Joan F. Muñoz Martin
Ph.D. in Telecommunications Engineering, Researcher
- info@joanfm.com
- https://joanfm.com
- Mallorca (Spain)
Telecommunications engineer with B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from UPC BarcelonaTech. I’m currently the deputy director of the Space Communications Research Group at Fundació i2CAT, focusing on research and innovation on 6G technologies applied to Non Terrestrial Networks (NTN). I’ve been previously at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, focusing on signal processing for Earth Observation and innovative instruments. I’ve worked on NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory on board the International Space Station, and contributed to DSN’s Goldstone Solar System Radar. I also led the implementation of several satellite-based remote sensing payloads at the UPC NanoSat Lab (3Cat-X family). I have been part of ESA’s BEXUS 19, Fly Your Satellite II, and 3Cat-5/FSSCat projects
Work Experience
Senior Researcher
- Space Communications Area Deputy Director
- 6GStarLab mission Systems Engineer
- Satellite mission frequency coordinator
- Ph.D. thesis co-director
Research Technologist
- Principal Investigator for NASA ROSES awarded SmallSat Ice and Snow Thickness monitoring project (SITS)
- Co-Investigator on JPL’s SRTD on the use of superconductors for efficient ultra-cold-atom transport and trapping
- Process and Electrical Engineer (Cognizant Engineer) for the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL)
- Software Engineer for the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR)
- Data Scientist and Software Engineer for the SMAP-Reflectometry project
- Research and develop new technologies, tools, and methodologies to improve existing JPL systems, wheter is software or hardware
Post-doctoral Fellow
- Electrical and Software Engineer on the develoment and implementation of passive mmWave remote sensing systems
- Data scientist and Software Engineer for the ROSES-awarded SMAP-Reflectometry project
Pre-doctoral Fellow
- Design, implement, and test development of several CubeSat mission runned by the UPC NanoSat-Lab
- Laboratory lead for remote sensing and software develoment, helping BSc. and MSc. students and Ph.D. candidates to excel in their future work
- Lead the retrieval of geophysical parameters using the Microwave Interferometric Reflectometer
- Co-mentor of MSc. and BSc. theses
Research Assistant
- Implementation of satellite telemetry tracking and command (TT&C) ground station at UPC and Montsec observatory
- Development of communication systems for nanosatellites (3Cat-1, 3Cat-2, and 3Cat-4)
Administrative Assistant
- Summer job with administrative and archival responsabilities
Projects
Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL)
- Cognizant Engineer responsible for several hardware deliveries to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Cold Atom Laboratory upgrade plan
- Engineering support to science operations (ground testing, in-orbit problem solving, etc.)
SMAP-Reflectometry
- Responsible for L1b to L2 processing chains. Softwares written in C, Python, Bash, and MATLAB
- Conference presentations, manuscript production, production of documentation and internal reports
- Developed three new technologies, accepted by JPL/Caltech and provisionally filed for patent
Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR)
- Signal processing: enhance GSSR capabilities by the implementation of several techniques, as polarimetric retrievals, enhanced frequency processing, and parallelization techniques for higher throughput
- Software engineering support on code optimization, documentaiton, and maintenance
- Contributions to Cis-Lunar orbital debris observations
Microwave Temperature and Humidity Probe (MTHP)
- Design of high resolution 60 GHz digital spectrometer for atmospheric sounding
- Implementation and characterization of the instrument
- Flight campaign instrument lead in Kona, Hawaii
- Receipient of a JPL internal award and a NASA award for the first flight of a high resolution spectrometer
Smart Ice Cloud Sensing (SMICES)
- Design and implementation of a miniaturized 8 GHz analog spectrometer including detection, amplification, and filtering
- Design and implementation of a power distribution board for next versions of digital spectrometers
FSSCat
- 2017 ESA S^3 and Copernicus Master winner
- First ESA third-party mission to contribute to Copernicus program
- Mission definition, requirement, design documents, test plans, and frequency coordination with other countries
- Payload lead from PDR to subsystem delivery to science lead for geophysical parameter retrieval including soil moisture, wind speed over the ocean, sea surface salinity, and sea-ice characterization
MOSAiC
- Design and implementation of a scientific instrument for sea-ice thickness detection, deployed in the Arctic Ocean in 2020
- Responsible for algorithms development to conduct scientific retrievals
3Cat-4
- Part of ESA Fly Your Satellite 2 program
- Mission definition, requirement, design documents, test plans
- Payload lead from PDR to subsystem delivery
- Software development team for C&DH
- Lead on TT&C on-board and on-ground
Information
Selected Publications
- J. F. Munoz-Martin et al., “Stokes Parameters Retrieval and Calibration of Hybrid Compact Polarimetric GNSS-R Signals,” in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 60, pp. 1-11, 2022, Art no. 5113911, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2022.3178578. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2022.3178578
- J. F. Munoz-Martin et al., “Analysis of polarimetric GNSS-R Stokes parameters of the Earth’s land surface,” Remote Sensing of Environment, vol. 287. Elsevier BV, p. 113491, Mar. 2023. doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2023.113491. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2023.113491
- J. F. Munoz-Martin et al., “Calibration Strategy for Compact Polarimetric GNSS-R Instruments,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 61. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), pp. 1–13, 2023. doi: 10.1109/tgrs.2023.3266602. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2023.3266602
- J. F. Munoz-Martin et al., “The Flexible Microwave Payload-2: A SDR-Based GNSS-Reflectometer and L-Band Radiometer for CubeSats,” in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 13, pp. 1298-1311, 2020, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2977959. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2977959
Other Participations
- Member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS)
- Local Organizing Committee and Poster chair for the 2023 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)
- Member of “Associació de Radio Aficionants per la Novetat, l’Exploració i la Mesura”
- Active reviewer in IEEE, MDPI, and Elsevier journals
- Co-guest Editor in MDPI Remote Sensing