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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.

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NASA NTRS1996

Development of Collaborative Research Initiatives to Advance the Aerospace Sciences-via the Communications, Electronics, Information Systems Focus Group

The primary goal of the Adaptive Vision Laboratory Research project was to develop advanced computer vision systems for automatic target recognition. The approach used in this effort combined several machine learning paradigms including evolutionary learning algorithms, neural networks, and adaptive clustering techniques to develop the E-MOR.PH system. This system is capable of generating pattern recognition systems to solve a wide variety of complex recognition tasks. A series of simulation experiments were conducted using E-MORPH to solve problems in OCR, military target recognition, industrial inspection, and medical image analysis. The bulk of the funds provided through this grant were used to purchase computer hardware and software to support these computationally intensive simulations. The payoff from this effort is the reduced need for human involvement in the design and implementation of recognition systems. We have shown that the techniques used in E-MORPH are generic and readily transition to other problem domains. Specifically, E-MORPH is multi-phase evolutionary leaming system that evolves cooperative sets of features detectors and combines their response using an adaptive classifier to form a complete pattern recognition system. The system can operate on binary or grayscale images. In our most recent experiments, we used multi-resolution images that are formed by applying a Gabor wavelet transform to a set of grayscale input images. To begin the leaming process, candidate chips are extracted from the multi-resolution images to form a training set and a test set. A population of detector sets is randomly initialized to start the evolutionary process. Using a combination of evolutionary programming and genetic algorithms, the feature detectors are enhanced to solve a recognition problem. The design of E-MORPH and recognition results for a complex problem in medical image analysis are described at the end of this report. The specific task involves the identification of vertebrae in x-ray images of human spinal columns. This problem is extremely challenging because the individual vertebra exhibit variation in shape, scale, orientation, and contrast. E-MORPH generated several accurate recognition systems to solve this task. This dual use of this ATR technology clearly demonstrates the flexibility and power of our approach.

Knasel, T. Michael↗
NASA NTRS1997

Modulated FT- Raman Fiber-Optic Spectroscopy: A technique for Remotely Monitoring High-Temperature Reactions in Real-Time

A modification to a commercial FT-Raman spectrometer is presented for the elimination of thermal backgrounds in FT-Raman spectra. The modification involves the use of a mechanical chopper to modulate the CW laser, remote collection of the signal via fiber optics, and connection of a dual-phase digital signal processor lock-in amplifier between the detector and the spectrometer's collection electronics to demodulate and filter the optical signals. The resulting modulated FT-Raman fiber-optic spectrometer is capable of completely eliminating thermal backgrounds at temperatures exceeding 370 C. In addition, the signal/noise of generated Raman spectra is greater than for spectra collected with the conventional FT-Raman under identical conditions and incident laser power. This is true for both room-temperature and hot samples. The method allows collection of data using preexisting spectrometer software. The total cost of the modification (excluding fiber optics) is approximately $3000 and requires less than 2 h to implement. This is the first report of Fr-Raman spectra collected at temperatures in excess of 300 C in the absence of thermal backgrounds.

Cooper, John B.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Modern Material Analysis Instruments Add a New Dimension to Materials Characterization and Failure Analysis

Modern analytical tools can yield invaluable results during materials characterization and failure analysis. Scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) provide significant analytical capabilities, including angstrom-level resolution. These systems can be equipped with a silicon drift detector (SDD) for very fast yet precise analytical mapping of phases, as well as electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) units to map grain orientations, chambers that admit large samples, variable pressure for wet samples, and quantitative analysis software to examine phases. Advanced solid-state electronics have also improved surface and bulk analysis instruments: Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) can quantitatively determine and map light elements such as hydrogen, lithium, and boron - with their isotopes. Its high sensitivity detects impurities at parts per billion (ppb) levels. X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) can determine oxidation states of elements, as well as identifying polymers and measuring film thicknesses on coated composites. This technique is also known as electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA). Scanning Auger electron spectroscopy (SAM) combines surface sensitivity, spatial lateral resolution (10 nm), and depth profiling capabilities to describe elemental compositions of near and below surface regions down to the chemical state of an atom.

Panda, Binayak↗
NASA NTRS2015

Optoelectronic Infrastructure for Radio Frequency and Optical Phased Arrays

Optoelectronic integrated circuits offer radiation-hardened solutions for satellite systems in addition to improved size, weight, power, and bandwidth characteristics. ODIS, Inc., has developed optoelectronic integrated circuit technology for sensing and data transfer in phased arrays. The technology applies integrated components (lasers, amplifiers, modulators, detectors, and optical waveguide switches) to a radio frequency (RF) array with true time delay for beamsteering. Optical beamsteering is achieved by controlling the current in a two-dimensional (2D) array. In this project, ODIS integrated key components to produce common RF-optical aperture operation.

Cai, Jianhong↗
NASA NTRS1996

US Participation in the GOME and SCIAMACHY Projects

The research performed during this reporting period includes development and maintenance of scientific software for the GOME retrieval algorithms, consultation on operational software development for GOME, further sensitivity and instrument studies to help finalize the definition of the SCIAMACHY instrument, and consultation on optical and detector issues for both GOME and SCIAMACHY. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment was successfully launched on the ERS-2 satellite on April 20, 1995, during this reporting period, and is working in the expected fashion. The European Space Agency has made their selections from responses to the Announcement of Opportunity for GOME validation and science studies, part of the overall ERS AO. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) proposal has been selected. These proposals are primarily for access to the data; ESA does not provide research funding for the selected investigations. The SAO activities that are carried out as a result of selection by ESA are funded by the present grant, to the limit that can be accomplished at the present level of funding. SCIAMACHY is currently in Phase C/D. Instrument design is almost finalized and selection of infrared detectors from the initial production run has been made.

Chance, K. V.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Microwave oscillator with reduced phase noise by negative feedback incorporating microwave signals with suppressed carrier

Oscillator configurations which reduce the effect of 1/f noise sources for both direct feedback and stabilized local oscillator (STALO) circuits are developed and analyzed. By appropriate use of carrier suppression, a small signal is generated which suffers no loss of loop phase information or signal-to-noise ratio. This small signal can be amplified without degradation by multiplicative amplifier noise, and can be detected without saturation of the detector. Together with recent advances in microwave resonator Qs, these circuit improvements will make possible lower phase noise than can be presently achieved without the use of cryogenic devices.

Dick, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Frequency-Modulated, Continuous-Wave Laser Ranging Using Photon-Counting Detectors

Optical ranging is a problem of estimating the round-trip flight time of a phase- or amplitude-modulated optical beam that reflects off of a target. Frequency- modulated, continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging systems obtain this estimate by performing an interferometric measurement between a local frequency- modulated laser beam and a delayed copy returning from the target. The range estimate is formed by mixing the target-return field with the local reference field on a beamsplitter and detecting the resultant beat modulation. In conventional FMCW ranging, the source modulation is linear in instantaneous frequency, the reference-arm field has many more photons than the target-return field, and the time-of-flight estimate is generated by balanced difference- detection of the beamsplitter output, followed by a frequency-domain peak search. This work focused on determining the maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation algorithm when continuous-time photoncounting detectors are used. It is founded on a rigorous statistical characterization of the (random) photoelectron emission times as a function of the incident optical field, including the deleterious effects caused by dark current and dead time. These statistics enable derivation of the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRB) on the accuracy of FMCW ranging, and derivation of the ML estimator, whose performance approaches this bound at high photon flux. The estimation algorithm was developed, and its optimality properties were shown in simulation. Experimental data show that it performs better than the conventional estimation algorithms used. The demonstrated improvement is a factor of 1.414 over frequency-domainbased estimation. If the target interrogating photons and the local reference field photons are costed equally, the optimal allocation of photons between these two arms is to have them equally distributed. This is different than the state of the art, in which the local field is stronger than the target return. The optimal processing of the photocurrent processes at the outputs of the two detectors is to perform log-matched filtering followed by a summation and peak detection. This implies that neither difference detection, nor Fourier-domain peak detection, which are the staples of the state-of-the-art systems, is optimal when a weak local oscillator is employed.

Erkmen, Baris I.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Phase-retrieval algorithms for a complicated optical system

Phase-retrieval algorithms have been developed that handle a complicated optical system that requires multiple Fresnellike transforms to propagate from one end of the system to the other including the absorption by apertures in more than one plane and allowance for bad detector pixels. Gradient-search algorithms and generalizations of the iterative-transform phase-retrieval algorithms are derived. Analytic expressions for the gradient of an error metric, with respect to polynomial coefficients and with respect to point-by-point phase descriptions, are given. The entire gradient can be computed with the number of transforms required to propagate a wave front from one end of the optical system to the other and back again, independent of the number of coefficients or phase points. This greatly speeds the computation. The reconstruction of pupil amplitude is also given. A convergence proof of the generalized iterative transform algorithm is given. These improved algorithms permit a more accurate characterization of complicated optical systems from their point spread functions.

Fienup, J. R.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Maximum Likelihood Estimation of the Broken Power Law Spectral Parameters with Detector Design Applications

The method of Maximum Likelihood (ML) is used to estimate the spectral parameters of an assumed broken power law energy spectrum from simulated detector responses. This methodology, which requires the complete specificity of all cosmic-ray detector design parameters, is shown to provide approximately unbiased, minimum variance, and normally distributed spectra information for events detected by an instrument having a wide range of commonly used detector response functions. The ML procedure, coupled with the simulated performance of a proposed space-based detector and its planned life cycle, has proved to be of significant value in the design phase of a new science instrument. The procedure helped make important trade studies in design parameters as a function of the science objectives, which is particularly important for space-based detectors where physical parameters, such as dimension and weight, impose rigorous practical limits to the design envelope. This ML methodology is then generalized to estimate broken power law spectral parameters from real cosmic-ray data sets.

Howell, Leonard W.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Homodyning and heterodyning the quantum phase

The double-homodyne and the heterodyne detection schemes for phase shifts between two synchronous modes of the electromagnetic field are analyzed in the framework of quantum estimation theory. The probability operator-valued measures (POM's) of the detectors are evaluated and compared with the ideal one in the limit of strong local reference oscillator. The present operational approach leads to a reasonable definition of phase measurement, whose sensitivity is actually related to the output r.m.s. noise of the photodetector. We emphasize that the simple-homodyne scheme does not correspond to a proper phase-shift measurements as it is just a zero-point detector. The sensitivity of all detection schemes are optimized at fixed energy with respect to the input state of radiation. It is shown that the optimal sensitivity can be actually achieved using suited squeezed states.

Dariano, Giacomo M.↗
NASA NTRS2010

IXO/XMS Detector Trade-Off Study

This document presents the outcome of the detector trade-off for the XMS instrument on IXO. This trade-off is part of the Cryogenic instrument Phase-A study as proposed to ESA in the Declaration of Interest SRONXMS-PL-2009-003 dated June 6, 2009. The detector consists of two components: a core array for the highest spectral resolution and an outer array to increase the field of view substantially with modest increase in the number of read-out channels. Degraded resolution of the outer array in comparison with the core array is accepted in order to make this scheme possible. The two detector components may be a single unit or separate units. These arrays comprise pixels and the components that allow them to be arrayed. Each pixel comprises a thermometer, an absorber, and the thermal links between them and to the rest of the array. These links may be interfaces or distinct components. The array infrastructure comprises the mechanical structure of the array, the arrangement of the leads, and features added to improve the integrated thermal properties of the array in the focal-plane assembly.

Kilbourne, Caroline Anne↗
NASA NTRS2022

Numerical phase space optics methods and applications to the analysis of fiber coupling efficiency in atmospheric turbulence

A fundamental requirement of free-space optical communication is the ability to efficiently couple atmospherically distorted light from a telescope to a detector. A numerical method is presented for modeling fiber-based receiver performance in atmospheric conditions based on phase space optics which does not rely on Monte Carlo methods. This method is employed to analyze the waveguide insertion loss and optimal coupling geometry in atmospheric conditions for step-index fibers, graded-index fibers, and photonic lanterns with and without tilt compensation and central obscurations in the telescope.

free-space optical communication↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Numerical phase space optics methods and applications to the analysis of fiber coupling efficiency in atmospheric turbulence

A fundamental requirement of free-space optical communication is the ability to efficiently couple atmospherically distorted light from a telescope to a detector. A numerical method is presented for modeling fiber-based receiver performance in atmospheric conditions based on phase space optics which does not rely on Monte Carlo methods. This method is employed to analyze the waveguide insertion loss and optimal coupling geometry in atmospheric conditions for step-index fibers, graded-index fibers, and photonic lanterns with and without tilt compensation and central obscurations in the telescope.

free-space optical communication↗
NASA NTRS1989

Optical detectors for GaAs MMIC integration: Technology assessment

Fiber optic links are being considered to transmit digital and analog signals in phased array antenna feed networks in space communications systems. The radiating elements in these arrays will be GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC's) in numbers ranging from a few hundred to several thousand. If such optical interconnects are to be practical it appears essential that the associated components, including detectors, be monolithically integrated on the same chip as the microwave circuitry. The general issue of monolithic integration of microwave and optoelectronic components is addressed from the point of view of fabrication technology and compatibility. Particular attention is given to the fabrication technology of various types of GaAs optical detectors that are designed to operate at a wavelength of 830 nm.

Claspy, P. C.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Optical detectors for GaAs MMIC integration - Technology assessment

Fiber optic links are being considered to transmit digital and analog signals in phased array antenna feed networks in space communications systems. The radiating elements in these arrays will be GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC's) in numbers ranging from a few hundred to several thousand. If such optical interconnects are to be practical it appears essential that the associated components, including detectors, be monolithically integrated on the same chip as the microwave circuitry. The general issue of monolithic integration of microwave and optoelectronic components is addressed from the point of view of fabrication technology and compatibility. Particular attention is given to the fabrication technology of various types of GaAs optical detectors that are designed to operate at a wavelength of 830 nm.

Claspy, P. C.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Preliminary test data using the MOS DRO with Si:In detector material

The initial testing performed on the Hughes Metal Oxide Semiconductor Direct Readout (MOS DRO) with a Si:In extrinsic infrared array is described. The testing to date was of a screening nature and the results are primarily qualitative rather than quantitative. At a later date the performance optimization phase will be initiated. An encouraging result is that this response is strongly dependent on the detector temperature, to the extent that thermal transients introduced during the chip readout will affect the performance. A responsivity of 1 A/W at 2.2 microns with a bias of 15 volts, which is well below what is optimum bias, was obtained.

Fowler, A. M.↗
NASA NTRS1971

Plasma-sheet ions at lunar distance preceding substorm onset.

During the partial lunar eclipse of August 17, 1970, four intense, transient bursts of kV-energy positive ions were detected at the lunar surface by the Rice University ALSEP Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment. The eclipse happened to occur during a main-phase geomagnetic storm while the moon was within a few earth radii of the calculated position of the neutral sheet. The two most intense ion bursts were each followed roughly one-half hour later by the sudden onset of a several thousand gamma polar magnetic substorm at the earth's surface. Two smaller ion enhancements were also followed by smaller magnetic disturbances. This observation is interpreted in terms of a downstream escape of plasma-sheet particles associated with the substorm growth phase.

Garrett, H. B.↗