Comparison of pilot effective time delay for cockpit controllers used on space shuttle and conventional aircraft

A study was conducted at the Dryden Flight Research Facility of NASA Ames Research Center (Ames-Dryden) to compare pilot effective time delay for the space shuttle rotational hand controller with that for conventional stick controllers. The space shuttle controller has three degrees of freedom and nonlinear gearing. The conventional stick has two degrees of freedom and linear gearing. Two spring constants were used, allowing the conventional stick to be evaluated in both a light and a heavy configuration. Pilot effective time delay was obtained separately for pitch and roll through first-order, closed-loop, compensatory tracking tasks. The tasks were implemented through the space shuttle cockpit simulator and a critical task tester device. A total of 900 data runs were made using four test pilots and one nonpilot (engineer) for two system delays in pitch and roll modes. Results showed that the heavier conventional control stick had the lowest pilot effective time delays. The light conventional control stick had pilot effective time delays similar to those of the shuttle controller. All configurations showed an increase in pilot effective time delay with an increase in total system delay

Measurements of Pilot Time Delay as Influenced by Controller Characteristics and Vehicles Time Delays

A study to measure and compare pilot time delay when using a space shuttle rotational hand controller and a more conventional control stick was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center's Dryden Flight Research Facility. The space shuttle controller has a palm pivot in the pitch axis. The more conventional controller used was a general-purpose engineering simulator stick that has a pivot length between that of a typical aircraft center stick and a sidestick. Measurements of the pilot's effective time delay were obtained through a first-order, closed-loop, compensatory tracking task in pitch. The tasks were implemented through a space shuttle cockpit simulator and a critical task tester device. The study consisted of 450 data runs with four test pilots and one nonpilot, and used three control stick configurations and two system delays. Results showed that the heavier conventional stick had the lowest pilot effective time delays associated with it, whereas the shuttle and light conventional sticks each had similar higher pilot time delay characteristics. It was also determined that each control stick showed an increase in pilot time delay when the total system delay was increased

Separating the regular and irregular energy levels and their statistics in Hamiltonian system with mixed classical dynamics

We look at the high-lying eigenstates (from the 10,001st to the 13,000th) in the Robnik billiard (defined as a quadratic conformal map of the unit disk) with the shape parameter $\lambda=0.15$. All the 3,000 eigenstates have been numerically calculated and examined in the configuration space and in the phase space which - in comparison with the classical phase space - enabled a clear cut classification of energy levels into regular and irregular. This is the first successful separation of energy levels based on purely dynamical rather than special geometrical symmetry properties. We calculate the fractional measure of regular levels as $\rho_1=0.365\pm 0.01$ which is in remarkable agreement with the classical estimate $\rho_1=0.360\pm 0.001$. This finding confirms the Percival's (1973) classification scheme, the assumption in Berry-Robnik (1984) theory and the rigorous result by Lazutkin (1981,1991). The regular levels obey the Poissonian statistics quite well whereas the irregular sequence exhibits the fractional power law level repulsion and globally Brody-like statistics with $\beta = 0.286\pm0.001$. This is due to the strong localization of irregular eigenstates in the classically chaotic regions. Therefore in the entire spectrum we see that the Berry-Robnik regime is not yet fully established so that the level spacing distribution is correctly captured by the Berry-Robnik-Brody distribution (Prosen and Robnik 1994).Comment: 20 pages, file in plain LaTeX, 7 figures upon request submitted to J. Phys. A. Math. Gen. in December 199

Dephasing in matter-wave interferometry

We review different attempts to show the decoherence process in double-slit-like experiments both for charged particles (electrons) and neutral particles with permanent dipole moments. Interference is studied when electrons or atomic systems are coupled to classical or quantum electromagnetic fields. The interaction between the particles and time-dependent fields induces a time-varying Aharonov phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be almost as large as the corresponding one for coherent electrons and therefore, be observed. We analyze different trajectories in order to show the dependence of the decoherence factor with the velocity of the particles.Comment: 9 pages, 1 eps-figure. To appear in J. Phys. A: Math. Ge

On the Nonparametric Identification of Nonlinear Simultaneous Equations Models: Comment on B. Brown (1983) and Roehrig (1988)

This note revisits the identification theorems of B. Brown (1983) and Roehrig (1988). We describe an error in the proofs of the main identification theorems in these papers, and provide an important counterexample to the theorems on the identification of the reduced form. Specifically, contrary to the theorems, the reduced form of a nonseparable simultaneous equations model is not identified even under the assumptions of those papers. We conclude the note with a conjecture that it may be possible to use classical exclusion restrictions to recover some of the key implications of the theorems

Chaos and its quantization in dynamical Jahn-Teller systems

We investigate the $E_g \otimes e_g$ Jahn-Teller system for the purpose to reveal the nature of quantum chaos in crystals. This system simulates the interaction between the nuclear vibrational modes and the electronic motion in non-Kramers doublets for multiplets of transition-metal ions. Inclusion of the anharmonic potential due to the trigonal symmetry in crystals makes the system nonintegrable and chaotic. Besides the quantal analysis of the transition from Poisson to Wigner level statistics with increasing the strength of anharmonicity, we study the effect of chaos on the electronic orbital angular momentum and explore the magnetic $g$-factor as a function of the system's energy. The regular oscillation of this factor changes to a rapidly-decaying irregular oscillation by increasing the anharmonicity (chaoticity).Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Theory of 2δ\delta-kicked Quantum Rotors

We examine the quantum dynamics of cold atoms subjected to {\em pairs} of closely spaced $\delta$-kicks from standing waves of light, and find behaviour quite unlike the well-studied quantum kicked rotor (QKR). Recent experiments [Jones et al, {\em Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 93}, 223002 (2004)}] identified a regime of chaotic, anomalous classical diffusion. We show that the corresponding quantum phase-space has a cellular structure, arising from a unitary matrix with oscillating band-width. The corresponding eigenstates are exponentially localized, but scale with a fractional power, $L \sim \hbar^{-0.75}$, in contrast to the QKR for which $L \sim \hbar^{-1}$. The effect of inter-cell (and intra-cell) transport is investigated by studying the spectral fluctuations with both periodic as well as `open' boundary conditions.Comment: 12 pages with 14 figure

Bounds on general entropy measures

We show how to determine the maximum and minimum possible values of one measure of entropy for a given value of another measure of entropy. These maximum and minimum values are obtained for two standard forms of probability distribution (or quantum state) independent of the entropy measures, provided the entropy measures satisfy a concavity/convexity relation. These results may be applied to entropies for classical probability distributions, entropies of mixed quantum states and measures of entanglement for pure states.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, published versio

Observation of a Chiral State in a Microwave Cavity

A microwave experiment has been realized to measure the phase difference of the oscillating electric field at two points inside the cavity. The technique has been applied to a dissipative resonator which exhibits a singularity -- called exceptional point -- in its eigenvalue and eigenvector spectrum. At the singularity, two modes coalesce with a phase difference of $\pi/2 .$ We conclude that the state excited at the singularity has a definitiv chirality.Comment: RevTex 4, 5 figure

Regular and Irregular States in Generic Systems

In this work we present the results of a numerical and semiclassical analysis of high lying states in a Hamiltonian system, whose classical mechanics is of a generic, mixed type, where the energy surface is split into regions of regular and chaotic motion. As predicted by the principle of uniform semiclassical condensation (PUSC), when the effective $\hbar$ tends to 0, each state can be classified as regular or irregular. We were able to semiclassically reproduce individual regular states by the EBK torus quantization, for which we devise a new approach, while for the irregular ones we found the semiclassical prediction of their autocorrelation function, in a good agreement with numerics. We also looked at the low lying states to better understand the onset of semiclassical behaviour.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures (as .GIF files), high quality figures available upon reques