Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Computer Communication Networks”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 199 records · Page 11

US computer research networks: Current and future

During the last decade, NASA LeRC's Communication Program has conducted a series of telecommunications forecasting studies to project trends and requirements and to identify critical telecommunications technologies that must be developed to meet future requirements. The Government Networks Division of Contel Federal Systems has assisted NASA in these studies, and the current study builds upon these earlier efforts. The current major thrust of the NASA Communications Program is aimed at developing the high risk, advanced, communications satellite and terminal technologies required to significantly increase the capacity of future communications systems. Also, major new technological, economic, and social-political events and trends are now shaping the communications industry of the future. Therefore, a re-examination of future telecommunications needs and requirements is necessary to enable NASA to make management decisions in its Communications Program and to ensure the proper technologies and systems are addressed. This study, through a series of Task Orders, is helping NASA define the likely communication service needs and requirements of the future and thereby ensuring that the most appropriate technology developments are pursued.

Kratochvil, D.↗

Technical Characterization and Benefit Evaluation of 5G-Enabled Grid Data Transport and Applications

This report summarizes the Year 1 work of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) 5G Fabricated Resource and Asset Management Encompassment for energy infrastructure (Energy FRAME) project funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program. 5G is a breakthrough technology that enables a fully mobile and connected society, and a 5G-enabled digital continuum will be one of the critical foundations for a clean energy economy and grid modernization. In collaboration with PNNL’s Advanced Wireless Communication team and Center for Advanced Technology Evaluation team, the project team has been evaluating the system performance of 5G testbeds in the PNNL 5G Innovation Studio, and has formulated a co-simulation test case of power system transmission, distribution, and communication (T&D&C) networks considering 5G technology and high penetration of distributed energy resources. The methodology developed in the 5G Energy FRAME project can be customized to fit different future grid scenarios to evaluate multiple (dynamic) configurations (computing, sensing, communication, environment) for different stakeholders. In summary, our main technical highlights in project Year 1 are as follows: 1) Technical characterization of 5G standalone architectures, 2) Formulation of co-simulation test case of T&D&C networks embedded with 5G, 3) Initial benefit evaluation of 5G communication platform for grid use cases, and 4) Additional extended discussions on edge computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and high-performance computing and cloud computing adoptions. In addition, a collection of system performance data is shared through the publicly available weblink, https://www.pnnl.gov/projects/5g-energy-frame/publications

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Development of an UltraNet Based Distributed Visualization Application

The example application is a distributed visualization involving a supercomputer and a graphics workstation. The visualization computation is performed on a Connection Machine, end the results are rendered using a Silicon Graphics Workstations The UltraNet network installed at NAB allows high-bandwidth communication between the computers. Ideally, taking advantage of the UltraNet is no more complex than developing TCP/IP and Unix BSD socket-type applications on a single machine. In practice, there are several problems in developing an Application using the UltraNet. This paper identifies potential problems and discusses techniques for overcoming them. Performance of UltraNet communication is measured and found to be 10 MB/sec for SGI VGX workstations.

Krystynak, John↗

Information Technology and the Autonomous Control of a Mars In-Situ Propellant Production System

With the rapidly increasing performance of information technology, i.e., computer hardware and software systems, as well as networks and communication systems, a new capability is being developed that holds the clear promise of greatly increased exploration capability, along with dramatically reduced design, development, and operating costs. These new intelligent systems technologies, utilizing knowledge-based software and very high performance computer systems, will provide new design and development tools, scheduling mechanisms, and vehicle and system health monitoring capabilities. In addition, specific technologies such as neural nets will provide a degree of machine intelligence and associated autonomy which has previously been unavailable to the mission and spacecraft designer and to the system operator. One of the most promising applications of these new information technologies is to the area of in situ resource utilization. Useful resources such as oxygen, compressed carbon dioxide, water, methane, and buffer gases can be extracted and/or generated from planetary atmospheres, such as the Martian atmosphere. These products, when used for propulsion and life-support needs can provide significant savings in the launch mass and costs for both robotic and crewed missions. In the longer term the utilization of indigenous resources is an enabling technology that is vital to sustaining long duration human presence on Mars. This paper will present the concepts that are currently under investigation and development for mining the Martian atmosphere, such as temperature-swing adsorption, zirconia electrolysis etc., to create propellants and life-support materials. This description will be followed by an analysis of the information technology and control needs for the reliable and autonomous operation of such processing plants in a fault tolerant manner, as well as the approach being taken for the development of the controlling software. Finally, there will be a brief discussion of the verification and validation process so crucial to the implementation of mission-critical software.

Gross, Anthony R.↗

NeuroCoreX: An Open-Source FPGA-Based Spiking Neural Network Emulator with On-Chip Learning

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are computational models inspired by the event-driven communication and connectivity patterns of biological neural circuits. They enable high energy efficiency and natural support for diverse architectures ranging from layered networks to small-world and graphstructured topologies. In this work, we introduce NeuroCoreX, an open-source, FPGA-based spiking neural network emulator that provides real-time, on-chip learning and flexible network organization. NeuroCoreX supports both feedforward sensory inputs streamed directly from sensors or PCs via UART and recurrent on-chip connectivity, enabling simultaneous processing and learning from external stimuli and internal network dynamics-capabilities rarely available in existing FPGA SNN platforms. The system implements a Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) neuron model with current-based synapses and supports pair-based STDP learning on both feedforward and recurrent synapses. A lightweight Python interface enables interactive configuration, live monitoring, weight read-back, and experiment control. Importantly, NeuroCoreX is tightly integrated with the SuperNeuroMAT simulator, allowing SNN models to be transferred seamlessly from software to hardware for hardware-in-the-loop development. By combining real-time plasticity, flexible connectivity, and an open-source VHDL implementation, NeuroCoreX provides an extensible and accessible platform for neuromorphic research, algorithm-hardware co-design, and energy-efficient edge intelligence.

Gautam, Ashish [ORNL]↗

Integration of communications and tracking data processing simulation for space station

A simplified model of the communications network for the Communications and Tracking Data Processing System (CTDP) was developed. It was simulated by use of programs running on several on-site computers. These programs communicate with one another by means of both local area networks and direct serial connections. The domain of the model and its simulation is from Orbital Replaceable Unit (ORU) interface to Data Management Systems (DMS). The simulation was designed to allow status queries from remote entities across the DMS networks to be propagated through the model to several simulated ORU's. The ORU response is then propagated back to the remote entity which originated the request. Response times at the various levels were investigated in a multi-tasking, multi-user operating system environment. Results indicate that the effective bandwidth of the system may be too low to support expected data volume requirements under conventional operating systems. Instead, some form of embedded process control program may be required on the node computers.

Lacovara, Robert C.↗

Constant Overhead Entanglement Distillation via Scrambling

High-fidelity quantum entanglement enables key quantum networking capabilities such as secure communication and distributed quantum computing, but long-distance entanglement distribution is limited by noise and loss. Entanglement distillation protocols address this problem by extracting high-fidelity Bell pairs from multiple noisy ones. The primary objective is minimizing the resource overhead: the number of noisy input pairs needed to distill each high-fidelity output pair. While protocols achieving optimal overhead are known in theory, they often require complex decoding operations that make practical implementation challenging. We circumvent this challenge by introducing protocols that use quantum scrambling—the spreading of quantum information under chaotic dynamics—through random Clifford operations. Based on this scrambling mechanism, our protocol maintains asymptotically constant overhead, independent of the desired output error rate $\bar{𝜖}$ , and can be implemented with shallow quantum circuits of depth 𝑂⁡(poly log log⁡ $\bar{𝜖}$ −1 ) and memory 𝑂⁡(poly log⁡ $\bar{𝜖}$ −1 ). Our protocol remains effective even with noisy quantum gates. By incorporating error correction, our protocol achieves state-of-the-art performance: starting with pairs of 10% initial infidelity, we require only seven noisy inputs per output pair to distill a single Bell pair with infidelity $\bar{𝜖}$ =10 −12 , substantially outperforming existing schemes. We demonstrate the utility of our protocols for quantum repeater networks.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The Impact of Information Technology on the Design, Development, and Implementation of a Lunar Exploration Mission

From the beginning to the present expeditions to the Moon have involved a large investment of human labor. This has been true for all aspects of the process, from the initial design of the mission, whether scientific or technological, through the development of the instruments and the spacecraft, to the flight and operational phases. In addition to the time constraints that this situation imposes, there is also a significant cost associated with the large labor costs. As a result lunar expeditions have been limited to a few robotic missions and the manned Apollo program missions of the 1970s. With the rapid rise of the new information technologies, new paradigms are emerging that promise to greatly reduce both the time and cost of such missions. With the rapidly increasing capabilities of computer hardware and software systems, as well as networks and communication systems, a new balance of work is being developed between the human and the machine system. This new balance holds the promise of greatly increased exploration capability, along with dramatically reduced design, development, and operating costs. These new information technologies, utilizing knowledge-based software and very highspeed computer systems, will provide new design and development tools, scheduling mechanisms, and vehicle and system health monitoring capabilities that have hitherto been unavailable to the mission and spacecraft designer and the system operator. This paper will utilize typical lunar missions, both robotic and crewed, as a basis to describe and illustrate how these new information system technologies could be applied to all aspects such missions. In particular, new system design tradeoff tools will be described along with technologies that will allow a very much greater degree of autonomy of exploration vehicles than has heretofore been possible. In addition, new information technologies that will significantly reduce the human operational requirements will be discussed.

Gross, Anthony R.↗

Communication systems and methods

A communication system is provided that include one or more processors that are configured to instruct computing devices that communicate messages with each other via a time-sensitive network to securely exchange the messages using secret information, ad direct the computing devices to exchange the secret information via a dedicated quantum channel in the time-sensitive network. The one or more processors are also configured to determine a quantum channel synchronization time associated with the secret information exchanged via the dedicated quantum channel, and modify a local classical oscillator based on the quantum channel synchronization time, the local classical oscillator configured to provide a current time.

Bush, Stephen Francis↗

Data communication requirements for the advanced NAS network

The goal of the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Program is to provide a powerful computational environment for advanced research and development in aeronautics and related disciplines. The present NAS system consists of a Cray 2 supercomputer connected by a data network to a large mass storage system, to sophisticated local graphics workstations, and by remote communications to researchers throughout the United States. The program plan is to continue acquiring the most powerful supercomputers as they become available. In the 1987/1988 time period it is anticipated that a computer with 4 times the processing speed of a Cray 2 will be obtained and by 1990 an additional supercomputer with 16 times the speed of the Cray 2. The implications of this 20-fold increase in processing power on the data communications requirements are described. The analysis was based on models of the projected workload and system architecture. The results are presented together with the estimates of their sensitivity to assumptions inherent in the models.

Levin, Eugene↗

Memory Network For Distributed Data Processors

Universal Memory Network (UMN) is modular, digital data-communication system enabling computers with differing bus architectures to share 32-bit-wide data between locations up to 3 km apart with less than one millisecond of latency. Makes it possible to design sophisticated real-time and near-real-time data-processing systems without data-transfer "bottlenecks". This enterprise network permits transmission of volume of data equivalent to an encyclopedia each second. Facilities benefiting from Universal Memory Network include telemetry stations, simulation facilities, power-plants, and large laboratories or any facility sharing very large volumes of data. Main hub of UMN is reflection center including smaller hubs called Shared Memory Interfaces.

Bolen, David↗

The tensor t‐function: A definition for functions of third‐order tensors

Summary A definition for functions of multidimensional arrays is presented. The definition is valid for third‐order tensors in the tensor t‐product formalism, which regards third‐order tensors as block circulant matrices. The tensor function definition is shown to have similar properties as standard matrix function definitions in fundamental scenarios. To demonstrate the definition's potential in applications, the notion of network communicability is generalized to third‐order tensors and computed for a small‐scale example via block Krylov subspace methods for matrix functions. A complexity analysis for these methods in the context of tensors is also provided.

Lund, Kathryn↗

Investigation of Microwave Transducers for Linearity Dependence and Applications in Quantum Networking

Quantum devices have the potential to revolutionize applications in computing, communications, and sensing; however, current state-of-art resources must operate at extremely low temperatures, making the routing of microwave control and readout signals challenging to scale. Interest in microwave photonic solutions to this problem has grown in recent years, in which control signals are delivered to the cold stage via optical fiber, where they are converted to electrical signals through photodetection. Overall link performance depends strongly on the characteristics of the photodiode, yet detailed measurements of many detector properties remain lacking at cold temperatures. In this work, we examine and compare the performance of a modified uni-traveling carrier photodiode (MUTC-PD) at both room (300 K) and liquid nitrogen (80 K) temperatures, focusing in particular on responsivity, bandwidth, and linearity. In line with previous work, we find a sharp reduction in responsivity at 1550 nm as temperature decreases, while RF bandwidth remains steady. Interestingly, our linearity tests reveal that the RF output saturates more quickly at 80 K, suggesting reduced linearity with lower temperature, the cause of which is still under investigation. Our results should help contribute to the understanding and future design of highly linear cryogenic quantum links.

Bolton, Summer↗

The role of HiPPI switches in mass storage systems: A five year prospective

New standards are evolving which provide the foundation for novel multi-gigabit per second data communication structures. The lowest layer protocols are so generalized that they encourage a wide range of application. Specifically, the ANSI High Performance Parallel Interface (HiPPI) is being applied to computer peripheral attachment as well as general data communication networks. This paper introduces the HiPPI standards suite and technology products which incorporate the standards. The use of simple HiPPI crosspoint switches to build potentially complex extended 'fabrics' is discussed in detail. Several near term applications of the HiPPI technology are briefly described with additional attention to storage systems. Finally, some related standards are mentioned which may further expand the concepts above.

Gilbert, T. A.↗

The role of HiPPI switches in mass storage systems: A five year prospective

New standards are evolving which provide the foundation for multi-gigabit per second data communication structures. The lowest layer protocols are so generalized that they encourage a wide range of application. Specifically, the ANSI High Performance Parallel Interface (HiPPI) is being applied to computer peripheral attachment as well as general data communication networks. The HiPPI Standards suite and technology products which incorporate the standards are introduced. The use of simple HiPPI crosspoint switches to build potentially complex extended 'fabrics' is discussed in detail. Several near term applications of the HiPPI technology are briefly described with additional attention to storage systems. Finally, some related standards are mentioned which may further expand the concepts above.

Gilbert, T. A.↗

Broadband Satellite Technologies and Markets Assessed

The current usage of broadband (data rate greater than 64 kilobits per second (kbs)) for multimedia network computer applications is increasing, and the need for network communications technologies and systems to support this use is also growing. Satellite technology will likely be an important part of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) and the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) in the next decade. Several candidate communications technologies that may be used to carry a portion of the increased data traffic have been reviewed, and estimates of the future demand for satellite capacity have been made. A study was conducted by the NASA Lewis Research Center to assess the satellite addressable markets for broadband applications. This study effort included four specific milestones: (1) assess the changing nature of broadband applications and their usage, (2) assess broadband satellite and terrestrial technologies, (3) estimate the size of the global satellite addressable market from 2000 to 2010, and (4) identify how the impact of future technology developments could increase the utility of satellite-based transport to serve this market.

Wallett, Thomas M.↗

Object-oriented Tools for Distributed Computing

Distributed computing systems are proliferating, owing to the availability of powerful, affordable microcomputers and inexpensive communication networks. A critical problem in developing such systems is getting application programs to interact with one another across a computer network. Remote interprogram connectivity is particularly challenging across heterogeneous environments, where applications run on different kinds of computers and operating systems. NetWorks! (trademark) is an innovative software product that provides an object-oriented messaging solution to these problems. This paper describes the design and functionality of NetWorks! and illustrates how it is being used to build complex distributed applications for NASA and in the commercial sector.

Adler, Richard M.↗