IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter

Please help select speakers for 2012

2012-02-13T21:20:00.004-05:00

Hello IEEE APS Boston community members,

It is the new year and we are in the process of inviting several exciting and interesting speakers for our monthly meetings. We have the opportunity of inviting two distinguished lecturers every year from the IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer Program and I need your help selecting the two we should invite this year. The list of lecturers can be found at "http://www.ieeeaps.org/distlectureres.html". Please send me an email with your top two candidates before the end of February.

Also If you are interested in presenting you work to the community or if you have a speaker in mind please let me know at ojunior82@gmail.com.

We already have Nathan Cohen, CEO of Fractal Antenna Systems scheduled for May.

Best,

Raoul Ouedraogo

2012 IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION AND USNC-URSI NATIONAL RADIO SCIENCE MEETING

2012-02-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

WE CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO ATTEND THE

2012 IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

AND

USNC-URSI NATIONAL RADIO SCIENCE MEETING

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

On behalf of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and USNC-URSI, the Steering Committee invites you to attend the joint 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The Steering Committee has been working hard to plan an innovative and rewarding technical meeting with numerous opportunities to interact and collaborate with other participants. We also welcome you to bring your families to Chicago, a very family-friendly city, served by two major airports, O’Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport.

We represent the premier international venue in the field of antennas and propagation. Our robust technical program is corroborated by many workshops and short-courses. In 2012, a Plenary Session, featuring excellent speakers highlighting the state of the art and emerging areas of research, will inaugurate the technical sessions. All technical papers must be submitted no later than January 17, 2012 and should comply with the requirements outlined in the Technical Program section of the website. The IEEE AP-S is sponsoring a student paper contest and a student design contest.

The meeting will be formally inaugurated on July 8, 2012, with a reception at the Art Institute of Chicago, the United States’ second largest art museum. The reception will be in the stunning and recently opened Modern Wing, designed by Pulitzer-Prize winning architect Renzo Piano. The Modern Wing houses the museum’s modern European paintings and sculptures, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography. If there is sufficient registration in advance, the Art Institute will put on an educational program for children of participants during the opening reception.

The Steering Committee also is working on a social program that celebrates the vibrance and diversity of Chicago, the third largest city in the United States. The Social Program is intended to appeal to participants and their family members of all ages. Chicago’s great magic lies in its mix: sophisticated yet friendly, bustling city streets adjacent to long stretches of green parks and sparkling blue Lake Michigan, and a stunning year-round array of things to see and do unique in all the world. For those who also like to explore on their own or for participants who would like to stay a few extra days to see the city, Chicago is more walkable than most global cities, and visitors of all ages enjoy the proximity of such attractions as Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Art Institute of Chicago and other treasures. The city’s performance art scene delivers theatre, music and dance in historic venues. And, of course, an endless assortment of restaurants, shopping and nightlife are all at your fingertips, ready to match every taste, budget and mood. Highlights of Chicago and sample two-day and six- day itineraries of activities, in eight different languages, can be found on the Chicago Information pages of this website.

The Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, the conference venue, is the premier convention and business hotel in the Midwest. With over 15 years of award-winning service, it offers 1,209 guest rooms and state-of-the-art meeting space. The hotel, overlooking the Chicago River, is ideally located in the heart of downtown Chicago and is within walking distance of Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Millennium Park, the Loop business district, the Art Institute, and much more.

We would like to make this event as technically rewarding and enjoyable as possible, so please do not hesitate to contact the appropriate member of the Steering Committee with any suggestions and ideas. We welcome your input.

Adapting a line from Frank Sinatra’s famous song, we want to make Chicago your kind of town. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago in July 2012.

Best regards,

Danilo Erricolo

General Chair of the 2012 Steering Committee

http://www.ieeeaps.org/pdfs/IEEE_2012call_for_papers.pdf

http://www.ece.uic.edu/2012aps-ursi/

Time Harmonic Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Demo

2011-12-13T19:53:00.000-05:00

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

2011-12-06T17:54:00.000-05:00

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

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

2011-12-05T07:55:00.001-05:00

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...

2011-12-02T20:06:00.000-05:00

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...

2011-11-29T08:32:00.000-05:00

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

2011-11-08T17:02:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-18T07:06:00.000-04:00

Seeing through walls - MIT News Office

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

2011-10-16T20:37:00.000-04:00

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 ...

2011-10-16T20:36:00.000-04:00

Next meeting: Tue 9/13, at Lincoln Laboratory

2011-09-07T10:23:00.003-04:00

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 ...

2011-08-29T14:11:00.000-04:00

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'

2011-07-30T22:23:00.002-04:00

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

2011-05-19T10:31:00.002-04:00

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

2011-04-15T12:51:00.000-04:00

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

2011-03-15T22:12:00.002-04:00

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.

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

UPCOMING MEETINGS

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

STAY TUNED!

Mr. Vacuum Tube: NXP High Power RF Design Challenge

2011-03-02T12:55:00.000-05:00

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

2011-02-19T23:54:00.005-05:00

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.

%---------------------------%
UPCOMING MEETINGS
%----------------------------%
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.

Mr. Vacuum Tube: RADIO XLII An Indoor Old Radio Flea Market in West...

2011-02-02T15:52:00.000-05:00

Mr. Vacuum Tube: RADIO XLII An Indoor Old Radio Flea Market in West...: "Here it is, the biggest antique radio swap meet in new england, coming up on Feb 20! For more info please download the flyer. RADIO XLII An ..."

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Winner of the 2011 IAP Radar Course SAR imaging co...

2011-01-31T11:53:00.000-05:00

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Winner of the 2011 IAP Radar Course SAR imaging co...: "Tony Hyun Kim, Nevada Sanchez, and Paresh Malalur have won the SAR imaging contest for the 2011 MIT IAP radar course. Their winning SAR i..."

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

2011-01-17T00:12:00.002-05:00

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

%--------------------------------------------------------------------%
ABSTRACT
%--------------------------------------------------------------------%

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.

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

2010-12-15T17:06:00.002-05:00

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,'

2010-12-08T09:35:00.002-05:00

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

2010-12-01T10:06:00.003-05:00

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.

%--------------------------------------------------------------------%
ABSTRACT
%--------------------------------------------------------------------%
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.

Upcoming AP-S Boston Talks December-March

2010-11-09T10:20:00.003-05:00

Hi Everyone,

Here is a list of the lineup of talks we have for you from December to March. We are looking forward to this winter season of learning new things about electromagnetics and more fascinating discussions with authors. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston Chapter.

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

December 6, 2010, 6pm at MIT/LL main cafe.
A special AP-S, AES, GRSS holiday meeting with the world famous John
Volakis, Director of the legendary OSU Electro Science Laboratory.
John will present a lecture to us about: Metamaterials for
Miniaturization of Narrowband and Ultra-Wideband Antennas. For more
information:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

January 26, 2011, 6pm at the MIT/LL main cafe.
Paul G. Elliot and Kiersten C. Kerby from the MITRE Corporation will
present their fascinating work on a MULTIPLE-BEAM PLANAR LENS ANTENNA
PROTOTYPE.
ABSTRACT — 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.

Feb 23, 2011, 6pm at MIT/LL main cafe.
The world famous Eli Brookner will present his 2010 IEEE Intl.
Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech Plenary Session talk, Never
Ending Saga of Phased Array Breakthroughs. This is a must-see for
those of you who want a briefing on the state of the art phased array
technology as of this fall.
Abstract
• 3, 4, 6 face “Aegis” systems developed by China, Japan, Australia,
Netherlands, USA • Israel and Australia “Aegis” AESAs have an A/D at
every element, a major breakthrough.
• GaN advancing rapidly. Will be helped by use for PCs, notebooks,
cell phones, servers. • Extreme MMIC: 4 X-band T/Rs on 1 SiGe chip for
DARPA ISIS program; goal <$10/TR.
• Raytheon funding development of low cost flat panel X- band array
using COTS type PCB. • MA-COM/Lincoln-Lab. development of low cost S-
band flat panel array using PCB, overlapped subarrays and a T/R switch
instead of a circulator.
• Purdue Un. developing S-band low cost Digital Array Radar; GaN PA
and A/D at every element. • Revolutionary 3-D Micromachining:
integrated circuitry for microwave components, like 16 element Ka-band
array with Butler beamformer on 13X2 cm2 chip.
• Ultra low cost 77 GHz radar on 72mm2 chip together with >8 bits 1 GS/
s A/D and 16 element array. • Valeo-Raytheon 24 GHz phased array now
available for blind spot detection in cars for just $100’s.
• Lincoln Lab using 2 W chip increases spurious free dynamic range of
receiver plus A/D by 20 dB • JPL’s SweepSAR provides wide swath SAR
from space with 1/6 th power required by ScanSAR.
• Metamaterials: 1. Can now focus 6X beyond diffraction limit at 0.38
μm – Moore’s Law marches on. 2. Used in cell phones to obtain antennas
5X smaller and have 700 MHz-2.7 GHz bandwidth. 3. Provide isolation
between closely spaced antennas and antenna elements.

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.

10/27: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal Processing Techniques

2010-10-22T06:59:00.002-04:00

We are very pleased to bring you Lam Nguyen, who is flying up to visit
us from the US Army Research Laboratory. Lam will present his work
on: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-
Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal
Processing Techniques.

This talk will be on Wednesday October 27, at 6pm in the MIT/LL
Cafeteria.

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

This is a special multi-chapter talk, brought to you by AESS, AP-S,
GRSS, and SPS chapters of Boston. A special thanks to Eli Brookner
for setting up this talk.

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

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

Abstract

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

This talk first presents an overview of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) UWB low-frequency SAR. The second part of the talk presents the SAR signal processing and image formation techniques employed by the ARL UWB radar. ARL has designed and fabricated a vehicle-based UWB low-frequency SAR for the detection of concealed targets such as obstacles behind foliage, and surface and buried mines. The low-frequency radar also offers the capability of mapping of a building interior, as well as detecting moving targets behind the walls. The radar system can be configured in various modes of operation: forward looking SAR, side-looking SAR, and stationary. The radar transmits time-domain impulses that occupy the frequency band of 300—3000 MHz. The system employs a physical array of 16 receive antennas to provide the necessary aperture for sufficient cross-range resolution in the forward-looking and stationary modes. Two transmitters are located at the two ends of the receive array to virtually double the size of the physical receive array and maximize the cross-range resolution in the forward-looking mode.

The signal processing section includes the suppression of interference signals, the removal of signal distortions due to the moving platform with respect to the scene during the data acquisition cycle, the subband filtering, and the SAR image formation. ARL has developed the Recursive Sidelobe Minimization (RSM) technique that is integrated with the standard back-projection image formation. The technique has been shown to significantly reduce the artifacts due to sidelobes and noise in SAR imagery. This talk presents results from the forward-looking experiments for the detection of obstacles. SAR imagery of a building interior from the side-looking SAR mode is also presented.

Mr. Lam Nguyen received the BSEE, MSEE, and MSCS degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, VA, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, and The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, respectively.

He started his career with General Electric Company from 1984 to 1985. He has been with the Army Research Lab (ARL) and its predecessor organization, Harry Diamond Labs, from 1986 to the present. He has been primarily engaged in the research and development of several versions of ultra-wide-band (UWB) radar since 1992 to present. These radar systems have been used for the proof of concept demonstration in many concealed target detection programs. He has been developing algorithms for SAR signal and image processing. Mr. Nguyen has authored or coauthored over 70 conference and journal publications. Mr. Nguyen received the U.S. Army Research and Development Achievement Awards in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

Huge Success! 2010 IEEE Intl. Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech

2010-10-17T09:28:00.004-04:00

I want to thank everyone for attending the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology. There were a total of 520 attendees, approximately 180+ papers, two excellent tutorial sessions, and may outstanding meals too!

The papers were very good, most were about systems that were completely modeled, fabricated, and tested.

With all of this ongoing we also found time for some dancing. Shown here are a series of photos of Eli Brookner dancing with my fiancee.

Thank you for attending, looking forward to our next conference.

Greg,

Chair AP-S Boston

This week in Waltham MA: 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech.

2010-10-12T05:27:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone,

This week don't forget to drop by the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology, in Waltham MA.

You can register at the door if you have not done so already.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Greg,

Chair AP-S Boston Chapter

Don't forget to sign up to the student event at the 2010 IEEE Intl. Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech

2010-10-02T11:52:00.004-04:00

Are you a student who is interested in learning about phased array systems, what they are, how they work?

Then be sure to sing up to the free 1-day student event at the 2010 IEEE Symposium on Phased Array Systems & Technology, October 12, 2010 in Waltham, MA.

The IEEE is trying to encourage young people to study engineering as a profession, as a result many of our interesting conferences like this one are offering 1-day student events free to anyone.

The event is free, it includes lunch and a lecture by Eli Brookner, who is well known in the field of phased array radar systems and a great speaker. After lunch the students will get to see the symposium welcome speech by Mark Russell, and keynote by Dennis Picard. Finally, students will get to meet with companies, talk to engineers in the field, and meet other students who are studying antenna arrays in grad school.

As you might guess, it's not easy getting attendance levels up for something as specific as phased array antennas, or even raising awareness of how much fun phased array engineering can be as a career path.

For more information please visit:

website:

http://www.array2010.org/student.htm

student event flyer:

http://www.array2010.org/pdfs/past2010_studentevent_flyer.pdf

student event schedule:

http://www.array2010.org/pdfs/past2010_studentevent_schedule.pdf

To register, go here:

https://mandalore.tchmachines.com/%7Eqtzycpf/forms/phased_array_stu/student_pa_regpay.php

Please encourage any students or student groups that you know to check out this unique and free event. Looking forward to seeing you at the Phased Array Symposium!

Greg

Chair AP-S Boston Chapter

Tuesday, 9/28, THz Technology for Space and Earth Applications

2010-09-21T14:45:00.003-04:00

We are very excited to bring you Peter de Maagt, who is from the Antenna and Submillimetre Wave Section of The European Space Agency. Peter is flying to Boston from the Netherlands to speak to us about Terahertz Technology for Space and Earth Applications.

Here is a link to Peter's abstract, bio, and further information:
http://ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

This meeting will be co-sponsored by AESS, Photonics, and GRSS societies. Meeting will be held at the MIT/LL Cafeteria at 6pm on 9/28. Coffee, soda, cookies, and apples will be served.

Please join us for this fascinating talk and help welcome Peter to Boston. Feel free to invite your friends.

Hope to see you there,

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston Section

IEEE Boston Fall 2010 Continuing Education Program, a must-read

2010-09-21T14:35:00.002-04:00

Want to expand your knowledge of engineering, EM, radar systems, embedded systems, and other advanced topics?

Check out the IEEE Boston Continuing Education Program.

Topics include: Embedded/advanced embedded Linux, RF and uWave fundamentals, Analog filter design, RF PCB design, Radar basics, PLL design, Multi-Sensor Nav and Tracking, and many others.

This is a great way to quickly get up to speed on any one of these topics. We are fortunate to have such tutorials readily available to us in the Boston area, i hope that our members take advantage of the IEEE Boston Continuing Education Program.

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston

Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in Boston, September 20-23

2010-09-08T14:57:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone

For those of you who develop complete radar, radiometer, and other
measurement systems you might want to consider attending the Embedded
Systems Conference (ESC) in Boston, September 20-23 at the Hynes
Convention center:
http://esc-boston.techinsightsevents.com/

The technical program is particularly interesting, where you actually
build your own embedded systems:
http://esc-boston.techinsightsevents.com/sessions_by_track

Hope to see you there!

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

Other announcements:

Don't forget to register for 2010 International Symposium on Phased
Array Systems & Technology. We have discussed the awesome technical
program this year, the free student event, and the fascinating
tutorial sessions. If you haven't already please register because the
registration rates increase on Sept 10: http://www.array2010.org/registration.html

6:00 PM, Tuesday, 28 September
We are pleased to bring you: Terahertz Technology for Space and Earth
Applications
Presented by Peter de Maagt, Antenna and Submillimetre Wave Section,
Electromagnetics & Space Environments Division, European Space Agency
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

Have a great week,
Greg, Chair AP-S Boston

IEEE AP-S Boston Home Discussions + new post Members Pages Files About this group Edit my membership Group settings Management tasks Invite membe

2010-09-01T16:55:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone,

Support your local IEEE Chapter by registering for the 2010 IEEE
International Symposium on Phased Array Systems & Technology, in
Waltham MA October 12-15, 2010. The more of us who attend the more
likely it will be that the next one is held in the Boston area.

The technical program is excellent:
http://www.array2010.org/techprog.html

The tutorial sessions are a no-miss:
http://www.array2010.org/techprog.html#ts1
http://www.array2010.org/techprog.html#ts2

There is a free student event for any students who are interested in
learning about phased array design as a career path:
http://www.array2010.org/student.htm

And the plenary session will provide a glimpse into the future of
phased array systems:
http://www.array2010.org/techprog.html#plenary1

To register start here:
http://www.array2010.org/registration.html

Please let me know if you have any questions, i am a Chair on the
conference committee. Please spread the word to your friends too.

See you later this month for Peter de Maagt's talk on THZ technology.

Greg, Chair AP-S Boston

Early Phased Array Development at Lincoln Laboratory (circa 1958-1968)

2010-08-11T09:16:00.004-04:00

(image from http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photogallery/photogallery.html)

Hi everyone,

We are pleased to bring you Bill Delaney, a Senior Fellow of the Defense Science Board and MIT Lincoln Laboratory Director's Office Fellow, who will be presenting:

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 25 August

Early Phased Array Development at Lincoln Laboratory (circa 1958-1968)

Bill Delaney, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Lincoln’s developments in electronically-steered array antennas began in earnest about 1958. The challenge was the forthcoming need for powerful wide-angle-scanning radars for satellite detection and tracking. The Space Age had just started a year earlier with the launch of Sputnik. The Soviet Union was also launching long-range ballistic missiles and missile defense would demand rapid movement of the antenna beam for surveillance and fire-control.

A small group at Lincoln Laboratory formed around a visionary individual, John Allen, to pursue this immature technology. John’s goal was “National” in scope; he wanted to make electronically-steered arrays a practical option for the defense/military user. The Lincoln program would have to foster tight coupling to the industrial teams, labs and military users around the nation who were also pursuing this technology.

This talk will describe the technology situation in 1958; it was woefully inadequate to the job such that many technical people considered the vision of an affordable, high-powered 5000 element array with all elements acting reliably and in complete phase-coherence as an “impossible dream”. Of course, in the land of the Red Sox, impossible dreams do come true and in 1968 the FPS-85 space surveillance radar went on the air at Eglin Air Force Base with 30 Megawatts of peak power and 5000 elements at UHF. It is still on the air today!

Examples of the phased array components of the Lincoln program and the full radar system achievements of industry will be presented in rough time-order of achievement. A few remaining outstanding challenges will be discussed.

The Lincoln program began with an across-the-board attack on antennas, power amplifiers, receivers, beam-formers and control devices; the first goal was linear arrays which rapidly migrated to two dimensional arrays. It was clear that solid-state was the place to go but there were no high-frequency or high-power solid state devices to go to! In the mid 1960’s the nation undertook focused solid state device work at L-Band and that embryonic work carried us 40 years later to today’s fine X-band, all-solid-state radars .

The Laboratory program did make the industry and other laboratory connections and played a key role in getting things started. We thought it might take 10 to 15 years to “realize the vision”, but we were very optimistic , it took closer to 50 years but we are there today ( so there is hope for the Sox)!

Bill Delaney received his EE degree from Rensselear in 1957, joined Lincoln Laboratory and simultaneously entered the MIT Graduate School. He immediately became involved in phased-array radar with a thesis topic on: “Phase Stabilization of UHF Power Amplifiers” ( for phased arrays ). He rejoined the Special Radars Group in 1959 at the completion of his MSEE degree.

His 53 year association with Lincoln has led him in many directions: radar, phased array antennas, missile defense, air defense, wideband radar, air traffic control, tactical battlefield technology, GPS and participation in literally hundreds of special studies and task forces for the Department of Defense. He did a tour at the Kwajalein radar site and a tour in the Pentagon in DDR&E. He was appointed an Assistant Director of Lincoln in 1987 and since 1995 has been the Director’s Office Fellow at the Laboratory.

Bill is currently a Senior Fellow of the Defense Science Board and in 1995 he was elected a Fellow of the IEEE.

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

Reminder to register for the 2010 IEEE international Symposium on Phased Array Systems & Technology

2010-08-03T21:21:00.002-04:00

Hello AP-S Boston community,

Per your ongoing interest in phased array antenna systems I want to remind you to register for the 2010 IEEE international Symposium on Phased Array Systems & Technology, in our very own Waltham MA, this October :)

Check out the fascinating technical program.

Join the facebook group.

Or, if you are a student then register here for the student event, because we want to encourage the young engineers to study applied electromagnetics and eventually phased array antenna systems.

Spread the word around your workplace or school sending the flyer to all of your friends.

See you on August 25, for Bill Delany's talk on Early Phased Array Developments at Lincoln Laboratory

Greg,

Chair

IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter

Technology Goes to War, by Deborah G. Douglass, Wed. July 14, 2010

2010-07-07T15:53:00.005-04:00

We are pleased to have Deborah G. Douglas, Curator of Science and
Technology, from the MIT Museum present Technology Goes to War:

World War II is sometimes called the "Wizards' War" because of the
extraordinary contributions made by the scientists and engineers to
the war effort. The nation's research universities were central to
this work but even among the most elite institutions, the
contributions of MIT are unparalleled. Many know of the famous MIT
Radiation Laboratory that made pioneering contributions to the
technology of radar and was the second largest wartime R&D project but
far fewer of projects such as Doc Draper's gunsights (which turned the
tide of the Navy's battle in the Pacific), the Chemical Warfare
Service Lab that transformed gas mask technology and invented gasoline
flame throwers, or Jay Forrester's early work on a flight simulator
that led to the Whirlwind computer. Dr. Douglas presents an
illustrated slide lecture that reviews the fascinating history of MIT
and the birth of the military-industrial-university complex.

This presentation will be at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory cafeteria at
6:00 PM, Wednesday, 14 July. For more information goto:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

In preparation for this talk i am asking you to learn more about WW2
radar and optical sensor systems, gun laying computer systems, and the
feedback servo control systems used to direct the guns by visiting any
one of these local museums:

See many radar and optical systems, mechanical computer, and feedback
control systems used to precisely direct the guns of a WW2 era
battleship, you would be surprised at how sophisticated this equipment
is:
http://www.battleshipcove.org/

See the optical gun sight discussed in Debora's abstract here:
http://web.mit.edu/museum/

Visit a WW2 destroyer in Boston, loaded with the radar and optical
sensors and fire control computer system:
http://www.nps.gov/bost/historyculture/usscassinyoung.htm

Read up on the challenges of WW2 radar design (one of my favorite
books on the topic) by checking out this book at your local library:
http://www.amazon.com/Radar-History-World-War-Imperatives/dp/0750306599

Do your homework and bring some good questions for Deborah :) Feel
free to invite your friends who are interested in technological
history or military history.

Looking forward to seeing you next week!

Greg,
Chair AP-S Boston.

iPhone 4 antenna problem

2010-07-02T14:19:00.002-04:00

Fellow antenna engineers:

If you haven't been following Apple's antenna issues with the iPhone 4 here are a couple of interesting reads:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178503/Hardware_expert_explains_iPhone_4_antenna_problem

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178771/Apple_AT_T_sued_over_iPhone_4_antenna_problems?source=toc

And yes, if you were wondering, Apple is trying to hire more antenna engineers ;)

http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=55852&CurrentPage=1

John

Registration now open for 2010 IEEE Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology

2010-07-02T08:40:00.002-04:00

Registration is now open for the 2010 IEEE Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology.

At this conference the latest in phased array technology will be presented, discussed, and debated.

This conference is in Waltham, so it is an easy one for the members of AP-S Boston to attend.

I strongly recommend attending if you are a fan of phased array technology, radar imaging, or antenna systems.

Greg

Chair, AP-S Boston

A DIY Synthetic Aperture Radar System

2010-06-28T12:04:00.002-04:00

Thought the members of IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter would like to check out this project:

Recently i presented a briefing at the MIT Haystack Observatory open lunch on how to build your own synthetic aperture radar in your backyard. Others found it interesting and it has circulated among several technology blogs.

Here it is on Make Magazine

Here it is on Popular Science

Hope you find this interesting! If you build your own SAR we would like to see it too, post it here on our blog.

Stay tuned for even more interesting stuff coming up at our meeting in July.

Greg,

Chair AP-S Boston.

Cary Rappaport's publications: detecting buried mines, imaging, medical applications of applied EM

2010-06-13T10:18:00.002-04:00

Our meeting last week was a record attendance for IEEE AP-S Boston. During which there was much debate and discussion of possible ways to image the location of underground tunnels using UHF SAR. In addition to this, there was much discussion of Cary's previous work in finding buried mines with radar sensing techniques.

I think many of our members would like to read up on Cary's previous work. Here it is, scroll down about half-way to see all publications on these topics.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meeting,

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 14 July

Technology Goes to War

Deborah G. Douglas, Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum

Determining tunnel positions under rough surfaces with underground focused synthetic aperture radar

2010-06-02T18:14:00.002-04:00

IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter is pleased to present this fascinating talk on determining tunnel positions using underground focused SAR. As you can guess, this technology has many relevant applications.

Feel free to invite your colleagues, we are looking forward to seeing you there;

6:00 PM, Tuesday, 8 June

Determining tunnel positions under rough surfaces with underground focused synthetic aperture radar

Carey Rappaport, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115

Underground tunnels present both military and homeland security threats since smugglers use them as transit routes for trafficking weapons, explosives, people, drugs, and other illicit materials. Detecting and imaging the presence of tunnels in any given region of ground is possible because the air that fills them is materially quite different from anything else underground. The Spotlight Synthetic Aperture Radar (SL-SAR) has been used due to its ability to scan large areas of terrain in a short amount of time, which is ideal for tunnel detection. In order to obtain strong and distinct target signals, Underground Focusing, based on ray refraction at the ground surface is being considered. This presents a challenge since the technique requires an estimation of the ground characteristics, and the random roughness of the soil surface tends to distort the reconstructed image of the analyzed geometry.

This presentation explores the impact of the surface roughness in Underground Focusing SAR imaging for tunnel detection applications. The study starts by simulating incident plane waves from 19 angles (-45 to 45 degrees) at 128 different frequencies (55 to 550 MHz) with 2-D Finite Difference Frequency Domain (FDFD) analysis on 2 different types of soil: non-dispersive sandy soil and lossy clay loam soil with 10 cm of randomly distributed roughness. It is demonstrated that a shallow tunnel can be imaged in low moisture, non-conductive sand, but that the more lossy moist clay presents too much surface clutter to distinguish the tunnel.

Carey M. Rappaport (IEEE M, SM 96, F 06) received five degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: the SB in Mathematics, the SB, SM, and EE in Electrical Engineering in June 1982, and the PhD in Electrical Engineering in June 1987. He is married to Ann W. Morgenthaler, and has two children, Sarah and Brian.

Prof. Rappaport has worked as a teaching and research assistant at MIT from 1981 until 1987, and during the summers at COMSAT Labs in Clarksburg, MD, and The Aerospace Corp. in El Segundo, CA. He joined the faculty at Northeastern University in Boston, MA in 1987. He has been Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering since July 2000. During fall 1995, he was Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Electromagnetics Institute of the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, as part of the W. Fulbright International Scholar Program. During the second half of 2005, he was a visiting research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial and Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Epping Australia. He has consulted for CACI, Alion Science and Technology, Inc., Geo-Centers, Inc., PPG, Inc., and several municipalities on wave propagation and modeling, and microwave heating and safety. He was Principal Investigator of an ARO-sponsored Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative on Humanitarian Demining, Co-Principal Investigator of the NSF-sponsored Engineering Research Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS), and Co-Principal Investigator of the DHS-sponsored Awareness and Localization of Explosive Related Threats (ALERT) Center of Excellence.

Prof. Rappaport has authored over 330 technical journal and conference papers in the areas of microwave antenna design, electromagnetic wave propagation and scattering computation, and bioelectromagnetics, and has received two reflector antenna patents, two biomedical device patents and three subsurface sensing device patents. He was awarded the IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society's H.A. Wheeler Award for best applications paper, as a student in 1986. He is a member of Sigma Xi and Eta Kappa Nu professional honorary societies.

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

Our website is now up

2010-05-28T10:42:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone,

Our website is now up, and it is hosted by IEEE APS. If you get a minute please check it out here.

See you at our next meeting!

Greg

IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Lecturers?

2010-05-11T09:24:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone,

We have an opportunity to invite an APS distinguished lecturer to speak for our club.

My question for you is; which topic do you find to be the most interesting?

If you get a minute look these over and let me know:
http://www.ieeeaps.org/distlectureres.html

Post your reply on this blog, our google group, or e-mail directly to me.

Thank you for your time,

Gregory L. Charvat

Chair, IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter

Inverse scattering for coherent optical and radar imaging systems

2010-05-07T12:51:00.002-04:00

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a tadpole looks like but did not want to dissect or hurt it? T. Ralston has the answer, he will show us a method that allows medical personnel to look under the skin and see at a microscopic resolution, in 3 dimensions, and in some cases in real-time (see video above of a tadpole's heart beating).

This will be a fascinating talk for anyone interested in scattering, optics, synthetic aperture radar, and medicine. Please feel free to invite your friends!

Details:

5:30 PM, Monday, 10 May

Inverse scattering for coherent optical and radar imaging systems

Tyler S. Ralston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory

This talk will juxtapose an emerging broadband optical imaging technology, interferometric synthetic aperture microscopy (ISAM), with the well-known synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a method for imaging with millimeter electromagnetic waves. ISAM is a new technique for 3-D noninvasive biophotonic imaging. The hardware for ISAM is derived from the widely-used optical coherence tomography (OCT), a low-coherence interferometric (LCI) ranging technique with micron resolution deep (1-2 mm) within biological tissues. Both methods take advantage of the fact that the data are samples of a linear functional of the fields, and that the fields are connected to the object susceptibility function through Maxwell's equations. The susceptibility function, or a filtered version of it, is determined in terms of the known data by solving this system of equations. New advances in algorithms and computing hardware have enabled real-time ISAM – an important step toward enabling widespread clinical use.

Tyler S. Ralston received his Bachelors degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Dayton (2000). Prior to earning his Masters and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois (2006), he worked as an electrical engineer in the medical products industry at Battelle Memorial Institute (1998-2001). After his PhD, he worked as a post doctorate research scientist at the Beckman Institute (2006-2007) developing optical systems and algorithms for biomedical research applications. In 2007, he began working in his current position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory developing algorithms for radar and optical systems.

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

Ultrawideband Mini Offset Bicone Antenna, slides from J. Sandora's talk on 4/14/2010

2010-05-07T10:04:00.003-04:00

I have posted the slides from John Sandroa's talk on how to design, model, then fabricate and test a UWB Mini-Offset Bicone Antenna, here.

John has received many inquiries about his talk. Feel free to post your comments or questions here on the blog.

seeking ideas for August and September speakers & upcoming meetings

2010-04-16T10:23:00.003-04:00

Hi AP-S Boston community,

We are seeking ideas for speakers to present at our upcoming meetings. Do you have someone in mind who you would like to hear from? Or, do you have a topic that you would like to learn more about?

Please post your ideas on the blog.

See the attached figure for the current lineup of speakers from now until July. Thank you for your inputs,

Gregory L. Charvat

Chair of IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter.

Our very own John Sandora, Past Chair will be presenting: Ultrawideband (UWB) Antenna

2010-04-07T17:20:00.002-04:00

Please come and cheer on our past Chair, John Sandora, as he provides us a glimpse of one of the more fascinating antennas that he has developed recently. For those of you who are interested in ultrawideband you will want to check this out.

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 14 April

Ultrawideband (UWB) Antenna

John Sandora, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

An ultrawideband (UWB) antenna has been developed for operation in the 200 MHz to 18 GHz frequency range. This antenna is a new type — a miniaturized offset bicone/dipole design that allows for vertically polarized omnidirectional coverage over an instantaneous 90:1 bandwidth. Numerical electromagnetic simulations with the finite-element method (FEM) were used to investigate the antenna concept and optimize geometry prior to fabrication. Measurements both in a compact range and in an anechoic chamber confirm the antenna’s performance.

John Sandora is an engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s “Advanced RF Sensing and Exploitation” group. Mr. Sandora received Bachelor’s degrees in physics and electrical engineering in 2004 and a MSEE in 2005 from The Ohio State University. As a Graduate Research Assistant he constructed a state-of-the-art compact range radar system which can measure the scattering and radiation characteristics of objects as large as twelve square feet. His thesis topic, “Design of the ElectroScience Lab’s 0.4 – 100 GHz Compact Range Radar System” won Outstanding Thesis in 2005. After joining MIT Lincoln Laboratory, he has continued working on radar, antenna design, RF systems analysis, and other advanced applied electromagnetics.

The meeting will be held at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria in Lexington, MA. Refreshments will be served at 5:30; the talk will begin at 6:00 pm. The talk is open to the general public.

Directions to Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria from points north: Take I-95/128 south to exit 31B, Routes 4 & 225 towards Bedford. Stay in right lane and use the right turning lane (0.3 miles) to access Hartwell Ave at first traffic light. Follow Hartwell Ave to the end; take a left onto Wood Street (just before the AFB gate). Lincoln Laboratory entrance is 0.5 miles on right. The entrance to the cafeteria is on the lower level left of the main entrance.

From points south: Take I-95/128 north to exit 30B, Route 2A west. Turn right on to Mass Ave (~0.4 miles). Turn left on to Wood Street (~0.4 miles) Lincoln Laboratory Wood Street entrance is 1 mile on left. The entrance to the cafeteria is on the lower level to the left of the main entrance.

For more information contact John Sandora (jsandora@ll.mit.edu).

Geoscience and Remote Sensing + AP-S Present: Ensemble Detection and Analysis A Means for Characterizing and Modeling Non-Stationary Processes

2010-04-07T17:18:00.001-04:00

The week of April 12 is a busy one for IEEE AP-S. We have a Joint meeting with GRSS on Monday, April 12, please come and join us for this fascinating talk:

Geoscience and Remote Sensing; and Antennas & Propagation Societies

5:30 PM Refreshments; 6:00 PM Presentation, Monday, 12 April

Ensemble Detection and Analysis A Means for Characterizing and Modeling Non-Stationary Processes

Dr. Paul Racette, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Everything changes across some temporal or spatial scale, and the lack of well-developed techniques for modeling changing statistical moments in our observations has stymied the application of stochastic process theory for many scientific and engineering applications. Non-linear effects of the observation methodology, i.e. the role of the observer, present one of the most perplexing aspects to modeling non-stationary processes. For example, such non-linear effects are problematic when averaging high-resolution radar data to match courser resolution radiometer data in combined retrieval algorithms. These limitations were encountered when modeling temporal effects of calibration frequency on the performance of a radiometer with non-stationary receiver fluctuations. A microwave radiometer is frequently calibrated to correct for fluctuations in the receiver. A radiometer typically samples a set of stable calibration noise references from which the receiver response is estimated. Algorithms are usually applied to suppress receiver fluctuations from the estimates of the measurements. Analysis has shown that algorithms designed to accentuate temporal effects in the receiver response yield information about the non-stationary properties of the receiver fluctuations. Ensemble Detection and Analysis extends this concept to the study of non-stationary signals as a form of noise assisted data analysis. This presentation will describe a novel approach to analyzing and modeling non-stationary processes using methods derived from techniques for analyzing and modeling radiometer systems including their calibration architecture and will conclude with musings on the ontology of a new Observation Theory.

Dr. Paul Racette is a member of the senior technical staff at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center where he has worked since 1990. He has conceived, developed and successfully deployed several microwave to submillimeterwave remote sensors. He has participated in and led numerous field campaigns around the world. For his accomplishments in developing remote sensing technologies, Dr. Racette received NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Service and was the first recipient of NASA Goddard’s Engineering Achievement Award. In 2005 he became a NASA Administrator’s Fellow. Dr. Racette is an observation theorist with research interests that include the study and modeling of non-stationary processes, calibration methodologies and the role of consciousness in the evolution of the universe. Dr. Racette is an active volunteer for the IEEE, serves as Editor in Chief of IEEE’s www.earthzine.org and is an ex-officio AdCom member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. He received the Bachelor (1988) and Master (1990) of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas and in 2005 completed his Doctor of Science in electrical engineering from The George Washington University. Dr. Racette is committed to the exploration and promotion of diversity in the workplace and serves as the co-Vice Chair of Goddard’s Native American Advisory Committee.

This meeting of the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Chapter will be held at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory cafeteria. Refreshments will be served at 5:30 PM with the technical meeting starting at 6:00 PM. A no-host dinner with the speaker will follow at a local restaurant. Directions to Lincoln Laboratory, 244 Wood St., Lexington: From I-95 (Rt. 128), take Exit 31B (Rt. 4-225) toward Bedford. At first stoplight, take jug handle left (bear right to take a left) onto Hartwell Ave. Proceed ~1 mile and take left on Wood St. Take first right to Lincoln Laboratory entrance. After passing guard, follow road around to parking lot on the right. Park. Walk to area between the main entrance and the parking garage and proceed down staircase (left side of main entrance) to the cafeteria entrance. For more information contact Bill Blackwell at (781) 981-7973 or wjb@ll.mit.edu

The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT)

2010-03-18T21:20:00.000-04:00

Quick Reminder:

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 24 March

The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT)

F. Peter Schloerb, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) is a 50m-diameter millimeter-wave (mmW) radio telescope that is under construction on the 4600m summit of Sierra Negra, an extinct volcano in the Mexican state of Puebla, by a bi-national collaboration led by the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica (INAOE) and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This telescope has achieved first-light at cm wavelengths and will soon achieve first-light at mmW, with full operation scheduled to begin in 2012.

This talk, presented on behalf of the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) project team, describes the status and near-term plans for the telescope and its initial instrumentation. The LMT is a bi-national collaboration between Mexico and the USA, led by the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica (INAOE) and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to construct, commission and operate a 50m-diameter millimeter-wave radio telescope. Construction activities are nearly complete at the 4600m LMT site on the summit of Sierra Negra, an extinct volcano in the Mexican state of Puebla. Full movement of the telescope, under computer control in both azimuth and elevation, has been achieved. First-light at centimeter wavelengths on astronomical sources was obtained in November 2006. Installation of precision surface segments for millimeter-wave operation is underway, with the inner 32m-diameter of the surface now complete.

The project plan was revised in 2008 to proceed to first light with the inner 32m of the antenna while the remaining surface is being completed and prepared for installation. We hope to complete this first light objective in 2010 and carry out some initial scientific work. The remainder of the antenna surface is expected to be completed and installed within about one year after this "first light science."

F. Peter Schloerb is a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he serves also as Director of the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory and Project Director for UMass's participation in the Large Millimeter Telescope Project.

The meeting will be held at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria in Lexington, MA. Refreshments will be served at 5:30; the talk will begin at 6:00 pm. The talk is open to the general public.

For more information contact John Sandora (jsandora@ll.mit.edu).

Slides from: Remote Sensing of the Geospace Environment Using Active and Passive Radio Techniques

2010-03-01T17:34:00.004-05:00

This was one of the most interesting talks I have seen on the physics behind our geospace environment. We thank Frank Lind for his efforts in putting this fascinating presentation together.

The slides are posted here. Feel free to show your friends and invite others to our next IEEE AP-S Boston meeting.

For more information about the MIT Haystack Observatory and their ongoing atmospheric science research please visit their website.

See you at the next meeting,

Greg

Antenna and Radar Cross Section Measurements

2010-02-22T20:56:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone -

Here is a video on antenna and radar cross section measurements put together by LabTV. LabTV produces educational "webisodes" for middle and high school students through the National Defense Education Program. This segment highlights the compact range facility at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

John Sandora

Bounce Back
Using Radar, the Answer Is in the Echo

RADAR -- which stands for radio detection and ranging -- is a technique that's used all around us in everyday life. It can determine the presence and the velocity of an object such as an airplane or even a person.

Radar works via a transmitter that shoots a pulse of electromagnetic energy. The pulse travels to a target, bounces off, and then the radar listens for the echo off that target.

Engineers at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Mass., build the most advanced radar systems in the world. With the help of a special testing chamber, these scientists can test their radar antennas indoors -- before taking them out into the real world.

The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT)

2010-02-20T11:43:00.002-05:00

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 24 March

The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT)

F. Peter Schloerb, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The meeting will be held at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria in Lexington, MA. Refreshments will be served at 5:30; the talk will begin at 6:00 pm. The talk is open to the general public.

For more information contact John Sandora (jsandora@ll.mit.edu).

an explanation of a yagi antenna using a lightbulb

2010-02-19T15:22:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting explanation of how a yagi antenna works using a lightbulb connected to a dipole antenna. Thought you might enjoy it.

Remote Sensing of the Geospace Environment Using Active and Passive Radio Techniques

2010-02-18T10:39:00.001-05:00

A very interesting talk will be presented next week. Please drop by and join the conversation.

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 24 February

Remote Sensing of the Geospace Environment Using Active and Passive Radio Techniques

Dr. Frank D. Lind, Research Engineer, MIT Haystack Observatory

The Geospace environment of the Earth extends from the upper atmosphere and ionosphere to the boundary between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind. This is a region of space plasma physics and is largely invisible to the naked eye with the exception of energetic phenomena such as the Aurora. The Heliosphere which extends above this region is dominated by the influence of the Sun and solar variations play a major role in driving Geospace phenomena. At the lower boundary of Geospace the coupling to the neutral atmosphere of the Earth and terrestrial weather and processes are increasingly recognized as having a strong role in some Geospace phenomena. The different regions of Geospace are coupled by physical processes which transfer energy and momentum across many spatial scales and time spans. Persistent features such as the Aurora, radiation belts, and ubiquitous waves and tides are also punctuated by dramatic events such as geomagnetic storms which are created by the Sun. The Geospace environment is global in nature and hosts significant and wide ranging changes on timescales ranging from seconds to decades (and beyond). These changes greatly influence radio wave propagation, absorption, and scattering, and also produce significant changes in the population and structure of energetic particles surrounding the Earth. The many phenomena which interact in the Geospace environment produce a range of Space Weather effects which can be of practical importance to technological society and systems.

I will discuss radio remote sensing of the Geospace environment using radar and radio techniques and describe how radio wave propagation and scattering allows us to make fundamental physical measurements of this region. To motivate this discussion I will provide a basic overview of radio propagation in the space environment and discuss the more fundamental plasma modes and wave instabilities which exist. I will then describe the process of radar remote sensing using incoherent and coherent scattering from these space plasmas and how the scattering physics allows us to extract fundamental physical parameters. I will also discuss measurements which observe the scintillation and phase variation of radio signals from stellar radio sources as well as satellite borne radio beacons such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation.

As part of this discussion I will make an effort to place these techniques in their historical context, provide an overview of the Geospace environment, describe the strong influence of the Sun, and discuss the major physical phenomena which are observed. I will also provide examples of the current generation of radar and radio instrumentation used to make these measurements including incoherent scatter radars, passive radars, and ground based radio arrays. I will provide examples of how these instruments enable the detection, visualization, and detailed investigation of the physics of the Geospace environment. As time allows I will provide additional details on the Space Weather impacts of the Geospace environment and discuss the next generation of instrumentation which has been enabled by advances in radio array technology.

Dr. Frank D. Lind is a Research Engineer with MIT Haystack Observatory where he has worked for the past decade to design, implement, and operate radio science instrumentation. He is one of the principal investigators for the National Science Foundation's Millstone Hill Facility which is part of the Upper Atmosphere Facilities program. In this role he acts as the lead engineer for the Facility whose major instrument is the Millstone Hill UHF radar system. This high power large aperture radar system is used to make detailed physical measurements of the Geospace environment and has been a key instrument used in many NSF, NASA, and DoD supported investigations. His research focuses on the development of radio science instrumentation, Software Radar techniques, space plasma physics, and distributed radio array technology and applications. Dr. Lind studied at the University of Washington where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 1994. He then joined the UW Geophysics Program and pursued studies leading to the Doctor of Philosophy in Geophysics in 1999. His work there focused on Passive Radar observations of the Aurora Borealis. He is currently the chair of USNC URSI Commission G (United States National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science), a member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and a member of the IEEE.

The meeting will be held at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria in Lexington, MA. Refreshments will be served at 5:30; the talk will begin at 6:00 pm. The talk is open to the general public.

IEEE Phased Array 2010

2010-02-18T10:36:00.000-05:00

A fascinating conference will be happening in the Boston area soon, IEEE Phased Array 2010. Mark your calendars now, October 12-15. 2010

http://www.array2010.org/

IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter

Please help select speakers for 2012

2012 IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION AND USNC-URSI NATIONAL RADIO SCIENCE MEETING

Time Harmonic Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Demo

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

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

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 Rad...

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

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 ...

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.

Directions and parking:

From Exit 31B:

From Exit 30B:

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

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

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

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

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

COURSE SUMMARY

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

Mr. Vacuum Tube: NXP High Power RF Design Challenge

World famous Eli Brookner Feb. 23rd

Mr. Vacuum Tube: RADIO XLII An Indoor Old Radio Flea Market in West...

Mr. Vacuum Tube: Winner of the 2011 IAP Radar Course SAR imaging co...

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

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

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

Metamaterials for Miniaturization of Narrowband and Ultra-Wideband Antennas

Upcoming AP-S Boston Talks December-March

10/27: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal Processing Techniques

Huge Success! 2010 IEEE Intl. Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech

This week in Waltham MA: 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech.

Don't forget to sign up to the student event at the 2010 IEEE Intl. Symposium on Phased Array Sys. & Tech

Tuesday, 9/28, THz Technology for Space and Earth Applications

IEEE Boston Fall 2010 Continuing Education Program, a must-read

Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in Boston, September 20-23

IEEE AP-S Boston Home Discussions + new post Members Pages Files About this group Edit my membership Group settings Management tasks Invite membe

Early Phased Array Development at Lincoln Laboratory (circa 1958-1968)

6:00 PM, Wednesday, 25 August

Early Phased Array Development at Lincoln Laboratory (circa 1958-1968)

Bill Delaney, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Reminder to register for the 2010 IEEE international Symposium on Phased Array Systems & Technology

Technology Goes to War, by Deborah G. Douglass, Wed. July 14, 2010

iPhone 4 antenna problem

Registration now open for 2010 IEEE Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology

A DIY Synthetic Aperture Radar System

Cary Rappaport's publications: detecting buried mines, imaging, medical applications of applied EM

Technology Goes to War

Deborah G. Douglas, Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum

Determining tunnel positions under rough surfaces with underground focused synthetic aperture radar

IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter is pleased to present this fascinating talk on determining tunnel positions using underground focused SAR. As you can guess, this technology has many relevant applications.

Feel free to invite your colleagues, we are looking forward to seeing you there;

6:00 PM, Tuesday, 8 June

Determining tunnel positions under rough surfaces with underground focused synthetic aperture radar

Carey Rappaport, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115

Our website is now up

IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Lecturers?

Inverse scattering for coherent optical and radar imaging systems

5:30 PM, Monday, 10 May

Inverse scattering for coherent optical and radar imaging systems

Tyler S. Ralston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory

Ultrawideband Mini Offset Bicone Antenna, slides from J. Sandora's talk on 4/14/2010

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