ECEE Amplified - Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering Department News - September 11, 2023

Title: Front Desk Team Lead

Class Rank: Junior

Area of study: Strategic Communications; Public Relations

Favorite thing about the ECEE FD: "I love getting to know my fellow coworkers and members of the ECEE department - it is truly a joy to see your smiling faces every day!"

Title: Front Desk Team Lead

Class Rank: Senior

Area of study: Integrative Physiology; pre-Physician Assistant

Favorite thing about the ECEE FD: "I love how friendly everyone is and that we all support each other with anything and everything! You can tell that everyone here genuinely wants each other to succeed and that they care about you as a person outside of work and/or school!"

Title: Front Desk Team Member

Class Rank: Senior

Area of study: Integrative Physiology; Public Health

Favorite thing about the ECEE FD: "I get to work alongside some of the most kind and caring people!"

Title: Front Desk Team Member

Class Rank: Sophomore

Area of study: Business Marketing

What I'm looking forward to at the ECEE FD: "I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone in the ECEE department because it seems like such a fun and supportive team!"

Title: Front Desk Team Member

Class Rank: Sophomore

Area of study: Marketing & Entrepeneurship

What I'm looking forward to at the ECEE FD: "I love getting to meet all new people and merge these professional relationships into friendships!" 

Title: Taking Control of Quantum Systems

I have always believed control theory to be the most flexible discipline in engineering. Control engineers specialize in an abstract framework that can solve a surprising number of practical problems. In this talk, I will discuss my recent endeavors to answer a single question: “Can we design a quantum sensor that measures the earth’s gravity field more accurately than any other existing sensor?”. I will also answer the obvious follow-up question: “Why should we care?”. Specifically, the talk will show how to translate a cutting-edge quantum problem (designing a cold atom interferometer) into an optimal control problem that can be solved numerically. The presentation is targeted to an audience that is neither an expert in control theory nor quantum physics. In fact, the only requirement for following it is a basic understanding of linear algebra, complex numbers, and differential equations.

 

Marco M. Nicotra attained his PhD in control engineering in 2016 from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Bologna. After a two-year postdoc at the University of Michigan, he became an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2018. His primary research focus is real-time constrained control and its application to aerospace, energy, robotic, and quantum applications. He is passionate about cross-disciplinary work and is a proud contributor to both the Quantum Engineering Initiative and the Robotics Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Title: System-level engineering of broadband transmit beamforming networks

Integrated broadband transmit phased array design challenges engineers due to the many variables involved, e.g., evaluation of performance metrics and different component tuning ranges. The antenna elements' active impedance and the active devices' nonlinearities will propagate through the front-end chain, affecting array performance over scanning directions, frequencies, and power levels. Nonetheless, integrated broadband transmit phased arrays present unique challenges for experimental characterization. Due to the difficulty of accessing terminals of individual components and the impossibility of adding sensors at key points of the beamforming circuits, designers must rely on simulation results for debugging/troubleshooting their prototypes. Co-simulation techniques must be considered to tackle this complex design problem, including using full-wave, harmonic balance, and system-level tools. However, a comprehensive analysis of each component’s performance and model limitations must be considered. Also, an initial understanding of component performance sensitivity versus resulting mismatch is key for a reliable simulation and resilient design. Of course, all this also depends on the operating power level. This seminar will cover the main concepts used to evaluate the effect of nonlinearities on broadband transmit phased-array figures of merit, namely EIRP, overall efficiency, and linearity, using co-simulations as a framework. The analysis is described in the context of scanning directions, bandwidth, and power variation. Different modulation schemes are considered, and a slow power amplifier (PA) supply voltage variation is included. Useful system-level simulations must include the interaction of all the components in the feed network and antenna, presenting numerous challenges. For example, effects of the corporate feed network line lengths and isolation between ports; phase-shifter mismatch and nonlinearities; AM/AM and AM/PM and IMDs of the PAs over bandwidth and power level; effects of antenna element coupling and cross-talk; and finally effects of component failure.

Laila Fighera Marzall received her B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Federal University of Santa Maria in 2006; her M.S. in electrical engineering from Aeronautics Institute of Technology, ITA, in 2009, in Brazil, and her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2022. She currently works as a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder Microwave Group. Her research is focused on broadband phased arrays and non-reciprocal devices, like circulators and phase shifters, as well as MMIC power amplifiers. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a URSI Associate Member.

CU Café is a student-led organization for underrepresented graduate students. Minorities make up a small fraction of STEM graduate students, and CU Café is our community! Come get to know CU Café's plans for the year and hang out with free food, music, and games for graduate students! 

Date: September 15th, 2023

Time: 2PM

Place: CU Boulder Business Field

September 22nd 11am - Calvin Chan 

September 29th 11am - Bri Mathias-Hodge

October 9th 11am - Saber Jafarpour 

Broader impacts are one of two criterion used by the National Science Foundation to evaluate every grant proposal. In addition, broader and societal impacts are increasingly becoming common in other funder requests across government, industry, and philanthropy. At the same time, researchers may struggle to describe the broader social impact of their research and achieving specific educational outcomes can be a challenge. This event showcases existing resources on campus that aim to help with broader impact plans, efforts, and activities! The event will be held from noon to 2 p.m. on Oct. 18 with the location still TBD. Register online for more information and to see details as they are posted.

Join the Research & Innovation Office for a discussion about the annual Research & Innovation Seed Grant Program. Designed to catalyze new areas of research, scholarship, and creative work, the Seed Grant Program awards nearly $1 million annually to Boulder faculty across all disciplines. This event will be held at noon on Nov. 8 via Zoom. In it, RIO will convene a panel of previous recipients and attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions. Registration and more information is available online.

Starting Wednesday, July 19, 2023 Dell and Apple computers purchased through the CU Marketplace will come preconfigured with the software needed to meet the computer security standards.

Important things to know:

• The primary user of the computer must be the first person to log in to the machine.

• These online instructions (one for Windows to set up Dells and one for Macs) provide step-by-step guidance for the primary user of the computer and should be relayed to the primary user if that isn’t you. A link to these instructions will be included in a confirmation email sent after each order.

• As soon as possible before the arrival of the computer, we highly recommend that the person who placed the order, or the computer’s primary user, make sure the user has the appropriate Office 365 Apps license that is needed to initiate the Secure Computer setup process. The Office 365 Apps License form (on-campus or VPN connection required)  should be used to verify or request the license. If upon completing the form the check finds the user does not have the Office 365 Apps license already assigned to them, a ticket will be opened to have one assigned. Assignment of the license should take no more than one business day. Many faculty and staff already have the appropriate license, but if someone does not and tries to perform the initial setup, they will immediately receive an error. The form should then be used to request the Office 365 Apps license, or the user can contact the IT Service Center at oithelp@colorado.edu or 303-735–4357 to get help with the license assignment.

To get more acquainted with the purchase and enrollment process, OIT recommends review of the Secure Computing for Faculty and Staff page. The Secure Computing Project website has information about past and future phases of this project and more information about why our campus is making these changes.

If you have questions about the Secure Computing Standard for Computers or the process to order them, please contact the IT Service Center at oithelp@colorado.edu or 303-735-4357. 

 OIT is excited to announce that the transition from our existing enterprise video platform, Kaltura, to our new platform, YuJa, will begin this fall semester, and is planned to conclude by the end of fall 2024. More information about YuJa and the transition can be found in OIT's news story. 

Be aware that tools like this can be responsible for false positives that can disproportionately impact various student groups, such as ESL students. Remember to discuss your guidelines for the use of AI in your course  with students at the start of the semester. Check out this semester’s Academic Instruction Guidance editionfor further tips on how to articulate your standards for the use of AI in your course. 

Starting at noon Friday, Oct. 6 and finishing by 8 a.m. Monday, Oct. 9, the University of Colorado Data Center will move to a new state-of-the-art data center in the Anschutz Health Sciences Building

While the CU data center’s physical components are being moved, all enterprise applications will be down. No data from HCM, FIN, CU-SIS, CU Marketplace and other applications will be available. A complete list of enterprise applications is available in the Data Center Move implementation post. 

Thank you for your patience as the process to engage the ITLP for ECEE IT support is underway. Following are resources and contacts for the interim.

• OIT Website 

• Research Computing | University of Colorado Boulder

• IT Service Center: Contact the IT Service Center (303-735-4357 or help@colorado.edu) for help with all OIT services including email and IdentiKey, Internet connectivity and other technology-related questions.

• Buff Techs Desktop Support: OIT provides no-cost software support for laptop and desktop workstations to faculty, staff, and students. You can also register your laptop to aid in recovery in case it is lost or stolen.

• Dedicated Desktop Support: Departmental IT Support customized for your needs.

• Network Troubleshooting: Submit this form to report network connectivity issues on campus

• Licensing Issues: Contact OIT license server administrators at trouble@colorado.edu

• Lab Reporting form: Submit this form to report a problem in an OIT-Managed lab (all of our teaching labs and the SRC are managed by OIT).

• Classroom Technology Problem Reporting form: Submit this form to report an issue with technology malfunctioning in a classroom (except for the ECEE classrooms – contact Bret.Moreland@colorado or 303-503-7939 for support.

• Self-Service Help Request: Submit a request directly to the ITSC using ServiceNow. 

• Lightboard Studio: contact Bret.Moreland@colorado or 303-503-7939 for support

• All other issues, contact Robin.McClanahan@colorado.edu or 303-492-6736