SW New Mexico News

Two electrical and computer engineering students from New Mexico State University, Diego Said Chavez Arana and Omar Alejandro Garcia Alcantara, have had papers accepted for publication at the prestigious American Control Conference to be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in July.

Diego Said Chavez Arana’s paper will be featured in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers journal Communications Letters, while Omar Alejandro Garcia Alcantara’s paper will be presented at the American Control Conference. Luis Rodolfo Garcia Carrillo, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NMSU, expressed admiration for the students' accomplishments, stating, “Publication with ACC is very challenging. ACC is one of the two top conferences in control systems. Their achievement is truly well-deserved."

The field of automatic control, as explained by Garcia Carrillo, focuses on how to make systems behave in a desired manner using feedback mechanisms and proper controller designs. This discipline is integral to various aspects of daily life, including home appliances, vehicles, aircraft, biomedical devices, manufacturing systems, and autonomous vehicles.

Arana's research involves a sophisticated system that utilizes sensors to detect and balance objects. He explained, “This sophisticated system calculates exactly how much force and in which direction to apply to keep the object stable. This is being done using a Spiking Neural Network, a type of artificial intelligence specialized in handling time-sensitive tasks."

Both Arana and Alcantara are doctoral candidates in electrical and computer engineering at NMSU. Arana shared his motivation for choosing this field, stating, “I believe artificial intelligence will change the world. Since my background is in aerospace engineering, I wanted to develop control systems in unmanned air vehicles for different purposes."

The Unmanned Systems Laboratory at NMSU, led by Garcia Carrillo, boasts a diverse group of students engaged in multidisciplinary research areas including control systems, robotics, intelligent systems, computer vision, and neuromorphic computing. The laboratory's research activities are currently supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

The accomplishments of these students highlight the innovative research being conducted at New Mexico State University in the field of electrical and computer engineering, further solidifying the institution's reputation for academic excellence and cutting-edge technological advancements.