Thesis Defense Announcement for William Woo – 03/24/2022 at 10:00 AM
March 3, 2022
Title: A Harmonic Radar System for Honey Bee Tracking to Better Understand Colony Collapse Disorder
When: Thursday, March 24th at 10:00am
Where: Cisco Webex
https://msstate.webex.com/msstate/j.php?MTID=mae43f968d01b24cf099e141755c1958e
Candidate: William Woo
Degree: Masters, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Committee:
Dr. John Ball
(Major Professor)
Dr. Ali Gurbuz
(Co-Major Professor)
Dr. Garrett Street
(Committee Member)
Abstract:
Honey bees are some of the most important pollinators for agriculture in the world and are pivotal to the health of worldwide ecosystems. Like all insects, bees struggle with exposure to parasites, diseases, and other environmental factors that can negatively affect the overall health of the colony. Recently, a new unexplainable phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been wreaking havoc on bee populations worldwide. As a result, a system capable of tracking bees is required to understand the different contributions of chemicals, parasites, etc. to CCD. This research seeks to show data supporting the development of systems for an X-band harmonic radar system. Overall, it was found the harmonic oscillator’s conversion and antenna efficiency were the most important design factors for determining detectability at increased ranges. Therefore, multiple harmonic oscillators were simulated and developed at a fundamental frequency of 5 GHz with these design factors in mind.