Event
Booz Allen Colloquium: Dennis Prather, U. Del., "Millimeter Wave Imaging: Seeing Beyond the Dark"
Friday, February 18, 2011
3:00 p.m.
Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building, Rm. 1110
Jess Molina
jmolina2@umd.edu
http://www.ece.umd.edu/colloquium
Booz Allen Hamilton Distinguished Colloquium in Electrical and Computer Engineering
"Millimeter Wave Imaging: Seeing Beyond the Dark"
Prof. Dennis Prather, (B.S. '89, M.S. '93, Ph.D. '97)
Distinguished Professor of Engineering
University of Delaware
Commander, USN (RC)
Abstract:
In this talk I present the development of an imaging system for millimeter waves (mmWs) as well as many of its advantages and applications in the defense and security markets. Imaging in the mmW spectrum offers many of the advantages common to infrared imaging, but allows for the ability to see through obscurants, such as blowing sand, fog, dust, smoke, and light rain. It also offers the ability to see through certain types of materials, like outer garments, fiberglass, drywall, and others. In the course of this talk, I will discuss some of the unique attributes of mmWs and some of the underlying technologies used to capture and process these signals into images. In particular, our approach that involves the use of high-frequency photonic modulators, which serve to convert mmWs in to and optical signal that can be more easily imaged will be discussed.
Biography:
Dennis Prather is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD) and a Naval Reserve Officer. He received the BSEE, MSEE, and PhD from the University of Maryland in 1989, 1993, and 1997, respectively. He earned his Ph.D. in Computational Electromagnetics at Maryland. At UD he leads the Nano-Photonics research group, specializing in the development of computational EM models and nano-fabrication processes for photonic devices. As a Naval Officer, he is appointed as the United States representative on the NATO Technical Group for High-Performance Milli-meter Wave Imaging.
Dr. Prather is currently an Endowed Professor of Electrical Engineering, he is a senior member of the IEEE, Fellow of the Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA). He received the Outstanding Junior Faculty in the College of Engineering in 2000, the William J. Kastner Award for Naval Engineering Excellence, in 2000, as well as the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, in 1999 and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, in 1999. He has authored or co-authored over 300 scientific papers, holds over 40 patents, and has written 10 books/book-chapters.
