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59 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1997

Planar Doppler Velocimetry for Large-Scale Wind Tunnel Testing

Recently, Planar Doppler Velocimetry (PDV) has been shown by several laboratories to offer an attractive means for measuring three-dimensional velocity vectors everywhere in a light sheet placed in a flow. Unlike other optical means of measuring flow velocities, PDV is particularly attractive for use in large wind tunnels where distances to the sample region may be several meters, because it does not require the spatial resolution and tracking of individual scattering particles or the alignment of crossed beams at large distances. To date, demonstrations of PDV have been made either in low speed flows without quantitative comparison to other measurements, or in supersonic flows where the Doppler shift is large and its measurement is relatively insensitive to instrumental errors. Moreover, most reported applications have relied on the use of continuous-wave lasers, which limit the measurement to time-averaged velocity fields. This work summarizes the results of two previous studies of PDV in which the use of pulsed lasers to obtain instantaneous velocity vector fields is evaluated. The objective has been to quantitatively define and demonstrate PDV capabilities for applications in large-scale wind tunnels that are intended primarily for the production testing of subsonic aircraft. For such applications, the adequate resolution of low-speed flow fields requires accurate measurements of small Doppler shifts that are obtained at distances of several meters from the sample region. The use of pulsed lasers provides the unique capability to obtain not only time-averaged fields, but also their statistical fluctuation amplitudes and the spatial excursions of unsteady flow regions such as wakes and separations. To accomplish the objectives indicated, the PDV measurement process is first modeled and its performance evaluated computationally. The noise sources considered include those related to the optical and electronic properties of Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) arrays and to speckle effects associated with coherent illumination from pulsed lasers. The signal noise estimates are incorporated into the PDV signal analysis process and combined with computed scattering signals using a Mie scattering theory for polydisperse smoke particles. The relevant parameters incorporate a range of practical aerodynamic test conditions and facility sizes. The results define the optimum instrument configurations, show that the expected signal levels from a practical PDV system are sufficiently large to allow its useful application in large facilities, and show that the expected velocity measurement uncertainties are small compared to the mean velocities of interest for most subsonic, large-scale wind tunnel testing. Experimental studies using several experimental bench-top setups are then described that validate the physics of the PDV model and to calibrate its computed results. The validated model allows estimates of the uncertainties of PDV measurements and a complete definition of the PDV capabilities to be made with sufficient confidence to decide the viability of PDV for large-scale wind tunnel applications.

McKenzie, Robert L.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Generalized Predictive Control for Active Stability Augmentation and Vibration Reduction on an Aeroelastic Tiltrotor Model

Tiltrotor aircraft are defining the state-of-the-art in vertical lift technology as they have the potential to greatly expand rotary-wing operational boundaries. However, they are often limited in forward flight speed due to complex coupled rotor and wing dynamic instabilities. The U.S. Army and NASA have been developing a new wind tunnel model, the TiltRotor Aeroelastic Stability Testbed(TRAST), to test proprotors in the NASA Langley Research Center Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT) to investigate aeroelastic stability in cruise. The test is intended to provide high-quality research data for analytical tool development and validation. In addition, the TRAST model will support, develop, and mature new technologies for the design of advanced proprotor aircraft. Stability augmentation and vibration reduction during testing is planned with the use of an active control methodology known as Generalized Predictive Control(GPC). GPC is an autoregressive control law that experimentally acquires a system identification to derive the input-output relation of controls and corresponding sensors. This type of control law is especially useful for complex dynamic interactions that are difficult to explicitly model such as proprotor pylon instability, often referred to as whirl flutter. GPC has been successfully employed on other tiltrotor vehicles to suppress whirl flutter instabilities and vibrations. To aid in the characterization of the wind-tunnel model and in tool development, an analytical representation of the wind-tunnel model was developed using the rotorcraft comprehensive analysis system (RCAS) that simulates structural dynamics and aerodynamics. RCAS was used to derive state-space estimates of the physical plant at various flight conditions to test control law effectiveness. This paper will present an overview of the test article development, a description of RCAS, an explanation of the GPC methodology, and results of GPC being applied to state-space plant estimates of the TRAST model. In these simulations, GPC was effective at stabilizing the aircraft beyond the whirl-flutter boundary while simultaneously reducing vibrations across the flight regime. Additionally, a modern advancement to GPC, termed advanced GPC (AGPC), is introduced that enables a self-adapting system identification. Preliminary results show that AGPC is successful at self-correction as the plant changes from what was used for system identification.

tiltrotor↗
NASA NTRS2015

Validation of Rain Rate Retrievals for the Airborne Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD)

The NASA Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission is an aircraft field measurements program using NASA's unmanned Global Hawk aircraft system for remote sensing and in situ observations of Atlantic and Caribbean Sea hurricanes. One of the principal microwave instruments is the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD), which measures surface wind speeds and rain rates. For validation of the HIRAD wind speed measurement in hurricanes, there exists a comprehensive set of comparisons with the Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) with in situ GPS dropwindsondes [1]. However, for rain rate measurements, there are only indirect correlations with rain imagery from other HS3 remote sensors (e.g., the dual-frequency Ka- & Ku-band doppler radar, HIWRAP), which is only qualitative in nature. However, this paper presents results from an unplanned rain rate measurement validation opportunity that occurred in 2013, when HIRAD flew over an intense tropical squall line that was simultaneously observed by the Tampa NEXRAD meteorological radar (Fig. 1). During this experiment, Global Hawk flying at an altitude of 18 km made 3 passes over the rapidly propagating thunderstorm, while the TAMPA NEXRAD perform volume scans on a 5-minute interval. Using the well-documented NEXRAD Z-R relationship, 2D images of rain rate (mm/hr) were obtained at two altitudes (3 km & 6 km), which serve as surface truth for the HIRAD rain rate retrievals. A preliminary comparison of HIRAD rain rate retrievals (image) for the first pass and the corresponding closest NEXRAD rain image is presented in Fig. 2 & 3. This paper describes the HIRAD instrument, which 1D synthetic-aperture thinned array radiometer (STAR) developed by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center [2]. The rain rate retrieval algorithm, developed by Amarin et al. [3], is based on the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) technique, which compares the observed Tb's at the HIRAD operating frequencies of 4, 5, 6 and 6.6 GHz with corresponding theoretical Tb values from a forward radiative transfer model (RTM). The optimum solution is the integrated rain rate that minimizes the difference between RTM and observed values. Because the excess Tb from rain comes from the direct upwelling and the indirect reflected downwelling paths through the atmosphere, there are several assumptions made for the 2D rain distribution in the antenna incident plane (crosstrack to flight direction). The opportunity to knowing 2D rain surface truth from NEXRAD at two different altitudes will enable a comprehensive evaluation to be preformed and reported in this paper.

hurricane↗
NASA NTRS2016

Characterization of Operational Performance of Ka-Band Links in Deep Space Network

This paper presents a characterization of performance of 32-GHz Ka-band link in an operational environment. The data come from tracking of Kepler spacecraft by the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) in the past few years. Ka-band link offers a significant signal-to-noise advantage compared to the more common X- or S-band; however, it is subject to more signal fluctuation caused by the weather. Kepler is the first mission supported by the DSN that solely rely on the higher deep space Ka-band communications link to return its high-rate science data. A well characterization of the operational performance of Kepler would benefit future Ka-band missions, especially for those operating with smaller link margin. The study examines how weather conditions at the DSN facilities (e.g., winds, clouds, rains) affect the received signal, particularly on telemetry data. It addresses questions such as how often the weather affects the link and how much degradation the link could suffer. Among the 22 Ka-band passes in 2012, heavy clouds affected one pass and two passes were impacted by high winds. The adverse weather caused at time as much as 3-dB instantaneous change in the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Estimates of degradation to the SNR as a function of wind speeds are captured based on observations. This study also quantifies the probability distribution of the variation of received signal power. With such information, future missions can better plan their link design. An optimal link design aims for just having enough margin to realize the data return with a targeted probability, with neither having too much margin that it reduces the downlink data rate nor insufficient reserve that causes frequent data outages. The study tries to provide some answers to the questions such as how much does SNR vary from one tracking pass to the next, and what is the cumulative distribution of signal fluctuation. Regarding the signal variation over many tracking passes, we found that the averaged symbol SNR (SSNR) for each pass changed by as much as 4 dB. Some variations were due to geometry such as the changing distance between spacecraft and Earth and different antenna pointing elevations. Other variations seem to be random in nature, reflecting the randomness of operational environments. Some passes were found to be quite stable, with a standard deviation of symbol SNR around 0.25 dB while others had greater variation, up to 1.4 dB. Overall, the cumulative distribution of the symbol SNR reflects that 50% of the fluctuations was less than 0.6 dB, 90% of fluctuation was within 1.6 dB and 95% within 2.2 dB. Some of the challenges in data processing, validation and modeling were captured in this paper. We observed some inconsistent measurements where operational data significantly deviate from a normal expectation. These inconsistent measurements made it hard to develop an accurate and consistent performance model, such as the degradation of signal SNR as a function of high wind. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that there were only a few Ka-band passes observed in high winds.

Pham, Timothy↗
NASA NTRS2007

Multi-Grid-Cell Validation of Satellite Aerosol Property Retrievals in INTEX/ITCT/ICARTT 2004

Aerosol transport off the US Northeast coast during the Summer 2004 International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation (ICARTT) Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment (INTEX) and Intercontinental Transport and Chemical Transformation (ITCT) experiments produced a wide range of aerosol types and aerosol optical depth (AOD) values, often with strong horizontal AOD gradients. In these conditions we flew the 14-channel NASA Ames Airborne Tracking Sun photometer (AATS) on a Jetstream 31 (J31) aircraft. Legs flown at low altitude (usually less than 100 m ASL) provided comparisons of AATS AOD spectra to retrievals for 90 grid cells of the satellite radiometers MODIS-Terra, MODIS-Aqua, and MISR, all over the ocean. Characterization of the retrieval environment was aided by using vertical profiles by the J31 (showing aerosol vertical structure) and, on occasion, shipboard measurements of light scattering and absorption. AATS provides AOD at 13 wavelengths lambda from 354 to 2138 nm, spanning the range of aerosol retrieval wavelengths for MODIS over ocean (466-2119 nm) and MISR (446-866 nm). Midvisible AOD on low-altitude J31 legs in satellite grid cells ranged from 0.05 to 0.9, with horizontal gradients often in the range 0.05 to 0.13 per 10 km. When possible, we used ship measurements of humidified aerosol scattering and absorption to estimate AOD below the J31. In these cases, which had J31 altitudes 60-110 m ASL (typical of J31 low-altitude transects), estimated midvisible AOD below the J31 ranged from 0.003 to 0.013, with mean 0.009 and standard deviation 0.003. These values averaged 6 percent of AOD above the 53 1. MISR-AATS comparisons on 29 July 2004 in 8 grid cells (each -17.6 km x 17.6 km) show that MISR versions 15 and 16 captured the AATS-measured AOD gradient (correlation coefficient R2 = 0.87 to 0.92), but the MISR gradient was somewhat weaker than the AATS gradient. The large AOD (midvisible values up to -0.9) and differing gradients in this case produced root-mean-square (RMS) MISR-AATS AOD differences of 0.03 to 0.21 (9 to 31%). MISR V15 Angstrom exponent alpha (= -dlnAOD/dln lambda) was closer to AATS than was MISR V16. MODIS-AATS AOD comparisons on 8 overpasses using 61 grid cells (each nominally 10 km x 10 km) had R2 approximately 0.97, with RMS AOD difference approximately 0.03 (approximately 20%). About 87% of the MODIS AOD retrievals differed from AATS values by less than the predicted MODIS over-ocean uncertainty, Delta tau = plus/minus 0.03 plus/minus 0.05 tau. In contrast to the small MODIS-AATS differences in AOD, MODIS-AATS differences in Angstrom exponent alpha were large: RMS differences for alpha (553, 855 nm) were 0.28 for MODIS-Terra and 0.64 for MODIS-Aqua; RMS differences for alpha (855, 2119 nm) were larger still, 0.61 for MODIS-Terra and 1.14 for MODIS-Aqua. The largest MODIS-AATS Angstrom exponent differences were associated with small AOD values, for which MODIS AOD relative uncertainty is large. Excluding cases with AOD(855 nm) less than 0.1 reduced MODIS-AATS alpha differences substantially. In one grid cell on 21 July 2004, smoke over cloud appeared to impair the MODIS-Aqua cloud mask, resulting in retrieved AODs that significantly exceeded AATS values. Experiments with extending MODIS retrievals into the glint mask yielded MODIS AODs consistently less than AATS AODs, especially at long wavelength, indicating that the current MODIS glint mask limits should not be reduced to the extent tried here. The sign of the AOD differences within the glint mask (MODIS AOD less than AATS AOD) is consistent with ship-measured wind speeds there.

Russell, P. B.↗