MICS holds bi-weekly seminars

The MICS group has had bi-weekly seminars since Fall 2012. MICs seminars are intended to disseminate the research findings of the MICS research group and keep abreast of new research trends and technologies relevant to the MICS research areas.

Three MICS faculty members presented their research activities so far. The inaugural MICS seminar was given by a MICS faculty member, Prof. Kwang-Jin Koh on October 19, 2012. Prof. Koh's presentation “Integrated Phased Array Designs,” focused on silicon-based phased-array receiver and transmitter designs at microwave (6-18 GHz) and mm-wave frequencies (40-50 GHz), which have played a major role in leading the industry toward low cost. The next MICS seminar was presented by another MICS faculty member, Prof. Majid Manteghi. In his presentation, “Lost Cost Phased Array,” he proposed a novel technique for digital phased arrays, which uses one receiving path for all the elements of a phased array while performing the beam forming in the digital domain. The new technique reduces the complexity and cost of a phased array for both military and commercial applications. The last seminar was provided by Prof. Dong Ha. Prof. Ha presented “Toward Wideband Vibration Energy Harvesting”. He noted that vibration energy abundant in nature is wideband and existing methods based on PZT cantilevers are tuned for single frequency. He presented a new method based on a bi-directional DC/DC converter tailored for wide bandwidth vibration energy.

The MICS group actively seeks external speakers from industry as well as academia. It is a great opportunity for external speakers to engage with MICS students and faculty for possible collaborations. MICS welcomes companies to combine MICS seminars with their recruiting efforts. The possible dates for MICS seminars are available on the MICS homepage, www.mics.ece.vt.edu. If you are interested in speaking at an MICS seminar, please contact Prof. Dong Ha (ha@vt.edu).