Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59). Also available via the Internet.

Dans cette thèse, nous considérons la dernière génération du radar. Il s’agit d’un radar MIMO bistatique qui est composé de plusieurs antennes d’émission et de réception. Pour ce système, les antennes émettrices transmettent des signaux linéairement indépendants afin qu’ils puissent être identifiés à l’aide d’un banc de filtres adaptés au niveau des antennes de réception. Les signaux filtrés sont alors traités pour extraire les paramètres des cibles, tels que les DOA, DOD, vitesse, etc. Un radar MIMO bistatique offre une grande diversité spatiale et une excellente identifiabilité des paramètres, etc., ce qui nous a incités à l’utiliser dans ce travail. La situation en champ lointain d’un radar MIMO bistatique est largement traitée dans la littérature. Mais, peu de travaux existe sur la situation en champ proche, c’est ce qui a motivé le travail de cette thèse. La localisation de cibles en champ proche est importante en raison de nombreuses applications à l’intérieur des constructions. A ce sujet, la plupart des méthodes actuelles utilisent l’approximation de Fresnel dans laquelle le front d’onde sphérique des signaux reçus est supposé quadrique plutôt que planaire comme en champ lointain. Dans ce travail de thèse, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de localisation des cibles en champ proche qui utilise l’approximation de Fresnel. Celle-ci conduit à une estimation biaisée des paramètres de localisation car en réalité le front d’onde est sphérique. Nous avons proposé alors deux méthodes de correction pour réduire les effets de l’approximation de Fresnel et deux autres méthodes qui utilisent directement le modèle exacte basé sur le front d’onde sphérique. / Sources localization is used in radar, sonar, and telecommunication. Radar has numerous civilian and military applications. Radar system has gone through many developments over the last few decades and reached the latest version known as MIMO radar. A MIMO radar is composed of multiple transmitting and receiving antennas like a conventional phased array radar. However, its transmitting antennas transmit linearly independent signals so that they can be easily identified by the matched filters bank at its receiving end. The matched filtered signals are then processed to extract the ranges, DOAs, DODs, velocities, etc. of the targets. A bistatic MIMO radar system provides high resolution, spatial diversity, parameter identifiability, etc. which inspired us to use it in this work. There are many existing methods to deal with the far field region of MIMO radar system. However, little work can be found on the near field region of a bistatic MIMO radar which motivated the work in this thesis. Near field targets localization is also important because of many indoor applications. Most of the existing near field sources localization techniques use Fresnel approximation in which the real spherical wavefront is assumed quadric unlike planar in far field situation. In this work we have proposed a novel near field targets localization method using Fresnel approximation. The Fresnel approximation leads to a biased estimation of the location parameters because the true wavefront is spherical. Consequently, we have proposed two correction methods to reduce the effects of Fresnel approximation and other two methods which directly use the exact signal model based on spherical wavefront.

Non-imaging Fresnel lenses have been playing an important role in improving the efficiency of the solar energy systems. Many researchers and scientists have devoted their research to optimize the design of the Fresnel lenses. Before it can contribute to energy efficiency increase, a Fresnel lens with optimized design will first need to be fabricated with the most cost-effective method as well as the best quality fabrication as possible. If targeted in a commercial market, feasibility of mass production with a minimum fabrication time would also be a consideration. To bring the design optimization of a Fresnel lens from a conceptual theory to a real-life increase in energy efficiency, the lens needs to be fabricated, tested, compared, and analyzed. This research thesis is intended to explore the performance of the lenses with optimized design through experimental investigations. The design optimization was achieved by a previous PhD student at UNT. A total of six lenses fabricated with four different methods along with two purchased lenses were tested with two different approaches. Multiple testing routes were conducted within a 10-month period to observe the effects of material decomposition and degradation on the lens performance. The resulting experimental data has provided a solid base for analyzing the performance of the lenses, in particular, the energy conversion efficiency increase of the solar cell by using each lens. The potential cause of the performance variation can be extracted from the comparison and evaluation.

We fabricated the liquid crystal cell which had the property of the diffraction optical element. The concentric electrode had been fabricated on an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) substrate by etching technology. With the application of a proper voltage, it produces an inhomogeneous grating-like electric field in space to form phase Fresnel liquid crystal lens. Because of liquid crystals (LCs) are excellent electro-optic materials with electrical and optical anisotropies. Their optical properties can easily be modulated by the external electric field. Hence based on the electro-optic properties, the function of the as-constructed phase Fresnel liquid crystal lens has been studied in this paper. In this study, we discuss the diffraction efficiency of Fresnel LC lenses and collocated plano-convex to form dual focal length optical element.

In this work, we investigate several aspects of photonic crystal waveguides through modeling and simulation. We introduce a one-dimensional model for two-dimensional photonic crystal fibers (PCFs), analyze tapered PCFs, analyze planar photonic crystal waveguides and one-dimensional PCFs with infinite periodic cladding, and investigate transmission properties of a novel type of fiber, referred to as Fresnel fiber. A simple, fast, and efficient one-dimensional model is proposed. It is shown that the model is capable of predicting the normalized propagation constant, group-velocity dispersion, effective area, and leakage loss for PCFs of hexagonal lattice structure with a reasonable degree of accuracy when compared to published results that are based on numerical techniques. Using the proposed model, we investigate tapered PCFs by approximating the tapered section as a series of uniform sections along the axial direction. We show that the total field inside the tapered section of the PCF can be evaluated as a superposition of local normal modes that are coupled among each other. Several factors affecting the adiabaticity of tapered PCFs, such as taper length, taper shape, and number of air hole rings are investigated. Adiabaticity of tapered PCFs is also examined. A new type of fiber structure, referred to as Fresnel fiber, is introduced. This fiber can be designed to have attractive transmission properties. We present carefully designed Fresnel fiber structures that provide shifted or flattened dispersion characteristics, large negative dispersion, or large or small effective area, making them very attractive for applications in fiber-optic communication systems. To examine the true photonic crystal modes, for which the guidance mechanism is not based on total internal reflection, photonic crystal planar waveguides with infinite periodic cladding are studied. Attention will be focused on analytical solutions to the ideal one-dimensional planar photonic crystal waveguides that consist of infinite number of cladding layers based on an impedance approach. We show that these solutions allow one to distinguish clearly between light guidance due to total internal reflection and light guidance due to the photonic crystal effect. The analysis of one-dimensional PCFs with infinite periodic cladding is carried out in conjunction with an equivalent T-circuits method to model the rings that are close to the core of the fiber. Then, at sufficiently large distance from the core, the rest of the cladding rings are approximated by planar layers. This approach can successfully estimate the propagation constants and fields for true photonic crystal modes in both solid-core and hollow-core PCFs with a high accuracy. <i>Original file (released May 10, 2007) replaced Oct. 3, 2012 GMc per DePauw]</i> / Ph. D.

Ingeniero Civil Mecánico / Chile es uno de los países con mayor costo a la energía pese a que el país cuenta con excelentes recursos naturales, recursos que podría aprovechar al hacer uso de tecnologías energéticas renovables no-convencionales, en particular destaca el recurso solar en la región. Un desarrollo de esta tecnología podría reducir las elevadas tarifas a la energía. El presente proyecto tiene como objetivo principal determinar la factibilidad de incluir productos nacionales para la confección de Colectores Lineales Fresnel. Este equipo es uno de los diseños de mayor facilidad para ser desarrollado dado que utiliza reflectores primarios planos, y no espejos curvos como hace la tecnología de cilindros parabólicos. El presente trabajo se ha dividido en dos secciones. Por un lado se estudia el mercado de los componentes del colector Fresnel y por otro el de los componentes asociados los sistemas que complementan la operación del equipo. Para lograr el objetivo general se debe primero identificar los procesos de manufactura y requerimientos de los componentes considerados. Luego se debe estudiar la industria nacional, a modo de encontrar empresas que cuenten con la capacidad para trabajar los procesos de manufactura correspondientes. Finalmente se utiliza el software SAM para estimar cuanta energía se podría producir con los equipos propuestos. Se ha encontrado que Chile cuenta con una industria metalmecánica y constructora bien establecida, capaz de suplir las necesidades estructurales del equipo. Adicionalmente el país cuenta con capacidad para producir fluidos de transferencia y almacenamiento térmico. Se observó la potencial sinergia entre empresas que fabrican luminarias con la confección de reflectores secundarios. También se cuenta con una industria capacitada para confeccionar equipos de transferencia de calor, bombas y válvulas. La nación incluso cuenta con instalaciones capacitadas para fabricar espejos de vidrio, por rocío de nitrato de plata, y una compañía que adiciona material de absorción selectiva a cañerías de cobre. Se observó que la utilización de productos nacionales permite producir en torno a 3,8 MWt-h al utilizar 10,000 m2 de espejos, con una inversión de 4,2 MMUSD. Por otro lado al importar los reflectores, absorbedor, bombas y válvulas de mayor calidad se puede aprovechar hasta 4,8 MWt-h, usando la misma superficie y considerando una inversión tan solo 13% mayor.

This study proposes a polarization-independent liquid-crystal Fresnel lens using twisted nematic liquid crystals (TN-LCs) with two electrodes structure. A photoresist type has high diffraction efficiency, high diffraction efficiency and good polarization independence characteristic. However, its diffraction cannot be completely switched off. A patterned electrode type has the characteristics of the switch-off and good polarization independence. However, it has low diffraction efficiency. We improve the patterned electrode type with two electrodes structure. Experimental results reveal that LC Fresnel lens using the TN-LC with two electrode structures has high diffraction efficiency and a good polarization-independent characteristic.

Ingeniero Civil Eléctrico / El aumento en las aplicaciones de energías renovables y la proliferación de tecnologías complejas a escala individual utilizando placas de desarrollo como Arduino ha promovido una cultura de comunidad de desarrollo abierto. En el ámbito de energía solar permite la implementación de sistemas de seguimiento solar. Esto mejora significativamente el rendimiento de tecnologías solares desde paneles fotovoltaicos a calefactores de agua. La investigación preliminar del trabajo resulta en el estudio de un proyecto de una impresora solar 3D que utiliza un lente Fresnel para concentrar la radiación del sol. Esto se puede utilizar en aplicaciones que requieren alta temperatura. Se busca estudiar el rendimiento de un lente de escala individual. Se realiza el diseño y construcción de una estructura para montar el Fresnel. Al ser una tecnología de concentración requiere seguimiento solar para permanecer perpendicular a la radiación del sol. La temperatura en el foco se mide para determinar las aplicaciones posibles, resultando en una temperatura máxima de 690 [°C] durante el mes de diciembre. En el foco se concentra la radiación solar 246 veces. Esto resulta en un rango de operación teórico de 340 a 570 [°C] para aplicaciones útiles y un máximo teórico de 755 [°C]. Respecto a la implementación de una impresora solar con el lente se requiere aumentar la concentración y modificar la estructura para permitir una plataforma móvil en el foco. Existen aplicaciones viables en ámbitos de minería artesanal de oro o cocinas solares de escala familiar. El prototipo requiere trabajo adicional para obtener un sistema de seguimiento más robusto capaz de operar sin mantenimiento constante.

A Holografia Digital (HD) é uma ferramenta acessível, rápida e eficiente para análise de efeitos mecânicos em materiais fotoelásticos. Esses materiais apresentam a propriedade da dupla refração, ou birrefringência, quando submetidos a esforços externos e, como consequência, os efeitos dos estados de polarização da luz transmitidos através de sua estrutura podem ser utilizados na análise das distribuições de tensões. As técnicas holográficas tradicionais não possibilitam o armazenamento das fases da onda de luz e, portanto, dificultam a análise quantitativa do campo de tensões e deformações nesses materiais. A Holografia Digital permite contornar essa dificuldade por meio de processos que utilizam diretamente as fases da onda de luz armazenadas. A partir de um interferômetro com duas ondas de referências ortogonalmente polarizadas é possível obter hologramas simultâneos que, ao serem subtraídos durante um processo de reconstrução holográfica digital por método da transformada de Fresnel, fornecem diretamente as diferenças de fases. Dessa forma, a HD mostra ser uma alternativa na análise de problemas em diversas áreas, pois possibilita, através de uma única captura, obter informações sobre as propriedades ópticas e mecânicas dos sistemas de interesse. O objetivo desse trabalho foi, além do desenvolvimento instrumental, criar um método para obtenção das distribuições de tensões que surgem nos materiais fotoelásticos e validá-lo por comparação, tanto com um modelo teórico a partir de fundamentos do método de Elementos Finitos associado à Fotoelasticidade quanto com um método experimental de Fotoelasticidade RGB. Com os procedimentos do método proposto, determinou-se as distribuições de tensões em uma amostra fotoelástica acoplada a uma peça metálica para observar a aplicabilidade do método. Essas etapas levaram a resultados que apontam a possibilidade de se utilizar técnicas e métodos holográficos digitais no estudo das propriedades de materiais fotoelásticos. / The Digital Holographic (DH) is an handy, fast and efficient tool to obtain the stresses distributions in Photoelastic materials. These materials present the double refraction phenomenon also named temporary birefringence when subjected to external forces, therefore, the effects in polarization state of the light transmitted through the structure can be used to analyze the stress distribution. Traditional holographic techniques do not allow the storage phase of the light wave dificulting the analyze these of the distributions. Digital Holographic allows to overcome these difficulties by processes that obtain directly of the storage phase of light. The holographic apparatus applied to generate the holograms registered the interference between two orthogonally polarized reference waves and an object wave transmitted through the samples. The resulting phase maps were reconstructed numerically by the Fresnel transform method. Thereby, the DH is an alternative for the study of problems in several fields, because it allows, through a single capture, to obtain information about the optical and mechanical properties of the systems of interest. The objective of this work was, besides instrumental development, create a method in Digital Holography to obtain the stresses distributions in Photoelastic materials and validate it by comparisions between the theorical Finite Element Method associated with Photoelasticity with the experimental method of Photoelasticity RGB. The procedures of the proposed method were used for determine stresses distributions in a Photoelastic sample with a metal part coupled in your superior base to verified its aplicability. Together, these results demonstrate the possibility of using digital holographic techniques and methods for studying mechanical properties of the Photoelastic materials.

Neste trabalho propomos o estudo da Espectrometria de Lente Térmica, sua teoria e aplicações, visto ser uma técnica de alta sensibilidade e que permite a medida das propriedades termo-ópticas dos materiais, como a difusividade térmica (D), a condutividade térmica (k), desvio do caminho óptico pela temperatura (ds/dT) - para materiais sólidos - ou a variação do índice de refração em relação à temperatura (dn/dT) - para líquidos e gases. Para isso inicialmente fizemos um estudo da teoria da difração. Valendo-se da Integral de Difração de Fresnel Kirchhoff obtivemos a expressão analítica da intensidade de um feixe de laser, difratado por diversos elementos ópticos (aberturas e obstáculos circular e retangular, por exemplo), tanto para o regime da difração de Fresnel, quanto da difração de Fraunhofer. Ainda no estudo da difração propusemos um arranjo experimental muito simples, utilizando-se um laser pointer sem a lente colimadora, permitindo que se obtenha, com grande facilidade, os padrões de difração no campo próximo, o que é difícil nas montagens tradicionais. Na seqüência fizemos uma revisão dos modelos de Lente Térmica tradicionalmente utilizados, modelos parabólico e aberrante. E, na comparação que realizamos entre eles, verificamos que pelos resultados obtidos através de simulações, com o modelo parabólico se apresenta em grande desacordo (>50%) com os obtidos com o modelo aberrante. Desta forma, concluímos que os dados da literatura obtidos na década de 70 e que ainda são utilizados, merecem ser revistos. Por fim, notamos na literatura um crescente interesse em lasers de alta potência, principalmente pelos bombeados por lasers de diodo. Desta forma fizemos um estudo valendo-se do modelo aberrante de Lente Térmica sob o regime de q grande, no qual procuramos verificar o limite de validade dos modelos de L.T. utilizados, observando o surgimento de fenômeno da aberração esférica, juntamente com as estruturas de anéis. / In this work we have proposed the study of Thermal Lens Spectrometry, its theory and applications, because it is a highly sensitive technique that allows the measure of the thermo-optical properties of the materials, as the thermal diffusivity (D), the thermal conductivity (k), the change of optical path length with temperature (ds/dT), for solid materials or the change of refractive index with temperature (dn/dT), for liquids and gases. Initially we studied the diffraction theory. We utilized the Fresnel Kirchhoff Diffraction Integral to obtain the analytic expression of the beam laser intensity, whose was diffracted for several optical elements, so much for the regime of the Fresnel diffraction as the regime of the Fraunhofer diffraction. Continuing in the study of the diffraction we proposed a very simple experimental apparatus where we used a laser pointer without the collimator lens, allowing that it was obtained with great facility the Fresnel diffraction patterns, which are difficult to observe in the common experimental apparatus. In the sequence, we made a revision of the models of Thermal Lens traditionally used, parabolic and aberrant models. And, in the comparison that we accomplished among them, we verified that for the results obtained through simulations, with the parabolic model it comes in great disagreement (>50%) with obtained them with the aberrant model. This way, we concluded that literature’s data obtained in the 70ths and they are still used, they must be reviewed. Finally, we noticed in the literature a growing interest in high power lasers. This way we made a study where we used the aberrant model of Thermal Lens under the regime of great q, in which we look for to verify the limit of validity of the used models, observing the appearance of the spherical aberration together with the rings structure.