PanCam: the ‘science eyes’ of the Rosalind Franklin (ExoMars 2022) rover  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Coates ◽  

<p>The scientific objectives of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover [1] are designed to answer several key questions in the search for life on Mars. In particular, the unique subsurface drill will address some of these questions for the first time, such as the possible existence and stability of sub-surface organics. PanCam [2] will establish the surface geological and morphological context for the mission, working in collaboration with other context instruments. Here, we describe the PanCam scientific objectives in geology, atmospheric science and 3D vision. We discuss the design of PanCam, which includes a stereo pair of Wide Angle Cameras (WACs), each of which has an 11 position filter wheel, and a High Resolution Camera (HRC) for high resolution investigations of rock texture at a distance. The cameras and electronics are housed in an optical bench that provides the mechanical interface to the rover mast and a planetary protection barrier.  The electronic interface is via the PanCam Interface Unit (PIU), and power conditioning is via a DC-DC converter. PanCam also includes a calibration target mounted on the rover deck for radiometric calibration, fiducial markers for geometric calibration and a rover inspection mirror. Recent simulations [3] show the view from PanCam, the ‘science eyes’ of the Rosalind Franklin rover.</p> <p><strong>References:</strong></p> <p>[1] Vago, J.L., F. Westall, A.J. Coates, et al., Habitability on Early Mars and the Search for Biosignatures with the ExoMars Rover, <em>Astrobiology</em>, 17(6-7), 471-510, doi:10.1089/ast.2016.1533, Jul 2017.</p> <p>[2] Coates, A.J., R. Jaumann, A.D. Griffiths, et al., The PanCam instrument for the ExoMars rover, <em>Astrobiology</em>, 17 (6-7), 511-541, doi: 10.1089/ast.2016.1548, Jul 2017.</p> <p>[3] Miles, H.C., M.D. Gunn and A.J. Coates, Seeing through the ‘Science Eyes’ of the ExoMars Rover, IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, Applications Department, 40, 71-81, doi: 10.1109/MCG.2020.2970796, Mar-Apr 2020.</p>

Author(s):  
Boren Li ◽  
Tomonari Furukawa

This paper presents the design and calibration of a 3D high-resolution surface profiling system using photometric stereo (PS). This system is mainly composed of a high resolution DSLR camera with a macro lens facing perpendicularly to the target surface, and several LEDs tilting towards the surface constrained by a light fixture. With each LED turned on at a time to create one lighting direction, the camera fixed at the same position captures an image. PS with surface normal integration (SNI) are then performed to reconstruct the surface in 3D. Methods of four calibrations for the developed system are proposed to achieve better accuracy, which are the camera radiometric calibration, the camera geometric calibration, the light direction calibration and the light intensity calibration. Experiments have demonstrated that the developed system with the calibration processes could achieve the accuracy in the order of 10 microns.


1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (11) ◽  
pp. 2480-2492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soňa Přádná ◽  
Dušan Papoušek ◽  
Jyrki Kauppinen ◽  
Sergei P. Belov ◽  
Andrei F. Krupnov ◽  
...  

Fourier transform spectra of the ν2 band of PH3 have been remeasured with 0.0045 cm-1 resolution. Ground state combination differences from these data have been fitted simultaneously with the microwave and submillimeterwave data to determine the ground state spectroscopical parameters of PH3 including the parameters of the Δk = ± 3n interactions. The correlation between the latter parameters has been discussed from the point of view of the existence of two equivalent effective rotational operators which are related by a unitary transformation. The ΔJ = 0, +1, ΔK = 0 (A1 ↔ A2, E ↔ E) rotational transitions in the ν2 and ν4 states have been measured for the first time by using a microwave spectrometer and a radiofrequency spectrometer with acoustic detection.


1991 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
pp. 415-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Booth ◽  
Th. De Graauw

In this short review we describe recent new observations of millimetre transitions of molecules in selected regions of the Magellanic Clouds. The observations were made using the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope, SEST, (Booth et al. 1989), the relatively high resolution of which facilitates, for the first time, observations of individual giant molecular clouds in the Magellanic Clouds. We have mapped the distribution of the emission from the two lowest rotational transitions of 12CO and 13CO and hence have derived excitation conditions for the molecule. In addition, we have observed several well-known interstellar molecules in the same regions, thus doubling the number of known molecules in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The fact that all the observations have been made under controlled conditions with the same telescope enables a reasonable intercomparison of the molecular column densities. In particular, we are able to observe the relative abundances among the different isotopically substituted species of CO.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahar Dehnavi ◽  
Yasser Maghsoudi ◽  
Klemen Zakšek ◽  
Mohammad Javad Valadan Zoej ◽  
Gunther Seckmeyer ◽  
...  

Due to the considerable impact of clouds on the energy balance in the atmosphere and on the earth surface, they are of great importance for various applications in meteorology or remote sensing. An important aspect of the cloud research studies is the detection of cloudy pixels from the processing of satellite images. In this research, we investigated a stereographic method on a new set of Meteosat images, namely the combination of the high resolution visible (HRV) channel of the Meteosat-8 Indian Ocean Data Coverage (IODC) as a stereo pair with the HRV channel of the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) Meteosat-10 image at 0° E. In addition, an approach based on the outputs from stereo analysis was proposed to detect cloudy pixels. This approach is introduced with a 2D-scatterplot based on the parallax value and the minimum intersection distance. The mentioned scatterplot was applied to determine/detect cloudy pixels in various image subsets with different amounts of cloud cover. Apart from the general advantage of the applied stereography method, which only depends on geometric relationships, the cloud detection results are also improved because: (1) The stereo pair is the HRV bands of the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) sensor, with the highest spatial resolution available from the Meteosat geostationary platform; and (2) the time difference between the image pairs is nearly 5 s, which improves the matching results and also decreases the effect of cloud movements. In order to prove this improvement, the results of this stereo-based approach were compared with three different reflectance-based target detection techniques, including the adaptive coherent estimator (ACE), constrained energy minimization (CEM), and matched filter (MF). The comparison of the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) detection curves and the area under these curves (AUC) showed better detection results with the proposed method. The AUC value was 0.79, 0.90, 0.90, and 0.93 respectively for ACE, CEM, MF, and the proposed stereo-based detection approach. The results of this research shall enable a more realistic modelling of down-welling solar irradiance in the future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olav Sundnes ◽  
William Ottestad ◽  
Camilla Schjalm ◽  
Peter Lundbäck ◽  
Lars la Cour Poulsen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Alarmins are considered proximal mediators of the immune response after tissue injury. Understanding their biology could pave the way for development of new therapeutic targets and biomarkers in human disease, including multiple trauma. In this study we explored high-resolution concentration kinetics of the alarmin interleukin-33 (IL-33) early after human trauma. Methods Plasma samples were serially collected from 136 trauma patients immediately after hospital admission, 2, 4, 6, and 8 h thereafter, and every morning in the ICU. Levels of IL-33 and its decoy receptor sST2 were measured by immunoassays. Results We observed a rapid and transient surge of IL-33 in a subset of critically injured patients. These patients had more widespread tissue injuries and a greater degree of early coagulopathy. IL-33 half-life (t1/2) was 1.4 h (95% CI 1.2–1.6). sST2 displayed a distinctly different pattern with low initial levels but massive increase at later time points. Conclusions We describe for the first time early high-resolution IL-33 concentration kinetics in individual patients after trauma and correlate systemic IL-33 release to clinical data. These findings provide insight into a potentially important axis of danger signaling in humans.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (8) ◽  
pp. 749-756
Author(s):  
Aavishkar Katti ◽  
Chittaranjan P. Katti

AbstractWe investigate the existence and stability of gap solitons supported by an optical lattice in biased photorefractive (PR) crystals having both the linear and quadratic electro-optic effect. Such PR crystals have an interesting interplay between the linear and quadratic nonlinearities. Gap solitons are predicted for the first time in such novel PR media. Taking a relevant example (PMN-0.33PT), we find that the gap solitons in the first finite bandgap are single humped, positive and symmetric solitons while those in the second finite band gap are antisymmetric and double humped. The power of the gap soliton depends upon the value of the axial propagation constant. We delineate three power regimes and study the gap soliton profiles in each region. The gap solitons in the first finite band gap are not linearly stable while those in the second finite band gap are found to be stable against small perturbations. We study their stability properties in detail throughout the finite band gaps. The interplay between the linear and quadratic electro-optic effect is studied by investigating the spatial profiles and stability of the gap solitons for different ratios of the linear and quadratic nonlinear coefficients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2185
Author(s):  
Yu Tao ◽  
Sylvain Douté ◽  
Jan-Peter Muller ◽  
Susan J. Conway ◽  
Nicolas Thomas ◽  
...  

We introduce a novel ultra-high-resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) processing system using a combination of photogrammetric 3D reconstruction, image co-registration, image super-resolution restoration, shape-from-shading DTM refinement, and 3D co-alignment methods. Technical details of the method are described, and results are demonstrated using a 4 m/pixel Trace Gas Orbiter Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) panchromatic image and an overlapping 6 m/pixel Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera (CTX) stereo pair to produce a 1 m/pixel CaSSIS Super-Resolution Restoration (SRR) DTM for different areas over Oxia Planum on Mars—the future ESA ExoMars 2022 Rosalind Franklin rover’s landing site. Quantitative assessments are made using profile measurements and the counting of resolvable craters, in comparison with the publicly available 1 m/pixel High-Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) DTM. These assessments demonstrate that the final resultant 1 m/pixel CaSSIS DTM from the proposed processing system has achieved comparable and sometimes more detailed 3D reconstruction compared to the overlapping HiRISE DTM.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel T. McCoy ◽  
Paul R. Field ◽  
Anja Schmidt ◽  
Daniel P. Grosvenor ◽  
Frida A.-M. Bender ◽  
...  

Abstract. Aerosol-cloud interactions are a major source of uncertainty in predicting 21st century climate change. Using high-resolution, convection-permitting global simulations we predict that increased cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) interacting with midlatitude cyclones will increase their cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC), liquid water (CLWP), and albedo. For the first time this effect is shown with 13 years of satellite observations. Causality between enhanced CCN and enhanced cyclone liquid content is supported by the 2014 eruption of Holuhraun. The change in midlatitude cyclone albedo due to enhanced CCN in a surrogate climate model is around 70 % of the change in a high-resolution convection-permitting model, indicating that climate models may underestimate this indirect effect.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle M Caefer ◽  
Nhat Q Phan ◽  
Jennifer C Liddle ◽  
Jeremy L Balsbaugh ◽  
Joseph P O’Shea ◽  
...  

AbstractOkur-Chung Neurodevelopmental Syndrome (OCNDS) is caused by heterozygous mutations to the CSNK2A1 gene, which encodes the alpha subunit of casein kinase II (CK2). The most frequently occurring mutation is lysine 198 to arginine (K198R). To investigate the impact of this mutation, we first generated a high-resolution phosphorylation motif of CK2WT, including the first characterization of specificity for tyrosine phosphorylation activity. A second high resolution motif representing CK2K198R substrate specificity was also generated. Here we report for the first time the impact of the OCNDS associated CK2K198R mutation. Contrary to prior speculation, the mutation does not result in a loss of function, but rather shifts the substrate specificity of the kinase. Broadly speaking the mutation leads to 1) a decreased preference for acidic residues in the +1 position, 2) a decreased preference for threonine phosphorylation, 3) an increased preference for tyrosine phosphorylation, and 4) an alteration of the tyrosine phosphorylation specificity motif. To further investigate the result of this mutation we have developed a probability-based scoring method, allowing us to predict shifts in phosphorylation in the K198R mutant relative to the wild type kinase. As an initial step we have applied the methodology to the set of axonally localized ion channels in an effort to uncover potential alterations of the phosphoproteome associated with the OCNDS disease condition.


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