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YIU Chi Hao BEng (Hons) Aviation Engineering Year 4 student shares his exchange experience in the UK

Country: United Kingdom Host Institution: University of Surrey "This overseas learning experience was absolutely amazing and fruitful. It was my first time fully immersed myself in an English environment. It was difficult for me to understand the speech from professors and local people, as I am not familiar with the British accent and vocabulary. I got used to the British communication style and wordings soon afterward by actively speaking to others and learn modestly from my colleagues. Through this learning journey, I adapted to the new environment and vastly improved my English proficiency. Moreover, I equipped myself with much new knowledge. The final year courses I took were complicated and challenging, as there was a vast knowledge gap. I did not relax and undisciplined as an overseas exchange student, yet I worked very hard in all courses. I attended all the lectures/online classes throughout the entire learning experience and made an effort to revise the learning materials independently. I gained valuable personal growth in many ways. It shaped me into a highly competent teenager. My future career plan is to work in the aircraft maintenance sector, a management job in an airline, or any related civil aviation industry position. By studying in the UK, one of the leading countries in the aviation industry, I received many career advice from my colleagues. Besides, I had enrolled in a subject called “material selection in mechanical design”. It was sensationally exciting and useful to my capstone final-year project. It provided me many insights on material science and practical skills in screening suitable material for manufacturing a product. I also obtained inspiration to work in a foreign country. The welfare and work-life balance lifestyle are specifically attractive to me, like the British people strive for excellence while maintaining a healthy and happy lifestyle. They are also well educated, polite and extraordinary in social etiquette and norm. It impressed me a lot, and I definitely have to learn from them. Furthermore, the British food, architecture, clothing, and regional accents had amazed me on this trip."  

LIANG Shuxi BEng (Hons) Aviation Engineering alumna shares her exchange experiences in the UK

Miss LIANG Shuxi Country: United Kingdom Host Institution: University of Surrey "I have completed my exchange at the University of Surrey, where I gained much love and improvement. The University of Surrey is at Guildford, a very gorgeous and peaceful town near London. The University of Surrey has a relatively long history about its aerospace engineering. With the long-time development and good relationship with the Rolls Royce (the company with advanced technics about the turbine engine), a cooperate research centre is located in the University. What inspired me a lot is the high requirement and challenging assignment I met at the University of Surrey. In the engineering orientation, the program leader said that engineering students should always aim for perfection, which guarantees 100% safety and high quality of your product. I agreed with it entirely and will try my best to meet the requirement.  Additionally, my favorite professor in the exchanging semester insists that we should fully understand the basic formula in our field as an engineer. Thus, the exam is without a formula sheet and more emphasizes comprehension. I have gratitude for the professor’s high standards and help, even though the learning process is much more challenging. Life in a very typical British town is much different from that in Hong Kong. The living pace is relatively slow there, forcing you to truly immerse yourself in every minute of your life and challenge the time management skills. In Hong Kong, I am a person who never cooks in the hall. However, at the University of Surrey, I need to take care of myself and consider cooking dishes as most students do. I got the accommodation of a single room with nine flatmates from eight countries. Most of us are coming to exchange from different universities worldwide, which makes the similarities and differences. The cultural variety always attracts me a lot. It is lucky for me to meet those who are willing to share and take care of each other. The time we spent together was memorable.  In conclusion, the exchange is a life-long beneficial experience for me."  

TANG Yu BEng (Hons) Aviation Engineering Year 4 student shares his exchange experience in Canada

Mr. TANG Yu Country: Canada Host Institution: McGill University "It is my first time living in North America. These four months of exchange have taught me how to adapt to and embrace the various living environment. It is also an effective rehearsal for me if I plan to study or work in North America in the future.   During the McGill University study (McGill), I spent a very tough period getting used to the course content and making up the knowledge gap. Since I registered a graduate-level course and it was desperate at the beginning, I kept pushing myself, and it turned out that all the efforts were worth it! Meanwhile, it is always great to meet friends from the class, and they are surprisingly nice and enthusiastic. They helped me a lot to get myself involved in McGill’s studying life. We are still keeping in touch with each other after I return home.   Some of my friends are year 4 or graduate students. They shared with me their working experience in Canada and recommended some excellent companies in North America. I learned some potential career directions, which helped me to make a reasonable decision in the future.   In this exchange, I had a chance to explore a different society, life pace and routine. I became more extroverted and familiarized with their communication habits and wordings. Since I lived in Montreal, a French zone in Canada, I could taste both European and North American culture. I went to several church ceremonies, which were divine and impressive. Meanwhile, the music festival show was marvelous and intriguing, which gave me a significant relaxation. Most excitingly, I watched many sports matches that I might not see in Asia, such as ice hockey, American football and NBA.   This experience journey is unexpectedly fruitful and enjoyable. I feel delighted that I grew and equipped myself well there."

CHONG Man Ho BEng (Hons) Aviation Engineering Year 3 Student shares his exchange experiences in Switzerland

Mr. CHONG Man Ho Country: Switzerland Host Institution: Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) "During the exchange semester at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), it was delightful and delighted. I have never been to Switzerland before. It was my first time to visit a European country. I have seen some tourist spots, like Zurich’s Lindenhof, Zurich’s Limmat, Luzern, and Mount Pilatus. ZHAW has organized many events for the incoming exchange students. For example, an orientation day, campus tour, and a welcome party. At the events, I met many students from different countries, such as Korea, Thailand, and the United States. It was fun to chat with students from diverse backgrounds and cultures. They were very nice to share their life at home university and their family as well. During my study at ZHAW, I learned a lot of in-depth professional aviation knowledge, which helped improve my career prospects. The four subjects I took were practical and exciting. The teachers always interacted with the students, and the lessons were funny. Besides, my classmates were very kind as to give me a hand if I face any problems. They sometimes brought me to excellent restaurants, and I enjoyed the time with them. Winterthur is a town where I study in Switzerland. It is a clean, calm, and beautiful town. Looking at the scenery from my hostel’s balcony would make me smile. The pace in Winterthur is very relaxing and slow. Therefore, I enjoy the lifestyle in my town. The exchange semester is a memorable experience in my life so far. Traveling around Switzerland, I found that Switzerland has many beautiful views and buildings. You can broaden your horizons while traveling. It will give you an unforgettable experience in your university life. Thank you very much for giving me such a great opportunity to enjoy this study abroad period. I am looking forward to visiting Switzerland in the coming year again."  

Marcus LEE - BEng (Hons) Aviation Engineering Year 4 student was invited to share his exchange and international summer school experiences.

"What is the first thing that comes to your mind when talking about U-life? To me, overseas exchange is definitely the answer. During my journey to Australia, I travelled to Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast and many other places to explore the beauty of Australian culture. Apart from attending lectures, spending a day in art gallery and museum was a great way to enrich my understanding about this beautiful country. Such opportunity also allowed me to meet students from all over the world, immersing in a great cultural variation. Overall, it was the most precious experience in my life." Repost from PolyU UG Admissions and PolyU International Summer School

AAE Postdoctoral Fellow won the 1st prize of Youth Outstanding Papers The 11th China Satellite Navigation Conference

On 23 Nov 2020, Dr. Qian MENG, postdoctoral fellow from Intelligent Positioning and Navigation Laboratory (IPNL), AAE, won the first prize of Youth Outstanding Paper awards in the 11th China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC), which is the highest award for young researchers. The CSNC is among the top three international satellite navigation conferences. This year’s conference is held during 22nd-25th November in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. It aims at intensifying theoretical innovation to facilitate theory progress of satellite navigation and reinforcing application innovation to boost development of the satellite navigation industry. About the Youth Outstanding Paper awards, three 1st prizes, seven 2nd prizes and eighteen 3rd prizes are selected from more than 500 papers. Dr. Meng got his PhD degree from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2018 and joined AAE, PolyU as a postdoctoral fellow in March 2019. Dr. Meng’s current research interests focus on GNSS signal processing, integrity monitoring and multi-sensor integration.

Dr Li-ta Hsu received recognition of Dedicated Educator: Making a Difference

We are pleased to inform you that Dr Li-ta Hsu has been recognized as our Dedicated Educator.    “Recognising Dedicated Educators is part of PolyU Strategic Plan on learning and teaching. Our Dedicated Educators are showing their inspiring commitment of making a difference in the lives of our students (and beyond). These colleagues (which includes teachers, researchers and administrators) truly live up to the branding of our institution of learning: “Opening Minds: Shaping the Future”   Please visit the the video and e-booklet (Page 33) and for more details.

Visit AAE Laboratories

Principals and teachers from 22 secondary schools were at PolyU on 6 November 2020.  They were invited to visit AAE laboratories.  We shared with them the latest developments of the aviation facilities and our research projects. Look forward to seeing them and their students at our campus soon.

PolyU Education Info Day 2020

【PolyU Education INFO DAY 2020 】 The online Info Seminar & Consultation Session of BEng (Hons) in Aviation Engineering and BEng (Hons) in Air Transport Engineering were successfully held on 10 October 2020.  Over a hundred potential applicants attended it.  The participants had gained a lot information about admission requirement, professional recognitions, career prospect and our lab facilities. We look forward to meeting our new students next academic year 2021/22.

Publication of SCI Journal Paper by AE Students with Their FYP

【Publication of SCI Journal Paper by AE Students with Their FYP】 Mr Max Jwo Lem Lee and Mr Shang Lee, a final-year undergraduate studying Aviation Engineering and recent graduate from the Aviation Engineering Program, respectively, have published their first academic paper in the Sensors peer reviewed journal under the supervision of Assistant Professor Li-Ta Hsu and MSc student Hoi-Fung Ng.  Titled “Skymask Matching Aided Positioning Using Sky-Pointing Fisheye Camera and 3D City Model in Urban Canyons”, the paper addresses the problem of GNSS positional inaccuracies in dense urban environments via the usage of a fisheye camera, neural network, and 3D model of the urban environment. After the user takes an image, the sky is identified using the neural network into a skyplot. This skyplot is then compared to skyplot’s generated using the 3D model, and weighted using multiple different methods to determine the improved bearing of the image and the most likely position.   The academic paper is linked below: Lee MJL, Lee S, Ng HF, Hsu, L-T. (2020) Skymask Matching Aided Positioning Using Sky-Pointing Fisheye Camera and 3D City Models in Urban Canyons, Sensors, 20(17):4728. IF: 2.475 (157/601= 26.1% in Electrical and Electronic Engineering)   Sensors 2020, 20(17), 4728; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174728   The Interdisciplinary Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering would like to extend their congratulations to the authors of the paper.   The graphical abstract is given below. GNSS is a navigation tool that has deeply integrated itself into today’s society. Many activities from logistics to mapping utilise this form of navigation. However, GNSS has proven difficult to use in dense urban areas with many high-rises that can obscure or reflect signals, where positioning error may exceed 50 meters. Considering the proliferation of GNSS receivers integrated into smartphones and recent advances in the field of autonomous driving, accurate positioning is crucial to navigation of urban areas. A myriad of methods has been developed to dampen the severity of this issue, with one of the most notable being 3DMA post-processing techniques. However, these techniques tend to require large amount of computation resources to use. This paper introduces a machine learning intelligent classifier to distinguish between building and sky of a sky-pointing fisheye image, then compares and matches the building boundaries (skymask) with skymasks generated from a 3D model to determine the position of the receiver. In the offline process, skymasks are generated from the 3D model at each available position outside the buildings. After the user captures a fisheye image using a zenith-pointing fisheye camera. This image is segmented into 2 classes (building and sky) by the classifier, allowing comparison to the candidate skymasks surrounding the initial position estimated by the receiver. They are compared using four main scoring systems, by the differences of elevation, standard deviation of the elevation, peaks of the elevation, and heading. In the end, the image that has the highest score is selected as the improved position. Several designed experiments were tested in Hong Kong urban area to evaluate the performance of proposed Skymask Matching method with intelligent classifier. The method proves effective in dense urban environments, being capable of reducing positional uncertainty to a third of the initial position estimated by a smartphone. Venues for further improvement includes introducing more classes to the Classifier and expanding the camera movement to six degrees of freedom.       (Left) A positioning candidates heatmap in a densely urban environment, including the resultant positions of multiple processing techniques; (Right) A sky-pointing fisheye image and its candidate skymask counterpart; (Bottom) A graph displaying the building boundary similarity in azimuth and elevation degrees between the image converted skymask and its candidate skymask.