TCNJ engineering student John DeSalvo has been invited to present at the IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference in the “Robotics and Automation Technology” category . In addition to being the focus of his senior project, DeSalvo’s research titled “Automated Temperature Compensation of Linearizers with Optimization”, contributed to the goals of his employer Linearizer Technology Inc. The paper examines the process of temperature compensation. DeSalvo explains that temperature compensation is the process in which “a technician will select digital values in linearizer devices that correspond to certain voltages over a temperature range” and that the goal of temperature compensation is “to maintain minimum change of certain output parameters from those measured at ambient temperature”. The process of temperature compensation is lengthy and DeSalvo states it requires “manual operation of a temperature plate, a network analyzer, software to interface with the linearizer and a technician to heuristically determine these values by looking at plots from the network analyzer”. DeSalvo’s research seeks to compress this process through the automation. He states that his research “encompasses the automation of this entire process in which the selection of potentiometer values is implemented as the solution to the combinatorial optimization problem”.
In his preparation for the conference DeSalvo will work diligently to create a clear and cohesive presentation. DeSalvo believes that “the challenge will be to succinctly discuss some of the arcane topics involved, highlight the industrial impact the research has in its current domain and how that can scale, all while being cautious about revealing intellectual property”.
Once DeSalvo presents at the conference, his work will be published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. This accomplishment makes DeSalvo a competitive applicant to the graduate programs he hopes to attend next year while working for Linearizer Technology Inc.