Ronald Francisco Woodman Pollitt, Peruvian engineer and physicist (Piura 22 April 1934 -
From English descent
First to explain how the ion-ion collisions affect the gyroresonance
Developed new techniques to exploit the use of radars for the study of related atmospheric and ionospheric phenomena such as clear atmospheric turbulence and ionospheric irregularities
Observed new phenomena
With J. Chau. Equatorial quasiperiodic echoes from field-aligned irregularities observed over Jicamarca. Geophys. Rev. Letters 28(2), 2001
Showed and confirmed the potential of VHF radars to observe the electrically neutral atmosphere (1974), a seminal work that led to the active research using VHF radar
With A. Guillén. Radio observation of winds and turbulence in the stratosphere and mesosphere. J. Atmos. Sci. 31:493-505, 1974
One of the first to measure the scintillation of satellite signals in equatorial latitudes
Developed a complete theory about coherent scattering
A general statistical instrument theory of atmospheric and ionospheric radars. J. Geophys. Res. Atm. (1991)
First measurements of this type that have been used to obtain least squares estimates of ion compositions and temperatures
With F.S. Rodrigues, M.J. Nicolls, D.L. Hysell, J. Chau & S.A. Gonzalez. Ion gyroresonance observations at Jicamarca revisited. Geophys. Res. Letters 34(13):L13107, 2007
First to present the main sources of sporadic meteors as inferred from meteor-head echoes by a high-power large-aperture radar (HPLAR)
With J. Chau & F. Galindo. Sporadic meteor sources as observed by the Jicamarca high-power VHF radar. Icarus 188 (1):162-74, 2007
Proposed that ionosondes can be used to measure vectorial night time ionospheric drifts at F region altitude
With J. Chau & R.R. Ilma. Comparison of ionosonde and incoherent scatter drift measurements at the magnetic equator. Geophys. Res. Lett. (2006)
Presented the first quasiperiodic echoes from 3-m E region field-aligned irregularities observed in the South American sector, just outside the magnetic equator
With J. Chau. Low-latitude quasiperiodic echoes observed with the Piura VHF radar in the E region (1999)
Showed that vertical Doppler velocities of daytime 150-km echoes represent the vertical EXB drift velocities at F region altitudes
With F. Villanueva. Comparison of electric fields measured at F region heights with 150 km irregularity drift measurements (1995)
With Y. Maekawa, S. Fukao, M. Yamamoto, M.D. Yamanaka, T. Tsuda & S. Karo. First observation of the upper stratospheric vertical wind velocities using the Jicamarca VHF radar. Geophys. Res. Lett. 20(20):2235-8, 1993
First to analyze a spread F event with layering
With D.L. Hysell, M.C. Kelley & W.E. Swartz. Seeding and layering of equatorial spread F by gravity wave. J Geophys. Res. Atmos. 95 (A10):17253-60, 1990
First to report daytime spread F-like irregularities
With J.E. Pingree & W.E. Swartz. Spread F-like irregularities observed by the Jicamarca radar during the day-time. J. Atmos. Solar Terre Physics (1985)
With E. Kudeki. A causal relationship between lightning and explosive spread F (1984)
METHODS/TECHNIQUES
Introduced the first antenna “compression” scheme for coherent radars
With J. Chau. Antenna compression using binary phase coding: an imaging application. Radio Science (2000)
Developed a new signal processing approach
With E. Kudeki & S. Bhattacharyya. A new approach in incoherent scatter F region EXB drift measurements at Jicamarca. J. Geophys. Res. Atm. 104 (A12):28145-62, 1999
Described a technique for estimating the background zonal electric field from the interferometry
With D.L. Hysell & M.F Larsen. Julia radar studies of electric fields in the equatorial electrojet (1997)
Revised and modified formulae and algorithms
On the true velocity in full correlation analysis. Radio Science 30 (5):1459-66, 1995
Described a signal processing and control systems for atmospheric sounding radars
With M.F. Sarango, E. Ragaini & E.H. Vasquez. A multi-DSP signal processing and control system for MST radar (1995)
With E. Ragaini. A double demodulation algorithm for narrow spectral features (1994)
With M. Sarango. Doing passive radio astronomy with a MST/ST system: a fast crosscorrelation algorithm (1994)
With M.F. Larsen, R.D. Palmer, S. Fukao, M. Yamamoto, T. Tsuda & S. Kato. An analysis technique for deriving vector winds and in-beam incidence angles from radar interferometer measurements. J. Atm. Ocean. Technology 9(1), 1992
With E. Kudeki. A post-statistics steering technique for MST radar applications. Radio Science (1990)
With M.P. Sulzer. Pulse compression hardware decoding techniques for MST radars. Radio science (1985)
With C. Gonzales. Pulse compression techniques with application to HF probing of the mesosphere. Radio Science (1984)
With M.P. Sulzer. Quasi-complementary codes – a new technique for MST radar sounding. Radio Science (1984)
With C. Gonzales & R.A. Behnke. Doppler measurements with a digital ionosonde – Technique and comparison of results with incoherent scatter data. Radio Science (1982)
With J. Rottger & R.P. Kugel. A coherent integrator-decoder preprocessor for the SOUSY-VHF Radar. Radio Science (1980)
HONOURS
Appleton Prize, International Union of Radio Science (1999)
Elektron Award, IEEE (2007)
Foreign Associate Member, National Academy of Sciences, US (2007)