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Selected Achievements of Dr. M. Lee Edwards

Dr. Edwards with Robbin Roddewig, a former ECE student and now a faculty member. Robbin currently teaches the Introduction to Wireless Technology class initially developed by Dr. Edwards.
Dr. Edwards with Robbin Roddewig, a former ECE student and now a faculty member. Robbin currently teaches the Introduction to Wireless Technology class initially developed by Dr. Edwards.
Dr. M. Lee Edwards recently (effective January 10, 2007) retired from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory after 30 years of service that started in January 1977. In 1981 he became a member of APL's Principal Professional Staff. From 1979 to 2006 was also a JHU faculty member in the Whiting School's Engineering Program for Professionals (EPP). Dr. Edwards was appointed Chair of the electrical and Computer Engineering Program (ECE) in 1986 a position in which he served continuously until December 2006.

Dr. Edwards began teaching in the EPP in 1979 where he taught existing classes in Differential equations, complex variables, Fourier Transforms. He subsequently developed and taught new courses in Antenna Systems, Electromagnetic Transmission Systems, RF and Microwave Circuits I and II, and Introduction to Wireless Technology.

At APL Dr. Edwards was appointed to be a group supervisor two times. His first appointment was to head the System Group in the NSTD, National Security Technology Department (formerly STD, the Submarine Technology department) where he was a colleague of Dr. Allan Bjerkass, the future dean of EPP.

In 1985 Dr. Edwards was appointed Fitzgerald-Dunning visiting professor where he worked for a year at the Homewood Campus with Dr. Roger Westgate where they jointly began realizing a vision of a unique RF and Microwave educational and research program with academic, industry and government participation. Both Drs. Edwards and Westgate believed that "hands-on" experience greatly enhanced education, especially in the area of RF and microwaves. The major obstacle was that the theory was mathematically intense and difficult to work with using only calculators and laboratory equipment was expensive. While initially focused on games and business interest and not scientific applications, the advent of personal computers became a key to dealing with the complex mathematical models. The availability of modern laboratory equipment was solved when Dr. Edwards began communicating to major providers that JHU graduates of our program would shortly be the one ones authorizing purchases for their companies and those students will naturally be familiar with what they had used in their classes. Equipment vendors began looking at donations to the JHU EPP laboratories not as a reluctant tax break opportunity but as a marketing initiative where generous donations could be expected to provide them a future edge in sales. The Edwards/Westgate vision resulted in a revolutionary new approach to microwave education consisting of an integration of design, fabrication, and testing concepts. Industry and government recognized the strength of this approach and rushed to participate both materially and by encouraging their employees to become students. As a result a state-of-the-art laboratory and related courses were created. Student design knowledge and skill was manifested by the fabrication of advanced RF circuits.

Picture of the RF engineering group at APL that Dr. Edwards headed from 1991 to 2006. Dr. Edwards is near center in white shirt. Many members of his group were and are students, teachers, lab instructors, and graders for the ECE program.
Picture of the RF engineering group at APL that Dr. Edwards headed from 1991 to 2006. Dr. Edwards is near center in white shirt. Many members of his group were and are students, teachers, lab instructors, and graders for the ECE program.
In 1989 Dr. Edwards negotiated with the TriQuint Foundry for them to fabricate student designs in a newly created Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMIC) course without charge to JHU. The normal fabrication for each chip was about $10K and TriQuint agreed to fabricate 5 different student designs a semester. TriQuint became an important ECE partner because of the high caliber of students involved in our program and they recognized the future payoff of future graduates familiar with their foundry. TriQuint, EPP, and APL all recognized the technical benefit of having talented students produce experimental microwave chip designs that could be of future value to them. John Penn and Dr. Roger Westgate taught the first MMIC class in 1989. John Penn single-handily created the first TriQuint CAD library that permitted students to lay out chip designs and to simulate performance on a personal computer. This library was critical so that their designs could be created checked and readied for a foundry submission in a single semester. This initial library provided the foundation for the modern libraries used today in most of the industry. The fabrication process typically takes several months and so when the chips were returned the students were invited to test them in the laboratory and to compare how well actual performance compared to their design predictions. Although the testing was purely voluntary, without the incentive of a grade, every student returned to test their chip. This course has continued every year from 1989 to the present and John Penn is still the principle teacher.

Many other talented and some very prominent engineers are members of the ECE faculty. While Dr. Edwards was Chair he was supported enormously by Dr. Robert (Bob) McDonough and Dr. Dexter Smith as Vice chairs of the program. Also, other years very talented full-time JHU engineering staff support the Dorsey center microwave faculties: Sheng Cheng (currently on the staff at APL) followed by Dave Newman, followed by Nathan Richardson who was followed currently by Pat Garner. They have worked hard to support the ECE RF and Microwave instructors, to insure proper operation of the facilities and expensive laboratory equipment, and to promote continued advancement of our course to insure that they stay industry relevant and at the cutting edge. The ECE program used the Dorsey center microwave facilities to support and enhance the JHU partnership with Morgan State University. Dr. Edwards and Dr. Carl White, a distinguished Morgan professor, worked together sharing ideas and resources. A testimony of the value of the collaboration can be seen in the fact that Morgan students have taken JHU courses, gotten JHU advanced degrees and served as EPP instructors.

Upon his return to APL in 1986 Dr. Edwards was appointed Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Program. In 1991 Dr. Edwards was appointed for a second time to be an APL group supervisor when he was asked to head APL RF engineering group in the Space Department. His group pioneered space RF systems that included new spacecraft communication and navigation systems, the first deep space fixed beam and steerable beam phased array antenna system, new technology including GaAs circuits for space applications, and a circular polarized slotted waveguide phased array. The impact of his group under Dr. Edwards' leadership is symbolized by the unique and technologically creative RF systems on board the MESSENGER spacecraft bound for the our solar systems inter most planet Mercury and the New Horizons spacecraft bound for the outer planet Pluto.

Dr. Edwards always enjoyed working with JHU students, faculty, and staff. For example, Dr. Jeff Sinsky, a JHU EPP and Homewood Ph.D alumni, they created a new microwave amplifier design technique using a new criterion involving a special parameter designated by the Greek letter ? (mu). Their design criterion has been implemented in all of the commercial modern RF and microwave CAD routines. Dr. Sinsky and Dr. Edwards developed a new printed circuit antenna design approach using integrated CAD, rapid proto-typing, and computer controlled testing to design the first microstip phased array antenna that was employed on the Near Earth Rendezvous (NEAR) that orbited and ultimately landed on the asteroid EROS. Dr. Edwards also worked with Sheng Cheng, another EPP alumnus, to produce the definitive work on microwave amplifier design published in the Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and together they developed a MATLAB ™ CAD Toolbox to facilitate the design and analysis of RF circuits. This tool is currently used in the ECE program and provides students visibility into design tools and means to do advanced design work on their home computers where it is easy for them to experiment "virtually" with new ideas and thereby expand their understanding.

Dr. Edwards' EPP tenure is marked with lots of accomplishment, but the one that means the most to him is the satisfaction of associating with such fine faculty and students. Dr. Edwards says, "All in all it was a lot of fun and very rewarding. I will a lways remember project designed, assembled, and tested by students. They always worked extremely hard and the results were exciting. This included, for example, student radars tested down the long hallway at the Dorsey center and radar altimeters tested from the roof of the Dorsey center." Dr. Edwards currently resides in Morehead City, North Carolina where he is enjoying retirement by building Peruvian Walnut baby cradles for the families of his four children.

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