Presents the table of contents for this issue of the publication.

Presents a listing of the editorial board, board of governors, current staff, committee members, and/or society editors for this issue of the publication.

Award. The M. Barry Carlton Award acknowledges what is judged to be the best article in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS. To help identify and assess what TAES article is best, the Carlton Award considers articles published four years earlier in TAES. As such, this year’s Carlton Award is the 2018 M. Barry Carlton Award.

In this article, we explore the relationship between an equalizer and a combiner operating on the available polarization states of a received signal in aeronautical mobile telemetry. The maximum likelihood combiner is derived and shown to be equivalent to summing the outputs of two filters matched to the channels in the horizontal and vertical polarization states. For historical reasons, current systems

Mars aerocapture is one of the most concerned technologies for future Mars sample-return and manned exploration missions. This article investigates the challenging problem of the reference trajectory tracking guidance for Mars aerocapture under uncertainties. Based on an integral sliding surface, a fixed-time neural adaptive tracking guidance law is synthesized by incorporating the neural network (NN)

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has been viewed as a promising solution in constructing reconfigurable radio environment of the propagation channel and boosting the received signal power by smartly coordinating the passive elements’ phase shifts at the RIS. Inspired by this emerging technique, this article focuses on joint beamforming design and optimization for RIS-aided hybrid satellite-terrestrial

This article focuses on the distributed non-Bayesian quickest change detection based on the cumulative sum (CUSUM) algorithm in an energy harvesting wireless sensor network, where the distributions before and after the change point are assumed to be known. Each sensor is powered by randomly available harvested energy from the surroundings. It samples the observation signal and computes the log-likelihood

Automatic Carrier Landing System With Fixed Time Control

Time-sensitive networks (TSNs) provide reliable, deterministic message delivery, ideal for networked control systems. Such networks are increasingly implemented in dynamic, resource-constrained avionics environments. This places pressure on the TSN scheduler to compute network flow schedules faster with slower processors, less memory, and limited power consumption. Avionics full-duplex switched Ethernet

Future high-resolution space-based astronomical observation and remote sensing require space telescope with long focal length or space interferometer with long baseline. In these systems, multiple payloads will be placed over a large spacecraft structure and work in coordination to fulfill the mission tasks. However, structure flexibility and various disturbances present challenges for precision control

Nonlinear sonar contact tracking always presents a significant observability challenge. Observability as it relates to sonar tracking is the metric used to determine if a state estimate is uniquely identifiable given a history of measurements. Poor observability is troublesome to all nonlinear tracking filters to varying degrees. Observability criteria are used to assess the degree of observability

This article proposes an adaptive path-following controller of small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the presence of wind disturbances, which explicitly considers that wind speed is time-varying. The main idea was to formulate UAVs path-following as control design for systems with parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Assuming that there is no prior information on wind,

The linear convex log-homotopy has been used in the derivation of particle flow filters. One natural question is whether it is beneficial to consider other forms of homotopy. We revisit this question by considering a general linear form of log-homotopy for which we derive particle flow filters, validate the distribution of flows, and obtain conditions for the stability of particle flows. We then formulate

The existing prescribed performance control (PPC) strategies exhibit the fragility and nonguarantee of the prescribed performance when they are applied to dynamic systems with actuator saturation, and moreover, all of them are unable to quantitatively design prescribed performance. This article aims at remedying those deficiencies by proposing a new nonfragile PPC method for waverider vehicles (WVs)

Deep learning with its rapid development and advancement has achieved unparalleled performance in many areas like computer vision as well as cognitive radio and signal recognition. However, the performance of most deep neural networks would suffer from degradation in the data mismatch scenario, e.g., the test dataset has a related but nonidentical distribution with the training dataset. Considering

The trust-region-based sequential convex programming (TSCP) method is designed to solve the nonlinear trajectory planning problem using successive linearization and trust region. The TSCP method has a good real-time performance suitable for onboard aerospace applications. However, the main challenge in practical applications is its poor convergence. In this article, we reveal an oscillation phenomenon

Nonlinear sparse data regression and generation have been a long-term challenge in the field of aerodynamics, flow field reconstruction is an area of specific interest in this article. The high computational costs of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) make large scale CFD data production expensive, which is the reason why cheaper methods are needed. Traditional reduced-order models were promising but

Aiming at the probe docking control problem in aerial recovery, this article proposes a neural-adaptive probe dynamics direct control algorithm with preassigned docking performance for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to be recovered, even under multiple ambient airflow disturbances and initial docking deviations. The affine nonlinear dynamics of the probe in the inertial axis are formulated, together

Recent missions reveal that rubble-pile asteroids usually have a wide distribution of bare rocks in various scales. The dynamical evolution of a lander interacting with such rough surfaces is still an open problem. This article investigates the influence of the explicitly refined rocky terrains on the natural landing motion of a cuboid asteroid lander. The methodology for constructing the local terrains

This article presents a frequency-variable resonant self-heating technique for improving the heating speed of lithium-ion batteries at very low temperatures. In contrast to the conventional heating method with a fixed current and frequency, the proposed technique can increase the battery heating current by determining the minimum impedance of the lithium-ion batteries. Then, through a variable charging/discharging

This article proposes an accurate clutter synthesis method for a dynamic radar under various environmental conditions. Previous clutter synthesis methods mostly rely on empirical clutter models fitting the measurement results obtained from the limited conditions of observations. Inherently, these models have difficulties synthesizing clutter for unexplored environments and operational conditions. The

This article deals with the multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) radar beampattern design in an effort to the coexistence with multiple communication systems. A waveform optimization model accounting for the minimization of the beampattern integrated sidelobe level (ISL) along with the mainlobe width, peak-to-average power ratio, and energy constraints, as well as multispectral requirements where

Solar sail appears to be promising and effective spacecraft in interplanetary missions; however, performance degradation is inevitable during its long-term voyage, caused by materials wastage and accidents. This study designed a solar sail with numerous discrete elements (SSNDE) and an intelligent attitude control strategy (IACS) to prevent performance degradation and decrease its harmful effect. Structural

This article presents a switch-mode rectifier-based electric power architecture with an integrated ground power unit for more electric aircraft. The well-regulated high-voltage dc-bus is established from the aircraft generator. And the conventional major 270-Vdc, 28-Vdc, and 115-Vac/400-Hz buses are also preserved. In landed conditions, the ground power unit function powered by the mains is inherently

Presents the table of contents for this issue of the publication.

Presents a listing of the editorial board, board of governors, current staff, committee members, and/or society editors for this issue of the publication.

Presents the introductory editorial for this issue of the publication.

This article addresses the problem of tracking weak and extended targets in the clutter for marine radar systems. In the proposal, multiple kernelized correlation filters (MKCFs) incorporate a low-threshold constant false alarm rate and segmentation model under the principle of multiframe track before detect (MF-TBD). By setting the similarity score of the correlation filter as the test statistic,

In this article, semidefinite programming (SDP) solutions are proposed for the elliptic localization problem in asynchronous radar networks, where the transmitters are subject to clock offsets. Relaxing the nonconvex problem into different convex forms, we design tight SDP (TSDP) and global SDP (GSDP) solutions for this problem. The TSDP solution includes several SDP cones to solve the problem, and

The use of space-time coded ARTM continuous phase modulation to solve the two-antenna problem in aeronautical mobile telemetry requires estimates of the parameters that define the propagation environment. The maximum likelihood estimator problem is defined and used to motivate reduced-complexity estimators suitable for use in a real system. A modified gradient descent algorithm performs the search

This article proposes an improved global navigation satellite system (GNSS) positioning method that explores the time correlation between consecutive epochs of the code and carrier-phase measurements, which significantly increases the robustness against outlier measurements. Instead of relying on the time difference carrier phase which only considers two neighboring epochs using an extended Kalman

This article describes how to form a SAR image without proper motion quantities. That is within the scope of factorized geometrical autofocus (FGA). The FGA algorithm is a fast-factorized back-projection formulation with adjustable geometry parameters. Subapertures are tuned and merged pair-by-pair (base-2) and step-by-step. With this technique, we can correct an erroneous geometry and form a focused

The survivability of microelectronic devices in ionizing radiation environments drives spacecraft design, capability, mission scope, and cost. This article exploits the periodic nature of many space radiation environments to extend device lifetimes without additional shielding or modifications to the semiconductor architecture. We propose a technique for improving component lifetimes through reduced

This article presents a 6-DOF attitude-orbit synchronous control problem for the space circumnavigation (SCN) mission with parameter uncertainties, time-varying uncertainties, and input constraints. In particular, from the perspective of engineering application, time-varying measurement uncertainties are taken into account of the 6-DOF attitude–orbit coupling kinematics and dynamics, and the analytical

This article deals with the problem of adaptive radar detection in a missing-data context, where the complete observations (i.e., downstream information loss mechanisms) are characterized by homogeneous Gaussian disturbance with an unknown but possibly structured covariance matrix. The detection problem, formulated as a composite hypothesis test, is tackled by resorting to suboptimal design strategies

Infrared small target detection is a research hotspot in computer vision technology that plays an important role in infrared early warning systems. Specifically, infrared images with strong background clutter and noise pose a challenge to target detection technology. In this article, we propose a method for infrared small target detection based on the double nuclear norm and ring-structural elements

Electronic countermeasures (ECMs) against a radar are actions taken by an adversarial jammer to mitigate the effective utilization of the electromagnetic spectrum by the radar. On the other hand, electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCMs) are actions taken by the radar to mitigate the impact of ECMs so that the radar can continue to operate effectively. The main idea of this article is to show that

In this article, a dynamic resource allocation with decentralized multi-task assignment (DREAM) approach using a dynamic sized team of defenders is presented to protect a perimeter of a high-security area from heterogeneous intruders. In the DREAM approach, the spatio-temporal problem of neutralizing the heterogeneous intruders is converted into a decentralized time-ordered multi-task assignment problem

Detecting the small targets from a heterogeneous background in an infrared image is a challenging problem, which has received extensive attention. In this article, we propose a method in terms of tensor ring (TR) decomposition and nonlinear multiscale morphological top-hat transformation for infrared small target detection (ISTD). First, a tensor model with prior knowledge is constructed for extracting

When a missile-borne radar system works in downward-looking surveillance mode, the broadened ground clutter signal in virtue of platform high-speed motion will be received by the radar receiver, which will cause difficulty in moving target detection and attacking. Unlike airborne and spaceborne platforms, a missile-borne platform exhibits some unique motion characteristics, such as diving, spinning

Sliding innovation filter (SIF) has recently been introduced as a robust strategy for estimation of linear systems. The SIF has been extended to nonlinear systems via analytical linearization. However, as the performance of the extended SIF (ESIF) degrades in the presence of severe nonlinearities, this article has initially developed a derivative-free cubature SIF (CSIF) that uses statistical linearization

According to the characteristics of signal processing in digital array radar (DAR), an adaptive dwell scheduling algorithm based on the virtual dynamic template is proposed, where a general pulse interleaving method with the overlap of receiving durations is involved. The virtual dynamic template is introduced to realize the general pulse interleaving among tracking tasks, where the tracking tasks

Code tracking is necessary for measuring the pseudorange between a navigation satellite and the receiver and subsequently for position and time estimation. In a real receiver, received signal power is generally not known perfectly and must be estimated using the correlation outputs. The code discriminator, whose output should be independent of signal power, must, therefore, be normalized by an estimate

A directional airborne network consisting of nodes equipped with multibeam antennas is considered. These nodes use the frequency division duplex mode of communication. This allows formation of multiple routes between a pair of source and destination nodes, where every forward and reverse route completely overlaps. Each of these routes supports the bidirectional traffic. These routes are formed using

During the observation of micromotion targets in space, inverse synthetic aperture radar usually obtains the narrowband and wideband echoes simultaneously. In order to exploit their rich information in target electromagnetic scattering, shape, structure, and motion, this article proposes a recognition method of space micromotion targets based on decision fusion. The proposed method extracts physical

Low-latitude ionospheric behavior directly interferes with a wide range of applications dependent on signals and information from satellites. The most severe and variable events are plasma bubbles and ionospheric scintillation. During plasma bubble events, large and steep plasma density gradients may intersect transionospheric signal from satellites, especially around the equatorial anomaly region

Spin recovery from a fully-developed-oscillatory-stable-flat spin is performed in this article using thrust vector control (TVC) and compared with the conventional mode of recovery. TVC dynamics is modeled and then added to the standard aircraft dynamics. TVC command is designed as a function of angle of attack in the pitch and yaw direction and optimally used with aircraft primary controls (APCs)

Sample clock offset must be estimated in order to correctly demodulate an OFDM signal. Estimates are also required in passive radar processing, to produce a reference signal, which is properly matched to the transmission. A recently proposed clock offset estimation method for passive radar is found to be overly sensitive to measurement noise. However, the radar ambiguity surface is found to be unaffected

Since frequency diverse array multiple-input multiple-output (FDA-MIMO) radar possesses additional target range information for potential performance improvement, this article studies adaptive distributed targets detection for FDA-MIMO radar, where the targets are embedded in Gaussian clutter with unknown covariance matrix. The proposed FDA-MIMO radar detection model considers also the distributed

Earth observing satellites (EOS) orbit around the earth to perform observation tasks specified by users. The additional maneuverability resulting from higher degrees of freedom than nonagile EOS (N-AEOS) provides agile EOS (AEOS) a significantly larger visible time window to complete the tasks. As a consequence, the task scheduling for AEOS is much more computationally complex than N-AEOS. In this

We derive a detector function for quantum two-mode squeezing (QTMS) radar and noise radar that is based on the use of a generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) test for distinguishing between the presence and absence of a target. In addition to an explicit expression for the GLR detector, we derive a detector function which approximates the GLR detector in the limit where the target is small, far away,

A complete engagement framework, including evaluation model, intelligent assignment, and cooperative interception is proposed to address the issue of multimissile and multitarget engagement (MME). The concepts of targets threat degree and missiles interception effective degree are included in the evaluation model, which fully considers both the offensive and defensive sides. Then, the multitarget assignment

Performance of direction of arrival (DOA) estimation is one of the most important issues in array signal processing. Subspace-based algorithms provide a good compromise between the estimation accuracy and computational complexity. However, these methods are exposed to performance breakdown at low SNR scenarios. A major reason for such performance breakdown is the subspace swap phenomenon (intersubspace

This article investigates the problem of fixed-time formation tracking control for a heterogeneous multiagent system composed of unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles in the presence of actuator faults, model uncertainties, and external disturbances. First, two fixed-time distributed observers are proposed, one of which is applied to detail-balanced directed graph and the other is applied

Phase-modulated continuous-wave (PMCW) radar is an emerging technology in various civilian applications. Due to the high bandwidth of the PMCW signal, it needs high-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). High-resolution ADCs supporting this high bandwidth are expensive, have a big size on the chip, and consume high power, which are significant challenges for radar. A solution to deal with the aforementioned

This article proposes a joint estimate approach in terms of target states and target cardinality as well as detection probability based on the Poisson multi-Bernoulli (PMB) filter. For the situations, where the detection probability is unknown or unreliable, the usual tracking methods often fail to work, so online estimation of the detection probability is indispensable.To depict the unknown detection

This article proposed an iterative pose estimation for the planar object to deal with the pose ambiguity in the Perspective n Points (PnP) problem. Specifically, by utilizing the unit virtual sphere, the PnP pose estimation problem can be performed as a minimization of the error function with three independent transitional parameters, referred to as the coupling position. Then, Levenberg–Marquardt

5G systems are becoming a reality and the evolution toward beyond 5G and 6G systems is already being defined, also to cope with the ever increasing capacity demanded by on-ground users. This will pose challenging requirements on the feeder link of future satellite systems, which risks to become a bottleneck for the overall system performance. In this article, we propose a novel architecture of linear

In this article, we define an ambiguity function (AF) for the generalized wideband multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar, wherein the AF combines the signal processing in the fractional Fourier domain with all the functions of conventional AFs. We name it as the fractional AF for the wideband MIMO radar. In order to obtain the AF, we start from introducing the fractional order that relates to

In this article, a scheme of anti-disturbance agile flight control is developed for a maneuverable quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle, subject to the aerodynamic drag, dynamic shift of center of gravity (CoG), and motor dynamics. A cascaded control framework is adopted. In the translational loop, an aerodynamic drag model that considers the drag surface change is developed, containing the deep coupling