First and Second at NRSM

Two Electrical and Computer Engineering students took top honors in the National Radio Science Meeting research paper competition this week.

Ushe Chipengo won the First Place prize and Ersin Yetisir won Second Place for their research papers. Both students conduct their research through the ElectroScience Laboratory.

The National Radio Science Meeting (NRSM) was held in Boulder, Colorado from Jan. 6 to Jan. 8. The event is sponsored by the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). The USNC-URSI is appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and represents U.S. radio scientists in URSI.

The research theme for this year's NRSM was “Electromagnetics in Medicine.”

Chipengo’s winning paper, co-written with ESL director John Volakis, is titled “Experimental Validation of Mode Dominance Reversal in Novel Slow Wave Structures for High Power Backward Wave Oscillators.”

"Backward wave oscillators are devices capable of generating megawatts to gigawatts of RF power by converting the energy of a high power electron beam into RF signals," Chpiengo explains. "This interaction occurs in an electromagnetic structure called a 'slow wave structure,' a wave guide, which supports electromagnetic waves at velocities slower than the speed of light."

His research is focused on developing novel slow wave structures for highly efficient backward wave oscillators (BWOs).

Yetisir’s paper, written with Nima Ghalichechian and John Volakis, is titled, “A Novel Array with 6:1 Bandwidth and 70-degree Scanning using Frequency Selective Surface Superstrate.”

In explanation of his research, Yetisir said, wideband antenna arrays with electronic beam-steering are used in radar applications to detect/track multiple targets at long ranges and in different directions.

"Our design approach improves the beam-steering capability and therefore increases the total area that can be captured by conventional arrays, while also offering a relatively light-weight and low-cost antenna structure," he said.

Yetisir is also involved in developing wideband and wide-scan antenna arrays, re-configurable antennas, high-isolation antennas for multiple-input multiple-output systems and simultaneous transmit/receive applications.