On Friday, May 6, I defended two project proposals before my PhD committee and was advanced to PhD Candidate. The first proposal was to build a series of natural experiments to determine the reliability of LoRa communications in forested, rugged terrain (i.e. Western and High Oregon Cascades). The goal of this project was to create bidirectional communications between remotely deployed environmental sensors and internet gateways that will enable natural hazards sensor arrays along key transportation corridors and near remote communities. This project will be expanded to include other technologies.
The second proposal was to build a series of laboratory experiments to develop a Paschen’s curve for wildfire ash-contaminated air. A Paschen’s curve depicts the relationship between the breakdown voltage of a gas in relation to its pressure, and the spacing between two electrodes. This will determine if ash contribution to the atmosphere in a wildfire plume has any relationship with lightning generated inside the plume. I am hoping to bring this project to maturity by the fall so that initial results can be published.
