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Wideband aperture coherence processing for next generation radar (NexGen)

Summary

This report develops robust signal processing architectures and algorithms specifically designed to achieve multi-aperture coherence on transmit and receive. A key feature of our approach is the use of orthogonal radar waveforms that allow the monostatic and bistatic target returns to be separated at each receiver's matched filter output. By analyzing these returns, we may determine the appropriate transmit times and phases in order to cohere the various radar apertures using both narrowband and wideband waveforms. This process increases the array gain on receive to N2 instead of N for the single transmitter case. Furthermore, when hll coherence on transmit is achieved, the array gain is N3. The performance of our coherence algorithms is quantified using Monte Carlo simulations and compared to the Cramer-Rao lower bound. A computational complexity study shows that our aperture coherence algorithms are suitable for a realtime implementation on an SGI Origin 3000 multi-processor computer.
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Summary

This report develops robust signal processing architectures and algorithms specifically designed to achieve multi-aperture coherence on transmit and receive. A key feature of our approach is the use of orthogonal radar waveforms that allow the monostatic and bistatic target returns to be separated at each receiver's matched filter output. By...

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Group membership: a novel approach and the first single-round algorithm

Author:
Published in:
23rd ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS Symp. on Principles of Distributed Computing, PODC, 25-28 July 2004, pp. 347–356.

Summary

We establish a new worst-case upper bound on the Membership problem: We present a simple algorithm that is able to always achieve Agreement on Views within a single message latency after the final network events leading to stability of the group become known to the membership servers. In contrast, all of the existing membership algorithms may require two or more rounds of message exchanges. Our algorithm demonstrates that the Membership problem can be solved simpler and more efficiently than previously believed. By itself, the algorithm may produce disagreement (that is, inconsistent, transient views) prior to the "final" view. Even though this is allowed by the problem specification, such views may create overhead at the application level, and are therefore undesirable. We propose a new approach for designing group membership services in which our algorithm for reaching Agreement on Views is combined with a filter-like mechanism for reducing disagreements. This approach can use the mechanisms of existing algorithms, yielding the same multi-round performance as theirs. However, the power of this approach is in being able to use other mechanisms. These can be tailored to the specifics of the deployment environments and to the desired combinations of the speed of agreement vs. the amount of preceding disagreement. We describe one mechanism that keeps the combined performance to within a single-round, and sketch another two.
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Summary

We establish a new worst-case upper bound on the Membership problem: We present a simple algorithm that is able to always achieve Agreement on Views within a single message latency after the final network events leading to stability of the group become known to the membership servers. In contrast, all...

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Next-generation technologies to enable sensor networks

Published in:
Handbook of Sensor Networks, Chapter 2

Summary

Examples are advances in ground moving target indicator (GMTI) processing, space-time adaptive processing (STAP), target discrimination, and electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM). All these advances have improved the capabilities of radar sensors. Major improvements expected in the next several years will come from exploiting collaborative network-centric architectures to leverage synergies among individual sensors. Such an approach has become feasible as a result of major advances in network computing, as well as communication technologies in both wireless and fiber networks. The exponential growth of digital technology, together with highly capable networks, enable in-depth exploitation of sensor synergy, including multi-aspect sensing. New signal processing algorithms exploiting multi-sensor data have been demonstrated in non-real-time, achieving improved performance against surface mobile targets by leveraging high-speed sensor networks. The paper demonstrates a significant advancement in exploiting complex ground moving target indicator (GMTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to accurately geo-locate and identify mobile targets.
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Summary

Examples are advances in ground moving target indicator (GMTI) processing, space-time adaptive processing (STAP), target discrimination, and electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM). All these advances have improved the capabilities of radar sensors. Major improvements expected in the next several years will come from exploiting collaborative network-centric architectures to leverage synergies among individual...

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LLiST - a new star tracker camera for tip-tilt correction at IOTA

Published in:
2004 SPIE Conf. on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 21-26 June 2004.

Summary

The tip-tilt correction system at the Infrared Optical Telescope Array (IOTA) has been upgraded with a new star tracker camera. The camera features a backside-illuminated CCD chip offering doubled overall quantum efficiency and a four times higher system gain compared to the previous system. Tests carried out to characterize the new system showed a higher system gain with a lower read-out noise electron level. Shorter read-out cycle times now allow to compensate tip-tilt fluctuations so that their error imposed on visibility measurements becomes comparable to, and even smaller than, that of higher-order aberrations.
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Summary

The tip-tilt correction system at the Infrared Optical Telescope Array (IOTA) has been upgraded with a new star tracker camera. The camera features a backside-illuminated CCD chip offering doubled overall quantum efficiency and a four times higher system gain compared to the previous system. Tests carried out to characterize the...

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The orthogonal-transfer array: a new CCD architecture for astronomy

Published in:
SPIE Vol. 5499, Optical and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy, 21 June 2004, pp. 185-192.

Summary

The orthogonal-transfer array (OTA) is a new CCD architecture designed to provide wide-field tip-tilt correction of astronomical images. The device consists of an 8..8 array of small (~500x500 pixels) orthogonal-transfer CCDs (OTCCD) with independent addressing and readout of each OTCCD. This approach enables an optimum tip-tilt correction to be applied independently to each OTCCD across the focal plane. The first design of this device has been carried out at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in support of the Pan-STARRS program with a collaborative parallel effort at Semiconductor Technology Associates (STA) for the WIYN Observatory. The two versions of this device are functionally compatible and share a common pinout and package. The first wafer lots are complete at Lincoln and at Dalsa and are undergoing wafer probing.
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Summary

The orthogonal-transfer array (OTA) is a new CCD architecture designed to provide wide-field tip-tilt correction of astronomical images. The device consists of an 8..8 array of small (~500x500 pixels) orthogonal-transfer CCDs (OTCCD) with independent addressing and readout of each OTCCD. This approach enables an optimum tip-tilt correction to be applied...

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A high-power MEMS electric induction motor

Published in:
J. Microelectromech. Syst., Vol. 13, No. 3, June 2004, pp. 465-471.

Summary

An electric induction micromotor with a 4-mm-diameter rotor was designed and built for high-power operation. Operated at partial actuating voltage, the motor has demonstrated an air gap power in excess of 20 mWand torque of 3 5 Nmat speeds in excess of 55 000 rpm. Operation at higher power and speed was limited by bearing stability at higher rotational speeds. The device builds on an earlier micromotor demonstrated by Frechette et al. The high power of the present motor is enabled by its low-loss, high-voltage electric stator, which also offers improved efficiency. The development of this electromechanical device is an important enabling step not only for watt-scale micromotors, but also for the development of microelectric generators. This paper presents the motorαs design, the fabrication process that was created to meet its stringent design requirements, and its performance to date.
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Summary

An electric induction micromotor with a 4-mm-diameter rotor was designed and built for high-power operation. Operated at partial actuating voltage, the motor has demonstrated an air gap power in excess of 20 mWand torque of 3 5 Nmat speeds in excess of 55 000 rpm. Operation at higher power and...

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Dynamic response of an electronically shuttered CCD imager

Published in:
IEEE. Trans. Electron Devices, Vol. 51, No. 6, June 2004, pp. 864-869.

Summary

The dynamic response of an electronically shuttered charge-coupled device (CCD) imager to nanosecond voltage pulses has been investigated. Measurements show that the shutter can be dynamically opened and closed in nanosecond times. For the shutter opening, simulations indicate that the collection of photoelectrons occurs in times much shorter than that needed to form the steady-state depletion region under the CCD well. In addition, the shutter closing occurs faster than the reconstitution of the p-buried (shutter) layer. Simulations further indicate that electric fields created in the neutral substrate by the shutter clocks enable photogenerated charge collection/rejection on nanosecond time scales despite the fact that the depletion-region formation and collapse take much longer times.
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Summary

The dynamic response of an electronically shuttered charge-coupled device (CCD) imager to nanosecond voltage pulses has been investigated. Measurements show that the shutter can be dynamically opened and closed in nanosecond times. For the shutter opening, simulations indicate that the collection of photoelectrons occurs in times much shorter than that...

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Channel compensation for SVM speaker recognition

Published in:
Odyssey, The Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop, 31 May - 3 June 2004.

Summary

One of the major remaining challenges to improving accuracy in state-of-the-art speaker recognition algorithms is reducing the impact of channel and handset variations on system performance. For Gaussian Mixture Model based speaker recognition systems, a variety of channel-adaptation techniques are known and available for adapting models between different channel conditions, but for the much more recent Support Vector Machine (SVM) based approaches to this problem, much less is known about the best way to handle this issue. In this paper we explore techniques that are specific to the SVM framework in order to derive fully non-linear channel compensations. The result is a system that is less sensitive to specific kinds of labeled channel variations observed in training.
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Summary

One of the major remaining challenges to improving accuracy in state-of-the-art speaker recognition algorithms is reducing the impact of channel and handset variations on system performance. For Gaussian Mixture Model based speaker recognition systems, a variety of channel-adaptation techniques are known and available for adapting models between different channel conditions...

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Fusing discriminative and generative methods for speaker recognition: experiments on switchboard and NFI/TNO field data

Published in:
ODYSSEY 2004, Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop, 31 May - 3 June 2004.

Summary

Discriminatively trained support vector machines have recently been introduced as a novel approach to speaker recognition. Support vector machines (SVMs) have a distinctly different modeling strategy in the speaker recognition problem. The standard Gaussian mixture model (GMM) approach focuses on modeling the probability density of the speaker and the background (a generative approach). In contrast, the SVM models the boundary between the classes. Another interesting aspect of the SVM is that it does not directly produce probabilistic scores. This poses a challenge for combining results with a GMM. We therefore propose strategies for fusing the two approaches. We show that the SVM and GMM are complementary technologies. Recent evaluations by NIST (telephone data) and NFI/TNO (forensic data) give a unique opportunity to test the robustness and viability of fusing GMM and SVM methods. We show that fusion produces a system which can have relative error rates 23% lower than individual systems.
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Summary

Discriminatively trained support vector machines have recently been introduced as a novel approach to speaker recognition. Support vector machines (SVMs) have a distinctly different modeling strategy in the speaker recognition problem. The standard Gaussian mixture model (GMM) approach focuses on modeling the probability density of the speaker and the background...

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Dialect identification using Gaussian mixture models

Published in:
ODYSSEY 2004, Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop, 31 May - 3 June 2004.

Summary

Recent results in the area of language identification have shown a significant improvement over previous systems. In this paper, we evaluate the related problem of dialect identification using one of the techniques recently developed for language identification, the Gaussian mixture models with shifted-delta-cepstral features. The system shown is developed using the same methodology followed for the language identification case. Results show that the use of the GMM techniques yields an average of 30% equal error rate for the dialects in the Miami corpus and about 13% equal error rate for the dialects in the CallFriend corpus.
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Summary

Recent results in the area of language identification have shown a significant improvement over previous systems. In this paper, we evaluate the related problem of dialect identification using one of the techniques recently developed for language identification, the Gaussian mixture models with shifted-delta-cepstral features. The system shown is developed using...

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