Engineering Commons^™

Byu Micro-Sar: A Very Small, Low-Power Lfm-Cw Synthetic Aperture Radar, Michael Israel Duersch

Theses and Dissertations

Brigham Young University has developed a low-cost, light-weight, and low power consumption SAR for flight on a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at low altitudes. This micro-SAR, or uSAR, consumes only 18 watts of power, ideal for application on a small UAV. To meet these constraints, a linear frequency modulation-continuous wave (LFM-CW) transmit signal is utilized. Use of an LFM-CW signal introduces some differences from the typical strip map SAR processing model that must be addressed in signal processing algorithms. This thesis presents a derivation of the LFM-CW signal model and the associated image processing algorithms used for the uSAR …

Understanding And Improving Moment Method Scattering Solutions, Clayton Paul Davis

Theses and Dissertations

The accuracy of moment method solutions to electromagnetic scattering problems has been studied by many researchers. Error bounds for the moment method have been obtained in terms of Sobolev norms of the current solution. Motivated by the historical origins of Sobolev spaces as energy spaces, it is shown that the Sobolev norm used in these bounds is equivalent to the forward scattering amplitude, for the case of 2D scattering from a PEC circular cylinder. A slightly weaker relationship is obtained for 3D scattering from a PEC sphere. These results provide a physical meaning for abstract solution error bounds in terms …

Design Of Cmos Four-Quadrant Gilbert Cell Multiplier Circuits In Weak And Moderate Inversion, Craig Timothy Remund

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents four-quadrant CMOS current-mode multiplier architectures based on the bipolar Gilbert cell multiplier architecture. Multipliers are designed using the CMOS subthreshold region to take advantage of the subthreshold exponential I-V relationship that closely matches bipolar modeling. It is discovered that biasing to remove drift current components and to address higher order effects such as ideality factor mismatch, threshold mismatch, body effect, and short channel effects, is important to provide a linear multiplier. It is also shown that distortion caused by device size mismatch and offset input currents can be used to cancel the distortion introduced by drift currents …

Kalman Consensus Strategies And Their Application To Cooperative Control, Randal Beard, Derek Kingston, Wei Ren

Faculty Publications

Sponsorship: AFOSR, NSF. In this paper, we propose discrete-time and continuous-time consensus update schemes motivated by the discrete-time and continuous-time Kalman filters. With certainty information encoded into each agent, the proposed consensus schemes explicitly account for relative confidence in the information that is communicated from each agent in the team. We show mild sufficient conditions under which consensus can be achieved using the proposed schemes in the presence of switching interaction topologies. The Kalman consensus scheme is shown to be input-to-state stable. We show how to exploit this fact in multi-agent cooperative control scenarios.

Polarimetric Temperature Sensor Using Core-Replaced Fiber, Benjamin L. Ipson

Theses and Dissertations

Optical fibers are increasingly being used to create sensing devices. The D-fiber has an elliptical core and exhibits birefringence. This birefringence can be used to create a polarimetric sensor. The elliptical core supports two orthogonal modes that have separate effective indices of refraction. The indices of refraction change with a change in temperature. Since the effective indices of refraction change differently for the two modes, the birefringence also changes. This change in birefringence can be seen as a change in detected power through the fiber through the use of polarizers. The fiber then becomes a temperature sensor. The sensitivity of …

A Review Of Antennas And Propagation For Mimo Wireless Communications, Michael A. Jensen, Jon W. Wallace

Faculty Publications

Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems use multiple antenna elements at transmit and receive to offer improved capacity over single antenna topologies in multipath channels. In such systems, the antenna properties as well as the multipath channel characteristics play a key role in determining communication performance. This paper reviews recent research findings concerning antennas and propagation in MIMO systems. Issues considered include channel capacity computation, channel measurement and modeling approaches, and the impact of antenna element properties and array configuration on system performance. Throughout the discussion, outstanding research questions in these areas are highlighted.

Resolution Scaling In Noncontact Scanning Impedance Imaging, Benjamin C. Green, Tao Shang, Jacey C. Morine, Hongze Liu, Stephen M. Schultz, Travis E. Oliphant, Aaron R. Hawkins

Faculty Publications

Noncontact scanning impedance imaging has been presented as a method to provide high resolution, high contrast images for a variety of material systems. This technique combines electrical impedance measurements with very high resolution scanning. This article reports on efforts to scale this technique down to the very important single micron range and reveals measurements for both thick and thin samples with a measured minimum resolution below 30 µm. A design for a shielded impedance probe applicable to this process is outlined and probes of several different sizes were made and tested. Fabrication of these impedance probes is explained and a …

Integrated Optical Waveguides With Liquid Cores, Aaron R. Hawkins, John P. Barber, Dongliang Yin, D. W. Deamer, Holger Schmidt

Faculty Publications

We report the design, fabrication, and demonstration of single-mode integrated optical waveguides with liquid cores. The principle of the device is based on antiresonant reflecting optical (ARROW) waveguides with hollow cores. We describe design principles for waveguide loss optimization down to 0.1/cm. Using a fabrication process based on conventional silicon microfabrication and sacrificial core layers, waveguides of varying widths and lengths with volumes covering the pico- to nanoliter range were fabricated. We observe confined mode propagation, measure waveguide losses of 2.4/cm, and demonstrate that the waveguides possess tailorable wavelength selectivity. The potential for highly integrated, sensitive devices based on these …

Wind Speed Effect On L-Band Brightness Temperature Inferred From Eurostarrs And Wise 2001 Field Experiments, David G. Long, Jacqueline Etcheto, Emmanuel P. Dinnat, Jacqueline Boutin, Adriano Camps, Stephanie Contardo, J. Wesson, Jordi Font, J. Miller

Faculty Publications

The results from two field experiments in the Mediterranean Sea are used to study the wind speed dependence of brightness temperature at L-band. During the EuroSTARRS airborne experiment, an L-band radiometer made measurements across a large wind speed gradient, enabling us to study this dependence at high wind speed. We compare our results with a two-scale emissivity model using several representations of the sea state spectrum. While the results are encouraging, unfortunately the accuracy of the measurements does not permit us to distinguish between the so-called twice Durden and Vesecky spectrum and the Elfouhaily spectrum above 7 m X s-1. …

Semi-Autonomous Human-Uav Interfaces For Fixed-Wing Mini-Uavs, Randal Beard, Michael A. Goodrich, Morgan Quigley

Faculty Publications

Sponsorship: DARPA, AFOSR. We present several human-robot interfaces that support real-time control of a small semi-autonomous UAV. These interfaces are designed for searching tasks and other missions that typically do not have a precise predetermined flight plan. We present a detailed analysis of a PDA interface and describe how our other interfaces relate to this analysis. We then offer quantative and qualitative performance comparisons of the interfaces, as well as an analysis of their possible real-world applications.

High Order Convergence With A Low Order Discretization Of The 2d Mfie, Clayton P. Davis, Karl F. Warnick

Faculty Publications

Moment method solutions to the MFIE are often less accurate for a given grid than corresponding solutions to the EFIE. We propose that the cause of this observation is the identity operator in the MFIE and show how regularizing the identity increases the convergence rate of the discretized 2D MFIE by three orders.

Electromagnetic Bias At Off-Nadir Incidence Angles, David V. Arnold, Floyd W. Millet, Karl F. Warnick

Faculty Publications

Sponsorship: JPL Subcontract 961461. Nadir and off-nadir measurements of electromagnetic (EM) bias measurements are presented and compared with an off-nadir bias model. Measurements of the bias were made during the BYU Off-Nadir Experiment (Y-ONE) in the months of March and April, 2003. Using radar measurements of the surface and backscattered power, the EM bias was computed at angles from nadir to 17º degrees. Simultaneous surface measurements from a laser rangefinder provide accurate measurements of the long wave surface parameters. An off-nadir bias model incorporating the effects of hydrodynamic modulation of short waves and tilt modulation of long waves is developed …

Evaluation Of Power Costs In Applying Tmr To Fpga Designs, Nathaniel Rollins, Michael J. Wirthlin, Paul S. Graham

Faculty Publications

Sponsorship: Los Alamos National Laboratory. Triple modular redundancy (TMR) is a technique commonly used to mitigate against design failures caused by single event upsets (SEUs). The SEU immunity that TMR provides comes at the cost of increased design area and decreased speed. Additionally, the cost of increased power due to TMR must be considered. This paper evaluates the power costs of TMR and validates the evaluations with actual measurements. Sensitivity to design placement is another important part of this study. Power consumption costs due to TMR are also evaluated in different FPGA architectures. This study shows that power consumption rises …

Detection Of Configuration Memory Upsets Causing Persistent Errors In Sram-Based Fpgas, D. Eric Johnson, Keith S. Morgan, Michael J. Wirthlin, Michael P. Caffrey, Paul S. Graham

Faculty Publications

Sponsorship: Los Alamos National Laboratory. FPGA designers are becoming increasingly aware of fault tolerance issues in modern FPGA designs, especially designs destined for a radiation environment. We classify errors due to upsets within the configuration bitstream into two categories; namely, persistent and non-persistent. Persistent errors generally cannot be tolerated. However, non-persistent errors can be tolerated in certain types of designs as long as they are properly accounted for. We discuss situations in which non-persistent errors are acceptable, and describe a technique for the detection of upsets causing persistent errors within the configuration memor of an SRAM-based FPGA.

Optimal Sampling For Single-Tone Frequency Estimation, Travis E. Oliphant

Faculty Publications

Single-tone frequency estimation from irregularly spaced samples is analyzed. The ratio of the Cramr-Rao Bound (CRB) for regularly spaced samples to the bound for irregularly spaced samples is presented and shown to be a globally convex function. It's minima and maxima over the domain of interest are identified which reveals that improvements in the CRB can be obtained using non-equally-spaced samples. For a given sampling density, the best estimates of frequency are obtained when half of the samples are taken at one end of the total available interval and the remaining samples are taken at the other end.

Frequency Estimation Of Linear Fm Scatterometer Pulses Received By The Seawinds Calibration Ground Station, Spencer S. Haycock

Theses and Dissertations

The SeaWinds Calibration Ground Station (CGS) is a passive ground station used to receive and sample transmissions from the SeaWinds scatterometer. During post processing, the received transmissions are characterized in order to verify proper instrument operation and to eliminate error in satellite telemetry and in data products generated from processing SeaWinds data. Sources of instrument error include uncertainties in transmitted power, pulse timing, and carrier frequency drift. Identifying these errors prevents their propagation to data products. A key aspect of this analysis involves accurately estimating the parameters of the SeaWinds transmissions. As better parameter estimates are researched and developed, the …

An Examination Into The Statistics Of The Singular Vectors For The Multi-User Mimo Wireless Channel, Scott Nathan Gunyan

Theses and Dissertations

Many capacity and near-capacity achieving methods in multiple-input-multipleoutput (MIMO) wireless channels make use of the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the channel matrix. For the multi-user case, the SVD of the channel matrix for each user may result in right and left singular vectors that are similar between users. This proposes another descriptive characterization of the multi-user MIMO channel. Closely aligned singular vectors between any two users could reduce the achievable signaling rates of signal processing communication methods as one user would be more difficult to resolve in space-time from another. An examination into how this alignment can be described …

Imaging Techniques And Hardware For Inhomogeneous Mri, David A. Thayer

Theses and Dissertations

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has become one of the most important medical imaging modalities over the past few decades because of its flexibility and low risk, along with other useful attributes. For traditional MRI, the static magnetic field, B_0, must be highly homogeneous. Obtaining this homogeneity can be difficult. Traditional MRI also requires linear gradient fields that are directed along the static field direction. Under these conditions a Fourier transform relationship exists between sampled data and the image to be reconstructed. In the case of an inhomogeneous static field, gradient fields that are not linear, or gradients that are not …

Noncontact Scanning Impedance Imaging In An Aqueous Solution, Aaron R. Hawkins, Hongze Liu, Travis E. Oliphant, Stephen M. Schultz

Faculty Publications

We present a method for imaging based on noncontact electrical impedance measurements and mechanical scanning. Measurement results are shown for an initial system based on this concept. An impedance probe design is presented, applicable to the test system. Line-scan data plots of high impedance contrast structures show a good fit to a theoretical physical model. Image resolutions on the order of 100 m are indicated for the initial system. Two-dimensional impedance images of biological tissue generated by this technique are shown.

High Efficiency 90 Degree Silica Waveguide Bend Using An Air Hole Photonic Crystal Region, J. Cai, S. Kim, Gregory P. Nordin, J. Jiang

Faculty Publications

We propose the hybrid integration of an air hole photonic crystal (PhC) structure with a high (0.75%) single-mode silica waveguide to achieve an ultracompact high efficiency 90 bend for transverse-magnetic polarized light. Diffraction from the periodic boundary between the PhC and silica waveguide regions is shown to seriously degrade the optical efficiency of the bend. A microgenetic algorithm ( GA) combined with a two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method is used to modify the PhC and its boundary layer to suppress this diffraction which in turn maximizes bend efficiency. The final optimized structure has a 99.4% bend efficiency at a wavelength of …

Microwave Remote Sensing Of The Greenland Ice Sheet: Models And Applications, Ivan S. Ashcraft

Theses and Dissertations

Spaceborne microwave sensors are powerful tools for monitoring the impacts of global climate change on the Greenland ice sheet. This dissertation focuses on refining methods for applying microwave data in Greenland studies by using new simple theoretical and empirical models to investigate (1) azimuth anisotropies in the data, (2) the microwave signature of the snow surface, (3) detection of snow melt, and (4) classification of snow melt. The results are applicable for identifying geophysical properties of the snow surface and monitoring changes on the ice sheet in relation to melt duration/extent, accumulation, and wind patterns. Azimuth dependence of the normalized …

A New Method For Melt Detection On Antarctic Ice-Shelves And Scatterometer Calibration Verification, Lukas Brad Kunz

Theses and Dissertations

Ku-band dual-polarization radar backscatter measurements from the SeaWinds on QuikScat scatterometer and microwave radiometer measurements from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) are used to determine periods of surface melt and freeze in the Antarctic ice-shelves. The normalized radar backscatter (sigma-0) and backscatter polarization ratio (PR) are used in the maximum likelihood estimation of the ice-state. This method is used to infer the daily ice-surface conditions for 25 selected study points located on the Ronne, Ross, Larsen, Fimbul, Amery, and Shackleton Ice-shelves. The temporal and spatial variations of the radar response are also observed for various neighborhood sizes surrounding each given …

Improving Electromagnetic Bias Estimates, Floyd W. Millet

Theses and Dissertations

The electromagnetic (EM) bias is the largest source of error in the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 satellite sea surface height (SSH) estimates. Due to incomplete understanding of the physical processes which cause the bias, current operational models are based on empirical relationships between the bias wind speed and significant wave height. These models reduce RMS estimation errors of the EM bias to approximately 4 cm.

To improve EM bias estimation the correlation between the bias and RMS long wave slope is studies using data from tower-based experiments in the Gulf of Mexico and Bass Straight, Australia. Models based on significant wave …

3d Analysis Of Hybrid Photonic Crystal/Conventional Waveguide 90° Bend, J. Cai, S. Kim, Gregory P. Nordin, J. Jiang

Faculty Publications

We present a three-dimensional (3D) analysis of a hybrid photonic crystal conventional waveguide 90° bend proposed previously [Opt. Express 10, 1334 (2002)] as an ultracompact component for large-scale planar lightwave circuit integration. Both rigorous 3D finite-difference time-domain modeling and a simple perfect mirror model analysis were carried out for different Si post heights in the photonic crystal region. Results show that the bend efficiency increases rapidly with Si post height. For a post height of 6.5 µm, this structure yields a bend efficiency of 97.3% at a wavelength of 1.55 µm for 90° bends in 2 µm X 2 µm …

Cavity Enhancement Of The Magneto-Optic Kerr Effect For Optical Studies Of Magnetic Nanostructures, Aaron R. Hawkins, N. Qureshi, Holger Schmidt

Faculty Publications

We present a study of cavity enhancement of the magneto-optic Kerr effect using dielectric multilayers in order to facilitate optical studies of individual single-domain nanomagnets. We develop a transfer matrix theory to analyze Kerr rotation from an arbitrary number of possibly lossy dielectric layers. The combination of one lossless and one thin metallic layer is found to be most favorable for studying individual nanomagnets, providing the best tradeoff between signal enhancement and spatial resolution. Accounting for the microscopic surface structure, we find good agreement between theory and experiment. Using this technique, we demonstrate Kerr enhancements by a factor of more …

Unitary Space-Time Transmit Diversity For Multiple Antenna Self-Interference Suppression, Adam Lane Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

A common practice for government defense agencies and commercial aeronautical companies is to use dual antennas on test flight air vehicles in order to overcome occlusion issues during high-speed telemetric maneuvers. The dual antennas, though never being masked at the same time, unfortunately lead to a drastic increase in nulls in the signal pattern. The result of this interference pattern can be compared to the effect of fading in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) multi-path scattering environment. Confidence in this comparison leads to the use of unitary space-time MIMO codes to overcome the signal self-interference. The possibility and performance of several …

A Ray-Based Investigation Of The Statistical Characteristics And Efficient Representation Of Multi-Antenna Communication Channels, Gus Ryan German

Theses and Dissertations

Multi-antenna communication systems are attracting research interest as a means to increase the information capacity, reliability, and spectral efficiency of wireless information transfer. Ray-tracing methods predict the behavior of wireless channels using a model of the propagation environment and are a low-cost alternative to direct measurements. We use ray tracing simulations to validate the statistical time and angle of arrival characteristics of an indoor multipath channel and compare model parameter estimates with estimates derived from channel sounding measurements. Ray tracing predicts the time and angle clustering of multipaths observed in the measurements and provides model parameter estimates which are closely …

Architectures For Symbol Timing Synchronization In Mimo Communications, Kejing Liu

Theses and Dissertations

Maximum likelihood symbol timing estimation for communication over a frequency non-selective MIMO fading channel is developed. The cases of known data (data-aided estimation) and unknown data (non-data-aided estimation) together with known channel and unknown channel are considered. The analysis shows that the log-likelihood functions and their approximations can be interpreted as SISO log-likelihood functions operating on each of the receive antennas. Previously published symbol timing estimators are shown to be special cases of the more general framework presented. Architectures based on both block processing and sequential processing using a discrete-time phase-locked loop are summarized. Performance examples over a MIMO channel …

Consensus Seeking, Formation Keeping, And Trajectory Tracking In Multiple Vehicle Cooperative Control, Wei Ren

Theses and Dissertations

Cooperative control problems for multiple vehicle systems can be categorized as either formation control problems with applications to mobile robots, unmanned air vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, satellites, aircraft, spacecraft, and automated highway systems, or non-formation control problems such as task assignment, cooperative transport, cooperative role assignment, air traffic control, cooperative timing, and cooperative search. The cooperative control of multiple vehicle systems poses significant theoretical and practical challenges. For cooperative control strategies to be successful, numerous issues must be addressed. We consider three important and correlated issues: consensus seeking, formation keeping, and trajectory tracking. For consensus seeking, we investigate algorithms and …

Wideband Channel Characterization For Mimo Scenario, Justin T. Holzer

Theses and Dissertations

Because broadband wireless systems benefit from accurate channel characterization, there is growing interest in broadband wireless multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel models. This thesis verifies the suitability of the Saleh Valenzuela with Angle (SVA) model for wideband MIMO communication models. While recent wideband MIMO measurements have been obtained by switching a single transmit/receive pair over all possible antenna pair combinations, a simultaneous probing system is superior because of the time required for the antenna-switching channel measurements. This work provides two different wideband channel estimation algorithms based on simultaneous transmission from and reception on all antennas. Simulated data from an electromagnetic ray …