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NASA NTRS1986

The Adelaide MF partial-reflection radar and VHF ST radar

The microwave frequency (MF) partial-reflection radar ran continuously since November 1983, with data being analyzed in real time. The spaced antenna technique was used routinely to produce a climatology of the mean circulation, atmospheric tides, and gravity waves. Since the beginning of 1985, the system was also used as a Doppler radar to measure the spectral widths of the mesospheric echoes. This has enabled the turbulence dissipation rates to be determined. The Stratosphere-Troposphere (ST) radar was operated in the spaced antenna mode to measure winds in November 1984, in conjunction with a cooperative campaign to study the propagation of cold fronts across SE Australia. Observations were also performed to study the structure of the more intense and deeper cold fronts, which occur in late winter.

Vincent, R. A.↗

NASA NTRS1986

An example of scaling MST Doppler spectra using median spectra, spectral smoothing, and velocity tracing

Although automatic, computer scaling methods appeared at the start of the MST (mesosphere stratosphere troposphere) radar technique, there is a continuing need for scaling algorithms that perform editing functions and increase the sensitivity of radar by post processing. The scaling method presented is an adaptation of the method of scaling MST Doppler spectra presented by Rastogi (1984). A brief overview of this method is as follows: a median spectrum is calculated from several sequential spectra; the median noise value is subtracted from this derived spectrum; the median spectrum is smoothed; the detection/nondetection decision is made by comparing the smoothed spectrum to the variance of the smoothed noise; and if a signal is detected, then the half-power points of the smoothed echo spectrum are used to place limits on the evaluation of the first two moments of the unsmoothed median spectrum. In all of the above steps, the algorithm is guided by tracing the expected velocity range upward from the lowest range as far as possible. The method is discussed in more detail.

Green, J. L.↗

NASA NTRS1986

The Tukey algorithm for enhancing MST radar data

One of the most troublesome features in MSR (mesosphere stratosphere troposphere) velocity measurements is the determination of unwanted scatterer whose velocity is different from that of the surrounding atmosphere. Aircraft seen in the sidelobes of the antenna are the principal problem. Because coherent integration essentially eliminates echoes with line of sight velocities greater than 10 or 20 m/s, aircraft are seen only when their flight path is almost perpendicular to the line of sight. Then, they give large returns whose velocities may be positive or negative, and certainly different from that of the surrounding air. The glitches in the minute by minute velocity records are quite troublesome in that they may distort the statistics of the velocity. An objective way is therefore needed to remove sporadic points of this kind. For this purpose, the Tukey algorithm is appropriate and has some advantages over averaging. The Tukey algorithm, applied to a data array, uses for each data point the median of it and the two points surrounding it. If the three points form a monotonically increasing or decreasing sequence, the original point is copied with change. However, if the central point is remote from the other two, it is replaced by whichever of the two surrounding points is closest in value. The greatest effect of the Tukey algorithm is on data where the successive points are uncorrelated. Examples are given.

Bowhill, S. A.↗

NASA NTRS1986

On the use of colour reflectivity plots to monitor the structure of the troposphere and stratosphere

The radar reflectivity, defined as the range squared corrected power of VHF radar echoes, can be used to monitor and study the temporal development of inversion layer, frontal boundaries and convective turbulence. From typical featurs of upward or downward motion of reflectivity structures, the advection/convection of cold and warm air can be predicted. High resolution color plots appear to be useful to trace and to study the life history of these structures, particularly their persistency, descent and ascent. These displays allow an immediate determination of the tropopause height as well as the determination of the tropopause structure. The life history of warm fronts, cold fronts, and occlusions can be traced, and these reflectivity plots allow detection of even very weak events which cannot be seen in the traditional meteorological data sets. The life history of convective turbulence, particular evolving from the planetary boundary layer, can be tracked quite easily. Its development into strong convection reaching the middle troposphere can be followed and predicted.

Rottger, J.↗

NASA NTRS1986

The Arecibo S-band radar program

Reduction to images of the 1983 monostatic Venus mapping data was completed. Analysis of the images, including detailed comparisons with Pioneer Venus data and Soviet Venera 15/16 images, continued. Feature locations in Arecibo Venus radar images produced between 1975 and 1983 were used to make a new determination of the rotation vector. This result is of general interest but was also required for planning and cartographic purposes for the Magellan mission. A new set of observations of Venus were made in March/April 1985, aimed at imaging low northern and high southern latitudes, including the south polar region, at 1 to 2km resolution. A limited number of ranging observations were made to Mercury and Venus. Ten asteroids were detected increasing the number studied with the Arecibo system to almost 40. A system to allow high time resolution, as well as high Doppler frequency resolution, studies of small asteroids or comets which make close approaches to the Earth was implemented. A radar detection of Halley's Comet was obtained when it approached to within 0.62 AU of the Earth in November/December of last year. It is still uncertain whether the echo is a reflection from the nucleus or from a cloud of cm-sized particles in the vicinity of the nucleus.

Campbell, D. B.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Deep convection in mesoscale convective systems

A study was undertaken to examine the evolution of radar echoes and lightning attending the convective storms in mesoscale convective systems (MCS) and the relationships between the spatial and temporal evolution of deep convection and the storm environment, precipitation, severe weather, and lightning. The total number of ground discharges ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 over the life cycle of the MCS with peak sustained rates (for up to 10 consecutive hours) in excess of 2000 per hour. The peak lightning activity occurs from 5 to 20 hours after the first storms and anywhere from 7 hours prior to 7 hours after the time of the maximum areal extent of the MCS for very similar synoptic environments. Thus, it appears that mesoscale and sub-synoptic scale mechanisms are responsible for these large temporal variation in lightning activity. In addition, we have found that the lightning rates in MCS's are not related to either the size or the duration of the MCS. Preliminary results suggest that the MCA's with embedded squall lines produce the greatest flash rates.

Goodman, S. J.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Optical characteristics of lightning and thunderstorm currents

Researchers determined that lightning can be used to determine the diurnal variations of thunderstorms, i.e., storms that produce audible thunder, and that these variations are also in good agreement with diurnal variations in rainfall and convective activity. Measurements of the Maxwell current density, J sub m, under active thunderstorms show that this physical quantity is quasi-steady between lightning discharges and that lightning does not produce large changes in J sub m. Maps of J sub m show contours of iso-current density that are consistent with the locations of radar echos and the locations of where lightning has altered the cloud charge distribution.

Krider, E. P.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Venus Radar Mapper (VRM): Multimode radar system design

The surface of Venus has remained a relative mystery because of the very dense atmosphere that is opaque to visible radiation and, thus, normal photographic techniques used to explore the other terrestrial objects in the solar system are useless. The atmosphere is, however, almost transparent to radar waves and images of the surface have been produced via Earth-based and orbital radars. The technique of obtaining radar images of a surface is variously called side looking radar, imaging radar, or synthetic aperture radar (SAR). The radar requires a moving platform in which the antenna is side looking. High resolution is obtained in the cross-track or range direction by conventional radar pulse encoding. In the along-track or azimuth direction, the resolution would normally be the antenna beam width, but for the SAR case, a much longer antenna (or much sharper beam) is obtained by moving past a surface target as shown, and then combining the echoes from many pulses, by using the Doppler data, to obtain the images. The radar design of the Venus Radar Mapper (VRM) is discussed. It will acquire global radar imagery and altimetry data of the surface of Venus.

Johnson, William T. K.↗

NASA NTRS1987

The terminal area simulation system. Volume 2: Verification cases

The numerical simulation of five case studies are presented and are compared with available data in order to verify the three-dimensional version of the Terminal Area Simulation System (TASS). A spectrum of convective storm types are selected for the case studies. Included are: a High-Plains supercell hailstorm, a small and relatively short-lived High-Plains cumulonimbus, a convective storm which produced the 2 August 1985 DFW microburst, a South Florida convective complex, and a tornadic Oklahoma thunderstorm. For each of the cases the model results compared reasonably well with observed data. In the simulations of the supercell storms many of their characteristic features were modeled, such as the hook echo, BWER, mesocyclone, gust fronts, giant persistent updraft, wall cloud, flanking-line towers, anvil and radar reflectivity overhang, and rightward veering in the storm propagation. In the simulation of the tornadic storm a horseshoe-shaped updraft configuration and cyclic changes in storm intensity and structure were noted. The simulation of the DFW microburst agreed remarkably well with sparse observed data. The simulated outflow rapidly expanded in a nearly symmetrical pattern and was associated with a ringvortex. A South Florida convective complex was simulated and contained updrafts and downdrafts in the form of discrete bubbles. The numerical simulations, in all cases, always remained stable and bounded with no anomalous trends.

Proctor, F. H.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Investigation of air transportation technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984

Three projects sponsored by the Joint University Program at MIT are summarized. Two projects were focussed on the potential application of Loran-C in flying nonprecision approaches to general aviation runways, and the third project involved research on aircraft icing. In one Loran-C project, Aircraft Approach Guidance Using Relative Loran-C Navigation, the concept was flight tested. It used the difference in TD's from those of the touchdown point to simplify and speed navigation computer processing and took advantage of the short term accuracy of less than 100 feet for Loran-C. The goal of the project, Probabilistic Modelling of Loran-C Error for Nonprecision Approaches, was to develop a mathematical model which would predict the probability that an approach flown to a runway with a particular Loran-C receiver would fall within a given standard. The Aircraft Icing project focussed on measurement of droplet trajectories and droplet impingement/runback characteristics and measurement of real time ice accretion using ultrasonic pulse echo techniques.

Simpson, Robert W.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Landform identification: Lunar radar images

Three sets of polarized radar-echo images of the Moon were examined to establish the relation between radar resolution and landform-identification resolution. After comparison with lunar maps and photographs, real and apparent landforms on the radar images were grouped into one of seven classes. Results show strong relations between radar resolution and diameter or relief of landforms that are clearly identified and those that would probably be correctly identified (class 1 and class 2). Landforms are not detected (class 5) at all diameters and reliefs, but the percentage of undetected landforms decreases with increasing mean diameter and mean relief. Landforms are simply detected (class 4) at most mean diameters and reliefs. Ambiguous arrays (class 6) portrayed by the radar constitute up to about 16, 22, and 15% of the landforms at various diameters and relief values for the 3.8 cm, 70 cm high resolution, and 70 cm low resolution images, respectively. Only a few percent of the landforms portrayed by the radar images at various diameters and relief values are fictitious (class 7).

Moore, Henry J.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Phase noise from aircraft motion: Compensation and effect on synthetic aperture radar images

Image degradation of airborne SAR imagery caused by phase errors introduced in the received signal by aircraft motion is discussed. Mechanical motion has a small bandwidth and does not affect the range signal, where the total echo time is typically 60 microsec. However, since the aperture length can be several seconds, the synthesized azimuth signal can have significant errors of which phase noise is the most important. An inertial navigation system can be used to compensate for these errors when processing the images. Calculations to evaluate how much improvement results from compensation are outlined.

Gabriel, Andrew K.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Experimental methodologies to support aircraft icing analysis

The experimental methodologies are illustrated by graphs, charts and line drawings. Typical ultrasonic echo signals for dry and wet ice growth, ice accretion rates for various tunnel configurations, the experimental configuration for flight tests of the ultrasonic measuring system and heat balance models used to predict ice growth are among the topics that are illustrated and briefly discussed.

Hansman, R. John, Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Six component robotic force-torque sensor

The results of a two-phase contract studying the feasibility of a miniaturized six component force-torque sensor and development of a working laboratory system were described. The principle of operation is based upon using ultrasonic pulse-echo ranging to determine the position of ultrasonic reflectors attached to a metal or ceramic cover plate. Because of the small size of the sensor, this technology may have application in robotics, to sense forces and torques at the finger tip of a robotic end effector. Descriptions are included of laboratory experiments evaluating materials and techniques for sensor fabrication and of the development of support electronics for data acquisition, computer interface, and operator display.

Grahn, Allen R.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Ultrasonic verification of microstructural changes due to heat treatment

Ultrasonic attenuation was measured for polycrystalline samples of nickel and copper with various grain-size distributions produced by heat treatment. Attenuation as a function of frequency was determined for a sample having a known mean grain diameter. Once this function was determined, it could be scaled to determine the mean grain size of other samples of the same material with different mean grain diameters. These results were obtained by using broadband pulse-echo ultrasound in the 25 to 100 MHz frequency range. The results suggest an ultrasonic, nondestructive approach for verifying heat treatment of metals.

Generazio, E. R.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Ultrasonic level sensors for liquids under high pressure

An ultrasonic level sensor of novel design continuously measures the level of a liquid subjected to a high pressure (up to about 40 MPa), as is sometimes required for the effective transfer of the liquid. The sensor operates as a composite resonator fabricated from a standard high-pressure plug. A flat-bottom hole is machined into the plug along its center line. An ultrasonic transducer is bonded rigidly to the interior surface of the bottom wall, while the exterior surface is in contact with the liquid. Although the bottom wall is designed to satisfy the pressure code, it is still sufficiently thin to permit ready excitation of the axisymmetric plate modes of vibration. The liquid level is measured by a conventional pulse-echo technique. A prototype sensor was tested successfully in a 2300-l water vessel at pressures up to about 37 MPa. A spectral analysis of the transmitted pulse reveals that the flexural, extensional, thickness-shear, and radial plate modes are excited into vibration, but none of these appears to be significantly affected by the pressurization of the liquid.

Zuckerwar, A. J.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Measurement of the speed of sound in ice

The data presented demonstrate the gathering of sound speed measurements in refrigerated ice, using both compressional and shear waves, on the basis of ice thickness and sound wave time-of-travel parameters. Clear and sharp echo reflections were obtained for both compressional and shear waves at the aluminum/ice and ice/aluminum interfaces for ice at -26 C; ice formed at various conditions can have different sound speeds, depending on the density and elastic constants.

Smith, A. C.↗

NASA NTRS1986

RR Lyrae stars - A theoretical study of Bailey type c variables

New theoretical models of stars pulsating in the first overtone have been constructed to simulate RR Lyr variables of Bailey type c. Despite the use of different opacities, these new models agree very well with earlier models built by Christy and Stellingwerf. Quantitative comparisons using empirical light curves and velocity curves of metal-poor type c variables confirm the validity of the models. Masses of 0.55-0.65 solar mass and luminosities of 40-50 solar luminosities derived here for the type c variables, are consistent with previous results obtained for type ab variables. A Christy echo of the kind normally associated with fundamental-mode pulsators was detected in the interior velocity structure of one first-overtone model that happens to have a large velocity amplitude.

Hubickyj, Olenka↗