First RCF undergraduate competition winners

Caption: (L to R) Trevor Gill, Rob Astill, Samantha Heyes, Mihnea Trifan and Don Beattie

(L to R) Trevor Gill, Rob Astill, Samantha Heyes, Mihnea Trifan and Don Beattie

At an event at the IET in London in July, presentations were made to the winners of the RCF-sponsored competition for final year undergraduates.

The competition recognises undergraduate projects which deploy radio technologies.

This is the first year in which the competition has been run.

Speaking at the event, RCF Trustee Don Beattie explained that the RCF sought to increase the numbers of young people following a career in radio technologies, as a means of helping address the skills shortage in that sector of UK engineering.

The competition is run annually among the partner universities of the UK Electronic Skills Foundation (UKESF) with whom the RCF has partnered in this competition.

The entries were judged by a panel from the RCF, UKESF, Manchester University and Leonardo.

The winners of the competition, who each receive a cheque and certificate, were:

Overall Winner: Mihnea Trifan of Sheffield University, for a project to develop a tuneable antenna to achieve QPSK modulation.

Runners up were Rob Astill of Bath University for his work on a Miniature Wireless Channel Sounder for UAVs and Samantha Heyes of Loughborough University for her for project to research the potential for people recognition through the use of smartphone antennas.