Gravitational wave detection on the Moon and the moons of Mars

The Moon and the moons of Mars should be extremely quiet seismically and could therefore become sensitive gravitational wave detectors, if instrumented properly. Highly sensitive displacement sensors could be deployed on these planetary bodies to monitor the motion induced by gravitational waves. A superconducting displacement sensor with a 10-kg test mass cooled to 2 K will have an intrinsic instrument noise of 10⁻¹⁶ m Hz^−1/2. These sensors could be tuned to the lowest two quadrupole modes of the body or operated as a wideband detector below its fundamental mode. An interesting frequency range is 0.1–1 Hz, which will be missed by both the ground detectors on the Earth and LISA and would be the best window for searching for stochastic background gravitational waves. Phobos and Deimos have their lowest quadrupole modes at 0.2–0.3 Hz and could offer a sensitivity h_min ? 10⁻²² Hz^−1/2 within their resonance peaks, which is within two orders of magnitude from the goal of the Big Bang Observer (BBO). The lunar and Martian moon detectors would detect many interesting foreground sources in a new frequency window and could serve as a valuable precursor for BBO.     

Unsteady aerodynamics and flow control for flapping wing flyers

The creation of micro air vehicles (MAVs) of the same general sizes and weight as natural fliers has spawned renewed interest in flapping wing flight. With a wingspan of approximately 15 cm and a flight speed of a few meters per second, MAVs experience the same low Reynolds number (10⁴–10⁵) flight conditions as their biological counterparts. In this flow regime, rigid fixed wings drop dramatically in aerodynamic performance while flexible flapping wings gain efficacy and are the preferred propulsion method for small natural fliers. Researchers have long realized that steady-state aerodynamics does not properly capture the physical phenomena or forces present in flapping flight at this scale. Hence, unsteady flow mechanisms must dominate this regime. Furthermore, due to the low flight speeds, any disturbance such as gusts or wind will dramatically change the aerodynamic conditions around the MAV. In response, a suitable feedback control system and actuation technology must be developed so that the wing can maintain its aerodynamic efficiency in this extremely dynamic situation; one where the unsteady separated flow field and wing structure are tightly coupled and interact nonlinearly. For instance, birds and bats control their flexible wings with muscle tissue to successfully deal with rapid changes in the flow environment. Drawing from their example, perhaps MAVs can use lightweight actuators in conjunction with adaptive feedback control to shape the wing and achieve active flow control. This article first reviews the scaling laws and unsteady flow regime constraining both biological and man-made fliers. Then a summary of vortex dominated unsteady aerodynamics follows. Next, aeroelastic coupling and its effect on lift and thrust are discussed. Afterwards, flow control strategies found in nature and devised by man to deal with separated flows are examined. Recent work is also presented in using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators and angular speed variation to achieve active flow control for MAVs. Finally, an explanation for aerodynamic gains seen in flexible versus rigid membrane wings, derived from an unsteady three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model with an integrated distributed control algorithm, is presented.     

Onset study of impulsive solar energetic particleevents

Impulsive solar energetic particle (SEP) events are associated with impulsive X-ray flares, energetic electrons,and enhanced heavy ion abundances. Using instruments on ACE, we have examined the composition and origin of twelve impulsive SEP events from November 1997 to June 2000. All selected impulsive SEP events have enhanced ³He/⁴He ratios compared with the solar wind values. The range of ³He/⁴He ratios varies from 0.01 to 7.8. By assuming scatter-free propagation at zero degree pitch-angle, we fitted the minimum particle path lengths (from 1.2 to 1.4 AU, as expected), and estimated the ion event release time back at the Sun to within better than 30 minutes in most cases. We found only four events in which the release times agree for both 38–50 keV electrons and <1 MeV/nucleon ions. Five of our events have significant differences (>40 minutes) between the electron and ion onset times, all with ions injected later. Three impulsive ion events have no association with any impulsive electron event. Seven events have associated solar electromagnetic signatures (Type III radio bursts and/or X-ray flares).     

Modeling and parameter optimization of agile beam radar tracking

In the work presented here, we address parameter optimization for agile beam radar tracking to minimize the radar resources that are required to maintain a target under track. The parameters to be optimized include the track-revisit interval as well as the sequence of pairs of target signal strengths and detection thresholds associated with successive illumination attempts in each track-revisit. The effects of false alarms and clutter interference are taken into account in the modeling of target detection and in the characterization of tracking performance. Based on the detection model and tracker characterization, the parameter optimization problem is formulated. Typical examples of the optimization problem are numerically solved. The optimal solution gives an off-line scheduling of the parameter set. It also provides insight into the selection of a near-optimal parameter set that is appropriate for real-time implementation.     

A digital quadrature demodulation system

Existing digital quadrature demodulation techniques sample the input at either 2B Hz or 4B Hz, select the even samples as the in-phase (I), and interpolate the odd samples to give the quadrature (Q), output. The signal bandwidth is B. We propose a demodulation system to produce I and Q samples at arbitrary sampling rate greater than 2B Hz. The system eliminates the IF downconversion step with a special sampling scheme. The even samples correspond to the I component, while the Q components are the filtered output. The filter can be a lowpass or least squares (LS) filter. The lowpass filter design is based on trade-offs between the filter length and the degree of oversampling. It produces similar results as previous work when the sampling rate is 2B Hz or 4B Hz. Unlike existing methods which assume the input is white, a LS filter, on the other hand, can make use of input signal characteristics to achieve a better result. The higher the correlation in the input the larger the improvement. The cost for LS filtering is a coefficient update step if the input is time varying. A scheme to cancel dc offset from analog to digital (A/D) converters is also given     

Matching trajectory optimization and nonlinear tracking control for HALE

This paper concerns optimal trajectory generation and nonlinear tracking control for stratospheric airship platform of VIA-200. To compensate for the mismatch between the point-mass model of optimal trajectory and the 6-DOF model of the nonlinear tracking problem, a new matching trajectory optimization approach is proposed. The proposed idea reduces the dissimilarity of both problems and reduces the uncertainties in the nonlinear equations of motion for stratospheric airship. In addition, its refined optimal trajectories yield better results under jet stream conditions during flight. The resultant optimal trajectories of VIA-200 are full three-dimensional ascent flight trajectories reflecting the realistic constraints of flight conditions and airship performance with and without a jet stream. Finally, 6-DOF nonlinear equations of motion are derived, including a moving wind field, and the vectorial backstepping approach is applied. The desirable tracking performance is demonstrated that application of the proposed matching optimization method enables the smooth linkage of trajectory optimization to tracking control problems.