Radio Science Bulletin 313 - June 2005 - URSI

Décide1. d’accepter l’invitation du comité américain de l’URSIpour organiser la XXIXe Assemblée générale à Chicago,Illinois de 7 à 16 août 2008;2. d’adresser aux comités membres en la Suède et en laTurquie ses remerciements pour leurs invitations.U.4 Vote of Thanks to the IndianURSI CommitteeThe URSI Council,organisation of the XXVIIIth General Assembly in NewDelhi.U.4 Remerciements au Comitéindien de l’URSILe Conseil de l’URSI,décide à l’unanimité de transmettre au comité indien sesvifs remerciements et son appréciation pour l’organisationde la XXVIIIe Assemblée générale à New Delhi.resolves unanimously to convey to the Indian URSICommitee its warm thanks and appreciation for the2004 Electromagnetics Prize AwardedThe Electromagnetics Prize, dedicated by URSI andsponsored by the Summa Foundation, was awarded in 2004to Prof. Ludger Klinkenbusch, University of Kiel/Germany,for his solution of the problem “Scattering of a PlaneElectromagnetic Wave by an Infinitesimally Thin PerfectlyConducting Quarter Plane.” The bestowal of the prize –USD 10,000 and a certificate – was organized as a festiveceremony during the 2005 conference of the German URSIMember Committee in Miltenberg/ Kleinheubach inSeptember, 2005. Prof. Karl Langenberg, President of theGerman Committee and a member of the prize competitionpanel, gave a brief introduction. He explained that theproblem posed bridging the gap between Sommerfeld’sfamous solution of the half-plane problem, utilizing analyticfunctions on Riemann surfaces, and Klinkenbusch’sapproach to the quarter-plane problem, bringing theeigenfunctions of the elliptical cone into play.The President of URSI, Prof. Kristian Schlegel, handedover the prize (Figure 1). Prof. Klinkenbusch then presenteda tutorial overview on his solution. In principle, theeigenfunction expansion of the dyadic Green function wasused to calculate the induced surface-current density on thequarter-plane, which was the source of the scattered field.However, the resulting series expansion suffered fromdivergence, and this problem was attacked and solved byKlinkenbusch with a tricky summation technique. Thisyielded numerical results for the quarter-plane diffractioncoefficient from an analytical expression, as requested bythe 2004 Electromagnetics Prize problem.Karl LangenbergUniversity of KasselFB 16 - Electrical Engineering/Computer ScienceWilhelmshöher Allee 7134121 Kassel, GermanyE-mail: langenberg@uni-kassel.deFigure 1. Prof. Ludger Klinkenbusch (l)received the 2004 Electromagnetics Prizefrom URSI President Prof. Kristian Schlegel.TheRadio Science Bulletin No 313 (June, 2005) 75