Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “AMPLITUDE MODULATION”

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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2002

Digital Distortion Caused by Traveling- Wave-Tube Amplifiers Simulated

Future NASA missions demand increased data rates in satellite communications for near real-time transmission of large volumes of remote data. Increased data rates necessitate higher order digital modulation schemes and larger system bandwidth, which place stricter requirements on the allowable distortion caused by the high-power amplifier, or the traveling-wave-tube amplifier (TWTA). In particular, intersymbol interference caused by the TWTA becomes a major consideration for accurate data detection at the receiver. Experimentally investigating the effects of the physical TWTA on intersymbol interference would be prohibitively expensive, as it would require manufacturing numerous amplifiers in addition to acquiring the required digital hardware. Thus, an accurate computational model is essential to predict the effects of the TWTA on system-level performance when a communication system is being designed with adequate digital integrity for high data rates. A fully three-dimensional, time-dependent, TWT interaction model has been developed using the electromagnetic particle-in-cell code MAFIA (Solution of Maxwell's equations by the Finite-Integration-Algorithm). It comprehensively takes into account the effects of frequency-dependent AM (amplitude modulation)/AM and AM/PM (phase modulation) conversion, gain and phase ripple due to reflections, drive-induced oscillations, harmonic generation, intermodulation products, and backward waves. This physics-based TWT model can be used to give a direct description of the effects of the nonlinear TWT on the operational signal as a function of the physical device. Users can define arbitrary excitation functions so that higher order modulated digital signals can be used as input and that computations can directly correlate intersymbol interference with TWT parameters. Standard practice involves using communication-system-level software packages, such as SPW, to predict if adequate signal detection will be achieved. These models use a nonlinear, black-box model to represent the TWTA. The models vary in complexity, but most make several assumptions regarding the operation of the high-power amplifier. When the MAFIA TWT interaction model was used, these assumptions were found to be in significant error. In addition, digital signal performance, including intersymbol interference, was compared using direct data input into the MAFIA model and using the system-level analysis tool SPW for several higher order modulation schemes. Results show significant differences in predicted degradation between SPW and MAFIA simulations, demonstrating the significance of the TWTA approximations made in the SPW model on digital signal performance. For example, a comparison of the SPW and MAFIA output constellation diagrams for a 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) signal (data shown only for second and fourth quadrants) is shown. The upper-bound degradation was calculated from the corresponding eye diagrams. In comparison to SPW simulations, the MAFIA data resulted in a 3.6-dB larger degradation.

Kory, Carol L.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Quasi-Decadal Oscillations Generated by the QBO

Quasi-decadal oscillations (QDO) have been observed in the stratosphere and have been linked to the equatorial Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and to the 11-year solar activity cycle. With the use of a 2D version of our Numerical Spectral Model (NSM) that incorporates Hines' Doppler Spread Parameterization (DSP) for gravity waves (GW), we demonstrate that beat periods between 9 and 11 years can be generated by the QBO as it interacts through GW filtering with the Annual Oscillation (AO) and Semi-annual Oscillation (SAO). Results are discussed from computations covering up to 50 years, and our analyses leads to the following conclusions. The QDO as a stand-alone signature is largely confined to the upper mesosphere. Its largest signature appears in the form of amplitude modulations of the QBO, AO and SAO, and these extend into the lower stratosphere. The downward control that characterizes the QBO apparently comes into play, and the longer time constants for diffusion and radiative loss at lower altitudes facilitate the QDO response. Although excited by the QBO, which is confined to low latitudes, the QDO is shown to extend to high latitudes. The effect is particularly large for the QBO with period around 33.5 month (near the upper limit of observations), which interacts with the SAO to produce a hemispherically symmetric QDO. Our analysis indicates that the QDO is transferred to high latitudes by the meridional circulation, which prominently exhibits this periodicity particularly in the amplitude modulation of the AO.

Mayr, H. G.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Quasi-Decadal Oscillations Generated by the QBO

Quasi-decadal oscillations (QDO) have been observed in the stratosphere and have been linked to the equatorial Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and to the 11-year solar activity cycle. With the use of a 2D version of our Numerical Spectral Model (NSM) that incorporates Hines'Doppler Spread Parameterization (DSP) for gravity waves (GW), we demonstrate that beat periods between 9 and I I years can be generated by the QBO as it interacts through GW filtering with the Annual Oscillation (AO) and Semi-annual Oscillation (SAO). Results are discussed from computations covering up to 50 years, and our analyses leads to the following conclusions. The QDO as a stand-alone signature is largely confined to the upper mesosphere. Its largest signature appears in the form of amplitude modulations of the QBO, AO and SAO, and these extend into the lower stratosphere. The downward control that characterizes the QBO apparently comes into play, and the longer time constants for diffusion and radiative loss at lower altitudes facilitate the QDO response. Although excited by the QBO, which is confined to low latitudes, the QDO is shown to extend to high latitudes. The effect is particularly large for the QBO with period around 33.5 month (near the upper limit of observations), which interacts with the SAO to produce a hemispherically symmetric QDO. Our analysis indicates that the QDO is transferred to high latitudes by the meridional circulation, which prominently exhibits this periodicity particularly in the amplitude modulation of the AO. The propensity for beat periods around 10 years may help to increase significantly the efficiency for generating solar cycle signatures in the atmosphere, and we discuss numerical experiments related to that.

Mayr, Hans G.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Improved Measurement of Dispersion in an Optical Fiber

An improved method of measuring chromatic dispersion in an optical fiber or other device affords a lower (relative to prior such methods) limit of measurable dispersion. This method is a modified version of the amplitude-modulation (AM) method, which is one of the prior methods. In comparison with the other prior methods, the AM method is less complex. However, the AM method is limited to dispersion levels . 160 ps/nm and cannot be used to measure the symbol of the dispersion. In contrast, the present modified version of the AM method can be used to measure the symbol of the symbol of the dispersion and affords a measurement range from about 2 ps/nm to several thousand ps/nm with a resolution of 0.27 ps/nm or finer. The figure schematically depicts the measurement apparatus. The source of light for the measurement is a laser, the wavelength of which is monitored by an optical spectrum analyzer. A light-component analyzer amplitude-modulates the light with a scanning radio-frequency signal. The modulated light is passed through a buffer (described below) and through the device under test (e.g., an optical fiber, the dispersion of which one seeks to measure), then back to the light-component analyzer for spectrum analysis. Dispersion in the device under test gives rise to phase shifts among the carrier and the upper and lower sideband components of the modulated signal. These phase shifts affect the modulation-frequency component of the output of a photodetector exposed to the signal that emerges from the device under test. One of the effects is that this component goes to zero periodically as the modulation frequency is varied.

Huang, Shouhua↗
NASA NTRS2006

Cryogenic Pound Circuits for Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillators

Two modern cryogenic variants of the Pound circuit have been devised to increase the frequency stability of microwave oscillators that include cryogenic sapphire-filled cavity resonators. The original Pound circuit is a microwave frequency discriminator that provides feedback to stabilize a voltage-controlled microwave oscillator with respect to an associated cavity resonator. In the present cryogenic Pound circuits, the active microwave devices are implemented by use of state-of-the-art commercially available tunnel diodes that exhibit low flicker noise (required for high frequency stability) and function well at low temperatures and at frequencies up to several tens of gigahertz. While tunnel diodes are inherently operable as amplitude detectors and amplitude modulators, they cannot, by themselves, induce significant phase modulation. Therefore, each of the present cryogenic Pound circuits includes passive circuitry that transforms the AM into the required PM. Each circuit also contains an AM detector that is used to sample the microwave signal at the input terminal of the high-Q resonator for the purpose of verifying the desired AM null at this point. Finally, each circuit contains a Pound signal detector that puts out a signal, at the modulation frequency, having an amplitude proportional to the frequency error in the input signal. High frequency stability is obtained by processing this output signal into feedback to a voltage-controlled oscillator to continuously correct the frequency error in the input signal.

Dick, G. John↗
NASA NTRS1980

All-digital QPSK modulator

Circuit consisting to only four components (2 IC chips and 2 time delay devices) modulates RF signal with 2 asynchronous digital data signals. Digital modulator is virtually free of amplitude modulation, is not subject to temperature effects from other components, dissipates less power, and is far simpler than its analog predecessors.

Burgess, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Motion-Contrast Sensitivity: Visibility of Motion Gradients of Various Spatial Frequencies

The purpose of our experiments was to estimate basic sensitivity to motion gradients and to evaluate the evidence for second-order integration and differentiation of motion signals. We measured sensitivity to spatially sinusoidal contrast modulation between two oppositely moving bandpass-filtered noise images. The motion-contrast sensitivity function, defined as the inverse of threshold modulation amplitude as a function of modulation spatial frequency, was bandpass in shape with declines at both highest and lowest frequencies. The functions for three noise spatial frequencies had approximately the same shape when modulation frequency was expressed as a fraction of noise frequency. We compared the data with a model in which linear motion filters, whose outputs are squared or rectified, are followed by a second stage of excitatory or inhibitory pooling. The data are consistent with a model in which (1) all excitatory pooling occurs at the linear stage and (2) the second stage contains a large inhibitory pooling area, with a radius approximately eight times that of the linear receptive field.

Watson, Andrew B.↗
NASA NTRS1966

Advanced transmitter development

Testing of high voltage power supply and linear exciter for Mariner transmitter noise amplitude modulation

SILICON CONTROL RECTIFIER /SCR/↗
NASA NTRS1988

A lower bound on the minimum Euclidean distance of trellis-coded modulation schemes

A lower bound on the minimum free Euclidean distance of trellis-coded modulation (TCM) is derived that guarantees the existence of good TCM codes of any complexity. The bound is used to compare trellis codes combined with phase-shift keying, pulse amplitude modulation, and quadrature amplitude-shift keying modulation. This random coding bound is the first lower bound on the free distance of trellis codes, is tighter than any upper bound for large constraint lengths, and predicts the asymptotic performance of TCM when the complexity of the code becomes large. The bound can be used with any code rate and any modulation scheme and shows that the free distance increases linearly with the constraint length for large values of the constraint length.

Rouanne, Marc↗
NASA NTRS1992

Acoustic Measurement Of Periodic Motion Of Levitated Object

Some internal vibrations, oscillations in position, and rotations of acoustically levitated object measured by use of microphone already installed in typical levitation chamber for tuning chamber to resonance and monitoring operation. Levitating acoustic signal modulated by object motion of lower frequency. Amplitude modulation detected and analyzed spectrally to determine amplitudes and frequencies of motions.

Watkins, John L.↗