Current Projects

• Remote sensing of the magnetosphere using very low frequency (VLF) waves:

The IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration) spacecraft was the first satellite mission dedicated to imaging the Earth's magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by the Earth's magnetic field and containing extremely tenuous plasmas of both solar and terrestrial origin. The main science objective of the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) instrument on IMAGE was to characterize plasma in the Earth's magnetosphere utilizing imaging in the radio frequency range.

• Ultra wideband (UWB) signal propagation and Receiver Design:

The commercialization of radio devices based on the principles of ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology  is widely anticipated in view of its recent endorsement by US regulators (FCC) and the corresponding international efforts towards a globally compatible regulatory framework. The potential uses and the commercial opportunities of UWB are expected to be significant because of its broad applicability, e.g., for communication, imaging, ranging, location sensing and security.

According to the FCC’s Part 15 definition, UWB radio signals have either a fractional bandwidth (i.e., the ratio between the signal’s bandwidth and its center frequency) that is greater than 0.2 or an absolute bandwidth of at least 500 MHz. In the 3.1 – 10.6 GHz spectrum range UWB radio devices for communications applications can emit on average an equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) spectral density of up to –41.25 dBm/MHz or, equivalently, up to 75 nW/MHz.

• Observing Radiation In Our North (ORION) Project

Observing Radiation In Our North (ORION), formally known as Neighborhood Environmental Watch Network (NEWNET) , was initiated to provide an opportunity for Alaska Native undergraduate college students to participate in environmental monitoring, research, and communication of the results through the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.ORION is a network of stations that gather both meteorological and radiological data. The data are transmitted via the GOES West satellite to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The data are loaded into a database that is accessible by the public via the internet at http://newnet.lanl.gov.

Past Projects

• Fisheries acoustics:

The focus of this project is to gain a greater understanding of how to better use sonar in rivers to estimate fish size, kind, and populations. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has teamed with the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Engineering to undertake this three-year knowledge project. The tasks involved was to construct theoretical/numerical hydro-acoustic models that will compliment experimental and field work. Tools were developed to analyze acoustic data to manage salmon runs. This information is important to understanding fish migrations and distributions, which in turn is a key to managing the resource for the subsistence, commercial, and sport fishers competing for the fish resource.

• Killer whale call characterization and classification:

Automatic identification and classification of killer whale calls are important problems in biological acoustics. This research develops new digital signal processing and neural network techniques to characterize and classify individual killer whale calls. The study was conducted using 106 recorded calls from one subpod of killer whales found near Johnstone Strait, British Columbia. With a combination of linear predictive coding, harmonic product spectrum and cepstrum, a new algorithm was developed and implemented to determine call characteristics. The different calls are automatically characterized based on their fundamental frequency and duration.