Executive Interview: Greg Charvat, Humatics CTO Micro-location technology is taking off

Can you tell us about how Humatics was launched and the background of the technology you are using?

Humatics was founded in 2015 by CEO David Mindell. He is a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, as well as the Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, and Chair of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future. David wanted to bring the technology that he and the legendary Bob Ballard (who found the Titanic) pioneered in the early 90’s for millimeter scale location under the ocean to a broader range of applications.  To come up with a way to do this above the ocean’s surface in free-space, David and I connected after he picked up a copy of my book, Small and Short-Range Radar Systems, and together we hashed out a plan for what would eventually become the Humatics microlocation technology. At that time, I was working with two medical start-ups, Butterfly Network Inc. who is bringing the first ultrasound system on a chip to market, and Hyperfine Research Inc. Shortly after, David successfully raised money, convinced me to join his team. By combining David’s idea and my expertise of innovating technology and launching companies, our vision for Humatics went full speed ahead.  David successfully raised money, convinced me to join his team and we created the first prototypes in true start-up fashion – in my garage in Guilford, CT.

Humatics has developed the Spatial Intelligence PlatformTM, can you tell us about the platform and its unique features?

http://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/30883-executive-interview-greg-charvat-humatics-cto

Gabriel Rebeiz: Advanced 5G and SATCOM Phased-Arrays and Transceivers Using Silicon Technologies: THE END OF THE MARCONI ERA IS NEAR

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IEEE Boston AP, MTT-S; Photonics, ED, GRSS and COMM                            

                       societies joint special seminar

When: April 4 @ 6pm

Where: MITRE Room 2C130 (Building C); see map

Must Contact Ian McMichael (imcmichael@mitre.org) to be added to guest list

Advanced 5G and SATCOM Phased-Arrays and Transceivers Using Silicon Technologies: THE END OF THE MARCONI ERA IS NEAR

Gabriel M. Rebeiz

Distinguished Professor

Member of the National Academy

Wireless Communications Industry Endowed Chair

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The University of California, San Diego

rebeiz@ece.ucsd.edu

  

During the past 50 years, phased-arrays have being largely developed for the defense sector.  Today, due to the increased demand for data, there is a need for base-station and mobile-user phased-arrays which can provide high-capacity data services through directional links. Therefore, there is an amazing investment by the telecom industry in this sector at highly accelerated time scales (24-36 months) to meet the commercial demand.  Today, both digital-beamforming at the element level (sub-6 GHz) and hybrid (i.e. analog/digital) beamforming for the mm-waves bands are being developed for next-generation 5G telecom systems.  These commercial investments are leading to dramatic changes in phased-arrays: High EIRP, high-performance systems at 28 GHz, 39 GHz and even 60 GHz, and with multiple beams, are now available at low-cost (<$1K). This talk will summarize our work in this area, and present a roadmap for the future.

Prof. Gabriel M. Rebeiz is  Member of the National Academy, Distinguished Professor and the Wireless Communications Industry Endowed Chair at the University of California, San Diego. He is an IEEE Fellow, and is the recipient of the IEEE Daniel E. Nobel Medal, the IEEE MTT Microwave Prize (2000 and 2014), the IEEE MTT 2010 Distinguished Educator Award and the IEEE Antennas and Propagation 2011 John D. Kraus Antenna Award. His group has lead the development of complex RFICs for phased array applications from X-band to W-band, culminating recently in wafer-scale integration with high-efficiency on-chip antennas. His phased array work is now used by most companies developing complex communication and radar systems. He has graduated nearly 100 PhD students and post-doctoral fellows. 

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IEEE APS Lecture Series

TITLE: Integrated Magnetics and Multiferroics for Compact and Power Efficient Sensing, Memory, Power, RF and Microwave Electronics

Date: Thursday, April 23, 2015

Time:6:00 PM

Location: MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Café

Refreshments & Snacks Served at 5:30pm

Speaker: Prof. Nian Sun /  Director of the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Integrated Ferroics

Abstract: The coexistence of electric polarization and magnetization in multiferroic materials provides great opportunities for realizing magnetoelectric coupling, including electric field control of magnetism, or vice versa, through a strain mediated magnetoelectric interaction effect in layered magnetic/ferroelectric multiferroic heterostructures . Strong magnetoelectric coupling has been the enabling factor for different multiferroic devices, which however has been elusive, particularly at RF/microwave frequencies. In this presentation, I will cover the most recent progress on different magnetic and multiferroic heterostructures and devices, including nanoelectromechanical system magnetoelectric sensors with picoTesla sensitivity by usingFeGaB/Al₂O₃ multilayers, new integrated GHz magnetic inductors based on solenoid structures with FeGaB/Al₂O₃ and FeCoB/Al₂O₃ multilayers exhibiting >150% enhanced inductance and quality factor ~20 at GHz frequencies over their air core counterparts, power efficient voltage tunable magnetoelectric inductors with inductance tunability of 50%~150% at GHz, etc. These novel voltage tunable GHz inductors show great promise for applications in radio frequency integrated circuits. At the same time, we will demonstrate other tunable multiferroic devices, including multiferroic voltage tunable bandpass filters [6], tunable bandstop filters, tunable phase shifters, multiferroic antennas,and spintronics, etc. 

For more information, contact:

Raoul O. Ouedraogo, raoul.ouedraogo@ll.mit.edu

Wajih Elsallal, welsallal@mitre.org , or

Jonathan Doane, jon.doane@ll.mit.edu

For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html

 

Speaker Bio: Nian Sun is a professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Northeastern University, and Director of the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Integrated Ferroics. He received his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. Prior to joining Northeastern University, he was a Scientist at IBM and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Dr. Sun was the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, the Søren Buus Outstanding Research Award, etc. His research interests include novel magnetic, ferroelectric and multiferroic materials, devices and subsystems. He has over 160 publications and over 20 patents and patent disclosures. One of his papers was selected as the “ten most outstanding full papers in the past decade (2001~2010) in Advanced Functional Materials”. Dr. Sun has given over ~100 invited presentations or seminars. He is an editor of IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, and a fellow of the Institute of Physics, and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. 

Speaker page: http://www.northeastern.edu/sunlab/

Directions:

(Thanks to the Boston Photonics Society for the following directions.)

From interstate I-95/Route 128: Take Exit 31B onto Routes 4/225 towards Bedford - Stay in right lane; Use Right Turning Lane (0.3 mile from exit) to access Hartwell Ave. at 1st Traffic Light.; Follow Hartwell Ave. to Wood St. (~1.3 miles); Turn Left on to Wood Street and Drive for 0.3 of a mile.; Turn Right into MIT Lincoln Lab, at the Wood Street Gate.

From Exit 30B: Take Exit 30B on to Route 2A - Stay in right lane; Turn Right on to Mass. Ave (~ 0.4 miles - opposite Minuteman Tech.).; Follow Mass. Ave for ~ 0.4 miles.; Turn Left on to Wood Street and Drive for 1.0 mile.

Turn Left into MIT Lincoln Lab, at the Wood Street Gate.

Distinguished Guest Lecturer: Eli Brookner on "MIMO Radars ­­­and Their Conventional Equivalents"

IEEE APS-AESS-MTT Distinguished Lecture with Dr. Eli Brookner, Raytheon Company (retired)

Distinguished Guest Lecturer: Eli Brookner

TITLE: MIMO Radars ­­­and Their Conventional Equivalents

Date: Thursday, February 26, 2015                         Time: 6:00 PM

Location: MIT Lincoln Laboratory (A-Cafe)             

Refreshments served at 5:30pm. INCLUDES COOKIES, DRINKS, FREE PIZZA.

Contact: Raoul Ouedraogo x7949 – Raoul.ouedraogo@ll.mit.edu

Abstract: This talk is given in tutorial form for the benefit of those not familiar with MIMO. The aim is to give physical insight into MIMO and its conventional equivalents. The math will be limited to the basic Fourier Transform which we all learned in undergraduate college. We will start with an explanation of MIMO and conventional arrays. It had been shown by the speaker in the past that contrary to common belief a MIMO full/thin array does not provide orders of magnitude better resolution and accuracy (10x, 100x or 1000x better) than a conventional array. Specifically, It was shown that that a conventional full/thin array can do just as well as a MIMO full/thin array. The conventional full/thin array had some grating lobes (GLs) but these were dealt with. Here a new conventional array that does not have GLs but has the SAME accuracy and resolution as the MIMO full/thin array is presented. It is a conventional thin/full array radar which is the conventional full/thin array radar with the roles of the arrays reversed, thin array transmitting and full array receiving.

It is also  shown that conventional equivalents to MIMO radar systems can do just as well as the MIMO systems in rejecting barrage-noise jammers, repeater jammers, hot-clutter jammers and main-lobe jammers. Signal processing loads, waveforms and the operation of the MIMO and its equivalents are detailed.        

Dr. Eli Brookner Bio:

BEE: The City College of the City of New York, ’53, MEE and DrSc: Columbia University ’55 and ’62.

Dr. Eli Brookner worked at Raytheon Company from 1962 to retirement July 2014. There he was a Principal Engineering Fellow and worked on ASDE-X airport radar, ASTOR Air Surveillance Radar, RADARSAT II, Affordable Ground Based Radar (AGBR), major Space Based Radar programs, NAVSPASUR S-Band upgrade, COBRA DANE, PAVE PAWS, Missile Site Radar (MSR), COBRA JUDY Replacement, THAAD, Brazilian SIVAM, SPY-3, Patriot, BMEWS, UEWR, Surveillance Radar Program (SRP), Pathfinder marine radar, Long Range Radar (upgrade for >70 ATC ARSRs), COBRA DANE Upgrade, AMDR, Space Fence, 3DELRR, FAA NexGen ATC radar program. Prior to Raytheon he worked on radar at Columbia University Electronics Research Lab. (now RRI), Nicolet and Rome AF Lab.

 Received IEEE 2006 Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technology & Application “For Pioneering Contributions to Phased Array Radar System Designs, to Radar Signal Processing Designs, and to Continuing Education Programs for Radar Engineers”; IEEE ’03 Warren White Award; Journal of the Franklin Institute Premium Award for best paper award for 1966; IEEE Wheeler Prize for Best Applications Paper for 1998. Fellow of IEEE, AIAA, MSS. Member of the National Academies Panel on Sensors and Electron Devicesfor Review of Army Research Laboratory Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate (SEDD)

 Published four books: Tracking and Kalman Filtering Made Easy, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998; Practical Phased Array Antenna Systems (1991), Aspects of Modern Radar (1988), and Radar Technology (1977), Artech House.  Gives courses on Radar, Phased Arrays and Tracking around the world (25 countries). Over 10,000 attended these courses. Banquet/keynote speaker twelve times. >230 papers, talks and correspondences, >100 invited. Six paper reprinted in Books of Reprints (one in two books). Contributed chapters to three books. Nine patents.

IEEE APS Distinguished Guest Lecturer: Brian M. Kent

Distinguished Guest Lecturer: Brian  M.  Kent

 

TITLE: Characterization of Space Shuttle Ascent Debris Based on Radar Scattering and Ballistic Properties – Evolution of the NASA Debris Radar (NDR) System

Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2014                         Time: 3:00 PM

Location: MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Auditorium)           Refreshments served at 2:30pm

Abstract: This presentation (with optional break) introduces the NASA Debris Radar (NDR) system developed to characterize debris liberated by the space shuttle (and any follow-on rocket system) during its ascent into space.  Radar technology is well suited for characterizing shuttle ascent debris, and is especially valuable during night launches when optical sensors are severely degraded.  The shuttle debris mission presents challenging radar requirements in terms of target detection and tracking, minimum detectable radar cross-section (RCS), calibration accuracy, power profile management, and operational readiness. After setting the stage with background of the Columbia accident, I initially describe the NDR system consists of stationary C-band radar located at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and two X-band radars deployed to sea during shuttle missions.  To better understand the signature of the shuttle stack, Xpatch calculations were generated at C and X band to predict the radar signature as a function of launch time.  These calculations agreed very well with measured data later collected.  Various sizes, shapes, and types of shuttle debris materials were characterized using static and dynamic radar measurements and ballistic coefficient calculations.  After an (Optional) break, my second Part discusses the NASA Debris Radar (NDR) successes, which led to a new challenge of processing and analyzing the large amount of radar data collected by the NDR systems and extracting information useful to the NASA debris community.  Analysis tools and software codes were developed to visualize the shuttle metric data in real-time, visualize metric and signature data during post-mission analysis, automatically detect and characterize debris tracks in signature data, determine ballistic numbers for detected debris objects, and assess material type, size, release location and threat to the orbiter based on radar scattering and ballistic properties of the debris. Future applications for space situational awareness and space-lift applications will also be discussed.

For more information, contact:

Raoul O. Ouedraogo, raoul.ouedraogo@ll.mit.edu

Wajih Elsallal, welsallal@mitre.org , or

Jonathan Doane, jon.doane@ll.mit.edu

Please contact Jonathan Doane to RSVP or if you are interested in attending remotely via WebEx before 9-22-2014. 

Foreign national visitors to Lincoln Lab require visit requests. Please pre-register by e-mail to reception@ll.mit.edu and indicate your citizenship.

For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html

Speaker Biography

Dr. Brian M. Kent is a Consultant in Aerospace, Science, and Technology, and an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering with Michigan State University's Department of Electrical Engineering.  He recently completed 37 years of Service to the United States Air Force having most recently served as the Chief Technology Officer of Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. As CTO, he was AFRL’s principal scientific and technical expert for a 6,500 person organization while overseeing a $2.2B+ research portfolio. He is an internationally recognized scientific expert, and provided technical advice to AFRL management and the professional staff. He has significant experience in engineering education, radar, radar signature, and other radio frequency technologies. He is currently a consultant supporting both academic, and industrial partners related to the aerospace industry.

During his previous tenure as AFRL’s Sensor’s Directorate Chief Scientist, he served as the directorate's principal scientific and technical adviser and primary authority for the technical content of the science and technology portfolio. He identified research gaps and analyzes advancements in a broad variety of scientific fields, providing advice on their impact on laboratory programs and objectives. He served as an internationally recognized scientific expert, and provided authoritarian counsel and advice to AFRL management and the professional staff as well as to other government organizations. He collaborated on numerous interdisciplinary research problems that encompass multiple AFRL directorates, customers from other DOD components, as well as the manned space program managed by NASA. Dr. Kent also served the USAF as Senior Scientist for Low Observables and Electromagnetics, Air Force Research Laboratory, where he performed and directed research, and development activities at the Multi-Spectral Radar Signature Measurement Facility, His primary responsibilities include the development and transition of advanced low observable electromagnetic analysis and measurement techniques to the Department of Defense and their aerospace industrial partners, and profoundly impacted the development and deployment of the F-117, B-2, F-22, and F-35 for the USAF. Dr. Kent's fundamental research interests encompass extremely broadband electromagnetic test and evaluation techniques, with special emphasis on the acquisition of measured performance data from basic 6.1/6.2 technology components through fully fielded and sustained weapon systems Dr. Kent joined the Air Force Avionics Laboratory in 1976 as cooperative engineering student through Michigan State University. He received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in 1979, working at both the Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories and the Ohio State University Electroscience Laboratory until the completion of his doctorate. During his tenure with AFRL and its predecessor organizations, Dr. Kent held a variety of positions, making pioneering and lasting contributions to the areas of signature measurement technology, and successfully established international standards for performing radar signature testing before retiring from the USAF after 37 years of service. Dr Kent was a lecturer for Georgia Tech Research Institute for over 9 years, and concurrently became an adjunct professor in 1998 at Michigan State University, and has served the department on the Visiting Committee, ABET accreditation, ECE Chair Search Committee, Deans Search Committee, and Dean’s advisory Committee. He has also participated in reforming the Senior Design Project classes, and has served for many years as a judge at the Spring and Fall Engineering “design day”. Dr. Kent has authored and co-authored more than 90 archival articles and technical reports and has written key sections of classified textbooks and design manuals. He has delivered more than 200 lectures, and developed a special DOD Low Observables Short Course that has been taught to more than 3,000 scientists and engineers since its inception in 1989. Dr. Kent has provided technical advice and counsel to a wide range of federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Justice and NASA's Space Shuttle Program. He is also an international technical adviser for the DOD and has provided basic research guidance to leading academic institutions. EDUCATION 1980 BS degree in electrical engineering, highest honors, Michigan State University, East Lansing 1981 MS degree in electrical engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus 1984 Doctor of Philosophy degree in electrical engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus AWARDS AND HONORS 2014 Distinguished Presidential Rank Award Finalist 2014 Claude Erickson Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award, Michigan State University 2009 Meritorious Presidential Rank Award Fellow, Air Force Research Laboratory Samuel Burka Award (two-time winner), Avionics Laboratory Best Paper Award, National Conference of Standards Laboratory Signature Technology Management Excellence Award, AFRL Signature Technology Director's Award, AFRL William F. Bahret Signature Technology Technical Achievement Award, AFRL Director's Award, Sensors Directorate, AFRL Letter of Commendation, B-2 Systems Program Office, Aeronautical Systems Division Staff Recognition Award, Columbia Accident Investigation Board Letter of Commendation, NASA External Customer Support Award, Sensors Directorate, AFRL John D. Ryder Distinguished Alumni Award, Michigan State University Best Dissertation in Electrical Engineering, Ohio State University PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, Antenna and Propagation Society Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Fellow, Antenna Measurement Techniques Association (AMTA) Former Technical Coordinator, Vice President and President, AMTA Associate Editor, Editorial board, IEEE Antenna and Wireless Propagation Letters Former Associate Editor, "AMTA Corner," IEEE Antenna and Propagation Magazine Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi and Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Societies