The story of the MIT Radiation Laboratory

The author relates how the MIT Radiation Laboratory came into existence, how it was run, and the research it did during World War II     

MIT Lincoln Laboratory Journal: fifty years of radar

This review assumes that many non-US readers may not be well-informed about the steps and work in radar development in the US after WW II to the present. Many know MIT by name and recall the famous Radiation Laboratory Series. But the more recent technical history has been less in the "public domain." In an attempt to correct this, one of the key institutions in the field, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory two years ago produced a special issue of their regular publication. Although the document currently at hand is not a book in the strict sense, the size, shape, and editorial comprehensiveness of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Journal's Fifty-Year Anniversary Issue (12, 2, 2000) justifies calling this article being treated as a book review.     

Invention of ground control approach radar at the MIT RadiationLaboratories

The use of the XT-1 radar by Dr. Luis Alvarez in 1941, at the newly formed MIT Radiation Laboratory, to provide aircraft approach guidance, and the subsequent development of a new radar concept for ground control approach, are described. Their use during World War II and subsequent adoption for civil aviation are discussed     

Chemistry of the outer solar system

Data on the composition of the satellites of the outer planets and the composition and structure of planetary atmospheres are briefly reviewed in light of simple models for the origin of the solar system and the planets. Some crucial tests of present theories are suggested.Contribution No. 52 of the MIT Planetary Astronomy Laboratory.This is one of the publications by the Science Advisory Group.     

The early history of pulse compression radar-the development ofAN/FPS-17 coded-pulse radar at Lincoln Laboratory

The development of pulse compression radar at MIT Lincoln Laboratory is related on the basis of the author's personal recollections. He describes the formation of the Radar Techniques Group, the development of the concept, the first system constructed, and the selection of an appropriate code for the transmitted waveform     

Performance of 10- and 20-target MSE classifiers

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is responsible for developing the ATR (automatic target recognition) system for the DARPA-sponsored SAIP program; the baseline ATR system recognizes 10 GOB (ground order of battle) targets; the enhanced version of SAIP requires the ATR system to recognize 20 GOB targets. This paper presents ATR performance results for 10- and 20-target mean square error (MSE) classifiers using high-resolution SAR (synthetic aperture radar) imagery.     

Foliage penetration experiment

This series papers describes analyses of a foliage penetration experiment undertaken by MIT Lincoln Laboratory to assess the ability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to detect targets under trees. Data were taken using the NASA/JPL UHF, L-, C-band fully polarimetric SAR over a forested area in Maine in July 1990. Future experiments are planned to measure the polarimetric properties of clutter and targets using the latest ultrawideband sensors with submeter resolutions and fully polarimetric data collection capabilities     

Foliage attenuation and backscatter analysis of SAR imagery

The ability of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to detect targets under foliage is in part determined by the attenuation suffered by radiation propagating through the foliage and the backscatter from the foliage. MIT Lincoln Laboratory made measurements of foliage attenuation and backscatter using the NASA/JPL-UHF, L-, C-band fully-polarimetric SAR in July 1990. In this experiment, a 48 km² forested area near Portage, Maine was imaged. Twenty-seven 8 ft trihedral corner reflectors were arrayed throughout the imaged area in order to measure foliage attenuation. Ground truth was recorded at the time of the experiment in order to correlate the attenuation and backscatter results with foliage biophysical properties. The probability densities for foliage attenuation and for backscatter are determined as functions of frequency, polarization, and depression angle     

Multichannel whitening of SAR imagery

The presence of speckle in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery makes image interpretation more difficult and worsens the performance of algorithms designed to detect objects in the imagery. Image processing techniques to reduce speckle usually do so at the expense of spatial resolution. Multichannel whitening is one image processing technique that reduces image speckle while maintaining spatial resolution. Multichannel whitening is applied to imagery recorded during a foliage penetration experiment undertaken by MIT Lincoln Laboratory using the NASA/JPL UHF, L-, C-band fully polarimetric SAR in July 1990. In this experiment, a 50 km² forested area near Portage, Maine was imaged. Twenty-seven 8 ft trihedral corner reflectors were arrayed throughout the imaged area beneath the foliage in order to measure foliage attenuation. The detection performance for corner reflectors under foliage is compared for the raw data and whitened data, and the predictions of a product model for the degree of speckle reduction are compared with the data     

CFAR behavior of adaptive detectors: an experimental analysis

We conduct an experimental analysis for assessing the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) behavior of four coherent adaptive radar detectors in the presence of experimentally measured clutter data. To this end we exploit several data files containing both land, lake, and mixed land and sea clutter, collected by two radar systems (the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Phase-One radar and the McMaster IPIX radar) at different polarizations, range resolutions, and frequency bands. The results show that all the receivers, in the presence of real data, don't respect their nominal probability of false alarm (P/sub fa/), namely they exhibit a false alarm rate higher than the value preassigned at the design stage. Nevertheless one of them, the recursive persymmetric adaptive normalized matched filter (RP-ANMF) is very robust, in the sense that it presents an acceptable displacement from the nominal P/sub fa/, in correspondence of all the analyzed scenarios.     

Statistical analyses of measured radar ground clutter data

The performance of ground-based surveillance radars strongly depends on the distribution and spectral characteristics of ground clutter. To design signal processing algorithms that exploit the knowledge of clutter characteristics, a preliminary statistical analysis of ground-clutter data is necessary. We report the results of a statistical analysis of X-band ground-clutter data from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Phase One program. Data non-Gaussianity of the in-phase and quadrature components was revealed, first by means of histogram and moments analysis, and then by means of a Gaussianity test based on cumulants of order higher than the second; to this purpose parametric autoregressive (AR) modeling of the clutter process was developed. The test is computationally attractive and has constant false alarm rate (CFAR). Incoherent analysis has also been carried out by checking the fitting to Rayleigh, Weibull, log-normal, and K-distribution models. Finally, a new modified Kolmogorov-Smirnoff (KS) goodness-of-fit test is proposed; this modified test guarantees good fitting in the distribution tails, which is of fundamental importance for a correct design of CFAR processors     

Statistical tests for higher order analysis of radar clutter: their application to L-band measured data

We design three statistical tests to ascertain whether radar data comply with the hypotheses of multivariate Gaussianity, spatial homogeneity, and covariance persymmetry, respectively. For the first issue we develop a statistical procedure based on quadratic distributional distances, which exploits the representation of Gaussian vectors in generalized spherical coordinates. As to the spatial homogeneity we propose a technique, based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, relying on the properties of quadratic forms constructed from Gaussian vectors and Wishart distributed matrices. Finally, in order to analyze the persymmetry property of the disturbance covariance matrix, we design a testing procedure based on the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). We thus apply the new tests to L-band experimentally measured clutter data, collected by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Phase One radar, at the Katahdin Hill site. The results show that the multivariate Gaussian hypothesis for the considered data file is reasonable. On the contrary the assumption of spatial homogeneity can be done only within small clutter regions which, in general, exhibit also a persymmetric covariance matrix.     

J.A. Pierce: pioneer award winner, 1961

A biography of John Alvin Pierce is given, starting with his early interest in radio. Pierce received his amateur license and operated a spark transmitter at the age of twelve. His amateur activities led to work at the Cruft Laboratory of Harvard University under the supervision of Professor H.R. Mimno. This association with the Cruft Laboratory has continued to the present day with few interruptions. Pierce's work with different groups and in various areas is sketched, focusing on his work with Loran     

Exploration of the Habitability of Mars: Development of Analytical Protocols for Measurement of Organic Carbon on the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory

The mission goal of the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory is to assess the habitability of a region on Mars. This large rover incorporates an Analytical Laboratory that contributes to this mission objective by means of a detailed characterization of mineralogy and chemistry. The Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite in the Analytical Laboratory provides the capability to analyze volatiles released from rocks and soils and gases directly sample from the atmosphere. A primary focus of this suite is the detection and identification of organic molecules. The protocols for the extraction and analysis of organics under development for this mission are described as are experiments carried out on Mars analog samples to evaluate these methods.     

基于遗传算法的涡扇发动机最大状态性能寻优

对某型涡扇发动机的最大非加力寻优模式进行分析,在满足该发动机各部件的物理约束条件下,采用遗传算法对其进行性能寻优,提高其最大剩余推力值.寻优过程由基于GAlib类库的遗传算法和该涡扇发动机非线性数学模型结合编程实现.在此基础上,对遗传算法的主要运行参数进行分析和优化.在地面状态下进行仿真,其剩余推力值与设计点相比提高了4.84%.研究结果表明:遗传算法作为一种有效的全局并行优化搜索工具,适合于像涡扇发动机最大非加力状态性能寻优这样大规模、高度非线性及无解析表达式的性能优化问题;通过对遗传算法运行参数的优化,能有效的提高寻优速度并减小计算量,提高运算效率.     

量子定位系统技术发展及其对导弹武器发展的影响

针对现有导航技术的不足,特别是天基卫星导航技术（如GPS）易受到干扰和破坏,美英两国相续进行了量子定位系统技术的研究。分析了量子定位系统产生的背景,阐述了量子定位系统的概念,对量子定位系统进行了分类,分析了其特点,重点梳理了量子定位系统的发展轨迹,继而分析了量子定位系统对导弹武器发展的影响,最后给出总结。     

一种改进的压气机叶尖泄漏流堵塞预估模型及数值验证

基于压气机叶尖间隙内的流动为Couette流动的实际情况,改进了适用于低速压气机的麻省理工学院Khalid叶尖泄漏堵塞预估模型;同时考虑叶尖泄漏流经过激波后堵塞迅速增加,发展了适用于跨声速压气机的叶尖泄漏流堵塞预估模型.对某低速轴流压气机单转子、跨声压气机单转子进行全三维黏性数值模拟,将计算得到的叶尖泄漏堵塞量与模型预...     

Aerodynamic Design and Analysis of a Low-reaction Axial Compressor Stage

There is introduced a new low-reaction, highly-loaded axial compressor design concept which is coupled with boundary layer suction method. The characteristic features of the concept are made clear through its comparison with the MIT boundary layer suction compressor. Also are pointed out the potential applications of this concept as well as its key technological problems. Based on this concept, a single-stage, low-reaction and low-speed axial compressor is constructed in association with analysis and computation of boundary layer suction on vanes with the aid of a three-dimensional numerical approach. The results attest to the effectiveness of this way to control separation in blade cascades by the boundary layer suction and the feasibility of this proposed design concept.     

基于MIT的扇区流量管理决策

为缓解空中交通拥堵和减少航班延误,建立了扇区流量管理模型,并定义扇区容量超负荷频率指标,提出基于尾随间隔(MIT)的3种扇区流量管理决策方案,分析了郑州某个高空管制扇区8:00~9:00时段流量管理实例,结果表明合理的流量决策方案不仅能够缓解扇区拥堵,而且减少了41%的延误,验证了扇区流量管理决策方案的有效性及实用性,可以为决策者提供一定的决策支持。