Technology transfer of NASA microwave remote sensing system

Viable techniques for effecting the transfer from NASA to a user agency of state-of-the-art airborne microwave remote sensing technology for oceanographic applications were studied. A detailed analysis of potential users, their needs and priorities; platform options; airborne microwave instrument candidates; ancillary instrumentation; and other, less obvious factors that must be considered were studied. Conclusions and recommendations for the development of an orderly and effective technology transfer of an airborne microwave system that could meet the specific needs of the selected user agencies are reported

Workshop on Science Opportunities for a Multidisciplinary Long-Range Aircraft for Antarctic Research: Program and Abstract Volume

Organizing Committee: Bea Csatho, David H. Bromwich, Michael Studinger, Thomas R. Parish, Robin Muench, and Jeff StithOffice of Polar Programs, National Science Foundatio

Safety arguments for next generation location aware computing

Concerns over the accuracy, availability, integrity and continuity of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have limited the integration of GPS and GLONASS for safety-critical applications. More recent augmentation systems, such as the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and the North American Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) have begun to address these concerns. Augmentation architectures build on the existing GPS/GLONASS infrastructures to support locationbased services in Safety of Life (SoL) applications. Much of the technical development has been directed by air traffic management requirements, in anticipation of the more extensive support to be offered by GPS III and Galileo. WAAS has already been approved to provide vertical guidance against ICAO safety performance criteria for aviation applications. During the next twelve months, we will see the full certification of EGNOS for SoL applications. This paper identifies strong similarities between the safety assessment techniques used in Europe and North America. Both have relied on hazard analysis techniques to derive estimates of the Probability of Hazardously Misleading Information (PHMI). Later sections identify significant differences between the approaches adopted in application development. Integrated fault trees have been developed by regulatory and commercial organisations to consider both infrastructure hazards and their impact on non-precision RNAV/VNAV approaches using WAAS. In contrast, EUROCONTROL and the European Space Agency have developed a more modular approach to safety-case development for EGNOS. It remains to be seen whether the European or North American strategy offers the greatest support as satellite based augmentation systems are used within a growing range of SoL applications from railway signalling through to Unmanned Airborne Systems. The key contribution of this paper is to focus attention on the safety arguments that might support this wider class of location based services

Summary of the Active Microwave Workshop, chapter 1

An overview is given of the utility, feasibility, and advantages of active microwave sensors for a broad range of applications, including aerospace. In many instances, the material provides an in-depth examination of the applicability and/or the technology of microwave remote sensing, and considerable documentation is presented in support of these techniques. An assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of active microwave sensor data indicates that satisfactory data are obtainable for several significant applications

Assess program: Interactive data management systems for airborne research

Two data systems were developed for use in airborne research. Both have distributed intelligence and are programmed for interactive support among computers and with human operators. The C-141 system (ADAMS) performs flight planning and telescope control functions in addition to its primary role of data acquisition; the CV-990 system (ADDAS) performs data management functions in support of many research experiments operating concurrently. Each system is arranged for maximum reliability in the first priority function, precision data acquisition

NASA Tech Briefs Index, 1977, volume 2, numbers 1-4

Announcements of new technology derived from the research and development activities of NASA are presented. Abstracts, and indexes for subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief number are presented for 1977

A Blue Print for the Future Electronic Warfare Suite Development

Mastering increasing complexity of electronic warfare (EW) airborne equipment systems needs new architectural concepts mainly based on modular design, generic resources and reliable communication buses. Less is more architectural concept replaces separate EW line replaceable units with fewer centralized processing units. This approach leads to a robust architecture for the next generation EW suite development in a unified fashion and thereby promising significant weight reduction and maintenance savings. In general, this approach is represented by a blanket term called integrated modular avionics (IMA). IMA architecture based EW suite development concentrates with the main goals of IMA such as technology transparency, resource sharing, incremental qualification, reduced maintenance cost, and so on.Defence Science Journal, 2013, 63(2), pp.192-197, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.63.426

Multi-Core DSP Based Parallel Architecture for FMCW SAR Real-Time Imaging

This paper presents an efficient parallel processing architecture using multi-core Digital Signal Processor (DSP) to improve the capability of real-time imaging for Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave Synthetic Aperture Radar (FMCW SAR). With the application of the proposed processing architecture, the imaging algorithm is modularized, and each module is efficiently realized by the proposed processing architecture. In each module, the data processing of different cores is executed in parallel, also the data transmission and data processing of each core are synchronously carried out, so that the processing time for SAR imaging is reduced significantly. Specifically, the time of corner turning operation, which is very time-consuming, is ignored under computationally intensive case. The proposed parallel architecture is applied to a compact Ku-band FMCW SAR prototype to achieve real-time imageries with 34 cm x 51 cm (range x azimuth) resolution

Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography, supplement 122

This bibliography lists 303 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1980