After more than 30 years of technology development, near-field radar imaging is poised for widespread deployment across numerous NDE applications. This technology has greatly benefited from significant investments from emerging markets such as telecommunications (5G), collision avoidance radar, and artificial intelligence (AI). These investments have significantly lowered the bill-of-material hardware costs of these systems and increased processing speeds, enabling real-time synthetic imaging with GPUs. In addition, novel and efficient image reconstruction algorithms have been developed that can be used across the electromagnetic spectrum from RF (300MHz) to THz (1000GHz). These advanced algorithms enable developers to select the system operational frequency to optimize performance for either better penetration through optical opaque dielectric barriers, or higher resolution. Furthermore, these NDE systems can be configurated for various sizes and scanning approaches such as planar, cylindrical, or even free form. The first widespread application for this technology was airport personnel screening for security, using a first-generation cylindrical scanning configuration developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Doug McMakin, one of the original inventors, will discuss the development of this technology and other NDE applications including through-wall/barrier, shoe scanning, ground-penetrating radar, medical applications, space-based applications, and AI for automatic detection. Mr. McMakin will also share future NDE opportunities and challenges for commercialization and deployment.

Doug McMakin

Doug McMakin is an internationally recognized innovator in millimeter-wave imaging applications. He has vast experience in working with government, commercial, and university partners to develop innovative, field-deployable prototypes and commercial systems using system engineering techniques. As a project manager and technical lead at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for 30+ years, he led numerous holographic radar imaging research and development projects. Most notable was developing and commercializing the first-of-its-kind near-real-time millimeter-wave systems for airport personnel screening for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. These systems are now operating in more than 250 airports and other facilities worldwide. He also led the development of technology for body measurements for biometrics and clothing applications. McMakin has received 20 U.S. patents, authored or co-authored more than 50 publications, received national awards for innovation and technology transfer, and presented papers at numerous national and international conferences and symposiums. He was personally acknowledged by the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security for providing technical advice and special support to the Commission, and he received the Homeland Security Award from the Congressionally established Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation.

In 2019, McMakin launched Imago IQ LLC, a consulting company for ultrasonic and millimeter-wave imaging applications. His focus is conceiving, developing, and testing practical electronic instrumentation for real-world government and commercial applications using ultrasonics, radiofrequency, radar, and terahertz technologies. McMakin hold a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University and a M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix.

Electromagnetic NDE (EMNDE) methods and in particular, eddy current NDT is one of the most commonly used methods to ensure fitness of purpose as well as to ensure safety of operation of critical components. Eddy current methods have evolved over the years to address the varying demands of industry. As manufacturing methods and materials evolve, NDE technologies have to keep pace with these advances, demanding innovations in sensor design, instrumentation and data analytics.

Rapid advances in computational resources have given us the ability to design and optimize novel sensors for novel applications. This talk will cover examples of contributions made in advancing the use of low frequency EMNDE sensors to inspection of nonferromagnetic and ferromagnetic materials as well as composite materials.

Dr. Lalita Udpa

Lalita Udpa received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University. After a stint of 11 years at Iowa State University, she is currently a University Distinguished Professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University.

Dr. Udpa works primarily in the broad areas of Nondestructive Evaluation, Signal Processing and Biomedical applications. Her research interests include various aspects of NDE such as development of computational models for NDE and its use in sensor design optimization, signal and image processing, multi-modal NDE data fusion, and inverse problem solutions. Dr. Udpa is on the Editorial Board of Research Techniques in NDE and serves as an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Maganetics. She has supervised around 35 PHD students and 50 Masters Theses Dr. Udpa is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the American Society of Nondestructive Testing and Indian Society of Nondestructive Testing.