An Application of Evidential Networks to Threat Assessment

Decision makers operating in modern defence theatres need to comprehend and reason with huge quantities of potentially uncertain and imprecise data in a timely fashion. An automatic information fusion system is developed which aims at supporting a commander's decision making by providing a threat assessment, that is an estimate of the extent to which an enemy platform poses a threat based on evidence about its intent and capability. Threat is modelled by a network of entities and relationships between them, while the uncertainties in the relationships are represented by belief functions as defined in the theory of evidence. To support the implementation of the threat assessment functionality, an efficient valuation-based reasoning scheme, referred to as an evidential network, is developed. To reduce computational overheads, the scheme performs local computations in the network by applying an inward propagation algorithm to the underlying binary join tree. This allows the dynamic nature of the external evidence, which drives the evidential network, to be taken into account by recomputing only the affected paths in the binary join tree.     

Diagnosing the Neutral Interstellar Gas Flow at 1 AU with IBEX-Lo

Every year in fall and spring the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) will observe directly the interstellar gas flow at 1 AU over periods of several months. The IBEX-Lo sensor employs a powerful triple time-of-flight mass spectrometer. It can distinguish and image the O and He flow distributions in the northern fall and spring, making use of sensor viewing perpendicular to the Sun-pointing spin axis. To effectively image the narrow flow distributions IBEX-Lo has a high angular resolution quadrant in its collimator. This quadrant is employed selectively for the interstellar gas flow viewing in the spring by electrostatically shutting off the remainder of the aperture. The operational scenarios, the expected data, and the necessary modeling to extract the interstellar parameters and the conditions in the heliospheric boundary are described. The combination of two key interstellar species will facilitate a direct comparison of the pristine interstellar flow, represented by He, which has not been altered in the heliospheric boundary region, with a flow that is processed in the outer heliosheath, represented by O. The O flow distribution consists of a depleted pristine component and decelerated and heated neutrals. Extracting the latter so-called secondary component of interstellar neutrals will provide quantitative constraints for several important parameters of the heliosheath interaction in current global heliospheric models. Finding the fraction and width of the secondary component yields an independent value for the global filtration factor of species, such as O and H. Thus far filtration can only be inferred, barring observations in the local interstellar cloud proper. The direction of the secondary component will provide independent information on the interstellar magnetic field strength and orientation, which has been inferred from SOHO SWAN Ly-α backscattering observations and the two Voyager crossings of the termination shock.     

Investigation of direct integration for nonlinear finite element equations of motion by the modified central difference method

The investigation of stability and precision of the previously proposed implicit scheme of direct integration for the finite element equations of motion is presented. The scheme parameter values that ensure its unconditional stability in the nonlinear problems are determined and comparison with existing procedures is given.     

Clutter Suppression Properties of Weighted Pulse Trains

A common but troublesome requirement on radar sensors is the detection of a target in the interference from undesired scatterers, or clutter. Systems with coherent processing of pulse trains are uniquely suited for the purpose because, with pulse trains, it is possible to concentrate the receiver output for particular values of Doppler and thus suppress the clutter by Doppler filtering. This paper discusses to what degree the effectiveness of the method can be enhanced by tapering, or weighting, of the pulse amplitudes. The general results are illustrated by computer-plotted response functions for weighted pulse trains. The clutter suppression efficiency of weighting is calculated both for unilateral weighting in the receiver and for bilateral weighting in both receiver and transmitter. The significance of additional phase weighting is discussed and the results for pure amplitude weighting are compared with publishedwork on phase and amplitude weighting.     

A neural network-based ionospheric model for Arecibo

The Arecibo Observatory (18°N, 66°W) has the world’s largest single dish antenna (300 m diameter). Beyond radio astronomy it can also operate as an incoherent scatter radar and in that mode its figure-of-merit makes it also one of the most powerful world-wide. For the present purpose all electron density data available on the web, from the beginning with the first erratic measurements in 1966 up to 2004 inclusive, were downloaded. The measurements range from about 100 km to beyond 700 km and are essentially evenly distributed, i.e. not dedicated to measure specific geophysical events. From manually edited/inspected data a neural network (NN) was established with season, hour of the day, solar activity and Kp as the input parameters. The performance of this model is checked against a – likewise NN based – global model of foF2, a measure of the maximum electron density of the ionosphere. Considering the diverse data sources and assumptions of the two models it can be concluded that they agree remarkably well.     

Secure wireless collection and distribution of commercial airplane health data

The introduction of wireless communication capabilities supporting transfer of sensor data and information on-board commercial airplanes as well as between airplanes and supporting ground systems has the potential to significantly improve the safety and efficiency of air travel. The benefits, however, come at the cost of information security vulnerabilities introduced by data networks. Regulatory institutions, including the FAA, are aware that security requirements for network-enabled airplanes must be fully identified. Therefore, this focuses on wireless airplane health monitoring and management, and contributes a security framework to identify threats and system requirements to mitigate these threats. We also present challenges and open problems in enabling secure use of wireless sensor networks for health monitoring and control of commercial airplanes.     

Mid-latitude amplitude scintillation of GPS signals and GPS performance slips

Degradation of transionospheric radio signals and operation failures during ionospheric disturbances constitute a crucial factor of space weather influence on radio engineering satellite systems performance. We found that during the main phase of strong magnetic storms in 2000–2003 when the auroral oval expands into mid-latitudes, its southern boundary develops a region with intense small-scale electron density irregularities. Such irregularities may cause strong amplitude scintillations of GPS signals at both GPS operating frequencies. The another consequence of it was significant random GPS signal phase fluctuations, breaking-down of signal tracking, and sharp increasing of GPS positioning errors as a result.     

New field of application of the IRI modeling – Determination of ionosphere transfer characteristic for radio astronomical signals

We suggest a new field of application of IRI modeling – determination of ionosphere transfer characteristic (ITC) for radio astronomical signals (RAS). VHF and HF RAS are widely used for observations of the Sun and pulsars. It is necessary to take into account possible distortions of RAS in the Earth ionosphere. However, in contrast to modern navigation systems (GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO), where very accurate reconstruction of ionosphere parameters is a built-in function, in present-day radio astronomy a retrieve of ITC has not been appropriately worked out yet. It collides with increasing requirements to accuracy of the analysis of RAS amplitude profile and to the angular and polarizing resolution of radio telescopes of new generation. We have developed a method and software for calculation of the ionosphere measure of rotation (RM) and the measure of dispersion (DM). We used the ionosphere model IRI-2001, magnetic-field model IGRF-10 and values of ionosphere total electron content as deduced from GPS measurements. The obtained values of the ionosphere DM and RM were recalculated into characteristics of phase delay, Faraday amplitude modulation and polarization changes. We made calculations for different levels of geomagnetic activity and for different angular position of radio sources as well.     

Effect of “Noisy” sun conditions on aircrew radiation exposure

In computer codes used to estimate the aircrew radiation exposure from galactic cosmic radiation, a quiet sun model is usually assumed. A revised computer code (PCAIRE ver. 8.0f) is used to calculate the impact of noisy sun conditions on aircrew radiation exposure. The revised code incorporates the effect of solar storm activity, which can perturb the geomagnetic field lines, altering cutoff rigidities and hence the shielding capability of the Earth’s magnetic field. The effect of typical solar storm conditions on aircrew radiation exposure is shown to be minimal justifying the usual assumptions.