A multispectral image data compression scheme has been investigated in which a scene is imaged onto a detector array whose elements vary in spectral sensitivity. The elements are staggered such that the scene is undersampled within any single spectral band, but is sufficiently sampled by the total array. Compression thus results from transmitting only one spectral component of a scene at any given array coordinate. The pixels of the mosaic array may then be directly transmitted via PCM or undergo further compression (e.g. DPCM). The scheme has the advantages of attaining moderate compression without compression hardware at the transmitter, high compression with low-order DPCM processing, and a choice of reconstruction algorithms suitable to the application at hand. Efficient spatial interpolators such as parametric cubic convolution may be employed to fill in the missing pixels in each spectral band in cases where high resolution is not a requirement. However, high-resolution reconstructions are achieved by a space-variant minimum-mean-square spectral regression estimation of the missing pixels of each band from the adjacent samples of other bands. In this case, reconstruction accuracy is determined by the local spectral correlations between bands, the estimates of which include the effects of interband contrast reversal. Digital simulations have been performed on three-band aerial and four-band Landsat multispectral images. Spectral regressions of mosaic array data can provide reconstruction errors comparable to second-order DPCM processing and lower than common intraband interpolators at data rates of approximately 2 bits per pixel. When the mosaic data is itself DPCM-coded, the radiometric accuracy of spectral regression is superior to direct DPCM for equivalent bit rates.

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LHCb is a high-precision experiment dedicated to measuring the decays of B hadrons. Particle identification at LHCb relies upon two Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detectors, and this thesis describes work carried out relating to these detectors. It includes an analysis performed to investigate ion feedback in the Hybrid Photon Detectors (HPDs) used as photosensors for the RICH system, and studies of the performance of a RICH prototype in test beam conditions. A time alignment system for the RICH detectors has been designed and implemented, and this work is presented here. Excellent particle identification performance is required for efficient reconstruction of the b → s penguin decay B0s → ØØ a channel in which visible New Physics effects are possible. An analysis of this decay has been performed, encompassing event selection at trigger and offline levels, resolution, tagging and acceptance studies, and toy monte carlo experiments on sensitivity and systematic errors in measuring the total weak phase. The results are discussed within.

Detectors for Electron Microscopy have traditionally used a scintillator to generate photons from fast electrons, which are then detected by a sensor. However, in recent years direct detection has become an area of interest due to the potential improvements to detector performance. In this thesis various aspects of direct detection are presented. I will begin with simulations of direct detectors based on Joy’s model of straight trajectories between Rutherford scattering events, where signal is generated by inelastic scattering events. The effects of microscope operating voltage, detector thickness, a surface electrically dead layer and diode depth on detector performance are presented. A prototype detector was developed using the DUOS sensor, two thicknesses of the sensor were produced a 50μm thick detector and a 20μm thick detector. EBSD results are presented which show how the use of a reactive ion etch to reduce the dead layer thickness of a mechanically thinned sensor improve the detection efficiency of a sensor allowing EBSD work to be carried out at operating voltages as low as 5keV. The MTF and DQE of both thicknesses of DUOS sensor are measured at 80kV and 200kV, which show that there is little difference between the two thicknesses at 80kV, but at 200kV the thinner detector shows an improved MTF. The results are then and compared with the equivalent simulated detectors. I show how the high frame rate of a detector and rigid and non-rigid registration can be used to improve image quality, resolving the {331} lattice spacing which is not visible with a simple summation of frames. Detectors using gallium nitride rather than silicon as the base semiconductor are simulated. The MTF at the Nyquist frequency for a GaN detector is double that of a Si detector at an operating voltages of 80kV due to the smaller interaction volume of an electron in GaN. However, at higher voltages the improvement is much smaller as most electrons pass through the detector.

The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) is a mission concept which was proposed to ESA as M3 and M4 candidate in the framework of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument and the uniquely large field of view of its wide field monitor, LOFT will be able to study the behaviour of matter in extreme conditions such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions close to black holes and neutron stars and the supra-nuclear densities in the interiors of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, > 8m(2) effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1 degree collimated field of view) and a Wide Field Monitor (WFM, 2-50 keV, 4 steradian field of view, 1 arcmin source location accuracy, 300 eV spectral resolution). The WFM is equipped with an on-board system for bright events (e. g., GRB) localization. The trigger time and position of these events are broadcast to the ground within 30 s from discovery. In this paper we present the current technical and programmatic status of the mission.

M.Ing. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) / A distributed temperature fiber sensor based on the ratio of the Raman anti-Stokes to Rayleigh backscattered light components is studied. The aim of the study is to propose a method of quantifying the noise exhibited in the Rayleigh backscattered signal and further propose correlation coding techniques to reduce the noise in the Rayleigh and Raman backscattered signals. The noise in the Rayleigh backscattered signal is referred to as “interferometric noise”. When Rayleigh scattering along the length of an optical fiber occurs, some of the scattered light travels in a direction opposite to the direction of propagation, and is called backscattered light. When the coherence length of the optical source permits interactions between the Rayleigh backscattered light, there is a possibility for the interacting backscattered light, within a distance that is half the coherence length, to interfere with each other. Furthermore, when the sensing optical fiber is greater than the coherence length of the optical source, there will be several interference sections along the length of the sensing fiber causing the intensity of the Rayleigh backscattered light at the photo-detectors to vary randomly. The intensity variation gives the Rayleigh backscattered signal a jagged appearance indicating the presence of interferometric noise. The longer the coherence length of the optical sources, the larger the intensity variations in the backscattered light, that is, the more the interferometric noise exhibited. The more the interferometric noise in the Rayleigh backscattered signal, the poorer the temperature accuracy of the distributed temperature sensor based on the ratio of the Raman anti Stokes to Rayleigh backscattered components. To quantify the interferometric noise affecting the Rayleigh backscattered signal, a mathematical model based on well-known scattering and interferometry theories is developed. Using the developed mathematical noise model, noise powers of approximately -52dBm and -40dBm for coherence lengths of 4m and 24m are respectively obtained...

The Nanopore Detector using á-hemolysin channel transcribes kinetics of a single molecule along the nanometer-scale pore. The transcribed data is represented by electrical measurements. We present accurate and computationally inexpensive tools to analyze single molecule kinetics. The HMM-EM level projection method de-noises data, retaining the transitions with very high precision. This approach doesn't require input number of levels. Another advantage is the minimal tuning required. The levels are then identified using Finite State Automata (FSAs). Spike Detector algorithm analyzes spikes characterizing behavior of molecule in pore. No commercial tools available are capable of analyzing spikes in presence of noise. The formulation of HMM-EM, FSAs and Spike Detector together provides a robust method for analysis of channel current data. Application of these methods is described for Vercoutere channel blockade dataset which contains signals of radiated and non-radiated molecules. The tools developed were used successfully to differentiate between these two molecules.