News Archive

Precious Jatau is a PhD student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Drs. Tian Yu and Valery Melnikov.

Scholarships, Awards and Publications:

• Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) Student Journal Paper Award (2021)

• Farrar Endowment Scholarship for Electrical and Computer Engineering (2020)

• William H. Barkow Scholarship for Electrical and Computer Engineering (2019)

• National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Graduate student scholarship (2018)

• Farrar Endowment Scholarship for Electrical and Computer Engineering (2017).

• Jatau, P., Melnikov, V., and Yu, T.-Y. (2021). “A Machine Learning Approach for Classifying Bird and Insect Radar Echoes with S-Band Polarimetric Weather Radar”, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 38(10), 1797-1812

• Jatau, P., Melnikov, V., and Yu, T.-Y. (2021). "Detecting Birds and Insects in the Atmosphere Using Machine Learning on NEXRAD Radar Echoes." Environmental Sciences Proceedings. 2021; 8(1):48

Current Research:

"My current research project focuses on the development of a machine learning algorithm to classify bird and inset echoes for S-band dual-polarization radars. This algorithm can be applied to NEXRAD radar network, enabling large-scale monitoring of biological migration activity.  Potential benefits include better understanding of the spread of avian diseases, improved collision avoidance of migrating birds with aircraft, and improved velocity azimuthal display IVAD) wind retrieval using only passive wind tracers like insects."

Interests and Plans After Graduation:

"After completing my PhD, I plan to pursue a career in Machine Learning / Software Engineering."

ARRC Executive Director Bob Palmer has recently given a presentation at AGU regarding the development of a Transportable Phased Array Radar (TPAR). Watch and download the prerecorded presentation here.

The ARRC is proud to announce that the selection committee below has chosen Cesar M. Salazar Aquino as the next WNI Scholarship awardee. Congratulations Cesar!

• Dr. Petra Klein, Executive Associate Dean, College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences

• Dr. Zahed Siddique, Associate Dean for Research, Gallogly College of Engineering

• Dr. Daisuke Abe, WNI Director, Chief Service Officer

We thank the selection committee for their time and effort, and Weathernews for their generosity, continued collaboration, and friendship.

A ceremony was held on December 8, 2021 at the Radar Innovations Lab.  Cesar is pictured here with Dean Berrien Moore and ARRC Executive Director Bob Palmer.

Randall Summers is a masters student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Dr. Mark Yeary.  Randall's current research investigates the impact of various predistortion algorithms on the performance of radar systems.  Randall said, "I'm also looking into beam-shaping algorithms for phased arrays and ways to quickly evaluate super-resolution algorithms.

Recent publications:

• R. Summers, M. Yeary, H. Sigmarsson and R. Rincon, "Adaptive Digital Predistortion for Radar Applications using Convex Optimization," 2020 IEEE International Radar Conference (RADAR), 2020, pp. 816-820, doi: 10.1109/RADAR42522.2020.9114654.

• R. Summers, M. Yeary, H. Sigmarsson and R. Rincon, "Architecture Study for a Bare-Metal Direct Conversion Radar FPGA Testbench," 2021 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf21), 2021, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/RadarConf2147009.2021.9455320.

Asked about what he likes to do in his free time, and his plans for after graduation, Randall responded: "I like to spend my free time cooking. I also enjoy walking and generally spending time outside. I plan to continue my studies here at OU and work towards earning a PhD."

Congratulations to our ECE/ARRC faculty Jorge L. Salazar for being awarded first place in the 2021 IEEE Industrial Engineering Paper Award on Antenna Measurements and Applications.

Dr. Salazar was awarded for his recent paper titled "An UAV-Based Polarimetric Antenna Measurements for Radar and Communication Systems from 3 GHz to 32 GHz"

Be sure to subscribe to receive additional ARRC news and updates.  You can find our most recent issue here.

Nawaf Almuqati is a PhD student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Dr. Hjalti Sigmarsson. His scholarships and publications include:

• Scholarship between 2010-2012 from the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia for a Master program in Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

• Scholarship between 2017-present from the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia for PhD program in University of Oklahoma.

• ECE and ARRC journal award in 2021 for the paper titled “Empirical Quality Factor Prediction of Quarter-Mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide Resonators”.

• N. R. Almuqati, G. Ariturk and H. H. Sigmarsson, "Empirical Quality Factor Prediction of Quarter-Mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide Resonators," in IEEE Journal of Microwaves, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 777-786, July 2021.

• N. Almuqati and H. Sigmarsson, "3D Microstrip Line Taper on Ultra-low Dielectric Constant Substrate," 2019 IEEE 20th Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (WAMICON), 2019, pp. 1-5.

Nawaf is currently working on two papers that highlight two designs of high-Q ultra-miniaturized evanescent-mode filters. Asked about his personal life and future plans, Nawaf said, "I like to spend my free time with my wife and son going out and having fun. Also, I enjoy outdoor activities and watching movies and soccer games. My plans for after graduating are working on academic research and expanding my experience and knowledge in the field of electromagnetics. Also, I am pursuing an academic profession in a university in Saudi Arabia".

Congratulations to ECE/ARRC undergraduate student Lucia Torres for being awarded first place in the Oral Presentation competition at the 27th annual OK-LSAMP Research Symposium. This event took place at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK on October 9, 2021.

Lucia is pictured her on the left. Her presentation was titled "Puddle Detection with Computer Vision for Self-Driving Cars".

Gustavo B.H. de Azevedo is a PhD candidate in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Dr. David Schvartzman and Dr. Tian-You Yu.

Recent publications and patent:

    • Co-inventor on U.S. patent for the CopterSonde, a revolutionary weather-UAS.

   • Co-author of a text-book chapter "Fundamentals of Capturing and Processing Drone Imagery and Data: Chapter 19: Assessing the Greenhouse Gas Carbon Dioxide in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer." (https://www.routledge.com/Fundamentals-of-Capturing-and-Processing-Drone-Imagery-and-Data/Frazier-Singh/p/book/9780367245726)

 • Co-author of two Journal papers:

   o "Moving towards a Network of Autonomous UAS Atmospheric Profiling Stations for Observations in the Earth's Lower Atmosphere: The 3D Mesonet Concept." https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/12/2720

      o "Observations of the thermodynamic and kinematic state of the atmospheric boundary layer over the San Luis Valley, CO, using the CopterSonde 2 remotely piloted aircraft system in support of the LAPSE-RATE field campaign." https://essd.copernicus.org/

Gustavo's current research:

• Distributed computing paradigms (e.g. mobile agent computing) and how they can be used to create a UAS collaboration network for simultaneous ABL in situ measurements, while considering atmospheric feature resolution, agents' measurement characteristics, agents' flight characteristics, agents' local flight conditions?

• Standardization and characterization of Airborne in-situ atmospheric measurements.

• Low-cost/open-source UAS-based measurements of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.

Regarding how he spends his free time, Gustavo said, "I enjoy hanging out with my friends and chasing the wind across the lakes of the Great Plains to kite surf." After graduating, Gustavo plans to "pursue a research career in autonomous systems and in-situ measurements standardization."