In This Issue. . .

• Letter from P.I.

• Annual Meeting Highlights

• Student Poster Awards

• News Items

• Short Course Suggestions

• Membership Renewals

“Preparing

students to be

successful

in an

increasingly

interdisciplinary

and global

environment”

Letter from the P.I.The 6th Annual CERF Meeting was held in August and we’d like to thank allthose who attended. We’ve included some pictures from the event as well asan article about the winners of the student poster contest. Congratulations toall participants for their excellent presentations.

I would also like to let you know that the date has been set for next year’smeeting and short courses. The meeting will be on August 2, 2016, and theshort courses August 3-5, 2016, so mark your calendars! These events willbe held at the Blackwell Inn and Pfahl Conference Center on the campus ofThe Ohio State University. Just a reminder– next year’s CERF membershipfees are due in January 2016.

Drs. Brian Kent, Greg Creech and Jeff Berrie at theAnnual CERF Meeting.

We would love to hear yoursuggestions and commentson the CERF annual meet-ing and ideas for the nextyear’s short courses. Forany comments and ques-tions please don’t hesitate tocontact me.

Best Regards,

Greg CreechP.I., ESL-CERFAsst. Director, ESL614-292-0609creech.41@osu.edu

6th Annual CERF MeetingWe had over 60 participants attend this year’s meeting which was held at the ElectroScience Laboratory. Those who attended included representatives from our industrial affiliates, A ir Force R esearch L aboratory a nd E SL faculty and students. Thanks to Ryan Horns of the OSU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) for photographing the event. More images are available at https://electroscience.osu.edu/news-events/photo-library .

CERF meeting on August 4, 2015, at the ElectroScience Laboratory.

September 2015 Volume 2, Issue 2 2

Student Poster Awards

2015 Best CERF Poster Award recipients(left to right: Markus Novak, Kyle Stewartand Ushemadzoro Chipengo).

During the 6th Annual CERF Meeting, 35 posters competed for the bestposter award. Four sessions were held throughout the day that featuredposters focusing on ESL research that was fully or partially funded by CERF.The topics included: Antenna Design; Radar, Navigation and Sensing; EMAlgorithms and Measurements; and RF Circuits and Optics. The majorityof the presenters were ESL graduate students who showcased their thesisresearch. Presenters had a chance to network not only with their peers andfaculty, who specialize in different fields of the EM and RF research, but alsowith the representatives of the CERF affiliates (Raytheon, Berriehill Corp., MITLincoln Lab). These members had the task of selecting the top five postersbased on the academic content, appeal to audience and overall quality of thelayout. We congratulate the recipients for their success. The first place andsecond place poster awardees received $200 and $100, respectively, alongwith a certificate acknowledging their successful presentation.

1st place: Novel Concepts for Slow Wave Structures of High Power BWO’s and TWT AmplifiersUshemadzoro Chipengo, Muhammed Zuboraj and John L. VolakisBackward wave oscillators (BWOs) and travelling wave tube amplifiers (TWTA) are high power microwave devicescapable of generating and amplifying megawatts to gigawatts of microwave power. These devices find applicationsin satellite communication systems, non-lethal electronic warfare and high power radar. Despite their attractiveapplications, both TWTAs and BWOs still have performance challenges. BWOs suffer from low efficiency and poormode purity. TWTAs on the other hand suffer from limited bandwidth, limited gain and oscillation control issuesat high power. To address these challenges, we present two novel slow wave structure (SWS) designs based oncorrugated waveguides (BWOs) and coupled transmission lines (TWTA). The fabrication, cold testing and validationof the SWS dispersion properties will also be presented.

2nd place (1): Ultra-Wideband Antennas for Satellite Communications Up to Ku- and Ka-BandMarkus Novak, Felix Miranda and John L. VolakisThe need for reduction in size and weight of satellite systems is ongoing, particularly in light of recent efforts toincrease the functional role of small- and nano-satellites (for instance SmallSats and CubeSats). To this end, afamily of arrays is presented, demonstrating ultra-wideband operation across the numerous satellite communicationsfrequencies up to the Ku and Ka bands. The first design is demonstrated from 3.5-18.5 GHz for VSWR < 2 atbroadside, and validated through fabrication of an 8×8 prototype. A second design, operating from 7-37 GHz forVSWR < 2.1 at broadside, is verified in simulation only. These designs are optimized for low-cost, Printed CircuitBoard (PCB) fabrication.

2nd place (2): Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) RadarKyle B. Stewart, Abishek Mohan and Joel T. JohnsonThe development of radar systems leveraging multiple-channel architectures is becoming progressively more commonand such systems are perceived to offer substantial benefits over many more conventional radar designs. Theapplication of the multi-channel concept to the field of radar imaging is likewise planned to greatly increase thecapabilities of these systems and enable novel imaging products to be produced. Technologies including digitalbeamforming and orthogonal waveform design have converged to make possible true multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO) radar imaging designs. While the benefits of these systems are numerous in theory, significant challengesremain to be overcome before these techniques are put into practice. Work at the ElectroScience Laboratory isfocused on the real-world realization of waveform-diverse MIMO radar imaging systems and their demonstration inthe measurement of natural targets. Experiments are presently underway not only to evaluate the performance ofthese systems but to characterize the behavior of their targets in the context of multi-channel radars and to provideempirical data verifying that such systems can satisfy the future imaging requirements of the scientific community.

September 2015 Volume 2, Issue 2 3

Poster Session PresentationsESL students presenting their posters at the CERF Annual Meeting. A full list of 2015 poster presentations can be found atelectroscience.osu.edu/news/2015/08/2015-best-cerf-poster-awards

Steve Watt Varittha Sanphuang

Ying-Chieh (Jay) Chuang J. Landon Garry

ESL/CERF NewsHere are some current events involving the OSU ESL and the ECE departmentthat you may have heard about. Please refer to the links associated with eachtopic to view full stories.

Ohio State ECE and the New Horizons Mission to PlutoDid you know that the ElectroScience Laboratory andthe Department of ECE had an important role in thedevelopment of NASA’s New Horizon’s probe? See therelated news article at:

ece.osu.edu/news/2015/06/ohio-state-and-new-horizons-mission-pluto

ESL/ECE Faculty Harvests Electricity from the Air

Dr. Rob Lee and Will Zell of NikolaLabs.

ESL faculty, former chair of the Dept.of ECE, and one of the co-founders ofNikola Labs, Dr. Rob Lee, and ESL fac-ulty member Dr. Chi-Chih Chen devel-oped a product that essentially convertsRF energy transmitted by mobile de-vices into extra battery power for thatdevice. Rob Lee and Will Zell of NikolaLabs pitched their idea and product toa panel of judges and audience at theTechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015 event onMay 4, 2015.

See [electroscience.osu.edu/news/2015/05/eslece-faculty-harvests-electricity-from-air] for the full story.

Raytheon On-SiteShort Courses

On November 13, 2015, JohnVolakis (Ultra Wideband PhasedArrays and Transceivers) and In-der “Jiti” Gupta (Array Signal Pro-cessing for Geolocation of RFEmitters) will present their shortcourses at Raytheon’s El Se-gundo location.

Membership FeesYou should have received an in-voice for 2015 CERF member-ship renewal in the mail from Mrs.Sherry Vogt, ESL Fiscal Adminis-trator. Please renew your mem-bership as soon as possible. Ifyou did not receive the renewal in-voice please let Dr. Greg Creech(creech.41osu.edu) know.

Contract membership renewal feesfor FY 16 are due in January 2016.

Save the DateThe 2016 Annual Technical Meet-ing and Short Courses will be heldAugust 2-5, 2016, at the OSUBlackwell. We are currently solic-iting ideas for short courses thatmembers are interested in attend-ing. Please be sure to contact Dr.Greg Creech with your input. We’dlike to have the topics lined up bythe end of December 2015.

ProfessionalDevelopment CreditFor those who would like toearn credit towards their contin-uing professional development[www.peps.ohio.gov/ContinuingEd.aspx] for attending a shortcourse in August, please contactMichelle Diefenbach at: (diefen-bach.8@osu.edu or (614)292-6191) for attendance verification.

September 2015 Volume 2, Issue 2 4

Markus Novak, NASA GCR ChallengePrize Winner

In December 2014, NASA received proposals to its challengeon how to find ways to reduce astronauts’ exposure to Galac-tic Cosmic Rays (GCR) while on long duration deep spacemissions. Markus Novak, an ECE/ESL graduate studentpursuing his Ph.D. degree at ESL, tied for 4th place for hiscreation of safe areas through particle trajectory simulationsand received a $1,000 award. Congratulations Markus.

See [electroscience.osu.edu/news/2015/05/markus-novak-among-nasas-gcr-challenge-winners] for the details.

OSU ElectroScience LaboratoryThe ElectroScience Laboratory(ESL) is a major "Center-of-Excellence" within the Ohio StateUniversity Department of Electri-cal and Computer Engineeringand is one of the largest RadioFrequency (RF) research andOptics laboratories in the world.Our faculty, research scientists,and students are involved in allaspects of electromagnetic and RF

technologies. ESL has its own separate building with more than 60,000square feet that house state-of-the-art measurement and computationalfacilities.

ESL-CERFThe faculty and researchers at ESL have formed a Consortium on Electromag-netics and Radio Frequencies (CERF) to share their expertise in training ofundergraduate and graduate students as well as employees of the US-basedRF industry.

One of the main goals of ESL-CERF is to support industry professionals atthe leading edge of their fields and to provide them with access to world-classresearch and knowledge in EM and RF areas.

Under this consortium, members have access to state-of-the-art facilities,faculty and student researchers. Specialty training courses are tailored tomember needs.

Consortium Advisory Board Members

Chi-Chih Greg Inder J. Ronald FernandoChen Creech Gupta Reano Teixeira

Become a Member

US industries can benefit from ESL-CERF by joining the consortium asIndustrial Affiliates. As an IndustrialAffiliate, the industry pays an annualmembership fee to ESL-CERF. Fundscollected through the membershipfee are used to develop and orga-nize new short courses and technicalmeetings.

Any US-based organization can jointhe consortium as Basic, Silver, Goldor Platinum Industrial Affiliate. Thebenefits vary with the membershiplevel. Agreements to join ESL-CERFcan be found on our website under“How to Join”:

https://electroscience.osu.edu/joincerf

For more information on ESL-CERF,contact Dr. Greg Creech (see contactinformation below).

Contact InformationThe Ohio State UniversityElectroScience Laboratory

Consortium on Electromagneticsand Radio Frequencies

1330 Kinnear RoadColumbus, OH 43212

Dr. Greg CreechE-mail:creech.41@osu.eduTEL: (614)292-0609

https://electroscience.osu.edu/cerf