Laser-like beam? RF experts required

In article , Peter Duncanson
wrote:
On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:33:28 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:
[snip]

FWIW The groups that I know who did this used picosecond (or shorter)
pulses for the probe and for detection. If the pulses / gating is too
wide you end up having the signal lost in the 'fog' of scattered output.

The paper I linked to above says:

ADRS apparatus and sampling

[snip]

Samples (500 microL) were dispensed into the same batch of 2 mL
polypropylene tubes with caps and placed onto a spot within the
sample chamber.

[snip]

Samples were pulsed with radar in the spectral range 0-25000 MHz and
spectral frequency and energy measurements (images) were classified
using energy bins. The image data were first subjected to fast
Fourier transform (FFT) analysis using the RADAMATIC software,
proprietary software developed by Radar World Ltd, which is
optimised for analysing the Atomic Dielectric Resonance behaviour of
materials when subjected to a coherent beam of lased invisible light
photons. The bandwidth of the pulsed transmit (Tx) energy was 1 GHz
but the ADR spectral responses were analysed from the received (Rx)
digital signals by FFT methods using 1024 point samples in each case
from 100 MHz to 51.2 GHz.

Note that the highest frequency mentioned is 51.2 GHz. That is way below
the frequency of visible light, 405 THz to 790 THz, or even infra-red, 1
to 400 THz.

Well, what you quoted makes some kind of sense for *samples* held in a
"chamber" in conjunction with the measurement system. It is also possible
from the wording that some like of 'laser' was used to probe or interact in
the sample with the RF. I know of various ways you could use a mix of RF
and 'light' to analyse samples or do spatial measurements in limited
'sample' types of case.

e.g. Use short laser pulses to excite the electrons in the material and
note any 'ring down' effects as they relax and become a ground state
dielectric again by detecting RF, or spin, or whatever.

Or do it t'other way around and use the RF pulse to excite the material and
detect the effects via laser.

Might even be quadrupole resonance effects for all I know from the
wordings. (see below.) Or something else. The cross-polar comments make it
look like some kind of ESR or NMR or high order equivalent. Fine for a
sample in a system.

Lacking details you can make up 'possibilities' for the sample case. Which
are snarks or boojums, who knows?... :-)

The wording tells you various trivial details like "1024 point samples".
But little or nothing about the guts of the process beyond covering it with
the nice word "proprietary". Terms like "energy bins" are also used above
without clearly saying what is meant in a way that would contribute to an
explanation.

None of which would explain the stuff about claiming to detect at depths of
many km with a spatial resolution of a metre. That is what I couldn't see
and explanation for and puzzles me. It is easy enough to look for nonlinear
interactions, etc, in samples in a sample chamber. Quite different to some
of what is claimed or described for the parts about looking deep into the
ground. If there is an explanation for that, I've not seen it yet so far as
I can tell.

For GPR I doubt that components up to 25GHz would penetrate usefully to
scales like kilometers. Ditto for 'lasers'. At LF the ground losses will
rise swiftly with frequency, I'd suspect. Nor clear how you'd get 1 metre
cross-wise resolution at km distances with the kit shown with frequencies
so low or with the vague mentions of 'laser' 'light' etc.

In air (or vacuum), yes, I can think of ways it could be done, and indeed,
has been for some ways. But though kilometers of assorted rocks, etc?...

TBH I also found it odd that the presentation I read jumped from GPR like
plots for 0 - 25m to curious wiggly lines for down to kilometers. And the
SNR didn't seem to degrade with depth in what I saw.

So what is being done may be fine and clever. But I've not yet seen an
explanation that clarifies this. What I've read seems more like PR with
assorted buzzwords to make it 'scientific'.

Of course, vague techobabble can be used simply to stop anyone else
learning how to copy a "proprietary" process. Bafflegab designed to prevent
others understanding - or being able to criticise. Some prefer this to
patents which require an explanation sufficient to duplicate what it
claimed. In the end this always fails because once it is established that
something can be done, others will work out how to do it. Yet it may well
be that the system is superb even if we can't find a clear description of
how it really works.

So we could dream up various 'possible' ways how what it claimed is done,
by making suitably wild assumptions, etc. But that wouldn't tell us if our
guess was correct, or if the claims are true... or not. That's why
"proprietary" tends to conflict with science and engineering progress if
based on secrecy and bafflegab, and why patents were brought into being.
Baloney baffles brains. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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On Thu, 8 Mar 2012 12:52:32 UTC, Java Jive
wrote:

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase:
"Did the earth move for you, Darling?"


LOL - In fact the Earth moves more with explosives. Even a pound or so
of dynamite down a shot hole makes the ground buck under you.
Vibrators use a swept frequency like 10 to 140 Hz. They were testing
one once next to a "temporary" steel framed building - and the frame
bolts started to undo themselves..........

On Thu, 8 Mar 2012 08:22:11 +0000 (UTC), "Dave Saville"
wrote:

Normal
source would be ... vibrators (mostly land),



--
Regards
Dave Saville

On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 01:16:05 +0000, R. Mark Clayton wrote:

Sounds like a lot of b******ks.
[snip]

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
news
I've just found this, which looks interesting:

http://adrokgroup.com/

In particular see the Technology and Services page.

Apparently it's a ground penetrating radar which can "see" up to 4km
into the ground. It can also identify the various materials through
which the beam travels, providing what they call "virtual borehole"
technology

[snip]

Sounds a bit like the contraption that the French government was told
many years ago could see underground oil deposits from a plane. Of course
that was a massive scam...



--
Steve Hayes, South Wales, UK - remove colours from address

Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:50:36 GMT, Steve Thackery
wrote:


There is a Wikipedia article about it with more detail. The article was
first created 3 years ago by, surprise, surprise, Colin Stove.

I hope it has been tagged as original research and probably an NPOV
violation, then.

Steve Thackery wrote:


For instance, is it really possible to collimate a beam of RF? Is it

Yes. Just use a large enough antenna! You cannot get a narrow beam
from a source which is only a small number of wavelengths across.
That's a physical impossibility. Incidentally nearly all RF systems are
laser-like in the sense that they are coherent sources.

Collimated beams are standard practice with air surveillance radar.

feasible that such a beam could penetrate thousands of metres into the
ground and generate detectable reflections from the various interfaces
it passes through? Allegedly it works through water and rock. Can RF
get through water?

I think that depends on the frequency and the purity of the water. The
military use ELF for low bandwidth signalling to submarines, but I think
the submarine then needs to deploy a higher frequency antenna to get the
main message.

As described here, I would have no confidence in the technology.

On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:34:45 +0000, David Woolley
wrote:

Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:50:36 GMT, Steve Thackery
wrote:


There is a Wikipedia article about it with more detail. The article was
first created 3 years ago by, surprise, surprise, Colin Stove.

I hope it has been tagged as original research and probably an NPOV
violation, then.

I wondered about that. The WP article has references to three papers
that were published before the article. Gordon Stove was co-author of
two and author of one.

One paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal, one was presented at
an international conference, and I'm not sure about the third.

He therefore doesn't seem to fall foul of the WP "no original research"
rule:

The term "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to
material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no
reliable, published sources exist.

Stove may be more of a entrepreneur, manager and front-man for people
with scientific and engineering knowledge and skills. His degree is a
BSc Hons, Geography from the University of Edinburgh.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-stove/12/7b4/69b


--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

In article , Peter Duncanson
wrote:

Stove may be more of a entrepreneur, manager and front-man for people
with scientific and engineering knowledge and skills.

Who are?...

His degree is a
BSc Hons, Geography from the University of Edinburgh.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-stove/12/7b4/69b

So the 'communications problem' may be a result of him being a geographer
who is clueless about how the technology actually works. That is plausible,
but still leaves the puzzle of how it does work... if it does... for the
claims about sensing to great depths. As it stands, what I've read about
that reads a lot like the kind of technobabble I read a lot about loony 'hi
fi' items. Lots of buzzwords and plausible phrases, but doesn't seem to fit
together as a clear explanation that makes sense, and may simply not work
as claimed.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article , David Woolley
wrote:
Steve Thackery wrote:


For instance, is it really possible to collimate a beam of RF? Is it

Yes. Just use a large enough antenna! You cannot get a narrow beam
from a source which is only a small number of wavelengths across.
That's a physical impossibility. Incidentally nearly all RF systems are
laser-like in the sense that they are coherent sources.

Collimated beams are standard practice with air surveillance radar.

There are also ways to get a laser to generate a 'guide' for RF. e.g. use a
shaped laser beam to heat a path, shaped to act like an 'optical fibre' for
the RF. I know this has been tested and does work. But in air in suitable
conditions. Not in complex rock structures!

feasible that such a beam could penetrate thousands of metres into the
ground and generate detectable reflections from the various
interfaces it passes through? Allegedly it works through water and
rock. Can RF get through water?

I think that depends on the frequency and the purity of the water. The
military use ELF for low bandwidth signalling to submarines, but I think
the submarine then needs to deploy a higher frequency antenna to get
the main message.

The ELF is OK provided you don't need a high bitrate.

As described here, I would have no confidence in the technology.

Ditto. But maybe there are some research papers somewhere, written by
someone involved who really does understand and manages to explain. Can't
tell from what I've read.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Jim Lesurf wrote:

His degree is a BSc Hons, Geography from the University of Edinburgh.
So the 'communications problem' may be a result of him being a geographer
who is clueless about how the technology actually works.
But surely, if education has any meaning at all, his BSc must enable him
to recognise that he is clueless in a particular area. Isn't that what a
science education is supposed to all about? If yer don't know, don't
****ing make it up?

Bill

On Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:24:07 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Peter Duncanson
wrote:

Stove may be more of a entrepreneur, manager and front-man for people
with scientific and engineering knowledge and skills.

Who are?...

The authors of the paper in the Journal of Transaltion Medicine are
listed as:

Timothy J Fagge1, G Robin Barclay2*, G Colin Stove3, Gordon Stove3,
Michael J Robinson3, Mark W Head1, James W Ironside1 and Marc L
Turner2

Author Affiliations

1 National CJD Surveillance Unit & Division of Pathology, University
of Edinburgh School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, Western
General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, UK

2 SNBTS Adult Cell Therapy Group, Scottish Centre for Regenerative
Medicine, University of Edinburgh School of Clinical Sciences, The
Chancellor's Building, 49 Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16
4SB, UK

3 ADROK Ltd (formerly Radar World Ltd), Waterloo House, 17 Waterloo
Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3BG, UK

I haven't found details of all of them online, but what I have found
suggests qualifications and experience in medicine and bio-sciences. I
would have been happy to find at least one physicist or similar
involved.

His degree is a
BSc Hons, Geography from the University of Edinburgh.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-stove/12/7b4/69b

So the 'communications problem' may be a result of him being a geographer
who is clueless about how the technology actually works. That is plausible,
but still leaves the puzzle of how it does work... if it does... for the
claims about sensing to great depths. As it stands, what I've read about
that reads a lot like the kind of technobabble I read a lot about loony 'hi
fi' items. Lots of buzzwords and plausible phrases, but doesn't seem to fit
together as a clear explanation that makes sense, and may simply not work
as claimed.

I agree. There is an enormous difference between "looking" at small
biological samples a few centimetres, at most, from the detector and
peering through 100s or 1000s of metres of rock, etc.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)