Studies of radio frequency interference at Parkes Observatory

During 16 weeks of continuous SETI observing at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, a set of time-averaged data with 643 Hz resolution were recorded and returned to the SETI Institute for post-processing. These data are the 14 second (10 frame) average powers in each of 15,552 “subband” channels covering 10 MHz of the spectrum in both right and left circular polarizations that were used by the signal detection hardware to baseline and threshold the 1 Hz high resolution SETI spectra. The observations covered frequencies from 1.2 to 3 GHz, tracking 209 stellar targets across the sky. The data at each frequency were averaged over all directions and then interrogated to attempt to determine the prevalence of radio frequency interference (RFI). Estimates were made for the probability of encountering RFI at a particular frequency. Particular attention has been paid to those portions of the spectrum that are allocated as primary use status, or footnote protection for radioastronomy. This sixteen-week snapshot of the RFI situation at Parkes is by now out of date. Unfortunately, a year later, the situation has undoubtedly worsened.     

Space Remote Sensors

Space remote sensors are analyzed as a component of a higher level ``robotic' system and the implications for sensor parameter selection and priority assignment are described. The EOS program and three of its particular sensor types are considered as examples of the principles discussed.     

Sigma-mean monitoring for the local area augmentation of GPS

The local area augmentation system (LAAS) is a ground-based differential GPS system being developed to support aircraft precision approach and landing navigation with guaranteed integrity. To quantitatively appraise navigation integrity, an aircraft computes vertical and lateral protection levels using the standard deviation of pseudo-range correction errors, /spl sigma//sub pr/spl I.bar/gnd/, broadcast by the LAAS ground facility (LGF). Thus, one significant integrity risk is that the true standard deviation (sigma) of the pseudo-range correction error distribution may grow to exceed the broadcast correction error sigma or that the true mean of the correction error distribution becomes excessive during LAAS operation. This event may occur due to unexpected anomalies of GPS measurements. To insure that the true error distribution is bounded by a zero-mean Gaussian distribution with the broadcast sigma value, real-time sigma and mean monitoring is necessary. Both direct estimation and cumulative sum (CUSUM) methods are useful to detect violations with acceptable residual integrity risk. For sigma monitoring, the estimation method more rapidly detects small violations of /spl sigma//sub pr/spl I.bar/gnd/ but the fast initial response (FIR) CUSUM variant more promptly detects significant violations that would pose a larger threat to user integrity. For the purposes of mean monitoring, the FIR CUSUM variant is superior to the estimation method in detecting any mean violations. The results demonstrate that real-time protection is achievable against all sizes of sigma/mean failures that can threaten navigation integrity.     

Searching for biosignatures using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) analysis of manganese oxides

Manganese oxide (Mn oxide) minerals from bacterial sources produce electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectral signatures that are mostly distinct from those of synthetic simulants and abiogenic mineral Mn oxides. Biogenic Mn oxides exhibit only narrow EPR spectral linewidths (～500 G), whereas abiogenic Mn oxides produce spectral linewidths that are 2-6 times broader and range from 1200 to 3000 G. This distinction is consistent with X-ray structural observations that biogenic Mn oxides have abundant layer site vacancies and edge terminations and are mostly of single ionic species [i.e., Mn(IV)], all of which favor narrow EPR linewidths. In contrast, abiogenic Mn oxides have fewer lattice vacancies, larger particle sizes, and mixed ionic species [Mn(III) and Mn(IV)], which lead to the broader linewidths. These properties could be utilized in the search for extraterrestrial physicochemical biosignatures, for example, on Mars missions that include a miniature version of an EPR spectrometer.     

Paired overbounding for nonideal LAAS and WAAS error distributions

A significant challenge in fielding space-based and ground-based augmentation systems (SBAS and GBAS) for GPS involves the validation of navigation integrity, which requires the establishment of error bounds for aircraft position. This paper introduces a new approach to validating position-domain integrity by using two-sided envelopes for each ranging source. This paired-bounding approach allows for error distributions of arbitrary form and thus improves on earlier integrity validation approaches restricted to zero-mean, symmetric, and unimodal distributions     

Aircraft-on-ground path following control by dynamical adaptive backstepping

The necessity of improving the air traffic and reducing the aviation emissions drives to investigate automatic steering for aircraft to effectively roll on the ground. This paper addresses the path following control problem of aircraft-on-ground and focuses on the task that the aircraft is required to follow the desired path on the runway by nose wheel automatic steering. The proposed approach is based on dynamical adaptive backstepping so that the system model does not have to be transformed into a canonical triangular form which is necessary in conventional backstepping design. This adaptive controller performs well despite the lack of information on the aerodynamic load and the tire cornering stiffness parameters. Simulation results clearly demonstrate the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Harmonic analysis of the ionospheric electron densities retrieved from FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC radio occultation measurements

In order to investigate the regular variations of the ionosphere, the least-squares harmonic estimation is applied to the time series of ionospheric electron densities derived from about five years of Global Positioning System radio occultation observations by FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites. The analysis is done for different latitudes and altitudes in the region of Iran. The least-squares harmonic estimation is found to be a powerful tool for the frequency analysis of the completely unevenly spaced time series of radio occultation measurements. Although the obtained results are slightly different from the exact expected cycles (i.e. annual and diurnal components with their Fourier decompositions, and the 27-day period) due to the low horizontal resolution of radio occultation measurements, high vertical resolution of the observations enables us to detect not only the total electron content variations but also periodic patterns of electron densities at different altitudes of the ionosphere. The dominant diurnal and annual signals together with their Fourier series decompositions are obtained, which are consistent with the previous analyses on the total electron content. In the equatorial anomaly band, the annual component is weaker than its Fourier decomposition periods. In particular, the semiannual period dominates the annual component, indicating the relationship between the semiannual variation of the electron densities and the ionospheric equatorial anomaly. From detection of the phases of the components, it is revealed that the annual signal generally has its maximum value in summers at high altitudes, and in the winters at low altitudes. This is probably due to the higher [O/N₂] ratios in winter than in the summer in the lower ionosphere. Furthermore, the semiannual component mostly peaks around solstices or about a month before/after them.