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At least 685 records · Page 38

Automatic classification of soils and vegetation with ERTS-1 data

Preliminary results of a test of a computerized analysis method using ERTS 1 data are presented. The method consisted of a four-spectral-band supervised, maximum likelihood, Gaussian classifier with training statistics derived through a combination of clustering and manual methods. The multivariate analysis method leads to the assignment of each resolution element of the data to one of a preselected set of discrete classes. The data frame was an area over the Texas-Oklahoma border including Lake Texoma. The study suggests that multispectral scanner data coupled with machine processing shows promise for earth surface cover surveys. Futhermore, the processing time is short and consequently the costs are low; a full frame can be analyzed completely within 48 hours.

Landgrebe, D. A.↗

Wideband comet camera lens design

A quarter-meter diameter, modified Ritchey-Chretien camera is described for spacecraft-based observation of Halley's Comet. The system will operate over an unusually broad spectral region, from 0.1216 micron (the hydrogen Lyman-alpha line) to 1.1 microns using reflective primary and secondary mirror optics and a thin UV-grade lithium fluoride refractive element as a field corrector near the image plane. The f/12, 3000 mm focal length camera has a 0.4 deg full field of view for operation with a 15 x 15 mm charge-coupled device detector array. The UV-enhanced silicon CCD detector is a 1000 x 1000 array of 15 micron pixels which establishes the system resolution requirement. The optical design and performance are discussed, with an emphasis on the image analysis with respect to pixel resolution elements used for viewing extended objects such as comets.

Huber, E. D.↗

Near-infrared linear array spectrometer for space applications

A 128-element InSb linear detector array read out with a field effect transistor (FET) multiplexing scheme has been developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. State-of-the-art NEP, uniform response, on-detector charge integration, and very low focal plane heat load compared to that of discrete detector arrays allows this type of array to open new possibilities for spaceborne near-infrared imaging spectrometers. Large number of cooled detector elements are feasible with the new technology, making it practical to design sensitive spectrometers even for spinning spacecraft where simultaneous wavelength coverage is necessary to avoid confusion of spatial with spectral variations.

Apt, J.↗

Astronomical application of IR CID technology

A portable microcomputer data system was developed to test a 2 x 64-element Si:Bi charge injection device (CID) infrared detector array on the Lick Observatory Shane telescope. An existing 0.5 m spectrograph was used for the tests after modification, and a spectral resolution of 1000 was achieved. Slow device response, due to the low background conditions in the spectrograph were shown. Astronomical data were later obtained, and a device read noise on the order of a few hundred electrons was achieved. The signal to noise ratios of the resulting spectra were about a factor of five lower than what could have been achieved with discrete photoconductive detectors. It is concluded that the CID array is competitive for applications in backgrounds lower than those used in the tests.

Rank, D. M.↗

The Galileo Energetic Particles Detector

Amongst its complement of particles and fields instruments, the Galileo spacecraft carries an Energetic Particles Detector (EPD) designed to measure the characteristics of particle populations important in determining the size, shape, and dynamics of the Jovian magnetosphere. To do this the EPD provides 4pi angular coverage and spectral measurements for Z greater than or equal to 1 ions from 20 keV to 55 MeV, for electrons from 15 keV to greater than 11 MeV, and for the elemental species helium through iron from approximately 10 keV/nucl to 15 MeV/nucl. Two bidirectional telescopes, mounted on a stepping platform, employ magnetic deflection, energy loss versus energy, and time-of-flight techniques to provide 64 rate channels and pulse height analysis of priority selected events. The EPD data system provides a large number of possible operational modes from which a small number will be selected to optimize data collection during the many encounter and cruise phases of the mission. The EPD employs a number of safeing algorithms that are to be used in the event that its self-checking procedures indicate a problem. The instrument and its operation are described.

Williams, D. J.↗

The Iron Project

Recent advances in theoretical atomic physics have enabled large-scale calculation of atomic parameters for a variety of atomic processes with high degree of precision. The development and application of these methods is the aim of the Iron Project. At present the primary focus is on collisional processes for all ions of iron, Fe I - FeXXVI, and other iron-peak elements; new work on radiative processes has also been initiated. Varied applications of the Iron Project work to X-ray astronomy are discussed, and more general applications to other spectral ranges are pointed out. The IP work forms the basis for more specialized projects such as the RmaX Project, and the work on photoionization/recombination, and aims to provide a comprehensive and self-consistent set of accurate collisional and radiative cross sections, and transition probabilities, within the framework of relativistic close coupling formulation using the Breit-Pauli R-Matrix method. An illustrative example is presented of how the IP data may be utilized in the formation of X-ray spectra of the K alpha complex at 6.7 keV from He-like Fe XXV.

Pradhan, Anil K.↗

Haze Formation is an Important Sink for HCN on Titan

Titan's organic haze is potentially an important sink of photochemically produced carbon and nitrogen compounds. An assortment of microphysical haze models all suggest that the haze production rate is 10(exp -14) gm per square centimeter per second, within a factor of two. Spectral analysis of laboratory tholins compared to Titan's geometric albedo spectrum suggest that the laboratory material is a good analog to Titan's haze. The laboratory material has an elemental composition given approximately by C4H4N, with an uncertainty in the C/N ratio of a factor of two. Thus, the haze represents a sink for C of 4 x 10(exp 8) per square centimeter per second, and a sink for N of 1 x 10(exp 8) per square centimeter per second. The C sink is small compared to condensation of hydrocarbons but the sink for N is comparable to the total production rate of HCN. Because estimates of the eddy diffusion profile on Titan have been based on the HCN profile, inclusion of this additional sink for N will affect estimates for all transport processes in Titan's atmosphere.

McKay, Christopher P.↗

Revisiting and Extending Interface Penalties for Multi-Domain Summation-by-Parts Operators

General interface coupling conditions are presented for multi-domain collocation methods, which satisfy the summation-by-parts (SBP) spatial discretization convention. The combined interior/interface operators are proven to be L2 stable, pointwise stable, and conservative, while maintaining the underlying accuracy of the interior SBP operator. The new interface conditions resemble (and were motivated by) those used in the discontinuous Galerkin finite element community, and maintain many of the same properties. Extensive validation studies are presented using two classes of high-order SBP operators: 1) central finite difference, and 2) Legendre spectral collocation.

Carpenter, Mark H.↗

Portable Fourier Transform Spectroscopy for Analysis of Surface Contamination and Quality Control

Progress has been made into adapting and enhancing a commercially available infrared spectrometer for the development of a handheld device for in-field measurements of the chemical composition of various samples of materials. The intent is to duplicate the functionality of a benchtop Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) within the compactness of a handheld instrument with significantly improved spectral responsivity. Existing commercial technology, like the deuterated L-alanine triglycine sulfide detectors (DLATGS), is capable of sensitive in-field chemical analysis. This proposed approach compares several subsystem elements of the FTIR inside of the commercial, non-benchtop system to the commercial benchtop systems. These subsystem elements are the detector, the preamplifier and associated electronics of the detector, the interferometer, associated readout parameters, and cooling. This effort will examine these different detector subsystem elements to look for limitations in each. These limitations will be explored collaboratively with the commercial provider, and will be prioritized to meet the deliverable objectives. The tool design will be that of a handheld gun containing the IR filament source and associated optics. It will operate in a point-and-shoot manner, pointing the source and optics at the sample under test and capturing the reflected response of the material in the same handheld gun. Data will be captured via the gun and ported to a laptop.

Pugel, Diane↗

Extracting Damping Ratio from Dynamic Data and Numerical Solutions

There are many ways to extract damping parameters from data or models. This Technical Memorandum provides a quick reference for some of the more common approaches used in dynamics analysis. Described are six methods of extracting damping from data: the half-power method, logarithmic decrement (decay rate) method, an autocorrelation/power spectral density fitting method, a frequency response fitting method, a random decrement fitting method, and a newly developed half-quadratic gain method. Additionally, state-space models and finite element method modeling tools, such as COMSOL Multiphysics (COMSOL), provide a theoretical damping via complex frequency. Each method has its advantages which are briefly noted. There are also likely many other advanced techniques in extracting damping within the operational modal analysis discipline, where an input excitation is unknown; however, these approaches discussed here are objective, direct, and can be implemented in a consistent manner.

Casiano, M. J.↗

Tunable Electro-optic modulators for lidar systems and atmospheric applications

In global sensing applications using different types of lidars, the spectral range and fine frequency coverages are often limited because of the finite tunabilities of molecular lasers and the number of molecular species that are available. To overcome the above obstacle, we have proposed new broadband frequency tunable electro-optic (EO) modulators that can cover a wide range from the mid-infrared to the visible as lidar sources in atmospheric sensing applications such as high resolution atmospheric molecular spectroscopy, Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL), and laser radar imaging. The configuration of the proposed new tunable EO modulators includes an electro-optic active crystal element surrounded by a ferrite tuning element which is placed inside a microwave waveguide. The tuning is provided by an external magnetic field, which is either longitudinal or transverse, and the modulator can be either single sideband type or a double sideband type depending on the application required for the spectral purity of the modulator output.

Eng, R. S.↗

Preconditioned Minimal Residual Methods for Chebyshev Spectral Caluclations

The problem of preconditioning the pseudospectral Chebyshev approximation of an elliptic operator is considered. The numerical sensitiveness to variations of the coefficients of the operator are investigated for two classes of preconditioning matrices: one arising from finite differences, the other from finite elements. The preconditioned system is solved by a conjugate gradient type method, and by a DuFort-Frankel method with dynamical parameters. The methods are compared on some test problems with the Richardson method and with the minimal residual Richardson method.

Canuto, C.↗

Preconditioned minimal residual methods for Chebyshev spectral calculations

The problem of preconditioning the pseudospectral Chebyshev approximation of an elliptic operator is considered. The numerical sensitiveness to variations of the coefficients of the operator are investigated for two classes of preconditioning matrices: one arising from finite differences, the other from finite elements. The preconditioned system is solved by a conjugate gradient type method, and by a Dufort-Frankel method with dynamical parameters. The methods are compared on some test problems with the Richardson method and with the minimal residual Richardson method.

Canuto, C.↗

Multi-Temperature Emission and Abundances in the Hot Gaseous Halo

We present the results of XMM-Newton observations of NGC 507, a dominant elliptical galaxy in a small group of galaxies. After carefully considering various systematic effects on abundance measurements, we report 'super-solar' metal abundances (both Fe and a-elements) present in the hot ISM: ZFe = 2-3 times solar with an observational limit of as high as 4 times solar inside the D25 ellipse of NGC 507. This is the highest ZFe reported so far, and fully consistent with those expected by the stellar evolution models where heavy elements are enriched by both type II and Ia supernovae ejecta. No unusual constraint either on the SNe rate or IMF is required. Among various factors affecting the accurate abundance measurement, we find that selecting a proper emission model is most important. As opposed to the X-ray spectral data with limited s/n and poor spatial/spectral resolution obtained in the previous missions, the spatially resolved XMM spectra provide enough statistics to untie the model-Z degeneracy and statistically require at least 3 emission components in each concentric shell (2 thermal components representing a finite range of kT in the hot ISM + 1 hard LMXB component). We show that a simpler model (such as a two-component model) produce a much lower best-fit ZFe. The abundances of a-elements (most accurately determined by Si) is also found to be super-solar and its radio to Fe is close to the solar ratio, suggesting a considerably contribution of heavy elements from Type Ia SNe. We estimate approx. 70% of MFe in the hot ISM originate from Type Ia.

Kim, Dong-Woo↗

Earth resources sensing technology - 24-channel multispectral sensor system development.

Description of the technology applied to a 24-channel multispectral scanner developed as a tool to investigate the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 0.34 and 13.0 microns. Energy reflected or emitted from the terrain and system calibration sources is collected by the scan mirror, reflected into the collecting optics, and brought to focus in a plane containing a square aperture. A dichroic optical element splits the energy which passes through the aperture into two wavelength bands in which wavelengths are greater than and less than 2.0 microns, respectively. These two wavelength bands are dispersed spectrally by two grating spectrometers. The energy from 24 distinct spectral intervals is transformed into electrical signals by 24 detector/preamplifier combinations. These signals then become the inputs to a video processor in an airborne electronics console.

Kessel, J. E.↗

The chemical composition and distribution of interstellar grains

The chemical composition of interstellar grains is derived here on the basis of (1) the cosmic abundance of the elements; (2) the wavelength dependence of extinction and polarization; (3) the average total extinction; (4) the ratio of polarization to extinction; (5) the predominantly dielectric character of grains in the visible spectral region; and (6) infrared spectral characteristics of grains. Inferences of the core-mantle model with respect to spatial distribution are consistent with the proposition that growth of the mantles occurs in the galactic shock region predicted by the density-wave theory. Estimates of the total visual extinction toward the galactic center and the consequent estimates of the total amount of far infrared radiation are shown to depend critically on the grain model. Variations of the ratio of far ultraviolet to visual extinction are correlated with the conditions for growth of mantles on the bare small particles which are generally prevented from accreting mantles primarily because of their extreme temperature fluctuations produced by the ultraviolet photons in the radiation field.

Greenberg, J. M.↗

A Tone-Aided/Dual Vestigial Sideband (TA/DVSB) system for mobile satellite channels

Tone-aided modulation is one way of combatting the effects of multipath fading and Doppler frequency shifts. A new tone-aided modulation format for M-ary phase-shift keyed signals (MPSK) is discussed. A spectral null for the placement of the tone is created in the center of the MPSK signal by translating the upper sideband upwards in frequency by the same amount. The key element of the system is the algorithm for recombining the data sidebands in the receiver, a function that is performed by a specialized phase-locked loop (PLL). The system structure is discussed and simulation results showing the PLL acquisition performance are presented.

Saulnier, Gary J.↗

Masking of errors in transmission of VAPC-coded speech

A subjective evaluation is provided of the bit error sensitivity of the message elements of a Vector Adaptive Predictive (VAPC) speech coder, along with an indication of the amenability of these elements to a popular error masking strategy (cross frame hold over). As expected, a wide range of bit error sensitivity was observed. The most sensitive message components were the short term spectral information and the most significant bits of the pitch and gain indices. The cross frame hold over strategy was found to be useful for pitch and gain information, but it was not beneficial for the spectral information unless severe corruption had occurred.

Cox, Neil B.↗