Microwave pioneer gets Frank Whittle Medal

British microwave engineer Professor Peter Clarricoats is to receive the Sir Frank Whittle Medal, one of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s highest accolades.

Clarricoats, CBE FREng FRS, gets the Whittle Medal for influential achievements spanning more than half a century.

According to the Academy, these achievements include:

• Research with Sir Charles Kao optical fibre technology – Kao got a Nobel prize for inventing optical fibres.
• Influential work on the high-performance microwave antennas for satellite communications.
• The first person in the UK to explore the behaviour of ferrites. “His book Microwave Ferrites became an essential text for those developing microwave radar and communications systems,” said the academy.
• First to use computers to design microwave waveguide junctions (University of Leeds).
• Establishment of the journal Electronic Letters.
• A theory that confirmed the correct choice of physical attributes in optical fibre (Queen Mary University of London).
• Microwave antennas for communication and radar systems. “Most ground station reflectors, radio astronomy reflectors and satellite antennas now use corrugated horns of the type first investigated by Professor Clarricoats in the 1970s and ’80s,” said the Academy.
• Industrial and government appointments with institutions including the Ministry of Defence and the European Space Agency.

Any wisdom to pass on?

“My message to academics is to get involved with industry,” said Clarricoats, “Since I joined the academic world from industry in 1959, I have been able to start research groups at Queens University Belfast, the University of Leeds and finally at Queen Mary University of London where I have spent the last 47 years. In all three I was greatly helped by outstanding colleagues and from the outset was fortunate to have support from industry, government and the European Space Agency. We had great success in solving many of the problems they posed, often with innovative ideas.”

Academy President Professor Dame Ann Dowling will present the award to at the Academy’s AGM in London on 21 September.

steve bush

from News http://ift.tt/1PxXj0t
via Yuichun