Heliosphere-Geosphere Interactions Using Low Energy Neutral Atom Imaging

Development of the low energy neutral atom (LENA) imager was originally motivated by a need to remotely sense plasma heating in the topside ionosphere, with the goal of greatly enhanced temporal resolution of an otherwise familiar phenomenon. During ground test and calibration, the LENA imager was found to respond to neutral atoms with energies well above its nominal energy range of 10–750 eV, up to at least 3–4 keV, owing to sputtering interactions with its conversion surface. On orbit, LENA has been found to respond to a ubiquitous neutral atom component of the solar wind, to the neutral atoms formed by magnetosheath interactions with the geocorona during periods of high solar wind pressure, and to the interstellar neutral atoms flowing through the heliosphere during the season of maximal relative wind velocity between spacecraft and interstellar medium. LENA imaging has thus emerged as a promising new tool for studying the interplanetary medium and its interaction with the magnetosphere, in addition to the ionospheric heating and outflow that result from this interaction. LENA emissions from the ionosphere consist of a fast component that can be observed at high altitudes, and slower components that evidently create a quasi-trapped extended superthermal exosphere. The more energetic emissions are responsive to solar wind energy inputs on time scales of a few minutes.     

Far ultraviolet imaging from the IMAGE spacecraft. 2. Wideband FUV imaging

The Far Ultraviolet Wideband Imaging Camera (WIC) complements the magnetospheric images taken by the IMAGE satellite instruments with simultaneous global maps of the terrestrial aurora. Thus, a primary requirement of WIC is to image the total intensity of the aurora in wavelength regions most representative of the auroral source and least contaminated by dayglow, have sufficient field of view to cover the entire polar region from spacecraft apogee and have resolution that is sufficient to resolve auroras on a scale of 1 to 2 latitude degrees. The instrument is sensitive in the spectral region from 140–190 nm. The WIC is mounted on the rotating IMAGE spacecraft viewing radially outward and has a field of view of 17° in the direction parallel to the spacecraft spin axis. Its field of view is 30° in the direction perpendicular to the spin axis, although only a 17°×17° image of the Earth is recorded. The optics was an all-reflective, inverted Cassegrain Burch camera using concentric optics with a small convex primary and a large concave secondary mirror. The mirrors were coated by a special multi-layer coating, which has low reflectivity in the visible and near UV region. The detector consists of a MCP-intensified CCD. The MCP is curved to accommodate the focal surface of the concentric optics. The phosphor of the image intensifier is deposited on a concave fiberoptic window, which is then coupled to the CCD with a fiberoptic taper. The camera head operates in a fast frame transfer mode with the CCD being read approximately 30 full frames (512×256 pixel) per second with an exposure time of 0.033 s. The image motion due to the satellite spin is minimal during such a short exposure. Each image is electronically distortion corrected using the look up table scheme. An offset is added to each memory address that is proportional to the image shift due to satellite rotation, and the charge signal is digitally summed in memory. On orbit, approximately 300 frames will be added to produce one WIC image in memory. The advantage of the electronic motion compensation and distortion correction is that it is extremely flexible, permitting several kinds of corrections including motions parallel and perpendicular to the predicted axis of rotation. The instrument was calibrated by applying ultraviolet light through a vacuum monochromator and measuring the absolute responsivity of the instrument. To obtain the data for the distortion look up table, the camera was turned through various angles and the input angles corresponding to a pixel matrix were recorded. It was found that the spectral response peaked at 150 nm and fell off in either direction. The equivalent aperture of the camera, including mirror reflectivities and effective photocathode quantum efficiency, is about 0.04 cm². Thus, a 100 Rayleigh aurora is expected to produce 23 equivalent counts per pixel per 10 s exposure at the peak of instrument response.     

The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager Investigation for the IMAGE Mission

The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUV) of the IMAGE Mission will study the distribution of He⁺ in Earth's plasmasphere by detecting its resonantly-scattered emission at 30.4 nm. It will record the structure and dynamics of the cold plasma in Earth's plasmasphere on a global scale. The 30.4-nm feature is relatively easy to measure because it is the brightest ion emission from the plasmasphere, it is spectrally isolated, and the background at that wavelength is negligible. Measurements are easy to interpret because the plasmaspheric He⁺ emission is optically thin, so its brightness is directly proportional to the He⁺ column abundance. Effective imaging of the plasmaspheric He⁺ requires global `snapshots in which the high apogee and the wide field of view of EUV provide in a single exposure a map of the entire plasmasphere. EUV consists of three identical sensor heads, each having a field of view 30° in diameter. These sensors are tilted relative to one another to cover a fan-shaped field of 84°×30°, which is swept across the plasmasphere by the spin of the satellite. EUVs spatial resolution is 0.6° or 0.1 R _E in the equatorial plane seen from apogee. The sensitivity is 1.9 count s^–1 Rayleigh^–1, sufficient to map the position of the plasmapause with a time resolution of 10 min.     

Climate Observations - The Instrumental Record

A survey is given of the available instrumental data for monitoring and analysis of climatic variations. We focus on temperature measurements, both over land and ocean, at the surface and aloft.Over land, the older observations were subject to exposure changes which may not have been fully compensated. The effects of urbanization have been largely avoided in studies of climatic change over the last 150 years. There are few records for pre-1850 outside Europe and eastern North America, and the global network shows a recent decline. Over the ocean, sea surface temperature (SST) has been measured using buckets, engine intakes, hull sensors, buoys, and satellites. Many of these data have been effectively homogenized, but new challenges arise as observing systems evolve. Available SST and marine air temperature datasets begin in the 1850s. The data are concentrated in shipping lanes especially before 1900, and very sparse during the world wars, but additional historical data are being digitized.The radiosonde record is short (40 years) and has major gaps over the oceans, tropics and Southern Hemisphere. Instrumental heterogeneities are beginning to be assessed and removed using physical and statistical techniques. The MSU record is complete but only began in 1979, and is not highly resolved in the vertical: major biases, mainly affecting the lower-tropospheric retrieval, have been reduced as a result of recent analyses.Advanced interpolation or data-assimilation techniques are being applied to these data, but the results must be interpreted with care.     

Dynamics of an Eddy-Current-Torqued Gyro-Stabilized Assembly

Prominent among the commonly encountered gyro-stabilized assemblies used in guidance and tracking are those which are eddy-current torqued. Although eddy-current-torquecd lead- computing gunsights, which use spinning mirrors, have been well known for thirty years, it has been difficult to find an analysis of the torques developed by the precession mechanism. In this paper a model configuration of the torquer is presented. The total gyro dynamics are then determined by including these torque terms in the model presented in the preceding paper.     

An Algorithm for Designing Burst Waveforms with Quantized Transmitter Weights

An algorithm is described which finds optimum transmitter and receiver weights to maximize clutter suppression in a predetermined clutter region when using burst waveforms. It is assumed that the transmitter weights can only take on values from a finite set. This optimization problem is solved using a branch and bound algorithm. An example is given which shows the improvement in clutter suppression when this new design procedure is used as compared to a simpler nonoptimal procedure.     

雷达罩内用泡沫型吸波材料研究

以微波传输线理论为基础 ,研制出一种宽带轻质泡沫型吸波材料。该材料在 8～ 1 8GHz频率范围内 ,反射率均小于 -1 5 d B。材料经过了物理机械性能试验与雷达照射试验。地面模拟与飞行试验结果表明 ,在雷达天线罩内使用该材料 ,可以有效降低罩内金属部件对天线的影响。     

子波分析和ART神经网络在复合材料板冲击定位中的应用

将子波分析和神经网络技术用于复合材料的无损监测,利用子波分析良好的时频特性从强噪声中提取特征信息。并对复合材料受到冲击时的信号进行了实验处理,提出了一种改进的自适应共振理论 (ART)神经网络结构聚类算法。实验结果表明,能实时监测复合材料受到冲击时的冲击位置和冲击大小。     

高负荷跨音压气机转子ATS-3气动设计

ATS-3的设计工作是在已有的设计较为成功的风扇压气机 ATS-2的基础上 ,进行细致的优化 ,主要是想提高失速裕度 ,也为高负荷、高压比跨声速压气机的设计提供更为直接、有用的设计数据。优化设计的重点是在根部应用可控扩散叶型的思想进行二维反问题优化、并对整体的安装角进行调整。其特性的数值模拟结果表明 ATS-3较 ATS-2有更大的失速域度 ,效率有所提高 ,但设计点的压比和流量略微有所降低     

相关系数平稳过程时频分析方法

相关系数平稳过程是从非平稳过程中分离出的一类工程上常见且便于研究的随机过程,其均值和方差都可随时间变化,传统的平稳随机过程是它的一个特例。本文提出了相关系数AR(p),MA(q)和ARMA(p,q)序列的概念,建立了相关系数平稳过程的时频分析方法。该方法首先在时域进行全程分析,得到相关系数平稳过程的均值函数、方差函数和相关系数函数,然后可以对其进行傅里叶变换、短时傅里叶变换或小波变换,给出相关系数平稳过程的谱密度,同时提出了随机项谱密度和趋势项谱密度的概念。文中还讨论了线性系统对相关系数平稳过程输入的响应。