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At least 739 records · Page 41

Pressure and velocity measurements in a three dimensional wall jet

In three recent papers, some results of an experimental investigation of a freely expanding coflowing jet as well as a three dimensional wall jet have been presented. A flat plate as well as a curved wall surface intended to model a wing-flap combination in a high lift V/STOL configuration have been investigated. In these papers, the ratio of the jet exit plane velocity to the free stream velocity, was 5.1. This paper explores the effects of increasing the velocity ratio. The quantities measured include the width of the mixing region, the mean velocity field, turbulent intensities and time scales. In addition, wall and static pressure-velocity correlations and coherences are presented. The velocity measurements are made using a laser Doppler velocimeter with a phase-locked loop processor. The fluctuating pressures are monitored using condenser-type microphones.

Catalano, G. D.↗

Voyager telecommunications - The broadcast from Jupiter

The means by which the data collected by the Voyager 1 mission to Jupiter were returned to earth are presented. Radio links between the earth and the spacecraft are used for the transmission of both imaging and nonimaging telemetry from the spacecraft and commands from the earth and for radiometric observations of the spacecraft and its environment. Features which have lead to vast improvements in the capability of the Voyager telecommunications system over that of previous space probes include the use of X-band rather than S-band telemetry, a dual power X-band traveling wave tube amplifier, a 3.7 m spacecraft antenna and a single channel telemetry system with concatenated coding. Communications equipment at the three ground complexes of the Deep Space Network for telemetry reception includes 64 m steerable antennas, cryogenic maser preamplifiers and a phase-lock loop receiver. Voyager 1 has met or exceeded all of its telecommunications requirements, providing a 98% data return and a total of 2 x 10 to the 11th data bits during the Jupiter encounter.

Edelson, R. E.↗

Flexible stator control on the Galileo spacecraft

Galileo is a dual-spin spacecraft designed to deliver a probe to Jupiter and then orbit the planet. The stator, or despun section, contains four flexible modes below 10 Hz and the despun actuator is separated from the inertial sensors by this flexibility. Control loop separation by bandwidth proved unacceptable due to performance requirements. To obtain the desired performance, a control scheme was devised which consists of three parts. First, flexibility damping and control notch filtering are accomplished by phase locked loop techniques. Second, slewing maneuvers are produced by torque profiles which are nonexcitatory to the structure. Finally, a low bandwidth perturbation controller is supplied to remove spacecraft disturbances.

Kopf, E. H.↗

Fourier emission infrared microspectrophotometer for surface analysis. I - Application to lubrication problems

A far-infrared interferometer was converted into an emission microspectrophotometer for surface analysis. To cover the mid-infrared as well as the far-infrared the Mylar beamsplitter was made replaceable by a germanium-coated salt plate, and the Moire fringe counting system used to locate the moveable Michelson mirror was improved to read 0.5 micron of mirror displacement. Digital electronics and a dedicated minicomputer were installed for data collection and processing. The most critical element for the recording of weak emission spectra from small areas was, however, a reflecting microscope objective and phase-locked signal detection with simultaneous referencing to a blackbody source. An application of the technique to lubrication problems is shown.

Lauer, J. L.↗

Fiber optics transmit clock signal more reliably

Optical automatic gain control smooths maser clock amplitude fluctuations without phase shift. Uncomplicated optical system is more reliable than electrical transmission circuits which require phase-locked loops to compensate for shift. Maser feeds reference signal to linear fiber-optic analog transmitter which emits modulated laser beam directed to splitter. Splitter consists of dichroic mirrors and associated lenses for distributing beam to output ports. Cables attached there guide signals to receiving station.

Lutes, G. F., Jr.↗

A miniaturized digital telemetry system for physiological data transmission

A physiological date telemetry system, consisting basically of a portable unit and a ground base station was designed, built, and tested. The portable unit to be worn by the subject is composed of a single crystal controlled transmitter with AM transmission of digital data and narrowband FM transmission of voice; a crystal controlled FM receiver; thirteen input channels follwed by a PCM encoder (three of these channels are designed for ECG data); a calibration unit; and a transponder control system. The ground base station consists of a standard telemetry reciever, a decoder, and an FM transmitter for transmission of voice and transponder signals to the portable unit. The ground base station has complete control of power to all subsystems in the portable unit. The phase-locked loop circuit which is used to decode the data, remains in operation even when the signal from the portable unit is interrupted.

Portnoy, W. M.↗

Satellite communication performance evaluation: Computational techniques based on moments

Computational techniques that efficiently compute bit error probabilities when only moments of the various interference random variables are available are presented. The approach taken is a generalization of the well known Gauss-Quadrature rules used for numerically evaluating single or multiple integrals. In what follows, basic algorithms are developed. Some of its properties and generalizations are shown and its many potential applications are described. Some typical interference scenarios for which the results are particularly applicable include: intentional jamming, adjacent and cochannel interferences; radar pulses (RFI); multipath; and intersymbol interference. While the examples presented stress evaluation of bit error probilities in uncoded digital communication systems, the moment techniques can also be applied to the evaluation of other parameters, such as computational cutoff rate under both normal and mismatched receiver cases in coded systems. Another important application is the determination of the probability distributions of the output of a discrete time dynamical system. This type of model occurs widely in control systems, queueing systems, and synchronization systems (e.g., discrete phase locked loops).

Omura, J. K.↗

Investigations of coherent structures in free turbulent shear flows

The dynamics of large-scale coherent structures in general, and studies based on flow-visualization and phase-locked hot-wire measurements of the structures in the near fields of circular jets are considered. A study involving the nature of coherent structures under conditions of stable vortex pairing induced by controlled axisymmetric acoustic excitation reveals that azimuthal coherence initially enhanced by the excitation is lost before the end of the potential core through evolution of azimuthal lobe structures and turbulent breakdown. The evolution of a spark-induced spot in an axisymmetric turbulent mixing layer is also investigated, and the coherent Reynolds stress associated with the spot is found to be much higher than the background turbulence Reynolds stress. In addition, the state of organization in a high Reynolds number unperturbed axisymmetric mixing layer is examined, and it is shown that the shear layer is infrequently organized and the motions are intensely three-dimensional, while tearing and fractional pairing occur as frequently as complete pairing.

Hussain, A. K. M. F.↗

Multiple sensory and motor cues enhance the accuracy of pursuit eye movements

Oculomotor pursuit can be elicited by moving visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and occasionally auditory targets presented singly. Both the accuracy and amount of pursuit are enhanced if the position of the target is specified by cues from several sensory modalities. When the motion of the target is topologically related to movements of the subject's arm, the subject's eyes are more closely phase-locked with the target and reversals of the eyes generally precede target reversal by 10-20 ma.

Mather, J. A.↗

Rangefinder Corrects for Air Density and Moisture

Proposed distance-measuring instrument compensates for variations in both dry atmospheric density and water-vapor content. Instrument would be expected to be more accurate than previous laser-ranging instruments. New rangefinder sends three signal trains to target: Two trains are at optical frequencies, and one is at a microwave frequency. All three signals are phase-locked.

Abshire, J. B.↗

The 2.2 GHz Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) oscillator development Ku-band frequency source development

Two 2.2 GHz SAW oscillators using aluminum nitride on sapphire (AlN/Al2O3) delay lines were fabricated. The oscillators were electronically temperature compensated and characterized. One of the oscillators was used as the frequency reference for the Ku band source; the second oscillator is available for continued evaluation. A 15 GHz frequency source was designed and fabricated. The 15 GHz source consists of a Ku band FET oscillator which is phase locked to the frequency multiplied (X7) output of the 2.2 GHz SAW reference source. The Ku band source was built using microstrip circuit designs, which are hybrid compatible. Two wafer runs of 2.2 GHz TED devices were fabricated and evaluated. The devices were mounted on microstrip test substrates and evaluated as 15 GHz divide by 7 circuits. The device evaluation indicated that in their present form the TED is not a practical circuit element.

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Stabilized Zeeman split laser

The development of a stablized Zeeman split laser for use in a polarization profilometer is discussed. A Hewlett-Packard laser was modified to stabilize the Zeeman split beat frequency thereby increasing the phase measurement accuracy from the Hewlett-Packard 3 degrees to an accuracy of .01 degrees. The addition of a two layered inductive winding converts the laser to a current controlled oscillator whose frequency is linearly related to coil current. This linear relationship between coil current and laser frequency permits phase locking the laser frequency to a stable crystal controlled reference frequency. The stability of the system is examined and the equipment operation procedures are outlined.

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A 12 GHz satellite video receiver: Low noise, low cost prototype model for TV reception from broadcast satellites

A 12-channel synchronous phase lock video receiver consisting of an outdoor downconverter unit and an indoor demodulator unit was developed to provide both low noise performance and low cost in production quantities of 1000 units. The prototype receiver can be mass produced at a cost under $1540 without sacrificing system performance. The receiver also has the capability of selecting any of the twelve assigned satellite broadcast channels in the frequency range 11.7 to 12.2 GHz.

Hreha, M. A.↗

Recent progress in the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center atomic hydrogen standards program

At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and through associated contractors, a broad spectrum of work is being carried out to develop improved hydrogen maser frequency standards for field use, improved experimental hydrogen maser frequency standards, and improved frequency and time distribution and measurement systems for hydrogen maser use. Recent progress in the following areas is reported: results on the Nr masers built by the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, the development of a low cost hydrogen maser at Goddard Space Flight Center, and work on a low noise phase comparison system and digitally phase locked crystal oscillator called the distribution and measurement system.

Reinhardt, V. S.↗

An efficient technique for the performance evaluation of antenna arrays with noisy carrier reference

An efficient computational technique is developed to evaluate the performance of coherent receivers with noisy carrier reference and multiple antennas. The received signal is assumed to be uncoded residual carrier BPSK (binary phase shift keying), with a PLL (phase locked loop) used for extracting the carrier. Explicit relationships between the error probabilities and the various system parameters are given. Specific results are given for the performance gain of combined carrier referencing over baseband only combining when the channel alignment process is ideal. A simple asymptotic expression for the performance gain is determined when the number of antennas used is increased without bound. An example using a Block 3 Deep Space Network PLL illustrates the performance of each arraying structure. The technique used is applicable to the performance evaluation for other receivers having similar decision statistics.

Yan, T. Y.↗

IUE ultraviolet spectra of V Sagittae

Ultraviolet spectra obtained by the IUE of the short-period, intrinsically variable, double-lined spectroscopic and eclipsing close binary V Sagittae are discussed. The 18 spectra measured between 1150 and 1950 A and 1850 and 3300 A over an interval of 179 days are shown to be dominated by emission features, with only Lyman alpha absorption apparent. Examination of the smooth continuum inferred for each spectrum results in a B-V color index of 0.20. The observed V magnitudes do not show a phase-locked or typical eclipsing light curve, due to intrinsic variability in the UV as well as the visible. The calibrated, reddening-corrected UV fluxes are used in an attempt to determine system temperature, but it is found that the continuum is most likely composite and variable, and thus a unique temperature assignment is impossible. The V Sge system is interpreted as possibly consisting of a primary early A, near-main-sequence star with an effective temperature of 10,000 K and a secondary thick, hot disk (temperature 17,000-300,000 K) embedding a white dwarf.

Koch, R. H.↗

Tuned feedback damping with application to the Galileo spacecraft

An adaptive controller has been developed which uses phase-locked-loops as the adaptive devices. The controller provides active damping to systems which have their underdamped frequencies known only to within a particular range (e.g. plus or minus 20% uncertainty). The design and analysis of the controller is presented along with an application of such a controller to the scan platform pointing system of the Galileo spacecraft, a system with sensors and actuators separated by flexible structure.

Macala, G. A.↗

Transport Control for High-Density Digital Recorder

Tape capstan drive motor speed controlled by phase-locked loop to keep data rate off of tape compatible with demand clock rate preventing deskewbuffer overflow or underflow. Immunity to speed perturbations caused by data dropouts is obtained by switching to different data-channel reference signal whenever dropout is detected by frame synchronizer in channel currently in use. Desired tape speed is selected by changing frequency of demand rate clock and changing divisor N in programable divider.

Matlin, M. D.↗