Direction finding with a four-element Adcock-Butler matrix antennaarray

The conventional analog Adcock-Butler matrix (ABM) antenna array direction finder suffers from systemic errors, component matching problems, and bandwidth limitations. Three digital bearing estimators are developed as candidates to replace the analog signal processing portion of the ABM. Using the same antenna array, they perform all signal processing in the frequency domain, thereby benefitting from the computational efficiency of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. The first estimator requires two analog-to-digital converters (A-D) and three antenna elements. It multiplies the difference between the discrete Fourier transforms (DFTs) of the output signals from two antenna elements with that from a third antenna element. At each frequency component, the phase of this product is a function of the bearing. A weighted least squares (LS) fit through all the phase components then gives a bearing estimate. The second estimator is similar to the first but uses three A-D and all four antenna elements. The output signal from the additional antenna element provides an independent estimate of the weights for the LS fit, giving an improvement in accuracy. The third estimator applies the physical constraint existing between the time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) of a signal intercepted by two perpendicular sets of antenna elements. This yields a better estimator than simple averaging of the bearing from each set of antenna elements. The simulation studies used sinusoids and broadband signals to corroborate the theoretical treatment and demonstrate the accuracy achievable with these estimators. All three direction finders have superior performance in comparison with the analog ABM     

基于非合作低轨卫星的测向交叉定位技术

根据非合作低轨卫星的特点，可以被动测量多颗卫星信号的来向，通过测向交叉的方式进行定位。但是通过星历解算出的卫星位置位于地心地固坐标系，用户测量的方位角和俯仰角基于站心坐标系。针对非合作低轨卫星测向交叉定位时目标用户角度信息与卫星位置基于不同坐标系的问题，提出了一种迭代最小二乘定位算法，通过迭代的方式不断收敛定位结果，能够在目标用户角度信息与卫星位置基于不同坐标系的情况下，解决非合作低轨卫星的测向交叉定位问题。仿真结果表明，基于迭代最小二乘定位算法能够实现非合作低轨卫星仅利用角度定位，并分析了测角精度、卫星轨道高度、参与定位卫星数与定位误差之间的关系。针对迭代的计算方法，分析了迭代过程中不同收敛条件下迭代次数与定位误差之间的关系。在保证定位精度的情况下，将迭代收敛范围设置为8~30 km，可以降低2~3次迭代次数。     

Prologue to radio position finding (RPF)

The author reminisces about the use of radar by the US Army in Hawaii and the detection of Japanese aircraft as they approached Oahu on December 7, 1941. He briefly discusses post-Pearl-Harbor radar activity     

Some crucial X-ray observations — One or two SNR(s) in Crux?

A new EXOSAT (LE/CMA) observation of the region in Crux (R.A. 11h 45m, Dec. -62°) where Markert et al. (1981) reported the existence of two x-ray SNR's is presented. After cleaning the CMA field from the point source component, due to the UV emission of the numerous stars in the field, the smoothed x-ray contours are compared to the 408 MHz radio map of Caswell et al. (1983). The existence of two, well-separate x-ray emission regions is confirmed by EXOSAT, and the current x-ray/radio picture is not sufficent to distinguish clearly between the assumption of one or two (possibly interacting) SNR's in the region.     

Direction finding for two-dimensional incoherently distributed sources with Hadamard shift invariance in non-uniform orthogonal arrays

This paper proposes a novel algorithm for Two-Dimensional (2D) central Direction-of-Arrival (DOA) estimation of incoherently distributed sources. In particular, an orthogonal array structure consisting of two Non-uniform Linear Arrays (NLAs) is considered. Based on first-order Taylor series approximation, the Generalized Array Manifold (GAM) model can first be established to separate the central DOAs from the original array manifold. Then, the Hadamard rotational invariance relationships inside the GAMs of two NLAs are identified. With the aid of such relationships, the central elevation and azimuth DOAs can be estimated through a search-free polynomial rooting method. Additionally, a simple parameter pairing of the estimated 2D angular parameters is also accomplished via the Hadamard rotational invariance relationship inside the GAM of the whole array. A secondary but important result is a derivation of closed-form expressions of the Cramer-Rao lower bound. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve a remarkably higher precision at less complexity increment compared with the existing low-complexity methods, which benefits from the larger array aperture of the NLAs. Moreover, it requires no priori information about the angular distributed function.     

Azimuth/elevation direction finding using regular array geometries

The authors consider the problem of extending the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) algorithm for multiple source, cochannel direction finding to the two-dimensional case (e.g., azimuth and elevation angle estimation). Two algorithms are presented, one based on the optimal (minimal variance) subspace fitting formulation of ESPRIT, and the other based on an approximation to it. The algorithms are applicable to antenna arrays composed of identical subarrays displaced in two dimensions, such as uniform rectangular phased arrays. Simulation results illustrating the relative performance of the algorithms are also presented     

含缺口[0/90]_(4s)碳/环氧复合材料层板的损伤扩展分析

本文采用渗透剂增强的x射线照像法和非线性有限元法分析了含缺口[0/90]_4,碳/环氧复合材料层板中的损伤累积过程和损伤区的扩展。着重讨论了材料最终破坏以前的过程。理论分析和实验结果的比较表明:在宏观的范围内研究复合材料的损伤,合理地建立材料损伤发生后的应力-应变关系是十分重要的。     

鲁棒成形极化敏感阵列波束的方法及极化估计

基于极化敏感阵列,提出了一种鲁棒成形阵列波束的方法。该方法首先将阵列的数据模型进行了重新描述,从而获得了信号波达角(DOA)和极化解耦的模型。借助于该模型并对信号的两个极化方向分别进行鲁棒约束,设计出了一个新的鲁棒空域波束空间成形矩阵,利用该矩阵可以获得信号两个极化分量的鲁棒估计。基于特征值分解的方法,最后给出了估计信号极化参数的方法。分析和数值仿真实验均表明:提出的方法,在对DOA估计误差以及阵列位置误差等造成的阵列失配具有较强鲁棒性的同时,也能有效抑制干扰和噪声,进而提升了极化参数估计的性能。     

The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Education and Outreach (E/PO) Program

The STEREO mission’s Education and Outreach (E/PO) program began early enough its team benefited from many lessons learned as NASA’s E/PO profession matured. Originally made up of discrete programs, by launch the STEREO E/PO program had developed into a quality suite containing all the program elements now considered standard: education workshops, teacher/student guides, national and international collaboration, etc. The benefit of bringing so many unique programs together is the resulting diverse portfolio, with scientists, E/PO professionals, and their education partners all of whom can focus on excellent smaller programs. The drawback is a less cohesive program nearly impossible to evaluate in its entirety with the given funding. When individual components were evaluated, we found our programs mostly made positive impact. In this paper, we elaborate on the programs, hoping that others will effectively use or improve upon them. When possible, we indicate the programs’ effects on their target audiences.     

The UWB (impulse) radar caper or `punishment of the innocent'

The author describes his experiences chairing a panel to review ultrawideband (UWB), or impulse, radar. The panel's report pointed out the fallacies in the proposals of the extremists pushing the rapid development of such a radar, noted the very good work of the real contributors, and made several recommendations. Pressure from the extremists led to an investigation by the Inspector General of the US Department of Defense of the panel and its members. That investigation found no basis for the allegations and concluded that the panel's report was credible and the panel balanced     

Co/NM/FM(NiFe and Co)纳米多层膜的层间耦合效应

巨磁电阻自旋阀多层膜作为磁敏传感器材料与磁随机存储器(MRAM)材料,具有高的可靠性与灵敏度,在航空航天等高科技领域有着极大的应用前景。研究多层膜各层间的耦合效应与各层厚度、磁学性能之间的内在关系,对提高自旋阀的巨磁电阻效应、磁灵敏性等具有重要的作用。本研究采用磁控溅射沉积制备了(Cu／Co、Cu／NiFe,Ta／NiFe双层膜与Co／Cu／Co、Co／Cu／NiFe、Co／Ta／NiFe)三明治结构薄膜。采用振动样品磁强计对薄膜磁性、四探针法对薄膜磁阻性能进行了测试研究,采用洛仑兹电子显微镜法观察了薄膜的磁畴结构。研究结果表明,层间耦合效应不仅与非磁性中间层的厚度相关,而且与中间层材料的特性相关。磁阻与磁畴观察均表明层间耦合效应随中间层厚度的增加而减小,而Cu作为中间层的多层膜的层间耦合大于Ta作为中间层的层间耦合。     

On radar detection and direction finding using sparse arrays

The potential performance of radar systems employing sparse arrays is investigated. Different sparse array geometries are evaluated with respect to detection and estimation performance. We present appropriate tools for analytical computation of the detection and estimation performance of the likelihood ratio test (LRT) and the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), respectively. Particular attention is paid to the effect of ambiguity errors on system performance. The results show that sparse arrays have several advantages over nonsparse arrays, but that ambiguities deteriorate performance when sidelobe interference is present. Some ways to mitigate the ambiguity effects on system performance are briefly discussed.     

Efficient algorithms for finding the K best paths througha trellis

A set of algorithms is presented for finding the best set of K mutually exclusive paths through a trellis of N nodes, with worst-case computation time bounded by N³log n for a fixed-precision computation. The algorithms are based on a transformation of the K-path trellis problem into an equivalent minimum-cost network flow (MCNF) problem. The approach allows the application of efficient MCNF algorithms, which can obtain optimal solutions orders of magnitude faster than the algorithm proposed by J.K. Wolf et al. (1989). The resulting algorithms extend the practicality of the trellis formulation (in terms of required computations) to multiobject tracking problems with much larger numbers of targets and false alarms. A response by Wolf et al. is included     

粉末烧结法制备Al/Tb0.3Dy0.7Fe1.95磁致伸缩复合材料

采用粉末烧结法制备了Al/Tb0.3Dy0.7Fe1.95磁致伸缩复合材料,研究了烧结温度对烧结体的显微结构、相组成、磁致伸缩、抗压强度等性能的影响.研究结果表明,600 ℃烧结时,烧结体中仍主要存在Al与GMM合金相,烧结获得较理想的相分布状态.随着烧结温度的增加,复合体中非GMM相越来越多,原始相减少.当1200 ℃烧结时,烧结体中主要存在杂相,已几乎没有GMM相.随着烧结温度的增加,复合材料的λs和抗压强度明显下降,烧结温度为600 ℃时,烧结体的λs和抗压强度最大,分别为405×10-6和61.71MPa.其不足是,复合材料仍呈现明显的脆性特征.     

DS/SIMULIA SLM企业级仿真生命周期管理解决方案

CAE仿真分析在帮助企业缩短产品设计周期,降低产品设计成本方面起到了重要的作用。仿真分析应用的增多也随之产生了大量的仿真数据,这些数据涉及了产品性能的方方面面,如何利用现有的仿真工具对     

GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO实时服务（RTS）产品性能评估分析

目前,不同机构提供的GNSS实时服务产品性能存在差异。为了全面揭示实时服务产品的性能，为系统服务和用户应用提供参考，统计了各实时服务产品的历元完整率及卫星数量，基于实时轨道和钟差恢复方法，比较分析了产品精度，并评估了产品定位性能。研究结果表明：正常情况下，实时服务产品的历元完整率较高，基本可保持在95%以上，所提供系统的卫星数量保持稳定且充足。对于GPS，各机构卫星实时轨道平均精度基本一致，约为3cm，实时钟差精度略有差别。对于其他GNSS，不同机构产品精度存在差别。利用实时服务产品进行GPS实时精密单点定位的平面精度优于10cm，高程精度优于20cm。相对于GPS单系统，多系统联合定位精度基本一致，但收敛速度明显提升。     

Enhanced space integrated GPS/INS (SIGI)

Safe, reliable, and low cost space-based navigation is being provided with embedded INS/GPS systems such as the space integrated GPS/INS (SIGI). The SIGI is being used for various space vehicle applications such as launch vehicles, orbital vehicles, and re-entry vehicles. This paper describes current space vehicle navigation capabilities. The SIGI is being enhanced to provide additions to these existing capabilities with such items as higher processing and a commercial-off-the-shelf operating system. This will allow hosting of various software applications such as advanced navigation functions, flight control, guidance and vehicle management algorithms. The SIGI can host redundancy management functions by incorporating a cross channel data link card (CCDL) using a high speed firewire bus. The SIGI can then be used as a redundancy management platform which has application to current space vehicle avionics topologies incorporating distributed processing architectures     

H_2/Air连续旋转爆震发动机推力测试(I)单波模态下的推力

在环缝-喷孔对撞式喷射的连续旋转爆震模型发动机上,以H2/Air为工质,对连续旋转爆震波以单波模态稳定自持的典型波形特征和时域、频域特征进行了研究。直接测量了模型发动机工作在该模态下产生的一维推力,讨论了比冲等推进性能。试验结果表明:出口背压为大气压时,在空气流量253 g·s-1,氢气流量6.15 g·s-1,当量比为0.834的工况下,模型发动机以平均传播频率5.5563 k Hz、平均传播速度1658.3 m·s-1的单波模态稳定工作360 ms。产生可靠的有效推力约为183.7 N。以火箭模式计算,有效排气速度为708.9 m·s-1,总比冲为72.34 s;以冲压模式计算,有效排气速度(氢气消耗率)为29870 m·s-1,燃料比冲为3048 s,消耗的氢气的单位面积质量流率为4122 g·m-2·s-1,单位推力为726 m·s-1。推力曲线的面积积分表明旋转爆震模型发动机所提供的推力比较稳定;微观来看,推力波形与爆震波高频压力波形耦合,围绕推力平均值振荡。     

关于大行星(或月球)轨道器的冻结轨道

关于人造地球卫星的冻结轨道问题早已为人们所熟知,而且已有相应的卫星在轨运行。在考虑该冻结轨道形成时,主要依据地球扁率J3项与J2项的相对关系,这是由地球非球形引力场的特征所决定的,原理十分清楚,但其原理和结论不能随意地用于其他大行星(或月球)的轨道器。在一般情况下,对于低轨卫星形成冻结轨道的条件,非球形引力位中的奇次带谐项(J21 1,l≥1)将起重要作用。不仅仅是一个J3项,例如月球轨道器,J3,J5,J7和J9均有不可忽视的影响,而且与轨道倾角有一定的关系。为此,本文根据轨道理论对冻结轨道的存在性及其有关问题作进一步的分析,给将来的深空探测提供轨道设计的有关信息和依据。     

The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) Education and Outreach (E/PO) Program

During the pre-launch phase of NASA’s THEMIS mission, the Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) program successfully brought the excitement of THEMIS to the public, students and teachers through a variety of programs. The Geomagnetic Event Observation Network by Students (GEONS) was the main effort during this time, a project in which 13 magnetometers were placed in or near 13 rural schools across the country. High school teachers and a few middle school teachers at these and/or neighboring schools took part in a long-term professional development program based around space science and the magnetometer data. The teachers created week-long to semester-long projects during which their students worked on THEMIS lessons that they, their colleagues, and the E/PO team created. In addition to this program, THEMIS E/PO also launched the only Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) Great Explorations in Mathematics and Science (GEMS) site in Nevada. This site provides a sustainable place for teacher professional development using hands-on GEMS activities, and has been used by teachers around the state of Nevada. Short-term professional development for K-12 teachers (one-hour to two-day workshops), with a focus on the Tribal College and Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) communities have reached hundreds of teachers across the country. A Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) ViewSpace show on auroras and THEMIS was created and distributed, and shown in over a hundred science centers and museums nationwide. The THEMIS E/PO program developed and maintained a THEMIS E/PO Website for dissemination of (1) information and multimedia about the science and engineering of THEMIS, (2) updated news about the mission in language appropriate for the public, (3) the GEONS data, the GEONS teacher guides with classroom activities, and (4) information about the THEMIS E/PO program. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have viewed this website. In this paper, we describe these programs along with the evaluation results, and discuss what lessons we learned along the way.