40,577 research outputs found
Arkansas Small-Grain Cultivar Performance Tests 2004-2005
Small-grain cultivar performance tests are conducted each year in Arkansas by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences. The tests provide information to companies developing cultivars and/or marketing seed within the state and aid the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in formulating cultivar recommendations for smallgrain producers
Flight investigation of a vertical-velocity command system for VTOL aircraft
A flight investigation was undertaken to assess the potential benefits afforded by a vertical-velocity command system (VVCS) for VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft. This augmentation system was conceived primarily as a means of lowering pilot workload during decelerating approaches to a hover and/or landing under category III instrument meteorological conditions. The scope of the investigation included a determination of acceptable system parameters, a visual flight evaluation, and an instrument flight evaluation which employed a 10 deg, decelerating, simulated instrument approach task. The results indicated that the VVCS, which decouples the pitch and vertical degrees of freedom, provides more accurate glide-path tracking and a lower pilot workload than does the unaugmented system
Local Phonon Density of States in an Elastic Substrate
The local, eigenfunction-weighted acoustic phonon density of states (DOS)
tensor is calculated for a model substrate consisting of a semi-infinite
isotropic elastic continuum with a stress-free surface. On the surface, the
local DOS is proportional to the square of the frequency, as for the
three-dimensional Debye model, but with a constant of proportionality that is
considerably enhanced compared to the Debye value, a consequence of the
Rayleigh surface modes. The local DOS tensor at the surface is also
anisotropic, as expected. Inside the substrate the local DOS is both spatially
anisotropic and non-quadratic in frequency. However, at large depths, the local
DOS approaches the isotropic Debye value. The results are applied to a Si
substrate.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, RevTe
LED instrument approach instruction display
A display employing light emitting diodes (LED's) was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of such displays for presenting landing and navigation information to reduce the workload of general aviation pilots during IFR flight. The display consists of a paper tape reader, digital memory, control electronics, digital latches, and LED alphanumeric displays. A presentable digital countdown clock-timer is included as part of the system to provide a convenient means of monitoring time intervals for precise flight navigation. The system is a limited capability prototype assembled to test pilot reaction to such a device under simulated IFR operation. Pilot opinion indicates that the display is helpful in reducing the IFR pilots workload when used with a runway approach plate. However, the development of a compact, low power second generation display was recommended which could present several instructions simultaneously and provide information update capability. A microprocessor-based display could fulfill these requirements
Flight investigation of manual and automatic VTOL decelerating instrument approaches and landings
A flight investigation was undertaken to study the problems associated with manual and automatic control of steep, decelerating instrument approaches and landings under simulated instrument conditions. The study was conducted with a research helicopter equipped with a three-cue flight-director indicator. The scope of the investigation included variations in the flight-director control laws, glide-path angle, deceleration profile, and control response characteristics. Investigation of the automatic-control problem resulted in the first automated approach and landing to a predetermined spot ever accomplished with a helicopter. Although well-controlled approaches and landings could be performed manually with the flight-director concept, pilot comments indicated the need for a better display which would more effectively integrate command and situation information
Modeling of a Cantilever-Based Near-Field Scanning Microwave Microscope
We present a detailed modeling and characterization of our scalable microwave
nanoprobe, which is a micro-fabricated cantilever-based scanning microwave
probe with separated excitation and sensing electrodes. Using finite-element
analysis, the tip-sample interaction is modeled as small impedance changes
between the tip electrode and the ground at our working frequencies near 1GHz.
The equivalent lumped elements of the cantilever can be determined by
transmission line simulation of the matching network, which routes the
cantilever signals to 50 Ohm feed lines. In the microwave electronics, the
background common-mode signal is cancelled before the amplifier stage so that
high sensitivity (below 1 atto-Farad capacitance changes) is obtained.
Experimental characterization of the microwave probes was performed on
ion-implanted Si wafers and patterned semiconductor samples. Pure electrical or
topographical signals can be realized using different reflection modes of the
probe.Comment: 7 figure
Single-, Dual- and Triple-band Frequency Reconfigurable Antenna
The paper presents a frequency reconfigurable slot dipole antenna. The antenna is capable of being switched between single-band, dual-band or triple-band operation. The antenna incorporates three pairs of pin-diodes which are located within the dipole arms. The antenna was designed to operate at 2.4 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 5.2 GHz using the aid of CST Microwave Studio. The average measured gains are 1.54, 2.92 and 1.89 dBi for low, mid and high band respectively. A prototype was then constructed in order to verify the performance of the device. A good level of agreement was observed between simulation and measurement
RAFCON: a Graphical Tool for Task Programming and Mission Control
There are many application fields for robotic systems including service
robotics, search and rescue missions, industry and space robotics. As the
scenarios in these areas grow more and more complex, there is a high demand for
powerful tools to efficiently program heterogeneous robotic systems. Therefore,
we created RAFCON, a graphical tool to develop robotic tasks and to be used for
mission control by remotely monitoring the execution of the tasks. To define
the tasks, we use state machines which support hierarchies and concurrency.
Together with a library concept, even complex scenarios can be handled
gracefully. RAFCON supports sophisticated debugging functionality and tightly
integrates error handling and recovery mechanisms. A GUI with a powerful state
machine editor makes intuitive, visual programming and fast prototyping
possible. We demonstrated the capabilities of our tool in the SpaceBotCamp
national robotic competition, in which our mobile robot solved all exploration
and assembly challenges fully autonomously. It is therefore also a promising
tool for various RoboCup leagues.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
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