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Operator Lévy Flight: Light Cones in Chaotic Long-Range Interacting Systems
We argue that chaotic power-law interacting systems have emergent limits on information propagation, analogous to relativistic light cones, which depend on the spatial dimension d and the exponent α governing the decay of interactions. Using the dephasing nature of quantum chaos, we map the problem to a stochastic model with a known phase diagram. A linear light cone results for α ≥ $\textit{d}$ + 1/2. We also provide a Lévy flight (long-range random walk) interpretation of the results and show consistent numerical data for 1D long-range spin models with 200 sites.
S0 Uncrewed Aircraft System Measurement Characterization Field Campaign Report
The lower atmosphere contributes directly to the modulation of weather and climate. Understanding the importance of this part of the atmosphere, scientists have worked to improve the representation of the atmospheric boundary layer in numerical prediction tools. Such work depends upon information from observing systems, including remote sensors, weather balloons, and research aircraft. Recent years have seen significant advances in uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) for atmospheric research. Those efforts have provided new perspectives on atmospheric and surface conditions, particularly from smaller UAS (sUAS) platforms. This field campaign included collection of data using several sUAS, and comparing the sUAS data to those from different observing facilities at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) observatory in Oklahoma. Over the course of one week, the Black Swift Technologies and University of Nebraska teams conducted flights for the sole purpose of system evaluation and intercomparison. In addition, these teams conducted joint flight operations at the Marshall, Oklahoma Mesonet site alongside teams from the University of Colorado, University of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State University to collect additional data for side-by-side comparison. Platforms operated by Black Swift Technologies and the University of Nebraska under this project included one fixed-wing and two rotary-wing platforms, as well as an instrumented surface vehicle. These include the Black Swift Technologies S0 UAS, the University of Nebraska M600 UAS, a University of Nebraska-operated Meteomatics Meteodrone UAS, and the University of Nebraska CoMeT (Combined Mesonet and Tracker) vehicle. Additional details on all of these platforms can be found in de Boer et al. (in prep). In total, 95 sUAS flights were conducted for a combined total of 18.6 flight hours. The S0 was operated both to the south and north of the SGP 60 m tower, while the M600 and Meteodrone were operated directly to the east of the tower. Weather conditions were generally good, with moderate winds. Flights were conducted both to follow the extra radiosondes that were launched as part of this campaign, as well as to conduct extended statistical sampling at tower instrument heights. The later flights also provided data for statistical platform intercomparison.
A New Method for High Resolution Surface Change Detection: Data Collection and Validation of Measurements from UAS at the Nevada National Security Site, Nevada, USA
The use of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) increases the opportunities for detecting surface changes in remote areas and in challenging terrain. Detecting surface topographic changes offers an important constraint for understanding earthquake damage, groundwater depletion, effects of mining, and other events. For these purposes, changes on the order of 5–10 cm are readily detected, but sometimes it is necessary to detect smaller changes. An example is the surface changes that result from underground explosions, which can be as small as 3 cm. Previous studies that described change detection methodologies were generally not aimed at detecting sub-5-cm changes. Additionally, studies focused on high-fidelity accuracy were either computationally modeled or did not fully provide the necessary examples to highlight the usability of these workflows. Detecting changes at this threshold may be critical in certain applications, such as global security research and monitoring for high-consequence natural hazards, including landslides. Here we provide a detailed description of the methodology we used to detect 2–3 cm changes in an important applied research setting—surface changes related to underground explosions. This methodology improves the accuracy of change detection data collection and analysis through the optimization of pre-field planning, surveying, flight operations, and post-processing the collected data, all of which are critical to obtaining the highest output data resolution possible. We applied this methodology to a field study location, collecting 1.4 Tb of images over the course of 30 flights, and location data for 239 ground control points (GCPs). We independently verified changes with orthoimagery, and found that structure-from-motion, software-reported root mean square errors (RMSEs) for both control and check points underestimated the actual error. We found that 3 cm changes are detectable with this methodology, thereby improving our knowledge of a rock’s response to underground explosions.
Development and performance of a suprathermal electron spectrometer to study auroral precipitations
The design, development, and performance of Medium-energy Electron SPectrometer (MESP), dedicated to the in situ observation of suprathermal electrons in the auroral ionosphere, are summarized in this paper. MESP employs a permanent magnet filter with a light tight structure to select electrons with proper energies guided to the detectors. A combination of two avalanche photodiodes and a large area solid-state detector (SSD) provided 46 total energy bins (1 keV resolution for 3−20 keV range for APDs, and 7 keV resolution for >20 keV range for SSDs). Multi-channel ultra-low power application-specific integrated circuits are also verified for the flight operation to read-out and analyze the detector signals. MESP was launched from Poker Flat Research Range on 3 March 2014 as a part of ground-to-rocket electrodynamics-electrons correlative experiment (GREECE) mission. MESP successfully measured the precipitating electrons from 3 to 120 keV in 120-ms time resolution and characterized the features of suprathermal distributions associated with auroral arcs throughout the flight. The measured electrons were showing the inverted-V type spectra, consistent with the past measurements. In addition, investigations of the suprathermal electron population indicated the existence of the energetic non-thermal distribution corresponding to the brightest aurora.
Federal Aviation Administration Vertiport Electrical Infrastructure Study
In this detailed analysis, the authors assess the charging infrastructure needed for the deployment of advanced air mobility involving electrified vertical take-off and landing technologies. The report covers four research areas: (1) Identifying charging infrastructure requirements for existing facilities based on flight operational parameters, potential use cases, charging strategy, and other constraints. (2) Assessing sites on power availability to meet charging demand, the impact on grid infrastructure, potential hazards, and cybersecurity needs, and using technoeconomic analysis to identify opportunities for onsite distributed energy resources, primarily solar photovoltaics and battery energy storage systems. (3) Calculating greenhouse gas emission based on total energy consumption attributable to each site. (4) Analyzing the job and economic development impact for sites adopting new infrastructure.
Summary Report: WINGS 2014 Interoperability Drill
Monday, March 24, 2014, marked the beginning of the first interagency WINGS interoperability drill. Local, state, and federal government agencies with aerial radiation detection capabilities were given the opportunity to either attend a WINGS tabletop or a Mobile-Aerial Radiological Surveillance (MARS) refresher covering standard Aerial Measuring Systems (AMS) flight operations.
Google/Makani Energy Kite Modeling (CRADA CRD-18-00569 Final Report)
In support of Makani’s energy kite development program, Makani engaged with NREL to develop, verify, and document a multiphysics engineering model of a megawatt-scale tethered energy kite (named KiteFAST). After the original development of KiteFAST was completed, Makani further engaged NREL to develop a software enhancement of KiteFAST to enable the dynamics modeling of an energy kite tethered to a floating offshore platform (named KiteFAST-OS). Before this project, the capability to model the aero-hydro-servo-elastic dynamics of an airborne wind energy (AWE) system with electricity generation on the flying device (fly gen) and crosswind flight operation did not exist. Such physics-based modeling capability is needed for loads analysis, structural design, and certification of energy kites. Throughout the project, an exclusive license kept KiteFAST and KiteFAST-OS available only to Makani, NREL, and its counterparts. With the ending of Makani, the KiteFAST and KiteFAST-OS software were merged into a single code base (named KiteFAST), the exclusive license was terminated, and the source code, documentation, and example models were released publicly.
Laboratory and field evaluation of the Aerosol Dynamics Inc. concentrator (ADIc) for aerosol mass spectrometry
Abstract. An air-to-air ultrafine particle concentrator (Aerosol Dynamics Inc. concentrator; ADIc) has been designed to enhance online chemical characterization of ambient aerosols using aerosol mass spectrometry. The ADIc employs a three-stage, moderated water-based condensation growth tube coupled to an aerodynamic focusing nozzle to concentrate fine particles into a portion of the flow. The system can be configured to sample between 1.0 and 1.7 L min -1 , with an output concentrated flow between 0.08 and 0.12 L min -1 , resulting in a theoretical concentration factor (sample flow/output flow) ranging from 8 to 21. Laboratory tests with monodisperse particles show that the ADIc is effective for particles as small as 10 nm. Laboratory experiments conducted with the Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) showed no shift in the particle size with the ADIc, as measured by the AMS particle time-of-flight operation. The ADIc-AMS system was operated unattended over a 1-month period near Boston, Massachusetts. Comparison to a parallel AMS without the concentrator showed concentration factors of 9.7±0.15 and 9.1±0.1 for sulfate and nitrate, respectively, when operated with a theoretical concentration factor of 10.5±0.3. The concentration factor of organics was lower, possibly due to the presence of large particles from nearby road-paving operations and a difference in aerodynamic lens cutoff between the two AMS instruments. Another field deployment was carried out in Helsinki, Finland. Two ~10 d measurement periods showed good correlation for the concentrations of organics, sulfate, nitrate and ammonium measured with an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) with the ADIc and a parallel AMS without the concentrator. Additional experiments with an AMS alternating between the ADIc and a bypass line demonstrated that the concentrator did not significantly change the size distribution or the chemistry of the ambient aerosol particles.
Micromovements and discomfort associated with flight mission with helmet operation tasks with different levels of cognitive workload
When performing stationary tasks under elevated cognitive workload, individuals must perform continual muscle contractions to maintain stability of the body, resulting in fatigue of the postural muscles. When the muscles perform these contractions in a prolonged manner, the body potentially responds through small changes in body movements—micromovements that may lead to discomfort. The study purpose was to evaluate impact of cognitive load on micromovements. The micromovements were measured during three different cognitive workloads; low, medium, and high. The NASA-TLX score was used to evaluate the perceived mental workload and discomfort was assessed by visual analog scale. In total, 60 subjects (30 males and 30 females) were recruited and performed cognitive tasks that simulated flight operations such as changing the radio frequency based on air traffic control messages, balancing the fuel levels in simulated fuel tanks, and aiming a reticle in a designated moving target using the cyclic control. Cognitive load was defined by the frequency of events. Micromovements were defined by changes in the center of pressure (COP) of the seat pan and COP standard deviation. It was found that the high cognitive workloads had the highest NASA-TLX scores including mental demands, temporal demands, and effort. The neck area had the highest overall levels of discomfort followed by upper back. The highest standard deviation for COP shift and number of micromovements occurred for medium cognitive workloads. In conclusion, while there were some interesting trends, few trends reached a statistical significance due to high variability among subjects for the outcome variables.
Novus: An Unmanned Aerial System and Virtual Reality Flight Deck for Data Collection and Visualization
Many emerging technologies offer tremendous new capabilities that will, without question, redefine how we interact with, utilize, understand, and optimize the energy systems around us. Drones offer a new ability to remotely capture data in ways that have previously been impractical. However, their flight control systems remain rudimentary and limit the ability of researchers to fully take advantage of these platforms as remote sensing devices. In this project, we constructed a hexarotor drone and outfitted it with advanced (yet inexpensive) sensors as well as a telemetry data management and control package. We then created a virtual reality flight deck that allows a drone operator to define waypoints "on-the-fly" or take manual control over flight operations. The flight deck provides a live on-board video stream display, a 3-dimensional topographic map with the drone’s position in space overlaid onto it, as well as a data visualization framework that keeps critical information immediately available to the operator. These advances provide a new platform for scientific data collection such as thermography of building envelopes or solar arrays. As the drone is in flight and data are being collected, these data are relayed to the virtual reality environment where they can be inspected for integrity and the flight plan altered if necessary to collect higher quality data. Future work will focus on implementing 3-dimensional mapping using both visible and thermal imagery collected from the drone, and streaming those into the virtual reality flight deck in real time.
3D camera assisted fully automated calibration of scanning laser Doppler vibrometers
Scanning laser Doppler vibrometers (LDV) are used to measure full-field vibration shapes of products and structures. In most commercially available scanning laser Doppler vibrometer systems the user manually draws a grid of measurement locations on a 2D camera image of the product. The determination of the correct physical measurement locations can be a time consuming and diffcult task. In this paper we present a new methodology for product testing and quality control that integrates 3D imaging techniques with vibration measurements. This procedure allows to test prototypes in a shorter period because physical measurements locations will be located automatically. The proposed methodology uses a 3D time-of-flight camera to measure the location and orientation of the test-object. The 3D image of the time-of-flight camera is then matched with the 3D-CAD model of the object in which measurement locations are pre-defined. A time of flight camera operates strictly in the near infrared spectrum. To improve the signal to noise ratio in the time-of-flight measurement, a time-of-flight camera uses a band filter. As a result of this filter, the laser spot of most laser vibrometers is invisible in the time-of-flight image. Therefore a 2D RGB-camera is used to find the laser-spot of the vibrometer. The laser spot is matched to the 3D image obtained by the time-of-flight camera. Next an automatic calibration procedure is used to aim the laser at the (pre)defined locations. Another benefit from this methodology is that it incorporates automatic mapping between a CAD model and the vibration measurements. This mapping can be used to visualize measurements directly on a 3D CAD model. Secondly the orientation of the CAD model is known with respect to the laser beam. This information can be used to find the direction of the measured vibration relatively to the surface of the object. With this direction, the vibration measurements can be compared more precisely with numerical experiments.
Transatlantic flight times and climate change
Aircraft do not fly through a vacuum, but through an atmosphere whose meteorological characteristics are changing because of global warming. The impacts of aviation on climate change have long been recognised, but the impacts of climate change on aviation have only recently begun to emerge. These impacts include intensified turbulence and increased take-off weight restrictions. We investigate the influence of climate change on flight routes and journey times. We feed synthetic atmospheric wind fields generated from climate model simulations into a routing algorithm of the type used operationally by flight planners. We focus on transatlantic flights between London and New York, and how they change when the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is doubled. We find that a strengthening of the prevailing jet-stream winds causes eastbound flights to significantly shorten and westbound flights to significantly lengthen in all seasons. Eastbound and westbound crossings in winter become approximately twice as likely to take under 5 h 20 min and over 7 h 00 min, respectively. Furthermore, for reasons that are explained using a conceptual model, the eastbound shortening and westbound lengthening do not cancel out, causing round-trip journey times to increase. Even assuming no future growth in aviation, the extrapolation of our results to all transatlantic traffic suggests that aircraft will collectively be airborne for an extra 2000 h each year, burning an extra 7.2 million gallons of jet fuel at a cost of US$ 22 million, and emitting an extra 70 million kg of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of 7100 average British homes. These results provide further evidence of the two-way interaction between aviation and climate change.
Initial in-orbit operation of the soft X-ray spectrometer Resolve onboard the X-ray imaging and spectroscopy mission satellite
The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission satellite was launched on September 6, 2023 (UT). Its Resolve instrument is a high-resolution X-ray spectrometer enabled by a microcalorimeter array thermally anchored to a 50-mK heat sink. Many sensitive, critical sub-systems comprise Resolve, including a multistage cryogenic cooling system, thin-film aperture filters, low-noise electronics, on-board signal processing, and several sources of X-rays for calibration. We summarize the initial on-orbit power-on and checkout of Resolve that commenced immediately after launch. Soon after launch, the cryocoolers were activated, and their operation was successfully established. On October 9, 2023, the first cycle of the adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator was carried out, bringing the sensors to their steady-state operational temperatures. Following this, the energy resolution at 5.9 keV was successfully measured. The energy scale of the system is highly sensitive to the thermal environment surrounding both the sensors and their analog electronics. Gain correction was performed using reference X-ray lines from onboard calibration sources. To optimize cooler frequency settings, noise spectra were collected across a range of frequencies, and the most suitable frequency pair was selected based on the in-orbit environment. During the final phase of the checkout, an attempt was made to open the gate valve, which is designed to protect the Dewar’s interior from external pressure during ground operations and launch. Unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful. As a result, the checkout process was temporarily paused, and a stable operational strategy was subsequently developed to enable Resolve to function effectively with the gate valve remaining closed.
Sensing and Sampling of Trace Contaminations by a Dexterous Hexrotor UAV at Nuclear Facilities - 18600
Safe and efficient cleanups are a priority for decontamination and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. The contaminations of byproducts and wastes in such nuclear facilities pose a serious problems while decommissioning, to both the operators and public. Sensing these contaminations and cleaning them is an essential part of the safety procedures. The contaminations might range from low-energy to high-energy byproducts. Sensing these byproducts would require contact based or non-contact based sensing, based on its energy levels. Byproducts such as americium, are low-energy which makes it difficult to sense and sample without contact. Therefore, the workers need to physically swab the surfaces to collect the samples of these contaminations. These tasks pose a great danger for the safety of the human workers which includes the risk to reach greater heights, exposure to the radiation and sampling the entire building. A robotic solution is much more desirable in these cases, where the worker can safely handle the contaminations from a safe area. Use of robotic technologies inside these hazardous environments ensures the safety and enhances the performance. The more suitable robotic solution for reaching great heights and covering large areas of nuclear facilities, are aerial vehicles. Multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are chosen for their ability to hover at a position and also fly around in confined spaces. Quadrotors are a common choice of multi-rotor UAVs both research and industry because of its ease to fly and commercial availability. For the applications during the cleanups we need the UAV to not only hover and fly in confined spaces, but also interact with the physical world. Despite of quadrotor's advantages, they are not a best suit as they can't interact with the physical world. The tasks involving physical interactions would require the UAV to apply arbitrary forces and torques in all six degrees of freedom (DOF). As quadrotors are under-actuated and non-holonomic in motion, they cannot exert all the required forces. At Collaborative Robotics Lab, Purdue University, we developed a novel multi-rotor UAV solution, Dexterous Hexrotor, which can exert arbitrary forces and torques in all six DOF, independently and instantaneously. This enables the UAV platform to quickly respond to the external disturbances and precisely hold its position during the mission. The Dexterous Hexrotor serves as a robotic tool for the workers to perform sensing and sampling during the cleanups. Workers can operate Dexterous Hexrotor manually and/or semi-autonomously with human intervention. Manual control requires the worker to fly the Dexterous Hexrotor using a remote control. So the workers should possess knowledge on flying the UAV and to perform physical interaction. A semiautonomous Dexterous Hexrotor requires human input to some extent and requires very less knowledge of flying. The autonomy is designed to operate in flight mode and sampling mode. In flight mode, Dexterous Hexrotor takes off from a 'safe' area, reaches the desired altitude, and fly autonomously towards a sampling point. This sampling point is the target position specified on the 2D reference map. This mode also includes navigation towards the sampling point, avoiding the obstacles in the constrained environment. After reaching a stopping point, Dexterous Hexrotor waits for the human input for a target location to swab and collect samples. The Dexterous Hexrotor is now in sampling mode and waits for the human input. The human operator selects the swabbing location through the live streaming video from onboard camera. Through visual servoing, aided by the map, the UAV will move closer towards the target position. It then transitions to the impact control scheme to perform physical interaction with the wall and collects samples. Once the sample is collected, it autonomously returns back to the takeoff position in 'safe' area for the analysis by mass spectrometry. In this paper, we majorly focus on the physical interaction strategy and the required components which enables the autonomy. Decommissioning of nuclear facilities requires decontamination inside the entire buildings. Decontamination of nuclear facilities involves sensing and sampling the huge buildings, long shafts, etc. Sampling the entire facility is not possible due to the limitation in Dexterous Hexrotor's flight time. But this can be achieved by using a swarm of Dexterous Hexrotors to cover larger areas. The onboard robotic arm can be designed based on the applications such as cleaning, applying sealants, etc. The modularity of the design allows us to switch components as per the requirements of the task. These kind of robotic solutions functioning as tools for the workers, aims to make the work environment safer and playful. (authors)
In-flight positional and energy use data set of a DJI Matrice 100 quadcopter for small package delivery
Abstract We autonomously directed a small quadcopter package delivery Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or “drone” to take off, fly a specified route, and land for a total of 209 flights while varying a set of operational parameters. The vehicle was equipped with onboard sensors, including GPS, IMU, voltage and current sensors, and an ultrasonic anemometer, to collect high-resolution data on the inertial states, wind speed, and power consumption. Operational parameters, such as commanded ground speed, payload, and cruise altitude, were varied for each flight. This large data set has a total flight time of 10 hours and 45 minutes and was collected from April to October of 2019 covering a total distance of approximately 65 kilometers. The data collected were validated by comparing flights with similar operational parameters. We believe these data will be of great interest to the research and industrial communities, who can use the data to improve UAV designs, safety, and energy efficiency, as well as advance the physical understanding of in-flight operations for package delivery drones.
First flight performance of the Micro-X microcalorimeter X-ray sounding rocket
The flight of the Micro-X sounding rocket on July 22, 2018, marked the first operation of transition-edge sensors and their superconducting quantum interference device readouts in space. Here, the instrument combines the microcalorimeter array with an imaging mirror to take high-resolution spectra from extended X-ray sources. The first flight target was the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. Although a rocket pointing malfunction led to no time on-target, data from the flight were used to evaluate the performance of the instrument and demonstrate the flight viability of the payload. The instrument successfully achieved a stable cryogenic environment, executed all flight operations, and observed X-rays from the on-board calibration source. The flight environment did not significantly affect the performance of the detectors compared with ground operation. The flight provided an invaluable test of the impact of external magnetic fields and the instrument configuration on detector performance. This flight provides a milestone in the flight readiness of these detector and readout technologies, both of which have been selected for future X-ray observatories.
Design and operating characteristic of a vacuum furnace for time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering measurements
Here, we present the design and operating characteristics of a vacuum furnace used for inelastic neutron scattering experiments on a time-of-flight chopper spectrometer. The device is an actively water cooled radiant heating furnace capable of performing experiments up to 1873 K. Inelastic neutron scattering studies performed with this furnace include studies of phonon dynamics and metallic liquids. We describe the design, control, characterization, and limitations of the equipment. Further, we provide comparisons of the neutron performance of our device with commercially available options. Finally we consider upgrade paths to improve performance and reliability.