Micro-Doppler radar is a cutting-edge technology that has revolutionized the field of radar sensing to enable the detection and characterization of complex targets by leveraging their micro-motion dynamics. This paper discusses the design and construction of a 10-GHz continuous wave (CW) micro-Doppler radar, an explanation of how the system operates and extracts data, as well as a discussion of the device’s possible applications for characterizing external vibrations of vehicles under different scenarios. The objective is to highlight the potential of micro-Doppler radar for remotely recognizing vehicle transmission shifts and occupancy.
Future X-ray astronomy observatories will employ high-speed silicon-based active pixel sensors to obtain wide fields of view with good radiation hardness and low levels of detector saturation (pileup). Detector readout rates envisioned for missions such as Athena and X-ray Surveyor are far too high for existing software-based event recognition techniques to be able to extract the X-ray events from the data stream. We report on the development of high-speed event recognition electronics tailored to the requirements of these new detectors.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, X-rays, X-ray telescopes, Space telescopes, Coded apertures, X-ray detectors, CMOS sensors, Space operations, Calibration, Digital signal processing
The JANUS mission concept is designed to study the high redshift universe using a small, agile Explorer class
observatory. The primary science goals of JANUS are to use high redshift (6<z<12) gamma ray bursts and quasars to
explore the formation history of the first stars in the early universe and to study contributions to reionization. The X-Ray
Coded Aperture Telescope (XCAT) and the Near-IR Telescope (NIRT) are the two primary instruments on JANUS.
XCAT has been designed to detect bright X-ray flashes (XRFs) and gamma ray bursts (GRBs) in the 1-20 keV energy
band over a wide field of view (4 steradians), thus facilitating the detection of z>6 XRFs/GRBs, which can be further
studied by other instruments. XCAT would use a coded mask aperture design with hybrid CMOS Si detectors. It would
be sensitive to XRFs and GRBs with flux in excess of approximately 240 mCrab. In order to obtain redshift
measurements and accurate positions from the NIRT, the spacecraft is designed to rapidly slew to source positions
following a GRB trigger from XCAT. XCAT instrument design parameters and science goals are presented in this paper.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, X-rays, CMOS sensors, Space operations, Staring arrays, X-ray detectors, Calibration, Digital signal processing, Electronics, Signal processing
JANUS is a NASA small explorer class mission which just completed phase A and was intended for a 2013 launch date.
The primary science goals of JANUS are to use high redshift (6<z<12) gamma ray bursts and quasars to explore the
formation history of the first stars in the early universe and to study contributions to reionization. The X-Ray Flash
Monitor (XRFM) and the Near-IR Telescope (NIRT) are the two primary instruments on JANUS. XRFM has been
designed to detect bright X-ray flashes (XRFs) and gamma ray bursts (GRBs) in the 1-20 keV energy band over a wide
field of view (4 steradians), thus facilitating the detection of z>6 XRFs/GRBs, which can be further studied by other
instruments. XRFM would use a coded mask aperture design with hybrid CMOS Si detectors. It would be sensitive to
XRFs/GRBs with flux in excess of approximately 240 mCrab. The spacecraft is designed to rapidly slew to source
positions following a GRB trigger from XRFM. XRFM instrument design parameters and science goals are presented in
this paper.
Across many consumer product industries, the prevailing practice is to design families of product variants that exploit commonality to provide the ability to easily customize a base platform for particular uses and to take advantage of commonality for streamlining design, manufacturing, maintenance and logistic; examples include Black & Decker, Seagate, and Volkswagen. This paper describes the application of product family concepts to the design and development of a family of robots to satisfy requirements for explosive ordnance disposal. To facilitate this process, we have developed a market segmentation grid that plots the desired capabilities and cost versus the target use cases. The product family design trade space is presented using a multi-dimensional trade space visualization tool which helps identify dependencies between different design variables and identify Pareto frontiers along which optimal design choices will lie. The EOD robot product family designs share common components and subsystems yet are modularized and scalable to provide functionality to satisfy a range of user requirements. This approach has been shown to significantly reduce development time and costs, manufacturing costs, maintenance and spare parts inventory, and operator and maintainer training.
In this paper, the two different mechanisms of supercontinuum generation in single crystal sapphire fibers according to
fiber lengths longer and shorter than dispersion length are theoretically and experimentally investigated. When the fiber
length is shorter than the dispersion length, self-phase modulation is the dominant factor for supercontinuum broadening.
A broad spectrum ranging from near-IR (1.2 μm) to the lower end of mid-IR (2.8 μm) is obtained. But, when the fiber
length is longer than dispersion length, soliton-related dynamics with self-phase modulation is the dominant factor for
supercontinuum. We further demonstrate that supercontinuum in a sapphire fiber can extend beyond the range of silica
fibers by showing the spectrum from 2 μm to 3.2 μm. Also, we successfully apply the supercontinuum source generated
from a sapphire fiber to IR spectroscopy. The spectra of pseudo-TNT chemical measured using our own supercontinuum
source is in good agreement with those obtained by FTIR. Supercontinuum generation using a sapphire fiber, which has
high damage threshold and broad transmission ranges can be used in many applications such as IR spectroscopy,
broadband LADAR, remote sensing, and multi-spectrum free space communications.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Cameras, Telecommunications, Data processing, Unmanned systems, Information security, Defense and security, Infrared cameras, Inspection, Video
This paper describes recent efforts to develop integrated multi-sensor payloads for small robotic platforms for improved
operator situational awareness and ultimately for greater robot autonomy. The focus is on enhancements to perception
through integration of electro-optic, acoustic, and other sensors for navigation and inspection. The goals are to provide
easier control and operation of the robot through fusion of multiple sensor outputs, to improve interoperability of the
sensor payload package across multiple platforms through the use of open standards and architectures, and to reduce
integration costs by embedded sensor data processing and fusion within the sensor payload package.
The solutions investigated in this project to be discussed include: improved capture, processing and display of sensor
data from multiple, non-commensurate sensors; an extensible architecture to support plug and play of integrated sensor
packages; built-in health, power and system status monitoring using embedded diagnostics/prognostics; sensor payload
integration into standard product forms for optimized size, weight and power; and the use of the open Joint Architecture
for Unmanned Systems (JAUS)/ Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) AS-4 interoperability standard.
This project is in its first of three years. This paper will discuss the applicability of each of the solutions in terms of its
projected impact to reducing operational time for the robot and teleoperator.
In this paper, we report laboratory test results of an LPG that can maintain a constant resonant peak depth over an
enhanced tuning range when it is coated with an ITO electrode that has optimized thickness and refractive index.
Without the ITO layer, LPG tuning ranges as large as 50 nm have been achieved when the ambient index is
increased from 1.00 (air) to ~1.444 (index of the silica cladding), but the peak depth cannot be maintained. When a
properly designed, high-index ITO overlay is coated onto the silica cladding, mode transition effects coincide with
the LPG's intrinsic sensitivity to changes in the ambient index, resulting in a stable peak depth over an enhanced
tuning range. The authors have experimentally demonstrated an LPG coated with ITO that can be tuned in excess of
150 nm with an ambient refractive index change of less than 0.01. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the
highest sensitivity reported for an LPG to date. In addition to the tuning performance, the resonant peak remains
within 1 dB of its maximum depth for at least 100 nm of the tuning range, which allows the tunable LPG to be used
in real applications.
In this paper, we will present our preliminary results on our development of infrared and terahertz generation by ultrafast laser pulses. The objective of this project is to develop (i) portable and cost effective spatially coherent broadband Infrared (IR) and Terahertz (THz) illuminating light sources. To effectively generate spatially coherent broadband IR and THz sources, we use a novel nonlinear optical technical approach by harnessing the huge nonlinear effect of the specially designed and fabricated photonic crystal fibers (PCF). The major merits of these unique light sources are: (1) broad band (covering a wide range of spectroscopic signatures), (2) spatially coherent (so that beams can be delivered to the far distance like laser beams), (3) compact, portable and small footprint (all fiber design), (4) cost effective (traditional approaches such as cascaded laser systems are complicated and expensive for covering broadband).
In this work, an investigation of the tuning characteristics of electrically tunable long-period gratings (LPGs) is
presented. A precise four-layer model is used to quantitatively analyze the tuning potential of the gratings and
experimental data is provided to support the analysis. The four-layer model includes a silica core layer with an inscribed
LPG, a thin silica cladding layer (~40 μm), an ultra-thin (~ 50 nm) high refractive index indium-tin dioxide (ITO) inner
electrode layer, and a tunable electro-optic polymer layer. It has been found that the inner electrode layer, made of high
refractive index ITO, can be modeled as a high index overlay and causes the forward propagating modes in the thin silica
cladding to reorganize as the ambient refractive index changes. This reorganization effect can lead to a significant
increase (10 plus fold) in the tuning range of LPG tunable filters. Moreover, the required specifications of the tunable
polymer layer are quantitatively analyzed. Finally, the required characteristics of the electro-optic polymer are realized
by using a nano-composite of zinc sulfide and ferroelectric relaxor poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymer.
A unique all-fiber tunable filter is based on the combination of a single resonant band long period grating (LPG) and an electro-optic polymer second cladding layer. The single resonant band LPG is fabricated by etching the cladding of a 125 μm thick fiber and using ultraviolet (UV) illumination to write the grating. Once a single resonant band has been achieved, an ITO electrode is sputtered onto the thin silica cladding and then a polymer second cladding layer is applied. The refractive index of the polymer determines the resonant wavelength of the filter. After a second electrode is coated onto the second cladding, the polymer index is tuned by applying an external electric field. Recent modeling and experimentation has shown that a high index ITO inner electrode can increase the tuning range of the filter up to 10 times by inducing cladding mode transitions.
We demonstrate an widely electrically tunable long-period fiber grating with ultrathin first cladding and ferroelectric relaxor poly(vinylidene fluoride - trifluoroethylene - chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymer as the second cladding. Large Kerr effect is found in the terpolymer where a refractive index change of -2.6% can be induced under an electric field of 80MV/m. Simulations and experiments show that electrodes and the index matching between terpolymer and fiber have significant effect on the tuning range. An 18nm resonant wavelength shift is achieved by the terpolymer when electric field of 50MV/m is applied. On the other hand, over 100nm shift is observed by index matched terpolymer/PMMA blend as the temperature changes from 25oC to 100oC (temperature tuning). To realize this index matching condition, ZnS/terpolymer nanocomposite was developed which allowed the index of the composite to be varied over a large range while maintaining large electro-optical response. A simulation result predicts that large electrical tuning of the resonance band can be realized by the the index matched nanocomposite.
A confocal microscope can achieve superior contrast when imaging a certain layer in the bulky samples. However, the parallel signal collection feature of the optical system is sacrificed when the sample is scanned pixel by pixel. In this paper, we proposed a novel confocal microscope design that uses a time and spatially multiplexed method, which dramatically increases the time resolution of a confocal microscope. This design has been used to solve a long-standing problem in cardiac research whether or not a small submembranous domain exists with calcium and sodium ion concentrations significantly different from those measured in bulk cytosol. We applied our time and spatially multiplexed confocal microscope to obtain the transient 3-D distribution of calcium ion concentration in rat cardiac myocytes. Our experimental results prove the feasibility of the technique and also demonstrate the huge potential of this design.
We propose a new mechanism for fiber optic high temperature sensing based on whispering gallery mode resonance in bent optical fibers. Due to the strong whispering gallery mode resonance in cladding-thinned bent optical fibers, long-period grating-like deep spectral peaks are formed in the wavelength domain. The wavelength shift of the resonance peaks as a function of temperature is investigated. It is demonstrated that the single loop of bend ring in the fibers can be used as a transducer for high temperature sensing without any internal structure.
A unique all-fiber tunable filter is based on the combination of a single resonant band long period grating (LPG) and an electro-optic polymer second cladding layer. The single resonant band LPG is fabricated by etching the cladding of a standard 125 μm thick fiber and using either ultraviolet (UV) illumination or electric arc discharge to write the grating. Once a single resonant band has been achieved, a polymer second cladding layer is applied to the LPG. The refractive index of the polymer cladding determines the resonant wavelength of the filter and is tuned by applying an external electric field. The grating fabrication method and type of polymer used for the second cladding affect filter performance, and both must be considered when designing an application specific all-fiber filter.
A novel integration approach using a supercontinuum light illumination generated by launching femto second laser pulses into a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber is presented. The main advantages of using the presented technique for accurate 3D data fusion are: (1) a large depth of field; (2) very low aberration (even for a large field of view); and (3) no coherent noise (a major problem for the laser system). Matched points can be located in the fused partial topological maps at an accuracy of one hundredth of the pixel size.
In this paper, a brief review on ultrasensitive fiber optic sensors and their applications, done recently at Penn State, is presented. Our discussions will mainly focus on two types of highly sensitive fiber optic sensors. One type is based on the combination of single resonant band long period gratings (LPGs) with the second refractive index matched polymer cladding layer. The other one is based on the LPGs fabricated in photonic nanostructured fibers and waveguides. It is found that a significantly increased sensitivity (two order plus) can be achieved by harnessing these approaches, which will benefit a variety of applications, in particular, low concentration chemical/biological agents detection.
In this paper, a unique all-fiber tunable filter based on the combination of single resonant band long period grating (LPG) and harsh environment electro-optic polymer second cladding layer is presented. The single resonant band LPG is used to select the resonant wavelength and the tuning of resonant wavelength is realized by changing the refractive index of electro-optic polymer cladding layer via external electric field. Although the basic operational principle and implementation of this unique tunable filter have been previously reported by authors, this paper is focused on athermal operation design and synthesis of harsh environment electro-optic polymer, which enhances the practicability of proposed tunable filter.
In this paper, a unique all-fiber tunable filter based on the combination of single resonant band long period grating (LPG) and harsh environment electro-optic polymer second cladding layer is presented. The single resonant band LPG is used to select the resonant wavelength and the tuning of resonant wavelength is realized by changing the refractive index of electro-optic polymer cladding layer via external electric field. Although the basic operational principle and implementation of this unique tunable filter have been previously reported by authors, this paper is focused on athermal operation design and synthesis of harsh environment electro-optic polymer, which enhances the practicability of proposed tunable filter.
In this paper, an analysis of long period gratings in photonic nanostructured fibers and waveguides is presented. With the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, a detailed quantitative study on the relationship between the spectral response shift of the gratings and the parameters of the photonic nanostructures is performed. It is found that the unique photonic nanostructures can substantially enhance the tuning capability of the spectral response of the gratings, which can lead to many practical applications in optical sensors and communications, such as optical sensors with ultra high sensitivity and wavelength filters with wide tuning range.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Homeland security, Intelligent sensors, Data fusion, Situational awareness sensors, Data communications, Smart sensors, Data conversion, Data processing, Signal processing
Advances in information technology enable a capability to gather large amounts of raw data from all parts of our society to a degree of efficiency that can actually encumber surveillance missions. Today one can create automated networks of sensors to gather enormous volumes of data, but we do not have the human capacity to sort through all this raw data. Similar problems exist in the area of machinery condition or health monitoring - another surveillance problem. By automating data collection, processing, fusion and interpretation, one can bring the most relevant and timely information to human analysts, planners, and responders. Key technologies that enable this transformation from data to knowledge are distributed hardware and software architectures, intelligent sensors, data fusion and reasoning algorithms, and open system architectures for information exchange. Distributed hardware and software structures partition complex systems into a collection of interconnected subsystems. Intelligent sensors enable this conversion of data to information by processing massive amounts of data at the subsystem and higher levels to extract contextually relevant information. The transformation from raw sensor data to useful information requires the application of subsystem-specific signal processing and feature extraction algorithms, data fusion, and classification algorithms to combine data and features from commensurate and non-commensurate sensors or information sources. Emerging standards in open system architectures for condition based maintenance apply equally to surveillance systems and condition monitoring systems. Examples from fielded system health monitoring applications are presented along with their parallels to surveillance systems with application to homeland defense.
A new paradigm for machinery maintenance is emerging as preventive maintenance strategies are being replaced by condition-based maintenance. In condition-based maintenance, machinery is repaired or serviced only when an intelligent monitoring system indicates that the system cannot fulfill mission requirements. The implementation of such systems requires a combination of sensor data fusion, feature extraction, classification, and prediction algorithms. In addition, new system architectures are being developed to facilitate the reduction of wide bandwidth sensor data to concise predictions of ability of the system to complete its current mission or future missions. This paper describes the system architecture, data fusion, and classification algorithms employed in a distributed, wireless bearing and gear health monitoring system. The role and integration of prognostic algorithms--required to predict future system health--are also discussed. Examples are provided which illustrate the application of the system architecture and algorithms to data collected on a machinery diagnostics test bed at the Applied Research Laboratory at The Pennsylvania State University.
Passive acoustic detection of ground targets is governed by both local and regional weather conditions such as wind and temperature. The wind speed generally increases with height and can also change direction, making accurate assessment of detection coverage a real challenge. In the absence of wind, the temperature profile, or variation with height, changes the refractive index such that sound will tend to refract towards the cooler air (the sound speed is slower there). A new ground sensor technology has been developed under DARPA's IUGS program which integrates temperature, temperature gradient, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, and insolation (solar radiation/reflection) from a ground sensor measurement site with upper level wind and temperature data from weather databases. This data is used to model the sound velocity profile from the surface to a height approximately one-tenth the propagation range of interest. A parabolic equation sound propagation model then creates a table for the sound transmission loss variability with range, frequency, and direction. For a given target and background noise, one can then reasonably predict detection range for a specific sensor design. When the ground sensor has 'environmental intelligence,' it can alter its integration and detection algorithms for improved performance in a dynamic weather environment.
Recently there has emerged a new class of sensors, called spatial filters, for structures which respond over a significant gauge length. Examples include piezoelectric laminate PVDF film, modal domain optical fiber sensors, and holographic sensors. These sensors have a unique capability in that they can be fabricated to locally alter their sensitivity to the measurand. In this paper we discuss how these sensors can be used for the implementation of control algorithms for the suppression of acoustic radiation from flexible structures. Based on this relationship between the total power radiated to the far field to the modal velocities of the structure, we show how the sensor placement to optimize the control algorithm to suppress the radiated power.
Modal domain optical fiber sensors have recently been employed in the implementation of system identification algorithms and the closed-loop control of vibrations in flexible structures. The mathematical model of the modal domain optical fiber sensor used in these applications, however, only accounted for the effects of strain in the direction of the fiber's longitudinal axis. In this paper, we extend this model to include the effects of arbitrary stress. Using this sensor model, we characterize the sensor's sensitivity and dynamic range.
Modal domain optical fiber sensors, or distributed effect sensors, for active vibration suppression in flexible structures are considered. Preliminary modeling results indicate that these sensors can be used to sense vibrations in a flexible beam and the signal can be used to damp vibrations in the beam. Weighted distributed-effect sensors can be used to implement high order compensators with low order functional observers.
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