Crew autonomy for deep space exploration: Lessons from the Antarctic Search for Meteorites

Future piloted missions to explore asteroids, Mars, and other targets beyond the Moon will experience strict limitations on communication between vehicles in space and control centers on Earth. These limitations will require crews to operate with greater autonomy than any past space mission has demonstrated. The Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) project, which regularly sends small teams of researchers to remote parts of the southern continent, resembles a space mission in many ways but does not rely upon a control center. It provides a useful crew autonomy model for planners of future deep space exploration missions. In contrast to current space missions, ANSMET gives the crew the authority to adjust competing work priorities, task assignments, and daily schedules; allows the crew to be the primary monitor of mission progress; demands greater crew accountability for operational errors; requires the crew to make the most of limited communication bandwidth; adopts systems designed for simple operation and failure recovery; and grants the crew a leading role in the selection and stowage of their equipment.     

A strategic “viewfinder” for SETI research

One of the most important reasons why unsuccessful results have been obtained so far by the SETI Project is due to the fact that no sure targets to aim at have been available up-to the present state of research. All-sky surveys, even if very accurate and complete, might result to be time-consuming. SETI needs at least one effective “viewfinder” in order that a true targeted research is carried out with a possible success. The best foundation to get this can be identified with the search for the evidence of extraterrestrial astro-engineering activity in form of the Dyson spheres predicted by theory. The existence of such stellar objects can be ascertained by finding the evidence of two main signatures in stars of solar spectral type: infrared excess and anomalous light curves due to transiting artificial objects. These are probably the most powerful viewfinders in order to allow SETI techniques for intelligent signal search to be aimed at more appropriate targets. This paper is not intended to be a research paper but rather a review paper whose goal is not to present calculations and/or operational research but rather to be a research proposal for a more focused research in SETI just using Dyson Spheres as crucial markers.     

磁悬浮框架飞轮磁轴承技术研究与发展现状

对磁悬浮框架飞轮(MSGFW)和高精度磁轴承研究现状及其未来发展进行了详细阐述。根据转子悬浮力类型，将磁悬浮框架飞轮分为磁阻力构型、洛伦兹力构型和混合力构型，并结合三种构型论述了国内外框架飞轮的发展过程。在此基础上，对球面磁阻力磁轴承和洛伦兹力磁轴承进行了详细介绍，并结合磁路图分析其工作原理，比较了同类磁轴承的优劣。展望了磁悬浮框架飞轮与高精度磁轴承的未来发展方向，指出高动态响应检控共位平动球面磁阻力磁轴承，标准磁悬浮动量球和磁悬浮控制敏感球是磁悬浮框架飞轮的研究重点。     

Evolution of the periodicities in 2S 0114+650

We have analysed 9 years of data from the All Sky Monitor on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer for 2S 0114+650 to study the evolution of its spin, binary, and super-orbital periods. The spin history of the neutron star in this system exhibits torque reversals lasting 1 year. The newly discovered super-orbital period has remained stable over the 9-year span, making 2S 0114+650 the fourth known system to exhibit stable super-orbital modulation. We compare its super-orbital period evolution with those of the other three such systems.     

基于遗传算法的地磁匹配搜索策略

为降低导航成本,提出仅利用磁测计和里程计的地磁场匹配定位方法.为解决搜索空间过大的问题,提出以遗传算法在匹配区域搜索可能路径的方法.该方法以相关性度量作为适应度函数,交叉与变异仅针对点列的相对关系完成,提出用局部适应度函数自适应调整交叉概率与变异概率.仿真结果表明,该方法可以有效完成地磁匹配导航中任意形状路径的匹配.     

地球同步卫星BSR硅太阳电池阵输出功率衰减规律分析

长期受粒子辐照、紫外辐照等因素的影响,地球同步卫星的太阳电池阵输出功率会出现较为明显的衰减。这里选取某地球同步卫星使用的背表面反射(BSR)硅太阳电池阵为研究对象,采用光强因子和温度因子修正太阳电池阵的输出功率,使用局部加权回归散点平滑法(LOWESS)分析了其在设计寿命期间的输出功率衰减规律;同时基于LOWESS建立了预测模型,用于硅太阳电池阵超寿运行期间的功率预测。实测数据表明:本文构建的预测模型可以满足超寿地球同步卫星在轨管理使用需求。     

A salient edges detection algorithm of multi-sensor images and its rapid calculation based on PFCM kernel clustering

Multi-sensor image matching based on salient edges has broad prospect in applications, but it is difficult to extract salient edges of real multi-sensor images with noises fast and accurately by using common algorithms. According to the analysis of the features of salient edges, a novel salient edges detection algorithm and its rapid calculation are proposed based on possibility fuzzy C-means （PFCM） kernel clustering using two-dimensional vectors composed of the values of gray and texture. PFCM clustering can overcome the shortcomings that fuzzy C-means （FCM） cluster- ing is sensitive to noises and possibility C-means （PCM） clustering tends to find identical clusters. On this basis, a method is proposed to improve real-time performance by compressing data sets based on the idea of data reduction in the field of mathematical analysis. In addition, the idea that kernel-space is linearly separable is used to enhance robustness further. Experimental results show that this method extracts salient edges for real multi-sensor images with noises more accurately than the algorithm based on force fields and the FCM algorithm; and the proposed method is on average about 56 times faster than the PFCM algorithm in real time and has better robustness.     

An extended chirp scaling algorithm for spaceborne sliding spotlight synthetic aperture radar imaging

A system impulse response with low sidelobes is critical in synthetic aperture radar（SAR） images because sidelobes contribute to noise and interfere with nearby scatterers. However,the conventional tricks of sidelobe suppression are unable to be exactly applied to the case of spaceborne sliding spotlight SAR due to great azimuth shifts in both time and frequency domains. In this paper, an extended chirp scaling algorithm is presented for spaceborne sliding spotlight SAR data imaging. The proposed algorithm firstly uses the spectral analysis（SPECAN） technique to avoid the azimuth spectrum folding effect and then employs the chirp scaling（CS） algorithm to achieve data focusing, i.e., the so-called two-step approach. To suppress the sidelobe level, an efficient strategy for the azimuth spectral weighting which only involves matrix multiplications and short fast Fourier transformations（FFTs） is proposed, which is a post-process executed on the focused SAR image and particularly simple to be implemented. The SAR image processed by the proposed extended CS algorithm is very precise and perfectly phase-preserving. In the end, computer simulation results verify the analysis and confirm the validity of the proposed algorithm.     

Grinding performance evaluation of porous composite-bonded CBN wheels for Inconel 718

For high-efficiency grinding of difficult-to-cut materials such as titanium and nickel alloys, a high porosity is expected and also a sufficient mechanical strength to satisfy the function.However, the porosity increase is a disadvantage to the mechanical strength. As a promising pore forming agent, alumina bubbles are firstly induced into the abrasive layer to fabricate porous cubic boron nitride（CBN） wheels. When the wheel porosity reaches 45%, the bending strength is still high up to 50 MPa with modified orderly pore distribution. A porous CBN wheel was fabricated with a total porosity around 30%. The grinding performance of the porous composite-bonded CBN wheel was evaluated in terms of specific force, specific grinding energy, and grinding temperature, which were better than those of the vitrified one under the same grinding conditions. Compared to the vitrified CBN wheel, clear straight cutting grooves and less chip adhesion are observed on the ground surface and there is also no extensive loading on the wheel surface after grinding.     

多种失效模式相关的机构运动可靠度计算方法

机构运动中必然存在多种相关失效模式,多为影响机构运动的各类随机变量函数.为了在机构运动可靠性分析中有效考虑多种相关失效模式的影响,建立了考虑多种失效模式相关条件下的机构运动可靠度计算模型,并实现了对多种失效模式相关条件下的机构运动可靠度计算模型的求解,为考虑多种相关失效模式下的机构运动可靠性分析提供了一种有效途径.以6408滚动轴承为例,进行100 000抽样计算,考虑失效模式相关条件下运动可靠度为95.998 9%.该方法精度较高,具有一定的理论意义和应用价值.