Efficacy of Doppler ultrasound [correction of utrasound] for screening symptoms of decompression sickness during simulated extravehicular activities

Doppler ultrasound is frequently used for monitoring circulating microbubbles during decompression to assess the symptoms of Decompression Sickness (DCS). This analysis was carried out to evaluate its effectiveness for screening symptoms of DCS during simulated extravehicular activities (EVA). The information from various hypobaric chamber studies carried out at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX was used in this analysis (n = 516). The circulating microbubbles were detected in the precordial area in 42% (218/516), and symptoms were reported in 16% (81/516) of these exposures. The accuracy of Doppler-detectable bubbles (Spencer grades) on all symptoms of DCS was examined by calculating measures of sensitivity and specificity. The efficacy of Doppler as a screening device was examined by calculating their positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV). The results of these analyses indicated that the sensitivity of Doppler decreased, and the PPV increased with higher Spencer grades. However, the likelihood of detecting true negative cases (NPV) was consistently higher with all bubble grades. Due to the high false-positive rate and low prior probabilities of the risk of DCS, Doppler was found to be more useful to identify those who did not develop DCS, than to detect positive cases of DCS in the simulated EVA exposures.     

A cost driven predictive maintenance policy for structural airframe maintenance

Airframe maintenance is traditionally performed at scheduled maintenance stops.The decision to repair a fuselage panel is based on a fixed crack size threshold,which allows to ensure the aircraft safety until the next scheduled maintenance stop.With progress in sensor technology and data processing techniques,structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are increasingly being considered in the aviation industry.SHM systems track the aircraft health state continuously,lead ing to the possibility of planning maintenance based on an actual state of aircraft rather than on a fixed schedule.This paper builds upon a model-based prognostics framework that the authors developed in their previous work,which couples the Extended Kalman filter (EKF) with a first order perturbation (FOP) method.By using the information given by this prognostics method,a novel cost driven predictive maintenance (CDPM) policy is proposed,which ensures the aircraft safety while minimizing the maintenance cost.The proposed policy is formally derived based on the trade-off between probabilities of occurrence of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.A numerical case study simulating the maintenance process of an entire fleet of aircrafts is imple mented.Under the condition of assuring the same safety level,the CDPM is compared in terms of cost with two other maintenance policies:scheduled maintenance and threshold based SHM maintenance.The comparison results show CDPM could lead to significant cost savings.     

基于并行FPGA阵列的宽带转发式干扰机设计

针对目前雷达探测技术缺乏宽带转发式干扰机的现状,提出了一种基于并行FPGA阵列的宽带转发式干扰机的设计方案。首先从理论上分析确定了诱饵的灵敏度和发射功率,而后以12 bit高速DRFM模块为基础,构建了多通道并行储频转发结构,实现了可覆盖GHz级带宽的转发式干扰机系统。实验结果表明,诱饵系统在频率覆盖宽度和输出信号质量等方面均达到了预期水平。     

间歇采样转发干扰对相位编码雷达的影响分析

文章分析了间歇采样转发干扰对相位编码脉冲压缩雷达的影响。首先,推导得到了相位编码信号通过匹配滤波器的输出响应。在此基础上,推导了间歇采样转发干扰的匹配输出,研究表明,输出响应为信号编码与间歇采样编码互相关序列的线性插值函数,且只能产生一个假目标。然后,研究了旁瓣抑制网络对间歇采样转发干扰信号的影响,结果表明,旁瓣抑制网络可以有效抑制回波信号的旁瓣,但无法抑制干扰信号的旁瓣。相比输入前数值,干扰旁瓣峰值和位置均发生变化。最后,通过编程计算和仿真实验验证了本文分析的正确性。该研究为雷达对抗干扰评估试验提供重要的理论支撑。     

Method for the prediction of the effective dose equivalent to the crew of the International Space Station

This paper describes a methodology for assessing the pre-mission exposure of space crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in terms of an effective dose equivalent. In this approach, the PHITS Monte Carlo code was used to assess the particle transport of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) and trapped radiation for solar maximum and minimum conditions through an aluminum shield thickness. From these predicted spectra, and using fluence-to-dose conversion factors, a scaling ratio of the effective dose equivalent rate to the ICRU ambient dose equivalent rate at a 10 mm depth was determined. Only contributions from secondary neutrons, protons, and alpha particles were considered in this analysis.     

一种基于间歇采样的脉间点积干扰方法

首先介绍了间歇采样转发干扰原理,指出了间歇采样转发干扰出现的假目标峰值位置,提出了一种基于间歇采样转发的脉间点积干扰方法,在对该方法进行数学建模后,分析了干扰信号时频特性;最后对基于间歇采样转发的脉间点积干扰进行了仿真,并将之与直接间歇采样转发干扰及增加了多普勒噪声调制间歇采样转发干扰进行对比。     

基于预测滤波的卫星交会对接相对位姿确定方法

基于视频制导系统提供的视线测量,引入一种高精度、高鲁棒性的、实时的预测滤波算法,建立系统的误差模型,对角速度和位移速度进行一步预测,从而精确地估计卫星的相对位置和相对姿态。此外提出修正方案,通过卡尔曼增益对相对姿态和相对位移进行修正和更新,估计性能得到改进优化。通过卫星交会对接仿真实验验证算法的有效性,结果表明,预测滤波算法高精确估计相对姿态和相对位置,修正后算法得到了更高的精度结果,满足卫星交会对接要求,对在轨实验有重要参考价值。     

基于虚拟夹具的交互式空间机器人遥操作实验

预测仿真技术是目前消除大时延对遥操作影响的主要方法。在操作者控制虚拟机械臂与仿真环境中的物体接触之前,仅有的视觉信息不足以提供充分的临场感信息,操作者无法进行安全有效的操作;由于肌肉颤抖等原因导致徒手控制的精度较低,操作者无法进行精确的操作。针对这两个问题,使用虚拟夹具技术对操作者的动作进行限制和引导。实验结果表明,在虚拟夹具的辅助下,可以有效提高操作者的临场感,使操作者快速准确完成遥操作任务。
     

转发式干扰下GPS定位精度的仿真分析

根据GPS转发式干扰的原理,建立了转发式干扰对GPS定位精度影响的数学模型.讨论了两种转发式干扰模式对定位的影响.最后通过计算机仿真分析得出了GPS转发式干扰对GPS定位精度影响的相关结论.     

Predictive fault-tolerant control of an all-thruster satellite in 6-DOF motion via neural network model updating

The problem of controlling an all-thruster spacecraft in the coupled translational-rotational motion in presence of actuators fault and/or failure is investigated in this paper. The nonlinear model predictive control approach is used because of its ability to predict the future behavior of the system. The fault/failure of the thrusters changes the mapping between the commanded forces to the thrusters and actual force/torque generated by the thruster system. Thus, the basic six degree-of-freedom kinetic equations are separated from this mapping and a set of neural networks are trained off-line to learn the kinetic equations. Then, two neural networks are attached to these trained networks in order to learn the thruster commands to force/torque mappings on-line. Different off-nominal conditions are modeled so that neural networks can detect any failure and fault, including scale factor and misalignment of thrusters. A simple model of the spacecraft relative motion is used in MPC to decrease the computational burden. However, a precise model by the means of orbit propagation including different types of perturbation is utilized to evaluate the usefulness of the proposed approach in actual conditions. The numerical simulation shows that this method can successfully control the all-thruster spacecraft with ON-OFF thrusters in different combinations of thruster fault and/or failure.