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At least 469 records · Page 26

Synopsis of a computer program designed to interface a personal computer with the fast data acquisition system of a time-of-flight mass spectrometer

Briefly described are the essential features of a computer program designed to interface a personal computer with the fast, digital data acquisition system of a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The instrumentation was developed to provide a time-resolved analysis of individual vapor pulses produced by the incidence of a pulsed laser beam on an ablative material. The high repetition rate spectrometer coupled to a fast transient recorder captures complete mass spectra every 20 to 35 microsecs, thereby providing the time resolution needed for the study of this sort of transient event. The program enables the computer to record the large amount of data generated by the system in short time intervals, and it provides the operator the immediate option of presenting the spectral data in several different formats. Furthermore, the system does this with a high degree of automation, including the tasks of mass labeling the spectra and logging pertinent instrumental parameters.

Bechtel, R. D.↗

Preface to the Special Issue on Signal Processing, Data Acquisition and Front-end Systems for Radiation Detection and Measurements

This special issue of the Journal of Signal Processing Systems focuses on advancement of signal processing and data-acquisition for radiation detection and measurements. The seven articles included cover diverse topics within the scope of radiation detection ranging from understanding of fundamental fission process, instrumentation, and application of radiation interaction (e.g., tomography and imaging). The articles focus on signal processing for fission spectrometer, neutron and gamma-ray computed tomography and artificial intelligence methods, dynamic neutron imaging system, pulse-pileup correction in x-ray spectroscopy and calibration methods in radiation measurement.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Real-time detection and data acquisition system for the left ventricular outline

The paper describes the design and capabilities of a computer-interfaced angiocardiographic automated border recognizer for real-time detection and data acquisition regarding the left ventricular outline. The contour detection is based on a thresholding technique that uses an analog comparator to compare the video signal with a constant reference level, which can be used satisfactorily only if the brightness level is roughly constant along a ventricular border. The use of dynamic reference level is described for achieving a marked improvement by having the reference level dynamically adjusted according to local brightness levels on a line-to-line basis. Also discussed are the features of the computer interface designed and implemented for the real-time on-line storage of the obtained border coordinates. Results to date indicate that the system provides an accurate left ventricular contour even in pictures with relatively low contrast. Application of the threshold detection technique to echocardiography is briefly discussed.

Reiber, J. H. C.↗

Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program: Airbus U.S. Synthetic Aperture Radar Quality Assessment Summary

Quality assessment of the Airbus X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite products was conducted by the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program’s radar subject matter experts, following the Joint NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) assessment draft guidelines. All three Airbus SAR spacecraft (TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, and PAZ) are based on the TerraSAR-X platform, and each have an active phased array antenna that is 4.8 x 0.7 m in the along-track and cross-track dimensions, respectively. TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X are in a helical orbit, creating a bistatic imaging geometry, in addition to being capable of independent monostatic observations. The PAZ mission follows TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X in the same 11-day orbit with a 5.5-day lag. TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X are designed, developed, and operated through a Public-Private Partnership, while PAZ is a dual-use mission (civil and defense agencies), funded and owned by the Spanish Ministry of Defense and managed by Hisdesat (Hisdesat Servicios Estratégicos, S.A.), a Spanish private communications company. The assessment presented in this document is divided into two main parts: documentation review and the assessment of test datasets. The documentation review in sections 2.1 through 2.4 includes the assessment of the Airbus documentation provided to the CSDA evaluation team. The grading of these documents is given in columns 1-4 of the maturity matrix shown in section 1.1. Section 2.5 summarizes the evaluation performed by NASA using the data purchased through the CSDA program. The grading for this is given in the last column of the maturity matrix. Section 3 provides more detailed explanations on the methods and the results of the data analysis performed by NASA. Only the documents provided by Airbus for the evaluation were considered for the review. Additional documentation with more detailed description of the calibration and validation procedures may be available online but were not considered for this evaluation. The product information provided in the available documentation (RD-1, RD-2) and the product metadata together provided adequate information to work with the data. The product details in the metadata included the required information to work with the data in the common XML file format. Metrological traceability documentation was not provided to CSDA. All relevant characterization of the SAR system and data were provided, and the metadata include all relevant ancillary information. Documentation provided to CSDA included limited pre-flight and post-launch calibration information.

Batuhan Osmanoglu↗

Historics of the Space Tracking And Data Acquisition Network (STADAN), the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN), and the NASA Communications Network (NASCOM)

The historical and technical aspects of the major networks which comprise the NASA tracking and data acquisition system are considered in a complete reference work which traces the origin and growth of STADAN, MSFN, and NASCOM up to mid-1971. The roles of these networks in both the Gemini and Apollo programs are discussed, and the separate developmental trends are identified for each network.

Corliss, W. R.↗

Heterojunction bipolar transistor technology for data acquisition and communication

Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) technology has emerged as one of the most promising technologies for ultrahigh-speed integrated circuits. HBT circuits for digital and analog applications, data conversion, and power amplification have been realized, with speed performance well above 20 GHz. At Rockwell, a baseline AlGaAs/GaAs HBT technology has been established in a manufacturing facility. This paper describes the HBT technology, transistor characteristics, and HBT circuits for data acquisition and communication.

Wang, C.↗

Data Acquisition Systems

Technology developed during a joint research program with Langley and Kinetic Systems Corporation led to Kinetic Systems' production of a high speed Computer Automated Measurement and Control (CAMAC) data acquisition system. The study, which involved the use of CAMAC equipment applied to flight simulation, significantly improved the company's technical capability and produced new applications. With Digital Equipment Corporation, Kinetic Systems is marketing the system to government and private companies for flight simulation, fusion research, turbine testing, steelmaking, etc.

Source record↗

LIHE Spectral Dynamics and Jaguar Data Acquisition System Measurement Assurance Results 2014

The Light Initiated High Explosive (LIHE) facility performs high rigor, high consequence impulse testing for the nuclear weapons (NW) community. To support the facility mission, LIHE's extensive data acquisition system (DAS) is comprised of several discrete components as well as a fully integrated system. Due to the high consequence and high rigor of the testing performed at LIHE, a measurement assurance plan (MAP) was developed in collaboration with NW system customers to meet their data quality needs and to provide assurance of the robustness of the LIHE DAS. While individual components of the DAS have been calibrated by the SNL Primary Standards Laboratory (PSL), the integrated nature of this complex system requires verification of the complete system, from end-to-end. This measurement assurance plan (MAP) report documents the results of verification and validation procedures used to ensure that the data quality meets customer requirements.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

FPGA Flash Memory High Speed Data Acquisition

The purpose of this research is to design and implement a VHDL ONFI Controller module for a Modular Instrumentation System. The goal of the Modular Instrumentation System will be to have a low power device that will store data and send the data at a low speed to a processor. The benefit of such a system will give an advantage over other purchased binary IP due to the capability of allowing NASA to re-use and modify the memory controller module. To accomplish the performance criteria of a low power system, an in house auxiliary board (Flash/ADC board), FPGA development kit, debug board, and modular instrumentation board will be jointly used for the data acquisition. The Flash/ADC board contains four, 1 MSPS, input channel signals and an Open NAND Flash memory module with an analog to digital converter. The ADC, data bits, and control line signals from the board are sent to an Microsemi/Actel FPGA development kit for VHDL programming of the flash memory WRITE, READ, READ STATUS, ERASE, and RESET operation waveforms using Libero software. The debug board will be used for verification of the analog input signal and be able to communicate via serial interface with the module instrumentation. The scope of the new controller module was to find and develop an ONFI controller with the debug board layout designed and completed for manufacture. Successful flash memory operation waveform test routines were completed, simulated, and tested to work on the FPGA board. Through connection of the Flash/ADC board with the FPGA, it was found that the device specifications were not being meet with Vdd reaching half of its voltage. Further testing showed that it was the manufactured Flash/ADC board that contained a misalignment with the ONFI memory module traces. The errors proved to be too great to fix in the time limit set for the project.

Gonzalez, April↗

Data-Acquisition System For Rotor Vibrations

New system trades hardware for software to reduce cost. Composite train of interspersed blade-detection pulses produced by gates at four probe ports on data-acquisition board. Pulses latch count from high-speed wraparound clock counter and initiate writing of count onto current address of memory. Result: time corresponding to each blade passage stamped into memory.

Posta, Stephen J.↗

Accelerating Data Acquisition, Reduction, and Analysis at the Spallation Neutron Source

ORNL operates the world's brightest neutron source, the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). Funded by the US DOE Office of Basic Energy Science, this national user facility hosts hundreds of scientists from around the world, providing a platform to enable break-through research in materials science, sustainable energy, and basic science. While the SNS provides scientists with advanced experimental instruments, the deluge of data generated from these instruments represents both a big data challenge and a big data opportunity. For example, instruments at the SNS can now generate multiple millions of neutron events per second providing unprecedented experiment fidelity but leaving the user with a dataset that cannot be processed and analyzed in a timely fashion using legacy techniques. To address this big data challenge, ORNL has developed a near real-time streaming data reduction and analysis infrastructure. The Accelerating Data Acquisition, Reduction, and Analysis (ADARA) system provides a live streaming data infrastructure based on a high-performance publish subscribe system, in situ data reduction, visualization, and analysis tools, and integration with a high-performance computing and data storage infrastructure. ADARA allows users of the SNS instruments to analyze their experiment as it is run and make changes to the experiment in real-time and visualize the results of these changes. In this paper we describe ADARA, provide a high-level architectural overview of the system, and present a set of use-cases and real-world demonstrations of the technology.

Campbell, Stuart I↗

Distributed Resilience in High-Energy Physics Data Acquisition

Historical experience in the High-Performance Computing community teaches us that as computing systems grow, the instance of failures goes from rare to a regular occurrence. A survey of the growth in the size and complexity of Data AcQuisition (DAQ) networks in High-Energy Physics (HEP) experiments reveals that these networks are scaling exponentially, trending to a point where automated fault handling should be considered over the current manual practice, especially given the rarity of data such as in DUNE's mission to observe core-collapse supernovae. We propose a general system, DiDAQt, which is designed to provide fault detection and handling in HEP DAQs specifically, through MPI-like primitives that allow it to be added easily to existing systems. We evaluate the scalability and response time of a prototype on the FABRIC national testbed, with results indicating sufficient scalability for current and near-future DAQs as well as practical response times (under 1 microsecond decision time).

Wolosewicz, A. [IIT, Chicago]↗

Real-time data acquisition system assists engine test program

The mixed-fuels program examined included two major phases: the development of a reformer that would provide an onboard source of hydrogen, and the testing of induction systems and mixed fuels on a conventional V8 engine to verify the concept and define the system's potential. The discussion is limited to the engine testing phase. The testing program is reviewed and the effectiveness of an IDAC data acquisition system in supporting the engine testing program is demonstrated. The data system's application is illustrated by examples.

Griffin, D. C., Jr.↗

The Atmospheric Data Acquisition And Interpolation Process For Center-TRACON Automation System

The Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS), an advanced new air traffic automation program, requires knowledge of spatial and temporal atmospheric conditions such as the wind speed and direction, the temperature and the pressure in order to accurately predict aircraft trajectories. Real-time atmospheric data is available in a grid format so that CTAS must interpolate between the grid points to estimate the atmospheric parameter values. The atmospheric data grid is generally not in the same coordinate system as that used by CTAS so that coordinate conversions are required. Both the interpolation and coordinate conversion processes can introduce errors into the atmospheric data and reduce interpolation accuracy. More accurate algorithms may be computationally expensive or may require a prohibitively large amount of data storage capacity so that trade-offs must be made between accuracy and the available computational and data storage resources. The atmospheric data acquisition and processing employed by CTAS will be outlined in this report. The effects of atmospheric data processing on CTAS trajectory prediction will also be analyzed, and several examples of the trajectory prediction process will be given.

Jardin, M. R.↗

Data-Acquisition Software for PSP/TSP Wind-Tunnel Cameras

Wing-Viewer is a computer program for acquisition and reduction of image data acquired by any of five different scientificgrade commercial electronic cameras used at Langley Research center to observe wind-tunnel models coated with pressure or temperature-sensitive paints (PSP/TSP). Wing-Viewer provides full automation of camera operation and acquisition of image data, and has limited data-preprocessing capability for quick viewing of the results of PSP/TSP test images. Wing- Viewer satisfies a requirement for a standard interface between all the cameras and a single personal computer: Written by use of Microsoft Visual C++ and the Microsoft Foundation Class Library as a framework, Wing-Viewer has the ability to communicate with the C/C++ software libraries that run on the controller circuit cards of all five cameras.

Amer, Tahani R.↗

Real-Time Wireless Data Acquisition System

Current and future aerospace requirements demand the creation of a new breed of sensing devices, with emphasis on reduced weight, power consumption, and physical size. This new generation of sensors must possess a high degree of intelligence to provide critical data efficiently and in real-time. Intelligence will include self-calibration, self-health assessment, and pre-processing of raw data at the sensor level. Most of these features are already incorporated in the Wireless Sensors Network (SensorNet(TradeMark)), developed by the Instrumentation Group at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). A system based on the SensorNet(TradeMark) architecture consists of data collection point(s) called Central Stations (CS) and intelligent sensors called Remote Stations (RS) where one or more CSs can be accommodated depending on the specific application. The CS's major function is to establish communications with the Remote Stations and to poll each RS for data and health information. The CS also collects, stores and distributes these data to the appropriate systems requiring the information. The system has the ability to perform point-to-point, multi-point and relay mode communications with an autonomous self-diagnosis of each communications link. Upon detection of a communication failure, the system automatically reconfigures to establish new communication paths. These communication paths are automatically and autonomously selected as the best paths by the system based on the existing operating environment. The data acquisition system currently under development at KSC consists of the SensorNet(TradeMark) wireless sensors as the remote stations and the central station called the Radio Frequency Health Node (RFHN). The RFF1N is the central station which remotely communicates with the SensorNet(TradeMark) sensors to control them and to receive data. The system's salient feature is the ability to provide deterministic sensor data with accurate time stamps for both time critical and non-time critical applications. Current wireless standards such as Zigbee(TradeMark) and Bluetooth(Registered TradeMark) do not have these capabilities and can not meet the needs that are provided by the SensorNet technology. Additionally, the system has the ability to automatically reconfigure the wireless communication link to a secondary frequency if interference is encountered and can autonomously search for a sensor that was perceived to be lost using the relay capabilities of the sensors and the secondary frequency. The RFHN and the SensorNet designs are based on modular architectures that allow for future increases in capability and the ability to expand or upgrade with relative ease. The RFHN and SensorNet sensors .can also perform data processing which forms a distributed processing architecture allowing the system to pass along information rather than just sending "raw data points" to the next higher level system. With a relatively small size, weight and power consumption, this system has the potential for both spacecraft and aircraft applications as well as ground applications that require time critical data.

Valencia, Emilio J.↗

Explore Earth Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program

The European Space Agency (ESA), our international partner in the ESA-NASA Earth Science & Observation Joint Program Planning Group (JPPG), is hosting the VH-RODA (Very High-resolution Radar and Optical Data Assessment Workshop) at ESA/ European Space Research Institute (ERSIN) in Frascati, Italy from November 7-10, 2022. The objective of the VH-RODA workshop is to provide an open forum (for the new space, commercial and institutional space sectors) for presenting and discussing about the current status and future developments related to Earth Observation (EO) data quality, calibration and validation of space-borne very high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Optical sensors and data products, with a dedicated focus on commercial EO data providers and related Calibration/Validation activities, synergies between optical and SAR communities, presentation of standards and best practices for data quality. Additionally, the ESA-NASA Joint Program Planning Group (JPPG) Third Party Mission component will meet to further develop non-binding practices on evaluation, identify common guard rails for comparison of data, and coordinate future schedules to leverage shared knowledge. I serve as the Project Manager for the NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program and will participate in the VHRODA workshop on behalf of the program.

Commercial Remote Sensing↗