Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. That's right, I'm back at
PSU. I've started classes the Spring 2016 term and I'm planning on finishing my doctorate this time around.
I have graduated as of 2012! This website will remain posted until I can find another suitable web host.
Greetings Travelers of the Infobahn,
Welcome to my information pit stop [slash] chop shop. Here you will find helpful materials on electric circuit analysis and applied electromagnetics. While working as a teaching and research assistant at Portland State University (PSU) I have collected a decent archive of solved problems, video lectures, quick reference guides, and research papers. While not everything in my archives is posted here, I feel that the information presented is a fair representation of the key concepts that undergraduates in an electrical engineering program sometimes struggle with. I like to think of this site as a living document, and as such, I welcome any and all feedback pertaining to its content. Best regards,
Alex Higgins
I've been updating the website but it's still a work-in-progress. Please bear with me while I get eveything back in order, thank you.
Office:
Email:
Classes
Projects
This section contains current and past projects that I have worked on. Most are for personal interest or to help facilitate my work.
Bayesian Fusion of Heterogeneous Data for Event Detection
This is a joint project with PSU NEAR-Lab and Metron (US Air Force) for joint processing of sensor data streams.
Link to NEAR-Lab project can be found here.
Magnetic Levitation Rubix Cube
This is a personal project that involves creating a magnetic levitation platform for a Rubix Cube.
Details about the science behind this project can be found here.
LTSpice for OS X
This is a WINE wrapper application of the popular LTSpice circuit simulator, schematic capture and waveform viewer by Linear Technologies. The application was built using Wineskin v2.5, using the WS8Wine v1.3.32 engine. It's been tested to work on Intel based Apple computers running OS 10.7.
Download LTSpiceIV for OS X here.
Aprilia Scooter Car Charger
This is a personal project that involves design and installation of a 12 V car changer outlet on my 2001 Aprilia scooter.
Details about the science behind this project can be found here.
Publications
This is a catalogue of my published research work.
- J. A. Higgins, "Measurement and Simulation of Parallel Plate Waveguide Structures in the Terahertz Region for Sensing and Material Characterization Applications," Master's Thesis, Portland State University. (Bibtex) (PDOT)
- A. Higgins, F. Kernan, and B. Pejcinovic, "Application of open-source meep software to terahertz radiation waveguide problems," in MIPRO, pp. 118-123, IEEE, 2011. (Bibtex)
- A. Higgins, B. Pejcinovic, C. Cowen, and F. Kernan, "An investigation of parallel plate waveguide terahertz radiation input coupling," SPIE Proceedings, vol. 8023, no. 1, pp. 802310-802310-13, 2011. (Bibtex)
- A. Higgins, F. Kernan, and B. Pejcinovic, "Multimode characterization of parallel plate waveguide," in Microwave Measurement Symposium (ARFTG),, 2010 76th ARFTG, pp. 1-5, 30 2010-Dec. 3 2010. (Bibtex)
- F. Kernan, M. Wachsmuth, J. Higgins, B. Pejcinovic, L. Zurk, and R. Campbell, "Utilizing parallel plate waveguide modes for terahertz sensing," in Infrared Millimeter and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz), 2010 35th International Conference on, pp. 1–2, Sept. 2010. (Bibtex)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- I'm new to Matlab, what's the quickest way to get up to speed?
If you are new to Matlab or just need a refresher, a great place to start is the Mathworks website. There are a bunch of demo/example videos there. I suggest starting with the following, then working through the ones that interest you.
- Getting started with MATLAB
- Writing a MATLAB Program
- Working with Arrays
- Using Basic Plotting Functions
These are all approximately 5 min each. I believe that one of them mentions the "help" command, but DON'T underestimate it's usefulness. Even after using MATLAB for years I use that command all the time.
Miscellaneous Documents
This section contains documents that I have found to be useful reference material. In fact, I have some of these posted on the wall of my work space because I use them so often.
What am I up to now?