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At least 217 records · Page 12

m:N ConOps/R&R Remote Simulation

This presentation details the experimental design of an investigation of small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) operations involving multiple vehicle management by a remote operator. The study is part of an ongoing effort to explore multiple vehicle control by multiple operators, i.e., the control of N vehicles by m operators (m:N operations). For this effort, NASA and collaborators have developed prototypes of a concept of operations (ConOps), roles and responsibilities (R&R) for operators and supervisors, and a ground control station (GCS), including software displays and interfaces. Participants in this study acted as the pilot-in-command of twelve aircraft flying pre-approved routes in a simulation of a food delivery operation utilizing sUAS in the San Diego, CA area. Each participant experienced four experimental trials. Twice within the course of each trial, participants were responsible for responding to a sudden, unanticipated, and high-priority contingency: an airspace restriction for sUAS operations known as a UAS Volume Reservation (UVR). Upon issuance of a UVR, pilots were expected to reroute affected vehicles around the airspace. The level of automation (LoA) and workload of the flight rerouting task were varied. The LoA was manipulated by providing reroute suggestions ("auto" condition) for aircraft or by requiring pilots to manually reroute ("manual" condition) affected vehicles. Workload was varied as a function of the number of vehicles affected by the UVR contingencies: 2 vehicles ("low workload" condition) versus 4 vehicles ("high workload" condition). Additionally, some vehicles required pilots to adjust for terrain conflicts while avoiding the UVR region. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person data collection for this study was not possible. Researchers adapted to this circumstance through the development of remote data collection protocol. Participants were able to view adapted GCS displays using the Microsoft Teams teleconferencing platform and responded to events by using a verbal protocol developed for the experiment. Using this protocol, participants provided instructions for actions to a researcher, referred to as the surrogate, to carry out on their behalf. This presentation describes the experiment design, including special details for remote data collection via a subject-surrogate configuration, and concludes with planned data analysis and results to be presented at a later date.

multi-UAS↗

Quantifying the Value of Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings through Field Study: Preprint

Quantifying the annual energy impacts of efficient technologies in commercial buildings has been well established by the building science field. As we move toward enabling grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEB) targeting flexible building operation and carbon reduction, quantification methods to evaluate time-sensitive peak load and emissions impact are much less defined. A number of national laboratories are working to field validate four different GEB software solutions that provide the capability to control multiple building end-use systems in multiple load flexibility modes (i.e., energy efficiency, load shed, load shift, and possible load modulation at the second to sub-second level). To guide the laboratory leads in effective measurement and verification (M&V) practices, two of the laboratories collaborated to define metrics to quantify the impacts of flexible load control on building demand, utility costs, carbon emissions, facility management, and occupant comfort. This paper summarizes the proposed metrics to quantify peak load and emission impacts in the field, decision parameters, approaches to accurately conduct M&V, lessons learned, and outstanding needs and next steps.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗

Quantifying the Value of Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings through Field Study

Quantifying the annual energy impacts of efficient technologies in commercial buildings has been well established by the building science field. As we move toward enabling grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEB) targeting flexible building operation and carbon reduction, quantification methods to evaluate time-sensitive peak load and emissions impact are much less defined. A number of national laboratories are working to field validate four different GEB software solutions that provide the capability to control multiple building end-use systems in multiple load flexibility modes (i.e., energy efficiency, load shed, load shift, and possible load modulation at the second to sub-second level). To guide the laboratory leads in effective measurement and verification (M&V) practices, two of the laboratories collaborated to define metrics to quantify the impacts of flexible load control on building demand, utility costs, carbon emissions, facility management, and occupant comfort. This paper summarizes the proposed metrics to quantify peak load and emission impacts in the field, decision parameters, approaches to accurately conduct M&V, lessons learned, and outstanding needs and next steps.

Langner, Rois↗

Optical Properties of Aerosols from Long Term Ground-Based Aeronet Measurements

AERONET is an optical ground-based aerosol monitoring network and data archive supported by NASA's Earth Observing System and expanded by federation with many non-NASA institutions including AEROCAN (AERONET CANada) and PHOTON (PHOtometrie pour le Traiteinent Operatonnel de Normalisation Satellitaire). The network hardware consists of identical automatic sun-sky scanning spectral radiometers owned by national agencies and universities purchased for their own monitoring and research objectives. Data are transmitted hourly through the data collection system (DCS) on board the geostationary meteorological satellites GMS, GOES and METEOSAT and received in a common archive for daily processing utilizing a peer reviewed series of algorithms thus imposing a standardization and quality control of the product data base. Data from this collaboration provides globally distributed near real time observations of aerosol spectral optical depths, aerosol size distributions, and precipitable water in diverse aerosol regimes. Access to the AERONET data base has shifted from the interactive program 'demonstrat' (reserved for PI's) to the AERONET homepage allowing faster access and greater development for GIS object oriented retrievals and analysis with companion geocoded data sets from satellites, LIDAR and solar flux measurements for example. We feel that a significant yet under utilized component of the AERONET data base are inversion products made from hourly principal plane and almucanter measurements. The current inversions have been shown to retrieve aerosol volume size distributions. A significant enhancement to the inversion code has been developed and is presented in these proceedings.

Holben, B. N.↗

The Use of GIS and Remotely Sensed Data in Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT): The HELIX-Atlanta Experience

As part of the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN), the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is leading a project in collaboration with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA/MSFC) called Health and Environment Linked for Information Exchange (HELIX-Atlanta). HELIX-Atlanta's goal is to examine the feasibility of building an integrated electronic health and environmental data network in five counties of metropolitan Atlanta, GA. Under HELIX-Atlanta, pilot projects are being conducted to develop methods to characterize exposure; link health and environmental data; analyze the relationship between health and environmental factors; and communicate findings. There is evidence in the research literature that asthmatic persons are at increased risk of developing asthma exacerbations with exposure to environmental factors, including PM(sub 2.5). Thus, HELIX-Atlanta is focusing on methods for characterizing population exposure to PM(sub 2.5) for the Atlanta metropolitan area that could be used in ongoing surveillance. NASA/MSFC is working with CDC to combine NASA earth science satellite observations related to air quality and environmental monitoring data to model surface estimates of fine particulate matter (PM(sub 2.5)) concentrations in a Geographic Information System (GIS) that can be linked with clinic visits for asthma on the aggregated grid level as well as the individual level at the geographic locations of the patients' residences.

Al-Hamdan, Mohammad Z.↗

Object Oriented Modeling and Design

The Object Oriented Modeling and Design seminar is intended for software professionals and students, it covers the concepts and a language-independent graphical notation that can be used to analyze problem requirements, and design a solution to the problem. The seminar discusses the three kinds of object-oriented models class, state, and interaction. The class model represents the static structure of a system, the state model describes the aspects of a system that change over time as well as control behavior and the interaction model describes how objects collaborate to achieve overall results. Existing knowledge of object oriented programming may benefit the learning of modeling and good design. Specific expectations are: Create a class model, Read, recognize, and describe a class model, Describe association and link, Show abstract classes used with multiple inheritance, Explain metadata, reification and constraints, Group classes into a package, Read, recognize, and describe a state model, Explain states and transitions, Read, recognize, and describe interaction model, Explain Use cases and use case relationships, Show concurrency in activity diagram, Object interactions in sequence diagram.

Shaykhian, Gholam Ali↗

Integrated Test Approach

This paper describes a testing methodology undertaken on the Facilities Development and Operations Contract (FDOC) by Lockheed Martin. The methodology was defined with the intent of reducing project schedule time to enable NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) to be able to deliver the Mission Control Center (MCC) 21 project as quickly as possible. 21 represents the 21st century where NASA JSC is updating its control center with new technology and operational concepts in order to support NASA customers wanting to use control center assets to support space vehicle operations. In collaboration with the NASA customer, a new test concept was conceived early during MCC21 project planning with the goal of reducing project delivery time. One enabler that could help reduce delivery time was testing. Within the project, testing was performed by two entities, software development responsible for subsystem testing and system test responsible for system integration testing. The MCC21 project took a deliberate review of testing to determine how it could be performed differently to realize an overall reduction in test time to support the goal of a more rapid project delivery.

Cotton, Will↗

Toward inclusive observables with staggered quarks: the smeared $R$~ratio

Inclusive hadronic observables are ubiquitous in particle and nuclear physics. Computation of these observables using lattice QCD is challenging due the presence of a difficult inverse problem. As a stepping stone to more complicated observables, we report on progress to compute the smeared $R$~ratio with staggered quarks using the spectral reconstruction algorithm of Hansen, Lupo, and Tantalo. We compare staggered-quark results on two ensembles to domain-wall results on a single ensemble and to the Bernecker-Meyer parameterization. This work utilizes two ensembles generated by the MILC collaboration using highly improved staggered quarks and one ensemble generated by the RBC/UKQCD collaboration using domain-wall quarks. Possible strategies for controlling opposite-parity effects associated with staggered quarks are discussed.

Blum, Thomas↗

The Advanced Geared Turbofan 30,000 lb f – electrified (AGTF30-e): A Virtual Testbed for Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Research

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) is a growing topic of research with the potential to shape the future of commercial air travel. Here, detailed mathematical models serve an essential role in developing understanding and evaluating different technologies and design concepts. The Advanced Geared Turbofan 30,000 lb f – electrified (AGTF30-e) is an open-source software package developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The AGTF30-e provides a realistic propulsion system model of a conceptual electrified advanced geared turbofan engine suitable for propelling a single-aisle commercial aircraft. Included with the engine model is a controller that provides representative dynamic performance across a full operating envelop. The model is meant to facilitate research studies and promote collaboration. It is envisioned for use in concept exploration studies, technology impact studies, and dynamics and controls studies. The engine model can be run in various modes of operation including boost and power extraction. It also has options for other electrification features and methods for engine shaft and electric machine integration. This paper documents the AGTF30-e and illustrates its use through various simulation scenarios.

AGTF30-e↗

The Advanced Geared Turbofan 30,000 lbf – electrified (AGTF30-e): A Virtual Testbed for Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Research

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) is a growing topic of research with the potential to shape the future of commercial air travel. Here, detailed mathematical models serve an essential role in developing understanding and evaluating different technologies and design concepts. The Advanced Geared Turbofan 30,000 lbf – electrified (AGTF30-e) is an open-source software package developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The AGTF30-e provides a realistic propulsion system model of a conceptual electrified advanced geared turbofan engine suitable for propelling a single-aisle commercial aircraft. Included with the engine model is a controller that provides representative dynamic performance across a full operating envelop. The model is meant to facilitate research studies and promote collaboration. It is envisioned for use in concept exploration studies, technology impact studies, and dynamics and controls studies. The engine model can be run in various modes of operation including boost and power extraction. It also has options for other electrification features and methods for engine shaft and electric machine integration. This paper documents the AGTF30-e and illustrates its use through various simulation scenarios.

AGTF30-e↗

Performance Evaluation of Individual Aircraft Based Advisory Concept for Surface Management

Surface operations at airports in the US are based on tactical operations, where departure aircraft primarily queue up and wait at the departure runways. NASA's Spot And Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) tool was developed to address these inefficiencies through Air Traffic Control Tower advisories. The SARDA system is being updated to include collaborative gate hold, either tactically or strategically. This paper presents the results of the human-in-the-loop evaluation of the tactical gate hold version of SARDA in a 360 degree simulated tower setting. The simulations were conducted for the east side of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. The new system provides gate hold, ground controller and local controller advisories based on a single scheduler. Simulations were conducted with SARDA on and off, the off case reflecting current day operations with no gate hold. Scenarios based on medium (1.2x current levels) and heavy (1.5x current levels) traffic were explored. Data collected from the simulation was analyzed for runway usage, delay for departures and arrivals, and fuel consumption. Further, Traffic Management Initiatives were introduced for a subset of the aircraft. Results indicated that runway usage did not change with the use of SARDA, i.e., there was no loss in runway throughput as compared to baseline. Taxiing delay was significantly reduced with the use of advisory by 45% in medium scenarios and 60% in heavy. Arrival delay was unaffected by the use of advisory. Total fuel consumption was also reduced by 23% in medium traffic and 33% in heavy. TMI compliance appeared unaffected by the advisory

departure metering↗

Hybridized Agile Software Development of Flight Control Team Tools for International Space Station's Payload Operations Integration Center

Ground systems operations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Payload Operations and Integration Function (POIF) is increasing, via the High Operations Tempo (HOT) initiative, its ability to support more science activities with a fourth crew member on the International Space Station (ISS). The Flight Control Team's need to support this increased crew presence mandated the need for a series of software tools to better handle the increasing pace of payload science operations. The overall need was clear from the outset, but the full scope and user experience for each tool, were not as well understood, so establishing a fixed set of initial requirements was not feasible. An Agile Software Development (ASD) paradigm takes advantage of uncertainty, and plans for it, so it was deemed the most appropriate approach to create room for exploring novel concepts, and to mount a rapid and flexible response to inevitiably changing requirements. It facilitated the need for unprecedented collaboration between the Product Team (i.e. users from the Flight Control Team) and the Development Team (i.e. POIC systems engineers, developers, testers). This is a process shift in the development, test, and release of software from one that is prescriptive to one that is adaptive, which is necessary for these tools to have longevity. The application of ASD to the product development lifecycle permitted the timely incorporation of customer feedback, and, allowed for continuous quality improvements. This resulted in a suite of tools that are efficient, user-friendly, and enable POIF ground systems to support the increasing pace of payload science operations. ASD is not as much a set of prescriptive processes as it is a shift in mindset; one that moves from planning against change, to planning for change, thereby iteratively growing software towards user-defined value.

Albers, Cerese M.↗

Performance Evaluation of SARDA: An Individual Aircraft-Based Advisory Concept for Surface Management

Surface operations at airports in the US are based on tactical operations, where departure aircraft primarily queue up and wait at the departure runways. NASAs Spot And Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) tool was developed to address these inefficiencies through Air Traffic Control Tower advisories. The SARDA system is being updated to include collaborative gate hold, either tactically or strategically. This paper presents the results of the human-in-the-loop evaluation of the tactical gate hold version of SARDA in a 360 degree simulated tower setting. The simulations were conducted for the east side of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The new system provides gate hold, ground controller and local controller advisories based on a single scheduler. Simulations were conducted with SARDA on and off, the off case reflecting current day operations with no gate hold. Scenarios based on medium (1.2x current levels) and heavy (1.5x current levels) traffic were explored. Data collected from the simulation was analyzed for runway usage, delay for departures and arrivals, and fuel consumption. Further, Traffic Management Initiatives were introduced for a subset of the aircraft. Results indicated that runway usage did not change with the use of SARDA, i.e., there was no loss in runway throughput as compared to baseline. Taxiing delay was significantly reduced with the use of advisory by 45 in medium scenarios and 60 in heavy. Arrival delay was unaffected by the use of advisory. Total fuel consumption was also reduced by 23 in medium traffic and 33 in heavy. TMI compliance appeared unaffected by the advisory.

Yoon Jung↗

Structural Biology of Proteins of the Multi-enzyme Assembly Human Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex

Objectives and research challenges of this effort include: 1. Need to establish Human Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex protein crystals; 2. Need to test value of microgravity for improving crystal quality of Human Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex protein crystals; 3. Need to improve flight hardware in order to control and understand the effects of microgravity on crystallization of Human Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex proteins; 4. Need to integrate sets of national collaborations with the restricted and specific requirements of flight experiments; 5. Need to establish a highly controlled experiment in microgravity with a rigor not yet obtained; 6. Need to communicate both the rigor of microgravity experiments and the scientific value of results obtained from microgravity experiments to the national community; and 7. Need to advance the understanding of Human Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex structures so that scientific and commercial advance is identified for these proteins.

Source record↗

The Effect of Shared Information on Pilot/Controller And Controller/Controller Interactions

In order to respond to the increasing demand on limited airspace system resources, a number of applications of information technology have been proposed, or are under investigation, to improve the efficiency, capacity and reliability of ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) operations. Much of the attention in advanced ATM technology has focused on advanced automation systems or decision aiding systems to improve the performance of individual Pilots or Controllers. However, the most significant overall potential for information technology appears to he in increasing the shared information between human agents such as Pilots, Controllers or between interacting Controllers or traffic flow managers. Examples of proposed shared information systems in the US include; Controller Pilot Databank Communication (CPDLC), Traffic Management Advisor (TMA); Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS); Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) and NAS Level Common Information Exchange. Air Traffic Management is fundamentally a human centered process consisting of the negotiation, execution and monitoring of contracts between human agents for the allocation of limited airspace, runway and airport surface resources. The decision processes within ATM tend to be Semistructured. Many of the routine elements in ATM decision making on the part of the Controllers or Pilots are well Structured and can be represented by well defined rules or procedures. However in disrupted conditions, the ATM decision processes are often Unstructured and cannot be reduced to a set of discrete rules. As a consequence, the ability to automate ATM processes will be limited and ATM will continue to be a human centric process where the responsibility and the authority for the negotiation will continue to rest with human Controllers and Pilots. The use of information technology to support the human decision process will therefore be an important aspect of ATM modernization. The premise of many of the proposed shared information systems is that the performance of ATM operations will improve with an increase in Shared Situation Awareness between agents (Pilots, Controller, Dispatchers). This will allow better informed control decisions and an improved ability to negotiate between agents. A common information basis may reduce communication load and may increase the level of collaboration in the decision process. In general, information sharing is expected to have advantages for all agents within the system. However there are important questions which remain to be,addressed. For example: What shared information is most important for developing effective Shared Situation Awareness? Are there issues of information saturation? Does information parity create ambiguity in control authority? Will information sharing induce undesirable or unstable gaming behavior between agents? This paper will explore the effect of current and proposed information sharing between different ATM agents. The paper will primarily concentrate on bilateral tactical interactions between specific agents (Pilot/Controller; Controller/Controller; Pilot/Dispatcher; Controller/Dispatcher) however it will also briefly discuss multilateral interaction and more strategic interactions.

Hansman, R. John↗

Instrumentation and Control Digital Modernization Research Plan for Long-Term Sustainability in the Nuclear Industry

This report, developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), outlines a comprehensive research plan to support the digital modernization of safety-related instrumentation and control (I&C) systems in the U.S. nuclear industry. The modernization effort is critical to ensuring the long-term safety, reliability, and economic viability of both existing and future nuclear power plants (NPPs), particularly as aging analog systems become increasingly obsolete and difficult to maintain.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Information Power Grid: Distributed High-Performance Computing and Large-Scale Data Management for Science and Engineering

We use the term "Grid" to refer to distributed, high performance computing and data handling infrastructure that incorporates geographically and organizationally dispersed, heterogeneous resources that are persistent and supported. This infrastructure includes: (1) Tools for constructing collaborative, application oriented Problem Solving Environments / Frameworks (the primary user interfaces for Grids); (2) Programming environments, tools, and services providing various approaches for building applications that use aggregated computing and storage resources, and federated data sources; (3) Comprehensive and consistent set of location independent tools and services for accessing and managing dynamic collections of widely distributed resources: heterogeneous computing systems, storage systems, real-time data sources and instruments, human collaborators, and communications systems; (4) Operational infrastructure including management tools for distributed systems and distributed resources, user services, accounting and auditing, strong and location independent user authentication and authorization, and overall system security services The vision for NASA's Information Power Grid - a computing and data Grid - is that it will provide significant new capabilities to scientists and engineers by facilitating routine construction of information based problem solving environments / frameworks. Such Grids will knit together widely distributed computing, data, instrument, and human resources into just-in-time systems that can address complex and large-scale computing and data analysis problems. Examples of these problems include: (1) Coupled, multidisciplinary simulations too large for single systems (e.g., multi-component NPSS turbomachine simulation); (2) Use of widely distributed, federated data archives (e.g., simultaneous access to metrological, topological, aircraft performance, and flight path scheduling databases supporting a National Air Space Simulation systems}; (3) Coupling large-scale computing and data systems to scientific and engineering instruments (e.g., realtime interaction with experiments through real-time data analysis and interpretation presented to the experimentalist in ways that allow direct interaction with the experiment (instead of just with instrument control); (5) Highly interactive, augmented reality and virtual reality remote collaborations (e.g., Ames / Boeing Remote Help Desk providing field maintenance use of coupled video and NDI to a remote, on-line airframe structures expert who uses this data to index into detailed design databases, and returns 3D internal aircraft geometry to the field); (5) Single computational problems too large for any single system (e.g. the rotocraft reference calculation). Grids also have the potential to provide pools of resources that could be called on in extraordinary / rapid response situations (such as disaster response) because they can provide common interfaces and access mechanisms, standardized management, and uniform user authentication and authorization, for large collections of distributed resources (whether or not they normally function in concert). IPG development and deployment is addressing requirements obtained by analyzing a number of different application areas, in particular from the NASA Aero-Space Technology Enterprise. This analysis has focussed primarily on two types of users: the scientist / design engineer whose primary interest is problem solving (e.g. determining wing aerodynamic characteristics in many different operating environments), and whose primary interface to IPG will be through various sorts of problem solving frameworks. The second type of user is the tool designer: the computational scientists who convert physics and mathematics into code that can simulate the physical world. These are the two primary users of IPG, and they have rather different requirements. The results of the analysis of the needs of these two types of users provides a broad set of requirements that gives rise to a general set of required capabilities. The IPG project is intended to address all of these requirements. In some cases the required computing technology exists, and in some cases it must be researched and developed. The project is using available technology to provide a prototype set of capabilities in a persistent distributed computing testbed. Beyond this, there are required capabilities that are not immediately available, and whose development spans the range from near-term engineering development (one to two years) to much longer term R&D (three to six years). Additional information is contained in the original.

Johnston, William E.↗