The basic principle in SAS is to use an array which is small in length to create a long synthetic array thus the better resolution is achieved through the use of signal processing. Additionally, the resolution that is independent of range and signal frequency, makes SAS a advantageous tool for applications. Although the origin of SAS comes from SAR, SAS still needs to overcome all constraints for real-world application. In a previous study by Sung and prof. Liu, published results of the along track resolution experiments which were well done however there was still much room in range resolution, the purpose of this research is to achieve high range resolution at any ranges. Indeed there are many existing factors affecting the capability of resolution which including characteristic of the target, certain arrangements of targets, bandwidth, waveforms and pulse duration and etc. High range resolution is obtained using pulse compression techniques. The experiments were carried out using the transducers of AST MK VI 192 kHz which were employed to transmit and receive signals, scanned various copper balls at anechoic water tank(4 m ¡Ñ 3.5 m ¡Ñ 2 m) in NSYSU. From the equipment we have now results were evaluated based on both simulated and real data: for the range resolution the pulse length is very important the shortest pulse length on an object would be 2L/c theoretically, the measured range resolution is about 7.5 cm for the 20-kHz bandwidth signals and 5 cm for along track resolution. As all the experiments have been successful in the Water Tank, we intent to launch further investigation of this research to the real world application of SAS i.e. in Sizihwan Bay Marine Test Field.

Underwater communication is an important research of applied underwater acoustic since sound wave is the only effective way of transmitting messages under water. Underwater communication has always been a complicated problem especially in the shallow water environment due to the influence of multipath propagation. In the past, research on underwater communication had been done mostly by numerical simulation or laboratory experiments instead of doing in real oceanic areas. As a result, several research teams such as the Institute of Oceanography in Taiwan University, the Naval Research Laboratory and the acoustic laboratory of National Sun Yat-sen University Institute of Applied Marine Physics and Undersea Technology had executed a one-week real oceanic area experiment of underwater networking, communication, and acoustical tomography in Sizih Bay Marine Test Field. The experiment adopted 9 sets of underwater modem distributed within the range of 30 square kilometer to transmit, receive signals and collect CTD data. This research adopted part of the data gained from the experiment mentioned above to progress the feasibility test of acoustic tomography on current estimate to shallow water environment. By transmitting and receiving signals between stations, This research study the travel time difference between transmitting signals forward and backward caused by the flow field when using high frequency source in shallow water environment. This research estimated the average current speed and compared it to the weather buoy data from the Harbor and Marine Technology Center. This research discovered that most of the estimated results correspond to the weather buoy's ADCP data. Finally, this research adopted the method which does not require complex mathematics operation to estimate the two-dimensional flow field, and probe into what influence the angle between stations would bring to the deviation of estimating flow speed by using the Monte Carlo method.

In this thesis, the pulse diversity technique in radar systems in high clutter environments is investigated. In this technique, different pulse compression methods are used in each pulse in the transmitted burst to increase the unambiguous range. In pulse diversity, the design of filters used in the receiver is as important as designing the transmitted waveform. At the output of pulse-burst filter that processes pulse-by-pulse, as many channels as the pulses in the burst occur. Each of these channels is matched to a certain range interval. In order to improve the detector performance, the phase codes used in the transmitted pulse-burst waveform and their corresponding filters must have good auto-correlation and cross-correlation properties, either individually or as their sum. In the literature some phase codes, having mentioned properties, are present. However, the performance of these codes in radar applications is not fully evaluated. The studies in the thesis show that the codes in the literature cannot be used directly in radar applications. In the scope of thesis, optimization criteria suitable for radar applications are defined and applied according to the mentioned requirements. Then, the obtained phase codes are tested in the radar simulator and the obtained results of the simulations are evaluated.

In dieser Arbeit werden elektronische und strukturelle Dynamiken durch Femtosekundenpuls injizierte kleine Polaronen in Lithiumniobat betrachtet, sowie die Auswirkungen auf die nichtlineare Optik mit Schwerpunkt auf die Holographie und den mittleren infraroten Spektralbereich untersucht.

The objective of this research was to increase the independence and safety of the sight impaired by developing an enhanced travel aid in the form of a sensor embedded long-cane to reduce the risk of injury from walking into suspended or overhanging objects while providing the sight impaired community with a familiar and well accepted tool. Prior research at the Electromechanical Systems Laboratory had established a theoretical framework for ultrasound-based ranging and spatial obstacle localization from the moving reference frame of a long-cane. A prototype was implemented using analog threshold detection techniques. This research focused on a new approach. A coded pulse was transmitted and correlation techniques were used to identify echoes and determine time of flight. Compared to the prior effort this new approach was more sensitive, had greater noise immunity, and provide greater spatial resolution for obstacle detection. The first step in the coded pulse approach was to generate a transmit pulse with an embedded binary code that is highly distinguishable. A transmit pulse generated by phase modulating a 40 kHz carrier signal with a 13-bit Barker code word, with each bit consisting of 4 cycles of the 40 kHz carrier was used. Digitized representative echoes were used as reference vectors for correlation to account for the effect of the impulse responses of the transducers, the air, and the reflection, on the transmitted pulse. In a detection cycle, the coded pulse was transmitted, the A/D converters took 2600 samples at the 150 kHz sampling rate to capture any echoes from objects between 1 and 4 meters in front of the cane. The receiver data was cross-correlated with the stored echo image to find echoes in the received signal. The correlation peak positions from the upper receiver were then compared to the peak positions from the lower receiver and if they collaborated within the synthetic aperture, the range and height were calculated annunciation was made by a synthesized voice. The new obstacle detection system described above was designed and a prototype was constructed and embedded into the shaft of an 18 mm diameter body of a long cane.

No description available.

Generation of high-peak power, microwave ultra-short pulses (USPs) is desirable for ultra-wideband communications and remote sensing. A variety of microwave USP generators exist today, or are described in the literature, and have benefits and limitations depending on application. A new class of pulse compressors for generating USPs using electromagnetic time reversal (TR) techniques have been developed in the last decade, and are the topic of this dissertation. This dissertation presents a compact TR microwave pulse-compression cavity that has ultra-wide bandwidth (5 GHz – 18 GHz), and employs waveguide feeds for high-peak power output over the entire band. The system uses a time-reversal-based pulse compression scheme with one-bit processing (OBTR) to achieve high compression gain. Results from full-wave simulations are presented as well as measurements showing compression gain exceeding 21.2 dB, 22% efficiency, and measured instantaneous peak output powers reaching 39.2 kW. These are all record results for this type of pulse compressor. Additionally presented is new analysis of variation in compression gain due to impulse response recording time and bandwidth variation, new experimental work on the effect of mode stirrer position on compression gain, and a novel RF switch-based technique for reducing time-sidelobes while using OBTR. Finally, a new technique is presented that uses a reverberant cavity with only one feed connected to an ultra-wideband circulator (6.5 GHz to 17 GHz) to perform TRPC. Prior to this work, TRPC has only been demonstrated in electromagnetics using two or more feeds and a reverberant cavity acting as the time-reversal mirror. This new 1-port technique is demonstrated in both simulation and measurement. The proposed system achieves up to a measured 3 dB increase in compression gain and increased efficiency. Also, a novel application of the random coupling model (RCM) to calculate compression gain is presented. The cavity eigenfrequencies are modeled after eigenvalues of random matrices satisfying the Gaussian orthogonal ensembles (GOE) condition. Cavity transfer functions are generated using Monte Carlo simulations, and used to compute the compression gains for many different cavity realizations. / Doctor of Philosophy / Generation of high-peak power, microwave ultra-short pulses (USPs) is desirable for ultra-wideband communications and remote sensing. A variety of microwave USP generators exist today, or are described in the literature, and have benefits and limitations depending on application. A new class of pulse compressors for generating USPs using electromagnetic time reversal (TR) techniques have been developed in the last decade, and are the topic of this dissertation. This dissertation presents a compact TR-based microwave pulse-compression cavity that has unique features that make it optimal for high-power operations, with results from simulations as well as measurements showing improved performance over other similar cavities published in the literature with a record demonstrated peak output power of 39.2 kW. Additionally, new analysis on the operation and optimization of this cavity for increased performance is also presented. Finally, a new technique is presented that uses a cavity with only one feed that acts as both the input and output. This 1-port technique is demonstrated in both simulation and measurement. The proposed system achieves a two-times increase in compression gain over its 2-port counterpart. In conjunction with these measurements and simulations, a novel technique for predicting the performance of these cavities using Monte Carlo simulation is also presented.

Advancements in laser technology over the last decades have allowed compression of laser light pulses to few-femtosecond durations. To obtain even shorter pulses, a new mechanism was required. The discovery of high-order harmonic generation, a non-perturbative nonlinear optical process, allowed the conversion of ultrafast laser pulses into a coherent extreme ultraviolet light (XUV) source of attosecond pulses. The attosecond XUV light source, which corresponds to the natural time and energy scales of electron motion in matter, has provided a tool to capture the fastest dynamics in atoms, molecules, and solids and opened the field of attosecond science. However, the generation of isolated attosecond pulses has traditionally required state-of-the-art, few-cycle Ti:Sapphire laser systems and advanced facilities, which limit its applications in other science fields. Recently, ytterbium-doped solid state and fiber lasers have become attractive tools for ultrafast science and industrial applications, due largely to their prospects for scaling to high peak- and average power and their turn-key operation. However, applying these sources as driving lasers for attosecond pulse generation is challenging due to their long pulse durations. In this dissertation, I discuss progress towards attosecond time-resolved experiments using a turn-key Yb:KGW laser amplifier. First, we overcome the unfavorable long laser pulse duration by generating broadband, coherent supercontinuum spectra via nonlinear propagation in a molecular gas-filled hollow-core fiber. The pulses are compressed to sub-two-cycle durations using a two-channel field synthesizer, and methods to mitigate thermal effects at high average powers are explored. The laser pulses are characterized using a new single-shot waveform measurement technique based on multiphoton excitation in a solid medium, and we demonstrate its applicability to studies of attosecond field reshaping during nonlinear propagation. Finally, a source of isolated iv attosecond pulses based on a two-stage hollow-core fiber compressor with carrier-envelope phase stabilization and temporal gating is proposed.

No description available.

Thesis (PhD (Physics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Ultrafast Electron Diffraction (UED) is a rapidly maturing field which allows investigation of the evolution of atomic arrangement in solids on timescales comparable to the vibrational period of their constituent atoms (~10-13 s). The technique is an amalgamation of conventional high energy electron diffraction methods and pump-probe spectroscopy with femtosecond (1 fs = 10-15 s) laser pulses. Ultrafast pulsed electron sources generally suffer from limitations on the attainable electron number per pulse (brightness) due to Coulomb repulsion among the electrons. In this dissertation, the design and construction of a compact UED source capable of delivering sub-300 fs electron pulses suitable for diffraction experiments and containing about 5000 electrons per shot is described. The setup has been characterised by measurement of the transverse beam size and angular spread, and through recording and analyzing an electron diffraction pattern from a titanium foil. Measurement of the temporal duration of fs electron pulses is not trivial, and a specialised compact streak camera operating in accumulation mode has been developed as part of this study. A sub-200 fs temporal resolution has been achieved, and the dependence of temporal duration on electron number per pulse was investigated for the current UED source. The observed trends correlate well with detailed electron bunch simulations. In order to investigate ultrafast processes on samples that cannot be probed repeatedly, it becomes necessary to significantly increase the brightness of current state of the art compact sources such as the one constructed in the present study. UED sources employing electron pulse compression techniques offer this possibility. Traditional pulse compression schemes based on RF cavities, while simple in principle, pose significant technical challenges in their realisation. The current thesis describes two novel UED pulse compression methods developed by the author: achromatic reflectron compression and pulsed cavity compression. Both concepts are expected to be easier to realise than conventional RF compression. Detailed simulations predict that such sources can attain a brightness improvement of more than one order of magnitude over compact sources that do not employ compression techniques. In addition, such sources show much promise for the attainment of pulse durations in the sub-100 fs range. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ultra vinnige elektron diffraksie is ‘n meettegniek wat tans in die proses is om vinnige ontwikkeling te ondergaan. Die tegniek het ten doel om strukturele omsettingsprosesse op ‘n lengteskaal van atoombindings en ‘n tydskaal van die vibrasie periode van atome in materie, ongeveer 10-13 s, te ondersoek. Dit word bewerkstellig deur die spasieresolusievermoë van gewone hoë energie elektron diffraksie met die tydresolusievermoë van femtosekonde (1 fs = 10-15 s) laserspektroskopie te kombineer. Die aantal elektrone per puls (intensiteit) van ultravinnige gepulsde elektronbronne word beperk deur die Coulomb afstootingskragte tussen die elektrone. Hierdie dissertasie beskryf die ontwerp en konstruksie van ‘n kompakte ultravinnige elektron bron. Die elektronpulse wat geproduseer word bevat tot 5000 elektrone per puls met ‘n tyd durasie van minder as 300 fs, en is geskik vir diffraksie eksperimente. Die aparaat is gekarakteriseer deur die volgende metings: elektronpulsdiameter, straaldivergensie, en ‘n titaan foelie se statiese diffraksie patroon. Dit is nie triviaal om die durasie van femtosekonde elektronpulse te meet nie, en n spesiale kompakte akkumulerende “streak camera” is vir die doeleindes van hierdie projek onwikkel. Die tydresolusie van hierdie “streak camera” is beter as 200 fs, en die afhanklikheid van die pulsdurasie wat deur die ultravinnige elektron bron geproduseer word as n funksie van die elektrongetal per puls is met behulp van hierdie toestel bepaal. Die resultate klop redelik goed met gedetaileerde simulasies van die elektron puls dinamika. Die karakterisasie van monsters wat nie herhaaldelik gemeet kan word nie vereis verkieslik ‘n nog hoër pulsintensiteit as wat met huidige bronne bereik kan word. ‘N verdere doelstelling is dus om ultravinnige elektron bronne te ontwikkel wat pulse met meer elektrone per puls kan genereer. Dit kan bewerkstellig word deur bronne wat van elektron puls kompressie tegnieke gebruik maak. Die tradisionele manier waarop dít gedoen word is deur middel van n kontinu gedrewe radio frekwensie holte. Hierdie metode gaan egter gepaard met aanmerklik hoë tegniese uitdagings. Om hierdie rede het die outeur twee alternatiewe puls kompressie konsepte ontwikkel: akromatiese reflektron kompressie and gepulsde holte kompressie. Albei konsepte sal waarskeinlik makliker wees om te realiseer as die tradisionele radio frekwensie kompressie, en is deur middel van gedetaileerde simulasies geverifiseer. Hierdie simulasies voorspel dat die intensiteit van genoemde bronne met ten minste n grooteorde meer kan wees as wat tans met kompakte ultravinnige elektron bronne moontlik is. Verder blyk dit dat sulke bronne n pulsdurasie van minder as 100 fs kan bereik.