ALBERT

Description: This paper demonstrates that optical microlithography can be used to produce a crossed grating which diffracts light into multiple orders sufficient to record moire interferograms with sensitivities ranging from 2.0 to 0.285 micron/fringe. The grating profile produced by the method is analyzed to establish the diffraction efficiency in each diffraction order, and generalized expressions are given for variable sensitivity moire interferometry. Experimental tests are conducted to verify analytical arguments. In one of these tests, two different diffraction order pairs are used simultaneously to verify that surface displacement can be measured at different sensitivities.

Description: We report the use of a short-length, multimode sapphire rod as an extension to a Michelson configuration, but operated as a low-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity. We demonstrate the performance of such a device as an interferometric sensor, where the interference between the reflections from the sapphire-air interface and an air-metallic surface is observed for microdisplacement of the metallic surface which is placed close to the sapphire endface. We describe in detail the fabrication procedure and present results obtained from the detection of temperature changes, applied strain, and surface acoustic waves.

Description: Multiresponse imaging is a process that acquires A images, each with a different optical response, and reassembles them into a single image with an improved resolution that can approach 1/sq rt A times the photodetector-array sampling lattice. Our goals are to optimize the performance of this process in terms of the resolution and fidelity of the restored image and to assess the amount of information required to do so. The theoretical approach is based on the extension of both image restoration and rate-distortion theories from their traditional realm of signal processing to image processing which includes image gathering and display.

Description: Selective deposition and abrasion, as well as etching in atomic oxygen or reduced-pressure air, have been used to prepare patterned polycrystalline diamond films which, on further processing by anisotropic Si etching, yield the microstructures of such devices as flow sensors and accelerometers. Both types of sensor have been experimentally tested in the respective functions of hot-wire anemometer and both single- and double-hinged accelerometer.

Description: The ALIAS instrument is a very high resolution (0.0003/cm) scanning, tunable diode laser spectrometer designed to make direct, simultaneous measurements of NO2, HNO3, HCl, CH4, and either O3 or N2O (including vertical profiles of CH4 and N2O) in the polar stratosphere at sub-part-per-billion level sensitivities over integration times from 3 to 30 s. Unique features include a sample inlet/throttle system designed to achieve near-isokinetic sampling, in PSC events, an in-flight wavelength reference cell rack, mechanical fringe-spoilers, a four-laser/four-detector dewar with 24-hr hold-time operating at a fixed temperature without electrical regulation, and in-flight fast correlation routines for spectral drift compensation prior to spectral addition. Instrument design and test flight results are discussed in the light of ALIAS's role in the Winter 1991 Arctic aircraft stratospheric ozone campaigns out of Fairbanks, Alaska, and Bangor, Maine.

Description: Photometric imaging of ionospheric/magnetospheric O II emission at 83.4 nm is a primary objective for mapping the distribution of O(+) ions. However, instrumental sensitivity has been a major barrier to realizing this goal. We report an instrumental design employing a low focal ratio three-mirror camera where the reflecting surfaces act as both narrowband reflection filters at 83.4 nm and as a high quality imaging system. The design includes coatings with reflectances that are relatively insensitive to the angle of incidence of light. The peak reflectance per mirror is more than 60 percent at 83.4 nm with the average reflectance for out-of-band wavelengths of less than 5 percent. The net reflective transmission for the three mirrors is greater than 20 percent with 6.8 nm bandwidth and 0.01 percent maximum transmittance for out-of-band wavelengths. The transmittance at 30.4 nm is 0.03 percent at 58.4 nm 0.05 percent, and at 121.6 nm 0.004 percent. When used with an open microchannel plate detector, contamination by H Ly-alpha is essentially eliminated. With this spectral purity and effective elimination of major contributors to background contamination noise, a signal-to-noise ratio (excluding detector noise) of 10 is achievable for a 0.01 R signal in 8.8 seconds for the full 6 deg field-of-view.

Description: The characteristics of a conventional cylindrical geometry proportional counter filled with high pressure xenon gas up to 10 atm. were fundamentally investigated for use as a detector in hard X-ray astronomy. With a 2 percent methane gas mixture the energy resolutions at 10 atm. were 9.8 percent and 7.3 percent for 22 keV and 60 keV X-rays, respectively. From calculations of the Townsend ionization coefficient, it is shown that proportional counters at high pressure operate at weaker reduced electric field than low pressure counters. The characteristics of a parallel grid proportional counter at low pressure showed similar pressure dependence. It is suggested that this is the fundamental reason for the degradation of resolution observed with increasing pressure.

Description: The motion of an imaging sensor causes each imaged point of the scene to correspondingly describe a time trajectory on the image plane. The trajectories of all imaged points are reminiscent of a flow (e.g., of liquid) which is the source of the term 'optical flow'. Optical-flow ranging is a method by which the stream of two-dimensional images obtained from a forward-looking forward-moving passive sensor is used to compute depth (or range) to points in the field of view. Another well-known ranging method consists of triangulation based on stereo images obtained from at least two stationary sensors. In this paper we analyze the potential accuracies of a combined optical flow and stereo passive-ranging system in the context of helicopter nap-of-the-earth obstacle avoidance. The Cramer-Rao lower bound is developed for the combined system under the assumption of an unknown angular bias error common to both cameras of a stereo pair. It is shown that the depth accuracy degradations caused by a bias error is negligible for a combined optical-flow and stereo system as compared to a monocular optical-flow system.

Description: A simple polishing technique was developed for thinning the LaAlO3 substrates for high-quality Tc bolometer films, and thus reducing their heat capacity. A 150-ms bolometer was made on a LaAlO3 substrate with a 5-Hz D* value of 1.5 x 10 exp 8. It is shown that passive temperature stabilization is adequate for operation at the transition. There remained excess noise at the transition, but this noise appears to be of nonbolometric origin.

Description: Electrooptical sensors provide a covert way of computing range during helicopter flight. The optical flow-based computation of range provides range information only in certain distinguishable parts of the image. The regions where range information is available can be increased by performing texture analysis and object segmentation in the image. This paper reviews some of the literature on texture segmentation methods with a view towards applying them to images containing both man-made and natural objects at varying ranges. Two algorithmic approaches are given and their application to a real image is demonstrated. Results indicate that it will be necessary to combine several different texture measures and methods in a hierarchical way in order to achieve an object segmentation which is useful in enhancing range information.

Description: A He-Ne Zeeman laser has been utilized as a two-frequency light source in a Michelson-type micro-displacement fiber sensor. A polarization maintaining fiber has been installed in the sensing arm, which facilitates flexibility and allows the sensing region to be remotely located. This fiber sensing arm is arranged to replace a quarterwave plate component. The fiber sensor system has a resolution of half a micrometer.

Description: An integrated-optic Mach-Zender interferometer is used as a Fourier transform spectrometer to analyze the input and output spectra of a temperature-sensing thin-film etalon. This configuration provides a high degree of immunity to the effects of changes in the source spectrum, and it readily permits the interrogation of a number of different sensors using a single spectrometer. In addition, this system has a potentially low cost because it uses optical communications hardware that may in the future be manufactured in large quantities.

Description: An acoustic sensor useful for the determination of the composition of a gaseous binary mixture in cryogenic liquid spills has been characterized. One version of the instrument traps a known mixture of helium and nitrogen at ambient temperature in a tube which is interrogated by sonic pulses to determine the speed of sound and hence the composition. Experimental data shows that this sensor is quite accurate. The second version uses two unconfined microphones which sense sound pulses. Experimental data acquired during mixing when liquid nitrogen is poured into a vessel of gaseous helium is presented. Data during transient cooling of the tubular sensor containing nitrogen when the sensor is dipped into liquid nitrogen and during transient warm-up when the sensor is withdrawn are also presented. This sensor is being developed for use in the mixing of liquid cryogens with gas evolution in the simulation of liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen explosion hazards.

Description: An upgraded version of AVIRIS, an airborne imaging spectrometer based on a whiskbroom-type scanner coupled via optical fibers to four dispersive spectrometers, that has been in operation since 1987 is described. Emphasis is placed on specific AVIRIS subsystems including foreoptics, fiber optics, and an in-flight reference source; spectrometers and detector dewars; a scan drive mechanism; a signal chain; digital electronics; a tape recorder; calibration systems; and ground support requirements.

Description: Space-based interferometers and large segmented reflectors will require precision metrology with nanometer accuracy for active control systems. This paper summarizes an experimental study of an optical heterodyne interferometer with resolution of about 3 nm. Optical signals are carried to and from the interferometer by optical fibers to avoid thermally loading the reflector panels. Heterodyne detection provides far greater precision than does traditional interferometry.

Description: This paper estimates the upper and lower bounds of the frame noise of a linear detector array that uses a one-dimensional scan pattern. Using chi-square distribution, it is analytically shown why it is necessary to use the average of the variances and not the average of the standard deviations to estimate these bounds. Also, a criteria for determining whether any excessively noisy lines exist among the detectors is derived from these bounds. Using a Gaussian standard random variable generator, these bounds are demonstrated to be accurate within the specified confidence interval. A silicon detector array is then used for actual dark current measurements. The criterion developed for determination of noisy detectors is checked on the experimentally obtained data.

Description: The Far Infrared Limb Observing Spectrometer (FILOS) is an instrument designed to measure chemical species in the upper atmosphere using limb emission in the far infrared region of the spectrum. FILOS uses three Fabry-Perot etalons in series to obtain a resolution of 0.0017/cm near 101/cm (99 microns). The instrumental concept and atmospheric measurements are discussed.

Description: Following its first flight on board the Space Shuttle 'Challenger' as part of the Spacelab 3 payload, the Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) instrument has been operated at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Table Mountain Observatory (TMO; 34.4 deg N, 117.7 deg W, 2.23 km altitude) in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California. With the delay in the resumption of regular Shuttle flights, ATMOS has acquired a large number of high-quality, high-resolution infrared solar absorption spectra, spanning a period between late-1985 and mid-1990. These spectra are being analyzed to derive the column abundances of several atmospheric species including O3, HCl, HF, and HNO3. Although limited in temporal coverage, the preliminary results for these gases are discussed here in the context of the requirement and contribution to be made by similar instruments in detecting long term changes in stratospheric composition.

Description: We present an assessment of the trend detection capabilities of ground-based microwave measurements of ozone, focusing on the 20-60 km region. Uncertainty due to variable forward model and calibration errors is 3-5 percent; due to temperature profile errors, 1-2 percent; and due to spectral measurement errors, 1-3 percent. The measurement resolution is 8-10 km below 40 km, and increases to 17 km at 60 km. The net error for trend detection is 4-6 percent. Comparison with other measurements suggests interannual variations can be measured to 3-5 percent. We conclude a trend of 0.5 percent per year would be detected in about 10 years.

Description: Attention is given to a ground-based differential absorption lidar system developed and operated at the JPL Table Mountain Facility for measurements of stratospheric ozone concentration profiles from approximately 15 to 20 km altitude. The seasonal variations observed between February 1988 and late 1990 are presented as a function of altitude. For the summer 1989 Stratospheric Ozone Intercomparison Campaign, the lidar measurements were found to agree with the average of the results obtained from seven different instruments over a 14-d period to within 5 percent over the altitude range 18 to 49 km. The status of this instrument is discussed, with emphasis on areas of improvement over the present system.

Description: The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) scanning radiometers were used to measure the earth's radiation fields during the period November 1984 through February 1990. The ERBE radiometric packages were placed into orbit aboard the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and the NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 spacecraft platforms. In each radiometric package, thermistor bolometers were used as detection elements for the broadband total (0,2 - 50,0 microns), shortwave (0,2 - 5,0 microns), and longwave (5,0 - 50,0 microns) spectral regions. Flight calibration facilities were built into each of the spacecraft radiometric packages. The flight facilities consisted of black bodies, tungsten lamps, and silicon photodiodes. The black bodies and tungsten lamps were found to be reliable at precision levels approaching 0,5 percent over a five-year period. The photodiodes were found to degrade more than 2 percent during the first year in orbit. In this paper, the flight calibration systems for the ERBE scanning radiometers are described along with the resultant measurements.

Description: Researchers at the NASA Langley Research Center are applying laser velocimetry (LV) techniques to characterize the fluid dynamics of non-isothermal flows inside fused silica chambers designed for chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Experimental issues involved in the application of LV techniques to this task include thermophoretic effects on the LV seed particles, seeding the hazardous gases, index of refraction gradients in the flow field and surrounding media, optical access, relatively low flow velocities, and analysis and presentation of sparse data. An overview of the practical difficulties these issues represent to the use of laser velocimetry instrumentation for CVD applications is given. A fundamental limitation on the application of LV techniques in non-isothermal systems is addressed which involves a measurement bias due to the presence of thermal gradients. This bias results from thermophoretic effects which cause seed particle trajectories to deviate from gas streamlines. Data from a research CVD reactor are presented which indicate that current models for the interaction of forces such as Stokes drag, inertia, gravity, and thermophoresis are not adequate to predict thermophoretic effects on particle-based velocimetry measurements in arbitrary flow configurations.

Description: Laser anemometry in unseeded flows based on the measurement of the spectrum of Rayleigh scattered laser light is reviewed. The use of molecular scattering avoids the well-known problems (particle lag, biasing effects, seed generation, seed injection) of seeded flows. The fundamental limits on velocity measurement accuracy are determined using maximum likelihood methods. Measurement of the Rayleigh spectrum with scanning Fabry-Perot interferometers is analyzed and accuracy limits are established for both single pass and multi-pass configurations. Multi-pass configurations have much higher selectivity and are needed for measurements where there is a large amount of excess noise caused by stray laser light. It is shown that Rayleigh scattering is particularly useful for supersonic and hypersonic flows. The results of the analysis are compared with measurements obtained with a Rayleigh scattering diagnostic developed for study of the exhaust plume of a small hydrogen-oxygen rocket, where the velocities are in the range 1000 to 5000 m/sec.

Description: In the Young's fringe approach to particle image velocimetry, random particle motions cause loss of fringe visibility by decorrelating the coherent interexposure particle separations responsible for fringe formation. Since the visibility reduction is determined by the random motion through a Fourier transform relation analogous to the Van Cittert Zernike Theorem, it has been proposed that the random motion can be characterized statistically by analyzing fringe visibility distributions in the transform plane. This paper assesses the accuracy of such measurements. In particular, the effects of finite particle population and of correlated random motion are evaluated. The theory applies to diffusive motion, turbulence, and to random motion caused by mean velocity inhomogeneities.

Description: Electronic Particle Image Velocimetric (PIV) techniques offer many advantages over conventional photographic PIV methods such as fast turn around times and simplified data reduction. A new all electronic PIV technique was developed which can measure high speed gas velocities. The Particle Displacement Tracking (PDT) technique employs a single CW laser, small seed particles (1 micron), and a single intensified, gated CCD array frame camera to provide a simple and fast method of obtaining two-dimensional velocity vector maps with unambiguous direction determination. Use of a single CCD camera eliminates registration difficulties encountered when multiple cameras are used to obtain velocity magnitude and direction information. An 80386 PC equipped with a large memory buffer frame-grabber board provides all of the data acquisition and data reduction operations. No array processors of other numerical processing hardware are required. Full video resolution (640 x 480 pixel) is maintained in the acquired images, providing high resolution video frames of the recorded particle images. The time between data acquisition to display of the velocity vector map is less than 40 sec. The new electronic PDT technique is demonstrated on an air nozzle flow with velocities less than 150 m/s.

Description: A new laser velocimetry technique, Doppler global velocimetry, is described. This technique is capable of simultaneously measuring in real time the three components of velocity of an entire particle field illuminated by a laser light sheet. A prototype one-component velocimeter is described along with the signal processing electronics. The system was tested by measuring the velocity field from a rotating wheel and a small subsonic jet flow in the laboratory. The first wind tunnel test measured the vortical velocity field above a delta wing. The results are presented and compared with fringe-type laser velocimeter and five-hole probe data.

Description: A new analysis technique, performed totally in the image plane, is proposed which rapidly extracts all available vectors from individual interrogation regions on PIV photographs. The technique avoids the need for using Fourier transforms with the associated computational burden. The data acquisition and analysis procedure is described, and results of a preliminary simulation study to evaluate the accuracy of the technique are presented. Recently obtained PIV photographs are analyzed.

Description: The Surface Tension Driven Convection Experiment (STDCE) is a Space Transportation System flight experiment to study both transient and steady thermocapillary fluid flows aboard the USML-1 Spacelab mission planned for 1992. One of the components of data collected during the experiment is a video record of the flow field. This qualitative data is then quantified using an all electronic, two-dimensional particle image velocimetry technique called particle displacement tracking (PDT) which uses a simple space domain particle tracking algorithm. The PDT system is successful in producing velocity vector fields from the raw video data. Application of the PDT technique to a sample data set yielded 1606 vectors in 30 seconds of processing time. A bottom viewing optical arrangement is used to image the illuminated plane, which causes keystone distortion in the final recorded image. A coordinate transformation was incorporated into the system software to correct this viewing angle distortion. PDT processing produced 1.8 percent false identifications, due to random particle locations. A highly successful routine for removing the false identifications was also incorporated, reducing the number of false identifications to 0.2 percent.

Description: Time-averaged and fluctuating quantities are measured in a free turbulent swirling jet. Data from a two-component laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) are compared to the measurements via hot-wire and 5-hole pitot probes. To acquire the proper seeding density near the axis of a swirling jet for LDA measurements proved difficult. This is due to an imbalance of the centrifugal force and radial pressure gradient, which throws the seeding material off the axis. Despite this problem, close agreement between various measurement techniques is obtained.

Description: A new technique for improving the accuracy of radiance calibrations for large-area integrating-sphere sources has been investigated. Such sources are used to calibrate numerous aircraft and spacecraft remote sensing instruments. Recent measurements performed at NIST and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have demonstrated that the uncertainty of sphere-source radiance measurements can be improved from the present 5 to 10 percent level to a 1 to 2 percent level. Silicon detectors with bandpass filters mounted in front of them and calibrated for absolute spectral responsivity can be used to confirm and to monitor the absolute radiance of a sphere source.

Description: Four major areas of interest with respect to utilizing strain gages on carbon/carbon (with SiC surfaces) and titanium matrix composites are addressed. Strain gage and adhesive combinations on carbon/carbon (C/C) at temperatures from minus 190 C to 540 C, half-bridge gaging for reducing apparent strain on C/C using Poisson's ratio and bending configurations, review of the 'field installation' techniques developed for gaging a C/C hypersonic generic elevon, and results of initial strain gaging efforts on titanium matrix composites are discussed. Current research in developing techniques for increasing the maximum temperature for strain gages on carbon/carbon are reviewed.

Description: Flow visualization techniques are reviewed, with particular attention given to those applicable to liquid helium flows. Three techniques capable of obtaining qualitative and quantitative measurements of complex 3D flow fields are discussed including focusing schlieren, particle image volocimetry, and holocinematography (HCV). It is concluded that the HCV appears to be uniquely capable of obtaining full time-varying, 3D velocity field data, but is limited to the low speeds typical of liquid helium facilities.

Description: The present study illustrates the inflatable sphere's capability to produce accurate temperatures up to 85 km and higher, given that the necessary reduction initialization conditions are met. At heights below 60 km, comparison of sphere temperatures with in situ thermistor measurements obtained close in space and time shows good agreement. Comparison with OH-radical rotational temperatures also confirms excellent agreement at 86 km. It is concluded that the sphere technique is an independent and highly accurate source of temperature measurement, is unique in being the only low-cost source of in situ measurement of temperature throughout the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, and qualifies as an intrinsic method to establish the accuracy of other atmosphere measurement systems.

Description: An error analysis is presented for the image reconstruction algorithm currently employed by the electronically steered thinned array radiometer aircraft instrument. This instrument samples components of the Fourier transform of the brightness temperature distribution at 1.4 GHz. Sources of error are identified, including systematic offsets and stochastic noise in the measurements, errors in the interference pattern antenna calibration, multipath scattering from the antenna support structure, mutual coupling between nearby array elements, and variations in the antenna patterns of the array elements. These errors are shown to produce artifacts in the image which appear as 'streaks' running along the instrument flight line. Possible hardware corrections are discussed. These include a reduction in the profile of the antenna support structure and a decoupling of adjacent and other nearby array elements using corrugated 'skirts'. Also discussed are several image enhancement techniques which detect and correct for some of the streaking. These techniques include a renormalization of the interference patterns based on the measured element patterns, a perturbation based interpretation of image contrast, and a covariance analysis of noise present in the image.

Description: Design of a distributed holographic interferometric sensor for measuring the surface displacement of a large segmented reflector is proposed. The reflector's surface is illuminated by laser light of two wavelengths and volume holographic gratings are formed in photorefractive crystals of the wavefront returned from the surface. The sensor is based on holographic contouring with a multiple frequency source. It is shown that the most stringent requirement of temporal stability affects both the temporal resolution and the dynamic range. Principal factor which limit the sensor performance include the response time of photorefractive crystal, laser power required to write a hologram, and the size of photorefractive crystal.

Description: The present electrical strain gage for high temperature static strain measurements is in its fine-wire and thin-film forms designed to be temperature-compensated on any substrate material. The gage element is of Pd-Cr alloy, while the compensator is of Pt. Because the thermally-induced apparent strain of this compensated wire strain gage is sufficiently small, with good reproducibility between thermal cycles to 800 C, output figures can be corrected within a reasonable margin of error.

Description: Thin-film heat-flux sensors have been constructed in the form of arrays of thermocouples on upper and lower surfaces of an insulating layer, so that flux values are proportional to the temperature difference across the upper and lower surface of the insulation material. The sensor thermocouples are connected in thermopile arrangement, and the structure is patterned with photolithographic techniques. Both chromel-alumel and Pt-Pt/Rh thermocouples have been devised; the later produced 28 microvolts when exposed to the radiation of a 1000 C furnace.

Description: A magnetic tape recorder developed for the special requirements of radio astronomy and geodesy is described. These requirements include a high bit packing density and long record times. The current version of this longitudinal recorder used by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) records 5.5 Terabits on a 14-in diameter reel of inch-wide tape. A maximum record rate of 256 Mb/s is achieved in the VLBA configuration with one recorder operating at 4 ms and utilizing 32 of the heads in a single stack. The VLBA recorders have been tested using a longitudinal density of 2.25 fr/micron; 448 data + 56 system tracks are recorded in 14 passes, each lasting 50 min, for a total record time (at 128 Mb/s) of 12 h on 14-in diameter reel of inch-wide 13-microns-thick D1-equivalent tape.

Description: A slow positron flux generator for positron annihilation spectroscopic measurements in thin polymer films is described. The advantages of this generator include operability at room temperature and atmospheric pressure without special test film preparaton requirements.

Description: A planar Mie scattering technique is described which allows for the direct visualization of fluid mixing in supersonic flows. The mixed fluid is visualized by laser light sheet scattering from small alcohol droplets which condense as a result of the mixing of a vapor laden subsonic stream with a cold supersonic stream. Issues related to the formation, growth and size of the droplets are addressed. The technique reveals details of the turbulent structure which are masked by the spatial integration of schlieren and shadowgraph methods. Comparative visualizations using the vapor screen method to uniformly mark the high-speed fluid are also shown.

Description: A calorimetric measurement technique developed for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) transmitters that does not require data on the coolant's thermal parameters is described. Calibration of the measurement system is achieved by measuring the DC input power to the klystron and relating coolant temperature increases to this known power dissipation. Agreement between calorimetric and electrical measurements of total system power was good, the difference being less than 2 percent. The operation of the system was not greatly affected by the composition of the coolant, which was varied from pure water to 40 percent ethylene glycol by mass. Good accuracy was also shown at output power levels, which varied over a 3.6:1 range.

Description: Dynamic edge warping (DEW), a technique for recovering reasonably accurate disparity maps from uncalibrated stereo image pairs, is presented. No precise knowledge of the epipolar camera geometry is assumed. The technique is embedded in a system including structural stereopsis on the front end and robust estimation in digital photogrammetry on the other for the purpose of self-calibrating stereo image pairs. Once the relative camera orientation is known, the epipolar geometry is computed and the system can use this information to refine its representation of the object space. Such a system will find application in the autonomous extraction of terrain maps from stereo aerial photographs, for which camera position and orientation are unknown a priori, and for online autonomous calibration maintenance for robotic vision applications, in which the cameras are subject to vibration and other physical disturbances after calibration. This work thus forms a component of an intelligent system that begins with a pair of images and, having only vague knowledge of the conditions under which they were acquired, produces an accurate, dense, relative depth map. The resulting disparity map can also be used directly in some high-level applications involving qualitative scene analysis, spatial reasoning, and perceptual organization of the object space. The system as a whole substitutes high-level information and constraints for precise geometric knowledge in driving and constraining the early correspondence process.

Description: A long-range laser velocimeter (LV) developed for remote operation from within the flow fields of large wind tunnels is described. Emphasis is placed on recent improvements in optical hardware as well as recent additions to data acquisition and processing techniques. The method used for data reduction of photon resolved signals is outlined in detail, and measurement accuracy is discussed. To study the performance of the LV and verify the measurement accuracy, laboratory measurements were made in the flow field of a 10-cm-diameter, 30-m/s axisymetric jet. The measured velocity and turbulence intensity surveys are compared with measurements made with a hot-wire anemometer. Additionally, the LV was used during the flow calibration of the 80-ft x 120-ft wind tunnel to measure the test-section boundary-layer thickness at the maximum wind tunnel speed of 51.5 m/s. The requirements and techniques used to seed the flow are discussed, and boundary-layer surveys of mean velocity and turbulence intensity of the streamwise component and the component normal to the surface are presented. The streamwise component of mean velocity is compared with data obtained with a total pressure rake.

Description: Novel, shear stress-sensitive/temperature-insensitive liquid crystal coatings have been applied to the surface of an oscillating airfoil in order to ascertain the unsteady fluid physics associated with the dynamic-stall process. Surface microtufts and laser sheet/smoke-particle flow visualization were used to compare the liquid-crystal results. Boundary-layer transition and turbulent separation locations were measured as a function of geometric angle of attack. The results obtained are compared with Eppler (1980) aerodynamic design code predictions.

Description: A new SiGe/Si heterojunction internal photoemission (HIP) long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) detector has been fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The detection mechanism of the SiGe/Si HIP detector is infrared absorption in the degenerately doped p+-SiGe layer followed by internal photoemission of photoexcited holes over a heterojunction barrier. By adjusting the Ge concentration in the SiGe layer, and, consequently, the valence band offset between SiGe and Si, the cutoff wavelength of SiGe HIP detectors can be extended into the LWIR (8-17-micron) regime. Detectors were fabricated by growing p+-SiGe layers using MBE on patterned p-type Si substrates. The SiGe layers were boron-doped, with concentrations ranging from 10 to the 19th/cu cm to 4 x 10 to the 20th/cu cm. Infrared absorption of 5-25 percent in a 30-nm-thick p+-SiGe layer was measured in the 3-20-micron range using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Quantum efficiencies of 3-5 percent have been obtained from test devices in the 8-12-micron range.

Description: Pattern measurements at 802GHz of a single element in 256-element integrated horn imaging array are presented. The integrated-horn antenna consists of a dipole-antenna suspended on a 1-micron dielectric membrane inside a pyramidal cavity etched in silicon. The theoretical far-field patterns, calculated using reciprocity and Floquet-modes representation of the free-space field, agree well with the measured far-field patterns at 802GHz. The associated directivity for a 1.40 lambda horn aperture, calculated from the measured E and H-plane patterns is 12.3dB + or - 0.2dB. This work demonstrates that high-efficiency integrated-horn antennas are easily scalable to terahertz frequencies and could be used for radio-astronomical and plasma-diagnostic applications.

Description: An airborne C-band scatterometer system (C-Scat) has been developed to remotely sense ocean surface winds and improve upon the present understanding of the relationship between normalized radar cross section (NRCS) and ocean surface roughness influences such as wind speed and direction, wave height and slope, and the air-sea temperature difference. The scatterometer utilizes a unique frequency-steered microstrip array antenna that is installed beneath the fuselage of an airplane. The antenna is electronically scanned in elevation, from 20 deg to 50 deg off-nadir, and mechanically spins in azimuth. The system is capable of measuring ocean surface NRCS from altitudes as high as 25,000 ft. The transmitter and receiver operate from 4.98 to 5.7 GHz. System parameters such as transmitter pulse width, pulse repetition frequency, output power level, and receiver bandwidth are programmable. Received signals can be averaged and displayed in real time and are stored on a Winchester disk drive for post-flight analysis. Preliminary flight data that demonstrates the instrument's performance is presented.

Description: The paper describes the use of extended edge features as a source of primitives for structural stereopsis and considers the design of a system for autonomous camera calibration. It is shown that the structural approach permits greater use of spatial relational constraints, eliminating the coarse-to-fine tracking of point-based algorithms. Experimental results concerning matching and calibration on real images using Laplacian-of-Gaussian contour fragments as primitives in structural stereopsis are presented, and results in graph-theoretic representation and inexact matches, analytical photogrammetry, and other computer vision and image analysis problem domains are examined. Such a system might be used in aerial photogrammetry and cartography, and robotic vision systems; however, the system is still very much under development.

Description: Calibration devices for the Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe (FSSP) and the Optical Array Probe (OAP) were developed. The device used with the FSSP is a rotating pinhole calibrator. It utilizes light diffracted by a pinhole of a known diameter to simulate scattered light from a water droplet. This device can be used to calibrate the FSSP, measure the FSSP's optical collection angles and for instrument alignment and troubleshooting. The device used with the OAP is a rotating reticle calibrator. Chrome disks of a known diameter on the reticle are used for calibration of the OAP and for determining the OAP's response to out-of-focus particles in the probe volume.

Description: The extreme sensitivity of electron tunneling to variations in electrode separation has been used to construct a novel, compact displacement transducer. Electrostatic forces are used to control the separation between the tunneling electrodes, thereby eliminating the need for piezoelectric actuators. The entire structure is composed of micromachined silicon single crystals, including a folded cantilever spring and a tip. Measurements of displacement sensitivity and noise are reported. This device offers a substantial improvement over conventional technology for applications which require compact, highly sensitive transducers.

Description: A technique for measuring ultrasonic velocity was used to monitor changes that occur during processing and heat treatment of a SiC/RBSM composite. Results indicated that correlations exist between the ultrasonic velocity data and elastic modulus and interfacial shear strength data determined from mechanical tests. The ultrasonic velocity data can differentiate strength. The advantages and potential of this nondestructive evaluation method for fiber reinfoced ceramic matrix composite applications are discussed.

Description: A simplified algorithm is derived for retrieving wind vectors from microwave scatterometer observations. The azimuthal dependence of the sea-surface radar cross section is modeled by a double-cosine function, rather than the traditional second-order cosine expansion. The algorithm is tested using the aircraft scatterometer observations obtained during the AAFE-RADSCAT Experiment in 1975 and 1976. There is little difference between the performance of the simplified algorithm and the more involved least-squares searching algorithm. The AAFE-RADSCAT aircraft observations are sampled so as to simulate the three-look satellite scatterometer NSCAT that will be launched on the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite. The results of the retrievals indicate that it is probably not possible to uniquely determine the wind direction using just NSCAT observations because of a 180 degree ambiguity. However, if forecast models can predict the wind direction to an accuracy of +/- 90 deg, thereby eliminating the ambiguity, then the results indicate that NSCAT can determine the wind direction to an accuracy of about +/- 20 deg. Better performance is obtained when the three observations are the same polarization (either v-pol or h-pol), as compared to using a mix of v-pol and h-pol observations.

Description: The validity of the 2 x 2 receive R and transmit T model for radar polarimeter systems, first proposed by Zebker et al. (1987), is questioned. The model is found to be invalid for many practical realizations of radar polarimeters, which can lead to significant errors in the calibration of polarimetric radar images. A more general model is put forward, which addresses the system defects which cause the 2 x 2 model to break down. By measuring one simple parameter from a polarimetric active radar calibration (PARC), it is possible to transform the scattering matrix measurements made by a radar polarimeter to a format compatible with a 2 x 2 R and T matrix model. Alternatively, the PARC can be used to verify the validity of the 2 x 2 model for any polarimetric radar system. Recommendations for the use of PARCs in polarimetric calibration and to measure the orientation angle of the horizontal (H) and vertical (V) coordinate system are also presented.

Description: A novel monolithic power meter has been developed for submillimeter-wave applications (100 GHz to 10 THz). The detector is a large-area bismuth bolometer integrated on a 1.2-micron-thick dielectric membrane. This approach results in a wide-band, high-responsivity detector. The power meter is simple to fabricate, is inexpensive, and can be easily calibrated using a low-frequency network. Quasi-optical measurements at 90, 140, and 240 GHz show that the bolometer is polarization-independent and could be modeled by a simple transmission line model. Absolute power measurements at 90, 140, and 240 GHz show a + or - 5 percent accuracy and agree well with a calibrated Anritsu power meter at 90 GHz. Potential application areas are power calibration, antenna coupling efficiency measurements, and absolute power measurements from solid-state devices and far-infrared lasers at submillimeter wavelengths. Absolute output power measurements on a 220-280 GHz tripler using the quasi-optical power meter are presented as an application example.

Description: A theoretical analysis of standing waves in a pipe with flow was conducted aimed toward the development of a flowmeter based on a measurement of phase difference between two points on the circumference of a pipe separated axially by an integral multiple of half sound wavelength. Effects of nonzero Mach number, variable ratios of upstream and downstream running waves, choice of location of the sensing pressure taps, and the incorrect spacings were examined numerically. Calculations were also made for steam flow where the maximum Mach number is much smaller than in cold air flows. For an industrial application where steam flow velocities are below 50 m/s, a very accurate sensor is shown to be possible. Experimental data were obtained by using an active aeroacoustic source over the range of 50 m/s to zero in an air flow. Experimental phase plots obtained from several coast-down tests have been compared with analytical results. The agreement with theory is excellent when the spacings are near N(lambda)/2 and the sensing locations are near the pressure antinodes. Otherwise, some zero shifts are introduced. Theory predicts that for steam flow much better results can be expected because the maximum Mach number is much smaller. Effects due to the (1-M-squared) factor would be imperceptible for steam flow.

Description: Attention is given to a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) technique in which one of the etalon plates is moved over a large optical distance while the other remains fixed, thus exploiting the multiplex advantage of the instrument. This technique involves the application of Fourier-transform spectrometer to the multiple harmonics passing through the FPI etalon. It is shown that the multiplex FPI acts as several Michelson interferometers working at the same time, over the same spectral interval, and at different spectral resolutions. A high spectral resolution has been obtained over a large wavenumber interval, while the advantage of a reasonable scan length has been retained.

Description: A high-speed method was developed to compress the two-dimensional angular distribution of space particles gathered by space plasma instrumentation into the angle distribution, where the pitch angle is polar angle with respect to the ambient magnetic field. The pitch angle sorter can handle rates of up to 2 MHz and it is designed to accommodate high angular resolution plasma analyzers that are placed on a rotating spacecraft. This compression is achieved by relying on digitally encoded lookup tables to eliminate all arithmetic operations while applying the high symmetry of this compression to reduce the amount of digital memory.

Description: A concept is developed and described which allows to measure the heat capacity and the effective thermal conductivity of stable and undercooled liquid metals and alloys in an electromagnetic levitation apparatus. A proposal is made to use an ac pulse heating method which is used nowadays as a standard technique for precision measurement of low-temperature heat capacities. The ideal process parameters, including the drop diameter D, temperature T, and frequency of measurement omega, can be optimized when the following relations hold for the external and internal relaxation time constants tau-1 and tau-2, respectively: omega(tau-1) greater than 10 and omega(tau-2) less than 0.1. Then, heat capacity data can be obtained with an accuracy of better than 1 percent with D about 5 to 10 mm, T between 1200 and 1800 K, and omega between 0.1 and 1 Hz for typical metals and alloys.

Description: Line-of-sight measurements of velocity, temperature, pressure, density, and mass flux were performed in a transient shock tube flow using three laser absorption schemes. All methods employed an intracavity-doubled ring dye laser tuned to an OH transition at 306 nm. In the first scheme, the gas was labeled by 193.3-nm excimer photolysis of H2O, and the passage of the generated OH was detected downstream. In the second method, the laser was tuned at a rate of 3 kHz over the R1(7) and R1(11) line pair, and absorption was simultaneously monitored at 90 and 60 deg with respect to the flow. Velocity was determined from the Doppler shift of the profiles and the temperature from the intensity ratio of the lines. Pressure was determined from both the magnitude of absorption and the collisional broadening. In the third method, the laser wavelength was fixed at a single frequency, and a continuous measurement of velocity and pressure was obtained using the signals from the two beam paths. All methods gave results which compare favorably to calculated values.

Description: A description of the design and setup of an experimental technique for measurement of the response function in shear sensitive liquid crystals has been reported. Utilizing the selective reflection characteristics of cholesteric liquid crystals, the method is capable of measuring the delay, rise, and relaxation times in response to a given dynamic shear stress as a function of the wavelength of the incident light. Application of a step input shear stress results in a liquid crystal time response that can be described as consisting of an initial delay, a shear induced helix deformation, and a relaxation to the initial state through diffusion processes. The method has been used for quantitative calibration of a shear sensitive liquid crystal by observing the peak in reflected light intensity, at a given wavelength, as a function of the shear stress.

Description: This paper describes a drop calorimeter with an electromagnetic levitator that was specifically built for enthalpy measurements of undercooled liquids, including high-melting-point metals. Design diagrams of this device and of a furnace for making a suspended drop are presented together with results of measurements on an aluminum sample.

Description: A new particle imaging velocimetry data acquisition and analysis system, which is an order of magnitude faster than any previously proposed system, has been constructed and tested. The new particle displacement tracking (PDT) system is an all electronic technique employing a video camera and a large memory buffer frame-grabber board. Using a simple encoding scheme, a time sequence of single exposure images is time-coded into a single image and then processed to track particle displacements and determine two-dimensional velocity vectors. Use of the PDT technique in a counterrotating vortex flow produced over 1100 velocity vectors in 110 s when processed on an 80386 PC.

Description: A frame-transfer silicon charge-coupled-device (CCD) imager has been developed that can be closely abutted to other imagers on three sides of the imaging array. It is intended for use in multichip arrays. The device has 420 x 420 pixels in the imaging and frame-store regions and is constructed using a three-phase triple-polysilicon process. Particular emphasis has been placed on achieving low-noise charge detection for low-light-level imaging in the visible and maximum energy resolution for X-ray spectroscopic applications. Noise levels of 6 electrons at 1-MHz and less than 3 electrons at 100-kHz data rates have been achieved. Imagers have been fabricated on 1000-Ohm-cm material to maximize quantum efficiency and minimize split events in the soft X-ray regime.

Description: A closed loop phase control system using an all-fiber optical configuration has been developed for use in phase-stepping interferometry. This system drives the relative phase of two interfering beams through a sequence of pi/2 rad increments so that the initial relative phase of these beams can be determined. This phase-stepping system uses optical fibers to provide spatially uniform phase steps from a flexible, easily aligned optical configuration. In addition, this system uses phase feedback to eliminate phase modulator errors and to compensate for phase drifts caused by environmental disturbances.

Description: Rayleigh and Raman scattering measurements have been performed in the 20-in., Mach 6 wind tunnel at the NASA Langley Research Center. Rayleigh results show signal levels much higher than expected for molecular scattering in the tunnel, whereas densities deduced from spontaneous Raman scattering of molecular nitrogen are in good agreement with the expected nitrogen densities in the facility. The apparent discrepancy in the Rayleigh result is attributed to cluster formation as a result of expansion in the tunnel. The dependence of the Rayleigh signal on the stagnation pressure and temperature is also discussed.

Description: The stability of the calibration of the Nimbus 7 solar backscatter UV (SBUV) and total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) instruments by comparing their ozone measurements with those made by a single, very stable Dobson instrument: the world primary standard Dobson spectrometer number 83. Measurements of ozone made with instrument 83 at Mauna Loa observatory in eight summers between 1979 and 1989 were compared with coincident TOMS ozone measurements. The comparison shows that relative to instrument 83, ozone measured by TOMS (and SBUV) was stable between 1979 and approximately 1983, had decreased by 3 percent by 1986, and had decreased by almost 7 percent by 1989. A similar time dependence is seen when data from an ensemble of 39 Dobson stations throughout the world is compared with TOMS over the period 1979-1987. The most likely reason for the relative drift is that the diffuser plate used by both SBUV and TOMS to measure solar flux has suffered an uncorrected wavelength-dependent degradation, with most of the degradation occurring after 1983. The recently released version 6 TOMS data, corrected using the internal 'pair justification' technique, show almost no drift relative to Dobson instrument 83. Accurate measurements of long-term global ozone change will require a coherent system incorporating both ground-based and satellite-based ozone measurements.

Description: This paper describes a crossed hot-wire technique for the measurement of all components of mean velocity, Reynolds stresses, and triple products in a complex turbulent flow. The accuracy of various assumptions usually implicit in the use of crossed hot-wire anemometers is examined. It is shown that significant errors can result in flow with gradients in mean velocity or Reynolds stress, but that a first-order correction for these errors can be made using available data. It is also shown how corrections can be made for high turbulence levels using available data.

Description: The paper describes the design, fabrication, and characteristics of a novel infrared detector based on the principle of Golay's (1947) pneumatic infrared detector, which uses the expansion of a gas to detect infrared radiation. The present detector is constructed entirely from micromachined silicon and uses an electron tunneling displacement transducer for the detection of gas expansion. The sensitivity of the new detector is competitive with the best commercial pyroelectric sensors and can be readily improved by an order of magnitude through the use of an optimized transducer.

Description: The internal consistency of the baseline-length measurements derived from analysis of several independent VLBI experiments is an estimate of the measurement precision. The paper investigates whether the inclusion of water vapor radiometer (WVR) data as an absolute calibration of the propagation delay due to water vapor improves the precision of VLBI baseline-length measurements. The paper analyzes 28 International Radio Interferometric Surveying runs between June 1988 and January 1989; WVR measurements were made during each session. The addition of WVR data decreased the scatter of the length measurements of the baselines by 5-10 percent. The observed reduction in the scatter of the baseline lengths is less than what is expected from the behavior of the formal errors, which suggest that the baseline-length measurement precision should improve 10-20 percent if WVR data are included in the analysis. The discrepancy between the formal errors and the baseline-length results can be explained as the consequence of systematic errors in the dry-mapping function parameters, instrumental biases in the WVR and the barometer, or both.

Description: In this paper a technique of compensating for pneumatic distortion in aircraft surface pressure sensing devices is developed. The compensation allows conventional pressure sensing technology to obtain improved unsteady pressure measurements. Pressure distortion caused by frictional attenuation and pneumatic resonance within the sensing system makes obtaining unsteady pressure measurements by conventional sensors difficult. Typically, most of the distortion occurs within the pneumatic tubing used to transmit pressure impulses from the surface of the aircraft to the measurement transducer. This paper develops a second-order distortion model that accurately describes the behavior of the primary wave harmonic of the pneumatic tubing. The model is expressed in state-variable form and is coupled with standard results from minimum-variance estimation theory to develop an algorithm to compensate for the effects of pneumatic distortion. Both postflight and real-time algorithms are developed and evaluated using simulated and flight data. Covariance selection and filter-tuning examples are presented. Results presented verify that, given appropriate covariance magnitudes, the algorithms accurately reconstruct surface pressure values from remotely sensed pressure measurements.

Description: The objective is to develop thin film thermocouples (TFTC) for Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) components such as the high pressure fuel turbopump (HPFTP) blades and to test TFTC survivability and durability in the SSME environment. The purpose for developing TFTC's for SSME components is to obtain blade temperatures for computational models developed for fluid mechanics and structures. The TFTC must be able to withstand the presence of high temperature, high pressure hydrogen as well as a severe thermal transient due to a cryogenic to combustion temperature change. The TFTC's will eventually be installed and tested on SSME propulsion system components in the SSME test bed engine. The TFTC's were successfully fabricated on flat coupons of MAR-M 246 (Hf+), which is the superalloy material used for HPFTP turbine blades. The TFTC's fabricated on flat coupons survived thermal shock cycling as well as testing in a heat flux measurement facility which provided a rapid thermal transient. The same fabrication procedure was used to deposit TFTC's on HPFTP first stage rotor blades. Other results from the experiments are presented, and future testing plans are discussed.

Description: The Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) turbine environment stresses engine components to their design limits and beyond. The extremely high temperatures and rapid temperature cycling can easily cause parts to fail if they are not properly designed. Thin film heat flux sensors can provide heat loading information with almost no disturbance of gas flows or of the blade. These sensors can provide steady state and transient heat flux information. A thin film heat flux sensor is described which makes it easier to measure small temperature differences across very thin insulating layers.

Description: Data reduction was completed for tests of plug-type heat flux sensors (gauges) in a turbine blade thermal cycling tester (TBT) that is located at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, and a typical gauge is illustrated. This is the first time that heat flux has been measured in a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) Turbopump Turbine environment. The development of the concept for the gauge was performed in a heat flux measurement facility at Lewis. In this facility, transient and steady state absorbed surface heat flux information was obtained from transient temperature measurements taken at points within the gauge. A schematic of the TBT is presented, and plots of the absorbed surface heat flux measured on the three blades tested in the TBT are presented. High quality heat flux values were measured on all three blades. The experiments demonstrated that reliable and durable gauges can be repeatedly fabricated into the airfoils. The experiment heat flux data are being used for verification of SSME analytical stress, boundary layer, and heat transfer design models. Other experimental results and future plans are also presented.

Description: Confusion over the use of non-video 19 mm data recorders is becoming more pronounced in the world of high performance computing. The following issues are addressed: (1) the difference between ID-1, ID-2, MIL-STD-2179, and DD-2; (2) the proper machine for the necessary application; and (3) integrating the machine into an existing environment. Also, an attempt is made to clear up any misconceptions there might be about 19 mm tape recorders.

Description: Alpha iron particles used for magnetic recording are prepared through a series of dehydration and reduction steps of alpha-Fe2O3-H2O resulting in acicular, polycrystalline, body centered cubic (bcc) alpha-Fe particles that are single magnetic domains. Since fine iron particles are pyrophoric by nature, stabilization processes had to be developed in order for iron particles to be considered as a viable recording medium for long term archival (i.e., 25+ years) information storage. The primary means of establishing stability is through passivation or controlled oxidation of the iron particle's surface. Since iron particles used for magnetic recording are small, additional oxidation has a direct impact on performance especially where archival storage of recorded information for long periods of time is important. Further stabilization chemistry/processes had to be developed to guarantee that iron particles could be considered as a viable long term recording medium. In an effort to retard the diffusion of iron ions through the oxide layer, other elements such as silicon, aluminum, and chromium have been added to the base iron to promote more dense scale formation or to alleviate some of the non-stoichiometric behavior of the oxide or both. The presence of water vapor has been shown to disrupt the passive layer, subsequently increasing the oxidation rate of the iron. A study was undertaken to examine the degradation in magnetic properties as a function of both temperature and humidity on silicon-containing iron particles between 50-120 deg C and 3-89 percent relative humidity. The methodology to which experimental data was collected and analyzed leading to predictive capability is discussed.

Description: We have built an array-based camera (FIRARI) for thermal imaging (lambda = 8 to 12 microns). FIRARI uses a square format 128 by 128 element array of aluminum gallium arsenide quantum well detectors that are indium bump bonded to a high capacity silicon multiplexer. The quantum well detectors offer good responsivity along with high response and noise uniformity, resulting in excellent thermal images without compensation for variation in pixel response. A noise equivalent temperature difference of 0.02 K at a scene temperature of 290 K was achieved with the array operating at 60 K. FIRARI demonstrated that AlGaAS quantum well detector technology can provide large format arrays with performance superior to mercury cadmium telluride at far less cost.

Description: A near real-time, full parallax holographic display system was developed that has the potential to provide a 3-D display for remote handling operations in hazardous environments. The major components of the system consist of a stack of three spatial light modulators which serves as the object source of the hologram; a near real-time holographic recording material (such as thermoplastic and photopolymer); and an optical system for relaying SLM images to the holographic recording material and to the observer for viewing.

Description: The Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) susceptibility using a high-temperature radio-frequency (rf) SQUID and a normal metal pick-up coil is employed in testing weak magnetization of the sample. The magnetic moment resolution of the device is 1 x 10(exp -6) emu, and that of the susceptibility is 5 x 10(exp -6) emu/cu cm.

Description: The Dynamic Torque Calibration Unit (DTCU), an instrument for the characterization of duplex ball bearing pairs used in gimbal applications, was designed and built. The design and operation of the unit are described. Preliminary data from the instrument are presented to illustrate the kinds of experiments that can be performed with the DTCU.

Description: The movement of groundwater and its associated solutes from upland regions was implicated in the degradation of receiving surface water bodies. Current efforts to directly measure this influx of water incorporate manually operated seepage meters which are hindered by severe limitations. A prototype seepage meter was developed by NASA Langley Research Center and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University that will allow for the semi-continuous collection and data logging of seepage flux across the sediment water interface. The meter is designed to operate at depths to 40 meters, and alleviate or minimize all disadvantages associated with traditional methods while remaining cost effective. The unit was designed to operate independently for time periods on the order of weeks with adjustable sample sequences depending upon hydrologic conditions. When used in conjunction with commercially available pressure transducers, this seepage meter allows for correlations to be made between groundwater discharge and tidal/sea state conditions in coastal areas. Field data from the Chesapeake Bay and Florida Bay systems are presented.

Description: A capacitive proximity/tactile sensor with unique performance capabilities ('capaciflector' or capacitive reflector) is being developed by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) for use on robots and payloads in space in the interests of safety, efficiency, and ease of operation. Specifically, this sensor will permit robots and their attached payloads to avoid collisions in space with humans and other objects and to dock these payloads in a cluttered environment. The sensor is simple, robust, and inexpensive to manufacture with obvious and recognized commercial possibilities. Accordingly, NASA/GSFC, in conjunction with industry, is embarking on an effort to 'spin' this technology off into the private sector. This effort includes prototypes aimed at commercial applications. The principles of operation of these prototypes are described along with hardware, software, modelling, and test results. The hardware description includes both the physical sensor in terms of a flexible printed circuit board and the electronic circuitry. The software description will include filtering and detection techniques. The modelling will involve finite element electric field analysis and will underline techniques used for design optimization.

Description: A temperature data recorder, designated the Ambient Temperature Recorder (ATR-4), was developed at NASA Ames Research Center to meet particular requirements for space life sciences experiments. The small, self-contained, four-channel, battery-powered device records 32 kilobytes of temperature data over a range of -40 to +60 C at four sampling intervals ranging from 1.875 to 15 minutes. Data is stored in its internal electronic memory for later readout by a personal computer.

Description: The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) observing facility will operate on the Earth Observing System (EOS) in the late 1990's. It is estimated that this observing facility will produce over 200 gigabytes of data per day requiring a storage capability of just over 300 gigabytes per day. Archiving, browsing, and distributing the data associated with MODIS represents a rich opportunity for testing and applying both lossless and lossy data compression methods.

Description: The facility Hazardous Gas Detection System (HGDS) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is a mass spectrometer based gas analyzer. Two instruments make up the HGDS, which is installed in a prime/backup arrangement, with the option of using both analyzers on the same sample line, or on two different lines simultaneously. It is used for monitoring the Shuttle during fuel loading, countdown, and drainback, if necessary. The use of complex instruments, operated over many shifts, has caused problems in tracking the status of the ground support equipment (GSE) and the vehicle. A requirement for overall system reliability has been a major force in the development of Shuttle GSE, and is the ultimate driver in the choice to pursue artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for Shuttle and Advanced Launch System (ALS) mass spectrometer systems. Shuttle applications of AI are detailed.

Description: Four major areas of interest with respect to utilizing strain gages on carbon/carbon (with SiC surfaces) and titanium matrix composites are addressed. Strain gage and adhesive combinations on carbon/carbon (C/C) at temperatures from minus 190 C to to 540 C, half-bridge gaging for reducing apparent strain on C/C using Poisson's ratio and bending configurations, a review of the 'field installation' techniques developed for gaging a C/C hypersonic generic elevon, and results of initial strain gaging efforts on titanium matrix composites are discussed. Current research in developing techniques for increasing the maximum temperature for strain gages on carbon/carbon are reviewed.

Description: Researchers designed and constructed a novel electron tunnel sensor which takes advantage of the mechanical properties of micro-machined silicon. For the first time, electrostatic forces are used to control the tunnel electrode separation, thereby avoiding the thermal drift and noise problems associated with piezoelectric actuators. The entire structure is composed of micro-machined silicon single crystals, including a folded cantilever spring and a tip. The application of this sensor to the development of a sensitive accelerometer is described.

Description: Very high coercivity metal particle (MP) and metal evaporated (ME) tapes are being used in 8mm video and digital audio tape applications, and more recently in digital data recording applications. In view of the inherent susceptibility of such media to environmental corrosion, a number of recent studies have addressed their long term stability and archivability. These studies have used an accelerated corrosion test based either on elevated temperature-humidity or polluting gas atmospheres known as Battelle tests. A comparison of the Battelle test results performed at different laboratories reveals a large variation from one location to another, presumably due to incorrect replication of the Battelle condition. Furthermore, when the Battelle tests are performed on enclosed cartridges, it is quite possible that diffusion limits the penetration of the extremely low concentration polluting gaseous species to the inner layers of the tapes during the short time of the accelerated test, whereas in real life these diffusion limitations may not apply. To avoid this uncertainty, the corrosion behavior of commercial 8mm MP and ME tapes when cassettes without their external plastic cases were exposed to 50 deg C and 80 percent RH for 7.5 weeks is investigated.

Description: Fidelity of waveform reproduction requires constant amplitude ratio and constant time lag of a temperature sensor's indication, at all frequencies of interest. However, heat-transfer type sensors usually cannot satisfy these requirements. Equations for the actual indication of a thermocouple and an optical-fiber pyrometer are given explicitly, in terms of sensor and flowing-gas properties. A practical, realistic design of each type of sensor behaves like a first-order system with amplitude-ratio attenuation inversely proportional to frequency when the frequency exceeds the corner frequency. Only at much higher frequencies does the amplitude-ratio attenuation for the optical fiber sensor become inversely proportional to the square root of the frequency. Design options for improving the frequency response are discussed. On-line electrical lag compensation, using a linear amplifier and a passive compensation network, can extend the corner frequency of the thermocouple 100-fold or more; a similar passive network can be used for the optical-fiber sensor. Design details for these networks are presented.

Description: Three methods for noncontact temperature measurement are presented. Ideal gas thermometry is realized by using laser-induced fluorescence to measure the concentration of mercury atoms in a Hg-Ar mixture in the vicinity of hot specimens. Emission polarimetry is investigated by measuring the spatially resolved intensities of polarized light from a hot tungsten sphere. Laser polarimetry is used to measure the optical properties, emissivity, and, in combination with optical pyrometry, the temperature of electromagnetically levitated liquid aluminum. The precision of temperature measurements based on the ideal gas law is + or - 2.6 percent at 1500-2000 K. The polarized emission technique is found to have the capability to determine optical properties and/or spectral emissivities of specimens over a wide range of wavelengths with quite simple instruments.

Description: A method for measuring the surface electrical resistance of small metallic samples at submillimeter wavelengths is presented which employs a qausi-optical hemispherical resonator fed by an optically pumped far-infrared laser. The small beam size at the sample, which serves as a plane mirror, allows measurements on samples with widths as small as 5 mm. The quality factor is high, and surface resistance losses are readily measurable.

Description: A new instrument based on a constant-frequency pulsed phase-locked-loop (CFPPLL) concept has been developed to accurately measure the ultrasonic wave velocity in liquids and changes in ultrasonic wave velocity in solids and liquids. An analysis of the system shows that it is immune to many of the frequency-dependent effects that plague other techniques. Measurements of the sound velocity in ultrapure water are used to confirm the analysis. The results are in excellent agreement with values from the literature, and establish that the CFPPLL provides a reliable, accurate way to measure velocities, as well as for monitoring small changes in velocity without the sensitivity to frequency-dependent phase shifts common to other measurement systems. The estimated sensitivity to phase changes is better than a few parts in 10 to the 7th.

Description: The authors report the results of an investigation into the nature of background events in proportional counters sensitive to X-ray photons having energy of less than 150 keV. Even with the use of thick shields composed of high-atomic-number material, a significant flux background in the detector's energy region can result from multiple Compton scattering in the mass surrounding the active region of the detector. The importance of the selection of detector components in the reduction of the background by more than an order of magnitude is emphasized. Experimental results are shown to agree qualitatively with Monte Carlo simulations. It is concluded that escape gating is a powerful means of determining the nature of background in flight detectors: the single/pair ratios reveal whether the detected events are charged particles or photons.

Description: This paper describes the design and the principles of operation of a novel sensor for the optical detection of a shear stress field induced by air or gas flow on a rigid surface. The detection relies on the effects of shear-induced optical switching in ferroelectric liquid crystals. It is shown that the method overcomes many of the limitations of similar measuring techniques including those using cholesteric liquid crystals. The present method offers a preferred alternative for flow visualization and skin friction measurements in wind-tunnel experiments on laminar boundary layer transition investigations. A theoretical model for the optical response to shear stress is presented together with a schematic diagram of the experimental setup.

Description: A laser-induced iodine fluorescence technique that is suitable for the planar measurement of temperature in cold nonreacting compressible air flows is investigated analytically and demonstrated in a known flow field. The technique is based on the temperature dependence of the broadband fluorescence from iodine excited by the 514-nm line of an argon-ion laser. Temperatures ranging from 165 to 245 K were measured in the calibration flow field. This technique makes complete, spatially resolved surveys of temperature practical in highly three-dimensional, low-temperature compressible flows.

Description: A small cryogenic Fabry-Perot etalon was fabricated for the far-infrared region. The design used freestanding metal meshes for the reflecting elements. Using a combination of gold-coated copper mesh on stainless steel. The spacing is reproduced to 1 part in 10 exp 6 with repeated cooling. The properties and methods used for alignment and calibration are presented.

Description: The atmospheric trace molecule spectroscopy (ATMOS) instrument, a high-speed Fourier transform spectrometer operating in the middle IR (2.2-16 microns), recorded more than 1500 solar spectra at about 0.0105/cm resolution during its first mission onboard the shuttle Challenger in the spring of 1985. These spectra were acquired during high-sun conditions for studies of the solar atmosphere and during low-sun conditions for studies of the earth's upper atmosphere. This paper describes the steps by which the telemetry data were converted into spectra suitable for analysis, the analysis software and methods developed for the atmospheric and solar studies, and the ATMOS data analysis facility.

Description: The following appendix (appendix B) lists the instruments chosen for the Global Change Monitoring program. The instruments are described according to the following categories: (1) Title; (2) Measurement; (3) Contact; (4) Instrument Type; (5) Dimensions; (6) Mass; (7) Average Operational Power; (8) Data Rate; (9) Spectral/Frequency Range; (10) Number of Channels/Frequencies; (11) Viewing Field; (12) Scanning Characteristics; (13) Resolution (Horizontal/Vertical); (14) Swath Width; (15) Satellite Application; and (16) Technology Status. A technical drawing of each instrument is also provided.

Description: The objectives of Task 2 of the Global Change Technology Initiative (GCTI) Architectural Trade Study were to select representative sets of instruments for making the science measurements specified in Task 1 and to identify instruments that, when flown together, form special complementary packages for measurement purposes. The list of representative instruments and their complementary relationships provide a payload manifest defined in terms of mass, power, size, viewing angles, data rates, etc. which can be used to focus spacecraft trade studies and the definition of a candidate GCTI fleet. Science requirements from Task 1 are given in tabular form. Numerous instruments are described, including visible-infrared radiometers, visible-infrared spectrometers, gas correction radiometers, active systems for Earth observation, Limb viewing instruments, visible-infrared and grating spectrometers, and microwave radiometers.