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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 523 records · Page 29
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1977

Wideband heterodyne receiver for laser communication system

A heterodyne receiver for laser communication is described which includes a front end having a cooled photomixer contained in a hermetically sealed spaced quality housing designed for wide bandwidth transmission. The photomixer is coupled through a wideband preamplifier to the receiver back end which includes a frequency tracking network and demodulating equipment. The receiver is capable of tracking a Doppler frequency shift of 750 MHz, positive or negative, and has an instantaneous intermediate frequency information bandwidth of 400 MHz. The receiver system is also capable of operating over a wide temperature range and is designed to be suitable for use in outer space communication.

Flattau, T.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Three level delta modulation

The basic concept of three-level delta modulation (TLDM) is to quantize the error signal of a delta modulator into three levels instead of the usual two levels as in ordinary DM. A TLDM system must be able to transmit three different signals, corresponding to three possible states of the quantizer, whereas the ordinary DM system has to transmit only two signals. The problem of transmitting these signals over a noisy channel is examined, where the input signal is band-limited Gaussian noise. Two parameters that can be adjusted to optimize the performance of the system with respect to quantizing noise are considered: step size and quantizer threshold setting. The effect of additive channel noise on the performance of a TLDM system is assessed in terms of baseband transmission, probability of error, FSK and PSK transmission, transmission bandwidth, and baseband pulse transmission. It is concluded that TLDM can provide a 5 to 6 dB improvement in quantizing signal to noise ratio over ordinary DM for band-limited Gaussian signals. This improvement can be achieved without increasing the channel bandwidth and with an increase in system threshold of less than 2 dB.

Frank, J.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Optimum performance of suppressed carrier receivers with Costas loop tracking

The performance of suppressed carrier receivers with Costas loop tracking is optimized by proper choice of loop arm filter bandwidth. In particular, it is shown that for a variety of passive arm filter types, there exists, for a given data rate and data signal-to-noise ratio, an optimum filter bandwidth in the sense of minimizing the loop's squaring loss. For the linear theory case, this is equivalent to minimizing the loop's tracking jitter. When symbol synchronization is known, it is shown that by replacing the passive arm filters with active filters, i.e., integrate-and-dump circuits, one can achieve an improvement in carrier-to-noise ratio of as much as 4 to 6 dB depending on the passive arm filter type used for comparison and the value of data signal-to-noise ratio.

Simon, M. K.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Determination of ocean wave heights from synthetic aperture radar imagery

A calculation is presented for the cross-correlation of the radar images obtained by processing the same signal data over different portions of the chirp spectrum bandwidth as a function of the center frequency spacings for these portions. This is shown to be proportional to the square of the product of the characteristic function for ocean wave heights and the pupil function describing the chirp spectrum bandwidth used in the processing. Measurements of this function for ocean wave imagery over the coast of Alaska, the North Atlantic, and Monterey Bay, California, and correlation with the significant wave heights reported from ground truth data indicate that the synthetic aperture radar instrument can be used for providing wave height information in addition to the ocean wave imagery.

Jain, A.↗
NASA NTRS1978

S-Band complex-weight module for adaptive processing

S-band complex weight for adaptive processing is fabricated as microwave integrated circuit. When interfaced with suitable control component, it is potentially capable of producing 25 dB rejection of interface with bandwidth of 500 MHz. Performance inproves with decreased bandwidth. Versatility stems from numerous control methods available in broadening field of adaptive processing.

Gianatasio, A. J.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Experimental clean combustor program: Turbulence characteristics of compressor discharge flows

The results of turbulence measurements at the entrance to the diffuser duct of a large gas turbine are presented. Hot film and hot wire measurements were conducted over a compressor discharge temperature range of 450K to 608K. It was found that the turbulent intensity at the I.D. and midspan locations increases gradually from 6 + or - 1 percent at idle to 7 + or - 1 percent at approach; the turbulent intensity at the O.D. location increases from 7.5 + or - 0.5 percent at idle to 15 + or - 0.5 percent at approach. The energy in the velocity waves is uniformly distributed over a 0.1 to 5 kHz bandwidth, and the cut-off frequency is not a strong function of the engine operation. The axial length of the Fourier components within this bandwidth varies from 0.021 to 1.05m. The turbulence near the diffuser O.D. is of sufficient amplitude and scale to affect the flow to the front end sections of the burner.

Follansbee, P. S.↗
NASA NTRS1977

A system for measuring the pulse height distribution of ultrafast photomultipliers

A system for measuring the pulse height distribution of gigahertz bandwidth photomultipliers was developed. This system uses a sampling oscilloscope as a sample-hold circuit and has a bandwidth of 12 gigahertz. Test results are given for a static crossed-filed photomultiplier tested with a demonstration system. Calculations on system amplitude resolution capabilities are included for currently available system components.

Abshire, J. B.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Full-scale engine tests of bulk absorber acoustic inlet treatment

Three different densities of Keviar bulk absorber fan inlet treatment were tested on a YF 102 turbofan engine. This bulk absorber material may have potential for flight application. Farfield noise measurements were made and the attenuation properties of the three treatment densities were compared. In addition, the best bulk treatment was compared to the best single degree of freedom, SDOF (honeycomb and perforated cover sheet) treatment from another investigation. Although the density was varied over a large range, (3 to 1) the effect on attenuation was small. The highest density treatment, 11.8 lb/cubic ft., had a somewhat broader attenuation bandwidth. The comparison of the best bulk and SDOF treatments showed the bulk to have a much greater attenuation bandwidth. At the design frequency both types of treatment had almost equal performance.

Heidelberg, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Time-dependent local density measurements in unsteady flows

A laser-induced fluorescence technique for measuring the relative time-dependent density fluctuations in unsteady or turbulent flows is demonstrated. Using a 1.5-W continuous-wave Kr(+) laser, measurements have been obtained in 0.1-mm-diameter by 1-mm-long sampling volumes in a Mach 3 flow of N2 seeded with biacetyl vapor. A signal amplitude resolution of 2% was achieved for a detection frequency bandwidth of 10 kHz. The measurement uncertainty was found to be dominated by noise behaving as photon statistical noise. The practical limits of signal-to-noise ratios have been characterized for a wide range of detection frequency bandwidths that encompasses those of interest in supersonic turbulence measurements.

Mckenzie, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Comparison of phase modulation systems

Comparison of the energy to noise ratio necessary to obtain a given modulation bit error probability has indicated that three-phase modulation is about 0.75 db superior to four-phase. It is shown that this apparent superiority results entirely from the greater bandwidth required by the three-phase system for the same bit transmission rate. Two further comparison criteria are proposed, which are based on the cut-off rate R sub 0 of the discrete channel created by the modulation system. For the criterion which constrains both the bandwidth and transmitted power, it is shown that four-phase modulation is always superior to three-phase modulation. The conclusion is that three-phase modulation offers no practical advantage over four-phase modulation.

Massey, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Efficiency enhancement of dual-mode traveling wave tubes at saturation and in the linear range by use of spent-beam refocusing and multistage depressed collectors

An axisymmetric, multistage depressed collector of fixed geometric design was evaluated in conjunction with an octave-bandwidth, dual-mode TWT. The TWT was operated over a wide range of conditions to simulate different applications. The collector was operated in three-, four-, and five-stage configurations, and its performance was optimized (within the constraint of fixed geometric design) over the range of TWT operating conditions covered. For operation of the dual-mode TWT at and near saturation, the collectors increased the TWT overall efficiency by a factor of 2 1/2 to 3 1/2. Collector performance was relatively constant for both the high and low TWT modes and for operation of the TWT across an octave bandwidth. For operation of the TWT in the linear, low-distortion range, collector efficiencies of 90 percent and greater were obtained, leading to a five- to twelvefold increase in the TWT overall efficiency for the range of operating conditions covered and reasonably high (greater than 25 percent) overall efficiencies well below saturation.

Ramins, P.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Adaptive coding of MSS imagery

A number of adaptive data compression techniques are considered for reducing the bandwidth of multispectral data. They include adaptive transform coding, adaptive DPCM, adaptive cluster coding, and a hybrid method. The techniques are simulated and their performance in compressing the bandwidth of Landsat multispectral images is evaluated and compared using signal-to-noise ratio and classification consistency as fidelity criteria.

Habibi, A.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Full-scale engine tests of bulk absorber acoustic inlet treatment

Three different densities of Kevlar bulk absorber fan inlet treatment were tested on a YF 102 turbofan engine. This bulk absorber material may have potential for flight application. Far-field noise measurements were made and the attenuation properties of the three treatment densities were compared. In addition the best bulk treatment was compared to the best single degree of freedom, SDOF (honeycomb and perforated cover sheet) treatment from another investigation. Although the density was varied over a large range, (3 to 1) the effect on attenuation was small. The highest density treatment, 11.8 lb/cu ft, had a somewhat broader attenuation bandwidth. The comparison of the best bulk and SDOF treatments showed the bulk to have a greater attenuation bandwidth. At the design frequency both types of treatment had almost equal performance.

Heidelberg, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Time-dependent local density measurements in unsteady flows

A laser-induced fluorescence technique for measuring the relative time-dependent density fluctuations in unsteady or turbulent flows is demonstrated. Using a 1.5-W continuous-wave Kr(+) laser, measurements have been obtained in 0.1-mm diameter by 1-mm-long sampling volumes in a Mach 3 flow of N2 seeded with biacetyl vapor. A signal amplitude resolution of 2% was achieved for a detection frequency bandwidth of 10 kHz. The measurement uncertainty was found to be dominated by noise behaving as photon statistical noise. The practical limits of signal-to-noise ratios have been characterized for a wide range of detection frequency bandwidths that encompasses those of interest in supersonic turbulence measurements.

Mckenzie, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Loudness of steady sounds - A new theory

A new mathematical theory for calculating the loudness of steady sounds from power summation and frequency interaction, based on psychoacoustic and physiological information, assuems that loudness is a subjective measure of the electrical energy transmitted along the auditory nerve to the central nervous system. The auditory system consists of the mechanical part modeled by a bandpass filter with a transfer function dependent on the sound pressure, and the electrical part where the signal is transformed into a half-wave reproduction represented by the electrical power in impulsive discharges transmitted along neurons comprising the auditory nerve. In the electrical part the neurons are distributed among artificial parallel channels with frequency bandwidths equal to 'critical bandwidths for loudness', within which loudness is constant for constant sound pressure. The total energy transmitted to the central nervous system is the sum of the energy transmitted in all channels, and the loudness is proportional to the square root of the total filtered sound energy distributed over all channels. The theory explains many psychoacoustic phenomena such as audible beats resulting from closely spaced tones, interaction of sound stimuli which affect the same neurons affecting loudness, and of individually subliminal sounds becoming audible if they lie within the same critical band.

Howes, W. L.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Description of the ISEE satellite-to-satellite kilometric wavelength interferometer system

The International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) spacecraft 1 and 2 carry receivers for detecting electromagnetic waves with kilometric wavelengths. For selected receiver frequencies from 30 kHz to 2 MHz, a 10-kHz bandwidth channel is single-sideband mixed down to baseband. These analog data and a reference frequency, which is a submultiple of the local oscillator frequency, are transmitted to ground stations and tape recorded along with the precise time and frequency information. Cross correlation of these tape recorded signals constitutes a satellite-to-satellite interferometer with a fringe spacing of 0.4 to 41 arcmin (at a range of 10,000 to 100 km spacing between spacecraft for 250 kHz in frequency) and with a time-delay resolution of 32 microsec for a 10-kHz bandwidth, which gives an angular resolution of 3 min to 6 deg of arc. For kilometric radiation at earth, sources in the size range of 25 to 2500 km can be identified (from 20 earth radii) and located in relative position ranging from 0.02 to 2 earth radii, depending on spacecraft spacing. Reception and analysis of solar and Jovian bursts may also be possible.

Shawhan, S. D.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Flexible stator control on the Galileo spacecraft

Galileo is a dual-spin spacecraft designed to deliver a probe to Jupiter and then orbit the planet. The stator, or despun section, contains four flexible modes below 10 Hz and the despun actuator is separated from the inertial sensors by this flexibility. Control loop separation by bandwidth proved unacceptable due to performance requirements. To obtain the desired performance, a control scheme was devised which consists of three parts. First, flexibility damping and control notch filtering are accomplished by phase locked loop techniques. Second, slewing maneuvers are produced by torque profiles which are nonexcitatory to the structure. Finally, a low bandwidth perturbation controller is supplied to remove spacecraft disturbances.

Kopf, E. H.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Weighting in digital synthetic aperture radar processing

Weighting is employed in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) processing to reduce the sidelobe response at the expense of peak center response height and mainlobe resolution. The weighting effectiveness in digital processing depends not only on the choice of weighting function, but on the fineness of sampling and quantization, on the time bandwidth product, on the quadratic phase error, and on the azimuth antenna pattern. The results of simulations conducted to uncover the effect of these parameters on azimuth weighting effectiveness are presented. In particular, it is shown that multilook capabilities of future SAR systems may obviate the need for consideration of the antenna pattern, and that azimuth time-bandwidth products of over 200 are probably required before the digital results begin to approach the ideal results.

Dicenzo, A.↗