Kettering University will spend about $500,000 to update three labs in its Electrical and Computer Engineering Department to improve space and power capacity for students and faculty.

ECE Department Head Mark Wicks said the 3,500 square-foot-project will provide a whole new set of capabilities for the department. Officials expect the labs will open within six months.

“We’re very excited about the addition of these modern classrooms,? Wicks said. ?There will be white boards and projectors available and networked multi-media instruction stations. Adding three new laboratories to the mix will enhance ECE activities and expand what we’re able to do for our students and our corporate partners.?

Kettering?s ECE Department is currently ranked No. 8 in the country, according to the ?2006 America?s Best Colleges Guide? which is produced by ?U.S. News & World Report.? The ranking is up from last year, when the department was ranked No. 9 nationally. Kettering?s specialty category is Engineering Programs Without a Ph.D.

Wicks said the renovation project is moving three existing ECE labs into spaces near the ECE departmental offices in Kettering?s Academic Building. The new space became available during a facilities shuffle that began when the Mechanical Engineering department moved into the new C.S. Mott Engineering and Science Center in 2003.

Wicks said the new facilities will update three well-established ECE operations ? the Controls Lab, Machines Lab and Circuit Design Lab.

CONTROLS LAB: The Feedback Control Systems laboratory provides students with hands-on experience in the design of control systems. Students use a servomotorsystem that has both position and velocity feedback. After completing these experiments, students experiment with a variety of dynamic and more advanced control problems such as balancing an inverted pendulum, balancing a ball on a beam, and controlling a flexible link. These experiments approximate many real-world control applications, such as cruise-control systems, autopilots, and guidance systems. The students use software tools to produce rapid prototypes of their controller designs.

MACHINES LAB: The Electrical Machines lab is designed to give the student a basic understanding, with hands-on experience, of electrical machines. Examples include DC motors and generators, synchronous motors and alternators, transformers, and other machines.

CIRCUITS: Students receive an introduction to fundamental circuit analysis and measurement equipment, as well as information regarding the procedure of creating laboratory reports that describe their results and relate them to predicted results from classroom topics. Students experimentally perform tests on principles like equivalent resistance, superposition, mesh and nodal circuit analysis, Thevenin & Norton equivalent circuits, Phasors and 3-Phase systems.

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