Theory and Applications of Aperiodic (Random) Phased Arrays

A need for network centric topologies using mobile wireless communications makes it important to investigate new distributed beamforming techniques. Platforms such as micro air vehicles (MAVs), unattended ground sensors (UGSs), and unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) can all benefit from advances in this area utilizing advantages in stealth, enhanced survivability and maximum maneuverability. Moreover, in this dissertation, electromagnetic radiation is investigated such that the signal power of each element is coherently added in the far-field region of a specified target direction with net destructive interference occurring in all other regions to suppress sidelobe behavior. This provides superior range and resolution characteristics for a variety of applications including; early warning radar, ballistic missile defense and search and rescue efforts. A wide variety of topologies can be used to confine geometrically these mobile random arrays for analysis. The distribution function for these topologies must be able to generalize the randomness within the geometry. By this means it is feasible to assume the random element distribution of a very large volumetric space will yield either a normal or Gaussian distribution. Therefore the underlying assumption stands that the statistically averaged beam pattern develops from an arrangement of uniformly or Gaussian distrusted elements; both confined to a variety of geometry of radius A and is further generalized using a simple theory based upon the Fourier Transform. Hence, this theory will be derived and serve as the foundation for advanced performance characteristics of these arrays such as its ability for sidelobe tapering, adaptive nulling and multi beam control. In addition it will be shown that for the most ideal of conditions a steerable beam pattern free of sidelobe behavior (better known as a Gaussian distribution) is quite possible. As well these random array structures will be shown to provide superior bandwidth capability over tradiational array structures since they are frequency independent. Last of all a summary of the random array analysis and its results concludes this dissertation

Abstracts on Radio Direction Finding (1899 - 1995)

The files on this record represent the various databases that originally composed the CD-ROM issue of "Abstracts on Radio Direction Finding" database, which is now part of the Dudley Knox Library's Abstracts and Selected Full Text Documents on Radio Direction Finding (1899 - 1995) Collection. (See Calhoun record https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/57364 for further information on this collection and the bibliography). Due to issues of technological obsolescence preventing current and future audiences from accessing the bibliography, DKL exported and converted into the three files on this record the various databases contained in the CD-ROM. The contents of these files are: 1) RDFA_CompleteBibliography_xls.zip [RDFA_CompleteBibliography.xls: Metadata for the complete bibliography, in Excel 97-2003 Workbook format; RDFA_Glossary.xls: Glossary of terms, in Excel 97-2003 Workbookformat; RDFA_Biographies.xls: Biographies of leading figures, in Excel 97-2003 Workbook format]; 2) RDFA_CompleteBibliography_csv.zip [RDFA_CompleteBibliography.TXT: Metadata for the complete bibliography, in CSV format; RDFA_Glossary.TXT: Glossary of terms, in CSV format; RDFA_Biographies.TXT: Biographies of leading figures, in CSV format]; 3) RDFA_CompleteBibliography.pdf: A human readable display of the bibliographic data, as a means of double-checking any possible deviations due to conversion

Scattering Models in Remote Sensing: Application to SAR Despeckling and Sea Target Detection from GNSS-R Imagery

Imaging sensors are an essential tool for the observation of the Earth’ surface and the study of other celestial bodies. The capability to produce radar images of the illuminated surface is strictly related with the complex phenomenology of the radiation-matter interaction. The electromagnetic scattering theory is a well-established and well-assessed topic in electromagnetics. However, its usage in the remote sensing field is not adequately investigated and studied. This Ph.D. Thesis addresses the exploitation of electromagnetic scattering models suitable for natural surfaces in two applications of remotely sensed data, namely despeckling of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, and the detection of sea targets in delay-Doppler Maps (DDM) acquired from spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R). The first issue was addressed by conceiving, developing, implementing and validating two despeckling algorithms for SAR images. The developed algorithms introduce some a priori information about the electromagnetic behavior of the resolution cell in the despeckling chain and were conceived as a scattering-based version of pre-existing filters, namely the Probabilistic Patch-Based (PPB) and SAR-Block-Matching 3-D (SARBM3D) algorithms. The scattering behavior of the sensed surface is modeled assuming a fractal surface roughness and using the Small Perturbation Method (SPM) to describe the radar cross section (RCS) of the surface. Performances of the proposed algorithms have been assessed using both canonical test (simulated) and actual images acquired from the COSMO\SkyMed constellation. The robustness of the proposed filters against different error sources, such as the scattering behavior of the surface, surface parameters, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) resolution and the SAR image-DEM coregistration step, has been evaluated via an experimental sensitivity analysis. The problem of detecting sea targets from GNSS-R data in near real-time has been investigated by analyzing the revisit time achieved by constellations of GNSS-R instruments. A statistical analysis of the global revisit time has been performed by means of mission simulation, in which three realistic scenario have been defined. Time requirements for near real-time ship detection purposes are shown to be fulfilled in multi-GNSS constellation scenarios. A four-step sea target has been developed. The detector is a Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) algorithm and is based on the suppression of the sea clutter contribution, modeled via the Geometrical Optics (GO) approach. Performance assessment is performed by deriving the Receiver Operating Curves (ROC) of the detector. Finally, the proposed sea target detection algorithm has been tested using actual UK TechDemoSat-1 data

Sensing animal group behavior and bio-clutter in the ocean over continental shelf scales

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-294).Fish populations often comprise the largest biomass in a productive marine ecosystem. They typically play an essential role in inter-trophic energy transport, and serve as a mainstay for human consumption comprising roughly 16% of the animal protein consumed by the world's population. Despite their ecological importance, there is substantial evidence that fish populations are declining worldwide, motivating the need for an ecosystem approach to fisheries management through ecosystem scale sensing of fish populations and behavior. In this Thesis, it is shown how the recently developed Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) technique can be used to (1) quantify the acoustic scattering response of fish and remotely infer their physiological characteristics to enable species classification, and (2) remotely assess shoaling populations and quantify their group behavior in a variety of oceanic ecosystems. Shoal dynamics is studied by developing a novel Minimum Energy Flow (MEF) method to extract velocity and force fields driving motion from time-varying density images describing compressible or incompressible motion. The MEF method is applied to experimentally obtained density images, spanning spatial scales from micrometers to several kilometers. Using density image sequences describing cell splitting, for example, we show that cell division is driven by gradients in apparent pressure within a cell. By applying MEF to fish population density image sequences collected during the OAWRS 2003 experiment in the New Jersey strataform, we quantify (1) inter-shoal dynamics such as coalescence of fish groups over tens of kilometers, (2) fish mass flow between different parts of a large shoal and (3) the stresses acting on large fish shoals. Observations of fish shoals made during the OAWRS 2006 experiment in the Georges Bank are used to confirm general theoretical predictions on group behavior believed to apply in nature irrespective of animal species. By quantifying the formation processes of vast oceanic fish shoals during spawning, it is shown that (1) a rapid transition from disordered to highly synchronized behavior occurs as population density reaches a critical value; (2) organized group migration occurs after this transition; and (3) small sets of leaders significantly influence the actions of much larger groups. Several species of fish, birds, insects, mammals and other self propelled particles (SPPs) are known to group in large numbers and exhibit orderly migrations. The stability of this orderly state of motion in large SPP-groups is studied by developing a fluid-dynamic theory for flocking behavior based on perturbation analysis. It is shown that an SPP group where individuals assume the average velocity of their neighbours behaves as a fluid over large spatial scales. The existence of a critical population density above which perturbations to the orderly state of motion are damped is also shown. Further, it is shown that disturbances can propagate within mobile groups at speeds much higher than that of the individuals, facilitating rapid information transfer. These findings may explain how large shoals of fish and flocks of birds are able to stay together and migrate over large distances without breaking up. Fish shoals are ubiquitous in continental shelf environments and so are a major cause of acoustic clutter in long-range Navy sonars. It is shown that man-made airfilled cylindrical targets have very different spectral acousic scattering response than fish, so that they can be distinguished using multi-frequency measurements. It is also shown that the use of the Sonar Equation to model scattering from the man-made targets leads to large errors differing by up to an order of magnitude from measurements. A Greens' Theorem-based full-field model that describes scattering from vertically extended cylindrical targets in range-dependent ocean waveguides is shown to accurately describe the statistics of the targets' scattered field measured during OAWRS 2001, 2003 and 2006 experiments. Measurements of infrasound made during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami event that occured on December 26, 2004 have suggested that large-scale tsunamis may produce deep-infrasonic signals that travel thousands of kilometers in the atmosphere. By developing an analytical model to describe air-borne infrasound generation by tsunamis and applying it to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, it is shown that the mass flow of air caused by changes in sea-level due to a tsunami can generate infrasound of sufficient amplitude to be picked up thousands of kilometers away. The possibility of detecting tsunamis via seismic means is also examined by developing an analytical model for quantifying very low frequency (0.01-0.1 Hz) Rayleigh waves generated by a tsunami.by Srinivasan Jagannathan.Ph.D