An aircraft sensor fault tolerant system

The design of a sensor fault tolerant system which uses analytical redundancy for the Terminal Configured Vehicle (TCV) research aircraft in a Microwave Landing System (MLS) environment was studied. The fault tolerant system provides reliable estimates for aircraft position, velocity, and attitude in the presence of possible failures in navigation aid instruments and onboard sensors. The estimates, provided by the fault tolerant system, are used by the automated guidance and control system to land the aircraft along a prescribed path. Sensor failures are identified by utilizing the analytic relationship between the various sensor outputs arising from the aircraft equations of motion

FINDS: A fault inferring nonlinear detection system. User's guide

The computer program FINDS is written in FORTRAN-77, and is intended for operation on a VAX 11-780 or 11-750 super minicomputer, using the VMS operating system. The program detects, isolates, and compensates for failures in navigation aid instruments and onboard flight control and navigation sensors of a Terminal Configured Vehicle aircraft in a Microwave Landing System environment. In addition, FINDS provides sensor fault tolerant estimates for the aircraft states which are then used by an automatic guidance and control system to land the aircraft along a prescribed path. FINDS monitors for failures by evaluating all sensor outputs simultaneously using the nonlinear analytic relationships between the various sensor outputs arising from the aircraft point mass equations of motion. Hence, FINDS is an integrated sensor failure detection and isolation system

A Fault Tolerant System for an Integrated Avionics Sensor Configuration

An aircraft sensor fault tolerant system methodology for the Transport Systems Research Vehicle in a Microwave Landing System (MLS) environment is described. The fault tolerant system provides reliable estimates in the presence of possible failures both in ground-based navigation aids, and in on-board flight control and inertial sensors. Sensor failures are identified by utilizing the analytic relationships between the various sensors arising from the aircraft point mass equations of motion. The estimation and failure detection performance of the software implementation (called FINDS) of the developed system was analyzed on a nonlinear digital simulation of the research aircraft. Simulation results showing the detection performance of FINDS, using a dual redundant sensor compliment, are presented for bias, hardover, null, ramp, increased noise and scale factor failures. In general, the results show that FINDS can distinguish between normal operating sensor errors and failures while providing an excellent detection speed for bias failures in the MLS, indicated airspeed, attitude and radar altimeter sensors

Surface wave splitter based on metallic gratings with sub-wavelength aperture

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We investigated the splitting of surface electromagnetic waves trapped at the output surface of a one-dimensional metallic grating structure. The output gratings of the structure asymmetrically such that the output surfaces at the different sides of the subwavelength aperture can support surface waves at different frequencies. The transmission amplitude as measured at the left side is 1,000 times of that at the right side at 16 GHz. At 24 GHz, the transmission measured at the right side is 20 times that of the left side of the structure. Therefore, surface waves are guided into the different sides of the aperture at different frequencies via metallic gratings. The experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical results

Beaming of light and enhanced transmission via surface modes of photonic crystals

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We report beaming and enhanced transmission of electromagnetic waves by use of surface corrugated photonic crystals. The modes of a finite-size photonic crystal composed of dielectric rods in free space have been analyzed by the plane-wave expansion method. We show the existence of surface propagating modes when the surface of the finite-size photonic crystal is corrugated. We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the transmission through photonic crystal waveguides can be substantially increased by the existence of surface propagating modes at the input surface. In addition, the power emitted from the photonic crystal waveguide is confined to a narrow angular region when an appropriate surface corrugation is added to the output surface of the photonic crystal. © 2005 Optical Society of Americ

Focusing surface plasmons via changing the incident angle

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We report a circular metallic aperture with a subwavelength circular slit in the microwave regime, in which we experimentally demonstrate that this aperture can excite and focus surface plasmons. Under normal illumination, there is no focusing of the surface plasmons. However, by changing the incident angle, it is possible to focus surface plasmons. We showed that under a 20 degrees illumination angle surface plasmons focus at 4 cm away from the center on the surface of the aperture. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics

Experimental demonstration of subwavelength focusing of electromagnetic waves by labyrinth-based two-dimensional metamaterials

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We studied focusing in a two-dimensional metamaterial that was based on a labyrinth structure. We theoretically showed that the labyrinth-based metamaterial exhibits negative indices of refraction between 6 and 6.4 GlIz. We experimentally studied the focusing effect by measuring electric field intensities on the output side of the metamaterial when the source was placed in front of the input side of the metamaterial. Our experimental results showed that it is in fact possible to focus the source field with half-widths as small as lambda/4 by using the labyrinth-based metamaterial. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America

Coupling enhancement of split ring resonators on graphene

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Metallic split ring resonator (SRR) structures are used in nanophotonics applications in order to localize and enhance incident electromagnetic field. Electrically controllable sheet carrier concentration of graphene provides a platform where the resonance of the SRRs fabricated on graphene can be tuned. The reflectivity spectra of SRR arrays shift by applying gate voltage, which modulates the sheet carrier concentration, and thereby the optical conductivity of monolayer graphene. We experimentally and numerically demonstrated that the tuning range can be increased by tailoring the effective mode area of the SRR and enhancing the interaction with graphene. The tuning capability is one of the important features of graphene based tunable sensors, optical switches, and modulator applications. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Off-axis beaming from subwavelength apertures

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Photonic crystal waveguides and metallic subwavelength apertures are promising tools for light manipulation. It is possible to obtain enhanced directional beams by using these structures via coupling to surface waves. In addition, these apertures can be designed to steer such directional beams by introducing asymmetrical gratings on the output surface. In the present paper, we report directional yet off-axis beaming from subwavelength apertures at microwave frequencies. The full width at half maximum of the beam is 10 degrees while the beaming angle is 15 degrees. Our results show that it is possible to steer the beam by the appropriate modification of the output surface. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.2990063

Observation of coupled-cavity structures in metamaterials

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this letter, we investigated the transmission properties of metamaterial based coupled-cavity structures. We first calculated the effective parameters of a split-ring resonator (SRR) and composite metamaterial (CMM) structures. Subsequently, we introduced coupled-cavity structures and presented the transmission spectrum of SRR and CMM based coupled-cavity structures. The splitting of eigenmodes was observed due to the interaction between the localized electromagnetic cavity modes. Finally, the dispersion relation and normalized group velocity of the coupled-cavity structures were calculated. The maximum group velocity was found to be 100 times smaller than the speed of light in vacuum. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics