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At least 1,495 records · Page 83

Millimeter-wave sensing of the environment: A bibliographic survey

This literature survey was conducted to examine the field of millimeter wave remote sensing of the environment and collect all relevant observations made in the atmospheric windows near 90, 140, and 230 GHz of ocean, terrain, man-made features, and the atmosphere. Over 170 articles and reports were examined; bibliographic references are provided for all and abstracts are quoted when available. Selected highlights were extracted from the pertinent articles.

Schneider, E.↗

Ice-Soil Mixtures: Visual and Near-Infrared Remote Sensing Techniques

The spectral properties of ice soil mixtures are reviewed. Water ice has an absorption coefficient which varies by several orders of magnitude in the visual and near infrared, and has several prominent overtone absorptions. Different wavelengths can be used to probe to different depths in the surface as well as for different mineral impurity concentrations. Empirical and/or theoretical models might be used to derive characteristics grain size of the ice or of the impurity minerals and to derive abundance of the ice and rock or soil components. Quantitative analysis of remotely obtained reflectance spectra can only be performed by using absorption features in the spectra of ice and soil, and not by broadband response. It is suggested that this might be done by special selection of several narrow band filters in the near infrared which will adequately define the ice absorptions.

Clark, R. N.↗

Supercomputing on massively parallel bit-serial architectures

Research on the Goodyear Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) suggests that high-level parallel languages are practical and can be designed with powerful new semantics that allow algorithms to be efficiently mapped to the real machines. For the MPP these semantics include parallel/associative array selection for both dense and sparse matrices, variable precision arithmetic to trade accuracy for speed, micro-pipelined train broadcast, and conditional branching at the processing element (PE) control unit level. The preliminary design of a FORTRAN-like parallel language for the MPP has been completed and is being used to write programs to perform sparse matrix array selection, min/max search, matrix multiplication, Gaussian elimination on single bit arrays and other generic algorithms. A description is given of the MPP design. Features of the system and its operation are illustrated in the form of charts and diagrams.

Iobst, Ken↗

X ray microscope/telescope test and alignment

The tasks performed by the Center for Applied Optics (CAO) in support of the Normal Incidence Multilayer X-Ray Optics Program are detailed. The Multi-Spectral Solar Telescope Array (MSSTA) was launched on a Terrier-boosted Black Brant sounding rocket from White Sands Missile Range on 13 May 1991. High resolution images of the sun in the soft x ray to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) regime were obtained with normal-incidence Cassegrain, Ritchey-Chretien, and Herschelian telescopes mounted in the sounding rocket. MSSTA represents the first use of multilayer optics to study a very broad range of x ray and EUV solar emissions. Energy-selective properties of multilayer-coated optics allow distinct groups of emission lines to be isolated in the solar corona and transition region. Features of the near and far coronal structures including magnetic loops of plasmas, coronal plumes, coronal holes, faint structures, and cool prominences are visible in these images. MSSTA successfully obtained unprecedented information regarding the structure and dynamics of the solar atmosphere in the temperature range of 10(exp 4)-10(exp 7) K. The performance of the MSSTA has demonstrated a unique combination of ultra-high spatial resolution and spectral differentiation by use of multilayer optics.

Walker, Arthur B. C.↗

Control of the NASA Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel with the Self-Organizing Feature Map

A predictive, multiple model control strategy is developed based on an ensemble of local linear models of the nonlinear system dynamics for a transonic wind tunnel. The local linear models are estimated directly from the weights of a Self Organizing Feature Map (SOFM). Local linear modeling of nonlinear autonomous systems with the SOFM is extended to a control framework where the modeled system is nonautonomous, driven by an exogenous input. This extension to a control framework is based on the consideration of a finite number of subregions in the control space. Multiple self organizing feature maps collectively model the global response of the wind tunnel to a finite set of representative prototype controls. These prototype controls partition the control space and incorporate experimental knowledge gained from decades of operation. Each SOFM models the combination of the tunnel with one of the representative controls, over the entire range of operation. The SOFM based linear models are used to predict the tunnel response to a larger family of control sequences which are clustered on the representative prototypes. The control sequence which corresponds to the prediction that best satisfies the requirements on the system output is applied as the external driving signal. Each SOFM provides a codebook representation of the tunnel dynamics corresponding to a prototype control. Different dynamic regimes are organized into topological neighborhoods where the adjacent entries in the codebook represent the minimization of a similarity metric which is the essence of the self organizing feature of the map. Thus, the SOFM is additionally employed to identify the local dynamical regime, and consequently implements a switching scheme than selects the best available model for the applied control. Experimental results of controlling the wind tunnel, with the proposed method, during operational runs where strict research requirements on the control of the Mach number were met, are presented. Comparison to similar runs under the same conditions with the tunnel controlled by either the existing controller or an expert operator indicate the superiority of the method.

Motter, Mark A.↗

The NPOESS Preparatory Project: Mission Concept and Status

National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project is a joint NASA/IPO (Integrated Program Office) mission to extend selected systematic measurements initiated by the Terra and Aqua missions and to provide risk reduction for NPOESS. The key sensor properties and mission features are summarized.

Murphy, Robert E.↗

Specification and Design of the SBRC-190: A Cryogenic Multiplexer for Far Infrared Photoconductor Detectors

Arrays of far-infrared photoconductor detectors operate at a few degrees Kelvin and require electronic amplifiers in close proximity. For the electronics, a cryogenic multiplexer is ideal to avoid the large number of wires associated with individual amplifiers for each pixel, and to avoid adverse effects of thermal and radiative heat loads from the circuitry. For low background applications, the 32 channel CRC 696 CMOS device was previously developed for SIRTF, the cryogenic Space Infrared Telescope Facility. For higher background applications, we have developed a similar circuit, featuring several modifications: (a) an AC coupled, capacitive feedback transimpedence unit cell, to minimize input offset effects, thereby enabling low detector biases, (b) selectable feedback capacitors to enable operation over a wide range of backgrounds, and (c) clamp and sample & hold output circuits to improve sampling efficiency, which is a concern at the high readout rates required. We describe the requirements for and design of the new device.

Erickson, E. F.↗

Optical Coupling Mechnisms in Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors

Light coupling systems, such as gratings are required becuase Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors do not respond to normal incident light due to the quantum mechanical selection rules associated with intersubband transitions. The resolution of the photolithography and acuracy of the etching beomce key issues in producing smaller rating feature sizes expecially in shorter wavelengths.

Quantum Wells Intersubband infrared detectors grat↗

Ultrafast Phase Mapping of Thin-Sections from An Apollo 16 Drive Tube - a New Visualisation of Lunar Regolith

Polished thin-sections of samples extracted from Apollo drive tubes provide unique insights into the structure of the Moon's regolith at various landing sites. In particular, they allow the mineralogy and texture of the regolith to be studied as a function of depth. Much has been written about such thin-sections based on optical, SEM and EPMA studies, in terms of their essential petrographic features, but there has been little attempt to quantify these aspects from a spatial perspective. In this study, we report the findings of experimental analysis of two thin-sections (64002, 6019, depth range 5.0 - 8.0 cm & 64001, 6031, depth range 50.0 - 53.1 cm), from a single Apollo 16 drive tube using QEMSCAN . A key feature of the method is phase identification by ultrafast energy dispersive x-ray mapping on a pixel-by-pixel basis. By selecting pixel resolutions ranging from 1 - 5 microns, typically 8,500,000 individual measurement points can be collected on a thin-section. The results we present include false colour digital images of both thin-sections. From these images, information such as phase proportions (major, minor and trace phases), particle textures, packing densities, and particle geometries, has been quantified. Parameters such as porosity and average phase density, which are of geomechanical interest, can also be calculated automatically. This study is part of an on-going investigation into spatial variation of lunar regolith and NASA's ISRU Lunar Simulant Development Project.

Botha, Pieter↗

Airborne Wind Profiling With the Data Acquisition and Processing System for a Pulsed 2-Micron Coherent Doppler Lidar System

A pulsed 2-micron coherent Doppler lidar system at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia flew on the NASA's DC-8 aircraft during the NASA Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) during the summer of 2010. The participation was part of the project Doppler Aerosol Wind Lidar (DAWN) Air. Selected results of airborne wind profiling are presented and compared with the dropsonde data for verification purposes. Panoramic presentations of different wind parameters over a nominal observation time span are also presented for selected GRIP data sets. The realtime data acquisition and analysis software that was employed during the GRIP campaign is introduced with its unique features.

Beyon, Jeffrey Y.↗

Mass Wasting on the Moon: Implications for Seismicity

Seismicity estimates play an important role in creating regional geological characterizations, which are useful for understanding a planet's formation and evolution, and are of key importance to site selection for landed missions. Here we investigate the regional effects of seismicity in planetary environments with the goal of determining whether such surface features on the Moon, could be triggered by fault motion.

moon↗

Contrasting Time-Frequency Representations for Unknown Waveform Detection

Identifying unseen electromagnetic waveforms is critical for many applications, like interference management, electronic warfare and spectrum management. Traditionally this is done using statistical methods for anomaly detection, which has evolved to deep learning models for identifying the unseen data, formally termed as open set recognition. Some prior methods use a generative model to emulate open set data, which face challenges in generating synthetic samples for open set while simultaneously selecting an optimal discriminator for accurate classification. To alleviate this issue, we propose a discriminative model that effectively combines time and frequency domain features of communication signals for accurate predictions. We further introduce a cosine similarity loss that makes the domain specific features unique to enhance the prediction rate. Additionally, our model avoids generic feature vectors by extracting class-specific features during training, resulting in improved class representation. The experiment results show that this combined feature approach with cosine loss outperforms single-domain models and improves accuracy by 10% over models without cosine loss.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

An interdisciplinary analysis of multispectral satellite data for selected cover types in the Colorado mountains, using automatic data processing techniques

The author has identified the following significant results. In the San Juan Mountains there exists a group of structural and topographic features which suggest a common origin. The relative positions of the San Juan Depression with the Silverton and Lake City Calderas indicate they are possibly on the edge of a large circular feature. Comparison with the 1:250,000 scale Durango Geologic Map reveals a series of radial and arcuate faults concentric with the major circular feature. Such a fracture pattern implies that the circular feature may represent the extent of a major domal uplift in the area. The uplift was very likely due to the sub-crustal emplacement of the parent magma of the San Juan volcanics and intrusives. The broad doming led to the formation of a zone of tensional ring fractures which acted as conduits of release for the magma and the eventual development of the various calderas. The ring fracturing was probably incomplete with hinging occurring in the southern and southwestern portions of the dome accounting for the lack of development of caldera structures in that portion of the area.

Hoffer, R. M.↗

Astrobiology Survey of a Lava Cave at Lava Beds National Monument by a Rover Carrying a Remote Sensing Instrument Payload

We report here on a survey of a lava tube cave by a rover that is instrumented for astrobiology missions. The NASA Ames testbed rover, CaveR, was deployed in Valentine Cave in Lava Beds National Monument (N. CA, USA) during August of 2018. The rover carried an instrument package consisting of Near Infrared and Visible Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) a point spectrometer operating in 1590-3400 nm range, sensitive to H2O and -OH bearing minerals, pyroxenes, and carbonates (Roush, et al 2018); the bore sighted Drill Operations Camera (DOC), a monochrome imager illuminated by LEDs at 410, 540, 640, 740, 905 and 940 nm; a Realsense ™ depth sensor system for 3D model generation; and a high resolution DSLR stereo camera. The payload was mounted on a tiltable instrument platform attached to the left side of the rover. The rover was driven manually in the cave by field operators, following instructions from a remote science operations team, and simulating a mission concept with science-guided autonomy. A simulated mission took place for 3 days with a team of 3 scientists selecting targets and interpreting data from the payload. To begin the mission, the rover drove along one wall of the cave imaging continuously with the Realsense in 20 m cave segments, three total. At the start of each day, the images from a 20m segment and a panorama stitched from them were provided to the science team to examine. The science team used these data to prioritize specific points along the cave wall for the collection of NIRVSS, DOC, and DSLR data. The objective of the data collection was to identify and study putative biological and mineralogical features in the cave. The data were delivered in xGDS, a customized mapping, planning, and data base management software developed at NASA Ames (Lee, et al 2013). Once the targets for further observations were selected, a plan for collecting the observations (positions in the cave and pointing for each requested observation) was constructed using xGDS and delivered to a rover team to execute the science data collection plan. Acquired data were delivered back to the science team for analysis. Preliminary results from the experiment illustrate the utility of the system (rover plus payload) to study the cave geology and mineralogy and its potential for identifying biomineral features.

Wong, Uland↗

Anomaly detection in Hyper Suprime-Cam galaxy images with generative adversarial networks

ABSTRACT The problem of anomaly detection in astronomical surveys is becoming increasingly important as data sets grow in size. We present the results of an unsupervised anomaly detection method using a Wasserstein generative adversarial network (WGAN) on nearly one million optical galaxy images in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey. The WGAN learns to generate realistic HSC-like galaxies that follow the distribution of the data set; anomalous images are defined based on a poor reconstruction by the generator and outlying features learned by the discriminator. We find that the discriminator is more attuned to potentially interesting anomalies compared to the generator, and compared to a simpler autoencoder-based anomaly detection approach, so we use the discriminator-selected images to construct a high-anomaly sample of ∼13 000 objects. We propose a new approach to further characterize these anomalous images: we use a convolutional autoencoder to reduce the dimensionality of the residual differences between the real and WGAN-reconstructed images and perform UMAP clustering on these. We report detected anomalies of interest including galaxy mergers, tidal features, and extreme star-forming galaxies. A follow-up spectroscopic analysis of one of these anomalies is detailed in the Appendix; we find that it is an unusual system most likely to be a metal-poor dwarf galaxy with an extremely blue, higher-metallicity H ii region. We have released a catalogue with the WGAN anomaly scores; the code and catalogue are available at https://github.com/kstoreyf/anomalies-GAN-HSC; and our interactive visualization tool for exploring the clustered data is at https://weirdgalaxi.es.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Hierarchic models for laminated plates

Structural plates and shells are three-dimensional bodies, one dimension of which happens to be much smaller than the other two. Thus, the quality of a plate or shell model must be judged on the basis of how well its exact solution approximates the corresponding three-dimensional problem. Of course, the exact solution depends not only on the choice of the model but also on the topology, material properties, loading and constraints. The desired degree of approximation depends on the analyst's goals in performing the analysis. For these reasons models have to be chosen adaptively. Hierarchic sequences of models make adaptive selection of the model which is best suited for the purposes of a particular analysis possible. The principles governing the formulation of hierarchic models for laminated plates are presented. The essential features of the hierarchic models described models are: (1) the exact solutions corresponding to the hierarchic sequence of models converge to the exact solution of the corresponding problem of elasticity for a fixed laminate thickness; and (2) the exact solution of each model converges to the same limit as the exact solution of the corresponding problem of elasticity with respect to the laminate thickness approaching zero. The formulation is based on one parameter (beta) which characterizes the hierarchic sequence of models, and a set of constants whose influence was assessed by a numerical sensitivity study. The recommended selection of these constants results in the number of fields increasing by three for each increment in the power of beta. Numerical examples analyzed with the proposed sequence of models are included and good correlation with the reference solutions was found. Results were obtained for laminated strips (plates in cylindrical bending) and for square and rectangular plates with uniform loading and with homogeneous boundary conditions. Cross-ply and angle-ply laminates were evaluated and the results compared with those of MSC/PROBE. Hierarchic models make the computation of any engineering data possible to an arbitrary level of precision within the framework of the theory of elasticity.

Actis, Ricardo Luis↗

Enabling Disabled Persons to Gain Access to Digital Media

A report describes the first phase in an effort to enhance the NaviGaze software to enable profoundly disabled persons to operate computers. (Running on a Windows-based computer equipped with a video camera aimed at the user s head, the original NaviGaze software processes the user's head movements and eye blinks into cursor movements and mouse clicks to enable hands-free control of the computer.) To accommodate large variations in movement capabilities among disabled individuals, one of the enhancements was the addition of a graphical user interface for selection of parameters that affect the way the software interacts with the computer and tracks the user s movements. Tracking algorithms were improved to reduce sensitivity to rotations and reduce the likelihood of tracking the wrong features. Visual feedback to the user was improved to provide an indication of the state of the computer system. It was found that users can quickly learn to use the enhanced software, performing single clicks, double clicks, and drags within minutes of first use. Available programs that could increase the usability of NaviGaze were identified. One of these enables entry of text by using NaviGaze as a mouse to select keys on a virtual keyboard.

Beach, Glenn↗

A stochastic analysis of terrain evaluation variables for path selection

A stochastic analysis was performed on the variables associated with the characteristics of the terrain encountered by a roving system with an autonomous navigation system. A laser rangefinder is employed to detect terrain features at ranges up to 75 m. Analytic expressions and a numerical scheme were developed to calculate the variance of data on these four variables: (1) body clearance, (2) in-path slope, (3) tilt slope, and (4) wheel deviation. The variance is due to noise in the range data. It was found that the standard deviation of these terrain variables is large enough to warrant the use of a safety margin to aid the roving vehicle in avoiding high risk areas.

Donohue, J. G.↗