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.     

Space-time adaptive processing and adaptive arrays: specialcollection of papers

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) and related adaptive array techniques hold tremendous potential for improving sensor performance by exploiting signal diversity. Such methods have important application in radar, sonar, and communication systems. Recent advances in digital signal processing technology now provide the computational means to field STAP-based systems. The objective of this special collection of papers is to examine the current state-of-the art in STAP technology and explore the remaining obstacles, practical issues and novel techniques required to implement STAP-based radar, sonar or communication systems     

A Twin-CME Scenario for Ground Level Enhancement Events

Ground Level Enhancement (GLEs) events are extreme Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events. Protons in these events often reach ～GeV/nucleon. Understanding the underlying particle acceleration mechanism in these events is a major goal for Space Weather studies. In Solar Cycle 23, a total of 16 GLEs have been identified. Most of them have preceding CMEs and in-situ energetic particle observations show some of them are enhanced in ICME or flare-like material. Motivated by this observation, we discuss here a scenario in which two CMEs erupt in sequence during a short period of time from the same Active Region (AR) with a pseudo-streamer-like pre-eruption magnetic field configuration. The first CME is narrower and slower and the second CME is wider and faster. We show that the magnetic field configuration in our proposed scenario can lead to magnetic reconnection between the open and closed field lines that drape and enclose the first CME and its driven shock. The combined effect of the presence of the first shock and the existence of the open close reconnection is that when the second CME erupts and drives a second shock, one finds both an excess of seed population and an enhanced turbulence level at the front of the second shock than the case of a single CME-driven shock. Therefore, a more efficient particle acceleration will occur. The implications of our proposed scenario are discussed.     

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.     

Energy Release and Particle Acceleration in Flares: Summary and Future Prospects

RHESSI measurements relevant to the fundamental processes of energy release and particle acceleration in flares are summarized. RHESSI??s precise measurements of hard X-ray continuum spectra enable model-independent deconvolution to obtain the parent electron spectrum. Taking into account the effects of albedo, these show that the low energy cut-off to the electron power-law spectrum is typically ?tens of keV, confirming that the accelerated electrons contain a large fraction of the energy released in flares. RHESSI has detected a high coronal hard X-ray source that is filled with accelerated electrons whose energy density is comparable to the magnetic-field energy density. This suggests an efficient conversion of energy, previously stored in the magnetic field, into the bulk acceleration of electrons. A new, collisionless (Hall) magnetic reconnection process has been identified through theory and simulations, and directly observed in space and in the laboratory; it should occur in the solar corona as well, with a reconnection rate fast enough for the energy release in flares. The reconnection process could result in the formation of multiple elongated magnetic islands, that then collapse to bulk-accelerate the electrons, rapidly enough to produce the observed hard X-ray emissions. RHESSI??s pioneering ??-ray line imaging of energetic ions, revealing footpoints straddling a flare loop arcade, has provided strong evidence that ion acceleration is also related to magnetic reconnection. Flare particle acceleration is shown to have a close relationship to impulsive Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events observed in the interplanetary medium, and also to both fast coronal mass ejections and gradual SEP events. New instrumentation to provide the high sensitivity and wide dynamic range hard X-ray and ??-ray measurements, plus energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging of SEPs above ??2 R_??, will enable the next great leap forward in understanding particle acceleration and energy release is large solar eruptions??solar flares and associated fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs).     

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.     

尾座式无人飞行器鲁棒容错编队控制

针对尾座式无人飞行器编队在执行器故障、严重的非线性和耦合性、参数不确定性、外界扰动等影响下的容错控制问题进行了研究。提出了一种鲁棒容错编队控制方法来实现一群尾座式无人飞行器在执行器故障情况下的期望编队飞行。所构建的控制器由2部分组成：标称控制器和干扰补偿控制器。设计标称控制器使系统实现期望的控制性能,利用干扰补偿控制器抑制多种不确定性和执行器故障的影响。通过理论分析证明了系统的鲁棒稳定性,并通过数值仿真验证了算法的有效性。     

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     

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