AMTA 2009 Report

See photos from AMTA 2009

The 2009 Annual Meeting and Symposium of the Antenna Measurement Techniques Association (AMTA) was held from November 1-6 in the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Located at the southern edge of the downtown business district, the hotel offers splendid views of the Wasatch Mountains to the east and west. To the north, within walking distance, are the state capitol building and Temple Square- the spiritual and administrative center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   To the east is the campus of the University of Utah. 

This year’s host was Northrop Grumman Corporation.  The Space Dynamics Laboratory of the Utah State University served as co-host.  A total of 34 exhibitors provided sponsorship as well.  A complete list of exhibitors and sponsors can be found on the AMTA web site. 

The Chairman of the AMTA 2009 Host Committee was John Rohrbaugh of Northrop Grumman.   The Host Committee is responsible for most of the details of the symposium except for the technical program.  Activities of the Host Committee include selecting the hotel, determining the locations of tours and social outings, coordinating registration and signage, advertising, and formulating and maintaining a symposium budget.   Assisting John on the host committee were: his wife Judy; Vice-Chairman Randy Jost of Utah State and Randy’s wife Vickie; Technical Liaisons Zach Newbold of L-3 Communications and Jeffrey Ward of Weber State University; Keynote Speaker Liaison Cessily Greene of Northrop Grumman; and Priscilla Newbold of Newbold Designs who was responsible for publications and designs.  Jeffrey Ward also filled the role of Student Coordinator.  AMTA owes all of these folks a debt of gratitude for staging a symposium that was seamless and world-class.  John’s wife Judy Rohrbaugh and Randy’s wife Vickie deserve special mention for their efforts as well.

Backing up the Host Committee were the conference management professionals from Three Dimensions of Cerritos, California.   Three Dimensions assists in many of the recurring, behind-the-scenes details associated with AMTA’s symposia, including hotel selection and negotiation, registration and planning for meetings, exhibits, meals and social functions. Their efforts significantly reduce the burden upon our host committees, allowing them to focus on the creative content of the symposium.  The “Three Dimensions” are sisters Theodora Dirksen, Yvonne Grosek, and Mary Ellen Vegter.  The three were assisted by Sherri Cushing and Vickie Scoggins. They did a great job and really helped the Host Committee throughout the year, not just at the symposium!

This year’s audio-visual services were provided by Prestige out of Cincinnati, Ohio and decorating and drayage services by Heritage out of Saint Louis, Missouri. All major publications were printed by Whitley Printing out of Austin, Texas. Thanks to all of these companies for their great work!  Proceeding publication was handled by Charlotte Marsh and Universal Technology Corporation, Dayton, Ohio.  This year there were some formatting and other overall quality issues with the final version of the Proceedings (both the CD and the printed version).  This was due to software compatibility between the various versions of Microsoft Word, Adobe Postscript, and UTC publication software.  The papers that are in the AMTA Archives (http://www.amta.org/amta/Members/AMTAPaperArchives/tabid/78/Default.aspx) have been reformatted to resolve these problems.

As usual, the symposium kicked off on Sunday with the Short Course.  The offering this year was entitled "Techniques for Improved Accuracy in the Measurement of Gain and Spherical Near-field Patterns".  Thirty-three students attended the lecture presented by Doren Hess.  Doren had originally been slated to lecture with Don Bodnar, but took over the entire course when Don was unable to attend as he was recovering from surgery. He did an excellent job of presenting just the right level of technical detail on a topic that is quite mathematically intensive.

A total of 446 delegates (including guests and single day attendees) from 18 countries, including the US and 34 exhibitors attended the conference. Two exhibitors cancelled but were still listed in the Final Program since they cancelled late and were not eligible for a refund. Our apologies to Aeroflex since they were accidently not listed in the Final Program which propagated down to the website (since corrected), the bingo card and the Proceedings.

Following a keynote address by Mike McCrea of Northrop Grumman Corporation, the technical program launched into full swing.  Organized under the direction of Technical Coordinator Ed Urbanik and the Technical Review Committee, this year’s program comprised 86 papers presented across 16 technical sessions. Session titles were as follows:

• Session 1:  Specialized Antenna Measurements
• Session 2:  Modeling and Measurement Topics
• Session 3:  Antenna Design Topics
• Session 4:  Measurement Facilities
• Session 5:  Near-field Range Topics I
• Session 6:  Range/Measurement Uncertainty
• Session 7:  Phased Array Design/Measurements
• Session 8:  Antenna Measurement Topics- Special Session for Student Day
• Session 9:  General Antenna and RF Measurements
• Session 10: Measurement Topics
• Session 11: RCS Measurement Topics
• Session 12: RFID/EMC Measurements
• Session 13: Near Field Range Topics II
• Session 14: PCS, Cellular, Automotive Applications/Measurements
• Session 15: EM Algorithms and Data Processing/Numeric Methods & Range Instrumentation
• Session 16: RCS Measurements and Range Instrumentation

After the close of the technical sessions on Tuesday afternoon, a meeting of the IEEE Near Field Working Group was held.  To close out Session 7 on Tuesday afternoon, Jeffrey E. Rummel, Esq. (Arent Fox PLLC), AMTA Past President Jeffrey W. Kemp (Georgia Tech Research Institute), and Tracy H. Johnson (BAE Systems EI&S) presented another special topic talk on Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Licensing Issues.  This is the third year that this has been a topic of interest in the general AMTA Symposium.  This year we were able to fit the talk earlier in the week, rather than at the tail-end of the meeting.

At the lunch-time business meeting on Tuesday, Elections for Board of Directors were held. Brian Fischer of Integrity Applications Incorporated and Vince Rodriguez of ETS-Lindgren became the latest additions to the Board.  Brian will take over the role of Technical Coordinator from Ed Urbanik, when Ed becomes Vice President in 2010.  Vince will move into the Meeting Coordinator position vacated by the new AMTA President, Don Bodnar.  Second year Board members Javier Marti-Canales and Kim Hassett will continue in their respective roles of Secretary and Treasurer in 2010. Rotating off the Board at the end of the 2009 calendar year are Past President Jeff Kemp and Vice President Dan Janning.  The current President, Jeff Guerrieri, will remain involved in AMTA Board activities as Past President in 2010, and will chair the Nominating and Awards Committees.  After that, he will continue to serve AMTA as a member of the AMTA 2011 Host Committee.  The Board is grateful for the continued contribution of Michael Francis and Janet O’Neil.  Mike is continuing to serve as Senior Advisor and Janet will continue as the Meeting Advisor.  Carlo Rizzo will also continue to serve as our AMTA European Liaison.  The outgoing Board is shown in Figure 5, below.  The AMTA 2010 Board of Directors is shown in Figure 6.

During the Business Meeting, Dan Janning announced that AMTA will be selling advertising space on the AMTA web site.  Check out our web site (http://www.amta.org/advertise/ad1.htm) for details.  Our advertising policy can be found at http://www.amta.org/advertise/ad2.htm.  Look at the AMTA home page (http://www.amta.org) for our initial set of advertisers.  More details can be found on the web or by contacting the 2010 AMTA Vice President, Ed Urbanik, vicepresident@amta.org, or our webmaster (webmaster@amta.org).

The day’s remaining activities afforded the young engineers and scientists the opportunity to mingle with professionals from the antenna measurement world.  During a recruiting session, held at 4:30, they had the chance to speak with prospective employers in the community.  (This was the first instance of such a session at AMTA Student Day.) The recruiting session was followed by a pizza dinner social at 5:00 and a panel session with industry experts at 7:00.  The panel for the evening session consisted of representatives of the Air Force Research Laboratory, L-3 CommunicationWest, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Integrity Applications Incorporated.  The panel session was so productive for the students that it was extended from one to two hours.

Also on Tuesday, a reception was held for all Exhibitors to acknowledge their support and to provide the list of attendees. The reception was well attended with 44 total participants including members of the host committee and Three Dimensions.

The awards banquet on Wednesday night was an opportunity for the Association to recognize individuals for technical achievement and to express appreciation to some of those who had volunteered their services to the organization over the previous year.

The efforts of the Technical Review Committee were acknowledged.  The Technical Review Committee is responsible for reviewing abstracts and making recommendations to the Technical Coordinator as to which papers are acceptable for inclusion in the technical program. Members of the 2009 Committee were: Ed Urbanik (Chairman), Loren Betts, Don Bodnar, Steve Brumley, Peter Collins, Brian Fischer, Lydell Frasch, Inder Gupta, Michael Havrilla, Daniel Janse van Rensberg, Jeff Kemp, Ivan LaHaie, Teh-Hong Lee, Maurice Paquay, Antti Raisanen, Al Torres, and Ron Wittmann.  The best paper in each session was chosen by the Technical Review Committee during the Symposium and the top six papers overall will be presented through the AMTA Corner column over the upcoming year.  In addition, the AMTA Newsletter will present the remaining Best Papers from the 2009 Symposium throughout 2010.  During the Awards Banquet, Jeff Kemp recognized the Best Paper of the 2008 Symposium.  Of all of the Best Papers, this one received the highest overall score from the Technical Committee.  The best paper of the 2008 Symposium was A08-0021, Conical Near-Field Antenna Measurements, Stuart Gregson and Greg Hindman (Nearfield Systems Inc.) presented during Session 12, Near Field Topics II.

The Student Paper Contest recognizes the technical excellence of papers that are authored or co-authored by students.  First place in 2009 went to Carsten Schmidt of the University of California and the Universität Stuttgart for the paper “A Novel Phaseless Spherical Near-Field Antenna Measurement Including The Issue of Robustness”, co-authored by Thomas Eibert and Yahya Rahmat-Samii.  Second place went to another of Yahya’s students at UCLA- Timothy Brockett- for “Rapid Linear Spiral Planar Near-Field Measurements for Millimeter-Wave Antennas”.  Eckhard Denicke of the Institut für Hochfrequenztechnik und Funksysteme, Leibniz Universität Hannover received third prize for “Accurate Radar Distance Measurements in Dispersive Circular Waveguides Considering Multimode Propagation Effects”, co-authored by Gunnar Armbrecht, and Ilona Rolfes.

The student paper awards were chosen by the Student Paper Technical Review Committee, whose members include Eric Walton (Chairman), Marion Baggett, Tracy Johnson, Randy Jost, Lydell Frasch, Fernando Las-Heras, Massimiliano Simeoni, and Luca Salghetti Drioli.

The 2009 symposium marked the third year of inductions of AMTA Fellows and Senior Members.  This year’s inductees join the 24 Fellows and 92 Senior Members of the previous two classes.

The Edmund S. Gillespie Fellow level of membership is the organization’s highest and is restricted to no more than 10% of the total membership.  Candidates for Fellow must have contributed to AMTA in at least two of the following three areas: 1) significant technical contributions through publications, 2) excellence in education in the field of antenna measurements, and 3) dedication through active service. The AMTA Fellows class of 2009 is: 

Teh-Hong Lee, The Ohio State University
Ron Wittman, National Institute of Standards And Technology

Senior membership status is limited to 30% of the membership at large. Nominees must have at least 10 years of membership in AMTA and must have contributed to the organization either in the form of technical publications in the field of antenna measurements or service on the AMTA Board of Directors or volunteer committees.  The new AMTA Senior Members of 2009 are:

Michael Foegelle
Lydell Frasch
Dayel Garneski
Jurgen Hartmann
Dan Janning
Scott McBride
Janet O'Neil
C. J. Reddy
Gary Somers

AMTA’s most prestigious award is the Distinguished Achievement Award. The 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award was presented to Dr. Antti V. Räisänen for his extensive body of work in the field of submillimeter wavelength antenna measurements.  Antti’s citation reads:

AMTA takes great pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Achievement Award to Dr. Antti V. Räisänen for his outstanding and pioneering contributions to the Theory, Practice and Art of Hologram-based Compact Antenna Test Ranges at Submillimeter Wavelengths

AMTA hereby cites Dr. Räisänen for developing:

A submillimeter wavelength, phase hologram-based compact antenna test range

Educational materials on submillimeter wavelength antenna measurements as part of the Antenna Virtual Center of Excellence

A reconfigurable, microelectromechanical-based high impedance surface

A 650 GHz subharmonic waveguide mixer

The next generation of engineers and scientists in the area of electromagnetic submillimeter wavelength measurements

Punctuating the technical activities of the week were numerous opportunities to escape from the confines of the hotel and explore the surrounding area.  The Host Committee organized a superb package of social and sightseeing opportunities highlighting the rich history of the region and the plethora of activities available.  The Monday night outing, entitled “Evening with the Dinosaurs at Thanksgiving Point”, was very well-attended.  The evening began with an elaborate barbecue buffet featuring Atlantic salmon, smoked chicken and beef brisket. Afterward, guests viewed an IMAX show and took a self-guided tour of the world’s largest dinosaur museum.

The Thursday night outing began with a bus ride to Squatter’s, a well-known restaurant and microbrewery in Salt Lake City.  After dinner, guests were taken to Temple Square where they had the unique opportunity to hear the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir at practice.

A Technical Tour was held on Friday at L-3 Communications’ CS-West facilities.  Visitors had the opportunity to see L-3’s Compact Far-field Range, Near-field Range, Networking Lab, SATCOM Compound, Miniature Lab, Machine Shop, CCA Build, Environmental Test Labs, and EMI Chamber.

In addition to those outings, the Host Committee arranged for companion tours for each day during which technical sessions were taking place.  On Monday, guests could take a tour that stopped at many of the historical sites of Salt Lake City.  Tuesday’s tour was focused on Temple Square and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.   Sightseers on Wednesday’s “Best of Wasatch” tour visited sites of the 2002 Olympics and enjoyed shopping in contemporary galleries and boutiques.  On Thursday, the destination was the historic mining down of Park City where visitors could see remains of early silver mines and hear tales of the adventures of early pioneers.

AMTA owes John Rohrbaugh and his team a large debt of gratitude for making our 2009 symposium a world-class event and a memorable experience for all.