Three University of Oklahoma students received cash prizes from the Oklahoma Aerospace & Defense Innovation Institute (OADII) Student Poster Competition. The winning research posters were selected by a panel of judges during the inaugural OU defense symposium held Oct. 20, 2022 at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
Benton Smith, (center in photo) a graduate student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and a graduate research assistant with the Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC), received first place and a $500 cash prize for his poster, “Development of AI/ML Algorithms for All-Digital Arrays.” ARRC faculty Nathan Goodman, David Schvartzman, and Tian-You Yu advised the research. ECE student (second from right in photo) Cameron Goodbar contributed to the project.
Syed Shahan Jehangir, (not pictured) ECE/ARRC doctoral student, received second place and a $250 cash prize for the poster, “Designing Ultrawideband High Precision Dual-polarized Antenna Probes for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Based Real-time Calibration of Digital Phased Array Radars for Defense and Meteorology Applications.” The award was accepted by Khuda Burdi. Jehangir is advised by ECE associate professor and ARRC faculty member Jorge Salazar-Cerreño.
Rachel Jarvis, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and ECE/ARRC doctoral student, received third place and a $100 cash prize for her poster, “Radar Cross Section Measurements.” Jarvis is advised by Jay McDaniel, ECE assistant professor and ARRC faculty member.
The OADII Student Poster Competition called for undergraduate and graduate student research projects that addressed solutions for national security and defense challenges. Seventeen posters were presented during the symposium, Addressing Our Evolving Global Security Challenge: Examining the Role of Universities in Meeting Current and Future National Defense Priorities” hosted by OADII.
“We received dozens of intriguing, innovative projects that covered a variety of topic areas, some of which included research in radar technologies, advanced manufacturing, security policy, drone design and characterization, artificial intelligence, and many more,” said John Antonio, senior associate vice president for research and partnerships.
Students whose research posters were selected for the competition were given the opportunity to attend the symposium and interact with the approximately 180 attendees, representing national security thought leaders from across the country to discuss partnership opportunities between the defense industry, government, and academia. Evaluation criteria for the research posters included originality, applicability to defense and security, scientific merit, and quality of presentation.
