Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “digital systems”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8

Free software for performing physical analysis of systems for digital radiography and mammography

Purpose: In this paper, the authors present a free software for assisting users in achieving the physical characterization of x-ray digital systems and image quality checks. Methods: The program was developed as a plugin of a well-known public-domain suite ImageJ. The software can assist users in calculating various physical parameters such as the response curve (also termed signal transfer property), modulation transfer function (MTF), noise power spectra (NPS), and detective quantum efficiency (DQE). It also includes the computation of some image quality checks: defective pixel analysis, uniformity, dark analysis, and lag. Results: The software was made available in 2009 and has been used during the last couple of years by many users who gave us valuable feedback for improving its usability. It was tested for achieving the physical characterization of several clinical systems for digital radiography and mammography. Various published papers made use of the outcomes of the plugin. Conclusions: This software is potentially beneficial to a variety of users: physicists working in hospitals, staff working in radiological departments, such as medical physicists, physicians, engineers. The plugin, together with a brief user manual, are freely available and can be found online ( http://www.medphys.it/downloads.htm ). With our plugin users can estimate all three most important parameters used for physical characterization (MTF, NPS, and also DQE). The plugin can run on any operating system equipped with ImageJ suite. The authors validated the software by comparing MTF and NPS curves on a common set of images with those obtained with other dedicated programs, achieving a very good agreement.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Improved television signal processing system

Digital system processes spacecraft television pictures by converting images sensed on a photostorage vidicon to pulses which can be transmitted by telemetry. This system can be applied in the processing of medical X ray photographs and in electron microscopy.

Wong, R. Y.↗

Demonstration of Integrated Hazard Analysis for Digital Reactor Trip Systems

Digital instrumentation and control (I&C) upgrades are a vital research area for nuclear industry. Despite their performance benefits, deployment of digital I&C in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been limited. Digital I&C systems exhibit complex failure modes including common cause failures (CCFs) which can be difficult to identify. This paper describes the development of a redundancy-guided application of the Systems-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) for the hazard analysis of digital I&C in advanced NPPs. The resulting Redundancy-guided System-theoretic Hazard Analysis (RESHA) is applied for the case study of a representative state-of-the-art digital reactor trip system. The analysis qualitatively and systematically identifies the most critical CCFs and other hazards of digital I&C systems. Ultimately, RESHA can help researchers make informed decisions for how, and to what degree, defensive measures such as redundancy, diversity, and defense-in-depth can be used to mitigate or eliminate the potential hazards of digital I&C systems.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Life-critical digital flight control systems

Digital autopilot systems were first used on commercial airplanes in the late 1970s. The A-320 airplane was the first air transport airplane with a fly-by-wire primary flight control system. On the 767-X (777) airplane Boeing will install all fly-by-wire flight controls. Activities related to safety, industry status and program phases are discussed.

Mcwha, James↗