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MOD Tool (Microwave Optics Design Tool)The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is currently designing and building a number of instruments that operate in the microwave and millimeter-wave bands. These include MIRO (Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter), MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder), and IMAS (Integrated Multispectral Atmospheric Sounder). These instruments must be designed and built to meet key design criteria (e.g., beamwidth, gain, pointing) obtained from the scientific goals for the instrument. These criteria are frequently functions of the operating environment (both thermal and mechanical). To design and build instruments which meet these criteria, it is essential to be able to model the instrument in its environments. Currently, a number of modeling tools exist. Commonly used tools at JPL include: FEMAP (meshing), NASTRAN (structural modeling), TRASYS and SINDA (thermal modeling), MACOS/IMOS (optical modeling), and POPO (physical optics modeling). Each of these tools is used by an analyst, who models the instrument in one discipline. The analyst then provides the results of this modeling to another analyst, who continues the overall modeling in another discipline. There is a large reengineering task in place at JPL to automate and speed-up the structural and thermal modeling disciplines, which does not include MOD Tool. The focus of MOD Tool (and of this paper) is in the fields unique to microwave and millimeter-wave instrument design. These include initial design and analysis of the instrument without thermal or structural loads, the automation of the transfer of this design to a high-end CAD tool, and the analysis of the structurally deformed instrument (due to structural and/or thermal loads). MOD Tool is a distributed tool, with a database of design information residing on a server, physical optics analysis being performed on a variety of supercomputer platforms, and a graphical user interface (GUI) residing on the user's desktop computer. The MOD Tool client is being developed using Tcl/Tk, which allows the user to work on a choice of platforms (PC, Mac, or Unix) after downloading the Tcl/Tk binary, which is readily available on the web. The MOD Tool server is written using Expect, and it resides on a Sun workstation. Client/server communications are performed over a socket, where upon a connection from a client to the server, the server spawns a child which is be dedicated to communicating with that client. The server communicates with other machines, such as supercomputers using Expect with the username and password being provided by the user on the client.
Document ID
19990019863
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Katz, Daniel S.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Borgioli, Andrea
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Cwik, Tom
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Fu, Chuigang
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Imbriale, William A.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Jamnejad, Vahraz
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Springer, Paul L.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA United States)
Date Acquired
August 19, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1999
Publication Information
Publication: HPCCP/CAS Workshop Proceedings 1998
Subject Category
Optics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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