The Radio Plasma Imager investigation on the IMAGE spacecraft

Radio plasma imaging uses total reflection of electromagnetic waves from plasmas whose plasma frequencies equal the radio sounding frequency and whose electron density gradients are parallel to the wave normals. The Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) has two orthogonal 500-m long dipole antennas in the spin plane for near omni-directional transmission. The third antenna is a 20-m dipole along the spin axis. Echoes from the magnetopause, plasmasphere and cusp will be received with the three orthogonal antennas, allowing the determination of their angle-of-arrival. Thus it will be possible to create image fragments of the reflecting density structures. The instrument can execute a large variety of programmable measuring options at frequencies between 3 kHz and 3 MHz. Tuning of the transmit antennas provides optimum power transfer from the 10 W transmitter to the antennas. The instrument can operate in three active sounding modes: (1) remote sounding to probe magnetospheric boundaries, (2) local (relaxation) sounding to probe the local plasma frequency and scalar magnetic field, and (3) whistler stimulation sounding. In addition, there is a passive mode to record natural emissions, and to determine the local electron density, the scalar magnetic field, and temperature by using a thermal noise spectroscopy technique.     

Radio plasma imager simulations and measurements

The Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) will be the first-of-its kind instrument designed to use radio wave sounding techniques to perform repetitive remote sensing measurements of electron number density (N _e) structures and the dynamics of the magnetosphere and plasmasphere. RPI will fly on the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) mission to be launched early in the year 2000. The design of the RPI is based on recent advances in radio transmitter and receiver design and modern digital processing techniques perfected for ground-based ionospheric sounding over the last two decades. Free-space electromagnetic waves transmitted by the RPI located in the low-density magnetospheric cavity will be reflected at distant plasma cutoffs. The location and characteristics of the plasma at those remote reflection points can then be derived from measurements of the echo amplitude, phase, delay time, frequency, polarization, Doppler shift, and echo direction. The 500 m tip-to-tip X and Y (spin plane) antennas and 20 m Z axis antenna on RPI will be used to measures echoes coming from distances of several R _E. RPI will operate at frequencies between 3 kHz to 3 MHz and will provide quantitative N _e values from 10^–1 to 10⁵ cm^–3. Ray tracing calculations, combined with specific radio imager instrument characteristics, enables simulations of RPI measurements. These simulations have been performed throughout an IMAGE orbit and under different model magnetospheric conditions. They dramatically show that radio sounding can be used quite successfully to measure a wealth of magnetospheric phenomena such as magnetopause boundary motions and plasmapause dynamics. The radio imaging technique will provide a truly exciting opportunity to study global magnetospheric dynamics in a way that was never before possible.     

Resonance in a coupled solar-climate model

The 11–year solar activity cycle is magnetic in origin and is responsible for small changes in solar luminosity and the modulation of the solar wind. The terrestrial climate exhibits much internal variability supporting oscillations with many frequencies. The direct effect of changing solar irradiance in driving climatic change is believed to be small, and amplification mechanisms are needed to enhance the role of solar variability. In this paper we demonstrate that resonance may play a crucial role in the dynamics of the climate system, by using the output from a nonlinear solar dynamo model as a weak input to a simplified climate model. The climate is modelled as oscillating about two fixed points (corresponding to a warm and cold state) with the weak chaotically modulated solar forcing on average pushing the solution towards the warm state. When a typical frequency of the input is similar to that of the chaotic climate system then a dramatic increase in the role of the solar forcing is apparent and complicated intermittent behaviour is observed. The nonlinear effects are subtle however, and forcing that on average pushes the solution towards the warm state may lead to increased intervals of oscillation about either state. Owing to the intermittent nature of the timeseries, analysis of the relevant timeseries is shown to be non-trivial.     

Ceramic ChemCam Calibration Targets on Mars Science Laboratory

The ChemCam instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity will use laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to analyze major and minor element chemistry from sub-millimeter spot sizes, at ranges of ～1.5–7?m. To interpret the emission spectra obtained, ten calibration standards will be carried on the rover deck. Graphite, Ti?metal, and four glasses of igneous composition provide primary, homogeneous calibration targets for the laser. Four granular ceramic targets have been added to provide compositions closer to soils and sedimentary materials like those expected at the Gale Crater field site on Mars. Components used in making these ceramics include basalt, evaporite, and phyllosilicate materials that approximate the chemical compositions of detrital and authigenic constituents of clastic and evaporite sediments, including the elevated sulfate contents present in many Mars sediments and soils. Powdered components were sintered at low temperature (800?°C) with a small amount (9?wt.%) of lithium tetraborate flux to produce ceramics that retain volatile sulfur yet are durable enough for the mission. The ceramic targets are more heterogeneous than the pure element and homogenous glass standards but they provide standards with compositions more similar to the sedimentary rocks that will be Curiosity’s prime targets at Gale Crater.     

Heat transfer at various methods of thermal protection in the systems of power-driven gas turbine plants (GTP)

The scheme variants of implementing the thermal protection against heat flows being generated by the body of a high-temperature stationary gas turbine engine (GTE) are presented. The scheme of the experimental bench with a working section is given. Methodical approaches to the heat transfer calculation at different variants of forced and natural convection organization and under various operating conditions are described. The generalized results of the experiments carried out using a heat curtain being generated by porous injection are presented.     

Deducing Electron Properties from Hard X-ray Observations

X-radiation from energetic electrons is the prime diagnostic of flare-accelerated electrons. The observed X-ray flux (and polarization state) is fundamentally a convolution of the cross-section for the hard X-ray emission process(es) in question with the electron distribution function, which is in turn a function of energy, direction, spatial location and time. To address the problems of particle propagation and acceleration one needs to infer as much information as possible on this electron distribution function, through a deconvolution of this fundamental relationship. This review presents recent progress toward this goal using spectroscopic, imaging and polarization measurements, primarily from the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). Previous conclusions regarding the energy, angular (pitch angle) and spatial distributions of energetic electrons in solar flares are critically reviewed. We discuss the role and the observational evidence of several radiation processes: free-free electron-ion, free-free electron-electron, free-bound electron-ion, photoelectric absorption and Compton backscatter (albedo), using both spectroscopic and imaging techniques. This unprecedented quality of data allows for the first time inference of the angular distributions of the X-ray-emitting electrons and improved model-independent inference of electron energy spectra and emission measures of thermal plasma. Moreover, imaging spectroscopy has revealed hitherto unknown details of solar flare morphology and detailed spectroscopy of coronal, footpoint and extended sources in flaring regions. Additional attempts to measure hard X-ray polarization were not sufficient to put constraints on the degree of anisotropy of electrons, but point to the importance of obtaining good quality polarization data in the future.     

Telerobotics: problems and research needs

With major emphasis on simulation, a university laboratory telerobotics facility permits problems to be approached by groups of graduate students. Helmet-mounded displays provide realism; the slaving of the display to the human operator's viewpoint gives a sense of `telepresence' that may be useful for prolonged tasks. Using top-down 3-D model control of distant images allows distant images to be reduced to a few parameters to update the model used for display to the human operator in a preview model to circumvent, in part, the communication delay. Also, the model can be used as a format for supervisory control and permit short-term local autonomous operations. Image processing algorithms can be made simpler and faster without trying to construct sensible images from the bottom. Control studies of telerobots lead to preferential manual control modes and, in this university environment, to basic paradigms for human motion and thence, perhaps, to redesign of robotic control, trajectory path planning, and rehabilitation prosthetics. Speculation as to future industrial drives for this telerobotic field suggests efficient roles for government agencies such as NASA     

Position and force control of coordinated multiple arms

A technique is presented for controlling multiple manipulators which are holding a single object and therefore form a closed kinematic chain. The object, which may or may not be in contact with a rigid environment, is assumed to be held rigidly by n robot end-effectors. The derivation is based on setting up constraint equations which reduce the 6×n degrees of freedom of n manipulators each having six joints. Additional constraint equations are considered when one or more degrees of freedom of the object is reduced due to external constraints. Utilizing the operational space dynamic equations, a decoupling controller is designed to control both the position and the interaction forces of the object with the environment. Simulation results for the control of a pair of two-link manipulators are presented     

Discrete-time state estimation of analog double integrators

The problem of minimum variance discrete-time state estimation of a continuous-time double integrator via noisy continuous-time measurements is considered. The error covariance matrices of this estimation are calculated and analyzed. The relations between these covariance matrices and the error covariance matrix of the optimal continuous-time filter are obtained, and a way for determining the required sampling period is proposed. A commonly used approximated model is investigated; it is shown to be inappropriate unless a specific improvement is introduced in the model     

Time-frequency hop codes based upon extended quadratic congruences

Time-frequency hop codes are developed that can be used for coherent multiuser echolocation and asynchronous spread spectrum communication systems. They represent a compromise between Costas codes, which have nearly ideal autoambiguity but not so good cross-ambiguity properties, and linear congruential codes, which have nearly ideal cross-ambiguity but unattractive autoambiguity properties. Extended quadratic congruential code words are shown to have reasonably good autoambiguity and cross-ambiguity properties across the whole class of code sets considered. A uniform upper bound is placed on the entire cross-ambiguity function surface, and bounds are placed on the position and amplitude of spurious peaks in the autoambiguity function. These bounds depend on the time/bandwidth product and code length exclusively and lead naturally to a discussion of the design tradeoffs for these two parameters. Examples of typical autoambiguity and cross-ambiguity functions are given to illustrate the performance of the new codes