Radar into the next millennium

The 1999 Radar Conference banquet address, in which an attempt is made to predict future developments in radar, is presented     

ULM battery technology review and applications update

The Ultra Low Maintenance (ULM) battery technology and its historical performance validation programs are reviewed. Recent military flight test programs are discussed and the growing lists of both military and commercial aircraft flying ULM batteries are presented     

Analysis of nonlinear deformation and stability of reinforced elliptic cylindrical shells under bending with internal pressure

A finite element statement of solving problems on stability of reinforced elliptic cylindrical shells taking into account momentness and nonlinearity of their subcritical stress strain state is presented. The explicit expressions for displacements of noncircular cylindrical shell elements as rigid bodies are determined by integrating the equations obtained by equating the components of linear strains to zero. These expressions were used to construct the form functions for an efficient quadrilateral finite element of natural curvature. An efficient numerical algorithm of nonlinear deformation and stability of shells was developed. The stability of reinforced elliptic cylindrical shells under combined loading by bending moment, transverse boundary force and internal pressure is analyzed. We also examine how the critical loads are affected by the strain nonlinearity and ellipticity of shell deformation at the subcritical stage.     

Limits of flanging process feasibility to create thin-wall conical shells

In this paper, a process of flanging to create thin-walled axisymmetrical shells with the shape of truncated cone is analyzed. Also presented are some dependences that make it possible to determine the relative depth of a formed piece at the given piece-blank thickness ratio.     

Biomedical problems of EVA support during manned space flight to Mars

Current projects of manned missions to Mars are aimed to their realization in the second-third decades of this century. The purpose of this paper is to determine and review the main biomedical problems, that require a first and foremost decision for safety support of extravehicular activity (EVA) carried out by crewmembers of the Mars expedition. To a number of such problems the authors of the paper attribute a creation of adequate EVA equipment intended, first, for assembly of interplanetary spacecraft on the Earth orbit, performance of maintenance operations and scientific researches on the external surface of spacecraft during interplanetary flight and, secondly, for work on the Mars surface. New generation of space suits with low weight, high mobility and acceptable risk of decompression sickness must be as a central component of EVA equipment. The program for preparation to a Mars expedition also has to include special investigations in order to design the means and methods for a reliable protection of crew against space radiation, to elaborate the approach to medical monitoring and primary medical care during autonomous space mission, to maintain good health condition of crewmembers during EVA under the Mars gravity (0.38 g) after super long-term flight in weightlessness.     

Optimization of observer trajectories for bearings-only targetlocalization

The problem of bearings-only target localization is to estimate the location of a fixed target from a sequence of noisy bearing measurements. Although, in theory, this process is observable even without an observer maneuver, estimation performance (i.e., accuracy, stability and convergence rate) can be greatly enhanced by properly exploiting observer motion to increase observability. This work addresses the optimization of observer trajectories for bearings-only fixed-target localization. The approach presented herein is based on maximizing the determinant of the Fisher information matrix (FIM), subject to state constraints imposed on the observer trajectory (e.g., by the target defense system). Direct optimal control numerical schemes, including the recently introduced differential inclusion (DI) method, are used to solve the resulting optimal control problem. Computer simulations, utilizing the familiar Stansfield and maximum likelihood (ML) estimators, demonstrate the enhancement to target position estimability using the optimal observer trajectories     

COUNTERFOIL: a new high security optical surface technology

This paper presents a new optical surface technology known as COUNTERFOIL. The COUNTERFOIL technology provides a means of covert information storage and is used as the basis for a range of security seals and labels. The technology has obtained Australian Government Endorsement (SCEC Endorsement) for use in high security applications. It provides a convenient, low cost means to determine authenticity and detect tampering or surreptitious access