On Friday, 24th January 2014, Dr.Randy L. Haupt, Professor and Chair, Colorado School of Mines delivered a lecture on Wide-Area Control of Power Systems using Synchrophasors: Theory, Design and Experiments.

Randy L. Haupt received the BSEE from the USAF Academy (1978), the MS in Engineering Management from Western New England College (1982), the MSEE from Northeastern University (1983), and the PhD in EE from The University of Michigan (1987).

He is Professor and Department Head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines and was an RF Staff Consultant at Ball Aerospace & Technologies, Corp., a Senior Scientist and Department Head at the Applied Research Laboratory of Penn State, Professor and Department Head of ECE at Utah State, Professor and Chair of EE at the University of Nevada Reno, and Professor of EE at the USAF Academy.

Large antennas create the high gain needed to boost the received signal for a communications or radar system. Today, reflectors and arrays compete for large aperture jobs in many types of systems. In general, the reflector is relatively inexpensive, that is why it is the antenna of choice for commercial activities, such as satellite TV.

If the reflector must be moved in order to locate or track a signal, then the gimbals, servomotors, and other mechanical parts become a reliability and maintenance issue that becomes a significant lifecycle cost. Also, mechanical steering might be too slow to meet some of the demands on platforms such as airplanes. The array – in particular, the phased array – makes many performance promises but for a price.

Here are some of the picture from the event: