SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL AEROSPACE REPORTS

A Biweekly Publication of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
VOLUME 44, ISSUE 11 - MAY 30, 2006

32 COMMUNICATIONS AND RADAR
Includes radar; radio, wire, and optical communications; land and global communications; communications theory.

For related information see also 04 Aircraft Communications and Navigation and 17 Space Communications, Spacecraft Communications, Command and Tracking.

For search and rescue see 03 Air Transportation and Safety and 16 Space Transportation and Safety.

20060013293 National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council, Washington, DC, USA

Development of Interactive Web Site

Bishop, L.; Jul. 15, 2005; 8 pp.; In English Report No.(s): DE2006-859192; No Copyright; Avail.:

Department of Energy Information Bridge Tribal Cultural Resources Web Site: Purpose: Interactive forum and communications tool for obtaining and reviewing documents; Understand timely materials are important; Recognize obligation to protect culturally sensitive data; Password protected - each Tribe will have unique login and password; and Access also provided to SHPO and BLM. NTIS

American Indians; Websites

20060013339 Research and Technology Organization, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

Use of Speech and Language Technology in Military Environments

December 2005; 106 pp.; In English; Use of Speech and Language Technology in Military Environments, 20-21 Nov. 2003, Montreal, Canada; Original contains color and black and white illustrations Report No.(s): RTO-TR-IST-037; AC/323(IST-037)TP/22; Copyright; Avail.: CASI: C01, CD-ROM: A06, Hardcopy

Communications, command and control, intelligence and training systems are making more and more use of speech and language technology components: i.e. speech coders, voice controlled C2 systems, speaker and language recognition, translation systems and automated training suites. Implementation of these technologies requires an understanding of what performance is possible with the products that are available today and those that will likely to be available in the next few years. As speech and language technology become more available for integration into military systems, it is important that those involved in system design and program management be aware of the capabilities and the limitations of present speech systems. They must also be aware of the current state of research in order to be able to consider what will be possible in the future. This will be very important when considering future military systems upgrades. This lecture series includes presentations of the current state of the art and the current research topics in selected speech and language technology areas: assessment techniques and standards, speech recognition, speaker and language identification, and translation. Author

Speech Recognition; Automatic Control; Voice Communication; Military Technology; Words (Language)

20060013343 NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

RF Technologies for Advancing Space Communication Infrastructure

Romanofsky, Robert R.; Bibyk, Irene K.; Wintucky, Edwin G.; [2006]; 9 pp.; In English; 2006 IEEE Aerospace Conference, 4-11 Mar. 2006, Big Sky, MT, USA; Original contains color and black and white illustrations Contract(s)/Grant(s): WBS 22-041-20-02 Report No.(s): IEEEAC Paper 1552; No Copyright; Avail.: CASI: A02, Hardcopy

This paper will address key technologies under development at the NASA Glenn Research Center designed to provide architecture-level impacts. Specifically, we will describe deployable antennas, a new type of phased array antenna and novel power amplifiers. The evaluation of architectural influence can be conducted from two perspectives where said architecture can be analyzed from either the top-down to determine the areas where technology improvements will be most beneficial or from the bottom-up where each technology s performance advancement can affect the overall architecture s performance. This paper will take the latter approach with focus on some technology improvement challenges and address architecture impacts. For example, using data rate as a performance metric, future exploration scenarios are expected to demand data rates possibly exceeding 1 Gbps. To support these advancements in a Mars scenario, as an example, Ka-band and antenna aperture sizes on the order of 10 meters will be required from Mars areostationary platforms. Key technical challenges for a large deployable antenna include maximizing the ratio of deployed-to-packaged volume, minimizing aerial density, maintaining RMS surface accuracy to within 1/20 of a wavelength or better, and developing reflector rigidization techniques. Moreover, the high frequencies and large apertures manifest a new problem for microwave engineers that are familiar to optical communications specialists: pointing. The fine beam widths and long ranges dictate the need for electronic or mechanical feed articulation to compensate for spacecraft attitude control limitations. Author

Radio Frequencies; Space Communication; Technology Utilization; Antenna Design; Large Space Structures

Source: NASA