Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Laufenberg, Larry.
The report discusses the Mixed-initiative Activity Planning GENerator (MARGEN) automatically generates activity plans for rovers. Decision support system mixes autonomous planning/scheduling with user modifications. Accommodating change. Technology spotlight
In 1965, just four years after the first planar integrated circuit (IC) was discovered, Cordon Moore observed that the number of transistors per integrated circuit had grown exponentially. He predicted that this would continue, and the media soon began to call his prophesy "Moore's Law" For nearly forty years, Moore's Law has been validated by the technological progress achieved in the semiconductor industry. Now, however, industry experts are warning of a "Red Brick Wall" that may soon block the continued scaling predicted by by Moore's Law. The "red bricks" in the wall are those areas of technical challenge for which no known manufacturable solution exists. One such "brick" is the challenge of finding a new material and processing technology to replace the metals used today to interconnect transistors on a chip.
How low can we go? This is the question challenging scientists who want to build ever-smaller electronic components. As famed physicist Richard Feynmann said in 1959, 'there is plenty of room at the bottom,' meaning at the atomic or nanometric scale. But even Feynmann could only guess at how we might eventually build things 'down there.' As current lithographic techniques for etching semiconductor circuits rapidly approach their physical limits, scientists are looking for new and less expensive ways to fabricate circuits at infinitesimally small scales. NASA scientists have discovered a new tool that may help accomplish this goal - proteins. The basic building blocks of life may be harnessed to build computers and sensors on the nanoscale. Proteins provide self-assembling structures that can be engineered to build ordered arrays of quantum dots.
Living creatures may provide algorithms to enable active sensing/control systems in robots. Active sensing could enable planetary rovers to feel their way in unknown environments. The surface of Jupiter's moon Europa consists of fractured ice over a liquid sea that may contain microbes similar to those on Earth. To explore such extreme environments, NASA needs robots that autonomously survive, navigate, and gather scientific data. They will be too far away for guidance from Earth. They must sense their environment and control their own movements to avoid obstacles or investigate a science opportunity. To meet this challenge, CICT's Information Technology Strategic Research (ITSR) Project is funding neurobiologists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and selected universities to search for biologically inspired algorithms that enable robust active sensing and control for exploratory robots. Sources for these algorithms are living creatures, including rats and electric fish.
One of NASA's key goals is to increase the safety and reduce the cost of space transportation. Thus, a key element of NASA's new Integrated Space Transportation Plan is to develop new propulsion, structures, and operations for future generations of reusable launch vehicles (RLVs). As part of this effort to develop the next RLV, the ClCT Program's Computing, Networking, and Information Systems (CNIS) Project is developing and demonstrating collaborative software technologies that use the collective power of the NASA Grid to accelerate spacecraft design. One of these technologies, called AeroDB, automates the execution and monitoring of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) parameter studies on the NASA Grid. About the NASA Grid The NASA Grid, or Information Power Grid,. is being developed to leverage the distributed resources of NASA's many computers. instruments, simulators, and data storage systems. The goal is to use these combined resources to sdve difficult NASA challenges, such as iimulating the entire flight of a space vehicle from ascent to descent.To realize the vision of the NASA Grid, the CNIS Project is developing the software framework and protocols for building domain-specific environments and interfaces, new Grid services based on emerging industry standards, and advanced networking and computing testbeds to support new Grid-based applications such as AeroDB.