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At least 721 records · Page 40

Optical Fiber Sensor with a Hydrophobic Filter Layer for Monitoring Hydrogen under Humid Conditions

Real-time and remote monitoring of hydrogen concentration in underground hydrogen storage reservoirs is crucial to maintaining the integrity and safety of the storage facilities. High humidity in the underground deposits interferes with hydrogen sensors, introducing inaccuracy into the hydrogen sensing measurements. A hydrophobic filter layer over a hydrogen sensing layer on an optical fiber hydrogen sensor was devised to minimize the impact of the humidity on the sensor. The hydrogen sensor coated with a hydrophobic filter layer demonstrated a significant improvement in reliable hydrogen sensing under high humidity conditions (99% RH) without severe baseline drift and reduction of transmission intensity. Finally, the optical fiber hydrogen sensor revamped with the filter layer would enable the reliable measurement of hydrogen concentration under the humid conditions expected in subsurface hydrogen storage facilities.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Tunable semiconductor laser with two acousto-optic tunable filters in its external cavity

We report a laser with a linear external cavity containing a near-IR injection semiconductor optical amplifier as a gain element and two acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs) with quasi-collinear interaction of acoustic and light waves. At identical frequencies of RF signals that control the filters and ensure compensation for the Doppler frequency shift of light passing through the AOTFs, the steady-state laser emission linewidth can be reduced to about 25 MHz, which is almost three orders of magnitude smaller than that in the case of one filter (20 GHz). The position of the emission line, which remains narrow, slowly fluctuates within a spectral range about 3 GHz wide, which seems to be due to the large length of the external cavity and insufficient thermal stabilization of its components. This does not prevent us from obtaining light with a large coherence length. In emission wavelength sweep mode, the instantaneous emission linewidth increases with tuning rate, reaching 0.022 nm (8.8 GHz) at the highest tuning rate: 10{sup 4} nm s{sup −1}. In the case of automatic control over the output optical power at a level of 3 mW, the tuning range is 815 – 875 nm. Such instruments are of practical interest for optical coherence tomography, spectroscopy, optical metrology, and other application areas. (lasers)

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Low-threshold, single-transverse-mode, 940-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with a mode filter and half-wavelength cavity

We demonstrate a structure for a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a mode filter and half-wavelength (λ/2) cavity. The effects of λ/2- and λ-cavities on the threshold current are studied. The thickness and etched diameter of the mode filter are optimised to achieve single-transverse-mode output. The results show that when changing from λ-cavity to λ/2-cavity, the threshold current of the VCSEL decreases by 30.7% (from 0.85 mA to 0.65 mA). In addition, for the mode-filter thickness of 80 nm, and the etched diameter of 2.5 μm, the side mode suppression ratio reaches 90 dB, which meets the requirement of single-transverse-mode output. The VCSELs with the optimised design can overcome many difficulties and have great potential in 3D face recognition. (paper)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Slider Crank WEC Performance Analysis with Adaptive Autoregressive Filtering

This paper investigates a performance analysis of wave excitation force prediction to extract wave power for a slider crank power take-off system (PTOS) based on auto regressive (AR) filters. To efficiently convert wave energy into electricity, the prediction of wave excitation forces to keep the generator and the wave excitation force in sync is important for maximum energy extraction. The study shows a prediction methodology of half period and zero crossings in the practical scenario of irregular ocean waves. The prediction has been tested for different wave periods and with different filter orders. The prediction results have been used in the PTOS simulation to analyze the energy extraction. It has been shown that the prediction accuracy in the wave half period between the truth data and the predicted data drives the WEC energy extraction efficiency. The amplitude of the wave force is not used and hence the prediction deviation in the wave force amplitude does not affect the PTOS energy extraction. Further analysis shows that the optimum energy can be extracted at 15 th order filter with moderate prediction horizon length.

autoregressive filter↗

Generalized Theory and Realization of Continuously Loss-Programmable Bandpass Filtering Attenuators

With the increased demand for modern wireless systems in various applications, the need for adjustable radio frequency (RF) systems has dramatically increased. These modern systems rely on operating in the microwave frequency spectrum (1 GHz to 1 THz) without interference from other devices while also retaining the ability to detect very low and very high power signals simultaneously. There is also an ever-increasing demand for reducing the cost, size, weight, and power (C-SWaP) of these modern RF systems, driving the demand for more agile filters in the microwave frequency spectrum. In this paper, a generalized theory of bandpass filtering attenuators (filtenuators) is proposed. A filtenuator is a device that combines the frequency- selective characteristics of a filter and the loss-programmable characteristics of an attenuator into a single component. The loss- programmable aspect of the filtenuator is based on the tuning of a π-network of resistances, which are implemented using PIN diodes to control the individual resistance values electronically. A loss-programmable, third-order Chebyshev bandpass filtenuator is designed, fabricated, and measured to verify the generalized theory. The filtenuator is designed to operate at 1 GHz and have a tunable attenuation range of 2-10 dB. This proposed filtenuator demonstrates the feasibility of a tunable, low C-SWaP solution to increase RF system dynamic range and a design process that allows for future development of filtenuators.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Decentralized Filtering Adaptive Neural Network Control for Uncertain Switched Interconnected Nonlinear Systems

This article presents a novel decentralized filtering adaptive neural network control framework for uncertain switched interconnected nonlinear systems. Each subsystem has its own decentralized controller based on the established decentralized state predictor. For each subsystem, the nonlinear uncertainties are approximated by a Gaussian radial basis function (GRBF) neural network incorporated with a piecewise constant adaptive law, where the adaptive law will update adaptive parameters from the error dynamics between the host system and the decentralized state predictor by discarding the unknowns, whereas a decentralized filtering control law is derived to cancel both local and mismatched uncertainties from other subsystems, as well as achieve the local objective tracking of the host system. The achievement of global objective depends on the achievement of local objective for each subsystem. The matched uncertainties are canceled directly by adopting their opposite in the control signal, whereas a dynamic inversion of the system is required to eliminate the effect of the mismatched uncertainties on the output. By exploiting the average dwell time principle, the error bounds between the real system and the virtual reference system, which defines the best performance that can be achieved by the closed-loop system, are derived. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the decentralized filtering adaptive neural network control architecture by comparing against the model reference adaptive control (MRAC).

Average dwell time, decentralized, filtering adapt↗

The Modeled Performance of the ORNL Matched Filter Detector for Seismic Signatures of Multi-Axle Tractor Trailers

The MINOS program seeks methods to passively monitor the transfer of special materials, which are reproducible and quantitatively defensible. To date, we have demonstrated that short-period seismometers deployed near vehicle tracks can detect and monitor signatures of multi-axle tractor trailers impacting small road obstacles as means to detect and identify some transfer activities. In this report, we model the seismic velocity signal output from a tractor-trailer impacting a small obstacle (a template waveform) to parameterize a matched filter that identifies signals with similar shapes buried in noise, and that indicate repeating events (target waveforms). We then use this model to perform thousands of synthetic experiments, in which we apply our detector to identify noisy waveforms output from a similarly modeled vehicle data set; we process all data in the same manner as we process real data collected from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) seismic network. Our experiments, while limited, reveal that the matched filter shows a high discrimination capability, and at very low SNR values (at visibility thresholds). This means that template waveforms can match target waveforms that are sourced by models that share the same vehicle speed (target vehicles), and have a low probability of mis-identification. In particular, a matched filter designed to detect a five-axle tractor-trailer will reliably identify that target vehicle down to an SNR of 11.25 dB, and within ±0.1 km/hr, while successfully screening target vehicles with three axles.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Developing Bloom Filters for Web Archives’ Holdings (Final Project Report)

The main goal of the project was to develop a framework for web archives to create Bloom filters based on their holdings of archived web resources. A Bloom filter (BF) is a data structure that, in our scenario, contains hash values of all (or a subset of) URLs, of which an archive has one or more archival copies. Two main use cases fall in scope for this project and are supported by a BF implementation: 1) Sharing of an archive’s holdings (URLs) and 2) Querying the holdings of one or more archives. Since URL strings are hashed before ingested into the BF, the index of an archive is not shared in plain text when the BF is shared with trusted parties. On the other hand, a BF implementation does allow queries for a URL to confirm if an archive indeed has one or more archival copies of that URL. This collaborative project between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Croatian Web Archive (HAW), from the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK), developed by NSK and University of Zagreb University Computing Center SRCE), aimed at developing software to create BFs, evaluate the scalability of the approach, pilot a search service based on BFs, and design a framework for archives to share their filters with trusted parties. In the remainder of this document, we will report on the work completed with respect to the individual deliverables, outline aspects of future work, and conclude with our recommendations for the use of BFs for the web archiving community.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Improving bioenergy recovery from municipal wastewater with a novel cloth-filter anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBR) have been used for treating high-strength industrial wastewater at full-scale and the potential to use them for mainstream municipal wastewater treatment presents an important opportunity to turn energy-intensive plants into net-energy producers. However, several limitations of the AnMBR technology have prevented their adoption in the municipal wastewater industry, namely, high membrane cleaning energy demand and low membrane flux. This study demonstrated a novel AnMBR configuration that uses a commercially available cloth filter technology to address the key limitations of cleaning energy and membrane flux. The cloth filter anaerobic membrane bioreactor (CFAnMBR) is comprised of an anaerobic fixed-film bioreactor coupled with a cloth filter membrane with nominal pore size of 5 µm. The pilot CFAnMBR was operated for 150 days through the winter at a municipal wastewater plant in central Illinois (minimum/average influent temperature 5/13°C). The CFAnMBR increased membrane flux by more than 2 orders of magnitude (3,649 ± 1,246 L per meter squared per hour) and reduced cleaning energy demand by 78%—92% (0.0085 kWh/m 3 ) relative to previously reported AnMBR configurations. With the CFAnMBR, average chemical oxygen demand and total suspended solids removal were 66% and 91%, respectively, and were shown to be increased up to 88% and 96% by in-line coagulant dosing with ferric chloride. Average headspace methane yield was 154 mL CH 4 /g COD removed by the end of the study period with influent temperatures of 11°C± 4°C. The CFAnMBR resolves major limitations of AnMBR technology by employing a commercially-available technology already used for other municipal wastewater treatment applications.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Performance of two-pole bandpass filters photodefined on double-sided Y-Ba-Cu-O and Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O thin films

The performance of 7.3-GHz two-pole bandpass filters (5% bandwidth) fabricated on double-sided Y-Ba-Cu-O and Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O thin films deposited on LaAlO3 is discussed. At 77 K, the Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O and Y-Ba-Cu-O superconducting filters exhibited minimum passband insertion losses of 0.3 and 1.2 dB, respectively. An insertion loss of 3.4 dB was measured for an all-gold filter at 77 K.

TWO POLE BANDPASS FILTERS↗

Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GeoCAPE) Filter Radiometer (FR)

The GeoCAPE Filter Radiometer (FR) Study is a different instrument type than all of the previous IDL GeoCape studies. The customer primary goals are to keep mass, volume and cost to a minimum while meeting the science objectives and maximizing flight opportunities by fitting on the largest number of GEO accommodations possible. Minimize total mission costs by riding on a commercial GEO satellite. For this instrument type, the coverage rate, km 2 min, was significantly increased while reducing the nadir ground sample size to 250m. This was accomplished by analyzing a large 2d area for each integration period. The field of view will be imaged on a 4k x 4k detector array of 15 micrometer pixels. Each ground pixel is spread over 2 x 2 detector pixels so the instantaneous field of view (IFOV) is 2048 X 2048 ground pixels. The baseline is, for each field of view 50 sequential snapshot images are taken, each with a different filter, before indexing the scan mirror to the next IFOV. A delta would be to add additional filters.

Geo Cape↗

Orbit Determination for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Using an Extended Kalman Filter

Orbit determination (OD) analysis results are presented for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) using a commercially available Extended Kalman Filter, Analytical Graphics' Orbit Determination Tool Kit (ODTK). Process noise models for lunar gravity and solar radiation pressure (SRP) are described and OD results employing the models are presented. Definitive accuracy using ODTK meets mission requirements and is better than that achieved using the operational LRO OD tool, the Goddard Trajectory Determination System (GTDS). Results demonstrate that a Vasicek stochastic model produces better estimates of the coefficient of solar radiation pressure than a Gauss-Markov model, and prediction accuracy using a Vasicek model meets mission requirements over the analysis span. Modeling the effect of antenna motion on range-rate tracking considerably improves residuals and filter-smoother consistency. Inclusion of off-axis SRP process noise and generalized process noise improves filter performance for both definitive and predicted accuracy. Definitive accuracy from the smoother is better than achieved using GTDS and is close to that achieved by precision OD methods used to generate definitive science orbits. Use of a multi-plate dynamic spacecraft area model with ODTK's force model plugin capability provides additional improvements in predicted accuracy.

Orbit Determination↗

Filter Tuning Using the Chi-Squared Statistic

This paper examines the use of the Chi-square statistic as a means of evaluating filter performance. The goal of the process is to characterize the filter performance in the metric of covariance realism. The Chi-squared statistic is the value calculated to determine the realism of a covariance based on the prediction accuracy and the covariance values at a given point in time. Once calculated, it is the distribution of this statistic that provides insight on the accuracy of the covariance. The process of tuning an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for Aqua and Aura support is described, including examination of the measurement errors of available observation types, and methods of dealing with potentially volatile atmospheric drag modeling. Predictive accuracy and the distribution of the Chi-squared statistic, calculated from EKF solutions, are assessed.

Filter Tuning↗

Precomputing Process Noise Covariance for Onboard Sequential Filters

Process noise is often used in estimation filters to account for unmodeled and mismodeled accelerations in the dynamics. The process noise covariance acts to inflate the state covariance over propagation intervals, increasing the uncertainty in the state. In scenarios where the acceleration errors change significantly over time, the standard process noise covariance approach can fail to provide effective representation of the state and its uncertainty. Consider covariance analysis techniques provide a method to precompute a process noise covariance profile along a reference trajectory using known model parameter uncertainties. The process noise covariance profile allows significantly improved state estimation and uncertainty representation over the traditional formulation. As a result, estimation performance on par with the consider filter is achieved for trajectories near the reference trajectory without the additional computational cost of the consider filter. The new formulation also has the potential to significantly reduce the trial-and-error tuning currently required of navigation analysts. A linear estimation problem as described in several previous consider covariance analysis studies is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the precomputed process noise covariance, as well as a nonlinear descent scenario at the asteroid Bennu with optical navigation.

onboard↗

Navigation Filter Design Best Practices

Onboard navigation and attitude estimation systems are at the heart of almost all of NASA’s missions, either on launch vehicles, robotic science spacecraft, or on crewed human exploration vehicles. Best practices for attitude estimation systems/filters are scattered throughout open literature, however, even within NASA there has been no previous attempt to codify this knowledge into a readily available design handbook. Without such a document, it is possible for isolated practitioners to lack understanding and appreciation of many tried and true approaches to successful and robust filter design and the implied cost/benefit trades associated with them. To aid designers of current and future missions, a handbook of navigation filter best practices has been developed and is introduced here. The development of this document is also an outgrowth of a recommendation made in an NESC summary of lessons learned from the DARPA Orbital Express mission to utilize best practices for rendezvous navigation filter design. With this handbook, future designers have a reference that establishes NASA’s best practices.

Navigation↗

An Approximate Kalman Filter for Ocean Data Assimilation; An Example with an Idealized Gulf Stream Model

A practical method of data assimilation for use with large, nonlinear, ocean general circulation models is explored. A Kalman filter based on approximations of the state error covariance matrix is presented, employing a reduction of the effective model dimension, the error's asymptotic steady-state limit, and a time-invariant linearization of the dynamic model for the error integration. The approximations lead to dramatic computational savings in applying estimation theory to large complex systems. We examine the utility of the approximate filter in assimilating different measurement types using a twin experiment of an idealized Gulf Stream. A nonlinear primitive equation model of an unstable east-west jet is studied with a state dimension exceeding 170,000 elements. Assimilation of various pseudo measurements is examined, including velocity, density, and volume transport at localized arrays, and realistic distributions of satellite altimetry and acoustic tomography observations. Results are compared in terms of their effects on the accuracies of the estimation. The approximate filter is shown to outperform a previous study that used an empirical nudging scheme. The examples demonstrate that useful approximate estimation errors can be computed in a practical manner for general circulation models.

['Kalman↗

P-ACTIVE (PCM-Based Actively Tunable Filter) Project at NASA

Phase change material (PCM)-based actively tunable mid-wave IR filters have broad imaging and sensing applications—from probing molecular vibrations in chemical species to detecting radiant thermal signatures. We introduce the Phase-change actively tunable filter (P-ACTIVE) project lead by NASA Langley Research Center with collaborators MIT and the University of Cambridge. It covers background science, experimental and theoretical device performance, as well as recent results obtained from a MISSE-14 mission for space qualification of active metasurface optics and constituent PCM. We conclude with a prospective view of the technology and discuss the potential for these filters to serve multiple NASA missions.

phase change material↗

Quantitative Gas Property Measurements By Filtered Rayleigh Scattering: A Review

Filtered Rayleigh scattering (FRS) is a laser-based diagnostic technique used to nonintrusively quantify various thermodynamic properties of a light-scattering gas. The backbone of FRS is the molecular filtering of Rayleigh scattered light. This concept was initially introduced by the atmospheric LIDAR community before being adopted within the aerospace research field in the early 1990s. Since then, FRS has matured into a versatile quantitative diagnostic tool and has found use in a variety of flow regimes ranging from sub- to supersonic speeds in both reacting and nonreacting environments. This adoption can be attributed to the wealth of information that can be obtained via FRS, including the gas density, pressure, temperature, velocity, species composition, or, in some cases, several of these properties at once. This article reviews the current state of FRS methodology in recovering such gas properties. As knowledge of the fundamentals of Rayleigh scattering and spectral light filtering is crucial to the design of an FRS experiment, we begin by briefly reviewing these areas. Subsequently, we conduct a survey of experimental design strategies, assumptions, and data reduction methods used to measure different gas properties using FRS. We conclude the review with a short discussion on quantification of experimental uncertainty and future trends in FRS.

filtered Rayleigh scattering↗