The use of artificial intelligence techniques to improve the multiple payload integration process

A maximum return of science and products with a minimum expenditure of time and resources is a major goal of mission payload integration. A critical component then, in successful mission payload integration is the acquisition and analysis of experiment requirements from the Principal Investigator (PI) and Payload Element Developer (PED) teams. This article describes one effort to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to improve the acquisition and analysis of experiment requirements within the Payload Integration Process.     

The integration of lightweight representation and annotation for collaborative design representation

Today companies face the unprecedented challenges of a global market, collaborative environments and the concept of management of the entire product life cycle. In supporting this, the challenge is not only how to utilize information management policies, but also how to develop product representation methods to meet the new demands including platform/application independence, support for the product lifecycle, assisting generation of viewpoint-specific representations, rapid sharing of information between geographically distributed applications and users, and protection of commercial security (intellectual property). This paper proposes a product representation approach using the strengths of lightweight representation and annotation and markup practices to allow the association of product data from throughout the lifecycle with the geometric form of the product. The approach, called Lightweight Model with Multi-layer Annotation (LIMMA), integrates the concept of lightweight representation with annotation of boundary-representations (b-rep) of a product and the use of a formalised markup language (XML). Examples of annotation layers and development of models through-life are given, based on the LIMMA approach.

A FPGA-based Library for On-Line Signal Processing

A library of on-line arithmetic structures is presented. Their ability to produce and consume the most significant digit first allows subsequent computations to begin earlier, shortens the execution time of variable precision and composite operations, and simplifies interconnection networks which can help preserve high clock rates in large digit-serial designs. More importantly, designers can interconnect individual units without designing intermediate structures to reformat data, a luxury that is currently unavailable to FPGA designers wishing to use bit-serial arithmetic. The on-line structures introduced are small, and can be easily combined to yield more powerful blocks. The library's applicability to signal processing applications is demonstrated with the DFT, DCT, and FIR filter. Results indicate high area efficiency and rapid execution speed.     

The integration of lightweight representation and annotation for collaborative design representation

Today companies face the unprecedented challenges of a global market, collaborative environments and the concept of management of the entire product life cycle. In supporting this, the challenge is not only how to utilize information management policies, but also how to develop product representation methods to meet the new demands including platform/application independence, support for the product lifecycle, assisting generation of viewpoint-specific representations, rapid sharing of information between geographically distributed applications and users, and protection of commercial security (intellectual property). This paper proposes a product representation approach using the strengths of lightweight representation and annotation and markup practices to allow the association of product data from throughout the lifecycle with the geometric form of the product. The approach, called Lightweight Model with Multi-layer Annotation (LIMMA), integrates the concept of lightweight representation with annotation of boundary-representations (b-rep) of a product and the use of a formalised markup language (XML). Examples of annotation layers and development of models through-life are given, based on the LIMMA approach.     

Distraction as a measure of presence: using visual and tactile adjustable distraction as a measure to determine immersive presence of content in mediated environments

To assess and improve the user experience in entertainment products, developers need results of evaluation methods, which in detail measure the relationship between the mediated content and the resulting media experience. This paper proposes a method applying adjustable distraction (AD) to determine presence as immersion (Lombard and Ditton in At the heart of it all: the concept of presence, Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media, Temple University, 1997) at selectable events (approximated real-time). Two experiments were conducted to investigate its applicability in computer games and movies with respectively visual and tactile AD. The first experiment examined whether the experienced intensity in a survival-shooter game, measured through questionnaires, was proportional to results from the AD method. The intrusiveness of the AD method was also addressed in the experiment by comparing the immersive presence ratings in a between-groups design. The second experiment investigated whether heart rate measurements, intensity ratings and the results of the AD method with vibration as the distraction signal were proportional when test participants watched a movie clip. The outcome of the first experiment indicated that no significant intrusion is caused by the method. In addition, results showed no proportionality between the AD method and intensity ratings. However, as the AD measurements were supported by flow theory, it might be that the results from the AD method using visual distraction are giving a more comprehensive indication of presence as immersion (rather than just the intensity dimension). The second experiment revealed proportionality between the intensity ratings and the heart rate measurements, while the results from the tactile AD method were not proportional. We suspect that this was caused by the great variance found across the test participants’ thresholds of perceivable vibration. Because of this, it is suggested that a thorough screening process is conducted pre-test if the AD method should apply vibration as the distracting stimulus.