Bookmarks

Recent Publications, Papers, and Patents by the Aerospace Technical Staff

Publications and Papers

(July 2007–January 2008)

M. J. Baxter, "Identification of Potentially Serious Global Trends with Relevance to Aerospace Systems Simulation," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–7 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

S. M. Beck, T. J. Wright, J. R. Linares, and D. A. Kozlowski, "Co-Boresighted Coherent Laser Velocimeter and Direct Detection Lidar for Dust Devil Characterization," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp.1858–1868 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

B. B. Brady, "Transient Fluid Flow in Short-Pulse Operation of Bipropellant Thrusters," Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 398–403 (March–April 2007).

J. C. Camparo, "Semiempirical Theory of Carver Rates in Alkali/Noble-Gas Systems," Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 126, No. 24, pp. 244310/1–10 (June 28, 2007).

J. Camparo, M. Huang, and J. Coffer, "Laser Polarization Noise & CPT Atomic Clock Signals," 2007 IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium Jointly with the 21st European Frequency and Time Forum Conference, pp. 1056–1059 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

J. Camparo and R. Mackay, "A Mechanism of Rubidium Atomic Clock Degradation: Ring-Mode to Red-Mode Transition in RF-Discharge Lamps," 2007 IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium Jointly with the 21st European Frequency and Time Forum Conference, pp. 45–48 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

J. Camparo and R. Mackay, "Spectral Mode Changes in an Alkali RF Discharge," Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 101, No. 5, pp. 53303-1–6 (March 1, 2007).

J. Chou, G. A. Sefler, J. Conway, G. C. Valley, et al., "4-Channel Continuous-Time 77 GSa/s ADC Using Photonic Bandwidth Compression," 2007 International Topical Meeting: Microwave Photonics, pp. 54–77 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

J. A. Conway, J. V. Osborn, and J. D. Fowler, "Stroboscopic Imaging Interferometer for MEMS Performance Measurement," Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 668–674 (June 2007).

J. A. Conway, G. C. Valley, and J. T. Chou, "Comments on 'A Fully Electronic System for Time Magnification of Ultra-Wideband Signals,'" IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 55, No. 10, pp. 2270–2271 (Oct. 2007).

K. D. Diamant, B. L. Zeigler, and R. B. Cohen, "Microwave Electrothermal Thruster Performance," Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 27–34 (Jan.–Feb. 2007).

S. V. Didziulis and H. I. Kim, "Chemistry of Methyl Formate with TiC(100): Comparison of Experiment with Density Functional Calculations," Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 111, No. 30, pp. 11275–11284 (Aug. 2, 2007).

K. W. Dotson and B. H. Sako, "Interaction Between Solid Rocket Motor Internal Flow and Structure During Flight," Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 140–145 (Jan.–Feb. 2007).

D. L. Emmons, R. E. Bitten, et al., "Using Historical NASA Cost and Schedule Growth to set Future Program and Project Reserve Guidelines," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–16 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

E. Grayver, E. McDonald, and D. Ardestani, "Adaptive Automatic Gain Control for Nonlinearly Distorted Constellations," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–7 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

M. Hecht, K. Owens, and J. Tagami, "Reliability-Related Requirements in Software-Intensive Systems," 2007 Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, p. 6 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

A. R. Hopkins, R. A. Lipeles, et al., "Macroscopic Alignment of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs)," Surface and Coating Technology, Vol. 202, No. 4–7, pp. 1282–1286 (Dec. 15, 2007).

R. W. Hosken, "Circle of Least Confusion of a Spherical Reflector," Applied Optics, Vol. 46, No. 16, pp. 3107–3113 (June 1, 2007).

M. Huang, J. G. Coffer, and J. C. Camparo, "/Sup 87/Rb Hyperfine-Transition Dephasing in Mixed Buffer-Gas Systems," Physical Review A (Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics), Vol. 75, No. 5, pp. 52717-1–8 (May 2007).

H. I. Kim and J. R. Lince, "Direct Visualization of Sliding-Induced Tribofilm on Au/MoS/sub 2/Nanocomposite Coatings by c-AFM," Tribology Letters, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 61–65 (April 2007).

J. Kreng, M. Sue, Sieu Do, Y. Krikorian, and S. Raghavan, "Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Link Performance Using the USB/STDN Waveform," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–16 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

R. Kumar, "An Analysis of the Distortion Effect of Nonlinear Amplifiers on CDMA Signals," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–11 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

R. Liang, H. Tan, S. Lim, et al., "Performance Analysis of TCP/IP/Q-Persistence ARQ Over Satellite Links," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1469–1473 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

F. E. Livingston, L. F. Steffeney, and H. Helvajian, "Tailoring Light Pulse Amplitudes for Optimal Laser Processing and Material Modification," Applied Surface Science, Vol. 253, No. 19, pp. 8015–8021 (2007).

D. K. Lynch, R. W. Russell, R. J. Rudy, S. Mazuk, C. C. Venturini, et al., "Infrared Spectra of Deimos (1–13 mu m) and Phobos (3–13 mu m)," Astronomical Journal, Vol. 134, No. 4, pp. 1459–1463 (Oct. 20, 2007).

E. McDonald, R. Speelman, E. Grayver, and N. Wagner, "Real-Time Hardware/Software Approach to Phase Noise Emulation," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–5 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

V. N. Mahajan, "Degradation of an Image by Gaussian Longitudinal Motion," Applied Optics, Vol. 46, No. 18, pp. 3700–3705 (June 20, 2007).

M. Mason and G. Eng, "Understanding Tin Plasmas: A New Approach to Tin Whisker Risk Assessment," 2007 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium Proceedings, p. 6 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

D. C. Mayer, R. Koga, and J. M. Womack, "The Impact of Radiation-Induced Failure Mechanism in Electronic Components on System Reliability," IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 154, No. 6, pp. 2120–2124 (Dec. 2007).

D. E. Pansatiankul and V. S. Lin, "End-to-End Communications Systems Modeling Using Hardware-Accelerated Simulation Tool," MILCOM 2006, p. 6 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

R. P. Patera, "Space Vehicle Conflict-Avoidance Analysis," Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 492–498 (March–April 2007).

R. G. Pettit et al., "Analyzing Behavior of Concurrent Software Designs for Embedded Systems," 2007 10th IEEE International Symposium on Object and Component-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing, p. 9 (Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, 2007).

G. Radhakrishnan, P. M. Adams, et al., "Plasma Characterization and Room Temperature Growth of Carbon Nanotubes and Nano-Onions by Excimer Laser Ablation," Applied Surface Science, Vol. 253, No. 19, pp. 7651–7655 (July 31, 2007).

G. Radhakrishnan, P. M. Adams, and F. D. Ross, "Plume Diagnostics and Room-Temperature Deposition of Carbon Nanotubes and Nano-onions at 248 nm," Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 424–427 (2007).

P. R. Rousseau et al., "A Time Domain Formulation of the Uniform Geometrical Theory of Diffraction for Scattering from a Smooth Convex Surface," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 55, No. 6, pp. 1522–1534 (June 2007).

K. Siri and M. A. Willhoff, "Uniform Current/Voltage-Sharing for Interconnected DC-DC Converters," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–17 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

K. Siri, M. Willhoff, and K. Conner, "Uniform Voltage Distribution Control for Series Connected DC-DC Converters," IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 1269–1279 (July 2007).

R. Speelman and E. Grayver, "Effect of Nonlinear Amplification on Walsh Encoding/Spreading with Turbo Coding," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–6 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

P. R. Straus, "Ionospheric Climatology Derived from GPS Occulation Observations Made by the Ionospheric Occulation Experiment," Advances in Space Research, Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 793–802 (2007).

J. A. Street and R. G. Pettit IV, "An Experimental Evaluation of Software Performance Modeling and Analysis Techniques," ICSOFT 2007. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Software and Data Technologies, pp. 417-420 (Setubal, Portugal, 2007).

D. Taggart, R. Kumar, Y. Krikorian, J. Chen, R. Martinez, T. Tam, E. Serhal, et al., "Analog-to-Digital Converter Loading Analysis Considerations for Satellite Communications Systems," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1–16 (Piscataway, NJ, 2007).

F. J. Villegas, "Parallel Genetic-Algorithm Optimization of Shaped Beam Coverage Areas Using Planar 2D Phased Arrays," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 55, No. 6, pp. 1745–1753 (June 2007).

T. S. Yeoh, N. A. Ives, N. Presser, G. W. Stupian, M. S. Leung, et al., "Focused Ion Beam Tomography of a Microelectronic Device with Sub-2-nm Resolution," Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B (Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures), Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 922–925 (May 2007).

M. A. Zurbuchen, J. H. Lee, et al., "Synthesis and Characterization of an N=6 Aurivillius Phase Incorporating Magnetically Active Manganese, Bi₇(Mn,Ti)₆O₂₁," Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 91, No. 3, pp. 33113/1–3 (July 16, 2007).

Patents

(July 2007–Jan. 2008)

D. A. Ksienski, K.S. MacGowan, S.S. Osofsky, A.M. Young, T.T. Tam, "Multiple Signal Intermodulation Reduction System," U.S. Patent No. 7,256,649, August 2007.

Antenna communication systems are a valuable vehicle for transmitting signals, but the signals are vulnerable to intermodulation products (feedback) transmitted through the antenna. The ability to transmit more than one signal through a single antenna increases communication; however, this causes feedback because the amplifier that the signals run through functions in a highly compressed environment. This makes for an unclear product and can negate security while decreasing communication. Using fixed-phase shifters can diminish feedback. This invention can be used in a transmitter or receiver, or combined in a transceiver amplifier. The invention is an intermodulation product reduction or cancellation amplifier, which receives two input signals that are split in quadrature wherein the inphase outputs are summed and then amplified as an inphase signal, and the quadrature outputs are fixed-phase shifted, then summed and amplified as a quadrature signal. These RF circuits are typically balanced amplifiers and can cancel feedback generated by incoming signals. Hence, intermodulation is decreased. These phase-shifting antennas can accept a signal, clean it up, and produce a markedly cleaner output.

E. J. Simburger, D.G. Gilmore, "Thin Film Solar Cell Thermal Radiator," U.S. Patent No. 7,259,323, August 2007.

Satellites and nanosatellites contain multilayered wiring boards and power processing electronics that house delicate solar cells. Some of the energy passing through these cells is rendered into heat ranging from 80° to 125°C; whereas the desired operating temperature is 70 to 80 degrees Celsius. It is important to radiate this excess heat away from the solar cells to keep them functioning and running smoothly to avoid permanently damaging the cells. This invention uses a thin film solar cell thermal radiator with an embedded power bus to collect vertically migrating waste heat from electronic devices mounted on thin film multilayered circuit boards. It uses a transparent cover glass with a high emission rate and silver contacts to reflect the radiation and decrease absorption, therefore maintaining thin film solar cells within desired temperature ranges.

H. Yeh, C. C. Wang, "Parallel Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed Communication System," U.S. Patent No. 7,289,425, October 2007.

There are many ways to pass communication signals from transmitter to receiver. Operating an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) communication system with a transmitter and a receiver, each having parallel connections, results in improved signal diversity and performance in the presence of frequency offsets, as well as allowing for improved tracking capability. One of the benefits of using OFDM systems is improved bandwidth productivity and data throughput. OFDM is great for wireless applications and digital media, but has high sensitivity to frequency disruptions, which hinders its performance. This invention offers improved signal diversity and performance in the presence of relative frequency offsets and Doppler frequency offsets.

J. Maksymowicz, "Electro-Optical Focal Plane Array Digital Sensor System," U.S. Patent No. 7,301,134, November 2007.

Space-based laser communication systems establish and maintain constant spatial orientation between satellites for a continuous closed-loop communication link. The receiving satellite's focal plane array (FPA), or imaging sensor, searches a volume of space to acquire a laser beam sent from the transmitting satellite. Once established, this link must be continuously tracked by the receiving satellite. To maintain this link the FPA must track the laser beam in real-time. The FPA is an array of photodetectors that are individual pixels arranged in an X-Y coordinate pattern. As the FPA scans the entire array, each pixel illuminated by the laser provides respective pixel magnitude data and the pixel's X-Y coordinate location data to an FPA controller. The controller uses this data and coordinate on the array to command the FPA to transition from full array scanning to a smaller tracking window, which encompasses only the impinging laser beam to provide real-time, fine laser tracking. This smaller window directly increases the FPA's scanning or frame rate. This invention reduces laser jitter during tracking of the beam for improved beam tracking performance and increases frame rates of pixel data. It may apply to ground and satellite communication links.

A.A. Moulthrop, M.S. Muha, C.P. Silva, "Baseband Time-Domain Communications System," U.S. Patent No. 7,321,641, January 2008.

Modulated microwave signals are used to carry information in a variety of electronic communication systems. The signals may be used to transmit voice, data, or video signals from a ground transmitter through space to a satellite, and then back from the satellite to the ground receiver. The signals must then be converted into baseband, which is composed of I and Q components, and then accurately measured to meet certain qualifications. Precise measurement of communication signals is more successful when using baseband time-domain communication systems as opposed to a single-vector network-analyzer because time-domain waveforms contain all possible waveforms and therefore can create a far better signal for communication simulation. This invention is designed to provide a more accurate system for measuring imbalances in downconverters. It is a system for determining lowpass equivalencies of generated baseband signals. The invention allows for the measurement of electronic signals and devices in a time-domain signal using modulated waveforms. It will allow two sample readings of the I and Q outputs, detect and reduce any imbalances, and check for inaccuracies. The system lends itself well to nonlinear devices like amplifiers that require a communication system with a broader ability to communicate. It also allows for a decrease in imbalances and better signal reception.

E. Grayver, "Simultaneously Multithreaded Processing and Single Event Failure Detection Method," U.S. Patent No. 7,321,989, January 2008.

Radiation can be a dangerous predator for electrical equipment in space, taking its toll on electronic devices and having a negative effect on digital circuits. When electronic devices come in contact with radiation, the result can be a single event failure caused by the radiation exposure. These instances are not usually fully destructive to the equipment, but are obviously undesirable. This invention uses multithread processors with multiple worker threads running identical code and a monitor thread as a malfunction indicator. It relates to the field of concurrent parallel processing of like programs, processor voting for determining failed processes, and multithreaded processors. An advantage of this invention is that single event failures can be detected far more quickly and thus are easier to pinpoint and correct. This invention also provides a method for determining when one working program among several identical ones has failed. With parallel processing of like programs, errors can be more easily discovered and compared, and when one of the programs has been temporarily damaged by an encounter with radiation it can be more quickly detected and reset. It is unlikely that all like programs would be affected at once, so this system is fairly reliable.

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