9311274 Kuga The Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington will purchase millimeter wave (MMW) equipment which will be dedicated to support interdisciplinary research in engineering. The equipment will be used for several projects, including (i) bistatic scattering from rough surfaces, (ii) localization of MMW in disordered media, (iii) coherent reflectivity of densely distributed particles, and (iv) characterization of composite materials and photon gap materials. Under NSF sponsorship, we have been conducting extensive experimental, numerical and theoretical studies on wave propagation and scattering in disordered media. These studies have potential applications in many engineering problems including localization of waves, photon gap materials, remote sensing and monitoring of environments, communications, imaging of biological media, and characterization of composite materials. Our main objective is to understand the interactions of waves with random or inhomogeneous media with the aim of applying the results to various engineering problems. We have emphasized the importance of combining analytical studies, controlled experiments, and numerical simulations. However, our MMW experiments are inadequate for our present and future studies because of the limited bandwidth available. The proposed wide band MMW will significantly expand the scope of our research to include short pulses in disordered media and material characterizations. ***
