56,883 research outputs found
Space photography and the exploration of Mars
A general exposition of the scientific potentialities and analytic framework of space photography is presented using the photography of Mars from flybys and orbiters as the principal example. Space photography is treated here as a communication process in which planetary scene information is communicated to the eye-brain receiver of earth-based interpreters. The salient parameters of this process are: (1) total information returned, (2) surface resolution, and (3) a priori knowledge regarding the planetary surface observed
Study of the application of perceptrons for prediction of solar flares. solar flare forecasting with a recognizing automaton final report, phase ii
Perceptrons for solar flare prediction with pattern recognition automato
Parallel resampling in the particle filter
Modern parallel computing devices, such as the graphics processing unit
(GPU), have gained significant traction in scientific and statistical
computing. They are particularly well-suited to data-parallel algorithms such
as the particle filter, or more generally Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC), which
are increasingly used in statistical inference. SMC methods carry a set of
weighted particles through repeated propagation, weighting and resampling
steps. The propagation and weighting steps are straightforward to parallelise,
as they require only independent operations on each particle. The resampling
step is more difficult, as standard schemes require a collective operation,
such as a sum, across particle weights. Focusing on this resampling step, we
analyse two alternative schemes that do not involve a collective operation
(Metropolis and rejection resamplers), and compare them to standard schemes
(multinomial, stratified and systematic resamplers). We find that, in certain
circumstances, the alternative resamplers can perform significantly faster on a
GPU, and to a lesser extent on a CPU, than the standard approaches. Moreover,
in single precision, the standard approaches are numerically biased for upwards
of hundreds of thousands of particles, while the alternatives are not. This is
particularly important given greater single- than double-precision throughput
on modern devices, and the consequent temptation to use single precision with a
greater number of particles. Finally, we provide auxiliary functions useful for
implementation, such as for the permutation of ancestry vectors to enable
in-place propagation.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure
Model reduction, centering, and the Karhunen-Loeve expansion
We propose a new computationally efficient modeling method that captures a given translation symmetry in a system. To obtain a low order approximate system of ODEs, prior to performing a Karhunen Loeve expansion, we process the available data set using a “centering” procedure. This approach has been shown to be efficient in nonlinear scalar wave equations
Patterns theory and geodesic automatic structure for a class of groups
We introduce a theory of "patterns" in order to study geodesics in a certain
class of group presentations. Using patterns we show that there does not exist
a geodesic automatic structure for certain group presentations, and that
certain group presentations are almost convex.Comment: Appeared in 2003. I am putting all my past papers on arxi
UAV as a Reliable Wingman: A Flight Demonstration
In this brief, we present the results from a flight experiment demonstrating two significant advances in software enabled control: optimization-based control using real-time trajectory generation and logical programming environments for formal analysis of control software. Our demonstration platform consisted of a human-piloted F-15 jet flying together with an autonomous T-33 jet. We describe the behavior of the system in two scenarios. In the first, nominal state communications were present and the autonomous aircraft maintained formation as the human pilot flew maneuvers. In the second, we imposed the loss of high-rate communications and demonstrated an autonomous safe “lost wingman” procedure to increase separation and reacquire contact. The flight demonstration included both a nominal formation flight component and an execution of the lost wingman scenario
J_2 Dynamics and Formation Flight
We study the dynamics of the relative motion of
satellites in the gravitational field of the Earth, including
the effects of the bulge of the Earth (the J_2
effect). Using Routh reduction and dynamical systems
ideas, a method is found that locates orbits
such that a cluster of satellites remains close with
very little dispersing, even with no controls
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