Airborne radar: its beginnings in World War II

Although not realized at the time, the defeat of the German Air Force in the summer of 1940 was one of the crucial battles of World War II. The narrow margin of victory can be ascribed to Britain's air-warning radar, Chain Home (CH), consisting of the 15-meter CH and the 1.5-meter CHL. The skillful use of this equipment by the Royal Air Force made daylight bombing unsustainable; the Luftwaffe then turned to night attacks, generally called "The Blitz." These were not effective in destroying military and industrial targets and depended on the hope of reducing the population's will to fight. Chain Home was of little use except to observe the attackers arrival, as it had almost no ability to follow the attackers as they proceeded inland. This eventuality was reckoned with before the outbreak of hostilities and had called for radars mounted in night fighters capable of guiding the pilot close enough to the target for him to open fire visually. The electronic techniques used at 1.5-meters were adapted to planes capable of carrying the radar and its operator. But there were three important design constraints: 1) the antennas had to be restricted to sizes that were practical for installation on aircraft, which for meter waves gave them low gain and large side lobes; 2) the set's maximum range was limited by the fighter's altitude as a result of the huge ground returns from the side lobes. British antiaircraft artillery, the stepchild of their arms, was too ineffective to drive the bombers to extreme altitudes; and 3) a minimum range had to be held until the flier could see his target, which strained the pulse techniques of the time.     

The start of the laboratory: the beginnings of the MITInstrumentation Laboratory

The author takes a look at the very early days of the MIT Instruments Laboratory and its successor, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. The discussion ranges over some of the incidents and events as these early instrument developers groped with problems that others had already failed to solve, and for which current solutions were declared adequate     

标准程序与情景意识下的决策

标准程序是飞行安全的立足根本,但是在特殊的情况下,情景意识下的决策是保证飞行安全的关键,只遵守标准程序是不够的,要有特殊的判断,做出最恰当的决策。     

Image processing, a new diagnostic tool

The San Antonio Air Logistics Center (SA-ALC) Automatic Test Systems Division's Advanced Diagnostics and Technology Insertion Center (ADTIC) is exploring the addition of a non-intrusive diagnostics capability to existing Automatic Test Systems (ATS) utilizing various sensor technologies. The diagnostic techniques under development are expected to allow for more efficient fault detection and isolation than traditional ATS. This paper summarizes findings to date and discusses the integration of these technologies should they prove viable     

Adept, adapt, adopt: three hurdles for new products

New commercial products based on military technology face a series of hurdles as they progress from customer needs to final product. This article looks at three significant hurdles. How can the company become adept at the technology involved? Can they adapt the technology to market needs? Will the company adopt the new technology into it's culture? From the examples given, we see a need for adding a new product function between research, marketing, and manufacturing     

Algol,Beta Lyrae,and W Serpentis: Some new results for three well studied eclipsing binaries

The properties of the eclipsing binaries Algol, Beta Lyrae, and W Serpentis are discussed and new results are presented. The physical properties of the components of Algol are now well determined. High resolution spectroscopy of the H-alpha feature by Richards et al. and by Gillet et al. and spectroscopy of the ultraviolet resonance lines with the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite reveal hot gas around the BBV primary. Gas flows also have been detected apparently originating from the low mass, cooler secondary component and flowing toward the hotter star through the Lagrangian L1 point. Analysis of 6 years of multi-bandpass photoelectric photometry of Beta Lyrae indicates that systematic changes in light curves occur with a characteristic period of -275 ± 25 days. These changes may arise from pulsations of the B8II star or from changes in the geometry of the disk component. Hitherto unpublished u, v, b, y, and H-alpha index light curves of W Ser are presented and discussed. W Ser is a very complex binary system that undergoes complicated, large changes in its light curves. The physical properties of W Ser are only poorly known, but it probably contains one component at its Roche surface, rapidly transfering matter to a component which is embedded in a thick, opaque disk. In several respects, W Ser resembles an upscale version of a cataclysmic variable binary system.     

Algol, Beta Lyrae, and W Serpentis: Some new results for three well studied eclipsing binaries

The properties of the eclipsing binaries Algol, Beta Lyrae, and W Serpentis are discussed and new results are presented. The physical properties of the components of Algol are now well determined. High resolution spectroscopy of the H-alpha feature by Richards et al. and by Gillet et al. and spectroscopy of the ultraviolet resonance lines with the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite reveal hot gas around the BBV primary. Gas flows also have been detected apparently originating from the low mass, cooler secondary component and flowing toward the hotter star through the Lagrangian L1 point. Analysis of 6 years of multi-bandpass photoelectric photometry of Beta Lyrae indicates that systematic changes in light curves occur with a characteristic period of -275 ± 25 days. These changes may arise from pulsations of the B8II star or from changes in the geometry of the disk component. Hitherto unpublished u, v, b, y, and H-alpha index light curves of W Ser are presented and discussed. W Ser is a very complex binary system that undergoes complicated, large changes in its light curves. The physical properties of W Ser are only poorly known, but it probably contains one component at its Roche surface, rapidly transfering matter to a component which is embedded in a thick, opaque disk. In several respects, W Ser resembles an upscale version of a cataclysmic variable binary system.     

Design and analysis of new p(n,k) polyphase pulse compression codes

P(n,k) codes as a new class of polyphase pulse compression codes are introduced and analyzed in detail. The P(n,k) codes are conceptually derived by step approximation of the phase function of a nonlinear-frequency modulated (NLFM) Chirp signal with a favorable energy density spectrum. The significant advantages of P(n,k) codes over conventional polyphase codes are lower autocorrelation sidelobes and an improved tolerance of low Doppler shifts and precompression bandwidth limitations. The primary disadvantage of the P(n,k) codes over conventional codes is a loss in range resolution. The uniform P(n,k) codes are especially attractive for radars employing digital signal professing because their favorable correlation properties also remain when quantization effects are taken into account     

Charging the new batteries-IC controllers track new technologies

Demands for portability have fueled significant developments in new battery technology. These developments have resulted in many more options in selecting the battery type for use in a particular project, but since most applications today are opting for rechargeable battery systems, the availability of battery charging solutions can become an equally important criteria in the selection process. Complicating this process are the demands for fast-but safe-charging with charge algorithms easily implemented with low-cost hardware. With the higher levels of complexity attendant with these more demanding algorithms, solutions have come primarily from the integrated circuit industry and the purpose of this paper is to provide a few examples of the latest efforts in this arena, specifically as addressed to lead-acid, nickel metal-hydride, and lithium-ion technologies     

A new quadrature sampling and processing approach

A quadrature sampling and array signal processing technique that differs from earlier approaches in that is processes the data before the Hilbert transformation is presented. A fast Fourier transformation (FFT) technique that performs the discrete Fourier transformation (DFT) on the sampled data directly without Hilbert transformation is proposed for frequency-domain signal processing. For array signal processing, the proposed approach does not perform Hilbert transformation prior to signal combining. It features high processing speed, low distortion, and hardware simplicity. Error analyses, performance evaluation, and computer simulation results are included     

Comments, with reply, on 'A new algorithm to optimize Barker code sidelobe suppression filters' by X.H. Chen and J. Oksman

In the above-titled paper (see ibid., vol.26, no.4, July 1990), the authors presented a simple approach to suppressing Barker code compression sidelobes. It consists of approximating an inverse filter in a finite series of terms with unknown coefficients. The coefficients are then determined by a simplex solution to an appropriate linear programming problem. The commenter indicates the results are correct, but the steps taken contain two errors which, however, compensate for each other. The corrections are given by the authors in their reply.<>