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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Fibre-Optic Network Architectures For On-Board Digital Avionics Signal Distribution, Mohammad Alam, Mohammed Atiquzzaman, Bradley Duncan, Hung Nguyen, Richard Kunath Nov 2015

Fibre-Optic Network Architectures For On-Board Digital Avionics Signal Distribution, Mohammad Alam, Mohammed Atiquzzaman, Bradley Duncan, Hung Nguyen, Richard Kunath

Bradley D. Duncan

Continued progress in both civil and military radio-frequency (RF) digital avionics applications is overstressing the capabilities and reliability of existing RF communication networks based on coaxial cables on board modern aircrafts. Future avionics systems will require high-bandwidth on-board communication links that are lightweight, immune to electromagnetic interference, and highly reliable. Fibre-optic networks can meet all these challenges in a cost-effective manner. Recently, on-board fibre-optic communication systems, where a fibre-optic network acts like a local area network (LAN) for digital data communications, have become a topic of extensive research and development. However, modern digital avionics systems require a system capable of …


Visualization Of Surface Acoustic Waves By Means Of Synchronous Amplitude Modulated Illumination, Bradley Duncan Nov 2015

Visualization Of Surface Acoustic Waves By Means Of Synchronous Amplitude Modulated Illumination, Bradley Duncan

Bradley D. Duncan

A simple technique for visualizing two-dimensional traveling surface acoustic wave (SAW) phenomena in real time was developed. The technique requires illumination of a SAW carrying substrate with a collimated, sinusoidally amplitude-modulated laser beam. Though at first the technique may appear to be stroboscopic in nature, it in fact has its foundations in spatiotemporal correlation theory. It is shown that if the modulation frequency of the illumination beam is equal to, or an integer fraction of, the SAW frequency (i.e., if they are temporally correlated) then, after simple spatial filtering, high-visibility stationary fringes can be produced. In fact, it is shown …


A Technique For Removing Platform Vibration Noise From A Pulsed Ladar Vibration Sensor, Troy Sturm, R. Richmond, Bradley Duncan Nov 2015

A Technique For Removing Platform Vibration Noise From A Pulsed Ladar Vibration Sensor, Troy Sturm, R. Richmond, Bradley Duncan

Bradley D. Duncan

A technique has been developed for removing platform-induced vibration noise from a pulsed ladar vibration sensor. Deriving the vibrational characteristics of the platform is accomplished by simulating ambient atmospheric aerosols as a stationary reference target. Using a pulsed coherent detection ladar, the instantaneous Doppler frequency shifts from both aerosols and a distant hard target are measured and recorded, while the data acquisition is range gated so that both Doppler measurements are made from a single pulse. Periodic measurements are then made to develop a time history of the fluctuations in the Doppler signals, after which two vibration spectra are derived …


Real-Time Frequency-Translated Holographic Visualization Of Saw Interactions With Surface-Breaking Defects, James Blackshire, Shamachary Sathish, Bradley Duncan, Mike Millard Nov 2015

Real-Time Frequency-Translated Holographic Visualization Of Saw Interactions With Surface-Breaking Defects, James Blackshire, Shamachary Sathish, Bradley Duncan, Mike Millard

Bradley D. Duncan

A real-time, frequency-translated holographic imaging system has been developed by use of bacteriorhodopsin film. The system provides a capability for imaging surface acoustic waves and has been utilized to detect and characterize surface-breaking defects through near-field ultrasonic scattering effects. Frequency-plane filtering was used to discriminate between ultrasonic standing-wave and near-field scattering features, dramatically enhancing the holographic visualization of the defect sites. A detailed description of the system is presented, along with representative holographic images showing the interaction of surface acoustic waves with surface-breaking cracks and small notches in aluminum and titanium substrates.


High-Speed Shack-Hartmann Wave-Front Sensor Design Utilizing Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Optics, Jeffrey Widiker, Scott Harris, Bradley Duncan Nov 2015

High-Speed Shack-Hartmann Wave-Front Sensor Design Utilizing Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Optics, Jeffrey Widiker, Scott Harris, Bradley Duncan

Bradley D. Duncan

Several trade-offs relevant to the design of a two-dimensional high-speed Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor are presented. Also outlined are some simple preliminary experiments that can be used to establish critical design specifications not already known. These specifications include angular uncertainty, maximum measurable wavefront tilt, and spatial resolution. A generic design procedure is then introduced to enable the adaptation of a limited selection of CCD cameras and lenslet arrays to the desired design specifications by use of commercial off-the-shelf optics. Although initially developed to aid in the design of high-speed (i.e., megahertz-frame-rate) Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensors, our method also works when used for …


Real-Time Optical Holography Using A Spatial Light Modulator, Ting-Chung Poon, Bradley Duncan, Ming Hsien Wu, K. Shinoda, Y. Suzuki Nov 2015

Real-Time Optical Holography Using A Spatial Light Modulator, Ting-Chung Poon, Bradley Duncan, Ming Hsien Wu, K. Shinoda, Y. Suzuki

Bradley D. Duncan

Paper proposes a real-time technique for recording and reconstructing optical holograms. Holographic recording is accomplished by scanning an object with two superposed light beams of different temporal frequencies. For reconstruction, the scanned information is transferred to an electron beam addressed spatial light modulator for coherent processing and optically read out to reconstruct an image of the scanned object.


Local Heating With Lithographically Fabricated Plasmonic Titanium Nitride Nanoparticles, Urcan Guler, Justus Ndukaife, Gururaj Naik, Agbai Nnanna, Alexander Kildishev, V. Shalaev, Alexandra Boltasseva Jul 2015

Local Heating With Lithographically Fabricated Plasmonic Titanium Nitride Nanoparticles, Urcan Guler, Justus Ndukaife, Gururaj Naik, Agbai Nnanna, Alexander Kildishev, V. Shalaev, Alexandra Boltasseva

U. Guler

Titanium nitride is considered a promising alternative plasmonic material and is known to exhibit localized surface plasmon resonances within the near-infrared biological transparency window. Here, local heating efficiencies of disk-shaped nanoparticles made of titanium nitride and gold are compared in the visible and near-infrared regions numerically and experimentally with samples fabricated using e-beam lithography. Results show that plasmonic titanium nitride nanodisks are efficient local heat sources and outperform gold nanodisks in the biological transparency window, dispensing the need for complex particle geometries.


Spatial-Rank Order Selection Filters, Kenneth Barner, Russell Hardie May 2015

Spatial-Rank Order Selection Filters, Kenneth Barner, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

Chapter 3: "Spatial-Rank Order Selection Filters"
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Selection Filters and Spatial-Rank Ordering
3.3 Spatial-Rank Order Selection Filters
3.4 Optimization
3.5 Applications
3.6 Future Directions


Gradient-Based Edge Detection Using Nonlinear Edge-Enhancing Prefilters, Russell Hardie, Charles Boncelet May 2015

Gradient-Based Edge Detection Using Nonlinear Edge-Enhancing Prefilters, Russell Hardie, Charles Boncelet

Russell C. Hardie

This correspondence examines the use of nonlinear edge enhancers as prefilters for edge detectors. The filters are able to convert smooth edges to step edges and suppress noise simultaneously. Thus, false alarms due to noise are minimized and edge gradient estimates tend to be large and localized. This leads to significantly improved edge maps.


Ranking In Rp And Its Use In Multivariate Image Estimation, Russell Hardie, Gonzalo Arce May 2015

Ranking In Rp And Its Use In Multivariate Image Estimation, Russell Hardie, Gonzalo Arce

Russell C. Hardie

The extension of ranking a set of elements in R to ranking a set of vectors in a p'th dimensional space Rp is considered. In the approach presented here vector ranking reduces to ordering vectors according to a sorted list of vector distances. A statistical analysis of this vector ranking is presented, and these vector ranking concepts are then used to develop ranked-order type estimators for multivariate image fields. A class of vector filters is developed, which are efficient smoothers in additive noise and can be designed to have detail-preserving characteristics. A statistical analysis is developed for the class of …


Lum Filters: A Class Of Rank-Order-Based Filters For Smoothing And Sharpening, Russell Hardie, Charles Boncelet May 2015

Lum Filters: A Class Of Rank-Order-Based Filters For Smoothing And Sharpening, Russell Hardie, Charles Boncelet

Russell C. Hardie

A new class of rank-order-based filters, called lower-upper-middle (LUM) filters, is introduced. The output of these filters is determined by comparing a lower- and an upper-order statistic to the middle sample in the filter window. These filters can be designed for smoothing and sharpening, or outlier rejection. The level of smoothing done by the filter can range from no smoothing to that of the medianfilter. This flexibility allows the LUM filter to be designed to best balance the tradeoffs between noisesmoothing and signal detail preservation. LUM filters for enhancing edge gradients can be designed to be insensitive to low levels …


Infrared Image Registration And High-Resolution Reconstruction Using Multiple Translationally Shifted Aliased Video Frames, Mohammad Alam, John Bognar, Russell Hardie, Brian Yasuda May 2015

Infrared Image Registration And High-Resolution Reconstruction Using Multiple Translationally Shifted Aliased Video Frames, Mohammad Alam, John Bognar, Russell Hardie, Brian Yasuda

Russell C. Hardie

Forward looking infrared (FLIR) detector arrays generally produce spatially undersampled images because the FLIR arrays cannot be made dense enough to yield a sufficiently high spatial sampling frequency. Multi-frame techniques, such as microscanning, are an effective means of reducing aliasing and increasing resolution in images produced by staring imaging systems. These techniques involve interlacing a set of image frames that have been shifted with respect to each other during acquisition. The FLIR system is mounted on a moving platform, such as an aircraft, and the vibrations associated with the platform are used to generate the shifts. Since a fixed number …


Application Of Multi-Frame High-Resolution Image Reconstruction To Digital Microscopy, Frank Baxley, Russell Hardie May 2015

Application Of Multi-Frame High-Resolution Image Reconstruction To Digital Microscopy, Frank Baxley, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

A high-resolution image reconstruction algorithm previously used to improve undersampled infrared airborne imagery was applied to two different sets of digital microscopy images. One set is that of medical pap smear images, and the second set contains metallurgical micrographs. Both the pap smear images and the metallurgical micrographs are undersampled, thus causing loss of detail and aliasing artifacts. The algorithm minimizes the effects of aliasing and restores detail unobtainable through simple interpolation techniques. Both applications demonstrate improvement by use of the image reconstruction algorithm.


Robust Phase-Unwrapping Algorithm Using A Spatial Binary-Tree Image Decomposition, Russell Hardie, Md. Younus, James Blackshire May 2015

Robust Phase-Unwrapping Algorithm Using A Spatial Binary-Tree Image Decomposition, Russell Hardie, Md. Younus, James Blackshire

Russell C. Hardie

The search for fast and robust phase-unwrapping algorithms remains an important problem in the development of real-time interferometric systems. Our phase-unwrapping approach uses a spatial binary-tree image decomposition to permit maximum parallelism in implementation. At each node in the tree structure, a single unwrapping decision is made between two image blocks. The unwrapping rule is derived from a statistical-estimation framework. Specifically, a maximum-likelihood estimate of the demodulation term is used. This term can be viewed as that which minimizes a discontinuity-penalizing cost function. We show that the algorithm exhibits a high level of robustness. Quantitative measures of performance are provided, …


Application Of The Stochastic Mixing Model To Hyperspectral Resolution Enhancement, Michael Eismann, Russell Hardie May 2015

Application Of The Stochastic Mixing Model To Hyperspectral Resolution Enhancement, Michael Eismann, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

A maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation method is described for enhancing the spatial resolution of a hyperspectral image using a higher resolution coincident panchromatic image. The approach makes use of a stochastic mixing model (SMM) of the underlying spectral scene content to develop a cost function that simultaneously optimizes the estimated hyperspectral scene relative to the observed hyperspectral and panchromatic imagery, as well as the local statistics of the spectral mixing model. The incorporation of the stochastic mixing model is found to be the key ingredient for reconstructing subpixel spectral information in that it provides the necessary constraints that lead …


Performance Analysis Of A New Computer Aided Detection System For Identifying Lung Nodules On Chest Radiographs, Russell Hardie, Steven Rogers, Terry Wilson, Adam Rogers May 2015

Performance Analysis Of A New Computer Aided Detection System For Identifying Lung Nodules On Chest Radiographs, Russell Hardie, Steven Rogers, Terry Wilson, Adam Rogers

Russell C. Hardie

A new computer aided detection (CAD) system is presented for the detection of pulmonary nodules on chest radiographs. Here, we present the details of the proposed algorithm and provide a performance analysis using a publicly available database to serve as a benchmark for future research efforts. All aspects of algorithm training were done using an independent dataset containing 167 chest radiographs with a total of 181 lung nodules. The publicly available test set was created by the Standard Digital Image Database Project Team of the Scientific Committee of the Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JRST). The JRST dataset used here …


Stochastic Spectral Unmixing With Enhanced Endmember Class Separation, Michael Eismann, Russell Hardie May 2015

Stochastic Spectral Unmixing With Enhanced Endmember Class Separation, Michael Eismann, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

Improvements to an algorithm for performing spectral unmixing of hyperspectral imagery based on the stochastic mixing model (SMM) are presented. The SMM provides a method for characterizing both subpixel mixing of the pure image constituents, or endmembers, and statistical variation in the endmember spectra that is due, for example, to sensor noise and natural variability of the pure constituents. Modifications of the iterative, expectation maximization approach to deriving the SMM parameter estimates are proposed, and their effects on unmixing performance are characterized. These modifications specifically concern algorithm initialization, random class assignment, and mixture constraints. The results show that the enhanced …


Hyperspectral Resolution Enhancement Using High-Resolution Multispectral Imagery With Arbitrary Response Functions, Michael Eismann, Russell Hardie May 2015

Hyperspectral Resolution Enhancement Using High-Resolution Multispectral Imagery With Arbitrary Response Functions, Michael Eismann, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

A maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation method for improving the spatial resolution of a hyperspectral image using a higher resolution auxiliary image is extended to address several practical remote sensing situations. These include cases where: 1) the spectral response of the auxiliary image is unknown and does not match that of the hyperspectral image; 2) the auxiliary image is multispectral; and 3) the spatial point spread function for the hyperspectral sensor is arbitrary and extends beyond the span of the detector elements. The research presented follows a previously reported MAP approach that makes use of a stochastic mixing model (SMM) …


Improved Optimization Of Soft Partition Weighted Sum Filters And Their Application To Image Restoration, Yong Lin, Russell Hardie, Qin Sheng, Kenneth Barner May 2015

Improved Optimization Of Soft Partition Weighted Sum Filters And Their Application To Image Restoration, Yong Lin, Russell Hardie, Qin Sheng, Kenneth Barner

Russell C. Hardie

Soft-partition-weighted-sum (Soft-PWS) filters are a class of spatially adaptive moving-window filters for signal and image restoration. Their performance is shown to be promising. However, optimization of the Soft-PWS filters has received only limited attention. Earlier work focused on a stochastic-gradient method that is computationally prohibitive in many applications. We describe a novel radial basis function interpretation of the Soft-PWS filters and present an efficient optimization procedure. We apply the filters to the problem of noise reduction. The experimental results show that the Soft-PWS filter outperforms the standard partition-weighted-sum filter and the Wiener filter.


A Computationally Efficient Super-Resolution Algorithm For Video Processing Using Partition Filters, Balaji Narayanan, Russell Hardie, Kenneth Barner, Min Shao May 2015

A Computationally Efficient Super-Resolution Algorithm For Video Processing Using Partition Filters, Balaji Narayanan, Russell Hardie, Kenneth Barner, Min Shao

Russell C. Hardie

We propose a computationally efficient super-resolution (SR) algorithm to produce high-resolution videofrom low-resolution (LR) video using partition-based weighted sum (PWS) filters. First, subpixel motion parameters are estimated from the LR video frames. These are used to position the observed LR pixels into a high-resolution (HR) grid. Finally, PWS filters are employed to simultaneously perform nonuniform interpolation (to fully populate the HR grid) and perform deconvolution of the system point spread function. The PWS filters operate with a moving window. At each window location, the output is formedusing a weighted sum of the present pixels within the window. The weights are …


The Effect Of Copt Crystallinity And Grain Texturing On Properties Of Exchange-Coupled Fe/Copt Systems, H. Oguchi, A. Zambano, M. Yu, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, D. Banerjee, Y. Liu, Z. Wang, J. Liu, S. Lofland, D. Josell, I. Takeuchi Mar 2015

The Effect Of Copt Crystallinity And Grain Texturing On Properties Of Exchange-Coupled Fe/Copt Systems, H. Oguchi, A. Zambano, M. Yu, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, D. Banerjee, Y. Liu, Z. Wang, J. Liu, S. Lofland, D. Josell, I. Takeuchi

Jason R. Hattrick-Simpers

The effect of the crystallinity and the grain texturing of CoPt hard layers on exchange coupled Fe/CoPt soft/hard magnetic systems was studied using gradient thickness multilayer thin films. We have studied the hard layer structures by transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction, and characterized the exchange coupling interaction through magnetization loops obtained by the magneto-optical Kerr effect measurement. We found that exchange coupling strongly depends on the crystalline characteristics of the CoPt hard layer. There is correlation between the mixture of different grain orientations of the CoPt hard layer and coupling efficiency. In particular, interlayer coupling is enhanced when there …


Interphase Exchange Coupling In Fe/Sm-Co Bilayers With Gradient Fe Thickness, Ming-Hui Yu, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Ichiro Takeuchi, Jing Li, Z. Wang, J. Liu, S. Lofland, Somdev Tyagi, J. Freeland, D. Giubertoni, M. Bersani, M. Anderle Mar 2015

Interphase Exchange Coupling In Fe/Sm-Co Bilayers With Gradient Fe Thickness, Ming-Hui Yu, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Ichiro Takeuchi, Jing Li, Z. Wang, J. Liu, S. Lofland, Somdev Tyagi, J. Freeland, D. Giubertoni, M. Bersani, M. Anderle

Jason R. Hattrick-Simpers

We have fabricated Fe∕Sm–Co bilayers with gradient Fe thicknesses in order to systematically study the dependence of exchange coupling on the thickness of the Fe layer. The Fe layer was deposited at two different temperatures (150 and 300°C) to study the effect of deposition temperature on the exchange coupling. Magneto-optical Kerr effect and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) have been employed as nondestructive rapid characterization tools to map the magnetic properties of the gradient samples. Systematic enhancement in exchange coupling between the soft layer and the hard layer is observed as the soft layer thickness is decreased. Separate exchange couplings …


Characterization Of Magnetic Degradation Mechanism In A High Neutron-Flux Environment, Adib Samin, Jie Qiu, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Liyang Dai-Hattrick, Yuan Zheng, Lei Cao Mar 2015

Characterization Of Magnetic Degradation Mechanism In A High Neutron-Flux Environment, Adib Samin, Jie Qiu, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Liyang Dai-Hattrick, Yuan Zheng, Lei Cao

Jason R. Hattrick-Simpers

No abstract provided.