The legacy of the OPERA experiment on neutrino oscillations

The OPERA experiment has conclusively observed the appearance of tau neutrinos in the muon neutrino CNGS beam. High purity samples of νe, νµ and ντ charged current neutrino interactions, as well as neutral current interactions were isolated. Recent results obtained using the full dataset to test the three-flavor neutrino oscillation model are discussed. Constraints on the existence of a light sterile neutrino, derived using for the first time tau and electron neutrino appearance channels, are also presented. A significant fraction of the sterile neutrino parameter space allowed by LSND and MiniBooNE experiments is excluded at 90% C.L. In particular, the best-fit oscillation parameter values obtained by MiniBooNE are excluded at 3.3σ significance

Final results of the OPERA experiment on ντ appearance and the OPERA legacy

OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) was a long-baseline experiment at the INFN Gran Sasso laboratory (LNGS) designed to search for νμ → ντ oscillations in appearance mode. It took data from 2008 to 2012 with the CNGS neutrino beam from CERN. In 2015, after the detection of five ντ candidates with a signal-to-background ratio of ∼ 10, the discovery of ντ appearance in the CNGS beam was announced with 5.1σ significance. After having reached the experiment main goal, the selection of ντ candidates has been extended by loosening the selection criteria and applying a multivariate approach for events identification, in order to improve the statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the oscillation parameters and of ντ properties. Future experiments that will take advantage of the improvements done by OPERA in the use of nuclear emulsions will also be described

Noise radar technology as an interference prevention method

In some applications, such as automotive and marine/navigation, hundreds of radars may operate in a small environment (e.g., a road complex or a strait) and in an allocated frequency band with limited width. Therefore, a compatibility problem between different radars arises that is not easily solved by time, frequency, space, or polarization diversity. The advent of fast digital signal processing and signal generation techniques makes it possible to use waveform diversity to solve this problem that will be exacerbated in the next future. Ideal waveforms for the diversity are supplied by Noise Radar Technology (NRT), whose application is promising in some military applications as well as in the civilian applications considered in this paper. In addition to being orthogonal as much as possible, the random signals to be transmitted have to satisfy requirements concerning side lobe level and crest factor, calling for novel, original design and generation processes

Game Theoretic Target Assignment Strategies in Competitive Multi-Team Systems

The task of optimally assigning military ordinance to enemy targets, often termed the Weapon Target Assignment (WTA) problem, has become a major focus of modern military thought. Current formulations of this problem consider the enemy targets as either passive or entirely defensive. As a result, the assignment problem is solved purely as a one sided team optimization problem. In practice, however, especially in environments characterized by the presence of an intelligent adversary, this one sided optimization approach has very limited use. The presence of an adversary often necessitates incorporating its intended actions in the process of solving the weapons assignment problem. In this dissertation, we formulate the weapon target assignment problem in the presence of an intelligent adversary within the framework of game theory. We consider two teams of opposing units simultaneously targeting each other and examine several possible game theoretic solutions of this problem. An issue that arises when searching for any solution is the dimensionality of the search space which quickly becomes overwhelming even for simple problems with a small number of units on each side. To solve this scalability issue, we present a novel algorithm called Unit Level Team Resource Allocation (ULTRA), which is capable of generating approximate solutions by searching within appropriate subspaces of the search space. We evaluate the performance of this algorithm on several realistic simulation scenarios. We also show that this algorithm can be effectively implemented in real-time as an automatic target assigning controller in a dynamic multi-stage problem involving two teams with large number of units in conflict

Stochastic simulation techniques as related to innovation in communications-navigation-surveillance and air traffic management (CNS/ATM)

The design and operational tuning of the instruments and procedures employed in communications-navigation-surveillance (CNS) and air traffic management (ATM) often relies on stochastic simulation techniques. In this paper the application areas of simulation in the CNS/ATM context are reviewed together with the simulation methods that can help solve the main problems encountered, i.e. quick simulation techniques for the simulation of rare events, and the bootstrap technique for the evaluation of the accuracy of the results

W-band noise radar in short range applications

Noise Radar Technology (NRT) uses noise waveforms (continuous or pulsed) as a radar signal and correlation processing of the returns for their optimal reception. This paper is devoted to some possible applications of NRT in civil field, in particular to millimetre-wave radars, with comparison of the use of Noise W-band radar versus the more classical FM-CW or pulse compression solutions

Generation of pseudo-random sequences for noise radar applications

Noise Radar Technology (NRT) is nowadays a promising tool in radar systems. It is based on the transmission of waveforms composed of many noisy samples, which behave as LPI (Low Probability of Intercept) and antispoofing signals. Each noisy sequence is theoretically uncorrelated with the others. In the paper we propose a scheme to generate a “tailored” pseudo-random sequences (limited in amplitude). It will be followed by an analysis of the main performances in terms of the Peak Side Lobe Ratio (PSLR) of the autocorrelation function, cross-correlation analysis to evaluate the orthogonality, bandwidth and energy efficiency