M.ENG. project helps keep Truck-Lite truckin’
by Chris Dawson
A 2019 collaboration between Cornell’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Falconer, NY-based Truck-Lite Co., LLC has resulted in a technological innovation for Truck-Lite and a job for the ECE M.Eng. student who spearheaded the project.
Truck-Lite is a manufacturing company that was founded in 1955. Their initial product was sealed marker lights for the trucking industry. In the years since, they have grown to employ more than 3,000 people worldwide and to produce lights, light mounts, harnesses, reflectors, mirrors, alarms and switches for civilian and military truck use. Truck-Lite is now a globally recognized brand known for innovation and leadership in the industry.
Truck-Lite representatives first came to Cornell’s Ithaca campus in 2016 to explore possible research collaborations. They met with ECE Senior Lecturer Joe Skovira to discuss projects that might be suitable for M.Eng. students to work on.
Each school and department at Cornell Engineering offers a one-year Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) degree, which provides technical and practical skills beyond the four-year undergraduate engineering degree and enhances a student’s marketability to employers.
A key part of any M.Eng. degree at Cornell Engineering is project work done by the students. Projects are sometimes created in collaboration with industry representatives and give students highly relevant technical experience. One of the projects Skovira and representatives of Truck-Lite agreed on had as its goal a significant reduction in the amount of copper wiring required for the lighting systems on military and commercial trailers.
Delin Cao, ECE M.Eng. student, heard about this project and dove right in. Cao understood that one way to use less copper wire would be to activate trailer lights with wireless signals. This would obviate the need for many hundreds of feet of copper wire between the cab and the trailer lights.
Working in consultation with Truck-Lite’s Vice President of Research Engineering Roger Elmer and Research Engineer Tim Dunn, Cao became immersed in the project and spent three semesters and a summer working on it. "Roger and Tim provided tremendous help and guidance on this work," says Cao. "And so did Joe Skovira—he was my mentor and taught me a lot about how to work on an engineering project like this."
"This started out as a pretty daunting project," says Skovira. "Initially, I think Delin was a bit overwhelmed with all of the details of starting a project from scratch. However, we had a number of deep discussions on what Truck-Lite was looking for. After a while we settled on the current system…and then Delin’s work really took off."
During one visit to campus, Cao gave an update to the Truck-Lite team. After the update, the team was not convinced that he was making much progress. "Then we visited the lab and Delin showed them a working prototype," says Skovira. "They were pretty floored! Especially when Delin showed them the log data of an 8-hour, one million cycle run of the system showing excellent reliability." It was shortly after seeing this data that Truck-Lite offered Cao an internship.
Eventually Gregory Certo, Truck-Lite’s Vice President of Human Resources, learned about the project and was impressed by the progress Cao, Elmer and Dunn were making toward the goal of reducing the amount of copper wiring used in trailer lighting systems. Certo encouraged Cao to apply for a job with Truck-Lite upon the completion of his M.Eng. degree. Cao took his advice and started work as an Electronics Design Engineer in Truck-Lite’s Pittsburgh facilities in December 2018.
Elmer says, "This project, from Truck-Lite’s perspective, is very important. It provides the opportunity for us to produce wire harness systems with less conductor count circuitry. Our systems will use less copper and they will weigh less." Truck-Lite’s satisfaction with the project is clear—they have hired Cao and they have two projects currently underway with other M.Eng. students at Cornell.