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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.
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Existing prediction techniques are compiled and described. The descriptions include input and output parameter lists, required equations and graphs, and the range of validity for each part of the prediction procedures. Examples are provided illustrating the analysis procedure and the degree of agreement with experimental results.
A method of utilizing information available in the constraints imposed by a low-density parity-check (LDPC) code has been proposed as a means of aiding the recovery of symbol timing in the reception of a binary-phase-shift-keying (BPSK) signal representing such a code in the presence of noise, timing error, and/or Doppler shift between the transmitter and the receiver. This method and the receiver architecture in which it would be implemented belong to a class of timing-recovery methods and corresponding receiver architectures characterized as pilotless in that they do not require transmission and reception of pilot signals. Acquisition and tracking of a signal of the type described above have traditionally been performed upstream of, and independently of, decoding and have typically involved utilization of a phase-locked loop (PLL). However, the LDPC decoding process, which is iterative, provides information that can be fed back to the timing-recovery receiver circuits to improve performance significantly over that attainable in the absence of such feedback. Prior methods of coupling LDPC decoding with timing recovery had focused on the use of output code words produced as the iterations progress. In contrast, in the present method, one exploits the information available from the metrics computed for the constraint nodes of an LDPC code during the decoding process. In addition, the method involves the use of a waveform model that captures, better than do the waveform models of the prior methods, distortions introduced by receiver timing errors and transmitter/ receiver motions. An LDPC code is commonly represented by use of a bipartite graph containing two sets of nodes. In the graph corresponding to an (n,k) code, the n variable nodes correspond to the code word symbols and the n-k constraint nodes represent the constraints that the code places on the variable nodes in order for them to form a valid code word. The decoding procedure involves iterative computation of values associated with these nodes. A constraint node represents a parity-check equation using a set of variable nodes as inputs. A valid decoded code word is obtained if all parity-check equations are satisfied. After each iteration, the metrics associated with each constraint node can be evaluated to determine the status of the associated parity check. Heretofore, normally, these metrics would be utilized only within the LDPC decoding process to assess whether or not variable nodes had converged to a codeword. In the present method, it is recognized that these metrics can be used to determine accuracy of the timing estimates used in acquiring the sampled data that constitute the input to the LDPC decoder. In fact, the number of constraints that are satisfied exhibits a peak near the optimal timing estimate. Coarse timing estimation (or first-stage estimation as described below) is found via a parametric search for this peak. The present method calls for a two-stage receiver architecture illustrated in the figure. The first stage would correct large time delays and frequency offsets; the second stage would track random walks and correct residual time and frequency offsets. In the first stage, constraint-node feedback from the LDPC decoder would be employed in a search algorithm in which the searches would be performed in successively narrower windows to find the correct time delay and/or frequency offset. The second stage would include a conventional first-order PLL with a decision-aided timing-error detector that would utilize, as its decision aid, decoded symbols from the LDPC decoder. The method has been tested by means of computational simulations in cases involving various timing and frequency errors. The results of the simulations ined in the ideal case of perfect timing in the receiver.
The paper develops a numerical model for calculating thermal accommodation coefficients alpha sub T and trapping functions f sub t for gases incident on solid surfaces. The method is especially designed for astrophysical applications in that it treats economically and with moderate accuracy (+ or - 20%) the dependences of alpha sub T and f sub t on finite and different surface and gas temperatures for a large number of gas-surface combinations. In particular, the method is applied to the astrophysical combinations of hydrogen and helium gases incident on graphite, silicon, and ice surfaces. Graphs are presented of the dependence of alpha sub T and f sub t on interstellar gas temperatures in the range of 10 to 10,000 K and grain temperatures in the range 10 to 1000 K, assuming the current estimates of the gas-surface physical parameters such as the composition and the Debye temperature of the grain material, the repulsive range of the surface potential, and the gas-grain adsorption energy.
A numerical technique is developed to reduce the size of models describing the nonlinear dynamic response of quasi-symmetric structures (i.e., structures with unsymmetric geometry). The response vectors of the structure are approximated by a linear combination of the symmetric and antisymmetric vectors at each time step. The mathematical formulation and numerical implementation of the method are described in detail, and results for a shallow laminated anisotropic panel of quadrilateral planform are presented in graphs and normalized contour plots.
Problems in the design of feedback controllers for chaotic dynamical systems are considered theoretically, focusing on two cases where chaos arises only when a nonchaotic continuous-time system is discretized into a simpler discrete-time systems (exponential discretization and pseudo-Euler integration applied to Lotka-Volterra competition and prey-predator systems). Numerical simulation results are presented in extensive graphs and discussed in detail. It is concluded that care must be taken in applying standard dynamical-systems methods to control systems that may be discontinuous or nondifferentiable.
Spray jet in crossflow has been a subject of research because of its wide application in systems involving pollutant dispersion, jet mixing in the dilution zone of combustors, and fuel injection strategies. The focus of this work is to investigate dispersion of a 2-dimensional atomized spray jet into a 2-dimensional crossflow. A quick computational method is developed using available software. The spreadsheet can be used for any 2D droplet trajectory problem where the drop is injected into the free stream eventually coming to the free stream conditions. During the transverse injection of a spray into high velocity airflow, the droplets (carried along and deflected by a gaseous stream of co-flowing air) are subjected to forces that affect their motion in the flow field. Based on the Newton's Second Law of motion, four ordinary differential equations were used. These equations were then solved by a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method using Excel software. Visual basic programming and Excel macrocode to produce the data facilitate Excel software to plot graphs describing the droplet's motion in the flow field. This program computes and plots the data sequentially without forcing users to open other types of plotting programs. A user's manual on how to use the program is also included in this report.
The characterization of low pressure cold plasma is a broad topic which would benefit many different applications involving such plasma. The characterization described in this paper focuses on cold plasma used as a medium in cleaning and disinfection applications. Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) and Mass Spectrometry (MS) are the two analytical methods used in this paper to characterize the plasma. OES analyzes molecules in the plasma phase by displaying the light emitted by the plasma molecules on a graph of wavelength vs. intensity. OES was most useful in identifying species which may interact with other molecules in the plasma, such as atomic oxygen or hydroxide radicals. Extracting useful data from the MS is done by filtering out the peaks generated by expected molecules and looking for peaks caused by foreign ones leaving the plasma chamber. This paper describes the efforts at setting up and testing these methods in order to accurately and effectively characterize the plasma.
Graphic method of determining rocket attitudes by plotting data obtained by fluxgate magnetometers and solar aspect sensors utilizes polar coordinates. Polar graph paper is used to represent either the horizon system of altitude and azimuth or the celestial system of declination and right ascensions.
The objectives and methods used to determine the performance of the LANDSAT-D thematic mapper radiometric and geometric sensors are depicted in graphs and charts. Other aspects illustrated include ground and flight segment TM geometric processing and early access TM processing.
This report describes a concurrent Euler flow solver for flows around complex 3-D bodies. The solver is based on a cell-centered finite volume methodology on 3-D unstructured tetrahedral grids. In this algorithm, spatial discretization for the inviscid convective term is accomplished using an upwind scheme. A localized reconstruction is done for flow variables which is second order accurate. Evolution in time is accomplished using an explicit three-stage Runge-Kutta method which has second order temporal accuracy. This is adapted for concurrent execution using another proven methodology based on concurrent graph abstraction. This solver operates on heterogeneous network architectures. These architectures may include a broad variety of UNIX workstations and PCs running Windows NT, symmetric multiprocessors and distributed-memory multi-computers. The unstructured grid is generated using commercial grid generation tools. The grid is automatically partitioned using a concurrent algorithm based on heat diffusion. This results in memory requirements that are inversely proportional to the number of processors. The solver uses automatic granularity control and resource management techniques both to balance load and communication requirements, and deal with differing memory constraints. These ideas are again based on heat diffusion. Results are subsequently combined for visualization and analysis using commercial CFD tools. Flow simulation results are demonstrated for a constant section wing at subsonic, transonic, and a supersonic case. These results are compared with experimental data and numerical results of other researchers. Performance results are under way for a variety of network topologies.
The work performed under this contract was in the area of intelligent robotics. The problem being studied was the acquisition of intelligent behaviors by a robot. The method was to acquire action maps that describe tasks as sequences of reflexive behaviors. Action maps (a.k.a. topological maps) are graphs whose nodes represent sensorimotor states and whose edges represent the motor actions that cause the robot to proceed from one state to the next. The maps were acquired by the robot after being teleoperated or otherwise guided by a person through a task several times. During a guided task, the robot records all its sensorimotor signals. The signals from several task trials are partitioned into episodes of static behavior. The corresponding episodes from each trial are averaged to produce a task description as a sequence of characteristic episodes. The sensorimotor states that indicate episode boundaries become the nodes, and the static behaviors, the edges. It was demonstrated that if compound maps are constructed from a set of tasks then the robot can perform new tasks in which it was never explicitly trained.
We present AstroLoc, an efficient and robust monocular visual-inertial graph-based localization system used by the Astrobee free-flying robots onboard the International Space Station (ISS). We provide a novel localization system that limits the traditionally higher computation times for graph-based localization systems and enables the resource constrained Astrobee robots to benefit from their increased accuracy. We also introduce methods for handling cheirality issues for visual odometry and localization factors that further increase localization robustness. We evaluate the performance of AstroLoc on a dataset of ISS activities and show that it greatly improves pose, velocity, and IMU bias estimation accuracy while efficiently running in a limited computation environment. The source code for AstroLoc is released to the public.
Current progress in the computational analysis of rotary-wing flowfields is surveyed, and some typical results are presented in graphs. Topics examined include potential theory, rotating coordinate systems, lifting-surface theory (moving singularity, fixed wing, and rotary wing), panel methods (surface singularity representations, integral equations, and compressible flows), transonic theory (the small-disturbance equation), wake analysis (hovering rotor-wake models and transonic blade-vortex interaction), limitations on computational aerodynamics, and viscous-flow methods (dynamic-stall theories and lifting-line theory). It is suggested that the present algorithms and advanced computers make it possible to begin working toward the ultimate goal of turbulent Navier-Stokes calculations for an entire rotorcraft.
Droplet interaction with a high temperature gaseous crossflow is important because of its wide application in systems involving two phase mixing such as in combustion requiring quick mixing of fuel and air with the reduction of pollutants and for jet mixing in the dilution zone of combustors. Therefore, the focus of this work is to investigate dispersion of a two-dimensional atomized and evaporating spray jet into a two-dimensional crossflow. An interactive Microsoft Excel program for tracking a single droplet in crossflow that has previously been developed will be modified to include droplet evaporation computation. In addition to the high velocity airflow, the injected droplets are also subjected to combustor temperature and pressure that affect their motion in the flow field. Six ordinary differential equations are then solved by 4th-order Runge-Kutta method using Microsoft Excel software. Microsoft Visual Basic programming and Microsoft Excel macrocode are used to produce the data and plot graphs describing the droplet's motion in the flow field. This program computes and plots the data sequentially without forcing the user to open other types of plotting programs. A user's manual on how to use the program is included.
Termination of a string rewriting system can be characterized by termination on suitable recursively defined languages. This kind of termination criteria has been criticized for its lack of automation. In an earlier paper we have shown how to construct an automated termination criterion if the recursion is aligned with the rewrite relation. We have demonstrated the technique with Dershowitz's forward closure criterion. In this paper we show that a different approach is suitable when the recursion is aligned with the inverse of the rewrite relation. We apply this idea to Kurth's ancestor graphs and obtain ancestor match-bounded string rewriting systems. Termination is shown to be decidable for this class. The resulting method improves upon those based on match-boundedness or inverse match-boundedness.
A comparative study is made between the Algorithm to Architecture Mapping Model (ATAMM) and three other related multiprocessing models from the published literature. The primary focus of all four models is the non-preemptive scheduling of large-grain iterative data flow graphs as required in real-time systems, control applications, signal processing, and pipelined computations. Important characteristics of the models such as injection control, dynamic assignment, multiple node instantiations, static optimum unfolding, range-chart guided scheduling, and mathematical optimization are identified. The models from the literature are compared with the ATAMM for performance, scheduling methods, memory requirements, and complexity of scheduling and design procedures.
Exposure to spaceflight poses risk to human health in complex ways. To help manage this risk, the Human Systems Risk Board (HSRB) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) maintains a set of causal diagrams that attempt to explain how spaceflight hazards generate health risks and lead to adverse outcomes both in-mission, immediately post-mission, and over the long term. These causal risk diagrams are formulated as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) and can function as knowledge graphs of connected risks and outcomes. These DAGs have proven useful for communication, and, through network analysis, have allowed for the identification of structurally important factors in the risk network. However, the utility these DAGs provide is directly proportional to their verisimilitude, making assessment of this trait using empirical data – whether from actual human spaceflight or various spaceflight analogue exposures and model organisms – a high priority. In this research we explore the use of machine learning algorithms to learn DAG structure from empirical data as a means of evaluating human-elicited DAG structures. To do so, we test several different graph structure-learning algorithms on data concerning changes in the bones of rats and mice after exposure to either spaceflight or a spaceflight analogue. We explore potential methods for indexing the similarity between each algorithm’s output DAG with all the others and with that of the expert-elicited DAG. We discuss next steps in this ongoing line of research and open science initiatives underway to complete them.
The legacy communications link analysis software currently used at Wallops Flight Facility involves processes that are different for command destruct, radar, and telemetry. There is a clear advantage to developing an easy-to-use tool that combines all the processes in one application. Link Analysis in the Mission Planning Lab (MPL) uses custom software and algorithms integrated with Analytical Graphics Inc. Satellite Toolkit (AGI STK). The MPL link analysis tool uses pre/post-mission data to conduct a dynamic link analysis between ground assets and the launch vehicle. Just as the legacy methods do, the MPL link analysis tool calculates signal strength and signal- to-noise according to the accepted processes for command destruct, radar, and telemetry assets. Graphs and other custom data are generated rapidly in formats for reports and presentations. STK is used for analysis as well as to depict plume angles and antenna gain patterns in 3D. The MPL has developed two interfaces with the STK software (see figure). The first interface is an HTML utility, which was developed in Visual Basic to enhance analysis for plume modeling and to offer a more user friendly, flexible tool. A graphical user interface (GUI) written in MATLAB (see figure upper right-hand corner) is also used to quickly depict link budget information for multiple ground assets. This new method yields a dramatic decrease in the time it takes to provide launch managers with the required link budgets to make critical pre-mission decisions. The software code used for these two custom utilities is a product of NASA's MPL.