Browsing by Author "Dr. David Aspnes, Committee Chair"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Buried-Object Detection Using Time-Reversed Acoustics
    (2004-04-27) Pierson, David Michael; Dr. Michael Paesler, Committee Member; Dr. Hans Hallen, Committee Member; Dr. David Aspnes, Committee Chair; Dr. Tony Clark, Committee Member
    The work presented here is a comprehensive study of using time reversal to detect objects located in an inhomogeneous environment using backscattered signals with an emphasis on littoral environments. Time reversal of acoustic signals in the ocean has been studied for more than two decades with the emphasis on the use of the forward scattered field. All studies share similar geometries where both the acoustical source and an adjacent array of transducers are placed in the water column. This configuration, known as a time-reversal mirror (TRM), is not practical when detecting an object that is located in a different environment than the TRM, such as beneath the ocean floor. Little work has been done to study the efficacy of a single transceiver performing the time-reversal operation on the backscattered signals from targets buried beneath the ocean floor. Here, I start by presenting the theory for such a system in both time and frequency domains for scattering by a sphere. Then by using simulations I show that time reversal of backscattered signals provides a robust method to detect targets buried in an acoustically inhomogeneous sediment using a point transceiver in the water column several meters above the sea floor. Effects of the time-reversal window (TRW) on the iterative time-reversal operation are also presented. I define a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that treats the return with the sphere as the signal and the return without the sphere as noise to quantify improvements to the sphere returns. I consider two different sediment models and angle of incidence to show that the TRO operates independently of the sediment type and transceiver orientation. Theoretical analysis reveals that the time-reversal of backscattered signals converges to a subset of waveforms defined by the target and time-reversal window, not the initial pulse. Analysis further reveals that the time-reversal operator detects the sphere after only two iterations of the TRO, with more iterations enhancing the sphere return through the non-linear filtering property of the TRO. Through this work, I demonstrate that time reversal is a robust method to detect objects.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Spherical Microwave Confinement and Ball Lightning
    (2010-04-14) Robinson, William Richard; Dr. David Aspnes, Committee Chair; Dr. Stephen Reynolds, Committee Member; Dr. Dean Lee, Committee Member; Dr. Mohamed Bourham, Committee Member
    This dissertation presents the results of research done on unconventional energy technologies from 1995 to 2009. The present civilization depends on an infrastructure that was constructed and is maintained almost entirely using concentrated fuels and ores, both of which will run out. Diffuse renewable energy sources rely on this same infrastructure, and hence face the same limitations. I first examined sonoluminescence directed toward fusion, but demonstrated theoretically that this is impossible. I next studied Low Energy Nuclear Reactions and developed methods for improving results, although these have not been implemented. In 2000 I began Spherical Microwave Confinement (SMC), which confines and heats plasma with microwaves in a spherical chamber. The reactor was designed and built to provide the data needed to investigate the possibility of achieving fusion conditions with microwave confinement. A second objective was to attempt to create ball lightning (BL). The reactor featured 20 magnetrons, which were driven by a capacitor bank and operated in a 0.2 s pulse mode at 2.45 GHz. These provided 20 kW to an icosahedral array of 20 antennas. Video of plasmas led to a redesign of the antennas to provide better coupling of the microwaves to the plasma. A second improvement was a grid at the base of the antennas, which provided corona electrons and an electric field to aid quick formation of plasmas. Although fusion conditions were never achieved and ball lightning not observed, experience gained from operating this basic, affordable system has been incorporated in a more sophisticated reactor design intended for future research. This would use magnets that were originally planned. The cusp geometry of the magnetic fields is suitable for electron cyclotron resonance in the same type of closed surface that in existing reactors has generated high-temperature plasmas. Should ball lightning be created, it could be a practical power source with nearly ideal characteristics that could solve many of our current energy-production problems.