Communications: ionospheric instrumentation, measurements and interpretation

My primary Engineering research activity is in radars for atmospheric/ionospheric measurements (HF radars). Previously, my group developed a digital ionosonde called the Canadian Advanced Digital Ionosonde (CADI). After building a few of these instruments ourselves, the design was licensed to, and has been manufactured by, S.I.L. in Saskatoon for a number of years. It has international sales. Recent Engineering projects have been directed towards improvement in this radar, mainly through signal processing. At present we are beginning to look into a new version of the CADI that uses the "software radio" approach based on a number of new chips that have recently appeared on the market. These chips will be used not only for the improved CADI, but for other applications such as "passive radars" that use commercial signals in place of the transmitter part of a radar, and satellite work in conjunction with the EPOP satellite that is now building by the Canadian Space Agency. A second part of my research activity, and a part that occupies much of my time, is to process the data collected by the CADI, and some other radars, to extract geophysical information, and to lean more about ionospheric processes.

J.W. MacDougall
P.ENG., PROFESSOR
BSc, BE, PhD