International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / A novel approach combines GPS receiver technology with micro-electromechanical inertial sensors to improve performance of single object tracking radar. The approach enhances range safety by integrating an airborne Global Positioning System/Inertial Movement Unit (GPS/IMU) with a C-band transponder to downlink time-space-position information (TSPI) via FPS-16 instrumentation radar. This improves current telemetry links and the Range Application Joint Program Office (RAJPO) data link for downlinking TSPI because of the inherent long-range advantage of the radar. The goal of the project is to provide distance independent accuracy, and to demonstrate continuous 15-meter or better position accuracy over the entire flight envelope out to slant ranges up to 1,000 Km with at least 50 updates per second. This improves safety coverage for the wide area flight testing. It provides risk reduction for the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC), Edwards Air Force Base, California and other ranges planning TSPI system upgrades.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / In recent years the telemetry community has encountered a growing demand for bandwidth from users and a corresponding loss of spectrum. The Advanced Range Telemetry (ARTM) Program has responded to this situation with an initiative to develop, demonstrate, and improve the management and control of telemetry resources using demand assigned multiple access (DAMA) techniques. This initiative has proceeded along two paths. The first path is in the development of an expert system to facilitate the scheduling of telemetry missions and the deconfliction of their frequencies. This system emphasizes the graphical manipulation of mission data and uses a genetic algorithm to search for an optimal set of mission frequencies. The second path is the development of a bidirectional command and control link to remotely control and configure the frequency of a telemetry link. This link uses the simple network management protocol (SNMP) over a wireless Internet Protocol (IP) network implemented with Digital Communications Network System (DCNS) units.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper describes the design, configuration, testing, and performance of a Fiber Optic Link used to transmit the signals from a remotely located S-band telemetry system to the main facility at the Kwajalein Missile Range (KMR). This fiber optic system demonstrates for the first time the feasibility of linking RF data from multiple antennas via a single fiber and over a nearly 100-km distance. Measured data of key link parameters such as gain, bit-error-rate, crosstalk, phase and gain stability, dynamic range, and noise figure are presented.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This student paper was produced as part of the team design competition in the University of Arizona course ECE 485, Radiowaves, and Telemetry. It describes the design of a telemetry support package for interplanetary exploration. Control and processing of telemetric signals between an earth based control station, an exploratory orbiter and probe pods are the focus of this design. Using this design data retrieval is achieved at a highly reliable rate of 1 error in 10^-10 bits. The exploratory orbiter, carrying a payload of probes, is launched and proceeds along its predetermined trajectory. Commands from the earth-based control station is used to send the orbiter to planetary destinations. The craft then establishes a stable non-geosynchronous orbit. Several probe pods are launched towards the planet at predetermined locations. These probe pods collect and send data, as well as system monitoring information to the orbiting craft. The orbiting craft then retrieves the signals generated by all pods and relays that information to an earth-based control station.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The future of range operations in the area of expendable launch vehicle (ELV) support is unquestionably headed in the direction of space-based rather than land- or air-based assets for such functions as metric tracking or telemetry data collection. To this end, an effort was recently completed by the Air Force’s Eastern Range (ER) to certify NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) as a viable and operational asset to be used for telemetry coverage during future Titan IV/Centaur launches. The test plan developed to demonstrate this capability consisted of three parts: 1) a bit error rate test; 2) a bit-by-bit compare of data recorded via conventional means vice the TDRSS network while the vehicle was radiating in a fixed position from the pad; and 3) an in-flight demonstration to ensure positive radio frequency (RF) link and usable data during critical periods of telemetry collection. The subsequent approval by the Air Force of this approach allows future launch vehicle contractors a relatively inexpensive and reliable means of telemetry data collection even when launch trajectories are out of sight of land-based assets or when land- or aircraft-based assets are not available for support.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The use of high bit rates in the missile testing environment requires that the receiving telemetry system(s) have the correct signal margin for no PCM bit errors. This requirement plus the fact that the use of “redundant systems” are no longer considered optimum support scenarios has made it necessary to select the minimum number of tracking sites that will gather the data with the required signal margin. A very basic link analysis can be made by using the maximum and minimum gain values from the transmitting antenna pattern. Another way of evaluating the transmitting antenna gain is to base the gain on the highest percentile appearance of the highest gain value. This paper discusses the mathematical analysis the WSMR Telemetry Branch uses to determine the signal margin resulting from a radiating source along a nominal trajectory. The mathematical analysis calculates the missile aspect angles (Theta, Phi, and Alpha) to the telemetry tracking system that yields the transmitting antenna gain. The gain is obtained from the Antenna Radiation Distribution Table (ARDT) that is stored in a computer file. An entire trajectory can be evaluated for signal margin before an actual flight. The expected signal strength level can be compared to the actual signal strength level from the flight. This information can be used to evaluate any plume effects.

This dissertation is an investigation into the classification of all hyperbolic manifolds which admit a reducible Dehn filling and a toroidal Dehn filling with distance 3. The first example was given by Boyer and Zhang. They used the Whitehead link. Eudave-Muñoz and Wu gave an infinite family of such hyperbolic manifolds using tangle arguments. I show in this dissertation that these are the only hyperbolic manifolds admitting a reducible Dehn filling and a toroidal Dehn filling with distance 3. The main tool to prove this is to use the intersection graphs on surfaces introduced and developed by Gordon and Luecke. / text

This thesis investigates the structure and properties of hyperbolic 3-manifold groups (particularly knot and link groups) and arithmetic Kleinian groups. In Chapter 2, we establish a stronger version of a conjecture of A. Reid and others in the arithmetic case: if two elements of equal trace (e.g., conjugate elements) generate an arithmetic two-bridge knot or link group, then the elements are parabolic (and hence peripheral). In Chapter 3, we identify all Kleinian groups that can be generated by two elements for which equality holds in Jørgensen’s Inequality in two cases: torsion-free Kleinian groups and non-cocompact arithmetic Kleinian groups. / text

Transverse zones are important syn-kinematic components of thrust belt development. Various scales of data were utilized to develop three-dimensional geometric and kinematic models for the Bessemer transverse zone (BTZ) of the Alabama Alleghanian thrust belt. Regional analysis of the BTZ began with the examination of geologic maps (1:250,000, 1:48,000, and 1:24,000 scales), seismic reflection profiles, well data, and previous stratigraphic research. All Paleozoic-age stratigraphic contacts, major thrust faults and associated folds, and various unnamed minor structures were compiled to create two strike-perpendicular, and five-strike parallel, cross sections transecting the extent of the BTZ at a scale of 1:100,000. The balanced and viable cross sections were used to create palinspastic maps of the BTZ. The deformed cross sections and geologic maps, and the restored cross sections and palinspastic maps, model the post- and prekinematic geometry of the transverse zone, respectively. Additional geological fieldwork in the northwestern part of the BTZ permitted the construction of geologic maps (1:24,000 scale) documenting cross-strike links (the fundamental unit of transverse zones) exposed at the present erosional surface (Concord and McCalla 7.5 quadrangles). Balanced and viable geologic cross sections (1:24,000 scale) were constructed from these data and placed parallel and perpendicular to strike of cross-strike links. The cross sections were restored and used to create 1:24,000-scale palinspastic maps of the cross-strike links in this part of the BTZ. The cross sections and maps model the three-dimensional geometry of the cross-strike links comprising the BTZ. Sub-allochthon basement structures are present beneath the thrust transport vectors of cross-strike links in the BTZ, indicating genetic relationships between transverse zone structures and underlying basment structures. Basement-graben related changes in the stratigraphic thickness of the decollement-host horizon are interpreted as having localized and facilitated growth of the Bessemer mushwad, a ductile duplex in the allochthon. The muswad localized the structural position of two thrust sheets and several cross-strike links in the BTZ. Geologic map patterns of the transverse zone indicate a break-back deformation sequence for the BTZ, interpreted as a response to decollement propagation through an allochthon-spanning weak decollement-host horizon, which had large stratigraphic thickness variations in basement grabens.

High speed serial links are critical components for addressing the growing demand for I/O bandwidth in next-generation computing applications, such as many-core systems, backplane and optical data communications. Due to continued process scaling and circuit innovations, today's CMOS serial link transceivers can achieve tens of Gb/s per pin. However, most of their reported power efficiency improves much slower than the rise of data rate. Therefore, aggregate I/O power is increasing and will exceed the power budget if the trend for more off-chip bandwidth is sustained. In this work, a system level statistical analysis of serial links is first described, and compares the link performance of Non-Return-to-Zero (2-PAM) with higher-order modulation (duobinary) signaling schemes. This method enables fast and accurate BER distribution simulation of serial link transceivers that include channel and circuit imperfections, such as finite pulse rise/fall time, duty cycle variation, and both receiver and transmitter forwarded-clock jitter. Second, in order to address link power efficiency, two test chips have been implemented. The first one describes a quad-lane, 6.4-7.2 Gb/s serial link receiver prototype using a forwarded clock architecture. A novel phase deskew scheme using injection-locked ring oscillators (ILRO) is proposed that achieves greater than one UI of phase shift for multiple clock phases, eliminating phase rotation and interpolation required in conventional architectures. Each receiver, optimized for power efficiency, consists of a low-power linear equalizer, four offset-cancelled quantizers for 1:4 demultiplexing, and an injection-locked ring oscillator coupled to a low-voltage swing, global clock distribution. Measurement results show a 6.4-7.2Gb/s data rate with BER < 10⁻¹² across 14 cm of PCB, and an 8Gb/s data rate through 4cm of PCB. Designed in a 1.2V, 90nm CMOS process, the ILRO achieves a wide tuning range from 1.6-2.6GHz. The total area of each receiver is 0.0174mm², resulting in a measured power efficiency of 0.6mW/Gb/s. Improving upon the first test chip, a second test chip for 8Gb/s forwarded clock serial link receivers exploits a low-power super-harmonic injection-locked ring oscillator for symmetric multi-phase local clock generation and deskewing. Further power reduction is achieved by designing most of the receiver circuits in the near-threshold region (0.6V supply), with the exception of only the global clock buffer, test buffers and synthesized digital test circuits at nominal 1V supply. At the architectural level, a 1:10 direct demultiplexing rate is chosen to achieve low supply operation by exploiting high-parallelism. Fabricated in 65nm CMOS technology, two receiver prototypes are integrated in this test chip, one without and the other with front-end boot-strapped S/Hs. Including the amortized power of global clock distribution, the proposed serial link receivers consume 1.3mW and 2mW respectively at 8Gb/s input data rate, achieving a power efficiency of 0.163mW/Gb/s and 0.25mW/Gb/s. Measurement results show both receivers achieve BER < 10⁻¹² across a 20-cm FR4 PCB channel. / Graduation date: 2012