System architectures for telerobotic research

Several activities are performed related to the definition and creation of telerobotic systems. The effort and investment required to create architectures for these complex systems can be enormous; however, the magnitude of process can be reduced if structured design techniques are applied. A number of informal methodologies supporting certain aspects of the design process are available. More recently, prototypes of integrated tools supporting all phases of system design from requirements analysis to code generation and hardware layout have begun to appear. Activities related to system architecture of telerobots are described, including current activities which are designed to provide a methodology for the comparison and quantitative analysis of alternative system architectures

Mission and sampling analyses for atmospheric satellite experiments

Orbital analyses, instrument-viewing geometry studies, and sampling simulations are performed to define mission concepts for advanced atmospheric research satellite experiments. These analyses are conducted in collaboration with NASA Headquarters and working groups consisting of atmospheric scientists and experiment developers. Analytical techniques are developed and used to optimize geographical coverage, sensor-viewing geometries, data gathering strategies, sampling schemes, orbital characteristics, satellite launch times, and operational modes of the various experiments and mission concepts. Short-term (7 day) Shuttle Missions, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), and multisatellite missions such as the Earth Observing System (EOS) are being studied. Atmospheric experiments which are being analyzed include nadir-viewing sounders, limb-emission scanners, laser systems, and solar-occultation techniques

Empirical pseudopotential calculations of Cd1-xMnxTe

Empirical pseudopotential calculations for the entire range of alloy concentrations of cubic Cd(1-x)Mn(x)Te are presented. The atomic form factors have been deduced empirically by fitting the band structure to spectroscopic data available from the literature. The pseudopotential band structures indicate optical bowing may occur in the alloy Cd(1-x)Mn(x)Te and have been used to determine the effective masses of the electron and light, and heavy holes, which for CdTe are in agreement with accepted values. The effective masses for Cd(1-x)Mn(x)Te are given for the first time, acid are expressed as first- and second-order polynomials in x. The implications of these results for spectroscopic experiments are discussed. © 1996 American Institute of Physics

Safer typing of complex API usage through Java generics

When several incompatible implementations of a single API are in use in a Java program, the danger exists that instances from different implementations may inadvertently be mixed, leading to errors. In this paper we show how to use generics to prevent such mixing. The core idea of the approach is to add a type parameter to the interfaces of the API, and tie the classes that make up an implementation to a unique choice of type parameter. In this way methods of the API can only be invoked with arguments that belong to the same implementation. We show that the presence of a type parameter in the interfaces does not violate the principle of interface-based programming: clients can still completely abstract over the choice of implementation. In addition, we demonstrate how code can be reused between different implementations, how implementations can be defined as extensions of other implementations, and how different implementations may be mixed in a controlled and safe manner. To explore the feasibility of the approach, gauge its usability, and identify any issues that may crop up in practical usage, we have refactored a fairly large existing API-based application suite, and we report on the experience gained in the process

Modelling the shear-tension coupling of woven engineering fabrics

An approach to incorporate the coupling between the shear compliance and in-plane tension of woven engineering fabrics, in finite-element-based numerical simulations, is described. The method involves the use of multiple input curves that are selectively fed into a hypoelastic constitutive model that has been developed previously for engineering fabrics. The selection process is controlled by the current value of the in-plane strain along the two fibre directions using a simple algorithm. Model parameters are determined from actual experimental data, measured using the Biaxial Bias Extension test. An iterative process involving finite element simulations of the experimental test is used to normalise the test data for use in the code. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is evaluated and shown to provide qualitatively good predictions

A hybrid boundary for the prediction of intake wave dynamics in IC engines

This paper concerns the calculation of wave dynamics in the intake systems of naturally aspirated internal combustion (I.C.) engines. In particular it presents a method for improving the boundary conditions required to solve the one-dimensional Euler equations that are commonly used to describe the wave dynamics in time and space. A number of conclusions are reached in this work. The first relates to the quasi-steady state inflow boundary specified in terms of ingoing and outgoing characteristics that is commonly adopted for engine simulation. This is correctly specified by using the pair of primitive variables pressure (p) and density (ρ) but will be unrealistic at frequencies above a Hemholtz number of 0.1 as only stagnation values po, ρo are used. For the case of I.C. engine intake simulations this sets a maximum frequency of around 300Hz. Above that frequency the results obtained will become increasingly unrealistic. Secondly, a hybrid time and frequency domain boundary has been developed and tested against linear acoustic theory. This agrees well with results obtained using a quasi-steady state boundary at low frequencies (Helmholtz number less than 0.1) and should remain realistic at higher frequencies in the range of Helmholtz number 0.1 - 1.84. Thirdly, the cyclic nature of the operation of the IC engine has been exploited to make use of the inverse Fourier transform to develop an analytical hybrid boundary that functions for non-sinusoidal waves in ducts. The method is self starting, does not rely on iterations over complete cycles and is entirely analytical and therefore is an improvement over earlier hybrid boundaries

A Method to Determine ∣Vcb∣|V_{cb}| at the Weak Scale in Top Decays at the LHC

Until now, the Cabibbo Kobayashi Maskawa matrix element, $|V_{cb}|$, has always been measured in $B$ decays, i.e.~at an energy scale $q_b\sim \frac{m_b}{2}$, far below the weak scale. We consider here the possibility of measuring it close to the weak scale, at $q_W\sim m_W$, in top decays at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our proposed method would use data from the LHC experiments in hadronic top decays $t\rightarrow bW\rightarrow b\overline{b} c$, tagged by the semileptonic decay of the associated top. We estimate the uncertainty of such a measurement, as a function of present and potential future experimental jet flavour-tagging performances, and conclude that first measurements using the data collected during 2016 - 2018 could yield a fractional error on \Vcb\ of order 7\% per experiment. We also give projected performances at higher luminosities, which could yield sensitivity to any Standard Model running of \Vcb\ below the weak scale, if present.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figures. Changes for V3: removed earlier Fig. 1, associated text and citations, added one new citatio

Satellite-derived cloud and radiation fields over the marine stratocumulus IFO

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) is the only source for nearly continuous areal coverage of clouds within the California marine stratocumulus region. The cloud parameters derived from GOES data during the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE) Marine Stratocumulus Intensive Field Observations (IFO) are summarized