3,321 research outputs found
Vehicle infrastructure cooperative localization using Factor Graphs
Highly assisted and Autonomous Driving is dependent on the accurate localization of both the vehicle and other targets within the environment. With increasing traffic on roads and wider proliferation of low cost sensors, a vehicle-infrastructure cooperative localization scenario can provide improved performance over traditional mono-platform localization. The paper highlights the various challenges in the process and proposes a solution based on Factor Graphs which utilizes the concept of topology of vehicles. A Factor Graph represents probabilistic graphical model as a bipartite graph. It is used to add the inter-vehicle distance as constraints while localizing the vehicle. The proposed solution is easily scalable for many vehicles without increasing the execution complexity. Finally simulation indicates that incorporating the topology information as a state estimate can improve performance over the traditional Kalman Filter approac
How Far Ahead Do People Plan?
We report on a simple experiment which enables us to infer how far people plan ahead when taking decisions in a dynamic risky context. Usually economic theory assumes that people plan right to the end of the planning horizon. We find that this is true for a little over half of the subjects in the experiment, while a little under one half seem not to plan ahead at all.We report on a simple experiment which enables us to infer how far people plan ahead when taking decisions in a dynamic risky context. Usually economic theory assumes that people plan right to the end of the planning horizon. We find that this is true for a little over half of the subjects in the experiment, while a little under one half seem not to plan ahead at all.Refereed Working Papers / of international relevanc
Effects of Signal Processing and Antenna Frequency on the Geostatistical Structure of Ground-Penetrating Radar Data
Recent research has suggested that the geostatistical structure of ground-penetrating radar data may be representative of the spatial structure of hydraulic properties. However, radar images of the subsurface can change drastically with application of signal processing or by changing the signal frequency. We perform geostatistical analyses of surface radar reflection profiles in order to investigate the effects of data processing and antenna frequency on the semivariogram structure of radar reflection amplitudes. Surface radar reflection data collected at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site illustrate the processing- and antenna-dependence of radar semivariograms for a fluvial, cobble-and-sand aquifer. Compensating for signal attenuation and spreading using a gain function removes a nonstationary trend from the data and a trace-specific gain function reduces fluctuation of semivariogram values at large lags. Otherwise, geostatistical structures of surface reflection data are quite robust to the effects of data gains. Migration is observed to reduce the strength of diffraction features in the semivariogram fields and to increase the principal exponential range. Principal exponential range increases only slightly after application of migration with a realistic velocity but over-migration results in a significant artificial increase of exponential range. The geostatistical structures of radar reflection data exhibit marked dependence on antenna frequency, thus highlighting the critical importance of the scale of measurement. Specifically, the exponential ranges of radar reflection amplitudes decrease in proportion to the increased signal frequency for the 50 MHz, 100 MHz and 200 MHz range of antennas. Results demonstrate that processing and antenna frequency must be considered before the application of radar reflection data in a geostatistical context
A trap-based pulsed positron beam optimised for positronium laser spectroscopy
We describe a pulsed positron beam that is optimised for positronium (Ps) laser-spectroscopy experiments. The system is based on a two-stage Surko-type buffer gas trap that produces 4 ns wide pulses containing up to 5 × 105 positrons at a rate of 0.5-10 Hz. By implanting positrons from the trap into a suitable target material, a dilute positronium gas with an initial density of the order of 107 cm−3 is created in vacuum. This is then probed with pulsed (ns) laser systems, where various Ps-laser interactions have been observed via changes in Ps annihilation rates using a fast gamma ray detector. We demonstrate the capabilities of the apparatus and detection methodology via the observation of Rydberg positronium atoms with principal quantum numbers ranging from 11 to 22 and the Stark broadening of the n = 2 → 11 transition in electric fields
Three-dimensional track reconstruction for directional Dark Matter detection
Directional detection of Dark Matter is a promising search strategy. However,
to perform such detection, a given set of parameters has to be retrieved from
the recoiling tracks : direction, sense and position in the detector volume. In
order to optimize the track reconstruction and to fully exploit the data of
forthcoming directional detectors, we present a likelihood method dedicated to
3D track reconstruction. This new analysis method is applied to the MIMAC
detector. It requires a full simulation of track measurements in order to
compare real tracks to simulated ones. We conclude that a good spatial
resolution can be achieved, i.e. sub-mm in the anode plane and cm along the
drift axis. This opens the possibility to perform a fiducialization of
directional detectors. The angular resolution is shown to range between
20 to 80, depending on the recoil energy, which is however
enough to achieve a high significance discovery of Dark Matter. On the
contrary, we show that sense recognition capability of directional detectors
depends strongly on the recoil energy and the drift distance, with small
efficiency values (50%-70%). We suggest not to consider this information either
for exclusion or discovery of Dark Matter for recoils below 100 keV and then to
focus on axial directional data.Comment: 27 pages, 20 figure
Coulomb Corrections for Coherent Electroproduction of Vector Mesons: Eikonal Approximation
Virtual radiative corrections due to the long range Coulomb forces of heavy
nuclei with charge Z may lead to sizeable corrections to the Born cross section
usually used for lepton-nucleus scattering processes. An introduction and
presentation of the most important issues of the eikonal approximation is
given. We present calculations for forward electroproduction production of rho
mesons in a framework suggested by the VDM (vector dominance model), using the
eikonal approximation. It turns out that Coulomb corrections may become
relatively large. Some minor errors in the literature are corrected.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, published versio
Approximate treatment of electron Coulomb distortion in quasielastic (e,e') reactions
In this paper we address the adequacy of various approximate methods of
including Coulomb distortion effects in (e,e') reactions by comparing to an
exact treatment using Dirac-Coulomb distorted waves. In particular, we examine
approximate methods and analyses of (e,e') reactions developed by Traini et al.
using a high energy approximation of the distorted waves and phase shifts due
to Lenz and Rosenfelder. This approximation has been used in the separation of
longitudinal and transverse structure functions in a number of (e,e')
experiments including the newly published 208Pb(e,e') data from Saclay. We find
that the assumptions used by Traini and others are not valid for typical (e,e')
experiments on medium and heavy nuclei, and hence the extracted structure
functions based on this formalism are not reliable. We describe an improved
approximation which is also based on the high energy approximation of Lenz and
Rosenfelder and the analyses of Knoll and compare our results to the Saclay
data. At each step of our analyses we compare our approximate results to the
exact distorted wave results and can therefore quantify the errors made by our
approximations. We find that for light nuclei, we can get an excellent
treatment of Coulomb distortion effects on (e,e') reactions just by using a
good approximation to the distorted waves, but for medium and heavy nuclei
simple additional ad hoc factors need to be included. We describe an explicit
procedure for using our approximate analyses to extract so-called longitudinal
and transverse structure functions from (e,e') reactions in the quasielastic
region.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, 16 reference
Results for the response function determination of the Compact Neutron Spectrometer
The Compact Neutron Spectrometer (CNS) is a Joint European Torus (JET)
Enhancement Project, designed for fusion diagnostics in different plasma
scenarios. The CNS is based on a liquid scintillator (BC501A) which allows good
discrimination between neutron and gamma radiation. Neutron spectrometry with a
BC501A spectrometer requires the use of a reliable, fully characterized
detector. The determination of the response matrix was carried out at the Ion
Accelerator Facility (PIAF) of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB).
This facility provides several monoenergetic beams (2.5, 8, 10, 12 and 14 MeV)
and a 'white field'(Emax ~17 MeV), which allows for a full characterization of
the spectrometer in the region of interest (from ~1.5 MeV to ~17 MeV. The
energy of the incoming neutrons was determined by the time of flight method
(TOF), with time resolution in the order of 1 ns. To check the response matrix,
the measured pulse height spectra were unfolded with the code MAXED and the
resulting energy distributions were compared with those obtained from TOF. The
CNS project required modification of the PTB BC501A spectrometer design, to
replace an analog data acquisition system (NIM modules) with a digital system
developed by the 'Ente per le Nuove tecnologie, l'Energia e l'Ambiente' (ENEA).
Results for the new digital system were evaluated using new software developed
specifically for this project.Comment: Proceedings of FNDA 201
Quantum Gravity Equation In Schroedinger Form In Minisuperspace Description
We start from classical Hamiltonian constraint of general relativity to
obtain the Einstein-Hamiltonian-Jacobi equation. We obtain a time parameter
prescription demanding that geometry itself determines the time, not the matter
field, such that the time so defined being equivalent to the time that enters
into the Schroedinger equation. Without any reference to the Wheeler-DeWitt
equation and without invoking the expansion of exponent in WKB wavefunction in
powers of Planck mass, we obtain an equation for quantum gravity in
Schroedinger form containing time. We restrict ourselves to a minisuperspace
description. Unlike matter field equation our equation is equivalent to the
Wheeler-DeWitt equation in the sense that our solutions reproduce also the
wavefunction of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation provided one evaluates the
normalization constant according to the wormhole dominance proposal recently
proposed by us.Comment: 11 Pages, ReVTeX, no figur
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