Technologist Makes History for UTP (23 May 2015)
Adz Jamros Jamali made Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) proud when he walked away with the National Technologist Award 2015 earlier this month.
The win was a double triumph, as he was also the first ever technologist to clinch the award for the university. He bagged a certificate and RM10,000 for the invention of the Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna Array 802.11a WiFi Application.
The National Technologist Award is an annual prize presented by the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry in recognition of the achievements of technologists and laboratory assistants in science and technology research work. Its goal is to encourage creativity and excellence towards the advancement of science and technology in Malaysia.
Adz took two years to complete his invention, which has a high performance capacity, easy application and portability features, making it ideal for contemporary communication devices.
The design is small and compact, which makes it better in performance in terms of gain, low loss and bandwidth comparable to the commercialised ones that are used today. With these characteristics, it has a wide coverage capacity of up to 3.8km and a higher data capacity for WLAN use. Other attractive and beneficial features are its low production cost and radiation pattern is configurable via its design.
As far as innovation and design goes, new breakthroughs especially for the ICT industry, is always welcome and valued. This newly designed antenna has considerable potential to play a significant role in modern consumer communications. With its handy size of just 30mm x 40mm, it has the potential to take the market by storm.
Although not quite ready for commercialisation, there are already parties who are interested to take this new invention further.
Adz is a staff of UTP Laboratory Facilities Services Department and has been serving the university’s Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering for the past 10 years. He holds a Bachelor of Electric and Electronic Engineering from UTM and is currently pursuing his MSc in the same programme at UTP.
As a technologist, his primary role is to assist and consult any research and project related to radio frequency (RF) and microwave fields. He is also actively involved with research works in electrical vehicles.
“The antenna was something that required advance knowledge in the field of antennas, RF and microwaves and for this research, as with any other research, it called for concentrated and dedicated work,” Adz said.
For this particular research work, Adz was primarily in charge of experiments setup, measurements, data collection and analysis, and also collaboration with the researcher and research scientists involved to enhance the prototype.
Graciously sharing the credit, Adz acknowledges that the research and laboratory facilities in UTP played a major role in his work. The research environment and the culture of innovation and creativity in this institution is very much geared toward new findings and breakthrough inventions.
He adds that this research was a team effort involving UTP academic staff and colleagues, namely Associate Professor Ir Dr Zuhairi Baharudin, Associate Professor Dr Mohd Haris Md Khir, Mohd Azman Zakariya, Noor Azwan Ahmad and Mohd Hasrul Firdaus Rostam.
“The management has also been very encouraging and supportive and it would not have been possible without all these supporting factors and features,” Adz said.
Adz is committed in his pursuit of further knowledge, not only to develop himself and advance his career, but to also contribute towards the development and improvement of products for society. He is also committed towards contributing to UTP’s goal to become an internationally recognised research university.
His next goal?
“Perhaps the National Young Scientist Award.”
