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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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At least 109 records · Page 6

What should DOE do to help establish voluntary consensus standards for measuring and rating the performance of PV modules?

In response to concern expressed by the photovoltaics community over progress toward the establishment and issuance of concensus standards on photovoltaic performance measurements, a review of the status of and progress in developing these standards was conducted. It examined the roles of manufacturers, and consumers and the national laboratories funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in supporting this effort. This was done by means of a series of discussions with knowledgeable members of the photovoltaic community. Results of these interviews are summarized and a new approach to managing support of standards activity is recommended that responds to specific problems found in the performance measurement standards area. The study concludes that there is a positive role to be played by the U.S. Department of Energy in establishing collector performance measurement standards. It recommends that DOE continue to provide direct financial support for selected committees and for research at national laboratories, and that management of the activity be restructured to increase the authority and responsibility of the consensus committees.

Runkle, L. D.↗

Recursively indexed differential pulse code modulation

The performance of a differential pulse code modulation (DPCM) system with a recursively indexed quantizer (RIQ) under various conditions, with first order Gauss-Markov and Laplace-Markov sources as inputs, is studied. When the predictor is matched to the input, the proposed system performs at or close to the optimum entropy constrained DPCM system. If one is willing to accept a 5 percent increase in the rate, the system is very forgiving of predictor mismatch.

Sayood, Khalid↗

Thin film module electrical configuration versus electrical performance

The as made and degraded states of thin film silicon (TFS) based modules have been modelled in terms of series resistance losses. The origins of these losses lie in interface and bulk regions of the devices. When modules degrade under light exposure, increases occur in both the interface and bulk components of the loss based on series resistance. Actual module performance can thus be simulated by use of only one unknown parameter, shunt losses. Use of the simulation to optimize module design indicates that the current design of 25 cells per linear foot is near optimum. Degradation performance suggests a shift to approx. 35 cells to effect maximum output for applications not constrained to 12 volts. Earlier studies of energy based performance and tandem structures should be updated to include stability factors, not only the initial loss factor tested here, but also appropriate annealing factors.

Morel, D. L.↗

Ion Propulsion Module design and mission performance

This paper describes the design options, processes and tradeoffs that occur during the establishment of viable Ion Drive vehicle and mission designs. The options identify those internal vehicle design alternatives which are being considered for future Ion Drive missions, such as sunlight concentrating arrays and direct drive thrust subsystems, and their effect on mission performance. Also, the highly interactive nature of the Ion Drive design process, which occurs between the spacecraft and mission designers, is described. The results of design tradeoffs, performed for three Ion Drive comet rendezvous missions, are presented. These results include the following: (1) the power profile is determined primarily by the trajectory while second order effects include the solar cell characteristics and array concentration factor and degradation; and (2) the dominant parameter in mission performance determination, Ion Propulsion Module (IPM) mass, and IPM design, is the total cell power evaluated without concentration, at the beginning of life and at 1 AU.

Graf, J. E.↗

Space Shuttle adaptive delta modulator design and performance

This paper describes the detailed design of the voice digitization technique which has been selected for the Space Shuttle Program. Measured performance results are discussed and the projected characteristics of Shuttle flight hardware are described.

Batson, B. H.↗

An electro-optic resonant modulator for coherent optical communication

A resonant cavity electro-optic phase modulator has been designed and implemented to operate at a data rate of 10 Mbps. The modulator consists of an electro-optic crystal located in a highly resonant cavity. The cavity is electro-optically switched on and off resonance, and the phase dispersion near the cavity resonance provides the output phase modulation. The performance of the modulator was measured by first heterodyne detecting the signal to an intermediate frequency, and measuring the spectral characteristics using an RF spectrum analyzer. The measured phase shift is shown to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. Further theoretical analysis shows that the design of the modulator can be scaled to operate at 100 Mbps.

Robinson, D. L.↗

10-Mbps electro-optic resonant phase modulator

A resonant cavity electro-optic phase modulator has been designed and implemented to operate at a data rate of 10 Mbps. The modulator consists of an electro-optic crystal located in a highly resonant cavity. The cavity is electro-optically switched on and off resonance, and the phase dispersion near the cavity resonance provides the output phase modulation. The performance of the modulator was measured by first heterodyne-detecting the signal to an intermediate frequency and then measuring the spectral characteristics using an rf spectrum analyzer. The measured phase shift is shown to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. Further theoretical analysis shows that the design of the modulator can be scaled to operate at 100 Mbps.

Robinson, D. L.↗

A 100 Mbps resonant cavity phase modulator for coherent optical communications

A resonant cavity electro-optic phase modulator has been designed and implemented to operate at a data rate of 100 Mbps. The modulator consists of an electro-optic crystal located in a highly resonant cavity. The cavity is electro-optically tuned on and off resonance, and the phase dispersion near the cavity resonance provides the output phase modulation. The performance of the modulator was measured by first heterodyne detecting the signal to an intermediate frequency and then measuring the spectral characteristics using an RF spectrum analyzer. The measured phase shift is shown to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions.

Chen, Chien-Chung↗

Performance of staggered quadrature modulations over nonlinear satellite channels with uplink noise and intersymbol interference

In this paper, the performance of staggered quadrature modulations over nonlinear satellite channels is analyzed. The effects of uplink noise and intersymbol interference caused by transmitter filtering are included. The approach taken employs computational techniques based on moments of the interference. The expressions for the system bit error rate are derived for a general transponder model characterized by AM-AM and AM-PM conversion characteristics. Specific numerical results are presented for a hard-limited satellite repeater using staggered quadrature overlapped raised cosine (SQORC) and minimum-shift-keying (MSK) modulations.

Simon, M. K.↗

Effects of NRZ-M Modulation on Convolutional Codes Performance

Non-return-to-zero mark (NRZ-M) modulation is often used to resolve data sense in suppressed carrier telemetry systems because such systems are subject to half cycle slips that result in complementing the encoded data stream. The performance of coded telemetry systems with NRZ-M is sensitive to the order in which the various operations are done. A system that demodulates the NRZ-M waveform and then decodes performs differently from a system that does the decoding first. The performance of the NASA standard (7, 1/2) convolutional codes is determined for several systems using NRZ-M. Several different demodulation schemes for NRZ-M are considered. It is shown that, even for the best soft-decision method examined, there is a 2.7 dB loss at a decoded bit error rate of 0.005 if the NRZ-M demodulation occurs before rather than after Viterbi decoding.

Deutsch, L. J.↗

Performance of Variable Coded Modulations over a Nonlinear Channel for VCM Protocol Red Book

This presentation provides a summary of the results obtained from a study which evaluates the performance of variable coded modulations specified in the "Variable Coded Modulation Protocol" CCSDS Red Book, over a nonlinear channel that is currently on the CCSDS Blue Book track. The objectives are to perform simulation that identifies the operating signal-to-noise-power ratio required to achieve a codeword error rate of 1e-4 over the specified nonlinear channel for various modulations (i.e. BPSK, QPSK, 8-PSK) and LDPC coding schemes, and compare against performance over an ideal additive white Gaussian channel. We select a only subset of operating modes to perform the analysis which are based on a number of mitigation techniques to combat the nonlinear distortions. Specifically, transmitter centroidal pre-distortion, phase post-distortion and receiver mean phase estimation are analyzed in this study.

coding↗

Qualification and testing of modules

The experience gained in procuring solar modules soon to be installed on the Photovoltaic Higher Education National Exemplar Facility (PHENEF) at Georgetown University is discussed. The 300 KE Photovoltaic Array consists of 4464, 2' X 4', polycrystalline solar cell modules. The performance requirements for the modules are described in a detailed procurement specification which defines physical and electrical characteristics and extensive quality assurance provisions including requirements for an interface control drawing and qualification and acceptance testing.

Cohen, D. B.↗

60-GHz integrated-circuit high data rate quadriphase shift keying exciter and modulator

An integrated-circuit quadriphase shift keying (QPSK) exciter and modulator have demonstrated excellent performance directly modulating a carrier frequency of 60 GHz with an output phase error of less than 3 degrees and maximum amplitude error of 0.5 dB. The circuit consists of a 60-GHz Gunn VCO phase-locked to a low-frequency reference source, a 4th subharmonic mixer, and a QPSK modlator packaged into a small volume of 1.8 x 2.5 x 0.35 in. The use of microstrip has the advantages of small size, light-weight, and low-cost fabrication. The unit has the potential for multigigabit data rate applications.

Grote, A.↗

Performance Analysis of Magnetohydrodynamic Drag Modulation for Actively Controlled Aerocapture at Neptune

Missions to the Ice Giants are a top priority for flagship missions this coming decade. However, a fully propulsive orbital insertion into these planets requires an immense amount of fuel, taking a significant portion of the spacecraft mass and restricting the scientific payload. To mitigate this, aerocapture has been heavily investigated. Although simulations have shown that aerodynamically controlled aerocapture can successfully insert into an orbit around both Ice Giants, the deep atmospheric pass required necessitates a complex, mass expensive, and sometimes prohibitive thermal protection system. Magnetohydrodynamic drag modulation serves as a potential alternative control method for aerocapture which could not only save propellant mass compared to fully propulsive orbital insertion, but also save thermal protection system mass compared to conventional aerocapture methods. Both aerodynamically controlled and magnetohydrodynamically controlled aerocapture methodologies were simulated in NASA Langley’s high-fidelity six degree-of-freedom flight dynamics code, the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II. Each method was simulated to identical missions to Neptune using a numerical predictor-corrector algorithm to optimize the control towards the target orbit. The results concluded that magnetohydrodynamic drag modulation can successfully capture and performs on par with aerodynamic drag modulation while significantly reducing the heatflux and aeroshell complexity.

Danny N Nguyen↗