Bradley Fellows
Christopher Anderson
BSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Ted Rappaport
Research: Anderson's research is in the area of RF design. Specifically,
he is working on developing an ultra-wideband channel sounder
to characterize the magnitude and phase impulse response of a
wireless channel at millimeter-wave frequencies (38 and 60 GHz).
His research has specifically concentrated on miniaturizing the
physical size of such a system by implementing as much of the
system as possible on printed circuit boards. These boards were
designed and fabricated in-house, using MPRG's PCB rapid prototyping
facility, which Anderson set up as part of his undergraduate
honor's research.
William Barnhart
BSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisors: Stephane Evoy, Sanjay Raman
Research: Barn-hart is working on nanoelectro-mechanical Ni resonators.
He co-authored "The Impact of Known Good Die Probability
and Module Repair on Multichip Modules," which won "Best
Paper of Session." He has also co-authored "KGD, Repair,
and Module Testing Influences on MCM Yield and Cost."
Eric Caswell
BSEE, MSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: William A. Davis
Research: Caswell is working on wide-band arrays and antenna
elements, spiral antennas, and computational electromagnetics.
Benjamin E. Henty
B.S.E.C.E, Carnegie Mellon
Advisor: Theodore S. Rappaport.
Research: Henty is researching throughput prediction for wireless
LAN. He hopes to earn his MSEE in May.
H. Erik Hia
BSCpE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Scott F. Midkiff
Research: Hia is working to develop a secure network management
scheme, based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP),
that strives to preserve the limited bandwidth available for
a rapidly-deployable internetwork of Naval vessels at sea (VON).
After examining how best to secure SNMP traffic in the VON environment,
he is implementing a two-level hierarchy of network management
entities based on the management-by-delegation model. Several
mid-level management stations are distributed throughout the
VON, each conducting routine network-monitoring chores on its
local network, processing the raw data into succinct report,
and forwarding results to an assigned top-level management station.
The primary goal of this scheme is to push routine SNMP-polling
traffic off the backbone network onto the edge networks.
James Hicks
BSEE, George Mason Univ.; MSEE Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Jeffrey H. Reed
Research: Hicks is currently exploring how best to utilize multiple
antennas in a wireless receiver. Such an antenna array is overloaded
when the number of cochannel signals in its operating environment
exceeds the number of elements. Conventional space-time array
processing for narrow-band signals fails in overloaded environments.
In Hicks' MS thesis, he demonstrated how signal extraction in
overloaded environments is theoretically possible and he developed
DSP algorithms designed to operate in such environments. Overloaded
Array Processing (OLAP) could increase the capacity of current
cell-phone networks by 20 times or more with little added receiver
cost. For his Ph.D., Hicks is working to apply OLAP algorithms
to today's wireless communications systems.
Keith Huie
BS, Univ. of Pittsburgh.
Advisor: Richard O. Claus
Research: Huie is working on a novel design of microstrip antennas
built on a photonic crystal substrate. Employing photonic crystals
in antenna design is a recent concept that has many benefits,
including increases in gain and bandwidth, and suppressed sidelobe
levels. A prototype of the antenna is in development. Huie is
also exploring electronic self-assembly methods of developing
ferrite devices on thin film substrates.
Daniel Johnson
BSEE, Virginia Tech
Advisor: Sanjay Raman
Research: As a step towards implementing a direct conversion
receiver, Johnson has designed a packaged RF front-end integrated
circuit at 5-6 GHz using SiGe Technology. More specifically,
several low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and a x2 active sub-harmonic
mixer with integrated I/Q phase separation were designed, fabricated
and tested. SiGe has the high-speed benefits of comparable III-V
devices and can also be combined with Si CMOS to form a BiCMOS
process. This allows digital and higher performance RF circuitry
to be integrated on a single die. The ultimate goal is to make
devices smaller, less expensive and of lower
power.
Dimos Katsis
Rockwell Science Bradley Fellow
BSEE, MSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Daan van Wyk
Research: Katsis is working in the area of power electronic systems
reliability, with particular emphasis on using acoustic microscopy
and thermal cycling to measure silicon die-attach fatigue. The
die-attach is the region of solder that bonds the silicon wafer
to the copper heat spreader. Because of the location of the solder
layer, conventional methods of studying it involved post-failure
cross sectional analysis. Katsis adopted a non-destructive technique
based on acoustic microscopy to monitor the growth of defects.
With the technique, cracks as small as two micrometers can be
monitored. Katsis is now applying thermal models to the die-attach
fatigue.
Charles Lepple
BSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Push-kin Kachroo
Research: Lep-ple is investigating machine vision and vehicle
control for a Flexible Low-cost Automated Scale Highway (FLASH)
project. He is also exploring methods for RF propagation measurement
on handheld computing platforms.
Daniel L. Lough
BSEE, MSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Nath-aniel J. Davis, IV
Research: Lough has performed a comprehensive analysis of the
types of computer attacks that have occurred during the past
30 years. He has constructed a new general taxonomy derived from
discovering common denominators in computer attack taxonomies.
He has also developed a methodology that will facilitate design
of more secure protocols by using his system, called VERDICT.
Lough has applied VERDICT to the wireless protocol IEEE 802.11
and has found numerous vulnerabilities.
Career Aspirations: He plans to receive his Ph.D. this spring
and has accepted a position as a senior computer engineer with
the Department of Defense.
Christian Murphy
BA, Williams College; MSEE Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Cham-paign.
Advisor: Saifur Rahman
Research: Mur-phy is a full-time graduate student at the Alexandria
Research Institute, exploring alternative energy sources. His
main goal is facilitating the entrance of alternative energy
into common use for both developing a developed economies. This
work will provide solutions for next generation power requirements.
Honors: Grainger Outstanding Power Engineering Student Award
from the University of Illinois.
Troy Nergaard
BS, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison.
Advisor: Jason Lai
Research: Ner-gaard is exploring topics in fuel cell power conversion,
particularly fuel cell control and power conditioning for applications
ranging from cellular telephone batteries to large-scale power
generation. He is investigating distributed power generation
and stand-alone systems, as fuel cells typically require some
type of power conversion. He is currently working on two projects:
one to design and build a 60 kW interleaved DC/DC converter for
a fuel cell system and the other to design and build a 10 kW
DC/AC inverter for a fuel cell application.
Honors: 2000 Grainger Outstanding Power Engineering Student at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and was on first-place teams
for the 1999 and 1998 FutureCar Challenges.
Christian J. Rieser
Motorola Bradley Fellow
BSEE, Univ. of Maryland at College Park.
Advisors: Jeffrey H. Reed, Dennis Sweeney
Research: Rie-ser's MSEE research involves developing a broadband
sounder for the LMDS band. The system has been designed for real-time
digital characterization and performance monitoring of 850 MHz
of continuous RF spectrum at the LMDS Block A band at 27.5-28.35
GHz, with a multipath component resolution of 1 foot or less.
The host communications port can provide feedback about the wireless
channel in realtime to both the RF radio and baseband modem to
ensure optimal operation and network topology design. The system
was designed at a fraction of the cost of existing systems by
using an integrated approach to system design that allows better
integration between the RF/IF analog and digital processing portions
of the system.
Steve Richmond
B.S.E.E., University of Oklahoma
Advisor: Dong S. Ha
Research: Richmond's research involved low-power VLSI design
for a motion estimation block in low bit-rate wireless video
communications..
Career aspirations: Richmond has completed his master's and accepted
a position with Hewlett Packard in Colorado.
P. Max Robert
BSEE and Applied Physics, Case Western Reserve Univ.; MSEE, Virginia
Tech.
Advisor: Jeffrey H. Reed
Research: Robert is concentrating on wireless LANs operating
over unlicensed bands. One of the current issues is developing
an effective strategy to deal with the co-existence of different
networks operating over the same spectrum. These networks cause
mutual interference and can lead to a significant degradation
in performance. His research has led to an algorithm that can,
under certain circumstances, reduce the amount of interference
in the environment and increase the efficiency of these systems.
A disclosure is currently being submitted.
Jonathan E. Scalera
BSEE, Univ. of New Hampshire.
Advisor: Peter Athanas
Research: Sca-lera's work has involved the Common Architecture
for Micro Sensors (CAµS) stack, which he describes is a
cutting edge piece of technology that attempts to answer the
military's call for a robust, cheap, versatile, and long-lasting
micro-sensor platform. Scalera has designed and constructed a
video interface card to provide both digital and analog video
I/O capabilities to the CAµS stack, and is currently working
on the implementation of a tank detection algorithm on the hardware.
Roger Skidmore
Wireless Valley Communications Bradley Fellow
MSEE, MSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisors: Ted Rappaport, Leonard Ferrari
Research: Skidmore's research focuses on the modeling and simulation
of wireless communications systems with a heavy emphasis on radio
wave propagation in and around buildings. The results of Skidmore's
MSEE research have formed the core products of a successful local
company, and he expects his Ph.D. work to also have commercial
potential.
Amanda Martin Staley
BSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Krishnan Ramu
Research: Sta-ley's research involves the design and analysis
of a sensorless single-phase switched reluctance drive system
with auxiliary windings for reliable starting and position sensing.
Her contributions to the project include the design of the control,
selection of necessary components for the drive, simulation,
and testing. Some work has been done on multi-phase switched
reluctance drives, but to date, single-phase motors have been
overlooked. Since this machine is very compact, highly efficient,
and low cost, it has high potential for industry.
Michael E. Vercellino
BSEE, West Virginia University Institute of Technology.
Advisor: Richard O. Claus
Research: Ver-cellino has been working with FEORC on several
projects, including optical filter design and software simulation,
ESA thin film materials and application developments.
Jason Yoho
BSEE, Clemson Univ.; MSEE, Virginia Tech.
Advisor: Sedki M. Riad
Research: Yoho's research interests include microwave and RF
measurements (performed in the time and frequency domains) and
their applications to material and circuit characterization,
microwave and RF device modeling, as well as microwave and RF
structure simulations. He has also performed research in the
area of calibration of RF systems and the use of electromagnetic
nondestructive methods for evaluation of structural integrity
of civil structures.
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