Two corporations affiliated with Virginia Tech are conducting research that is drawing attention in the international community. Not unusual--until you realize that these corporations are composed of undergraduate students.

Engineering students in one of the "virtual corporations" are designing the next generation of magnetic levitation (maglev) vehicles and attracting attention from mass transit officials worldwide with their cutting-edge ideas. The PERTS corporation (Personal Electric Rapid Transit Systems) is building a prototype of a personal, automobile-sized vehicle with the electric propulsion and magnetic levitation inside the vehicle, not in the track, as all other maglev technology currently uses. The personal maglev vehicle concept is unique in the industry which to date has only focused on mass-transit trains. In Switzerland, maglev technology is already in place, but Marcel Jufor, head of Switzerland's mass transit system, flew to Blacksburg last fall to look at the students' current research. "This doesn't seem like a student organization," he commented.

Doctoral student Andy Bae and PERTS presidentBrian MacCleery '99 work on the first prototype of an electronically propelled vehicle built by the virtual corporation for a monorail.

That's a common reaction, says Krishnan Ramu, an electrical engineering professor who acts as CEO of PERTS. The undergraduates staffing virtual corporations work for one to three hours of credit, resume material, and personal satisfaction. Yet their product has garnered interest from the private sector.

While engineers complete a prototype of the personal maglev vehicle, virtual corporation students in business and other majors are coordinating a workshop on maglev technology that is expected to draw 30 of the world's top maglev executives to Roanoke in November. Ramu hopes the event will focus attention on Tech as an emerging leader in maglev technology, woo federal support, and provide valuable experience to the students interacting with world experts in the field.

Maybe the corporations are only "virtual;" they have no stock-holders, payroll, or full-time employees. But they are producing tangible products, conducting cutting-edge research, submitting results to trade journals, and applying for patents. The experience, students say, is worth far more than the course credit they receive.

In the beginning
The worlds of business and engineering are interwoven in the corporate world, but are taught in separate colleges at Virginia Tech. Leonard Ferrari, head of the Tech's Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, saw the need for engineers to understand the structure of business. He initiated the virtual corporations as a multi-disciplinary curriculum option in which students work on projects within a corporate structure that rarely offers a neatly defined job or precisely fits a collegiate course of study.

Ferrari directed the PERTS corporation to work designing personal vehicles that could run on a monorail system. The other group, DISC (Distributed Information Systems Corporation), was envisioned as a designer of database systems that allow doctors access to patients' medical histories, including hand-written notes, from many locations.

Ferrari turned the projects over to Ramu, who enlisted the help of six graduate students and enticed undergraduates from three colleges into teams. The results promise real-world solutions to problems in society.

PERTS has developed a working prototype of a car using electric propulsion with magnetic levitation. Its unique propulsion system uses concentrated magnetic coils so if one fails it won't disable the system. This patentable innovation solves a major problem in the magnetic propulsion industry. PERTS is adding the levitation component to its project this year, designing vehicles for high-speed, long distance travel.

A DISC-designed system will be used to enhance three-dimensional medical imaging, such as a C-T (computerized tomography) scan, and reduce the cost of such procedures. This year, DISC teams have diversified, designing software for medicine and the food sciences industry.

Engineering undergraduates create the designs and do the computer programming, as well as produce the deliverable product. Business and liberal arts majors work on teams in charge of marketing, advertising, promotion, web site management, and planning the maglev workshop.

When the students meet, one thing is clear; they intend to see the products manufactured. The products are tangible, not idealistic papers applicable to a hypothetical world. When the prototype car was magnetically propelled along the steel I-beam track last spring, PERTS undergraduate president Brian MacCleery (electrical engineering '99) says it validated the virtual corporation.

"When the maglev project started, people looked at it like mission impossible--undergraduates starting from zero design," MacCleery says, "But no one told us. We delivered the working prototype in under a year."

Making a difference
The project each corporation undertook is more than a good engineering problem--it is socially relevant, MacCleery says. "We're trying to come up with technology that can save and preserve the environment," MacCleery says. "Automobile accidents cause a fatality rate equal to the Vietnam War every 15 months; there's no good reason for that. It's good to know we are working on something that will help save lives."

With vehicles traveling the same speed on a magnetic track, driver error is eliminated as a cause of accidents. The electric vehicle also will save fuel, and the track PERTS designed saves at least $1 million per mile over existing designs, Ramu says.

DISC Chief Operating Officer Rick Mills (electrical engineering Ph.D. '98) says his corporation is working to aid doctors through a system of intra-hospital communication using wireless technology, improved record access, and advances in 3-D imagery. Another DISC team is designing software for the food industry to catalog and collate results from consumer preference tests.

Business and engineering merge
The cross-disciplinary aspects of the virtual corporations make them unique as courses. "Our students need to be intellectually flexible," says Ramu. "Half our graduates are employed by small companies, firms that cannot afford specialists for every need. People have to be able to work outside their specialty."

In this setting, teams pull together. As the delivery date was approaching last spring, members of the PERTS business team worked beside engineers to help build components of the track. "We had business majors doing some hard engineering, wiring the magnetic coils. They did it as well as the engineers," says Praveen Vijayragharan (PH.D. electrical engineering '99), the chief operating officer.

Still in college
Although the virtual corporations usually proceed at a businesslike pace, their college constituency becomes apparent during breaks and exam weeks, when everything grinds to a halt. The virtual corporation system gives students an unequaled chance to develop leadership and the kind of experience that appeals to recruiters. While cooperative education programs give students real-world experience, Ramu feels they often relegate students to the least important projects and give them little chance to lead.

"Virtual corporations let students be in charge, and every member is important," he says. Not many recent graduates enter the job market with a resume boasting "vice president of an internationally recognized corporation." Most virtual corporation seniors move into the corporate world after graduation, and recruiters at Sun Microsystems, Andersen Consulting, Lockheed Martin, Price-Waterhouse, and other major companies are impressed with their skills.

Undergraduated leaders of DISC corporation are working on projects in medical diagnostics and consumer testing (clockwise from top left); Ryan Froman '00, president; March Ostryniec '99, vice president of technology development; Dawn Dixon '99, director of human resources; and Yon Lee '99, director of financial services.

Corporations also support the virtual corporations with dollars. Ramu says funding comes from university money, with contributions from the National Science Foundation, Westinghouse, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, and Motorola.

Students are proud of the reputation the corporations are building. "We're not a pretend corporation," says Pociask, PERTS business vice president. "People can't believe that students are creating something that will make a difference."

When personal maglev vehicles are riding the rails and lives are being saved by medical information systems allowing detailed 3-D imaging, the students who were involved in the virtual corporations' seminal years will know they were part of something big. As undergraduates, they helped to change the world.