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Requirements for testing and flight
certifying the Space Shuttle Main Engine have spawned a new data
analysis and visualization software package.
Through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program
at NASA's Stennis Space Center, MathSoft, Inc., in Seattle, Washington,
has developed a system that will provide the building blocks
for signal analysis and rapid prototyping. Under the SBIR work,
an add-on module to MathSoft's S-PLUS® software
has been created. MathSoft develops, markets, and supports technical
calculation and data analysis software productivity tools for
professionals, students, and educators. The patented S-PLUS®
software program is one of the most powerful data analysis software
packages presently available.
The SBIR-spurred product, called S+Wavelets®,
allows users to perform advanced data visualization and analysis,
nonparametric statistical estimation, signal and image compression,
signal processing, and to prototype new and faster algorithms.
S+Wavelets® can help NASA develop a complete understanding
of propulsion test data by using time frequency displays, automatic
estimation and de-noising, and data analysis plots for wavelet
decomposition. This type of analysis tool is ideal for engineers
and scientists and capable of decomposing signals and images
into components at different scales and frequencies.
MathSoft was looking for a way to enhance and improve the
computational properties, efficiency, and accuracy of mathematical
solutions. S+Wavelets® provides analytic and computational
properties for this purpose. A number of techniques have been
developed to effectively use the unique properties of wavelets.
Before S+Wavelets®, scientists and engineers wrote
their own code, as there were no commercial wavelet research
applications available at that time to support their needs. The
Stennis SBIR award provided the resources to create S+Wavelets®
and its properties to use waveforms that are localized in time,
space, and frequency. In general, the largest benefit of wavelet
packets will be seen in the analysis of signals and images with
natural oscillations/frequencies. NASA has discovered it is often
much easier to remove the noise in the wavelet domain rather
than the original domain.
With S+Wavelets®, MathSoft has combined the
utilities of the wavelet functions into one comprehensive collection.
This has resulted in an efficiency that far exceeds any other
mathematical capability known to exist today. The system uses
filters to optimize building blocks into which a signal is to
be decomposed. These results are used to help interpret the wavelet
coefficients and evaluate the decomposition. S+Wavelets®
does this by using exploratory signal analysis or rapid prototyping.
As a module of S-PLUS®, S+Wavelets®
allows users to develop a thorough, penetrating analysis of signal,
time series, or image data. The tool kit offers more than 500
analysis functions within an object-oriented environment. Available
for both Unix and MS-Windows platforms, S+Wavelets®
is now being commercially sold separately or as an integrated
portion of the S-PLUS® software package. Under
the same SBIR work, the book Applied Wavelet Analysis with S-PLUS®
was written.
MathSoft believes the marketing of S+Wavelets®
software will soar as wavelet analysis proves to be powerful
in easing certain types of computational problems, such as matrix
algebra. Various integral and differential equations, when expressed
in digital form for a computer, can be solved using matrix algebra.
This mathematical innovation, thanks to NASA's SBIR program,
is proving beneficial to scientists and engineers in industry
and the government, and is an important software tool for educators
and students to solve the most complex of technical problems.
S-PLUS® and S+Wavelets®
are registered trademarks of MathSoft, Inc.
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| MathSoft,
Inc.'s software is capable of decomposing signals and images
into components at different scales and frequencies. |
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