A Flexible Design Strategy for Three-Element Non-Uniform Linear Arrays.

This paper illustrates a flexible design strategy for a three-element non-uniform linear array (NULA) aimed at estimating the direction of arrival (DoA) of a source of interest. Thanks to the spatial diversity resulting from non-uniform sensor spacings, satisfactory DoA estimation accuracies can be achieved by employing a very limited number of receiving elements. This makes NULA configurations particularly attractive for low-cost passive location applications. To estimate the DoA of the source of interest, we resort to the maximum likelihood estimator, and the proposed design strategy is obtained by constraining the maximum pairwise error probability to control the errors occurring due to outliers. In fact, it is well known that the accuracy of the maximum likelihood estimator is often degraded by outliers, especially when the signal-to-noise power ratio does not belong to the so-called asymptotic region. The imposed constraint allows for the defining of an admissible region in which the array should be selected. This region can be further modified to incorporate practical design constraints concerning the antenna element size and the positioning accuracy. The best admissible array is then compared to the one obtained with a conventional NULA design approach, where only antenna spacings multiple of λ/2 are considered, showing improved performance, which is also confirmed by the experimental results.

A New Gain-Phase Error Pre-Calibration Method for Uniform Linear Arrays.

In this paper, we consider the gain-phase error calibration problem for uniform linear arrays (ULAs). Based on the adaptive antenna nulling technique, a new gain-phase error pre-calibration method is proposed, requiring only one calibration source with known direction of arrival (DOA). In the proposed method, a ULA with M array elements is divided into M-1 sub-arrays, and the gain-phase error of each sub-array can be uniquely extracted one by one. Furthermore, in order to obtain the accurate gain-phase error in each sub-array, we formulate an errors-in-variables (EIV) model and present a weighted total least-squares (WTLS) algorithm by exploiting the structure of the received data on sub-arrays. In addition, the solution to the proposed WTLS algorithm is exactly analyzed in the statistical sense, and the spatial location of the calibration source is also discussed. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency and feasibility of our proposed method in both large-scale and small-scale ULAs and the superiority to some state-of-the-art gain-phase error calibration approaches.

Multiple Solutions Starting from Real Shaped Beams in Equispaced Linear Arrays.

In the present work, the theoretical basis of the multiplicity of solutions obtained from an initial real symmetric distribution is derived. This initial solution is devoted to generating an equivalent pure real shaped-beam pattern for a concrete synthesis scenario. However, these new solutions are not based on real symmetric distributions; hence, not based on the generation of pure real patterns. The bandwidth performances and tolerance to errors provided by the multiple solutions in the array design are analyzed by considering different architectures, also including mutual coupling models and element factor expressions due to accuracy purposes. In addition, a technique to obtain efficient linear arrays by designing resonant structures is addressed. Examples involving both standard linear arrays of half-wavelength cylindrical dipoles and resonant linear arrays generating flat-top beam patterns are reported and discussed. Additionally, an extension to planar arrays performed by means of a generalisation of the Baklanov transformation through collapsed distribution techniques inspired in the well-known method devised by Tseng and Cheng is performed. In such a way, an analysis of the quality of solutions for generating circular and elliptical footprints with controlled both SLL and ripple which are highly interesting in the framework of space vehicle applications.

Assembly of Branched Colloidal Nanocrystals in Polymer Films Leads to Enhanced Viscous Deformation Resistance.

Progress in the integration of nanocrystals with polymers has enabled the creation of materials for applications ranging from photovoltaics to biosensing. However, controlling the nanocrystal segregation and aggregation in the polymer phase remains a challenging task, especially because nanocrystals tend to form amorphous clusters inside the polymer matrix. Here, we present the ability of octapod-shaped particles to overcome their strong entropy-driven tendency to aggregate disorderly and form instead centipede-like linear arrays that are randomly oriented and fully embedded in polystyrene films upon controlled solvent evaporation. This behavior cannot be entirely described by short-range van der Waals interactions between the octapods in the polymer solution. An important role here is played by the increment of the viscosity of the medium during the evaporation of the solvent, which prevents disaggregation of the chains once they are formed. We show that increasing the octapod loading in the blends does not impact the length of the linear arrays beyond a critical length, while it favors instead chain demixing to form self-segregated regions of parallel interlocked chains. Our experiments evidence that softening of the polymer matrix by ex situ heating of the films induces a tail-to-tail coupling of the preformed chains and leads to the formation of longer linear structures of octapods, up to 2 µm long. The presence of 1D arrays of octapods in free-standing polystyrene films improves the creep response by a remarkable 37%, owing to an octapod pinning effect of the polymer matrix.

Fast 2D DOA Estimation Algorithm by an Array Manifold Matching Method with Parallel Linear Arrays.

In this paper, the problem of two-dimensional (2D) direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation with parallel linear arrays is addressed. Two array manifold matching (AMM) approaches, in this work, are developed for the incoherent and coherent signals, respectively. The proposed AMM methods estimate the azimuth angle only with the assumption that the elevation angles are known or estimated. The proposed methods are time efficient since they do not require eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) or peak searching. In addition, the complexity analysis shows the proposed AMM approaches have lower computational complexity than many current state-of-the-art algorithms. The estimated azimuth angles produced by the AMM approaches are automatically paired with the elevation angles. More importantly, for estimating the azimuth angles of coherent signals, the aperture loss issue is avoided since a decorrelation procedure is not required for the proposed AMM method. Numerical studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

Power Pattern Sensitivity to Calibration Errors and Mutual Coupling in Linear Arrays through Circular Interval Arithmetics.

The sensitivity to both calibration errors and mutual coupling effects of the power pattern radiated by a linear array is addressed. Starting from the knowledge of the nominal excitations of the array elements and the maximum uncertainty on their amplitudes, the bounds of the pattern deviations from the ideal one are analytically derived by exploiting the Circular Interval Analysis (CIA). A set of representative numerical results is reported and discussed to assess the effectiveness and the reliability of the proposed approach also in comparison with state-of-the-art methods and full-wave simulations.

Experimental investigations of three laser-induced synchronized bubbles.

Herein, we investigated experimentally the dynamics of three laser-induced, same-sized, symmetrically aligned, and synchronized bubbles. Three synchronized laser beams split from the same beam using a Diffractive Optical Element splitter were focused on water, and then we obtained three bubbles. Another nanosecond laser pulse was used to probe the bubbles to obtain shadowgraphs. The exact delay of the excited and detected light was controlled using a delay generator. The results revealed that the maximum volumes of bubbles in arrays decrease as the normalized distance falls, while the lifetimes and translation increase. It was explained by the interaction between the acoustic radiation of bubbles and the surrounding bubbles. The shrinkage of linear bubble arrays exists an anomaly. The center bubbles were stretched, to ellipsoid, stick, even fractured, by the peripheral bubbles. The closer they are, the more distinct is the above phenomenon. However, when the normalized distance was sufficiently small, instead of being stretched, the center bubbles were compressed to disk shape and thus shrank with the whole array. Finally, the dependence of the distance on the energy transfer of the bubble system is also discussed.

Distinct Laminar Processing of Local and Global Context in Primate Primary Visual Cortex.

Visual perception is affected by spatial context. In visual cortex, neuronal responses to stimuli inside the receptive field (RF) are suppressed by stimuli in the RF surround. To understand the circuits and cortical layers processing spatial context, we simultaneously recorded across all layers of macaque primary visual cortex while presenting stimuli at increasing distances from the recorded cells' RF. We find that near versus far-surround stimuli activate distinct layers, thus revealing unique laminar contributions to the processing of local and global spatial context. Stimuli in the near-surround evoke the earliest subthreshold responses in superficial and upper-deep layers, and earliest suppression of spiking responses in superficial layers. Conversely, far-surround stimuli evoke the earliest subthreshold responses in feedback-recipient layer 1 and lower-deep layers, and earliest suppression of spiking responses almost simultaneously in all layers, except 4C, where suppression emerges last. Our results suggest distinct circuits for local and global signal integration.

Dipole analysis of the influence of linear arrays of points on visually perceived eye level (VPEL).

Previous research has shown that a visual field consisting of as little as one peripherally located luminous line that is pitched from vertical in a dark field induces large changes in an observer's visually perceived eye level (VPEL). The effects of this severely reduced inducing stimulus are surprisingly close to the effects of a highly structured pitched visual field. In the present report we describe two experiments with inducing stimuli that were still further reduced to one or two linear arrays of points of light. The results show that the array's effect on VPEL increases as a negatively accelerated increasing function of the amount of stimulus (i.e., the length of the array, the number of points, and the interpoint separation). We propose a multiscale dipole model (MDM), which quantifies the effect of the array of points on VPEL in terms of dipoles of various lengths that activate orientation and size specific neurons in visual cortex. For example, when the number of points increases in an array of fixed length, dipoles of progressively shorter length are created within the overall length of the stimulus. The shorter dipoles stimulate additional orientation-selective neurons with smaller receptive fields whose neural activity adds to the activity generated by the larger dipoles up to a saturation limit. The functional relation between the psychophysical response and the number of dipoles can be modeled as a rectangular hyperbola, formally similar to equations that have been used to model saturation binding and enzyme velocity in biochemistry and contrast response functions in neurophysiology and psychophysics.