Engineering evaluations and studies. Volume 3: Exhibit C

High rate multiplexes asymmetry and jitter, data-dependent amplitude variations, and transition density are discussed

Measuring the Phase Variation of a DOCSIS 3.1 Full Duplex Channel

Including a Full Duplex option into DOCSIS introduces several problems. One of the more troublesome issues is the presence of a strong self interference signal that leaks from the transmit side to the receive side of a cable node. This self interference is caused by echoes in the channel that translate the forward travelling transmit signals into a reverse travelling signal, as well as, by leakage from the hybrid coupler used to couple the upstream and downstream signals. To suppress this self interference an echo canceller is implemented to remove the unwanted interference from the received signal. Unfortunately with the high rates of data transmission used in modern day CATV networks the echo canceller needs tremendous precision. A major concern in the implementation of Full Duplex into DOCSIS is if the channels used are even very slightly time varying. The echos in such channels change with time and can be difficult for the echo canceller to track. Changes in the response of the channel cause the echo profile of the network to shift and the echo canceler to re-adapt to the new channel response. The issue with this changing response is that it is possible for the channel to change faster than the echo canceller can adapt, resulting in the interference becoming unacceptably high. Since the channel is a physical network of coaxial cables often exposed to the environment, its propagation properties can be affected by wind swaying pole mounted cables, or by rapid heating from the sun, or sudden shifts in the load of the network. With information on how the physical properties of the cable changes, the engineers designing the echo canceller can know how fast the canceller must adapt to changes and also have a better measure of how reliable its echo cancellation will be. In this thesis the stability of the echo profile of the channel is measured. It is shown that the property of the channel with the greatest potential to rapidly change and cause noise after echo cancellation is the phase response of the channel. Due to this, the approach of this thesis is to measure the fluctuations in the phase of the channel response of a CATV network constructed in the lab. To measure the fluctuations in the phase response of the channel, a PLL (Phase Locked Loop) based circuit is designed and built on an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and connected to a model of a simple CATV network. The PLL circuit used to measure the phase fluctuations of the channel is designed to be able to measure changes occurring faster than 0.1 Hz and with a power higher than $10^{-7} \: V^2$. The circuit is able to capture data from the channel over a period of 90 seconds. Using this phase variation measurement circuit a series of experiments were performed on a model CATV DOCSIS network. It was found that many physical disturbances to the network had the effect of rapidly shifting the phase response of the network. Heating the cables in the network was found to shift the phase response upwards of $20000\:\mu$radians. Flexing the cables in the network was found to have a peak phase variation of $8000\: \mu$radians with similar effects found from walking over cables. Overall, it was clear that physical effects on the network had the propensity to rapidly shift the network response. Any echo canceller that is designed in the future will have to consider these effects when reporting the cancellation that it is able to achieve

Recent Trends in Communication Networks

In recent years there has been many developments in communication technology. This has greatly enhanced the computing power of small handheld resource-constrained mobile devices. Different generations of communication technology have evolved. This had led to new research for communication of large volumes of data in different transmission media and the design of different communication protocols. Another direction of research concerns the secure and error-free communication between the sender and receiver despite the risk of the presence of an eavesdropper. For the communication requirement of a huge amount of multimedia streaming data, a lot of research has been carried out in the design of proper overlay networks. The book addresses new research techniques that have evolved to handle these challenges

Distributed Fiber Ultrasonic Sensor and Pattern Recognition Analytics

Ultrasound interrogation and structural health monitoring technologies have found a wide array of applications in the health care, aerospace, automobile, and energy sectors. To achieve high spatial resolution, large array electrical transducers have been used in these applications to harness sufficient data for both monitoring and diagnoses. Electronic-based sensors have been the standard technology for ultrasonic detection, which are often expensive and cumbersome for use in large scale deployments. Fiber optical sensors have advantageous characteristics of smaller cross-sectional area, humidity-resistance, immunity to electromagnetic interference, as well as compatibility with telemetry and telecommunications applications, which make them attractive alternatives for use as ultrasonic sensors. A unique trait of fiber sensors is its ability to perform distributed acoustic measurements to achieve high spatial resolution detection using a single fiber. Using ultrafast laser direct-writing techniques, nano-reflectors can be induced inside fiber cores to drastically improve the signal-to-noise ratio of distributed fiber sensors. This dissertation explores the applications of laser-fabricated nano-reflectors in optical fiber cores for both multi-point intrinsic Fabry–Perot (FP) interferometer sensors and a distributed phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (φ-OTDR) to be used in ultrasound detection. Multi-point intrinsic FP interferometer was based on swept-frequency interferometry with optoelectronic phase-locked loop that interrogated cascaded FP cavities to obtain ultrasound patterns. The ultrasound was demodulated through reassigned short time Fourier transform incorporating with maximum-energy ridges tracking. With tens of centimeters cavity length, this approach achieved 20kHz ultrasound detection that was finesse-insensitive, noise-free, high-sensitivity and multiplex-scalability. The use of φ-OTDR with enhanced Rayleigh backscattering compensated the deficiencies of low inherent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The dynamic strain between two adjacent nano-reflectors was extracted by using 3×3 coupler demodulation within Michelson interferometer. With an improvement of over 35 dB SNR, this was adequate for the recognition of the subtle differences in signals, such as footstep of human locomotion and abnormal acoustic echoes from pipeline corrosion. With the help of artificial intelligence in pattern recognition, high accuracy of events’ identification can be achieved in perimeter security and structural health monitoring, with further potential that can be harnessed using unsurprised learning

A nonlinear dynamic system for spread spectrum code acquisition

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-89).Nonlinear differential equations and iterated maps can perform any computation. Sometimes, the most difficult part of performing a useful computation, however, is writing the program. Furthermore, in practice, we often need to build special purpose computing hardware suited to run a particular program. Nonlinear dynamics provides a novel and useful language for constructing "algorithms" and "computer architectures." We apply the language of nonlinear dynamics to solve a fast coding problem which has previously been implemented by a Digital Signal Processor chip in digital wireless receivers. We eventually hope to produce a novel physical system which exhibits the nonlinear dynamics we require, thereby creating one of the first nonlinear dynamic systems engineered to perform a practical computation. This system, called an Analog Feedback Shift Register (AFSR), should be a faster, more reliable, less expensive, and lower power Spread Spectrum (SS) code acquisition system for wireless receivers. A prohibitive factor in creating ubiquitous short range, digital radio transceivers is the difficulty and expense of creating a mechanism for locking onto the incoming Spread Spectrum code sequence. AFSR is also potentially useful in other applications where low cost, low power channel sharing or addressing is required, for example in wireless auto-identification tags.by Benjamin William Vigoda.S.M

Survey of FPGA applications in the period 2000 – 2015 (Technical Report)

Romoth J, Porrmann M, Rückert U. Survey of FPGA applications in the period 2000 – 2015 (Technical Report).; 2017.Since their introduction, FPGAs can be seen in more and more different fields of applications. The key advantage is the combination of software-like flexibility with the performance otherwise common to hardware. Nevertheless, every application field introduces special requirements to the used computational architecture. This paper provides an overview of the different topics FPGAs have been used for in the last 15 years of research and why they have been chosen over other processing units like e.g. CPUs

NASA Tech Briefs, January 2014

Topics include: Multi-Source Autonomous Response for Targeting and Monitoring of Volcanic Activity; Software Suite to Support In-Flight Characterization of Remote Sensing Systems; Visual Image Sensor Organ Replacement; Ultra-Wideband, Dual-Polarized, Beam-Steering P-Band Array Antenna; Centering a DDR Strobe in the Middle of a Data Packet; Using a Commercial Ethernet PHY Device in a Radiation Environment; Submerged AUV Charging Station; Habitat Demonstration Unit (HDU) Vertical Cylinder Habitat; Origami-Inspired Folding of Thick, Rigid Panels; A Novel Protocol for Decoating and Permeabilizing Bacterial Spores for Epifluorescent Microscopy; Method and Apparatus for Automated Isolation of Nucleic Acids from Small Cell Samples; Enabling Microliquid Chromatography by Microbead Packing of Microchannels; On-Command Force and Torque Impeding Devices (OC-FTID) Using ERF; Deployable Fresnel Rings; Transition-Edge Hot-Electron Microbolometers for Millimeter and Submillimeter Astrophysics; Spacecraft Trajectory Analysis and Mission Planning Simulation (STAMPS) Software; Cross Support Transfer Service (CSTS) Framework Library; Arbitrary Shape Deformation in CFD Design; Range Safety Flight Elevation Limit Calculation Software; Frequency-Modulated, Continuous-Wave Laser Ranging Using Photon-Counting Detectors; Calculation of Operations Efficiency Factors for Mars Surface Missions; GPU Lossless Hyperspectral Data Compression System; Robust, Optimal Subsonic Airfoil Shapes; Protograph-Based Raptor-Like Codes; Fuzzy Neuron: Method and Hardware Realization; Kalman Filter Input Processor for Boresight Calibration; Organizing Compression of Hyperspectral Imagery to Allow Efficient Parallel Decompression; and Temperature Dependences of Mechanisms Responsible for the Water-Vapor Continuum Absorption

Space programs summary no. 37-40, volume VI FOR the period May 1 to June 30, 1966. Space exploration programs and space sciences

Surveyor, Mariner, and Voyager project, Deep Space Network, and lunar, planetary, and space science and instrument development

The Telecommunications and Data Acquisition Report

Archival reports are given on developments in programs managed by JPL's Office of Telecommunications and Data Acquisition (TDA), including space communications, radio navigation, radio science, ground-based radio and radar astronomy, and the Deep Space Network (DSN) and its associated Ground Communications Facility (GCF) in planning, supporting research and technology, implementation, and operations. Also included is TDA-funded activity at JPL on data and information systems and reimbursable DSN work performed for other space agencies through NASA. In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), implementation and operations for searching the microwave spectrum are reported. Use of the Goldstone Solar System Radar for scientific exploration of the planets, their rings and satellites, asteroids, and comets are discussed