News Archive

A team of scientists from the ARRC, the School of Meteorology, the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO), and NSSL deployed multiple radar systems to collect data from the cold front that passed through the OKC metro area on Friday, November 4. 

 The RaXPol radar collected polarimetric data from 1601 - 1934 UTC, including several RHI scans approximately normal to the cold front and several PPI volume scans as well. According to the Norman Mesonet station, which was in view to the SW, the cold front’s passage over the deployment site occurred at approximately 1730 UTC. The teams felt the temperature drop 20-25 °F over an approximate time of 5 - 10 seconds following the wind shift. Simultaneous data was collected with the research WSR-88D (KOUN) and the mobile NOAA X-POL (NOXP) polarimetric radars. 

 The team was led by Dr. David Schvartzman, who coordinated with Drs. Howie Bluestein, David Bodine, and Valery Melnikov, to conduct the multi-frequency radar observations of the cold front and surrounding convective cells. Several students from the School of Meteorology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and others affiliated with the ARRC, participated in the data collection experiment. The data will be used to conduct a dual-frequency / dual-polarization analysis with ARRC, SoM, CIWRO, and NSSL investigators collaborating to bring needed expertise together

Fantastic fall weather only added to the fun for ARRC members participating in the First Annual Hiking Trip last Saturday in the Wichita Mountains near Lawton. As beautiful as the weather was, the camaraderie was even better. “Clearing our minds in nature makes our research even better!” said ARRC Executive Director Bob Palmer.

Clayton is a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Dr. Jessica Ruyle

How long have you been a part of the ARRC:

"I have been a part of the ARRC since January 2019." 

Any scholarships/journal awards/publications etc. that you have received:

• "National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow".

• "C. G. Blosser, H. H. Sigmarsson and J. E. Ruyle, "Power Handling of Varactor Diode-Based Frequency Agile Antennas," 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (AP-S/URSI), 2022, pp. 1486-1487, doi: 10.1109/AP-S/USNC-URSI47032.2022.9886314."

• "M. R. Thibodeau, A. L. Bauer, C. G. Blosser, S. Saeedi, J. E. Ruyle and H. H. Sigmarsson, "Frequency Agile Slot Antenna Using Contactless Capacitive Loading," in IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 99460-99466, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3206444." 

Current Research:

"My current work focuses on circumventing fundamental limitations on electrically small antennas by dropping the linear, time-invariant restriction, primarily through the usage of negative resistance amplification."

What do you like to do in your free time: 

"I like playing music with friends, playing with my dogs, and watching movies."

Plans for after graduating:

" Iplan on perusing a post-doctorate, and then most likely onto academia."

Dressed in a unique costume as "Miss ARRC", PhD student Hyeri Kim won the 1st Annual ARRC Halloween Costume Contest. Everyone enjoyed pizza and had a great time at the well-attended event.

Two ARRC/ECE graduate students took top honors for best student paper presentations at the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology (PAST) held in Boston, MA, Oct. 11-14. The symposium attracted hundreds of attendees from across the world.  

Cesar Salazar was awarded first place and Yoon-SL Kim took second for their contributions to advancing phased array technology for observations of severe weather. Cesar is advised by Drs. Boon Leng Cheong and Robert Palmer, and Yoon is advised by Dr. David Schvartzman.

ARRC Executive Director Robert Palmer was invited to give a plenary talk at the 2022 IEEE Phased Array Symposium held recently in Boston.  The topic of the presentation was the Horus polarimetric phased array weather radar program.

Aimee is a Ph.D. student in the School of Meteorology, advised by Drs. Robert Palmer and Pierre Kirstetter.

How long have you been a part of the ARRC:

"I started as an undergraduate research assistant in electrical engineering in 2014 and was affiliated with the ARRC through my masters degree. After graduating and working in industry I returned as a PhD student in Meteorology one year ago, reaffiliating me with the ARRC."

Current Research: 

"My research asks the question: “With a phased array, how can we improve our estimation of how much water falls on the ground?” This is termed quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE)."

What do you like to do in your free time:

"I am an “outside person” who enjoys gardening, hiking, grilling, and snoozing in hammocks."

Plans for after graduating:

"I am not sure where I will end up but hope to find opportunities that allow me to continue to pursue research related to my PhD topic."

OU Regents recently included the Radar Innovations Lab as part of their tour of the Research Campus. Pictured with ARRC Executive Director Bob Palmer (center) are (l. to r.) Tim Rhodes, Executive Secretary of the Board of Regents, Regents Rick Braught and Robert Ross, and John Antonio, Sr. Associate VP for Research and Partnerships.

Congratulations to ARRC/ECE PhD student Cesar Salazar for obtaining the best student paper award at the 11th European Conference on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology, held in Locarno, Switzerland from 8/29 to 9/2. He is being advised by Drs. Palmer and Cheong, and is currently in his last semester of the PhD program.

Cesar’s paper titled, “Progressive Pulse Compression: A Promising Solution to the Blind Range Challenge for Solid-State Weather Radar”, was presented in the Radar Signal and Doppler Processing session. The paper discussed the novel progressive pulse compression technique (PPC), which mitigates the blind range that typically obscures pulse-compression data near the radar. The presentation was focused on applications of PPC to a variety of meteorological events (convective/stratiform precipitation systems) and using different scanning modes (PPI, RHI, STSR and ATSR) to collect the data. Cesar also briefly discussed the enhanced version “PPC ” which further reduces range-sidelobe contamination within the recovered blind range. The key takeaway was that PPC can retrieve polarimetric measurements at ranges close to the radar, even with long pulse compression waveforms, without impacting data quality. Congratulations, Cesar!