Horizontality: From "Window" to "Ground", Exploring Immersive Audiotory Space as an Interactive Participant Medium

My sound-based arts practice is currently concerned with the shift of focus from the materiality of the sonic art object to the conceptual and semantic dimensions involved in interaction within a system. The twentieth century saw the dawn of technologies that could not only mediate the sonic arts in new ways but also inform its techniques and tropes. Over the last few decades we have seen the emergence of the genres Transmission and Telematic Art, the methodology of both often being informed by new concepts of space. The rise of post-industrial Capitalism situates us in a new epoch of spatial awareness. This seems particularly relevant now that mediated sonic and communication technologies are an integral part of our lives. Transmitting media “punching a hole in space” now ignore acoustic container boundaries: a sound heard and its source can exist separately yet simultaneously. Physical location and distance become less relevant. How does this create a shift in how we perceive the spatial within the practice of living?; and 2. redefining concepts of author and audience. All who participate are involved in authorship creating a form that is impossible to mediate to a passive audience 5. My work explores how this situation and the aesthetics deriving from it inform me as a practitioner within the medium of sound: the generative and emergent behaviour that arises from relationship as a form of “composition” and, of particular interest to me, the desire to shift focus from the traditional role of sound as an object of aesthetic expression to immersive interactive auditory space as a means of entering into dialogue with the multidimensional environment which humanity inhabits

An Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (IFTS) for Climate Observations

Climate change is an ongoing global phenomenon having a greater impact at higher latitudes. The instrument development reported herein is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of using an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (IFTS) to measure carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4) mixing ratios at high latitudes using oxygen A-band measurements as a surface pressure reference. This thesis details the optical design, instrumental setup, and development criteria for the IFTS. The development of a software package to control and acquire data is also discussed. The instrument is developed to achieve the Technology Readiness Level 4 standard which covers the breadboard validation of a space system in a laboratory environment. Hardware specifications and software algorithms of the instrument are presented. Results from an external Helium-Neon (HeNe) laser and a broadband light source limited by spectral bandpass filters are presented. Finally, recommendations and future improvements to this research and development program are listed

Towards low power radio localisation

This work investigates the use of super-resolution algorithms for precision localisation and long-term tracking of small subjects, like rodents. An overview is given of a variety of techniques for positioning in use today, namely received signal strength, time of arrival, time difference of arrival and direction of arrival (DoA). Based on the analysis, it is concluded that the direction finding signal subspace based techniques are most appropriate for the purposes of our system. The details of the software defined radio (SDR) antenna array testbed development, build, characterisation and performance evaluation are presented. The results of direction finding experiments in the screened anechoic chamber emulating open-space propagation are discussed. It is shown that such testbed is capable of locating sources in the vicinity of the array with high precision. It can estimate the DoAs of more simultaneously working transmitters than antennas in the array, by employing spread spectrum techniques, and readily accommodates very low power sources. Overall constraints on the system are such that the operational range must be around 50 – 100 m. The transmitter must be small both volumetrically and in terms of weight. It also has to be operational over an extended period of around 1 year. The implications of these are that very small antennas and batteries must be used, which are usually accompanied by very low transmission efficiencies and tiny capacities, respectively. Based on the above, the use of ultra-low power oscillator transmitters, as first cut prototypes of the tag, is proposed. It is shown that the Clapp, Colpitts, Pierce and Cross-coupled architectures are adequate. A thorough analysis of these topologies is provided with full details of tag and antenna co-design. Finally the performance of these architectures is evaluated through simulations with respect to power output, overall efficiency and phase noise.Open Acces

Proceedings of the Airborne Imaging Spectrometer Data Analysis Workshop

The Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (AIS) Data Analysis Workshop was held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 8 to 10, 1985. It was attended by 92 people who heard reports on 30 investigations currently under way using AIS data that have been collected over the past two years. Written summaries of 27 of the presentations are in these Proceedings. Many of the results presented at the Workshop are preliminary because most investigators have been working with this fundamentally new type of data for only a relatively short time. Nevertheless, several conclusions can be drawn from the Workshop presentations concerning the value of imaging spectrometry to Earth remote sensing. First, work with AIS has shown that direct identification of minerals through high spectral resolution imaging is a reality for a wide range of materials and geological settings. Second, there are strong indications that high spectral resolution remote sensing will enhance the ability to map vegetation species. There are also good indications that imaging spectrometry will be useful for biochemical studies of vegetation. Finally, there are a number of new data analysis techniques under development which should lead to more efficient and complete information extraction from imaging spectrometer data. The results of the Workshop indicate that as experience is gained with this new class of data, and as new analysis methodologies are developed and applied, the value of imaging spectrometry should increase

A sensor view model to investigate the influence of tree crowns on effective urban thermal anisotropy

A sensor view model is modified to include trees using a gap probability approach to estimate foliage view factors and an energy budget model for leaf surface temperatures (SUMVEG). The model is found to compare well with airborne thermal infrared (TIR) surface temperature measurements. SUMVEG is used to investigate the influence of trees on thermal anisotropy for narrow field-of-view TIR remote sensors over treed residential urban surfaces. Tests on regularly-spaced arrays of cubes on March 28 and June 21 at latitudes of 47.6°N and 25.8°N show that trees both decrease and increase anisotropy as a function of tree crown and building plan fractions. In compact geometries, anisotropy tends to decrease with tree crown plan fraction, with the opposite in open geometries, though trees taller than building height cause anisotropy to increase for all building plan fractions. These results help better understand and potentially correct urban thermal anisotropy

A Study of Types of Sensors used in Remote Sensing

Of late, the science of Remote Sensing has been gaining a lot of interest and attention due to its wide variety of applications. Remotely sensed data can be used in various fields such as medicine, agriculture, engineering, weather forecasting, military tactics, disaster management etc. only to name a few. This article presents a study of the two categories of sensors namely optical and microwave which are used for remotely sensing the occurrence of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, tropical cyclones and suspicious movements. The remotely sensed data acquired either through satellites or through ground based- synthetic aperture radar systems could be used to avert or mitigate a disaster or to perform a post-disaster analysis

A Study of Types of Sensors used in Remote Sensing

Of late, the science of Remote Sensing has been gaining a lot of interest and attention due to its wide variety of applications. Remotely sensed data can be used in various fields such as medicine, agriculture, engineering, weather forecasting, military tactics, disaster management etc. only to name a few. This article presents a study of the two categories of sensors namely optical and microwave which are used for remotely sensing the occurrence of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, tropical cyclones and suspicious movements. The remotely sensed data acquired either through satellites or through ground based- synthetic aperture radar systems could be used to avert or mitigate a disaster or to perform a post-disaster analysis

Research & Technology Report Goddard Space Flight Center

The main theme of this edition of the annual Research and Technology Report is Mission Operations and Data Systems. Shifting from centralized to distributed mission operations, and from human interactive operations to highly automated operations is reported. The following aspects are addressed: Mission planning and operations; TDRSS, Positioning Systems, and orbit determination; hardware and software associated with Ground System and Networks; data processing and analysis; and World Wide Web. Flight projects are described along with the achievements in space sciences and earth sciences. Spacecraft subsystems, cryogenic developments, and new tools and capabilities are also discussed