Caltech Amateur Radio Club (CITARC) Meeting

FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response) is a low power radar developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that detects the heartbeats and breathing of victims buried in rubble.  In its first field deployment, FINDER assisted in the detection and rescue of four victims after the recent earthquake in Nepal.  FINDER's development was sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology directorate, going from concept to field trials in a bit more than a year.  Jim Lux will talk about FINDER development, test, and use.
 

Jim Lux, W6RMK, was the Task Manager/Principal Investigator for FINDER and HERMA – Heartbeat Microwave Authentication for cellphones and mobile devices using non-contact microwave techniques.  Jim is currently managing the developing two cubesats with high performance 5-30 MHz receivers.  Mr. Lux was the JPL Principal Investigator for NASA's SCaN Testbed, a Software Defined Radio experimental platform, which was installed on the International Space Station in 2012, for which he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal.  A licensed professional engineer in California, Mr. Lux has been at JPL for 17 years, following award winning work in physical special effects for film and TV, design and development of electronic warfare and signals identification systems, and large distributed software systems for database and dispatch applications.  He comes from a family of hams, his father Paul was W6CZA, and his grandfather Art(SK) was the original W6RMK.
 

This lecture highlights the first gathering of the Caltech Amateur Radio Club for the 2016-17 academic year.  Pizza and refreshments will be served after the talk.