KEY CAPABILITIES

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The Microwave Systems Laboratory (MSL) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Colorado State University is fully equipped for the testing, characterization and integration of monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) into microwave and millimeter-wave systems. Students in the laboratory design and simulate the performance of microstrip-based MMIC-compatible passive components and multi-chip module enclosures. Both active and passive MMIC-based components are integrated into RF front-ends of remote sensing instruments.

MSL's complete microwave equipment suite includes a vector network analyzer, spectrum analyzer, analog signal generator and power meter up to 50 GHz. The Agilent Vector Network Analyzer is equipped with waveguide test sets and a probe station with the capability to perform raw-die and on-wafer measurements up to 50 GHz and in W-band (75-110 GHz).

MSL graduate students are familiar with and have access to microwave and thermal CAD software packages, including ANSYS HFSS. HFSS simulates the electromagnetic and thermal performance of passive microwave circuits that students design, such as narrowband bandpass filters, power dividers, matched-load terminations and blackbody calibration targets.

MSL's equipment suite includes a TPS Tenney thermal chamber that allows for thermal cycling to simulate space-like conditions for testing of electronic components and instruments. Using the thermal chamber, MSL has the capability to cast and cure microwave absorbing materials to produce blackbody targets for radiometer calibration across a wide band of frequencies.

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TWICE

Tropospheric Water Vapor and Cloud ICE Millimeter- and Submillimeter-wave Radiometer
A collaborative project among Colorado State University (Lead), NASA/Caltech
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Northrop Grumman Corporation

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Ice clouds cover more than 33% of Earth’s surface and play a significant role in the hydrological cycle by affecting atmospheric dynamics, precipitation and cloud processes. Global measurements of cloud ice particle size distribution and total ice water content, along with associated temperature and water vapor profiles, in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS) are critically needed to improve knowledge of the role of ice clouds in Earth’s climate, precipitation and cloud processes. Such observations will enable improvement in cloud and moisture models including precipitation forecasting. Measurements at a range of frequencies in the millimeter- and submillimeter-wave frequency range provide sensitivity to ice particle size distribution in the range of tens to hundreds of micrometers.

To perform such observations on a global basis, a new millimeter- and submillimeter-wave instrument is currently under development with mass, volume and power requirements suitable for deployment on 6U-Class satellites, also known as 6U CubeSats. The Tropospheric Water and Cloud ICE (TWICE) instrument is a wide-band millimeter- and sub-millimeter wave radiometer measuring at 15 frequencies from 118 GHz to 670 GHz.

The TWICE instrument is designed to provide observations of upper tropospheric water vapor profiles, temperature profiles and ice particle size distribution in clouds on a global basis at a variety of local times. The TWICE instrument uses 25-nm InP High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) low-noise amplifier-based (LNA) receiver front- ends to provide low-noise and low-power operation in a small form factor at millimeter- and sub-millimeter-wave frequencies.

TWICE radiometers will perform conical scanning to preserve the polarization basis. End-to-end calibration will be performed at all 15 frequencies once per scan by viewing both the cosmic microwave background (2.7 K) and an ambient calibration target at a known thermodynamic temperature. TWICE will meet the requirements for operation in a 6U-Class satellite with dimensions of 34 cm x 20 cm x 10 cm and mass up to 12 kg.

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TEMPEST-D

▪ TEMPEST-D web page at Colorado State University

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HAMMR

High-frequency Airborne Microwave and Millimeter-wave Radiometer
A collaborative project among Colorado State University (Lead), NASA/Caltech
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Center for Atmospheric Research

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The High-frequency Airborne Microwave and Millimeter-wave Radiometer (HAMMR) is an internally-calibrated, wide-band microwave radiometer developed by CSU and JPL in collaboration with UCLA as part of the NASA ESTO Instrument Incubator Program 2010. The instrument is demonstrating wet path delay measurements with much higher spatial resolution than current capabilities allow.

Currently, sea surface height measurements are made using microwave altimeters which operate at centimeter wavelengths using radar pulses reflected from the surface to determine its height. At these high frequencies, the index of refraction of air is different from one, and it is sensitively dependent on the humidity of the atmosphere between the satellite and the surface. So, variations in the humidity of the atmosphere change the amount of time it takes for radar pulses to travel to the surface and back to the satellite. If humidity in the atmosphere is not accurately characterized, it skews this length of time significantly, making the sea surface height measurements inaccurate, an error known as “wet-path delay“.

HAMMR is a cross-track scanning airborne instrument with 25 radiometric channels from 18.7 to 183.3 GHz. The instrument includes low-frequency microwave channels currently used on sea surface altimeter satellites at 18.7, 23.8 and 34.0 GHz at both vertical and horizontal polarization. To improve the spatial resolution of the wet-path delay correction, HAMMR includes high-frequency millimeter-wave window channels at 90, 130 and 168 GHz. To improve retrievals of wet-path delay and characterization of the atmosphere, HAMMR also includes millimeter-wave sounding channels, with eight channels near the 118.75 GHz oxygen absorption line for temperature profiling and another eight channels near the 183.31 GHz water vapor absorption line for water vapor profiling.

The HAMMR instrument was deployed on a Twin Otter aircraft, and the MSL team successfully completed 12 hours of engineering flights in July 2014 followed by the West Coast Flight Campaign (WCFC) in November 2014 consisting of more than 53 flight hours covering nearly the entire West Coast of the U.S., from Los Angeles to the Canadian border. During the WCFC, the HAMMR instrument collected data under diverse atmospheric conditions, including clear sky, scattered and dense clouds, as well as a variety of surface types, including coastal ocean areas, inland water and land. Also during the flight campaign, the majority of two flight days was devoted to flights over Lake Tahoe, CA/NV, and Mono Lake, CA, along with the AirSWOT radar, which flew over the same two lakes in a B200 Super King Air, significantly higher and faster than the Twin Otter. The AirSWOT radar is an airborne demonstration instrument for the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIN) for the NASA/CNES/CSA Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission.

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METAWAVE

Mitigation of Electromagnetic Transmission errors induced by Atmospheric Water Vapor Effects

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The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) onboard European Space Agency Earth-observing satellite ENVISAT is used to monitor tectonic movements and landslides, and to improve digital elevation models. However, ASAR is affected by variations in the round-trip propagation delay due to changes in humidity and temperature along the signal path. One of the largest sources of uncertainty in estimates of the tropospheric path delay is the large spatial and temporal variability of atmospheric water vapor density which limits the quality of ASAR products. High-resolution information on the atmospheric water vapor distribution and its variation with time can be crucial for mitigation of the wet tropospheric path delay.

The "Mitigation of Electromagnetic Transmission errors induced by Atmospheric Water Vapor Effects" (METAWAVE) experiment was conducted during September - October 2008 with support from the European Space Agency. MSL was sponsored by the European Space Agency to deploy a ground based network of Compact Microwave Radiometers for Humidity profiling (CMR-H) in Rome to measure atmospheric brightness temperatures required to retrieve the 3-D water vapor density fields with a horizontal and vertical resolution of 500 m. Each radiometer is operated as a spectrometer with four channels near the 22.235 GHz water vapor absorption line. These 3-D water vapor density fields would be used to correct the round trip path delay in the ASAR images.

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SWOT-ACT

Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission
A collaborative project between Colorado State University (Lead) and NASA/Caltech
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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This Advanced Component Technology (ACT) program focused on the development of a high-frequency radiometer at 92, 130, and 166 GHz. This project was critical to reduce the risk, cost, volume, mass, and development time for the high-frequency microwave radiometer needed to enable wet-tropospheric correction in the coastal zone on the NRC Earth Science Decadal Survey recommended Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. The purpose of SWOT is to measure the height of 90% of the earth's oceans and many of its large inland bodies of water to an accuracy of approximately 1 cm for a pixel size of 1 km.

Development of a low-power, low-mass and small-volume direct-detection millimeter-wave receiver with integrated calibration sources covering frequencies from 90-170 GHz required design and fabrication of new high-frequency radiometer components. MSL led the design effort of the MMIC based multi-chip radiometer modules. This technology development demonstrated the viability of using radiometers at these high-frequencies to correct for wet-tropospheric path delay near the coasts.

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CMR-H

Compact Microwave Radiometer for Humidity Profiling

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The Compact Microwave Radiometer for Humidity Profiling (CMR-H) is a new and innovative spectrometer radiometer that is based on monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology.

The CMR-H simultaneously measures microwave emission at four frequency channels near the 22.235 GHz water vapor absorption line. The fabrication of the CMR-H demonstrates the capability of MMIC technology to reduce substantially the operational power consumption and size of the RF and IF sections which comprise much of the mass and volume of many current microwave receivers.

The use of a compact box-horn array antenna in the CMR-H demonstrates its capability to reduce the mass and volume of microwave radiometers, while maintaining similar performance to that of commonly-used horn antennas. The CMR-H is designed to perform volumetric scans of water vapor density and operate as a node in a network of radiometers.

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PUBLICATIONS

Listed by year.

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2020

▪ Padmanabhan, S., T. C. Gaier, A. B. Tanner, S. T. Brown, B. H. Lim, S. C. Reising, R. Stachnik, R. Bendig and R. Cofield, “"TEMPEST-D Radiometer: Instrument Description and Prelaunch Calibration,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, early release online, Dec. 2020, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2020.3041455.

▪ Ogut, M., C. Cooke, W. Deal, P. Kangaslahti, A. Tanner and S. C. Reising, “"A Novel 1/f Noise Mitigation Technique Applied to 670 GHz Receiver,” IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, early release online, Nov. 2020, doi:10.1109/TTHZ.2020.3036179.

▪ Berg, W., S. T. Brown, B. H. Lim, S. C. Reising, Y. Goncharenko, C. D. Kummerow, T. C. Gaier and S. Padmanabhan, “"Calibration and Validation of the TEMPEST-D CubeSat Radiometer,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, early release online, Sept. 2020, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2020.3018999.

▪ Ogut, M., X. Bosch-Lluis and S. C. Reising, “Deep Learning Calibration of the High-Frequency Airborne Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Radiometer,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 58, no. 5, pp. 3391-3399, May 2020, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2019.2954454.

▪ Schulte, R. M., C. D. Kummerow, W. Berg, S. C. Reising, S. T. Brown, T. C. Gaier, B. H. Lim and S. Padmanabhan, “"A Passive Microwave Retrieval Algorithm with Minimal View Angle Bias: Application to the TEMPEST-D CubeSat Mission,” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Feb. 2020, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-19-0163.1.

2019

▪ Bosch-Lluis, X., S. C. Reising, P. Kangaslahti, A. B. Tanner, S. T. Brown, S. Padmanabhan, C. Parashare, O. Montes, B. Razavi, V. D. Hadel, T. P. Johnson, M. Ogut and J. Ranson, “Instrument Design and Performance of the High-Frequency Airborne Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Radiometer,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 12, no. 11, pp. 4563-4577, Dec. 2019, doi:10.1109/JSTARS.2019.2949590.

▪ Jiang, J. H., Q. Yue, H. Su, P. Kangaslahti, M. Lebsock, S. Reising, M. Schoeberl, L. Wu and R. L. Herman, “ Simulation of Remote Sensing of Clouds and Humidity From Space Using a Combined Platform of Radar and Multifrequency Microwave Radiometers,” Earth and Space Science, vol. 6, pp. 1234-1242, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EA000580.

▪ Ogut, M., X. Bosch-Lluis and S. C. Reising, “A Deep Learning Approach for Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Radiometer Calibration,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 57, no. 8, pp. 5344-5355, Aug. 2019, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2019.2899110

2017

▪ Jiang J. H., Q. Yue, H. Su, S. C. Reising, P. P. Kangaslahti, W. R. Deal, E. T. Schlecht, L. Wu, and K. F. Evans, “A Simulation of Ice Cloud Particle Size, Humidity and Temperature Measurements from the TWICE CubeSat,” Earth and Space Science, vol. 4, doi:10.1002/2017EA000296.

2015

▪ Sahoo, S., X. Bosch-Lluis, S. C. Reising, S. M. Ellis, J. Vivekanandan, and P. Zuidema, “Retrieval of Slant Water Vapor Path and Slant Liquid Water from Microwave Radiometer Measurements during the DYNAMO Experiment,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 4315-4324, Sep. 2015.

▪ Sahoo, S., X. Bosch-Lluis, S. C. Reising, and J. Vivekanandan, “Optimization of Background Information and Layer Thickness for Improved Accuracy of Water-Vapor Profile Retrieval from Ground-Based Microwave Radiometer Measurements at K-band,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 4284-4295, Sep. 2015.

▪ Sahoo, S., X. Bosch-Lluis, S. C. Reising, and J. Vivekanandan, “Radiometric Information Content for Water Vapor and Temperature Profiling in Clear Skies between 10 and 200 GHz,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 859-871, Feb. 2015.

2013

▪ DeBoer, D. R., S. L. Cruz-Pol, M. M. Davis, T. Gaier, P. Feldman, J. Judge, K. I. Kellermann, D. G. Log, L. Magnani, D. S. McKague, T. J. Pearson, A. E. E. Rogers, S. C. Reising, G. Taylor, A. R. Thompson and L. van Zee, “Radio Frequencies: Policy and Management,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 4918-4927, Oct. 2013.

▪ Ferrazzoli, P., L. Guerriero, S. Paloscia, and S. C. Reising, “Introduction to the Special Issue on the 12th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing Applications (MicroRad 2012),” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 51, no. 9, pp. 4615-4618, Sep. 2013.

2012

▪ Hoppe, D. J., B. Khayatian, J. B. Sosnowski, P. Bruneau, A. Johnson, S. C. Reising, and S. T. Brown, “A Three-Frequency Feed for Millimeter-Wave Radiometry,” Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, vol. 54, no. 11, pp. 2483-2487, Nov. 2012.

2011

▪ Sahoo, S., S. C. Reising, S. Padmanabhan, J. Vivekanandan, F. Iturbide-Sanchez, N. Pierdicca, E. Pichelli, and D. Cimini, “3-D Humidity Retrieval using a Network of Compact Microwave Radiometers to Correct for Variations in Wet Tropospheric Path Delay in Spaceborne Interferometric SAR Imagery,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 49, no. 9, pp. 3281-3290, Sep. 2011.

2010

▪ Yuan, T., C.-Y. She, D. Krueger, S. C. Reising, X. Zhang and J. M. Forbes, “A collaborative study on temperature diurnal tide in the midlatitude mesopause region (41°N, 105°W) with Na lidar and TIMED/SABER observations,” J. Atmos. Solar-Terr. Phys., vol. 72, nos. 5-6, pp. 541-549, Apr. 2010.

2009

▪ Padmanabhan, S., S. C. Reising, J. Vivekanandan and F. Iturbide-Sanchez, “Retrieval of atmospheric water vapor density with fine spatial resolution using 3-D tomographic inversion of microwave brightness temperatures measured by a network of scanning compact radiometers,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 47, no. 11, pp. 3708-3721, Nov. 2009.

▪ Entekhabi, D., J. P. Kerekes, E. L. Miller, and S. C. Reising, “Foreword to the Special Issue on the 2008 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS '08), ” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 47, no. 11, pp. 3595-3597, Nov. 2009.

▪ Yue, J., S. L. Vadas, C.-Y. She, T. Nakamura, S. C. Reising, H.-L. Liu, P. Stamus, D. A. Krueger, W. Lyons and T. Li, “Concentric gravity waves in the mesosphere generated by deep convective plumes in the lower atmosphere near Fort Collins, Colorado,” J. Geophys. Res., vol. 114, D06104, doi:10.1029/2008JD011244, 2009.

2008

▪ Roberts, R. D., F. Fabry, P. C. Kennedy, E. Nelson, J. W. Wilson, N. Rehak, J. Fritz, V. Chandrasekar, J. Braun, J. Sun, S. Ellis, S. Reising, T. Crum, L. Mooney, R. Palmer, T. Weckwerth, and S. Padmanabhan, “REFRACTT 2006: Real-time retrieval of high-resolution, low-level moisture fields from operational NEXRAD and research radars,” Bull. Amer. Meteo. Soc., vol. 89, pp. 1535-1548, Oct. 2008.

▪ Yuan, T., H. Schmidt, C.-Y. She, D. A. Krueger and S. C. Reising, “Seasonal variations of semidiurnal tidal perturbations in mesopause region temperature, zonal and meridional winds above Fort Collins, CO (40.6°N, 105°W),” J. Geophys. Res., vol. 113, D20103, doi:10.1029/2007JD009687, 2008.

2007

▪ Iturbide-Sanchez, F., S. C. Reising and S. Padmanabhan, “A Miniaturized Spectrometer Radiometer Based on MMIC Technology for Tropospheric Water Vapor Profiling," IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 45, pp. 2181-2194, Jul. 2007.

▪ Reising, S. C., F. S. Marzano, E. G. Njoku, and E. R. Westwater, “Foreword to the Special Issue on the 9th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing Applications (MicroRad '06),” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 45, pp. 1903-1906, Jul. 2007.

2006

▪ Padmanabhan, S., S. C. Reising, W. E. Asher, L. A. Rose, and P. W. Gaiser, “Effects of foam on ocean surface microwave emission inferred from radiometric observations of reproducible breaking waves,“ IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 44, pp. 569-583, Mar. 2006.

2005

▪ Aziz, M. A., S. C. Reising, W. E. Asher, L. A. Rose, P. W. Gaiser, and K. A. Horgan, “Effects of air-sea interaction parameters on ocean surface microwave emission at 10 and 37 GHz,“ IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 43, pp. 1763-1774, Aug. 2005.

2004

▪ Anderson, A., B. Brooks, P. Caffrey, A. Clarke, L. Cohen, K. Crahan, K. Davidson, A. D. De-Jong, G. De Leeuw, D. Dion, S. Doss-Hammel, P. Frederickson, C. Friehe, T. Hristov, D. Khelif, M. Moerman, J. S. Reid, S. Reising, M. Smith, E. Terrill, and D. Tsintikidis, “The RED Experiment: an Assessment of Boundary Layer Effects in a Trade Winds Regime on Microwave and Infrared Propagation over the Sea,“ Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., vol. 85, pp. 1355-1365, Sep. 2004.

2003

▪ Chen, D., L. Tsang, L. Zhou, S. C. Reising, W. Asher, L. A. Rose, K. H. Ding, and C.-T. Chen, “Microwave Emission and Scattering of Foam based on Monte Carlo Simulations of Dense Media,“ IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 41, pp. 782-790, Apr. 2003.

2002

▪ Rose, L. A., W. E. Asher, S. C. Reising, P. W. Gaiser, K. M. St. Germain, D. J. Dowgiallo, K. A. Horgan, G. Farquharson, and E. J. Knapp, “Radiometric measurements of the microwave emissivity of foam,“ IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 40, pp. 2619-2625, Dec. 2002.

▪ Camps, A., J. Font, J. Etchetto, V. Caselles, A.Weill, I. Corbella, M. Vall-llossera, N. Duffo, F. Torres, R. Villarino, L. Enrique, A. Julia, C. Gabarro, J. Boutin, E. Rubio, S. C. Reising, P. Wursteisen, M. Berger, and M. Martin-Neira, “Sea surface emissivity observations at L-band: First results of the Wind and Salinity Experiment WISE-2000,“ IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 40, pp. 2117-2130, Oct. 2002.

2001

▪ Li, L., S. M. Sekelsky, S. C. Reising, C. T. Swift, S. L. Durden, G. A. Sadowy, S. J. Dinardo, F. K. Li, A. Huffman, G. Stephens, D. M. Babb, and H. W. Rosenberger, “Retrieval of atmospheric attenuation using combined ground-based and airborne 95 GHz cloud radar measurements,“ J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., vol. 18, pp. 1345-1353, Aug. 2001.

▪ Camps, A. J., and S. C. Reising, “Wind direction azimuthal signature in the Stokes emission vector from the ocean surface at microwave frequencies,“ Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 29, pp. 426-432, Jun. 2001.

2000

▪ Bernhardt, P. A., C. A. Selcher, S. Basu, G. Bust, and S. C. Reising, “Atmospheric studies with the Tri-Band Beacon instrument on the COSMIC constellation,“ Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, vol. 11, pp. 291-312, Mar. 2000.

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NEWS

▪ "Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems - Demonstration (TEMPEST-D)," NASA International Space Station, October 4, 2018

▪ "Tiny Satellite Stepped onto Big Stage as Florence Churned," Blue Canyon Technologies, September 24, 2018

▪ "Small CSU Satellite Peers Inside Hurricane Florence," CSU Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, September 21, 2018

▪ "New Small Satellite Peers Inside Hurricane Florence," NASA/JPL, September 20, 2018

▪ "Small Packages to Test Big Space Technology Advances," NASA Earth, May 17, 2018

For More Information

▪ "TEMPEST-D to Demonstrate Low-Cost Satellite Concept to Study Precipitation Processes," CSU Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering

▪ "Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems - Demonstration (TEMPEST-D)," NASA/JPL CubeSat

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ALUMNI

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Postdoctoral Alumni

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Xavier Bosch-Lluis

▪ Ph.D., Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, March 2011, Advisor: Adriano Camps
▪ Postdoctoral researcher in MSL from 2009 to 2014
▪ MSL research activities: atmospheric water vapor retrieval algorithms from both airborne and ground-based measurements, 3-D water vapor retrieval using Algebraic Reconstruction Tomography (ART) from ground-based measurements, and new radiometric concepts for retrieval of water vapor
▪ Currently employed as a Member of the Technical Staff at CalTech/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

Ph.D. Alumni

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Mehmet Ogut

▪ Ph.D., Colorado State University, September 2018
▪ Dissertation title: Millimeter and Sub-Millimeter Wave Radiometers for Atmospheric Remote Sensing from CubeSat Platforms
▪ Currently employed as a Postdoctoral Researcher at CalTech/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

Swaroop Sahoo

▪ Ph.D., Colorado State University, May 2015
▪ Dissertation title: Retrieval Techniques and Information Content Analysis to Improve Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Water Vapor, Liquid Water and Temperature from Ground-based Microwave Radiometer Measurements
▪ Currently employed as an Assistant Professor of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad, Kerala, India

Jia Yue

▪ Ph.D., Colorado State University, December 2009 (co-advised with Prof. Chiao-Yao She, Physics)
▪ Dissertation title: Effects of Background Winds and Temperature on Bores, Strong Wind Shears and Concentric Gravity Waves in the Mesopause Region
▪ Currently employed as a Research Associate Professor at Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia

Sharmila Padmanabhan

▪ Ph.D., Colorado State University, May 2009
▪ Dissertation title: Three-Dimensional Water Vapor Retrieval Using a Network of Scanning Compact Microwave Radiometers
▪ Currently employed as a Member of the Technical Staff at CalTech/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, since Dec. 2008.

Flavio Iturbide-Sanchez

▪ Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 2007
▪ Dissertation title: Design, Fabrication and Deployment of a Miniaturized Spectrometer Radiometer Based on MMIC Technology for Tropospheric Water Vapor Profiling
▪ Currently employed as an Electrical Engineer at the NOAA National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), Camp Springs, Maryland
▪ Was employed as a Research Associate II at Colorado State University, 2005-2007

Lihua Li

▪ Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 2000 (co-advised with Research Prof. S. M. Sekelsky)
▪ Dissertation title: Retrieval of Atmospheric Attenuation using Ground-based and Airborne Millimeter-Wave Cloud Radar Measurements
▪ Currently employed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

M.S. Alumni

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Braxton Kilmer

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2019
▪ Thesis title: Development and Testing of the Scanning and Calibration Systems for the Tropospheric Water and Cloud Ice Radiometer Instrument
▪ Currently employed as an Electrophysics Engineer with The Boeing Company, Huntsville, Alabama

Torie Hadel

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2015
▪ Thesis title: Development of Internally-Calibrated, Direct Detection Millimeter-Wave Radiometers to Improve Remote Sensing of Wet-Tropospheric Path Delay
▪ Currently employed as an RF Antenna Engineer with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Broomfield, Colorado

Thaddeus Johnson

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, December 2014
▪ Thesis title: Integration, Characterization, and Calibration of the High-Frequency Airborne Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Radiometer (HAMMR) Instrument
▪ Currently employed as an Electrical Engineer with Echostar, Englewood, Colorado

Scott Nelson

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2014
▪ Thesis title: Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Data Acquisition and Control System for an Internally-Calibrated Wide-Band Microwave Radiometer
▪ Currently employed as an Electrical Engineer with Freeport Morgan at the Henderson Mine, Empire, Colorado

Alexander Lee

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2012
▪ Thesis title: Development and Fabrication of Low-Mass, Low-Power, Internally-Calibrated, MMIC-based Millimeter-Wave Radiometers at 92 and 130 GHz
▪ Currently employed (after Dec. 15, 2017) as an Engineer III at the Earth Observing Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado

Darrin Albers

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2012
▪ Thesis title: Design, Fabrication and Demonstration of Low-Mass, Low-Power, Small-Volume, Direct-Detection Millimeter-Wave Radiometers at 92 and 166 GHz
▪ Currently employed as an ASIC/FPGA Design Engineer in the R&D Group of Advantest Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado

Swaroop Sahoo

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2011
▪ Thesis title: Increasing Vertical Resolution of Three Dimensional Atmospheric Water Vapor Retrievals using a Network of Scanning Compact Microwave Radiometers
▪ Currently employed as an Assistant Professor of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad, Kerala, India

Willow W. Toso, née Foster

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2009
▪ Thesis title: Development of a Miniaturized Microwave Radiometer for Satellite Remote Sensing of Water Vapor
▪ Currently employed at GE Global Research, Niskayuna, New York

Eve M. Klopf

▪ M.S.E.E., Colorado State University, May 2008
▪ Thesis title: Development, Fabrication and Testing of a Direct Detector Radiometer Multi-Chip Module at 18.7 GHz
▪ Currently employed as an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Renewable Energy Department at the Oregon Institute of Technology, Klamath Falls, Oregon

Sharmila Padmanabhan

▪ M.S.E.E., University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 2004
▪ Thesis title: Design, Fabrication and Deployment of a K-Band Radiometer to Measure the Microwave Emission of the Ocean Surface
▪ Currently employed as a member of the Technical Staff at CalTech/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, since Dec. 2008.

Mohammed A. Aziz

▪ M.S.E.E., University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 2003
▪ Thesis title: Ocean Surface Measurements and Calibration Techniques using a Ka-Band Polarimetric Radiometer
▪ Currently employed as a Senior Systems Engineer at IBM, Hyderabad, India.

Kevin A. Horgan

▪ M.S.E.E., University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 2003
▪ Thesis title: Design and Implementation of a Dual-Mode Ka-Band Polarimetric Radiometer
▪ Currently employed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

Joan Pons

▪ M.S.E.E., University of Massachusetts Amherst, September 2002
▪ Thesis title: Evaluation of a Multi-Channel Water Vapor and Liquid Water Radiometer for Airborne Use
▪ Currently employed by Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

Undergraduate Alumni

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Jared McKneely

▪ B.S., Colorado State University, May 2018
▪ Currently employed as a Software Engineer with Lockheed Martin Corp., Boulder, Colorado

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Dr. Steven C. Reising

Director of the Microwave Systems Laboratory

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Steven C. Reising is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Colorado State University. He received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998. Before joining CSU, he was Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from August 1998 to July 2004. He served as Associate Professor at CSU from August 2004 to June 2011. Dr. Reising is a Senior Member of the IEEE and serves as the Vice President of Information Resources (2011-present) and previously as the Vice President of Technical Activities (2008-2010) of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS). He serves as the Intersociety Committee Chair (2015-present) of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S). He serves as the Past Chair (2015-2017) and previously as Chair (2012-2014) and as Secretary (2009-2011) of all ten technical commissions of the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (Uniom Radio-Scientifique Internationale, URSI).

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Dr. Yuriy Goncharenko

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Yuriy V. Goncharenko is a postdoctoral researcher in CSU's Microwave Systems Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute for Radiophysics and Electronics National Academy of Science of Ukraine in 2007 and his M.S. degree from Kharkiv Polytechnic University in 1999. From 2012 to 2013, he was a Fulbright scholar at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, working on remote sensing of the sea surface by an along-track interferometric synthetic aperture microwave radar and the development of moving target indication algorithms for ground-based and airborne radars. He was a Co-Principal Investigator of a NATO Science for Peace and Security project focused on small boat detection in the nearshore environment. In 2014 he joined the University of Birmingham, UK to work on signal processing for gravity and gravity gradient sensors. He also took part in gravity surveying of the Durrington walls in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. His current research activities at the MSL are focused on the electromagnetic and thermal design and analysis of calibration targets as well as geolocation and fields of view of antenna footprints on the Earth's surface.

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Mehmet Ogut

Graduate Research Assistant

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Mehmet Ogut is a Ph.D. student in CSU's Microwave Systems Laboratory. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The George Washington University, Washington, DC, in 2013 and his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2011. Before joining CSU as a Ph.D. student in 2015, he worked at Arcelik A.S. in Istanbul as an R&D engineer for most of 2014. As a Master's student, his research focused on the design of COMRAD-2, a combined radar and radiometer system for soil moisture remote sensing related to NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. As part of his Master's research, he also participated in field campaigns observing corn and soybean fields at USDA in Beltsville, MD. He has participated in measurements of soil moisture, dielectric constant, and biophysical properties. As a Ph.D. student in CSU's Microwave Systems Laboratory, he is currently working on the design and implementation of the wide-band millimeter and sub-millimeter wave radiometer instrument to measure Tropospheric Water and cloud ICE (TWICE). Mehmet is a member of the executive committee of IEEE Region 5 for the 2018-2019 term. He has been a student member of IEEE since 2010. He is the chair of IEEE High Plains Section Young Professionals Affinity Group and a member of Eta Kappa Nu, IEEE GRSS and IEEE MTT-S.

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Braxton Kilmer

Graduate Research Assistant

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Braxton Kilmer is an M.S. student in CSU’s Microwave Systems Laboratory. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) in May 2016. While at SIUE (2015), Braxton received an Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URCA) grant to study liquid crystal nanocomposites. In addition to undergraduate research, Braxton worked part time as a teaching assistant. At MSL, his research focuses on the design and fabrication of an ambient temperature calibration target, as well as the design and integration of the scanning mechanism for the Tropospheric Water and Cloud ICE (TWICE) Millimeter- and Submillimeter-wave 6U-Class CubeSat. Braxton is a co-founder of the IEEE High Plains Section Young Professionals Affinity Group (2017), and a student member of IEEE (2017).

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Samantha Williams

Graduate Research Assistant

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Samantha Leigh Williams is a PhD. Student at the Colorado State University Microwave Systems Laboratory. She received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) in May of 2018, graduating in 3 years. Samantha is also a student member of IEEE. While at CU, Samantha attended the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) in 2017 in Honolulu on a student scholarship through Project Connect. Samantha also conducted research with Assistant Professor Dimitra Psychogiou on an analog static and tunable multi-band bandpass filter topology using lumped elements. During the summer of 2018, Samantha interned at an RF company called Inovonics. She worked as a hardware intern to characterize and modify antennas on current products, debug transmit and receive chains, as well as test the automatic fall detection firmware for the company’s EN1221 fall detect pendant.

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Renish Thomas

Graduate Research Assistant

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Renish Thomas is a PhD student at CSU’s Microwave systems Laboratory. He received his M.S degree from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas in 2018 and his B.E (Bachelor of Engineering) from Brindavan College of Engineering, Bangalore, India in 2015. He was a research assistant at the CReSIS labs (Center for remote sensing of Ice sheets) in the University of Kansas. His masters research focused on the development of microwave components for snow probing radars developed at CReSIS. His other works at CReSIS includes development and improvement of radar subsystems for snow probing radars for NRL (Naval research labs), AWI (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany) and NASA. He also has experience in testing and integration of high powered depth sounders and other radar systems employed at CReSIS. During his masters he also participated in four airborne field campaigns, measuring Ice sheet thickness and snow cover over Greenland, Alaska, Antarctica and the surrounding oceans with NASA Operation Ice bridge.

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