John Hodgins Memorial Scholarship and Research Experience Award
Program: Electrical Engineering & Management
Why McMaster? McMaster always felt like the right place for me to go, especially since It's so close to home. The general first year engineering was good for me since I wasn't sure which stream I wanted to enter going to second year. Also, the prospect of doing research after first year was a very interesting opportunity that no other school offered.
Faculty supervisor: Dr. Steve Hranilovic and Dr. Rafael Kleiman
Research area: Our team focused on free space optical (laser) communications with satellites, and specifically the mitigation of atmospheric effects during satellite to ground links, for the eventual purpose of providing coverage to northern Canadian communities. I researched past, present, and planned satellite missions that use this technology. I also developed a program in Python to model different types of orbits (e.g. orbits suited for high latitude links), to characterize the performance of different sets of intersatellite and satellite to ground links using real weather data and other parameters such as wavelengths and telescope sizes, typically seen in an optical communications system.
What are the real-world applications of this research? Free space optical communications involves the use of lasers in the infrared range to send data, whereas traditional communications systems use radio frequency (RF). While there are challenges associated with it, such as the need for very accurate laser pointing and also the negative impact of the atmosphere on the laser beam, there are also many potential benefits. Those benefits include much higher data rates than RF, the reduction in size, weight, and power requirements of the satellite (important for design) , and being able to send a signal over very long distances (e.g. future deep space missions to asteroids and Mars).
How would you describe your research experience this summer?: Research is a gradual process. It can be challenging, especially when you are just beginning to learn about a new field. However, as you get more familiar with the topic, it becomes less intimidating, which in turn makes you like it even more. I feel like my knowledge base began to accelerate toward the end of my research term, and I was able to develop a good understanding of a topic that has always interested me. I think many people might have preferred to work in the lab, collaborating in person, but even the experience at home (with virtual meetings) was invaluable and extremely rewarding.
Most rewarding part about working with your team? The most rewarding part of being a part of a research team is seeing how much knowledge, insight, and thought goes into solving a basic design problem, including uncovering the layers of complexity that the problem presents (and keeps presenting). Specifically, we were working on the problem of trying to get a laser from a satellite to the ground. There were many aspects to this problem that my team was investigating, such as adaptive optics, orbits and link availability, atmospheric modelling, different lasers and wave front sensors, developing a link budget, and so on. I really enjoyed how, as the summer progressed, I began to better understand how everything meshed together.