Jeff Frolik is a Professor in Electrical Engineering and whose research focuses on wireless communications in complex environments, wireless sensing, and distributed control. This work has resulted in over 150 peer-reviewed publications, 12 patents, and has involved over 30 graduate students. The work has been supported by industry and by NSF, DOE, NASA, DOT and USDA/NIFA.
He has spent sabbaticals as a research scientist at UC Santa Barbara’s Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Lab (SNARL) and the University of Oxford (UK). In Spring of 2017 held the Fulbright Distinguished Chair position at the Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague, and returned to CTU in Fall 2022 as a Fulbright Scholar. He is co-founder of the cleantech startup company, Packetized Energy, that was acquired by EnergyHub in 2021.
Contact Info
Office: VOTEY 355
Phone: 802.656.0732
Email: JFROLIK@UVM.EDU
Education
Ph.D. E.E. – Systems: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, MI (1995)
MSEE: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Los Angeles, CA (1988)
BSEE: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA, Mobile, AL (1986)
Experience
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT, Burlington, VT (2002-date)
TENNESSEE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY, Cookeville, TN (1998-2002)†
INDEPENDENT SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT (1995 – 1998)
HUGHES AIRCRAFT COMPANY, Los Angeles, CA. (1986 – 1995)
Publications
Publications 2023
M. Polivka and J. Frolik, Characterizing harmonic transponder performance jointly over frequency and power, European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Florence IT, March 2023.
J. Frolik, AM interrogation of harmonic transponders for measuring channel loss, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium, Portland OR, June 2023.
M. Polivka and J. Frolik, Impact of bodies on harmonic transponder conversion loss and radiation patterns, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium, Portland OR, June 2023.
Publications 2022
M. Almassalkhi, J. Frolik, and P. Hines, Packetizing the Power Grid, invited article to IEEE Spectrum, February 2022. Online: https://spectrum.ieee.org/packetized-power-grid
S. Chowdhury, J. Frolik and A. Benslimane, Switching-based Selection Techniques for Tripolar Antennas in Multi-hop IoT Networks, in press, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 9, no. 17, September 2022.
M. Polivka and J. Frolik, On performance metrics for harmonic transponders, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, in review, submitted: December 2022.
I. Uluer, J. Frolik and T. Weller, Battery-free mechanically-tunable wireless sensors for railroad track ballast monitoring, IEEE Symposium on Antennas and Propagation, Denver CO, July 2022.
Publications 2021
E. Fennelly and J. Frolik, Phase measurement and correction for software defined radio systems. IEEE Wireless & Microwave Technology Conference. Virtual. April 2021.
T. Laracy and J. Frolik, A software defined radio interrogator for passive harmonic transponder. IEEE Wireless & Microwave Technology Conference. Virtual. April 2021.
R. Ramirez, M. Golmohamadi, J. Jamison, J. Frolik, T. Weller, Additive manufactured, on-package 2.4 GHz tripolar antenna systems for harsh wireless channels, IEEE Wireless & Microwave Technology Conference. Virtual. April 2021.
Publications 2020
M. Golmohamadi and J. Frolik, A geometric scattering model for circularly polarized indoor channels, IEEE Transactions Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 68, No. 3, March 2020.
S. Chowdhury and J. Frolik, Coordinating three-branch diversity switching using a hidden Markov model, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 2020.
B. Hewgill, R. McGinnis and J. Frolik, A low-cost modular health monitoring garment. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference. Montreal QC. June 20-24, 2020.
A. Doiron, R. McGinnis, J. Bates, J. Uriarte, N. Fiorentino and J. Frolik, Work in Progress: A vertically-integrated, project-focused approach to undergraduate biomedical engineering education. ASEE Annual Conference, Montreal QC. June 21-24, 2020.
S. Chowdhury, L. Hébert-Dufresne and J. Frolik, Effective implementation of energy aware polarization diversity for IoT networks using eigenvector centrality. NetSci-X 2020. Tokyo JP. January 20-22, 2020.
Research Highlights and News
Our work has demonstrated that channel fading characteristics can be worse than previous considered for wireless systems; fading we have deemed to be hyper-Rayleigh.
Algorithms, originally designed to coordinate the communications of wireless sensors, have been applied to coordinating electric loads through a patented technique referred to as packetized energy management.
New work in collaboration with Oregon St. and South Florida is investigating the use of harmonic transponders to assess the recovery of landscapes after severe forest fires. Project kicked off in Summer ’23. More news to come!