International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / A Flight Safety System (RAFS) for multiple, reliable Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV’s) capable of flying Over-the-Horizon (OTH) and outside test range airspace. In addition to the flight safety application, the described full-duplex data link is suitable as a backup command and control link for UAV’s, and for sensor control & data exfiltration. The IRIDIUM satellite system was selected to provide the communications link and because of its global coverage and requisite data throughputs. A Risk Reduction activity ensued to quantify IRIDIUM performance. Hardware and software was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of using IRIDIUM in a flight safety scenario.

ITC/USA 2009 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fifth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 26-29, 2009 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Most range safety telemetry tracking systems have antenna designs that feature an S-band (2200-2400 MHz) Telemetry Tracking and UHF-Band (400-450 MHz) Command Destruct feed along side an omni-directional antenna. The antennas must have, by design, high angular velocity (w) and acceleration (α) parameters to achieve these tasks. Generally, these parameters are user configurable through software and monitored through BIT (Built In Test) log files. The parameters are nominally set to their maximum values (ie. w=10 deg/sec and α = 15 deg/sec².) Considering the dynamics of a sample satellite launch vs. the ground tracking and omni antennas' combined capabilities, this document analyzes whether the target will stay within the beam.

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes the design and implementation of a test instrumentation network configuration and verification system. Given a multivendor instrument part catalog that contains sensor, actuator, transducer and other instrument data; user requirements (including desired measurement functions) and technical specifications; the instrumentation network configurator will select and connect instruments from the catalog that meet the requirements and technical specifications. The instrumentation network configurator will enable the goal of mixing and matching hardware from multiple vendors to develop robust solutions and to reduce the total cost of ownership for creating and maintaining test instrumentation networks.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Tactical training ranges provide an opportunity for all of the armed forces to assess operational readiness. To perform this task the various training ranges have deployed numerous telemetry systems. The current design efforts in place to upgrade the capabilities and unify the ranges under one telemetry system do not address the training ranges' need to maintain their training capability with the legacy systems that have been deployed until the new systems are ready. Two systems that have recently undergone sustainment efforts are the Player and Event Tracking System (TAPETS) and the Large Area Tracking Range (LATR). TAPETS is a telemetry system operated by the U.S. Army Operational Test Command. The TAPETS system is comprised of the ground mobile station Standard Range Unit (SRU) and the aircraft Inertial Global Positioning System (GPS) Integration (IGI) Pod. Both systems require a transponder for the wireless communications link. LATR is an over the horizon telemetry system operated by the U.S. Navy at various test ranges to track ground based, ship based, and airborne participants in training exercises. The LATR system is comprised of Rotary Wing (RW), Fixed Wing (FW) Pods, Fixed Wing Internal (FWI), Ship, and Ground Participant Instrumentation Packages (PIPs) as well as Ground Interrogation Station (GIS) and relay stations. Like the TAPETS system, each of these packages and stations also require a transponder for the wireless communications link. Both telemetry systems have developed additional capabilities in order to better support and train the Armed Forces, which consequently requires more transponders. In addition, some areas were experiencing failures in their transponders that have been deployed for many years. The available spare components of some systems had been depleted and the sustainment requirements along with the increased demand for assets were beginning to impact the ability of the systems to successfully monitor the training ranges during exercises. The path to maintaining operational capability chosen for the TAPETS system was a mixed approach that consisted of identifying a depot level repair facility for their transponders and funding the development of new transponder printed circuit boards (PCB's) where obsolescence prevented a sufficient number of repairable units. In the case of LATR, the decision was made to create new transponders to take advantage of cost effective state-of-the-art RF design and manufacturing processes. The result of this effort is a new transponder that is operationally indistinguishable from the legacy transponder in all installation environments. The purpose of this paper is to present two successful system sustainment efforts with different approaches to serve as models for preserving the current level of training range capabilities until the next generation of telemetry systems are deployed. While the two programs illustrated here deal primarily with the transponder components of the systems, these same methods can be applied to the other aspects of legacy telemetry system sustainment efforts.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper discusses the methodology, requirements, tests, and implementation plan for the live demonstration of the Enhanced Flight Termination System (EFTS) using a missile program at two locations in Florida: Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) and Tyndall AFB. The demonstration included the integration of EFTS Flight Termination Receivers (FTRs) onto the missile and the integration of EFTS-program-developed transmitter assets with the mission control system at Eglin and Tyndall AFBs. The initial test stages included ground testing and captive-carry flights, followed by a launch in which EFTS was designated as the primary flight termination system for the launch.

No description available.

Das Hauptproblem von Lokalisierungsalgorithmen für WSNs basierend auf Ankerknoten ist die Abhängigkeit von diesen. Mobilität im Netzwerk kann zu Topologien führen, in denen einzelne Knoten oder ganze Teile des Netzwerks temporär von allen Ankerknoten isoliert werden. In diesen Fällen ist keine weitere Lokalisierung möglich. Dies wirkt sich primär auf den Lokalisierungsfehler aus, der in diesen Fällen stark ansteigt. Des weiteren haben Betreiber von Sensornetzwerken Interesse daran, die Anzahl der kosten- und wartungsintensiveren Ankerknoten auf ein Minimum zu reduzieren. Dies verstärkt zusätzlich das Problem von nicht verfügbaren Ankerknoten während des Netzwerkbetriebs. In dieser Arbeit werden zunächst die Vor- und Nachteile der beiden großen Hauptkategorien von Lokalisierungsalgorithmen (range-based und range-free Verfahren) diskutiert und eine Studie eines oft für range-based Lokalisierung genutzten Distanzbestimmungsverfahren mit Hilfe des RSSI vorgestellt. Danach werden zwei neue Varianten für ein bekanntes range-free Lokalisierungsverfahren mit Namen MCL eingeführt. Beide haben zum Ziel das Problem der temporär nicht verfügbaren Ankerknoten zu lösen, bedienen sich dabei aber unterschiedlicher Mittel. SA-MCL nutzt ein dead reckoning Verfahren, um die Positionsschätzung vom letzten bekannten Standort weiter zu führen. Dies geschieht mit Hilfe von zusätzlichen Sensorinformationen, die von einem elektronischen Kompass und einem Beschleunigungsmesser zur Verfügung gestellt werden. PO-MCL hingegen nutzt das Mobilitätsverhalten von einigen Anwendungen in Sensornetzwerken aus, bei denen sich alle Knoten primär auf einer festen Anzahl von Pfaden bewegen, um den Lokalisierungsprozess zu verbessern. Beide Methoden werden durch detaillierte Netzwerksimulationen evaluiert. Im Fall von SA-MCL wird außerdem eine Implementierung auf echter Hardware vorgestellt und eine Feldstudie in einem mobilen Sensornetzwerk durchgeführt. Aus den Ergebnissen ist zu sehen, dass der Lokalisierungsfehler in Situationen mit niedriger Ankerknotendichte im Fall von SA-MCL um bis zu 60% reduziert werden kann, beziehungsweise um bis zu 50% im Fall von PO-MCL.

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Range images are images that store at each pixel the distance between the sensor and a particular point in the observed scene, instead of the colour information. They provide a convenient storage format for 3-D point cloud information captured from a single point of view. Range image segmentation is the process of grouping the pixels of a range image into regions of points that belong to the same surface. Segmentations are useful for many applications that require higherlevel information, and with range images they also represent a significant step towards complete scene reconstruction. This study considers the segmentation of range images into planar surfaces. It discusses the theory and also implements and evaluates some current approaches found in the literature. The study then develops a new approach based on the theory of graph cut optimization which has been successfully applied to various other image processing tasks but, according to a search of the literature, has otherwise not been used to attempt segmenting range images. This new approach is notable for its strong guarantees in optimizing a specific energy function which has a rigorous theoretical underpinning for handling noise in images. It proves to be very robust to noise and also different values of the few parameters that need to be trained. Results are evaluated in a quantitative manner using a standard evaluation framework and datasets that allow us to compare against various other approaches found in the literature. We find that our approach delivers results that are competitive when compared to the current state-of-the-art, and can easily be applied to images captured with different techniques that present varying noise and processing challenges. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Dieptebeelde is beelde wat vir elke piksel die afstand tussen die sensor en ’n spesifieke punt in die waargenome toneel, in plaas van die kleur, stoor. Dit verskaf ’n gerieflike stoorformaat vir 3-D puntwolke wat vanaf ’n enkele sigpunt opgeneem is. Die segmentasie van dieptebeelde is die proses waarby die piksels van ’n dieptebeeld in gebiede opgedeel word, sodat punte saam gegroepeer word as hulle op dieselfde oppervlak lê. Segmentasie is nuttig vir verskeie toepassings wat hoërvlak inligting benodig en, in die geval van dieptebeelde, verteenwoordig dit ’n beduidende stap in die rigting van volledige toneel-rekonstruksie. Hierdie studie ondersoek segmentasie waar dieptebeelde opgedeel word in plat vlakke. Dit bespreek die teorie, en implementeer en evalueer ook sekere van die huidige tegnieke wat in die literatuur gevind kan word. Die studie ontwikkel dan ’n nuwe tegniek wat gebaseer is op die teorie van grafieksnit-optimering wat al suksesvol toegepas is op verskeie ander beeldverwerkingsprobleme maar, sover ’n studie op die literatuur wys, nog nie gebruik is om dieptebeelde te segmenteer nie. Hierdie nuwe benadering is merkbaar vir sy sterk waarborge vir die optimering van ’n spesifieke energie-funksie wat ’n sterk teoretiese fondasie het vir die hantering van geraas in beelde. Die tegniek bewys om fors te wees tot geraas sowel as die keuse van waardes vir die min parameters wat afgerig moet word. Resultate word geëvalueer op ’n kwantitatiewe wyse deur die gebruik van ’n standaard evalueringsraamwerk en datastelle wat ons toelaat om hierdie tegniek te vergelyk met ander tegnieke in die literatuur. Ons vind dat ons tegniek resultate lewer wat mededingend is ten opsigte van die huidige stand-van-die-kuns en dat ons dit maklik kan toepas op beelde wat deur verskeie tegnieke opgeneem is, alhoewel hulle verskillende geraastipes en verwerkingsuitdagings bied.

BACKGROUND:Next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) technologies have made huge impacts in many fields of biological research, but especially in evolutionary biology. One area where NGS has shown potential is for high-throughput sequencing of complete mtDNA genomes (of humans and other animals). Despite the increasing use of NGS technologies and a better appreciation of their importance in answering biological questions, there remain significant obstacles to the successful implementation of NGS-based projects, especially for new users.RESULTS:Here we present an 'A to Z' protocol for obtaining complete human mitochondrial (mtDNA) genomes - from DNA extraction to consensus sequence. Although designed for use on humans, this protocol could also be used to sequence small, organellar genomes from other species, and also nuclear loci. This protocol includes DNA extraction, PCR amplification, fragmentation of PCR products, barcoding of fragments, sequencing using the 454 GS FLX platform, and a complete bioinformatics pipeline (primer removal, reference-based mapping, output of coverage plots and SNP calling).CONCLUSIONS:All steps in this protocol are designed to be straightforward to implement, especially for researchers who are undertaking next-generation sequencing for the first time. The molecular steps are scalable to large numbers (hundreds) of individuals and all steps post-DNA extraction can be carried out in 96-well plate format. Also, the protocol has been assembled so that individual 'modules' can be swapped out to suit available resources.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / It is tempting to conceive a program that is self-contained and to fiscally control the all the necessary developments. Such a path will lead to a program that is technically stovepiped and extremely expensive. For the test and evaluation (T&E) community, products are often developed only for single application. We do not exist in such times. The use of other program’s products and commercial products is basically required. This is the path that the Hardened Subminiature Telemetry and Sensor System (HSTSS) has taken. The HSTSS philosophy required that the technologies common to telemetry systems be examined for reduction in cost, size, ease of use, and above all the survivability under high-g or high shock environments. It was clear that HSTSS could not support all of these requirements for transmitters, batteries, electronic packaging, and sensors and be realistically affordable with a good return on investment. This paper describes how the HSTSS program has accomplished the development of new batteries, transmitters, and data acquisition devices based upon a leveraged acquisition strategy.