Melvin M. Weiner

Melvin M. Weiner (December 5, 1933 - February 12, 2016) was a mechanical engineer, author, and inventor. Weiner authored three books and 36 refereed papers. He was also the holder of five patents. He was the first to reduce pass-bands and stop-bands in photonic crystals to practice. Weiner was the founder-chairman of the Motor Vehicle Safety Group.

Education

Weiner received S.B. and S.M. degrees with honors in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1]

Motor Vehicle Safety Group

Weiner was the founder-chairman of the Motor Vehicle Safety Group contributing to the establishment of the current National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Weiner also contributed to making the car bumper commonplace.[2]

Photonic crystals

The pass-bands and stop-bands in photonic crystals were first reduced to practice by Weiner [3] who called those crystals "discrete phase-ordered media." He achieved those results by extending Darwin's[4] dynamical theory for x-ray Bragg diffraction to arbitrary wavelengths, angles of incidence, and cases where the incident wavefront at a lattice plane is scattered appreciably in the forward-scattered direction.

Works

Patents

• Solar Pumped Laser, US patent 3,297,958
• Solar Thernionic Converter US Patent 3,467,840
• Systems and Components for the Utilization of Electromagnetic Waves in Discrete, Phase Ordered Media US Patent 4,079,340
• Unstable Optical Resonator with Off-Axis Non-Centered Obscuration US Patent 4,079,340
• Electron Stream Deflection System, US patent 3,280,361

Books

• Monopole Elements on Circular Ground Planes
• Monopole Antennas
• Adaptive Antennas and Receivers
• Weiner also wrote chapter 4 in Progress in Electromagnetics Research (PIER 8) "Performance of Ground-Based High-Frequency Receiving Arrays with Electronically Small Ground Planes"

Papers

Weiner authored thirty-six refereed papers and one-hundred-thirty-five technical reports.[2] Publications include:

• "Ferrite Reciprocal Phase Shift Properties (at 200-400 MHz)," Proceedings of the 1959 Electronic Components Conference, Philadelphia, p. 26, May 1959 (with K. Teragawa and W. Fitzgerald).
• "A New Method of Electronic Scanning Using a Combination Parallel Plate Transmission Line Feed," Proceedings, Electronic Scanning Symposium, Air Force Cambridge Research Center, Lexington, MA, 29 April - I May 1958 (talk given by G. Ploussios); see also "An Electronic Scanning Antenna System," AFCRC-TR-59-100 (Chu Associates, Littleton, MA), January 1959 (with G. Ploussios), NTIS AD 304191.
• "Light Gathering Properties of Optical Systems with Extended Sources," J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 54, 1109 ( 1964).
• "Propagation of the Quasi-TEM Mode in Ferrite-Filled Coaxial Line," IEEE Trans. on Microwave Theory and Techniques MTT-4, 49 (1966).
• "Directional Traffic Flow " Traffic Quarterly 20, 589 (1966).
• "Specular Reflections in Scintillation Frustums and Cylinders " IEEE Trans. of Nuclear Science NS-14, 686 (1967).
• "Transient TEM Waves in Unbounded Radial Line " Radio Science 2, 1517 (1967).
• "Atmospheric Turbulence in Optical Surveillance Systems" Applied Optics 6, 1984 (1967).
• "Differences Between the Lowest Order Mode and Quasi-TEM Mode in Ferrite-Filled Coaxial Line " Proc. of the IEEE (letter) 55, 1740 (1967).
• "Analysis of Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multipliers with an Arbitrary Number of Stages" Rev. of Scientific Instruments 40, 330 (1969).
• "Magnetostrictive Offset .and Noise in Flux Gate Magnetometers," IEEE Trans. on Magnetics MAG-5, 98 (1969).
• "Wave Propagation in Phase-Ordered Media, " The Bridge of Eta Kappa Nu Association 67, 3 August 1971).
• "Multiple Scattering of E-M Waves in Isotropic Phase-Ordered Media," Bull. Am. Phys. Soc., Series II, 1425 (1971).
• "Bibliography of Papers, 1963-1973, Motor Vehicle Safety Group " ASME Publication 73-1CT-35, Intersociety Conference of Transportation, September 1973.
• "Useful Beam Quality Design Curves for Unstable Resonators," Opt. Eng. 13, 87 (1974).
• "Spatially Dispersive Transmission Bands at Small Grazing Angles of Incidence," Optics News, p. 23, Sept. 1975
• "Collecting Capability of An Optical System "Appl. Optics, 15, 838 (1976).
• "Fraunhofer Diffraction Patterns from Uniformly Illuminated Square Output Apertures with Non-centered Square Obscurations," Appl. Optics 15, 2228 (1976). (with G. Sutton and S. Mani)
• "Far Field Energy in the Geometric Mode Limit of Loaded Unstable Resonators with Centered or Corner Obscurations," Appl. Optics 16 1790 (1977)
• "Composite One- and Two-Pass Gain Saturation in the Geometric Mode Limit of Unstable Resonators," IEEE, J. Quantum Electronics (Letters) QE-13, 803 (1977).
• "Modes of Empty Off-Axis Unstable Resonators with Rectangular Mirrors," Appl. Optics 18, 1828 (1979)
• "Use of the Longley-Rice and Johnson-Gierhart Tropospheric Radio Propagation Programs, 0.02-20 GHz," IEEE J. of Selected Areas in Communications SAC-4, 297 (1986).
• "Monopole Element at the Center of a Circular Groundplane whose Radius is Small or Comparable to a Wavelength," IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation AP-35, 488 (1987) also The Reflector 35, No. 6, 20 (1987). See also Proceedings, Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS 1989) Boston, MA., July 25-26, 1989, p. 216.
• "Noise Factor of a Receiving System with Arbitrary Antenna Impedance Mismatch," IEEE Trans. on Aerospace and Electronic Systems AES-24, 1233 (1988), also MITRE Journal 1989, 191-202 (1989).
• "Tuning Stability of a Digitally-Tuned, Electrically-Short Monopole Element on Disk Groundplanes of Different Radii," J. of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications, Vol. 5, No. 11, pp. 1199-1215, (1991); also Proceedings, Progress in Electromagnetic Research Symposium (Piers 1989), Boston, MA. July 25-26, 1989, p. 217.
• "Noise Factor and Antenna Gains in the Signal/Noise Equation for Over-the-Horizon Radar," IEEE Trans. on Aerospace and Electronics Systems AES-27, No. 6, pp. 886-890 (1991); "Addendum," AES-30, No. 2, p. 648 (1994); also MITRE Journal 1992, pp. 129¬143 (1992).
• "Electrically Small, Quarter-Wave, and Resonant Monopole Elements with Disk Ground Planes in Free Space," Proceedings, Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS 1991), Cambridge, MA., July 1-5, 1991, p. 690.
• "Input Impedance and Gain of Monopole Elements with Disk Ground Planes on Flat Earth" Proceedings, Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS 1991), Cambridge, MA., July 1-5, 1991, p. 691 (with S. Zamoscianyk and G. J. Burke).
• "Radiation Efficiency and Input Impedance of Monopole Elements with Radial-Wire Ground Planes in Proximity to Earth," Electronics Letters, Vol. 28, No. 16, pp. 1550-1551 (1992); "Reply to J. R. Wait," Electronics Letters, Vol. 28, No. 25, p. 2329 (1992).
• "Radiation Efficiency and Directivity of Monopole Elements with Disk Ground Planes on Flat Earth," Electronics Letters, Vol. 28, No. 25, pp. 2282-2283 (1992).
• Influence of Non-Homogeneous Earth on the Performance of High-Frequency Receiving Arrays with Electrically-Small Ground Planes," Radio Science, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 55-71 (1994).
• "Validation of the Numerical Electromagnetic Code (NEC) for Antenna Wire Elements in Proximity to Earth," Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 44-71 (1993).

References

1. Monopole Antennas. Marcel Dekker. ISBN 0-8247-0496-7.
2. Adaptive Antennas and Receivers. Taylor and Francis. pp. xiii. ISBN 0-8493-3764-X.
3. Melvin M. Weiner, "systems and components for the utilization of electromagnetic waves in discrete phase-ordered media," U.S. patent 3765773, Oct. 16, 1973 (filed Oct. 5, 1970).
4. Charles Galton Darwin, "The theory of x-ray reflection", Phil. Mag., vol. 27, pp. 315-333, Feb. 1914, pp. 675-690, April 1914.