Engineering Professor Receives DARPA Grant for Research on Radar Signal Processing
A faculty member in the University of Kansas Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science recently received a prestigious grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to research more effective ways of using the radar spectrum.
The two-year, $500,000 grant was awarded to Patrick McCormick, who holds a joint appointment as assistant professor in the EECS department and as assistant scientist at the KU Institute for Information Sciences (I2S).
The electromagnetic spectrum is a highly desired resource for wireless radio frequency technologies, and the traditional means for allocation of users is becoming increasingly impracticable in recent years. McCormick’s research largely focuses on radar signal processing, specifically the problem of spectral congestion. The term “spectral congestion” would seem to imply that the spectrum is full, but according to McCormick, it is “highly underutilized,” and we aren’t using it efficiently.