Attention MIT Students: Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, and Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging

A great opportunity for MIT undergrad and graduate students to enroll in the 2011 IAP course:

Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, and Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging
Dr. Gregory L. Charvat, Mr. Jonathan H. Williams & Dr. Alan J. Fenn, Dr. Stephen M. Kogon, Dr. Jeffrey S. Herd
Mon Jan 10, Fri Jan 14, 21, Mon Jan 24, Fri Jan 28, 10am-12:00pm, 56-114

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 07-Jan-2011
Limited to 24 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Prereq: Participants supply their own laptop with MATLAB installed

Are you interested in building and testing your own imaging radar system? MIT Lincoln Laboratory is offering a course in the design, fabrication, and testing of a laptop-based radar sensor capable of measuring Doppler, range, and forming synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. You do not have to be a radar engineer but it helps if you are interested in any of the following; electronics, amateur radio, physics, or electromagnetics. It is recommended that you have some familiarity with MATLAB. Teams of three will receive a radar kit and will attend a total of 5 sessions spanning topics from the fundamentals of radar to SAR imaging. Experiments will be performed each week as the radar kit is implemented. You will bring your radar kit into the field and perform additional experiments such as measuring the speed of passing cars or plotting the range of moving targets. A final SAR imaging contest will test your ability to form a SAR image of a target scene of your choice from around campus, the most detailed and most creative image wins.
Contact: Dr. Gregory L. Charvat, (781) 981-3122, gregory.charvat@ll.mit.edu

Slides from Monday Dec 6, 2010 meeting with John Volakis on 'Small Wideband and Conformal Metamaterial Antennas and Arrays,'

Hi everyone,

Please find the slides from our Monday Dec 6 meeting with John Volakis on 'Small Wideband and Conformal Metamaterial Antennas and Arrays,' here.

Have a great Holliday,

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston Chapter

Metamaterials for Miniaturization of Narrowband and Ultra-Wideband Antennas

Please join the IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter for a special holiday seminar from distinguished lecturer John Volakis, Director of the legendary OSU Electro-Science Laboratory at Ohio State University.

Volakis will present his research on "Metamaterials for miniaturization of narrowband and ultra-wideband antennas."

This talk will be held on Monday December 6, at 6pm in the
MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Café, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html

For details, please visit:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

Please feel free to invite your friends, it is sure to be an enjoyable
evening full of radar, antenna, signal processing, and sensing
discussions.

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ABSTRACT
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It is well-recognized that materials design holds promise in developing novel antennas that are much smaller and allow greater multi-functionality than ever before. Such needs stem from the unprecedented growth of wireless communications and related research that is highly fueled by growth in commercial and defense multi-band and high bandwidth future communication systems. This presentation will discuss how modified materials, inductive/capacitive lumped loads and low loss magnetic materials/crystals (Metamaterials) are impacting antenna design with the goal of overcoming miniaturization challenges (viz. bandwidth and gain reduction, multi-functionality etc.). Dielectric design and texturing has, for example, led to significant size reduction and higher bandwidth for low frequency antennas. Also, recent magnetic photonic crystals (MPCs) and non magnetic versions of these crystals hold a promise for antenna/array miniaturization. Formal design methods incorporating local, global or hybrid optimizers for antenna and their radio frequency (RF) applications will play a critical role in materials design. Practical realizations of these new materials are poised to challenge computational and design methods for a variety of RF applications.