The Industrial Microwave Modeling Group - Activities

Research Activities

The main goals in IMMG research result from the ultimate need to be able to build microwave equipment with predictable and controllable performance. The principal research directions currently include:

Modeling-based techniques of control and optimization of processes and systems in microwave power engineering
Microwave inverse problems and optimization with artificial neural networks

Major ongoing projects:

Comprehensive electromagnetic-thermal-mechanical model for microwave sintering of particulate materials
Coupled electromagnetic-thermal models for microwave sterilization

Major completed projects:

Modeling-based optimization of microwave heating (2006-2007)
Related publications: [B33]-[B35], [B37], [B40], [B44].
ANN-based FDTD-backed computational schemes for optimization and inverse problems (2005-2008)
Related publications: [A13], [A16]-[A18]; [B27]-[B29], [B31], [B38], [B39], [B42], [B43], [B45], [B47]-[B52], [B54].
FDTD-backed permittivity reconstruction with neural networks (2004-2005)
Related publications: [A9], [A10]; [B13]-[B15], [B19], [B21].
Models of electromagnetic processes in combined systems of microwave thermal processing (2000-2002)
Comparative analysis of electromagnetic software capable of modeling problems of microwave heating (2000-2002)
Related publications: [A2], [A4], [A10]; [B2], [B3], [B5]-[B7].

Educational Activities

Students are involved in both the industrial and research activities at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Undergraduates carry out Interactive and Major Qualifying Projects (IQP & MQP) which take up 1.5 semesters, and work in the frameworks of Independent Study Programs.
Graduate students work as research assistants and contribute to computations and interaction with both industrial and academic partners.
The group exercises different project formats for students from other universities participating in the IMMG activities.

Selected Student Projects

Outreach Activities

The IMMG participates in organization of international conferences which include the above aspects in their goals and programs. Currently, the group is focused on the following events:

Annual IMMG Seminars "Computer Modeling & Microwave Engineering & Applications"
6th Conference of Microwave Materials and Their Applications (6th MMA), Warsaw, Poland, September 2010
The 26th International Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics (ACES Symposium), Tampere, Finland, April 2010; Session "Hybrid and Multi-Physics Modeling"
12th AMPERE Conference on Microwave and High Frequency Heating (AMPERE-2009), Karlsruhe, Germany, September 2009
Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS), August 2009, Moscow, Russia; Technical Session "Microwave Processing of Materials"
IEEE MTT-S 2009 International Microwave Symposium Workshop "Recent Advances in Microwave Power Applications & Techniques (RAMPAnT)", June 12, 2009, Boston, MA

To promote further progress with practical modeling and CAD of microwave processes and systems, the IMMG administers and maintains:

QWUG - QuickWave-3D Users Group Web Site

This resource contains hand-out materials, reference lists and a discussion board for the engineers and researchers working with the 3D conformal FDTD electromagnetic simulator QuickWave-3D

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: Nov 03, 2009, 00:42 EST