Today’s blog is written by Liping Wang. Liping joined the MathWorks Student Competition team in August of 2019. Before that, she was a system engineer that designed algorithms and verified new ideas with system or link level simulations for telecommunication systems.

One month after joining MathWorks, Liping had the opportunity to view the work that had been done by student teams in Innovate Malaysia Design Competition (IMDC) 2019.

What is IMDC?

IMDC is the largest design competition in Malaysia that is open to all third-year or final year undergraduate science, engineering, computer science, and mathematics students. In this competition, MathWorks has a system design and modeling technical track where students use MATLAB and Simulink.

Let’s Take a Look at the Top 5 Projects

In 2019, there were 86 teams who registered and 46 who submitted. All of the 46 teams used MATLAB and Simulink. Some of the most popular applications were connecting to low-cost hardware, Internet of Things (IoT), signal processing, and statistics and machine learning.

1st Place: IoT-Based Remote Monitoring System for Hypertension Disease (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia)

The best use of MathWorks tools was done by Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) students who developed a smart blood pressure monitoring system. The team used the Simulink Support Package for Arduino to acquire photoplethysmography signals, with which the heart rate and the blood pressure can be measured. The signals were then processed in MATLAB to get the systolic and diastolic blood pressure details which were then displayed on a web page using ThingSpeak for the physician and to a ThingView mobile application for the patient.

Download the files for this submission from File Exchange.

2nd Place: Intelligent BCI Controlled Upper Limb Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia)

The project of the second prize winner of the MathWorks track combined signals from Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), electroencephalogram (EEG) signal, and electromyography (EMG) to perform intelligent upper limb exoskeleton control, which has great impact for our society especially for paralyzed patients. This project used MATLAB, IoT applications, signal processing, statistics and machine learning, and connection to both Arduino and Raspberry Pi 3.

Download the files for this submission from File Exchange.

3rd Prize: Steady State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) – Electroencephalogram (EEG) Signal Recognition for Wheelchair Controlled (Universiti Malaysia Pahang)

In the project of the third prize winner of the MathWorks track, MATLAB was used to process of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from the brain to extract and classify their features that are used for controlling an external electronic device. Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox was used to extract features and perform classification. Meanwhile, App Designer was used to create a user interface for simulation presentation purposes.

Download the files for this submission from File Exchange.

Consolation Prizes:

There were two other teams that won consolation prizes for their work using MATLAB and Simulink. You can see their presentations below.

• RAFT Robot: Development of Medical Bed Rehabilitation Using Parallel Mechanism, Universiti Malaysia Perlis
• Wearable Device for Continuous Respiration Monitoring Using Strain Gauge, Universiti Malaysia Pahang

How is MathWorks helping teams at IMDC 2019?

In IMDC 2019, MathWorks provided complimentary software for the participants, as well as design resources that enable students to have exposure to relevant cutting-edge technologies. We also did extra engagement to several selected teams, providing them with examples and knowledge of the functionality based on their challenges.

This year the winners of the MathWorks track were all related to digital healthcare. Of course, there are excellent works in other areas such as precision farming, smart transportation, and smart manufacturing. You can find more about this here.

Next year, the IMDC final will be held in July 2020. We plan to continue supporting this competition with software and technical expertise, and plan to hold more in-person meetings with the teams. We expect we will have a chance to visit this exciting event next year to see more interesting works in other areas like automotive software design and development, for which MATLAB and Simulink products can provide various solutions.

As always, feel free to leave us a comment below or email us at studentcompetitions@mathworks.com.