News Archive

Shane Flandermeyer is an M.S. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Dr. Justin Metcalf.

How long have you been a part of the ARRC:

"I joined the ARRC as an undergraduate in Fall 2018 through the Honors college FYRE program, where I worked with Dr. Metcalf on developing open-source software for doing radar with software-defined radio (SDR) systems. I completed my B.S. in electrical engineering in the Spring, and I am just beginning to work on my master’s thesis this semester."

Scholarships/journal awards/publications etc. that you have received:

• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award

• Astronaut Scholarship

• Outstanding Senior in electrical engineering

• S. Flandermeyer, R. Mattingly and J. Metcalf, “gr-plasma: A New GNU Radio-based Tool for Software-defined Radar”, Proceedings of the GNU Radio Conference, 2022 (Accepted)

Current Research:

"For my thesis, I plan to examine the use of various reinforcement learning methods for performing radar resource management problems such as task scheduling, beam positioning, and parameter selection. I also maintain a GNU Radio module for collecting and processing radar data from SDRs in real time."

What do you like to do in your free time:

"In my free time, I enjoy lifting weights, practicing judo, and playing basketball."

Plans for after graduating:

"After completing my M.S., I plan to stay at the ARRC to pursue my Ph.D. and to continue researching the applications of machine learning to radar problems."

Oklahoma Native and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, Vice Admiral Jeffrey Trussler, recently visited the University of Oklahoma and toured the Radar Innovations Lab with Bob Palmer, executive director of the Advanced Radar Research Center and Gene Kirkland, executive director of the Oklahoma Aerospace and Defense Institute.

"What if you could detect a tornado with greater confidence minutes before the funnel reached the ground, posed a grave danger to life, and tracked its path along the ground with much greater accuracy?

Today, meteorologists, data scientists, and engineers at the University of Oklahoma’s Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC), in collaboration with Analog Devices Inc. (ADI), are designing, building, testing, and fielding a next-generation, all-digital polarimetric phased array radar system. The breakthrough innovation funded by NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) will allow for real-time monitoring, improved forecasting, and the earlier detection of severe weather than anything that has come before."

Read more here.

We are hosting a student-led virtual workshop to plan a field experiment with the NSF CIF RaXPol mobile radar in Florida on August 24 from 2-5 CT! Students will work together to determine the science objectives and radar scanning strategies. You can register for the workshop here.

In September, students can virtually participate in the RaXPol experiment. We will have a live camera view to see RaXPol in action, as well as a link to our live data display! Short courses on radar and thunderstorms will also be offered.

The ARRC's Executive Director, Bob Palmer, has been named Education Innovator of the Year by 405 Business Magazine.

Dr. Palmer said, "There is no other organization like the ARRC in the country.  We are academic, but have a start-up feel and culture.  Our members (faculty, staff, and students) are the best in the world, and we have put OU on the map regarding innovations in radar.  Customers now come to us for solutions."

Read the full article on page 47. Link

Each year, the Association of Old Crows showcases five young professionals as the year's Future 5, recognizing those who actively innovate and strive for excellence as they build their careers in the EMS/EW/IO industry.

Now a Radar Staff Systems Engineer at Maxar Technologies, Rachel discusses her career goals and early career achievements here.

Congratulations to SoM/ARRC Postdoctoral Fellow Yagmur Derin for being awarded the International Precipitation Working Group Early Career Scientist Award - First Prize for outstanding presentation/poster 2022!

IPWG is part of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and focuses the scientific community on operational and research satellite-based quantitative precipitation measurement. Yagmur presented on the challenging topic of quantitative precipitation estimation from satellites in complex terrain. Precipitation estimation in mountainous regions is uncertain because interacting processes between the atmosphere and topography are difficult to observe. Yagmur uses the U.S. ground radar network and environmental conditions from numerical models to capture the conditions where precipitation estimation from space is challenged. Her research benefits NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The GPM mission involves an international network of satellites that provides global observations of rain and snow to advance our understanding of Earth's water and energy cycle, improve forecasting of extreme events, and provide accurate and timely information to directly benefit society. Yagmur is supervised by Dr. Pierre Kirstetter.

The goal of the Deep Convective Microphysics Experiment (DCMEX) project is to ultimately reduce the uncertainty in equilibrium climate sensitivity by improving the representation of microphysical processes in global climate models (GCMs).

OutstandingColleges.com, a website dedicated to "providing people with useful information to help them make the right decision when selecting what school to go to" has ranked OU as the best college to study meteorology in the nation. It cites OU's strong research program and students' opportunity to work with faculty on cutting-edge projects. OU also recently claimed the top spot in the nation for research and development in atmospheric sciences and meteorology in the leading report for higher education research and development expenditures, or HERD survey. OU is #1 in the nation in research expenditures in that category and #6 in the overall sector of Geosciences, Atmospheric Sciences and Ocean Sciences.

Pictured is ARRC student Rachael Cross teaching K-12 students about weather radar using the RaXPol mobile radar.

These K-12 students were participating in the OU Mini College on July 26, 2022 to learn about different areas of study offered at the University of Oklahoma.

Rachael is a PhD student in the School of Meteorology, advised by Dr. David Bodine.