Time Harmonic Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Demo

Part-time Passions: Breathing New Life Into Old Things - The Institute

Part-time Passions: Breathing New Life Into Old Things - The Institute

Topology Optimization of Metamaterials and Applications to Ultra-Compact Antennas and Reconfigurable Filters

Reminder for everyone:

On Monday December 5^th, Raoul Ouedraogo will present his work on topology optimization of metamaterial inclusions and applications to antenna miniaturization, tunable filters, and sensors.

For more information please check out:

http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

Date: Dec 5^th 2011

Time: 6pm

Venue: MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Café

Lincoln Laboratory will be providing cookies and coffee.

I hope to see you all there.

Best

Raoul Ouedraogo

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Enrollment now open for IAP '12: Build a Small Pha...

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Enrollment now open for IAP '12: Build a Small Pha...: Build a Small Phased Array Radar System Capable of Imaging Moving Targets Dr. Bradley Perry, Dr. Jonathan Paul Kitchens, Dr. Patrick Bell, ...

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Enrollment now open for IAP '12: Build a Small Rad...

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Enrollment now open for IAP '12: Build a Small Rad...: Enrollment now open for IAP '12: Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, and Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging Dr. B...

Multifunction Phased Array Radar for Air Traffic and Weather Surveillance

Aerospace & Electronic Systems; Antenna & Propagation; and Microwave Theory & Techniques Societies

6:00 PM, Tuesday, 8 November

Multifunction Phased Array Radar for Air Traffic and Weather Surveillance

Jeffrey S. Herd, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA

A multifunction phased array radar (MPAR) system has been proposed as the next-generation solution to provide both weather and primary aircraft surveillance—a functionality that no current radar can satisfy. Instead of using a rotating antenna, as current civilian radar systems do, an MPAR has no moving parts and electronically shapes and steers its radar beam. This unique beam agility permits increased vertical resolution and faster full-volume scan rates, thus enabling one radar unit to perform multiple weather and atmospheric surveillance tasks. One clear advantage of the MPAR system is a potential reduction in the total number of ground-based radars. In addition, MPAR surveillance capabilities will exceed those of current operational radars, for example, by providing more frequent weather volume scans and by providing vertical resolution and height estimates for primary aircraft targets.
Under FAA sponsorship, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and M/A-COM Technology Solutions have developed an active electronically scanning phased array antenna panel, which demonstrates the fundamental building block of an MPAR system. The phased array panels function together coherently to radiate and receive pulses of radar energy that can be used to detect, locate, and track both aircraft and weather targets. A preliminary assessment indicated that full system implementation could result in the deployment of approximately 350 radars. To effectively compete with current mechanically scanned solutions, the MPAR system must achieve an aggressive cost goal, while equaling or bettering current performance metrics. The MPAR panel helps achieve the ambitious cost targets by using highly integrated microwave components and commercial manufacturing practices. Furthermore, the electronically scanning MPAR array panels can accomplish diverse surveillance tasks much more quickly, and with more flexibility than can the mission-specific rotating antenna systems in use today.
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory program is addressing key technology challenges including low cost dual polarized active phased array panels, overlapped digital subarray architecture, and accurate performance and cost models for the radars. This presentation will describe the current status of these efforts, and describe future enhancements.
Jeffrey S. Herd received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1982, 1983 and 1989, respectively. From 1983–1999, he was with the Antenna Technology Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Hanscom AFB, MA. From 1992-1994, he was a visiting scientist with the Antenna Group of the Institute for High Frequency Techniques, German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR), Munich, Germany. In 1999, he joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA, where he is currently an Assistant Group Leader in the Advanced RF Sensing and Exploitation Group. MIT Lincoln Laboratory conducts research and development aimed at solutions to problems critical to national security. The Advanced RF Sensing and Exploitation Group is developing advanced RF technologies and adaptive signal processing techniques for next generation RF surveillance systems. Dr. Herd’s research interests include ultra-wideband arrays, RF pre-conditioning networks, multifunction T/R modules, digital sub-array architectures, and wideband digital receivers.
*This work was sponsored by the FAA under Air Force Contract FA8721-05-C-0002. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are not necessarily endorsed by the United States Government.
Meeting will be held at MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Café, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html
For more information, contact Aerospace & Electronic Systems chair, Eli Brookner eli_brookner@raytheon.com or Antennas & Propagation chair, Gregory Charvat at Gregory.charvat@ll.mit.edu

Seeing through walls - MIT News Office

Seeing through walls - MIT News Office

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Just married, to someone who appreciates vacuum ...

Mr. Vacuum Tube:

Just married, to someone who appreciates vacuum ...: Just married, to someone who appreciates vacuum tubes, old clocks, and likes to dance: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/fashion/weddin...

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Just married, to someone who appreciates vacuum ...

Mr. Vacuum Tube:

Just married, to someone who appreciates vacuum ...: Just married, to someone who appreciates vacuum tubes, old clocks, and likes to dance: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/fashion/weddin...

Next meeting: Tue 9/13, at Lincoln Laboratory

Microwave Theory and Techniques, and Antenna and Propagation Societies

5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Tuesday, 13 September

Combining Differential/Integral Methods and Time/Frequency Domain Analysis to Solve Complex Antenna Problems

Ian Wood, Application Engineer, CST of America, Inc.

The accurate and efficient electromagnetic simulation of antenna elements poses a substantial challenge due to the wide variation present in antenna topologies and operating specifications as well as the environments they are installed in for end use. This presentation provides an overview of several of the most robust numerical techniques currently employed by commercial simulation packages, including transient, finite element and integral equation based methods. The details of each algorithm are discussed, and their relative strengths and weaknesses are compared. Several antenna examples are presented to demonstrate where each solver technology is most applicable.

Ian Wood graduated from the University of Victoria with a MASc in Electrical Engineering. His research involved developing a compact, planar imaging array for use in radio astronomy. He worked as a student researcher at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, assisting in the production of 84-116 GHz receiver cartridges for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array Telescope. He currently works for CST of America where he provides advanced antenna simulation solutions for customers in a variety of application fields.

Location: MIT Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria (directions and parking information below)

Please join us at 5:30 PM for refreshments with our invited speaker, Ian Wood, with a talk to follow at 6:00 PM. After the meeting, all are welcome to go out for dinner at a to-be-determined location. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Directions and parking:

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is located at 244 Wood St., Lexington, MA 02420. The cafeteria is open to the public and visitor parking is available. The Laboratory is also accessible via MBTA Bus route 76.

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

From interstate I-95/Route 128:

From Exit 31B:

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.

To get to the Cafeteria, proceed toward the Main Entrance of Lincoln Laboratory. Before entering the building, proceed down the stairs located to the left of the Main Entrance. Turn right at the bottom of the stairs and enter the building through the Cafeteria entrance. The Cafeteria is located directly ahead.

For additional information, please contact Chris Galbraith (galbraith@ieee.org), IEEE MTT-S Boston Chapter co-chair.

Mr. Vacuum Tube: MIT Opencourseware Site is now up: Build a Small ...

Mr. Vacuum Tube: MIT Opencourseware Site is now up: Build a Small ...: Now you too can teach yourself how to Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, and Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging
...

August 26, 6pm Marta Martinez-Vazquez from IMST GmbH, Germany, will present: 'Challenges in practical design of planar arrays'

We are pleased to announce that Marta Martinez-Vazquez is flying out from Germany to speak to a joint meeting of AP-S, WIE, AES, and GRSS societies of Boston.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory will be providing a sandwich service for dinner during this special meeting, so be sure to pre-register here so that we can have an accurate head-count: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/7707

Details as follows:

Antennas & Propagation; Aerospace & Electronic Systems; Geoscience and Remote Sensing; and Women in Engineering Societies

6:00 PM, Friday, 26 August

Challenges in practical design of planar arrays

Antennas & Propagation Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Marta Martínez Vázquez, Department of Antennas & EM Modelling, IMST GmbH, Carl-Friedrich-Gauss-Str. 2-4, 47475 Kamp-Lintfort, Germany. martinez@imst.de

The development of new multimedia services and intelligent sensor systems is progressing at a rapid pace and requires the use of agile antenna frontends that are compact, highly efficient and cost-effective. These antennas are rarely off-the-shelf solutions. On the contrary, custom-tailored solutions are usually required in order to optimise the performance, and facilitate the integration into the final product.

In many applications, the best compromise for an antenna solution with respect to cost and performance is a planar array. In general, a planar array can be defined as an antenna in which all of the elements are situated in one plane. The antenna elements themselves can be patches or other planar or buried structures. The range of applications of planar arrays include agile RF-frontends for mobile satellite terminals, radar systems for automotive and security applications, and millimetre wave point-to-point or point-to-multipoint radio links for multimedia wireless networks.

Real-life communications systems can include antenna arrays with only a limited number of transmitters and receivers as well as very large arrays with hundreds of receive and transmit channels. A skilful symbiosis of industrial development and innovative research projects is the key to provide cost-effective products. Some typical applications will be described in the next sections.

Considerable experience is required for the design and realisation of planar antenna arrays at microwave frequencies, especially when broadband solutions are demanded. It is not only necessary to develop innovative concepts beyond the standard patch design, but it also becomes unavoidable to cope with material and manufacturing tolerances when realising the antennas on soft and hard substrates. Special care has also to be invested in the RF-feeding network and the transition between antenna and RF-circuitry, as the latter can become a bottleneck at high frequencies, hence limiting the available bandwidth.

In order to provide cutting-edge solutions, it is important not only to develop systems based on state-of-the art antenna concepts. Fast and highly accurate EM solvers are indispensable tools to simulate the whole antenna system. Access to prototyping tools and accurate measurement facilities are also required. The seamless integration of all these services helps reduce the number of iterations to obtain high-performance antennas, thus leading to reduced development time. A complete, industrial solution for complex planar arrays must cover the whole development chain, starting with the conceptual design and the development of new concepts and solutions, going through the prototyping and optimisation process, including antenna characterisation and diagnosis, up to the preparation of line production and qualification phase. Some of the key steps will be discussed in this talk.

Marta Martínez-Vázquez was born in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 1973. She obtained the Dipl.-Ing. in telecommunications and Ph.D. degree from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain, in 1997 and 2003, respectively. In 1999 she obtained a fellowship from the Pedro Barrié de la Maza Foundation for postgraduate research at IMST GmbH, in Germany. Since 2000, she is a full-time staff member of the Antennas and EM Modelling department of IMST. Her research interests include the design and applications of antennas for mobile communications, planar arrays and radar sensors, as well as Electromagnetic Bandgap (EBG) materials. Dr. Martínez-Vázquez was awarded the 2004 "Premio Extraordinario de Tesis Doctoral" (Best Ph.D. award) of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia for her dissertation on small multiband antennas for handheld terminals. She has been a member of the Executive Board of the ACE (Antennas Centre of Excellence) Network of Excellence (2004-2007) and the leader of its activity on small antennas. She is the vice-chair of the COST IC0306 Action “Antenna Sensors and Systems for Information Society Technologies”, and a member of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and of the Technical Advisory Panel for the Antennas and Propagation Professional Network of IET. She is the author of over 50 papers in journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Martínez-Vázquez’s career is an example of the positive results of such coordination programs. She started as an expert participant in COST 260, became a Working Group leader in COST 284, and a member of the Executive Board of ACA, leading the “Small Antennas” activity. Presently, she is the Vice-chair of the COST IC0603 Action.

Meeting will be held at MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Café, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see:http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html

For more information, contact Antennas & Propagation chair, Gregory Charvat at Gregory.charvat@ll.mit.edu

IEEE joint meeting, Life Members, AP-S, AES, GRSS: The MIT IAP 2011 Radar Course: Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, & SAR

4:00 PM, Tuesday, 24 May

The MIT IAP 2011 Radar Course: Build a Small Radar System Capable of Sensing Range, Doppler, and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Imaging¹

Dr. Gregory L. Charvat, Mr. Jonathan H. Williams, Dr. Alan J. Fenn, Dr. Stephen M. Kogon, Dr. Jeffrey S. Herd

Recently MIT Lincoln Laboratory sponsored a short radar course at MIT main campus during the January 2011 Independent Activities Period (IAP). The objective of this course was to generate student interest in applied electromagnetics, antennas, RF, analog, signal processing, and other engineering topics by building a capable short-range radar sensor and using it in a series of field tests. The underlying philosophy being that students have a vested interest in making their own radar work properly, causing them to dig deeper into these subjects on their own volition thereby providing a self-motivated learning experience. A series of lectures on the basics of radar, modular RF design, antennas, pulse compression and SAR imaging were presented. Teams of three students received a radar kit. Nine teams participated in the course.

The radar kit was an S-band coherent frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar centered at 2.4 GHz with less than 20 mW of transmit power developed by the authors. To reduce cost, the antennas (transmit and receive) were made from coffee cans in an open-ended circular waveguide configuration. To clearly show the RF and analog signal chain, all components were mounted on a block of wood similar to an early 1920’s radio set. The microwave signal chain was made from six Mini-Circuits coaxial components. The analog signal chain was implemented on a solderless breadboard for quick fabrication and easy modification. The video output and transmit synchronization pulses were fed into the right and left audio inputs of any laptop computer. To make the kit portable it runs on eight AA batteries. The total cost of each kit was $360.

The radar operates in three modes; doppler vs. time, range vs. time, and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging. To record data a student uses the .wav recorder program in the laptop. MATLAB scripts read the .wav data and form the appropriate plots.

Of the nine student groups all succeeded in building their radar, acquiring doppler vs. time and range vs. time plots. Seven of the nine groups succeeded in acquiring at least one SAR image. Some groups improved their radar sets by improving the signal processing algorithms, developing real-time radar graphics user interfaces (GUI’s), and by making a more robust chassis.

Most students were from MIT but a small contingent were from Northeastern University and one student built this radar as an independent study at Michigan State University. Great enthusiasm was generated after each field test. Students were engaged throughout the course and they continue to ask questions about how to improve the performance of their radar sets and how to make more sophisticated systems. Many students discussed scattering theory at length when trying to interpret their SAR imagery.

In summary, it is difficult to introduce the current generation of students to the field of applied electromagnetics, RF, analog, and signal processing because of the numerous challenging prerequisites needed before the rewards can be realized. By presenting these difficult topics at a high level while at the same time making a radar kit and performing field experiments, students became self motivated to explore these topics. In the long term, courses using this continuous engagement philosophy could help fill the gap as the current generation of radar engineers continues to retire.

Gregory L. Charvat grew up in the metro Detroit area, where the hands-on approach to engineering within the automotive culture was a great influence on his life. He earned his PhD in electrical engineering in 2007, his MSEE in 2003, and BSEE in 2002 from Michigan State University where he worked as a graduate research assistant for theElectromagnetics Research Group. He is currently a technical staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory since September of 2007.

Dr. Charvat is an IEEE member. He has authored or co-authored 4 journals, 20 proceedings, 1 magazine article, and 5 public talks on various topics including; applied electromagnetics, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), analog and RF design, and phased array radar systems. He maintains a website (www.mit.edu/~gr20603) and a blog (mrvacuumtube.blogspot.com) on the topics of radar, SAR imaging, amateur radio, audio design, and antique radios. He has developed 4 rail SAR imaging sensors, 2 MIMO phased array radar systems, an impulse radar, and holds a patent on a harmonic radar remote sensing system. Many of his projects have been featured on Make Magazine blog and his DIY rail SAR has been featured on the Popular Science Blog and Slashdot. He is currently writing a book, Small and Short Range Radar Systems, with CRC Press.

Greg served as a chair on the 2010 IEEE Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology steering committee and is currently serving as chair of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Boston Chapter.

The joint meeting of the Life Member; Antennas & Propagation; Aerospace & Electronic Systems; and Geoscience and Remote Sensing Societies will be held at the Lincoln Lab auditorium, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA at 4:00 PM. Refreshments will be served at 3:30 PM. Registration is in the main lobby. Foreign National visitors to Lincoln Laboratory require visit requests. Please pre-register by e-mail to reception@ll.mit.edu and indicate your citizenship. Please use the Wood Street gate. For directions, go to http/www.ll.mit.edu. For other information, contact Len Long, Chairman, at (781) 894-3943 orl.long@ieee.org

[1] This work is sponsored by the Department of the Air Force under Air Force Contract #FA8721-05-C-0002. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the United States Government.

MIT Professional Ed. Course: Learn about radar by making one yourself

Interested? Sign up now:

Build a Small Radar System Capable of Range, Doppler, and SAR Imaging

COURSE SUMMARY

Are you interested in learning about radar by building and testing your own imaging radar system?

MIT Professional Education is offering a course in the design, fabrication, and test of a laptop-based radar sensor capable of measuring Doppler and range and forming synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. Lectures will be presented on the topics of applied electromagnetics, antennas, RF design, analog circuits, and digital signal processing while at the same time you build your own radar system and perform field experiments. Each student will receive a radar kit, designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory staff, and a course pack.

This course will appeal to those who want to learn radar systems engineering or SAR imaging, use radar technology in a product or experiment, or make components or sub-systems.

You do not have to be a radar engineer but it helps if you have at least a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or physics and are interested in any of the following: electronics, electromagnetics, signal processing, physics, or amateur radio. It is recommended that you have some familiarity with MATLAB. Each student is required to bring a laptop (with a stereo audio input) with MATLAB because this will be used for data acquisition and signal processing.

During the course you will bring your radar kit into the field and perform experiments such as measuring the speed of passing cars or plotting the range of moving targets. A SAR imaging competition will test your ability to form a SAR image of a target scene of your choice from around campus.

Upcoming AP-S & AES-S Talk: Efficient Beam Scanning, Energy Allocation, and Time Allocation for Search and Detection

The IEEE AP-S is thrilled to co-host an upcoming seminar with AESS entitled, "Efficient Beam Scanning, Energy Allocation, and Time Allocation for Search and Detection." This seminar will be presented by Duane J. Matthiesen from Technia Consulting, located in Lexington, Massachusetts.

This seminar will take place on March 22nd at 6pm at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Cafe, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see:
http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html

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

Be sure to bring your friends and colleagues to this event. I look forward to seeing you there.

Best,
Christy F. Cull, AP-S Boston

%-------------------------------%
Duane J. Matthiesen abstract
%-------------------------------%

Search Is an important function of every radar. It is quite interesting – even startling – that after at least 70 years of extensive radar system development there are no papers, books, or chapters (e.g., in Skolnik’s Radar Handbook) on radar search. And although there are many papers, books, and chapters on single-look signal detection, none of these pose or solve the fundamental and practical problem of making sensor detection efficient in terms of radar energy expenditure and radar time expenditure. This talk fills those voids.

This talk reviews recently-developed unique and innovative concepts for both search and detection that were derived for an active radar sensor. However, the formulation is completely general, so these results also apply to other both active (transmitting and receiving) electronic sensors and passive (receive only) electronic sensors such as infrared, optical, sonar, seismic, astronomy, or passive RF sensors, and astronomy (optical, infrared, radio, etc.).

These results were developed by the author over the past 25 years when tasked with designing practical and efficient search and detection modes for various radars, both electronically-scanned and mechanically-scanned.

The talk shows how to select for the next search action (look) the optimal (most efficient for detection):

• beam position to point the center of the beam coverage during the look
• signal energy to transmit for the look, for an active sensor such as a radar
• radar time to allocate for the look, for either an active or a passive sensor.

These optimal search and optimal detection principles provide long-missing search and detection design philosophy/insights/goals and a quantitative measure of the efficiency of actual search and detection designs.

An electronically-scanned antenna and an energy-variant search waveform suite with transmitted energy levels of nominally 3 dB (± 1.5 dB maximum from optimal) allow implementation of these optimal search and optimal; detection techniques to provide essentially ideal (100 % efficiency) search and detection.

The most efficient detection performance is provided by optimal detection. Optimal detection theory is an extension of classical (1940’s to 1970’s) signal detection theory which considers only optimal noise/interference filtering and single-look detection. Optimal detection theory extends classical detection theory by additionally considering multiple-look detection and derives the signal energy allocation per look which maximizes the cumulative probability of detection for a total expenditure of energy (several looks).

There are at least a dozen books on radar signal detection theory and D. O. North derived the conjugate (matched) filter for the fundamental white noise/interference case in 1943. So the general perception of the electrical engineering community is that "everything is known about signal detection and there is nothing new to learn". This talk changes that perception appreciably. The problem is that all those signal detection papers and books only consider single-look detection, whereas any practical detection scheme utilizes multiple-look detection – an entirely new concept for optimization. Every real-world radar or other sensor system employs multiple-look detection, because single-look detection is highly unreliable and inefficient (requires a large expenditure of time and/or sensor energy to obtain a high probability of detection such as 0.999).

Further, optimal detection theory was soon determined to extend the classical (1940’s to 1970’s) optimal search theory significantly and complete it for radar and other electronic systems. The optimal detection optimization turns out to be a suboptimization of the optimal search optimization.

Optimal detection optimizes detection in one search beam when the probability of a target being located in all beams (potential detection cells) are equally likely. Optimal search optimizes detection over all search beams (potential detection cells) when the probabilities of a target being located in each beam are, in general, different.

Electronically-scanned beam agility is essential to implementing optimal search with essentially zero overhead time lost due to scanning (moving) the beam to its next required search position for the next look (target dwell). However an agile mechanically-scanned beam can often scan short-range targets with only slightly less than ideal (90 % - 95 %) scan efficiency.

The concepts in this paper are applicable to both passive and active detection sensors. For radar and other active sensors the resource expenditure (“effort”) consists of both transmit energy and radar (antenna) time (where the time consists of transmit time, round-trip propagation time, receive time, and scanning movement overhead time, some of which can be overlapping). For a passive sensor such as an infrared, optical, or passive RF sensor, the sensor resource expenditure (“effort”) consists of only the dwell time to receive the target's radiated energy.

Duane J. Matthiesen is an electrical engineer with 36 years of diverse expertise and experience in radar systems engineering for many different types of radars: ground-based, airborne, ship-based, and space-based. He has worked on various phased array radars during about 30 of these years.

He received a BS in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1967. He was a graduate student at MIT during 1967 – 1969 working on a MS in electrical engineering. He completed 11 graduate courses in electrical engineering and applied mathematics. His primary areas of concentration were in electromagnetics, probabilistic applications, random processes, and detection and estimation.

He has presented 10 professional papers on radar systems at IEEE and other professional conferences.

He is currently an independent consultant in radar systems engineering. He is writing a book on “Optimal Search and Optimal Detection” for radar and other electronic sensor systems. These concepts were conceived, developed, and completed during the past 25 years while he was tasked with developing various radar detection mode designs for both phased array radars and mechanically-scanned radars.

He has a long history of service to the IEEE at the Section, Region, and Institute levels. He was Chair of his IEEE Student Branch during his senior year of undergraduate. He has served with the IEEE Boston Section Aerospace and Electronic Systems Chapter for many years. He served as Boston Section Membership Development Chair and Region 1 Membership Development Chair for many years. He was Chair of the IEEE Boston Section during 1987 - 1988. He served as a Director of the IEEE Boston -New York Electro conference during 1990 – 1994. During the past 20 years he has served on the IEEE Boston Section conference committees of six very successful international radar and phased array systems/technology conferences.

He is an IEEE Senior Member. He received an IEEE Distinguished Service Award from the IEEE Boston Section in 2006. He received an IEEE Millennium Medal for outstanding achievements and contributions to the IEEE from the IEEE Boston Section in 2000.

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UPCOMING MEETINGS

%------------------------------%

STAY TUNED!

Mr. Vacuum Tube: NXP High Power RF Design Challenge

Mr. Vacuum Tube: NXP High Power RF Design Challenge: "NXP, who makes high power RF MOSFETS has issued a design challenge to make something interesting out of their latest line of MOSFETS. http:/..."

World famous Eli Brookner Feb. 23rd

The IEEE-APS Boston is on the edge of its seat in anticipation for the seminar next week.
On February 23rd (Wednesday), the world famous Dr. Eli Brookner of Raytheon will present a seminar entitled, "Never Ending Saga of Phased Array Breakthroughs" at 6pm. See the abstract below for more information. We are elated to be apart of this joint meeting with AES, GRSS, MTT, and SPS

This seminar will be located at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Cafe, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html.

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

We encourage you to bring friends and colleagues to this events. Can't wait to see you there.

Best,
Christy F. Cull, AP-S

%-----------------------------------%
Dr. Eli Brookner Abstract

AESAs (Active Electronically Steered Arrays) with digital beamforming at element; 5X power of GaAs in same footprint using GaN; Extreme MMIC of 4 X-band T/Rs on SiGe chip, <$10/TR; ; 20 million element and T/R module X-band AESA in ISIS aeroship; Low cost S and X-band AESA programs around the world; Ultra low cost 77GHz radar on chip; Metamaterials: 1. Focus 6X diffraction limit at 0.38 μm, 40X at 375 MHz, 2. Used in cell phones providing antennas 5X smaller which simultaneously serve GPS, Blue Tooth, Wi Max and WiFi; low cost 240GHz 4.2x3.2x0.15 cm2, 5 gm frequency scan radar for bird inspired robots and crawler robots; Lincoln Lab using 2W chip increases spurious free dynamic range of receiver plus A/D by 20 dB; JPL’s SweepSAR provides wide swath SAR from space with 1/6th power required by ScanSAR; 3, 4, 6 face “Aegis” systems developed by China, Japan, Australia, Netherlands, USA; High resolution ISAR imaging of tank moving over rough terrain using Geometric Invariant Technique (GIT), Principal Components method and S-method; Iridium/GPS (IGPS) Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) system able to locate objects to within 1 cm in minute; potential for terahertz clock speeds using grapheme transistors and use of electron spin for memory.

Dr. Eli Brookner received his BEE from The City College of the City of New York, ’53, MEE and DrSc from Columbia University ’55 and ’62.

He has been at the Raytheon Company since 1962, where he is a Principal Engineering Fellow. There he has worked on the ASDE-X airport radar, ASTOR Air Surveillance Radar, RADARSAT II, Affordable Ground Based Radar (AGBR), major Space Based Radar programs, NAVSPASUR S-Band upgrade, CJR, COBRA DANE, PAVE PAWS, MSR, COBRA JUDY, THAAD, Brazilian SIVAM, SPY-3, Patriot, BMEWS, UEWR, Surveillance Radar Program (SRP), Pathfinder marine radar, Long Range Radar and COBRA DANE Upgrade. Prior to Raytheon he worked on radar at Columbia University Electronics Research Lab. [now RRI], Nicolet and Rome AF Lab.

He received the 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. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, AIAA, and MSS.

He has 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. He gives courses on Radar, Phased Arrays and Tracking around the world (25 countries). Over 10,000 have attended these courses. He was banquet speaker and keynote speaker nine times. He has over 110 papers, talks and correspondences to his credit. In addition, he has over 80 invited talks and papers.

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UPCOMING MEETINGS
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March 22, 2011, 6pm at MIT/LL main cafe.
A AP-S & AES joint meeting with Duane J. Matthiesen from Technia
Consulting, who will present to us his thoughts on, Efficient Beam
Scanning, Energy Allocation, and Time Allocation for Search and
Detection.
Abstract — Recently-developed unique and innovative concepts for
efficient radar search and detection are reviewed. These results
provide answers to the two fundamental search questions: (1) Where
should the radar beam point during the next increment of search effort
(energy and time)? (2) How much radar effort should be expended
during the next increment of search effort? These results provide the
most efficient allocation of radar search effort in both space and
time which maximizes target detection performance and minimizes radar
search energy and time. Typical savings of several dB of radar
power-aperture product and/or expected (average) detection time are
obtained. These new techniques are practical and can be used in the
next generation of radars with agile beams and variable-energy search
waveforms. Furthermore, the problem formulation and solution are
very general, so these search and detection techniques developed for
radar can also be applied to other both active (transmitting and
receiving) and passive (receive only) electronic sensors: optical,
IR, UV, sonar, seismic, passive RF, astronomy, etc.

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Upcoming AP-S Talk: Multiple-Beam Planar Lens Antenna Prototype

Greetings AP-S. We hope the new year is treating you well thus far.

The IEEE AP-S is excited to inform you about an upcoming seminar entitled, "Multiple-Beam Planar Lens Antenna Prototype." This seminar is based on work by Paul Elliot and Dr. Kiersten C. Kerby from MITRE Corporation.

Paul Elliot is a Lead Engineer at the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts. He works on antennas for communications, navigation, and radar.

Dr. Kiersten C. Kerby is a Senior Engineer at MITRE Corporation, where she develops antennas for radar and other applications.

The seminar will be held on Wednesday January 26th at 6PM and located at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory A-Cafe, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For directions please see: http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/map.html.

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

Please invite friends and colleagues to this event. The seminar and discussion should be quite interesting and fulfilling. We look forward to seeing you there.

Christy F. Cull, AP-S

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ABSTRACT
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A new low-height X/Ku-band (8.2-12.2 GHz) antenna was designed, built and tested which provides full 360 degree coverage around azimuth using multiple beams, covering the low elevation angles with peak gain of 12 dBi at 10 GHz. Computer modeling showed that about 18 dBi gain can also be achieved using this type of lens. The antenna shape is circular and flat with feed ports in a circle near the periphery. Switching between beams is accomplished by switching between beam ports. The prototype antenna built was 13.3 cm diameter by 1.56 cm high, which is approximately 41⁄2 wavelengths wide by 1⁄2 wavelengths thick at 10 GHz. The weight was 259g. Each feed port drives a small monocone to feed the lens, which radiates a beam close to endfire on the opposite side from the driven feed port. This flat lens antenna is extremely wideband and radiates a leaky wave from the surface of the beamforming lens, so it combines the functions of beamformer and planar radiating aperture into one structure, thereby achieving lower height and weight and simpler construction than other antenna types with 360° coverage.