An adaptive frequency synthesizer architecture reducing reference sidebands

An adaptive phase-locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer architecture for reducing reference sidebands at the output of the frequency synthesizer is described. The architecture combines two tuning loops: one is the main loop for locking the PLL frequency synthesizer and operating all the time, the other one is auxiliary loop for reducing reference sidebands and operating only when the main loop is closely locked. A 1.8V 1GHz fully integrated CMOS dual-loop frequency synthesizer is designed in a 0.18um CMOS process. The suppression of the reference sidebands of the proposed frequency synthesizer is 13.8dB more than that of the general frequency synthesizer.

Pipeline Architecture and Parallel Computation-Based Real-Time Stereovision Tracking System for Surgical Navigation

This paper studies the development of a real-time stereovision system to track multiple infrared markers attached to a surgical instrument. Multiple stages of pipeline in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) are developed to recognize the targets in both left and right image planes and to give each target a unique label. The pipeline architecture includes a smoothing filter, an adaptive threshold module, a connected component labeling operation, and a centroid extraction process. A parallel distortion correction method is proposed and implemented in a dual-core DSP. A suitable kinematic model is established for the moving targets, and a novel set of parallel and interactive computation mechanisms is proposed to position and track the targets, which are carried out by a cross-computation method in a dual-core DSP. The proposed tracking system can track the 3-D coordinate, velocity, and acceleration of four infrared markers with a delay of 9.18 ms. Furthermore, it is capable of tracking a maximum of 110 infrared markers without frame dropping at a frame rate of 60 f/s. The accuracy of the proposed system can reach the scale of 0.37 mm RMS along the x- and y-directions and 0.45 mm RMS along the depth direction (the depth is from 0.8 to 0.45 m). The performance of the proposed system can meet the requirements of applications such as surgical navigation, which needs high real time and accuracy capability.

Pipeline Architecture and Parallel Computation-Based Real-Time Stereovision Tracking System for Surgical Navigation

This paper studies the development of a real-time stereovision system to track multiple infrared markers attached to a surgical instrument. Multiple stages of pipeline in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) are developed to recognize the targets in both left and right image planes and to give each target a unique label. The pipeline architecture includes a smoothing filter, an adaptive threshold module, a connected component labeling operation, and a centroid extraction process. A parallel distortion correction method is proposed and implemented in a dual-core DSP. A suitable kinematic model is established for the moving targets, and a novel set of parallel and interactive computation mechanisms is proposed to position and track the targets, which are carried out by a cross-computation method in a dual-core DSP. The proposed tracking system can track the 3-D coordinate, velocity, and acceleration of four infrared markers with a delay of 9.18 ms. Furthermore, it is capable of tracking a maximum of 110 infrared markers without frame dropping at a frame rate of 60 f/s. The accuracy of the proposed system can reach the scale of 0.37 mm RMS along the x- and y-directions and 0.45 mm RMS along the depth direction (the depth is from 0.8 to 0.45 m). The performance of the proposed system can meet the requirements of applications such as surgical navigation, which needs high real time and accuracy capability.

Numerical simulation of an adaptive optics system with laser propagation in the atmosphere

A comprehensive model of laser propagation in the atmosphere with a complete adaptive optics (AO) system for phase compensation is presented, and a corresponding computer program is compiled. A direct wave-front gradient control method is used to reconstruct the wave-front phase. With the long-exposure Strehl ratio as the evaluation parameter, a numerical simulation of an AO system in a stationary state with the atmospheric propagation of a laser beam was conducted. It was found that for certain conditions the phase screen that describes turbulence in the atmosphere might not be isotropic. Numerical experiments show that the computational results in imaging of lenses by means of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) method agree well with those computed by means of an integration method. However, the computer time required for the FFT method is 1 order of magnitude less than that of the integration method. Phase tailoring of the calculated phase is presented as a means to solve the problem that variance of the calculated residual phase does not correspond to the correction effectiveness of an AO system. It is found for the first time to our knowledge that for a constant delay time of an AO system, when the lateral wind speed exceeds a threshold, the compensation effectiveness of an AO system is better than that of complete phase conjugation. This finding indicates that the better compensation capability of an AO system does not mean better correction effectiveness. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America.

Effects of Noise and Detection Error in a Dynamic Adaptive Optics System

It is well known that noise and detection error can affect the performances of an adaptive optics (AO) system. Effects of noise and detection error on the phase compensation effectiveness in a dynamic AO system are investigated by means of a pure numerical simulation in this paper. A theoretical model for numerically simulating effects of noise and detection error in a static AO system and a corresponding computer program were presented in a previous article. A numerical simulation of effects of noise and detection error is combined with our previous numeral simulation of a dynamic AO system in this paper and a corresponding computer program has been compiled. Effects of detection error, readout noise and photon noise are included and investigated by a numerical simulation for finding the preferred working conditions and the best performances in a practical dynamic AO system. An approximate model is presented as well. Under many practical conditions such approximate model is a good alternative to the more accurate one. A simple algorithm which can be used for reducing the effect of noise is presented as well. When signal to noise ratio is very low, such method can be used to improve the performances of a dynamic AO system.

Adaptive Mesh Refinement FEM for Damage Evolution of Heterogeneous Brittle Media

Damage evolution of heterogeneous brittle media involves a wide range of length scales. The coupling between these length scales underlies the mechanism of damage evolution and rupture. However, few of previous numerical algorithms consider the effects of the trans-scale coupling effectively. In this paper, an adaptive mesh refinement FEM algorithm is developed to simulate this trans-scale coupling. The adaptive serendipity element is implemented in this algorithm, and several special discontinuous base functions are created to avoid the incompatible displacement between the elements. Both the benchmark and a typical numerical example under quasi-static loading are given to justify the effectiveness of this model. The numerical results reproduce a series of characteristics of damage and rupture in heterogeneous brittle media.

Design of a Self-Adaptive Down-Hole Layered Steam Injector and Its Application

Layered steam injection, widely used in Liaohe Oilfield at Present, is an effective recovery technique to heavy oil reserves. Which makes the steam front-peak push forward uniformly, the amount of steam injection be assigned rationally, and the effect of injection steam be obtained as expected. To maintain a fixed ratio of layered steam injection and solve the problem of nonadjustable hole diameter with the change of layer pressure in the existing injectors, a new method is proposed in this paper to design layered steam injectors based on the dynamic balance theory. According to gas-liquid two-phase flow theory and beat transfer theory, the energy equation and the heat conduction equation in boreholes are developed. By analyzing the energy equilibrium of water-steam passing through the injector hole, we find an expression to describe the relation between the cross-sectional area of injector hole and the layer pressure. With this expression, we provide a new set of calculation methods and write the corresponding computer program to design and calculate the main parameters of a steam injector. The actual measurement data show that the theoretically calculated results are accurate, the software runs reliably, and they provide the design of self-adjustable layered steam injectors with the theoretical foundation.

Design of a Self-Adaptive Down-Hole Layered Steam Injector and Its Application

Layered steam injection, widely used in Liaohe Oilfield at present, is an effective recovery technique to heavy oil reserves. Which makes the steam front-peak push forward uniformly, the amount of steam injection be assigned rationally, and the effect of injection steam be obtained as expected. To maintain a fixed ratio of layered steam injection and solve the problem of nonadjustable hole diameter with the change of layer pressure in the existing injectors, a new method is proposed in this paper to design layered steam injectors based on the dynamic balance theory According to gas-liquid two-phase flow theory and heat transfer theory, the energy equation and the heat conduction equation in boreholes are developed. By analyzing the energy equilibrium of water-steam passing through the injector hole, we find an expression to describe the relation between the cross-sectional area of injector hole and the layer pressure. With this expression, we provide a new set of calculation methods and write the corresponding computer program to design and calculate the main parameters of a steam injector. The actual measurement data show that the theoretically calculated results are accurate, the software runs reliably, and they provide the design of self-adjustable layered steam injectors with the theoretical foundation.

Cone Effect in Astronomical Adaptive Optics System Investigated by a Pure Numerical Simulation

It is well-known that cone effect or focus anisoplanatism is produced by the limited distance of a laser guide star (LGS) which is created within the Earth atmosphere and consequently located at a finite distance from the observer. In this paper, the cone effect of the LGS for different vertical profiles of the refractive index structure constant Cn2 is numerically investigated by using a revised computer program of atmospheric propagation of optical wave and an adaptive optics (AO) system including dynamic control process. According to the practice, the overall tilt for the tilt-correction mirror is obtained from a natural star and the aberrated wavefront for phase correction of the deformable mirror is obtained from a LGS in our numerical simulation. It is surprisingly found that the effect of altitude of the LGS on the AO phase compensation effectiveness by using the commonly-available vertical profiles of Cn2 and the lateral wind speed in the atmosphere is relatively weak, and the cone effect for some Cn2 profiles is even negligible. It is found that the cone effect does not have obvious relationship with the turbulence strength, however, it depends on the vertical distribution profile of Cn 2 apparently. On the other hand, the cone effect depends on the vertical distribution of the lateral wind speed as well. In comparison to a longer wavelength, the cone effect becomes more obvious in the case of a shorter wavelength. In all cases concerned in this paper, an AO system by using a sodium guide star has almost same phase compensation effectiveness as that by using the astronomical target itself as a beacon. Effect of dynamic control process in an AO system on the cone effect is studied in this paper for the first time within our knowledge.

High-Strength Composite Fibers: Realizing True Potential of Carbon Nanotubes in Polymer Matrix through Continuous Reticulate Architecture and Molecular Level Couplings

Carbon nanotubes have unprecedented mechanical properties as defect-free nanoscale building blocks, but their potential has not been fully realized in composite materials due to weakness at the interfaces. Here we demonstrate that through load-transfer-favored three-dimensional architecture and molecular level couplings with polymer chains, true potential of CNTs can be realized in composites as Initially envisioned. Composite fibers with reticulate nanotube architectures show order of magnitude improvement in strength compared to randomly dispersed short CNT reinforced composites reported before. The molecular level couplings between nanotubes and polymer chains results in drastic differences in the properties of thermoset and thermoplastic composite fibers, which indicate that conventional macroscopic composite theory falls to explain the overall hybrid behavior at nanoscale.

Euler Solution Using Adaptive Cartesian Grid With A Gridless Boundary Treatment

A quadtree-based adaptive Cartesian grid generator and flow solver were developed. The grid adaptation based on pressure or density gradient was performed and a gridless method based on the least-square fashion was used to treat the wall surface boundary condition, which is generally difficult to be handled for the common Cartesian grid. First, to validate the technique of grid adaptation, the benchmarks over a forward-facing step and double Mach reflection were computed. Second, the flows over the NACA 0012 airfoil and a two-element airfoil were calculated to validate the developed gridless method. The computational results indicate the developed method is reasonable for complex flows.

Visual pattern recognition network: Its training algorithm and its optoelectronic architecture

A visual pattern recognition network and its training algorithm are proposed. The network constructed of a one-layer morphology network and a two-layer modified Hamming net. This visual network can implement invariant pattern recognition with respect to image translation and size projection. After supervised learning takes place, the visual network extracts image features and classifies patterns much the same as living beings do. Moreover we set up its optoelectronic architecture for real-time pattern recognition. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America