The Center for Directed Energy provides summer internship opportunities in STEM, beginning in May 2021 for a duration of 10 to 12 weeks. Each intern is matched to specific projects and mentors for this duration. Interns are paid an hourly rate as contractors and are part of the Center staff here at Wright-Patterson AFB. Relocation and travel are not provided, however, some projects will be able to be completed remotely. Phone interviews will be conducted for selected applicants.

Project Description: In the past microwave link studies primarily concentrated on extreme rainrate climatologies and durations as the wavelengths/frequencies involved were little affected by clouds and light to moderate and/or ice precipitation. But newer microwave communication systems exploit the V (40-75 GHz) & W (75-110 GHz) bands that are more readily affected by clouds and all types of precipitation. The weather cube methodology enables the quantification of these environmental effects on the V and W bands for any location worldwide without having to conduct in situ measurement campaigns. A Weather Cube is a three dimensional mesh of numerical weather prediction (NWP) data plus LEEDR calculations that allows for the quantification of rain, cloud, aerosol, and molecular effects at any UV to RF wavelength on any path contained within the cube. Propagation statistics can be compiled from weather cubes that are calculated for NWP + LEEDR meshes constructed from multiple analysis runs every day going back numerous years in the NWP database.