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The New Meteor Radar at Penn State: Design and First ObservationsIn an effort to provide new and improved meteor radar sensing capabilities, Penn State has been developing advanced instruments and technologies for future meteor radars, with primary objectives of making such instruments more capable and more cost effective in order to study the basic properties of the global meteor flux, such as average mass, velocity, and chemical composition. Using low-cost field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), combined with open source software tools, we describe a design methodology enabling one to develop state-of-the art radar instrumentation, by developing a generalized instrumentation core that can be customized using specialized output stage hardware. Furthermore, using object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques and open-source tools, we illustrate a technique to provide a cost-effective, generalized software framework to uniquely define an instrument s functionality through a customizable interface, implemented by the designer. The new instrument is intended to provide instantaneous profiles of atmospheric parameters and climatology on a daily basis throughout the year. An overview of the instrument design concepts and some of the emerging technologies developed for this meteor radar are presented.
Document ID
20110016596
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Urbina, J.
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Seal, R.
(Pennsylvania State Univ. University Park, PA, United States)
Dyrud, L.
(Johns Hopkins Univ. Columbia, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
July 1, 2011
Publication Information
Publication: Meteoroids: The Smallest Solar System Bodies
Subject Category
Space Sciences (General)
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: ATM-0457156
CONTRACT_GRANT: ATM-0638624
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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