Reliability analysis of fault-tolerant IMU architectures withredundant inertial sensors

A systematic reliability analysis procedure for evaluating fault-tolerant inertial measurement unit (IMU) architectures is described. The procedure is based on modeling the system architecture, the component reliabilities, and the redundancy management. The component reliabilities are based on constant failure rates and exponential failure distributions. The overall reliability of the IMU and the major contributors to IMU reliability are computed. Three state-of-the-art fault-tolerant IMU architectures are evaluated and compared using the procedure     

Interannual variability

The new Reference Atmosphere presented here is based on global satellite data and forms a very useful basis for climatological studies. When using such climatologies it is important to be aware of the well known interannual variability which in the middle atmosphere is particularly large during the northern winters and southern springs.     

Vertical density and temperature structure over Northern Europe

During the Energy Budget Campaign, several profiles of the density and temperature of the upper atmosphere were obtained. The measurements were made using rocket-borne instrumentation launched from ESRANGE, Sweden and Andoya Rocket Range, Norway during November and December, 1980. The techniques included meteorological temperature sondes, passive falling spheres, accelerometer instrumented falling spheres, density gauges, mass spectrometers and infrared emission experiments. The instruments provided data within the altitude range from 20 km to 150 km. The measurements were made during periods which have been grouped into three categories by level of geomagnetic activity. Analysis has been made to compare the results and to examine the oscillations and fluctuations in the vertical profiles for scales ranging between hundreds of meters and tens of kilometers. Most of the features observed fit qualitatively within the range expected for internal gravity waves. The geomagnetic storm conditions may be associated with enhanced wave activity and heating observed in the lower thermosphere.     

Hectometer radio bursts and energetic electrons during solar flares according to observations onboard the Interball-1 satellite

Radio bursts in the frequency range 100–1500 kHz and fluxes of energetic electrons with energies of 20–450 keV recorded onboard the Interball-1 satellite during prominent chromospheric flares on the Sun are studied. The time of propagation of the electrons to the Earth is estimated using the method of comparison of the moments of the beginning of radio emission generation during the explosive phase of the flare and the arrival of the accelerated electrons to the Earth.     

Ulysses charged particle measurements between 1 and 5 AU from the sun.

Proton fluxes obtained by two instruments carried on the ESA/NASA Ulysses spacecraft are reported for the period from launch in October 1990 till Jupiter encounter in February 1992. Proton energy ranges are 24-59, 71-99, 130-320, 320-2100 and > 2100 MeV. The Sun was very active during this period, the events of March 1991 being some of the largest of the solar cycle. The relationship between events on the Sun and the observed proton flux is discussed.     

Microelectronics effects as seen on CRRES.

A MicroElectronics Test Package (MEP) measured total dose degradation and single event upsets (SEUs) on 60 device types on the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) in an 18 degrees inclination orbit between 350 km and 36000 km from July 1990 to October 1991. Simultaneous measurements of the high energy particle environment were used to make a direct cause and effect comparison of the energetic particle backgrounds and microelectronic performance characteristics. The galactic cosmic ray background for the period of the CRRES mission was at a minimum. The SEUs experienced from the cosmic ray background were correspondingly few in number, but surprisingly produced an equal probability of upset over an L-shell range of 8.5 Earth radii (RE) down to less than 3.0 RE. Cosmic ray induced upset frequencies in proton sensitive chips were over 2 orders of magnitude lower than those produced by protons in the heart of the inner proton radiation belts. Multiple upsets, those produced when a single particle upsets more than one memory location, were just as common from protons as from cosmic rays.     

Detection of weak, subpixel targets using mesh-connected cellularautomata

Effective use of military cellular automata such as military data array processor (MilDAP) and geometric arithmetic parallel processor (GAPP), in weak, subpixel target detection is shown to be possible by using new signal processing regimes based on binary ranking filter theory. By using binary ranking filters, the MilDAP can furnish 6 dB of processing gain against white Gaussian noise while monitoring from one to four million potential target tracks at 10-40 frames/s. GAPP is shown to be capable of monitoring 3.7 million tracks over 216×384 detectors at 14000 frames/s and, in a time sharing mode, 15 million tracks over 432×768 detectors at 24 frames/s. The special case of threatening targets is discussed, as well as alternate cellular architectures which use multidimensional binary ranking filters in multidimensional coordinate systems     

An optical angle of attack sensor

A major source of transonic and supersonic wind-tunnel test data uncertainty are angle-of-attack-measurement errors caused by unknown sting and balance deflections under load. Since dynamic loads in pressurized or cryogenic wind tunnels generally exceed those in conventional low-speed atmospheric wind tunnels, the need to account for these distortions during model testing is even more acute. A novel laser-based instrument for the in-situ measurement of wind-tunnel-model angle of attack that enables continuous, time-dependent measurements to be made without signal dropout is described. Proof-of-concept experiments, along with the results of recent measurements conducted at the NASA Ames 9-ft×7-ft supersonic wind tunnel, are presented. Experiments were also conducted to determine the reliable range, sensitivity, and long-term stability of the instrument. The results show that 0.01° sensitivity can be achieved and that optical and detector packaging requirements are less stringent than those for current tilt-sensor or accelerometer model installations     

Optimal FIR filters for time-varying state-space models

An optimal FIR (finite impulse response) filter and smoother is introduced for the time-varying state-space model. The suggested filter has an FIR structure and utilizes finite observation. It is shown that the impulse response of the optimal FIR filter can be obtained by a simple Riccati-type matrix differential equation. Especially for time-invariant systems, this FIR filter reduces to previously known simple forms. For implementation, a recursive form of the optimal FIR filter and smoother is derived by using adjoint variables, and computational algorithms are suggested. It is also shown by sensitivity analysis that the proposed optimal FIR filter alleviates potential divergence characteristics of the standard Kalman filter     

Changing safety-critical software

Changing software to implement new features, correct problems, update functions, or replace obsolete hardware components (e.g., microprocessors) is a way of life in today's industry. A systematic software change process is essential for the maintenance and reuse of safety-critical software. This paper presents activities to consider when changing software in safety-critical systems. The focus is on the aviation industry; however, the concepts are also applicable to other safety-critical domains, such as medical or nuclear