scholarly journals Antenna Modeling and Reconstruction Accuracy of Time Domain-Based Image Reconstruction in Microwave Tomography

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Fhager ◽  
Shantanu K. Padhi ◽  
Mikael Persson ◽  
John Howard

Nonlinear microwave imaging heavily relies on an accurate numerical electromagnetic model of the antenna system. The model is used to simulate scattering data that is compared to its measured counterpart in order to reconstruct the image. In this paper an antenna system immersed in water is used to image different canonical objects in order to investigate the implication of modeling errors on the final reconstruction using a time domain-based iterative inverse reconstruction algorithm and three-dimensional FDTD modeling. With the test objects immersed in a background of air and tap water, respectively, we have studied the impact of antenna modeling errors, errors in the modeling of the background media, and made a comparison with a two-dimensional version of the algorithm. In conclusion even small modeling errors in the antennas can significantly alter the reconstructed image. Since the image reconstruction procedure is highly nonlinear general conclusions are very difficult to make. In our case it means that with the antenna system immersed in water and using our present FDTD-based electromagnetic model the imaging results are improved if refraining from modeling the water-wall-air interface and instead just use a homogeneous background of water in the model.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Mian Zhong ◽  
Bingwei Liu ◽  
Chen Li ◽  
Zhiqi Wang ◽  
Dongshan Wei ◽  
...  

Composite materials have increasingly become a high proportion of the structural weight of aircraft due to their excellent performances. Different types of damages may occur in the aircraft service period, which will bring potential safety risks to aircrafts. To investigate the defect damage detection and its spectral characteristics and imaging of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer composite laminates, defects from the low-velocity impact damage in composites were measured by the THz time-domain reflection imaging system. Results show that there exists obvious THz spectral differences between the impact damaged defects and nondefect. The effective detection frequency band for the low-speed impact damaged defect is 0.12–2.0 THz. In the time domain, there are attenuations and delays in the spectra of defects relative to those of nondefects. In the frequency domain, with the increase of frequency, the power spectral density of the defect first increases and then decreases, and the absorption coefficient increases slowly. In general, the imaging results in time-domain imaging are better than those from the frequency-domain imaging, which not only is suitable for the qualitative detection of defects but also has great potential and application prospects in quantitative detection. This work shows an important guide for the application of THz technology to detect the composite material defects in civil aircraft.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 848-854
Author(s):  
Tyson Reimer ◽  
Mario Solis-Nepote ◽  
Stephen Pistorius

This work examines the impact of the inverse chirp z-transform (ICZT) for frequency-to-time-domain conversion during image reconstruction of a pre-clinical radar-based breast microwave imaging system operating over 1–8 GHz. Two anthropomorphic breast phantoms were scanned with this system, and the delay-multiply-and-sum beamformer was used to reconstruct images of the phantoms, after using either the ICZT or the inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) for frequency-to-time domain conversion. The contrast, localization error, and presence of artifacts in the reconstructions were compared. The use of the IDFT resulted in prominent ring artifacts that were not present when using the ICZT, and the use of the ICZT resulted in higher contrast between the tumor and clutter responses. In one of the phantoms, the tumor response was only visible in reconstructions that used the ICZT. The use of the ICZT evaluated with a time-step size of 11 ps resulted in the reduction of prominent artifacts present when using the IDFT and the successful identification of the tumor response in the reconstructed images.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 2335
Author(s):  
Gabriella Pinto ◽  
Sabrina De Pascale ◽  
Maria Aponte ◽  
Andrea Scaloni ◽  
Francesco Addeo ◽  
...  

Plant polyphenols have beneficial antioxidant effects on human health; practices aimed at preserving their content in foods and/or reusing food by-products are encouraged. The impact of the traditional practice of the water curing procedure of chestnuts, which prevents insect/mould damage during storage, was studied to assess the release of polyphenols from the fruit. Metabolites extracted from pericarp and integument tissues or released in the medium from the water curing process were analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and electrospray-quadrupole-time of flight-mass spectrometry (ESI-qTOF-MS). This identified: (i) condensed and hydrolyzable tannins made of (epi)catechin (procyanidins) and acid ellagic units in pericarp tissues; (ii) polyphenols made of gallocatechin and catechin units condensed with gallate (prodelphinidins) in integument counterparts; (iii) metabolites resembling those reported above in the wastewater from the chestnut curing process. Comparative experiments were also performed on aqueous media recovered from fruits treated with processes involving: (i) tap water; (ii) tap water containing an antifungal Lb. pentosus strain; (iii) wastewater from a previous curing treatment. These analyses indicated that the former treatment determines a 6–7-fold higher release of polyphenols in the curing water with respect to the other ones. This event has a negative impact on the luster of treated fruits but qualifies the corresponding wastes as a source of antioxidants. Such a phenomenon does not occur in wastewater from the other curing processes, where the release of polyphenols was reduced, thus preserving the chestnut’s appearance. Polyphenol profiling measurements demonstrated that bacterial presence in water hampered the release of pericarp metabolites. This study provides a rationale to traditional processing practices on fruit appearance and qualifies the corresponding wastes as a source of bioactive compounds for other nutraceutical applications.


Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 624
Author(s):  
Sripriya Dharwadkar ◽  
Linlong Yu ◽  
Gopal Achari

Sulfolane is an emerging industrial pollutant detected in the environments near many oil and gas plants in North America. So far, numerous advanced oxidation processes have been investigated to treat sulfolane in aqueous media. However, there is only a few papers that discuss the degradation of sulfolane using photocatalysis. In this study, photocatalytic degradation of sulfolane using titanium dioxide (TiO2) and reduced graphene oxide TiO2 composite (RGO-TiO2) in a light-emitting diode (LED) photoreactor was investigated. The impact of different waters (ultrapure water, tap water, and groundwater) and type of irradiation (UVA-LED and mercury lamp) on photocatalytic degradation of sulfolane were also studied. In addition, a reusability test was conducted for the photocatalyst to examine the degradation of sulfolane in three consecutive cycles with new batches of sulfolane-contaminated water. The results show that LED-based photocatalysis was effective in degrading sulfolane in waters even after three photocatalytic cycles. UVA-LEDs displayed more efficient use of photon energy when compared with the mercury lamps as they have a narrow emission spectrum coinciding with the absorption of TiO2. The combination of UVA-LED and TiO2 yielded better performance than UVA-LED and RGO-TiO2 for the degradation of sulfolane. Much lower sulfolane degradation rates were observed in tap water and groundwater than ultrapure water.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tawfik Yahya ◽  
Nur Azah Hamzaid ◽  
Sadeeq Ali ◽  
Farahiyah Jasni ◽  
Hanie Nadia Shasmin

AbstractA transfemoral prosthesis is required to assist amputees to perform the activity of daily living (ADL). The passive prosthesis has some drawbacks such as utilization of high metabolic energy. In contrast, the active prosthesis consumes less metabolic energy and offers better performance. However, the recent active prosthesis uses surface electromyography as its sensory system which has weak signals with microvolt-level intensity and requires a lot of computation to extract features. This paper focuses on recognizing different phases of sitting and standing of a transfemoral amputee using in-socket piezoelectric-based sensors. 15 piezoelectric film sensors were embedded in the inner socket wall adjacent to the most active regions of the agonist and antagonist knee extensor and flexor muscles, i. e. region with the highest level of muscle contractions of the quadriceps and hamstring. A male transfemoral amputee wore the instrumented socket and was instructed to perform several sitting and standing phases using an armless chair. Data was collected from the 15 embedded sensors and went through signal conditioning circuits. The overlapping analysis window technique was used to segment the data using different window lengths. Fifteen time-domain and frequency-domain features were extracted and new feature sets were obtained based on the feature performance. Eight of the common pattern recognition multiclass classifiers were evaluated and compared. Regression analysis was used to investigate the impact of the number of features and the window lengths on the classifiers’ accuracies, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test significant differences in the classifiers’ performances. The classification accuracy was calculated using k-fold cross-validation method, and 20% of the data set was held out for testing the optimal classifier. The results showed that the feature set (FS-5) consisting of the root mean square (RMS) and the number of peaks (NP) achieved the highest classification accuracy in five classifiers. Support vector machine (SVM) with cubic kernel proved to be the optimal classifier, and it achieved a classification accuracy of 98.33 % using the test data set. Obtaining high classification accuracy using only two time-domain features would significantly reduce the processing time of controlling a prosthesis and eliminate substantial delay. The proposed in-socket sensors used to detect sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit movements could be further integrated with an active knee joint actuation system to produce powered assistance during energy-demanding activities such as sit-to-stand and stair climbing. In future, the system could also be used to accurately predict the intended movement based on their residual limb’s muscle and mechanical behaviour as detected by the in-socket sensory system.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marwan Hassan ◽  
Achraf Hossen

This paper presents simulations of a loosely supported cantilever tube subjected to turbulence and fluidelastic instability forces. Several time domain fluid force models are presented to simulate the damping-controlled fluidelastic instability mechanism in tube arrays. These models include a negative damping model based on the Connors equation, fluid force coefficient-based models (Chen, 1983, “Instability Mechanisms and Stability Criteria of a Group of Cylinders Subjected to Cross-Flow. Part 1: Theory,” Trans. ASME, J. Vib., Acoust., Stress, Reliab. Des., 105, pp. 51–58; Tanaka and Takahara, 1981, “Fluid Elastic Vibration of Tube Array in Cross Flow,” J. Sound Vib., 77, pp. 19–37), and two semi-analytical models (Price and Païdoussis, 1984, “An Improved Mathematical Model for the Stability of Cylinder Rows Subjected to Cross-Flow,” J. Sound Vib., 97(4), pp. 615–640; Lever and Weaver, 1982, “A Theoretical Model for the Fluidelastic Instability in Heat Exchanger Tube Bundles,” ASME J. Pressure Vessel Technol., 104, pp. 104–147). Time domain modeling and implementation challenges for each of these theories were discussed. For each model, the flow velocity and the support clearance were varied. Special attention was paid to the tube/support interaction parameters that affect wear, such as impact forces and normal work rate. As the prediction of the linear threshold varies depending on the model utilized, the nonlinear response also differs. The investigated models exhibit similar response characteristics for the lift response. The greatest differences were seen in the prediction of the drag response, the impact force level, and the normal work rate. Simulation results show that the Connors-based model consistently underestimates the response and the tube/support interaction parameters for the loose support case.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1420-1439
Author(s):  
Albert R Kottke ◽  
Norman A Abrahamson ◽  
David M Boore ◽  
Yousef Bozorgnia ◽  
Christine A Goulet ◽  
...  

Traditional ground-motion models (GMMs) are used to compute pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) from future earthquakes and are generally developed by regression of PSA using a physics-based functional form. PSA is a relatively simple metric that correlates well with the response of several engineering systems and is a metric commonly used in engineering evaluations; however, characteristics of the PSA calculation make application of scaling factors dependent on the frequency content of the input motion, complicating the development and adaptability of GMMs. By comparison, Fourier amplitude spectrum (FAS) represents ground-motion amplitudes that are completely independent from the amplitudes at other frequencies, making them an attractive alternative for GMM development. Random vibration theory (RVT) predicts the peak response of motion in the time domain based on the FAS and a duration, and thus can be used to relate FAS to PSA. Using RVT to compute the expected peak response in the time domain for given FAS therefore presents a significant advantage that is gaining traction in the GMM field. This article provides recommended RVT procedures relevant to GMM development, which were developed for the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA)-East project. In addition, an orientation-independent FAS metric—called the effective amplitude spectrum (EAS)—is developed for use in conjunction with RVT to preserve the mean power of the corresponding two horizontal components considered in traditional PSA-based modeling (i.e., RotD50). The EAS uses a standardized smoothing approach to provide a practical representation of the FAS for ground-motion modeling, while minimizing the impact on the four RVT properties ( zeroth moment, [Formula: see text]; bandwidth parameter, [Formula: see text]; frequency of zero crossings, [Formula: see text]; and frequency of extrema, [Formula: see text]). Although the recommendations were originally developed for NGA-East, they and the methodology they are based on can be adapted to become portable to other GMM and engineering problems requiring the computation of PSA from FAS.


2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1712) ◽  
pp. 1661-1669 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Alonso ◽  
Menno J. Bouma ◽  
Mercedes Pascual

Climate change impacts on malaria are typically assessed with scenarios for the long-term future. Here we focus instead on the recent past (1970–2003) to address whether warmer temperatures have already increased the incidence of malaria in a highland region of East Africa. Our analyses rely on a new coupled mosquito–human model of malaria, which we use to compare projected disease levels with and without the observed temperature trend. Predicted malaria cases exhibit a highly nonlinear response to warming, with a significant increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, although typical epidemic sizes are below those observed. These findings suggest that climate change has already played an important role in the exacerbation of malaria in this region. As the observed changes in malaria are even larger than those predicted by our model, other factors previously suggested to explain all of the increase in malaria may be enhancing the impact of climate change.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 111-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdy F. Iskander ◽  
Zhengqing Yun ◽  
Nuri Celik ◽  
Hyoungsun Youn ◽  
Nobutaka Omaki ◽  
...  

AbstractEmerging homeland security applications require low-cost and fast, deployable, high-frequency (HF) radar systems and the ability to operate in challenging terrain environments. With the need to cover as many border and coastal areas as possible, taking advantages of available transmitter resources to track targets using passive radar technologies is yet another area of research of considerable interest. In this paper, we describe the development of an HF radar system that meets these operational challenges, and we also highlight some recent implementation of the passive radar technology for homeland security applications. Specifically, we describe the design of a novel, electrically small HF antenna system consisting of three helical elements, one connected to the feed port while the other two are folded arms terminated with switchable loads. The antenna is 0.90-m (<3 feet) high with a small ground disk of 0.60 m (∼2 feet) diameter. The antenna is self-resonant at multiple frequencies (5.7, 16, 20.5, and 27.7 MHz) and with input impedance values that can be easily matched to a 50-Ω coaxial feed. Values of the electrical size ka range from 0.44 at 30 MHz down to 0.08 at 5.7 MHz. The achieved bandwidths range from 1.4% up to 12% and associated efficiencies range from 66.2% to 76% within the HF band (3‐30 MHz). As for the operational requirement in challenging terrain environments, a setup in a hilltop-type environment with a slope terrain and surface roughness was considered. A propagation modeling and ray-tracing approach was used to evaluate the impact of such terrain conditions on the effective interelement spacing of an HF radar antenna array and the subsequent impact on its beamforming and beam steering performance. It is shown that while the effect of the slope on the effective interelement spacing of the array could be very significant, diffraction effects from surface roughness resulted in a much smaller, but significant, error of about 18°. Results from some initial work on the implementation of passive radar technology, with focus on addressing the bandwidth requirement to ensure practical resolution values, are also described. It is shown that signals from wide-band transmitters (e.g., High Definition Television [HDTV] signals) rather than those from radio stations are required to provide acceptable range resolution. These as well as simulation and experimental results of the antenna design, and results from beamforming simulations illustrating the effect of a rough hilltop terrain on the HF radar performance are described.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Smith ◽  
K. E. El-Deen

A sampling program was conducted in a residential community in Cairo, Egypt in order to determine the presence of chlorine disinfection by-products (DBPs) in treated water and to observe the impact of the distribution system on DBP levels. Five campaigns were conducted over a 15-month period during 2005–2006. Trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) exceeded local and international limits depending upon the season. Tap water concentrations of THMs were considerably higher in summer than during the rest of the year. In the Summer 2005 event, the average for the 20 tap water locations was 158 μg/l Total-THMs, well in excess of the U.S. EPA limit of 80 μg/L and the current Egyptian standard of 100 μg/l; all 20 locations exceeded the 100 μg/l limit. For the following event in late Fall 2005, the average dropped to 84 μg/l with 11 and 6 sites exceeding the U.S. EPA and Egyptian limits, respectively. HAA levels tended to be complementary to Total-THM values in that they were lower in summer but higher during fall and spring. The U.S. EPA limit on a select set of 5 HAAs (HAA5) is 60 μg/l (Egypt does not currently regulate HAAs). The average for HAA5 in the Summer 2005 event was 52 μg/l with 8 of the 20 tap samples equalling or exceeding the 60 μg/l standard. By contrast, in Fall 2005, the HAA5 average increased to 89 μg/l, with 15 of 20 sites exceeding the limit. THM and HAA concentrations generally increased with distance from the WTP along a targeted distribution main, while chlorine and natural organic matter tended to decrease.


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