Microwave direction finding techniques
by learning from human auditory system
Speaker: Dr. Hao Xin,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Arizona
Tuesday, March 22 at 4:00PM,
UCF, Harris Corp. Engineering Center, HCEC 101
ABSTRACT:
Microwave passive direction finding is a very important technology that has many military and commercial applications including electronic warfare, mobile communications, etc. A typical microwave direction finding system may use an array consists of a large number of antenna elements and sophisticated algorithms to achieve high degree of accuracy. However, the size, weight, speed and cost associated with the large number of hardware components and the complicated signal processing can be impractical, especially for portable and commercial applications. A very interesting biological system that is capable of direction finding for acoustic waves is the human auditory system which includes a pair of pinnae located at each side of the human head to collect acoustic signals, ear canals, eardrums, and cochlea to guide and detect incoming acoustic signals, and auditory nerves and neurons in the brain to process the detected signals. . In fact, human ears have many amazing and intriguing abilities related to direction finding, among them, estimating arrival angle with accuracy up to 1° without ambiguity under binaural (utilizing two ears) condition, the famous “cocktail party phenomenon”, the ability of “learning the surrounding environment within seconds”, sound source localization with a single ear (mono-aural), to name a few. We will discuss some of our theoretical and experimental studies on improved microwave direction finding techniques by learning from human auditory system.
BIOGRAPHY:
Hao Xin joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arizona in August 2005 and is currently an associate professor. He received B.S. degree in physics and mathematics Summa Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth in 1995, and Ph.D degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in February 2001. He was Sr. Multi-Disciplined Principal Engineer at the RF and Radar Center of Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson from 2003 to 2005. His research focus has been in the areas of high frequency (from GHz to THz) technologies and systems, including solid-state devices and circuits, antennas, passive circuits and applications of new materials such as meta-materials and carbon nanotube. From 2000 to 2003, he was a research scientist with the Rockwell Scientific Company, where he performed pioneering research in the area of electromagnetic crystal surfaces, quasi-optical amplifiers, electronically scanned antenna arrays, MMIC designs and random power harvesting. He played critical role as principal investigator and / or program manager in several DARPA and internal research programs. He has authored over 110 referred publications in the areas of microwave and millimeter-wave circuits and antennas, solid-state electronics, electromagnetic crystals and the applications thereof in microwave and millimeter-wave technologies. He has 13 patents (12 issued and 2 pending) in the areas of microwave and millimeter-wave technologies, random power harvesting based on ferro-fluidic nano-particles and carbon nanotube based devices. He is a senior member of IEEE and chair of the joint chapter of IEEE AP/MTT/EMC/COMM in Tucson AZ. Email: hxin@ece.arizona.edu, Tel: 520-626-6941.