Retro-Proportional-Navigation: A New Guidance Law for Interception of High-Speed Targets

In this paper, a new proportional-navigation guidance law, called retro-proportional-navigation, is proposed. The guidance law is designed to intercept targets that are of higher speeds than the interceptor. This is a typical scenario in a ballistic target interception. The capture region analysis for both proportional-navigation and retro-proportional-navigation guidance laws are presented. The study shows that, at the cost of a higher intercept time, the retro-proportional-navigation guidance law demands lower terminal lateral acceleration than proportional navigation and can intercept high-velocity targets from many initial conditions that the classical proportional navigation cannot. Also, the capture region with the retro-proportional-navigation guidance law is shown to be larger compared with the classical proportional-navigation guidance law.

Prediction of Ground Water Levels in the Uplands of a Tropical Coastal Riparian Wetland using Artificial Neural Networks

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been found to be a robust tool to model many non-linear hydrological processes. The present study aims at evaluating the performance of ANN in simulating and predicting ground water levels in the uplands of a tropical coastal riparian wetland. The study involves comparison of two network architectures, Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) trained under five algorithms namely Levenberg Marquardt algorithm, Resilient Back propagation algorithm, BFGS Quasi Newton algorithm, Scaled Conjugate Gradient algorithm, and Fletcher Reeves Conjugate Gradient algorithm by simulating the water levels in a well in the study area. The study is analyzed in two cases-one with four inputs to the networks and two with eight inputs to the networks. The two networks-five algorithms in both the cases are compared to determine the best performing combination that could simulate and predict the process satisfactorily. Ad Hoc (Trial and Error) method is followed in optimizing network structure in all cases. On the whole, it is noticed from the results that the Artificial Neural Networks have simulated and predicted the water levels in the well with fair accuracy. This is evident from low values of Normalized Root Mean Square Error and Relative Root Mean Square Error and high values of Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency Index and Correlation Coefficient (which are taken as the performance measures to calibrate the networks) calculated after the analysis. On comparison of ground water levels predicted with those at the observation well, FFNN trained with Fletcher Reeves Conjugate Gradient algorithm taken four inputs has outperformed all other combinations.

Robust GNSS signal detection in the presence of navigation data bits

This paper considers the problem of weak signal detection in the presence of navigation data bits for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. Typically, a set of partial coherent integration outputs are non-coherently accumulated to combat the effects of model uncertainties such as the presence of navigation data-bits and/or frequency uncertainty, resulting in a sub-optimal test statistic. In this work, the test-statistic for weak signal detection is derived in the presence of navigation data-bits from the likelihood ratio. It is highlighted that averaging the likelihood ratio based test-statistic over the prior distributions of the unknown data bits and the carrier phase uncertainty leads to the conventional Post Detection Integration (PDI) technique for detection. To improve the performance in the presence of model uncertainties, a novel cyclostationarity based sub-optimal PDI technique is proposed. The test statistic is analytically characterized, and shown to be robust to the presence of navigation data-bits, frequency, phase and noise uncertainties. Monte Carlo simulation results illustrate the validity of the theoretical results and the superior performance offered by the proposed detector in the presence of model uncertainties.

Proportional navigation with delayed line-of-sight rate

This brief discusses the convergence analysis of proportional navigation (PN) guidance law in the presence of delayed line-of-sight (LOS) rate information. The delay in the LOS rate is introduced by the missile guidance system that uses a low cost sensor to obtain LOS rate information by image processing techniques. A Lyapunov-like function is used to analyze the convergence of the delay differential equation (DDE) governing the evolution of the LOS rate. The time-to-go until which decreasing behaviour of the Lyapunov-like function can be guaranteed is obtained. Conditions on the delay for finite time convergence of the LOS rate are presented for the linearized engagement equation. It is observed that in the presence of line-of-sight rate delay, increasing the effective navigation constant of the PN guidance law deteriorates its performance. Numerical simulations are presented to validate the results.

Capturability of augmented proportional navigation (APN) guidance with nonlinear engagement dynamics

Proportional Navigation (PN) and its variants are widely used guidance philosophies. However, in the presence of target maneuver, PN guidance law is effective only for a restrictive set of initial geometries. To account for target maneuvers, the concept of Augmented Proportional Navigation (APN) guidance law was introduced and analyzed in a linearized interceptor-target engagement framework presented in literature. However, there is no work in the literature, that addresses the capturability performance of the APN guidance law in a nonlinear engagement framework. This paper presents such an analysis and obtains the conditions for capturability. It also shows that a shorter time of interception is obtained when APN is formulated in the nonlinear framework as proposed in this paper. Simulation results are given to support the theoretical findings.

Hydrographical characteristics and oxygen isotopic signatures of water in a coastal environment (Mangalore) along the southeastern Arabian Sea

Coastal marine environments are important links between the continents and the open ocean. The coast off Mangalore forms part of the upwelling zone along the southeastern Arabian Sea. The temperature, salinity, density, dissolved oxygen and stable oxygen isotope ratio (delta O-18) of surface waters as well as those of bottom waters off coastal Mangalore were studied every month from October 2010 to May 2011. The coastal waters were stratified in October and November due to precipitation and runoff. The region was characterised by upwelled bottom waters in October, whereas the region exhibited a temperature inversion in November. The surface and bottom waters presented almost uniform properties from December until April. The coastal waters were observed to be most dense in January and May. Comparatively cold and poorly oxygenated bottom waters during the May sampling indicated the onset of upwelling along the region. delta O-18 of the coastal waters successfully documented the observed variations in the hydrographical characteristics of the Mangalore coast during the monthly sampling period. We also noted that the monthly variability in the properties of the coastal waters of Mangalore was related to the hydrographical characteristics of the adjacent open ocean inferred from satellite-derived surface winds, sea surface height anomaly data and sea surface temperatures.

Capturability of Augmented Pure Proportional Navigation Guidance Against Time-Varying Target Maneuvers

This paper proposes a variation of the pure proportional navigation guidance law, called augmented pure proportional navigation, to account for target maneuvers, in a realistic nonlinear engagement geometry, and presents its capturability analysis. These results are in contrast to most work in the literature on augmented proportional navigation laws that consider a linearized geometry imposed upon the true proportional navigation guidance law. Because pure proportional navigation guidance law is closer to a realistic implementation of proportional navigation than true proportional navigation law, and any engagement process is predominantly nonlinear, the results obtained in this paper are more realistic than any available in the literature. Sufficient conditions on speed ratio, navigation gain, and augmentation parameter for capturability, and boundedness of lateral acceleration, against targets executing piecewise continuous maneuvers with time, are obtained. Further, based on a priori knowledge of the maximum maneuver capability of the target, a significant simplification of the guidance law is proposed in this paper. The proposed guidance law is also shown to require a shorter time of interception than standard pure proportional navigation and augmented proportional navigation. To remove chattering in the interceptor maneuver at the end phase of the engagement, a hybrid guidance law using augmented pure proportional navigation and pure proportional navigation is also proposed. Finally, the guaranteed capture zones of standard and augmented pure proportional navigation guidance laws against maneuvering targets are analyzed and compared in the normalized relative velocity space. It is shown that the guaranteed capture zone expands significantly when augmented pure proportional navigation is used instead of pure proportional navigation. Simulation results are given to support the theoretical findings.

Sheltered coastal environments as archives of paleo-tsunami deposits: Observations from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

The 2004 earthquake left several traces of coseismic land deformation and tsunami deposits, both on the islands along the plate boundary and distant shores of the Indian Ocean rim countries. Researchers are now exploring these sites to develop a chronology of past events. Where the coastal regions are also inundated by storm surges, there is an additional challenge to discriminate between the deposits formed by these two processes. Paleo-tsunami research relies largely on finding deposits where preservation potential is high and storm surge origin can be excluded. During the past decade of our work along the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the east coast of India, we have observed that the 2004 tsunami deposits are best preserved in lagoons, inland streams and also on elevated terraces. Chronological evidence for older events obtained from such sites is better correlated with those from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, reiterating their usefulness in tsunami geology studies. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Parametric Studies on Saltwater Intrusion into Coastal Aquifers for Anticipate Sea Level Rise

Saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers is a global issue, exacerbated by increasing demands for freshwater in coastal regions. This study investigates into the parametric analysis on saltwater intrusion in a conceptual, coastal, unconfined aquifer considering wide range of freshwater draft and anticipated sea level rise. The saltwater intrusion under various circumstances is simulated through parametric studies using MODFLOW, MT3DMS and SEAWAT. The MODFLOW is used to simulate the groundwater flow system under changing hydro-dynamics in coastal aquifer. To simulate solute transport MT3DMS and SEAWAT is used. The saltwater intrusion process has direct bearing on hydraulic conductivity and inversely related to porosity. It may also be noted that increase in recharge rate considered in the study does not have much influence on saltwater intrusion. Effect of freshwater draft at locations beyond half of the width of the aquifer considered has marginal effect and hence can be considered as safe zone for freshwater withdrawals. Due to the climate change effect, the anticipated rise in sea level of 0.88 m over a century is considered in the investigation. This causes increase in salinity intrusion by about 25%. The combined effect of sea level rise and freshwater draft (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Fusing the Navigation Information of Dual Foot-Mounted Zero-Velocity-Update-Aided Inertial Navigation Systems

A range constraint method viz. centroid method is proposed to fuse the navigation information of dual (right and left) foot-mounted Zero-velocity-UPdaTe (ZUPT)-aided Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs). Here, the range constraint means that the distance of separation between the position estimates of right and left foot ZUPT-aided INSs cannot be greater than a quantity known as foot-to-foot maximum separation. We present the experimental results which illustrate the applicability of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method significantly enhances the accuracy of the navigation solution when compared to using two uncoupled foot-mounted ZUPT-aided INSs. Also, we compare the performance of the proposed method with the existing data fusion methods.