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Aiming at asymmetric Bessel mode, we investigate the propagation characteristics of vortex mode in atmospheric turbulence. The theoretical expressions of mode detection probability are derived for signal and crosstalk modes, based on which channel capacity is further analyzed. The detection probability distribution is mainly affected by mode wavelength and asymmetric factor. The increment of asymmetric factor can diversify the transverse mode intensity pattern, but cause the decline of signal probability and channel capacity. To improve channel capacity, longer wavelength and more transmitted modes are beneficial, while the adjustments of mode topological charge and Bessel cone angle have no effect. Besides, the influences of atmospheric turbulence conditions are discussed. The results are referential for exploring the use of asymmetric Bessel mode as signal source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter investigates the accuracy of recently proposed stochastic geometry-based modeling of low earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks. In particular, we use the Wasserstein Distance-inspired method to analyze the distances between different models, including Fibonacci lattice and orbit models. We propose an algorithm to calculate the distance between the generated point sets. Next, we test the algorithm’s performance and analyze the distance between the stochastic geometry model and other more widely acceptable models using numerical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bifunctional full-space metasurface (FS-MS) capable of generating reflective multiple vortex beams and focusing transmissive electromagnetic waves within different frequency bands is presented in this letter. The generation of vortex beams is based on the Pancharatnam–Berry (PB) phase, which exhibits the property of full phase control by rotating the orientation angle of an I-shaped patch. Meanwhile, this PB unit is backed by a metallic square loop frequency selective surface (FSS), which behaves as stopband and passband responses around 18 GHz and 12 GHz, respectively. By encoding PB phase to generate a certain phase response, four reflective vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) are achieved at a higher frequency band under normal incidence. On the other hand, the incident waves operating at a lower frequency band can pass through such an FSS-backed PB unit and be focused by a three-layer composite unit consisting of a polarization-conversion unit sandwiched by two orthogonal polarizers. Therefore, upon illumination of normal incident plane waves, the proposed FS-MS works as a multiple OAM beams generator and a focusing lens simultaneously. The proposed design can motivate the realizations of FS-MS and hold potential applications in intelligent housing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication plays an important role in assisting/complementing terrestrial communications by providing worldwide coverage, especially in harsh environments such as high seas, mountains, and deserts which are uncovered by terrestrial networks. Traditionally, the passive reflect-array with fixed phase shifts has been applied in satellite communications to compensate for the high path loss due to long propagation distance with low-cost directional beamforming; however, it is unable to flexibly adapt the beamforming direction to dynamic channel conditions. In view of this, we consider in this paper a new intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided LEO satellite communication system, by utilizing the controllable phase shifts of massive passive reflecting elements to achieve flexible beamforming, which copes with the time-varying channel between the high-mobility satellite (SAT) and ground node (GN) cost-effectively. In particular, we propose a new architecture for IRS-aided LEO satellite communication where IRSs are deployed at both sides of the SAT and GN, and study their cooperative passive beamforming (CPB) design over line-of-sight (LoS)-dominant single-reflection and double-reflection channels. Specifically, we jointly optimize the active transmit/receive beamforming at the SAT/GN as well as the CPB at two-sided IRSs to maximize the overall channel gain from the SAT to each GN. Interestingly, we show that under LoS channel conditions, the high-dimensional SAT-GN channel can be decomposed into the outer product of two low-dimensional vectors. By exploiting the decomposed SAT-GN channel, we decouple the original beamforming optimization problem into two simpler subproblems corresponding to the SAT and GN sides, respectively, which are both solved in closed-form. Furthermore, we propose an efficient transmission protocol to conduct channel estimation and beam tracking, which only requires independent processing of the SAT and GN in a distributed manner, thus substantially reducing the implementation complexity. Simulation results validate the performance advantages of the proposed IRS-aided LEO satellite communication system with two-sided cooperative IRSs, as compared to various baseline schemes such as the conventional reflect-array and one-sided IRS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the dynamics of the sequence of Kasner quadrilaterals (A n B n C n D n) n ≥ 0 defined via a complex parameter α. We extend the results concerning Kasner triangles with a fixed complex parameter obtained in earlier works and determine the values of α for which the generated dynamics are convergent, divergent, periodic, or dense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional intelligence plays an important role in artificial intelligence. The brain circuitry of emotion mainly includes the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, hippocampus and et al. Many brain emotional learning (BEL) models were proposed in recent years, the existing BEL models failed to consider the contextual information in practical applications, and do not discuss the corresponding circuit implementation. In this article, a context-dependent emotional learning network (CD-ELN) and its memristive circuit implementation are introduced. The added context-dependent module is used to process the contextual information, which makes the network context dependent when receiving the same input signals. For circuit implementation, the memristive circuit design mainly contains the amygdala module and orbitofrontal cortex module, which imitates the emotion learning process in the brain. Besides, a multi-input multioutput memristive circuit of the context-dependent emotional network is applied to multitask classification. PSPICE simulation results verified the adaptability and flexibility of the CD-ELN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gecko-inspired adhesives can allow free-flying space robots to grasp and manipulate large items or anchor themselves on smooth surfaces. In this article, we report on the first tests conducted using gecko-inspired adhesives on a gripper attached to an Astrobee free-flying robot operating inside the International Space Station (ISS). We present results from on-ground testing as well as two on-orbit sessions conducted during early 2021. Recorded data demonstrated that an adhesive gripper for Astrobee could provide 3.15 N of force for manual perching. The adhesives functioned as anticipated, despite a lengthy storage period. The results also highlighted some considerations for future adhesive gripping in space with free-flying robots. We discuss these topics along with system design considerations for successful implementation aboard the ISS, raising the readiness of this technology for a space-grade environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A search vehicle routing algorithm is presented, inspired by thermalling in glider operations, for use in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) search routing problems where radio frequency signal noise affects target geolocation. We conduct ground testing experiments and observe that signal strength significantly deviates from its mean value — 10-20% variation in our experiments — at each distance epoch away from a target of interest. The thermalling algorithm uses straight-line segments and relatively simple guidance logic to generate routes that appear promising for fixed-wing, short endurance and autonomous UAV routing applications. We compare the simulated performance of the thermalling algorithm to a stochastic gradient descent algorithm using 1,000 randomly generated problem instances and show that, when considering signal readings and distance traveled as performance metrics, the thermalling algorithm performs better in 100% and 37% of problem instances respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of reusable rockets makes it possible to launch a massive number of low earth orbit satellites for Internet access. These satellites are expected to be connected by inter-satellite links (ISLs) to provide global Internet service to end-users on the surface of the earth. From the infrastructure’s perspective, the ISLs can be implemented with lasers, forming the optical satellite networks. The design of terrestrial optical networks is usually traffic-driven, meaning more links/bandwidth are deployed to the traffic-intensive areas. But, the orbiting nature of satellites determines that laser ISLs are also moving at high velocities, making the presence of corresponding bandwidth loosed coupled with a specific area. As a result, the traffic-driven network design methodology will be inapplicable to the optical satellite networks. In this work, we model the optical satellite networks and define the laser ISL planning problem, Accordingly, we propose an ISL removal algorithm to remove parts of the ISLs from the grid-mesh topology to improve the average bandwidth utilization ratio (i.e., bandwidth efficiency) while maintaining networks’ reliability and availability. We conduct a simulation study based on the Starlink constellation to evaluate the grid-mesh topology and to investigate the proposed algorithm’s impact on the network performance. Results show that the bandwidth resource in the grid-mesh topology can hardly be used efficiently and removing certain ISLs properly can improve the bandwidth efficiency of optical satellite networks significantly. We also gain another interesting insight that maintaining too many ISLs will not improve, but degrade the network availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging large-scale low earth orbit (LEO) broadband satellite networks manifest great potentials in distributing videos across the globe via efficient multicast techniques. However, existing work only studied IP multicast (IPMC) for LEO constellations, which suffers from limited scalability and tree performance. In this paper, we employ the promising software defined multicast (SDM) techniques in large-scale LEO constellations to empower satellite-based Internet video distribution. We present a multi-layer rectilinear Steiner tree (ML-RST) construction algorithm for multicast routing in large-scale LEO constellations. We extend the spanning graph and edge substitution to three-dimensional (3D) scenes. Based on multi-layer spanning graphs and multi-layer edge substitution approaches, we manage to efficiently construct ML-RSTs with ${O}$ (${n}$ log ${n}$) complexity. Experimental results show that our approach can achieve an average 10% improvement in bandwidth saving compared with existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantise orbits of the adjoint group action on elements of the sl (2 , R) Lie algebra. The path integration along elliptic slices is akin to the coadjoint orbit quantization of compact Lie groups, and the calculation of the characters of elliptic group elements proceeds along the same lines as in compact groups. The computation of the trace of hyperbolic group elements in a diagonal basis as well as the calculation of the full group action on a hyperbolic basis requires considerably more technique. We determine the action of hyperbolic one-parameter subgroups of PSL (2 , R) on the adjoint orbits and discuss global subtleties in choices of adapted coordinate systems. Using the hyperbolic slicing of orbits, we describe the quantum mechanics of an irreducible sl (2 , R) representation in a hyperbolic basis and relate the basis to the mathematics of the Mellin integral transform. We moreover discuss the representation theory of the double cover SL (2 , R) of PSL (2 , R) as well as that of its universal cover. Traces in the representations of these groups for both elliptic and hyperbolic elements are computed. Finally, we motivate our treatment of this elementary quantization problem by indicating applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a machine learning method is proposed to precisely classify partially occluded integer and fractional vortex modes for the first time in radio frequency (RF). Consequently, we introduce three training schemes, i.e., the direct recognition scheme with the phase data or the amplitude data (PD-DRS and AD-DRS), the phase data or amplitude data interpolated by nearest-neighbor interpolation algorithm (PD-NNI and AD-NNI), and the full data (FD) of the electric field with the NNI algorithm (FD-NNI), to recognize the topological charges. Based on the designed deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) models, the relationship between the test accuracy and the number of sampling points of the three schemes is presented. It is shown that $3\times3$ sampling points are enough for FD-NNI to achieve the classification accuracy of 98.2%. To validate the robustness of the proposed models, we evaluate them on the sample carrying up to 50% Gaussian noise, separately. Besides, the effects of propagation distance and the occlusion angle are also investigated. The numerical results present that the interpolated data performs better in terms of accuracy compared with the pure sampled data, among which FD-NNI possesses better generalization ability, suggesting great potential in the practical application of radio vorticity communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The survivability of microelectronic devices in ionizing radiation environments drives spacecraft design, capability, mission scope, and cost. This article exploits the periodic nature of many space radiation environments to extend device lifetimes without additional shielding or modifications to the semiconductor architecture. We propose a technique for improving component lifetimes through reduced total-dose accumulation by modulating device bias during periods of intense irradiation. Simulation of this "dynamic biasing" technique applied to single-transistor devices in a typical low-Earth orbit results in an increase in component lifetime from 114 to 477 days (318% improvement) at the expense of 5% down time (95% duty cycle). The biasing technique is also experimentally demonstrated using gamma radiation to study three commercial devices spanning a range of integrated circuit complexity in 109- and 256-rad/min dose rate conditions. The demonstrated improvements in device lifetimes using the proposed dynamic biasing technique lay a foundation for more effective use of modern microelectronics for space applications. Analogous to the role real-time temperature monitoring plays in maximizing modern processor performance, the proposed dynamic biasing technique is a means of intelligently responding to the radiation environment and capable of becoming an integral tool in optimizing component lifetimes in space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a 6-DOF attitude-orbit synchronous control problem for the space circumnavigation (SCN) mission with parameter uncertainties, time-varying uncertainties, and input constraints. In particular, from the perspective of engineering application, time-varying measurement uncertainties are taken into account of the 6-DOF attitude–orbit coupling kinematics and dynamics, and the analytical solution of the desired attitude is derived based on the measured relative orbit information with measurement uncertainties. To drive the active spacecraft approach to the faulty target safely, a time-varying exponential prescribed convergence boundary is introduced into the sliding surface. A finite-time disturbance observer is involved in equivalent tracking errors for compensating the mismatched uncertainties. In addition, an auxiliary system is designed to overcome the instability danger caused by input constraints. The stability of the controlled system is discussed in the nonautonomous finite-time stable framework, which is proved via Lyapunov analysis that the attitude-orbit tracking errors converge to the equilibrium within finite time. The simulation experiment with mismatched uncertainties and prescribed constraints shows the superiority of the designed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate the coupled attitude and orbit tracking control problem of rigid spacecraft motion. A proportional-integral (PI)-type event-triggered active disturbance rejection control scheme is proposed for spacecraft coupled attitude and orbit control under the unknown internal uncertainties and external disturbances. First, the relative kinematics and dynamics are established using error dual quaternions to describe the attitude and orbit coupled motion of rigid spacecraft. Then, the PI-type event-triggering schemes are designed to reduce the communication rates between the pose sensors and the observers. Finally, the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop control system is proved. The simulation results show that the proposed closed-loop control system can achieve satisfactory tracking performance and reduce the occupancy of on-board communication resources to ensure the stable operation of the spacecraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) has completed its full constellation in orbit since June 2020. Services have been evolved from regional (BDS-2) to global (BDS-3). This contribution evaluates the impact of solar radiation pressure (SRP) modeling on satellite orbits and geodetic parameters. To that end, we process 2 years of BDS observations (2019-2021), collected by a network of 100 ground stations. A physical a priori box-wing model based on the estimated optical properties is introduced. Various physical effects, such as radiator emission and thermal radiation of solar panels are considered. The ECOM (Empirical CODE orbit Model), ECOM+along-track and ECOM2 models are employed on top in the experiment. We show that without the use of the a priori box-wing model, the ECOM+along-track model shows clear better orbit solutions during eclipse seasons for BDS-3 satellites. This is proven to be mainly due to the thermal radiation of the solar panels. However, the along-track acceleration is highly correlated with LOD (length of day) and ECOM parameters. LOD estimates in this case are contaminated. When using the physical a priori box-wing model satellite orbital errors are greatly reduced for all the ECOM models. For instance, orbit misclosures of BDS-3 CAST (China Academy of Space Technology) satellites improve by a factor of two for the ECOM model during eclipse seasons. Furthermore, the use of the a priori box-wing model mitigates a great majority of the spurious signals in the geodetic parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellationnetwork (SCN) has become a promising solution for nonterrestrial networks. In LEO-SCNs, the shortest distance path (SDP) and the minimum hop path (MHP) are two types of important paths. This letter focuses on the proposition that all the SDPs belong to the MHP set and studies the conditions when the proposition holds or not. Based on the topological regularity and link distance variation patterns, this letter proves several simplified equivalent propositions and derives a discriminant function to judge if the proposition holds in an arbitrary constellation. Simulations verify the judging method and find that all the SDPs belong to the MHP set in constellations with small inclinations (less than 68$^\circ$) or large phasing offsets. The propositions can help to simplify the calculation of the SDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we holistically present a hybrid-linear inverted pendulum (H-LIP) based approach for synthesizing and stabilizing 3-D foot-underactuated bipedal walking, with an emphasis on thorough hardware realization. The H-LIP is proposed to capture the essential components of the underactuated and actuated part of the robotic walking. The robot walking gait is then directly synthesized based on the H-LIP. We comprehensively characterize the periodic orbits of the H-LIP and provably derive the stepping stabilization via its step-to-step (S2S) dynamics, which is then utilized to approximate the S2S dynamics of the horizontal state of the center of mass of the robotic walking. The approximation facilities a H-LIP based stepping controller to provide desired step sizes to stabilize the robotic walking. By realizing the desired step sizes, the robot achieves dynamic and stable walking. The approach is fully evaluated in both simulation and experiment on the 3-D underactuated bipedal robot Cassie, which demonstrates dynamic walking behaviors with both high versatility and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the extended timing annotation dataset (ETAD) product for Sentinel-1 (S-1) which was developed in a joint effort of German Aerospace Center (DLR) and European Space Agency (ESA). It allows to correct range and azimuth timing of S-1 images for geophysical effects and for inaccuracies in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image focusing. In combination with the precise orbit solution, these effects determine the absolute geolocation accuracy of S-1 SAR images and the relative collocation accuracy of repeat pass image stacks. ETAD contains the gridded timing corrections for the tropospheric and ionospheric path delays, the tidal-based surface displacements, and the SAR processing effects, all of which are computed for each data taken using standard models from geodesy and auxiliary atmospheric data. The ETAD product helps S-1 users to significantly improve the geolocation accuracy of the S-1 SAR products to better than 0.2 m and offers a potential solution for correcting large-scale interferometric phase variations. The product layout and product generation are described schematically. This article also reports first the results for different SAR techniques: first, the improvement in geolocation accuracy down to a few centimeters by verification of accurately surveyed corner reflector positions in the range–azimuth plane; second, the well-established offset-tracking technique, which is used for systematic ice velocity monitoring of ice sheets and glaciers, where ETAD can reduce velocity biases down to subcentimetric values; and third, the correction of atmospheric phase contributions in wide-area interferograms used for national and European ground motion services. These early results proof the added value of the ETAD corrections and that the product design is well-suited to be integrated into the processing flows of established SAR applications such as absolute ranging of targets, speckle/feature tracking, and interferometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionospheric monitoring and modeling have been difficult for a long time over the data-void or data-sparse oceans. As an emerging remote sensing technique, global navigation satellite system reflectometry (GNSS-R) has presented great potential in ionosphere sounding over these regions. However, the conventional approach to generate delay-Doppler-map (DDM) involved in the GNSS-R total electron content (TEC) retrieval process ignores the effects of tropospheric delay and the topside ionospheric delay above the GNSS-R receiver. This would cause certain errors in retrieved TEC results. In this contribution, an improved method to estimate ionospheric TEC over oceans using the GNSS-R technique is proposed, which considers the influence of the tropospheric delays and the topside ionospheric delays above the spaceborne GNSS-R receiver. To achieve the best matching between measured and simulated DDM, this article employs the least squares (LS) fitting method for elastic matching. Additionally, the assessment was performed in May 2015 and 2017 at different solar activities, by comparing the ionospheric TEC derived from our proposed method with that from two ionospheric empirical models (NeQuick2 and IRI-2016), the global ionospheric maps (GIMs) final products, as well as the measured GNSS TEC. The results show good consistency between these models. Meanwhile, when considering the topside ionospheric delay and tropospheric delay in DDM, the TEC accuracy has significantly improved. In particular, the improvements of root mean square (rms) error can reach 5.3% and 23.5% during high and low solar activities, respectively, versus GNSS TEC. It is expected to benefit the application of GNSS-R in ionospheric modeling and application over the ocean area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meteor shower outbursts happen every year, but cannot be observed by a single meteor camera network. In addition, bad weather might prevent the recording of such event. In order to enable the observation of meteor shower outburst, we developed a "Mobile Observation of METeor" device. It involves two suitcases for meteor double station observations. Each case includes a total of 5 cameras to maximise the scientific output. Each camera is controlled by a mini-PC (RaspBerry pi or Odroid) and runs the "RMS" software (Vida et al. 2021, MNRAS, 506, 4, 5046). The MoMET devices were successfully used to record the 2021 Arids meteor shower from Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, rare-earth permanent magnets, including Nd2Fe14B and Sm2Co17, which are used in environments with high radiation, such as in electric motors for space equipment and robots operating in nuclear reactors, have become increasingly important. However, the demagnetization of the rare-earth permanent magnets induced by exposure to radiation has become a serious issue. In particular, when high-energy neutrons collide with the atoms in the magnet, the atoms can be removed and point defects can be generated. The spin fluctuations caused by point defects result in demagnetization of the rare-earth permanent magnets. In this study, we investigate via first-principle calculations, the probability of generation of point defects and the change in the magnetic moment in Nd2Fe14B and Sm2Co17 that occurs as a result of the point defect creation. We find that the generation probability of the point defects is very similar in both rare-earth magnets. The attenuation of the magnetic moment in Sm2Co17 was found to be considerably smaller than that of Nd2Fe14B. Thus, we conclude that the radiation resistance of the magnetic properties of Sm2Co17 is higher than that of Nd2Fe14B. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]