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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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At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1988

An architecture for integrating distributed and cooperating knowledge-based Air Force decision aids

MITRE has been developing a Knowledge-Based Battle Management Testbed for evaluating the viability of integrating independently-developed knowledge-based decision aids in the Air Force tactical domain. The primary goal for the testbed architecture is to permit a new system to be added to a testbed with little change to the system's software. Each system that connects to the testbed network declares that it can provide a number of services to other systems. When a system wants to use another system's service, it does not address the server system by name, but instead transmits a request to the testbed network asking for a particular service to be performed. A key component of the testbed architecture is a common database which uses a relational database management system (RDBMS). The RDBMS provides a database update notification service to requesting systems. Normally, each system is expected to monitor data relations of interest to it. Alternatively, a system may broadcast an announcement message to inform other systems that an event of potential interest has occurred. Current research is aimed at dealing with issues resulting from integration efforts, such as dealing with potential mismatches of each system's assumptions about the common database, decentralizing network control, and coordinating multiple agents.

Nugent, Richard O.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Risky Business

During my internship I worked on two major projects, recommending improvements for the Center's Risk Management Workshop and helping with the strategic planning efforts for Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA). The risk management improvements is the key project I worked on this semester through my internship, while the strategic planning is the secondary assignment. S&MA Business Office covers both aspects in its delegation, getting both spans some of the work done in the office. A risk is a future event with a negative consequence that has some probability of occurring. Safety and Mission Assurance identifies, analyzes, plans, and tracks risk. The directorate offers the Center a Risk Management Workshop, and part of the ongoing efforts of S&MA is to make continuous improvements to the RM Workshop. By using the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Standard for Risk Management, I performed a gap analysis to make improvements for our materials. I benchmarked the PMI's Risk Management Standard, compared our Risk Management Workshop materials to PMI's standard, and identified any gaps in our material. My major findings were presented to the Business Office of S&MA for a decision on whether or not to incorporate the improvements. These suggestions were made by attending JSC working group meetings, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) panel reviews and various risk review meetings. The improvements provide better understanding of risk management processes and enhanced risk tracking knowledge and skills. Risk management is an integral part of any engineering discipline, getting exposed to this section of engineering will greatly help shape my career in the future. Johnson Space Center is a world leader in risk management processes; learning risk management here gives me a huge advantage over my peers, as well as understanding decision making in the context of risk management will help me to be a well-rounded engineer. Strategic planning is an area I had not previously studied. Helping with the strategic planning efforts in S&MA has taught me how organizations think and function as a whole. S&MA is adopting a balanced scorecard approach to strategic planning. As part of this planning method strategic themes, objectives, and initiatives are formed. I attended strategic theme team workshops that formed the strategy map for the directorate and gave shape to the plan. Also during these workshops the objectives were discussed and built. Learning the process for strategic planning has helped me better understand how organizations and businesses function, which also helps me to be a more effective employee. Other assignments I had during my internship included completing the Safety and Mission Assurance Technical Excellent Program (STEP) Level 1, as well as doing a two week rotation through the Space Exploration division in S&MA, specifically working with a thermal protection systems (TPS) engineer. While working there, I learned about the Orion capsule and the SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule. I attended meetings to prepare the engineers for the upcoming Critical Design Reviews for both capsules and reviewed test data. Learning risk management, strategic planning, and working in the Space Exploration division has taught me about many aspects of S&MA. My internship at NASA has given me new experiences and taught me numerous subjects that I would have otherwise not learned. This opportunity has expanded my educational horizons and is helping me to become a more useful engineer and employee.

Yarbrough, Katherine↗
NASA NTRS2004

Harnessing: Technologies for Sustainable Reindeer Husbandry in the Arctic

To accelerate the development of sustainable reindeer husbandry under the lead of indigenous reindeer herders, it is critical to empower reindeer herders with the best available technologies and to promote a new kind of science where traditional knowledge is fully integrated into the scientific management of the natural environment in the Arctic. This is particularly true given the dramatic environmental, climatic, economic, social and industrial changes, which have taken place across the Arctic in recent years, all of which have had serious impacts on the reindeer herding communities of the North. The Anar Declaration, adopted by the 2d World Reindeer Herders Congress (WRHC), in Inari, Finland, June 2001drew guidelines for the development of a sustainable reindeer husbandry based on reindeer peoples values and goals. The declaration calls for the reindeer herding peoples to be given the possibilities to develop and influence the management of the reindeer industry and its natural environment because of their knowledge and traditional practices. At the same time, Arctic scientists from many institutions and governments are carrying out increasingly highly technical reindeer related research activities. It is important that the technologies and results of these activities be more commonly co-produced with the reindeer herder community and/or made more readily available to the reindeer peoples for comparison with traditional knowledge for improved herd management. This paper describes a project in which reindeer herders and scientists are utilizing technologies to create a system for collecting and sharing knowledge. The project, Reindeer Mapper, is creating an information management and knowledge sharing system, which will help make technologies more readily available to the herder community for observing, data collection and analysis, monitoring, sharing, communications, and dissemination of information - to be integrated with traditional, local knowledge. The paper describes some of the technologies which comprise the system including an intranet system to enable the team members to work together and share information electronically, remote sensing data for monitoring environmental parameters important to reindeer husbandry (e.g. SAR, Landsat), acquisition of ground-based measurements, and the GIS-based information management and knowledge sharing system.

Maynard, Nancy G.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Knowledge structure representation and automated updates in intelligent information management systems

A continuing effort to apply rapid prototyping and Artificial Intelligence techniques to problems associated with projected Space Station-era information management systems is examined. In particular, timely updating of the various databases and knowledge structures within the proposed intelligent information management system (IIMS) is critical to support decision making processes. Because of the significantly large amounts of data entering the IIMS on a daily basis, information updates will need to be automatically performed with some systems requiring that data be incorporated and made available to users within a few hours. Meeting these demands depends first, on the design and implementation of information structures that are easily modified and expanded, and second, on the incorporation of intelligent automated update techniques that will allow meaningful information relationships to be established. Potential techniques are studied for developing such an automated update capability and IIMS update requirements are examined in light of results obtained from the IIMS prototyping effort.

Corey, Stephen↗
NASA NTRS1985

Intelligent data management

Intelligent data management is the concept of interfacing a user to a database management system with a value added service that will allow a full range of data management operations at a high level of abstraction using human written language. The development of such a system will be based on expert systems and related artificial intelligence technologies, and will allow the capturing of procedural and relational knowledge about data management operations and the support of a user with such knowledge in an on-line, interactive manner. Such a system will have the following capabilities: (1) the ability to construct a model of the users view of the database, based on the query syntax; (2) the ability to transform English queries and commands into database instructions and processes; (3) the ability to use heuristic knowledge to rapidly prune the data space in search processes; and (4) the ability to use an on-line explanation system to allow the user to understand what the system is doing and why it is doing it. Additional information is given in outline form.

Campbell, William J.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Radiation risk and human space exploration

Radiation protection is essential to enable humans to live and work safely in space. Predictions about the nature and magnitude of the risks posed by space radiation are subject to very large uncertainties. Prudent use of worst-case scenarios may impose unacceptable constraints on shielding mass for spacecraft or habitats, tours of duty of crews on Space Station, and on the radius and duration of sorties on planetary surfaces. The NASA Space Radiation Health Program has been devised to develop the knowledge required to accurately predict and to efficiently manage radiation risk. The knowledge will be acquired by means of a peer-reviewed, largely ground-based and investigator-initiated, basic science research program. The NASA Strategic Plan to accomplish these objectives in a manner consistent with the high priority assigned to the protection and health maintenance of crews will be presented. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of COSPAR.

NASA Discipline Radiation Health↗
NASA NTRS1991

The nutrition advisor expert system

The Nutrition Advisor Expert System (NAES) is an expert system written in the C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS). NAES provides expert knowledge and guidance into the complex world of nutrition management by capturing the knowledge of an expert and placing it at the user's fingertips. Specifically, NAES enables the user to: (1) obtain precise nutrition information for food items; (2) perform nutritional analysis of meal(s), flagging deficiencies based upon the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances; (3) predict possible ailments based upon observed nutritional deficiency trends; (4) obtain a top ten listing of food items for a given nutrient; and (5) conveniently upgrade the data base. An explanation facility for the ailment prediction feature is also provided to document the reasoning process.

Huse, Scott M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

DCS: A Case Study of Identification of Knowledge and Disposition Gaps Using Principles of Continuous Risk Management

The Human Research Program (HRP) is formulated around the program architecture of Evidence-Risk-Gap-Task-Deliverable. Review of accumulated evidence forms the basis for identification of high priority risks to human health and performance in space exploration. Gaps in knowledge or disposition are identified for each risk, and a portfolio of research tasks is developed to fill them. Deliverables from the tasks inform the evidence base with the ultimate goal of defining the level of risk and reducing it to an acceptable level. A comprehensive framework for gap identification, focus, and metrics has been developed based on principles of continuous risk management and clinical care. Research towards knowledge gaps improves understanding of the likelihood, consequence or timeframe of the risk. Disposition gaps include development of standards or requirements for risk acceptance, development of countermeasures or technology to mitigate the risk, and yearly technology assessment related to watching developments related to the risk. Standard concepts from clinical care: prevention, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, rehabilitation, and surveillance, can be used to focus gaps dealing with risk mitigation. The research plan for the new HRP Risk of Decompression Sickness (DCS) used the framework to identify one disposition gap related to establishment of a DCS standard for acceptable risk, two knowledge gaps related to DCS phenomenon and mission attributes, and three mitigation gaps focused on prediction, prevention, and new technology watch. These gaps were organized in this manner primarily based on target for closure and ease of organizing interim metrics so that gap status could be quantified. Additional considerations for the knowledge gaps were that one was highly design reference mission specific and the other gap was focused on DCS phenomenon.

Norcross, Jason↗
NASA NTRS2001

Academy Sharing Knowledge (ASK). The NASA Source for Project Management Magazine

How big is your project world? Is it big enough to contain other cultures, headquarters, hierarchies, and weird harpoon-like guns? Sure it is. The great American poet Walt Whitman said it best, 'I am large/I contain multitudes.' And so must you, Mr. and Ms. Project Manager. In this issue of ASK, we look outside the project box. See how several talented project managers have expanded their definition of project scope to include managing environments outside the systems and subsystems under their care. Here's a sampling of what we've put together for you this issue: In 'Three Screws Missing,' Mike Skidmore tells about his adventures at the Plesetek Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Ray Morgan in his story, 'Our Man in Kauai,' suggests we take a broader view of what's meant by 'the team.' Jenny Baer-Riedhart, the NASA program manager on the same Pathfinder solar-powered airplane, schools us in how to sell a program to Headquarters in 'Know Thyself--But Don't Forget to Learn About the Customer Too.' Scott Cameron of Proctor and Gamble talks about sharpening your hierarchical IQ in 'The Project Manager and the Hour Glass.' Mike Jansen in 'The Lawn Dart' describes how he and the 'voodoo crew' on the Space Shuttle Advanced Solid Rocket Motor program borrowed a harpoon-like gun from the Coast Guard to catch particles inside of a plume. These are just some of the stories you'll find in ASK this issue. We hope they cause you to stop and reflect on your own project's relationship to the world outside. We are also launching a new section this issue, 'There are No Mistakes, Only Lessons.' No stranger to ASK readers, Terry Little inaugurates this new section with his article 'The Don Quixote Complex.'

Post, Todd↗
NASA NTRS2020

Medical Data Architecture Prototype Development - Summary of Recent Work and Proposed Ideas for Upcoming Work

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions, and in ExMC Gap Med 10: We do not have the capability to provide computed medical decision support during exploration missions. These gaps recognize the need for a comprehensive medical data management system and the accompanying computational support to provide autonomous medical care during long duration exploration missions. As the MDA matures—including the capability to comprehensively process and discover medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions—project focus will shift to maturing and extending the MDA platform to enable clinical decision support and real-time guidance. To date, the MDA foundational architecture has recommended exploration medical system Level of Care IV requirements through a series of test bed prototype developments and analog demonstrations. The next stage in the development will focus on more autonomous clinical decision making necessary to address challenges in executing a self-contained medical system that enables health care both with and without assistance from ground support. A thorough understanding of current state of medical decision support systems, advanced machine learning algorithms and vast and varied data sources is required. The development of a clinical decision support for exploration missions (Level of Care V) roadmap is needed: one that assesses of current state of the art of clinical decision support systems (CDSS), interoperability issues, identification of challenges in health and performance monitoring, obtaining and processing information from biosensors, knowledge and data management, data integration and fusion, and advanced algorithm development. This roadmap must also include rapid prototype development in the areas of data processing, advanced analysis and prediction of medical events, and treatment based on medically relevant information processing and evidence-based best practices. In this presentation, an overview of the relevant issues and the beginning framework of a Level of Care V CDSS development roadmap will be provided.

Krihak, M.↗
NASA NTRS1987

SOLON: An autonomous vehicle mission planner

The State-Operator Logic Machine (SOLON) Planner provides an architecture for effective real-time planning and replanning for an autonomous vehicle. The highlights of the system, which distinguish it from other AI-based planners that have been designed previously, are its hybrid application of state-driven control architecture and the use of both schematic representations and logic programming for the management of its knowledge base. SOLON is designed to provide multiple levels of planning for a single autonomous vehicle which is supplied with a skeletal, partially-specified mission plan at the outset of the vehicle's operations. This mission plan consists of a set of objectives, each of which will be decomposable by the planner into tasks. These tasks are themselves comparatively complex sets of actions which are executable by a conventional real-time control system which does not perform planning but which is capable of making adjustments or modifications to the provided tasks according to constraints and tolerances provided by the Planner. The current implementation of the SOLON is in the form of a real-time simulation of the Planner module of an Intelligent Vehicle Controller (IVC) on-board an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The simulation is embedded within a larger simulator environment known as ICDS (Intelligent Controller Development System) operating on a Symbolics 3645/75 computer.

Dudziak, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Intelligent, autonomous systems in space

The Space Station is expected to be equipped with intelligent, autonomous capabilities; to achieve and incorporate these capabilities, the required technologies need to be identitifed, developed and validated within realistic application scenarios. The critical technologies for the development of intelligent, autonomous systems are discussed in the context of a generalized functional architecture. The present state of this technology implies that it be introduced and applied in an evolutionary process which must start during the Space Station design phase. An approach is proposed to accomplish design information acquisition and management for knowledge-base development.

Lum, H.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Exhaustive Thresholds and Resistance Checkpoints

Once deployed, all intricate systems that operate for a long time (such as an airplane or chemical processing plant) experience degraded performance during operational lifetime. These can result from losses of integrity in subsystems and parts that generally do not materially impact the operation of the vehicle (e.g., the light behind the button that opens the sliding door of the minivan). Or it can result from loss of more critical parts or subsystems. Such losses need to be handled quickly in order to avoid loss of personnel, mission, or part of the system itself. In order to manage degraded systems, knowledge of its potential problem areas and the means by which these problems are detected should be developed during the initial development of the system. Once determined, a web of sensors is employed and their outputs are monitored with other system parameters while the system is in preparation or operation. Just gathering the data is only part of the story. The interpretation of the data itself and the response of the system must be carefully developed as well to avoid a mishap. Typically, systems use a test-threshold-response paradigm to process potential system faults. However, such processing sub-systems can suffer from errors and oversights of a consistent type, causing system aberrant behavior instead of expected system and recovery operations. In our study, we developed a complete checklist for determining the completeness of a fault system and its robustness to common processing and response difficulties.

Easton, Charles↗
NASA NTRS2016

Climate Change Adaptation Activities at the NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center, FL., USA

In 2010, the Office of Strategic Infrastructure and Earth Sciences established the Climate Adaptation Science Investigators (CASI) program to integrate climate change forecasts and knowledge into sustainable management of infrastructure and operations needed for the NASA mission. NASA operates 10 field centers valued at $32 billion dollars, occupies 191,000 acres and employs 58,000 people. CASI climate change and sea-level rise forecasts focus on the 2050 and 2080 time periods. At the 140,000 acre Kennedy Space Center (KSC) data are used to simulate impacts on infrastructure, operations, and unique natural resources. KSC launch and processing facilities represent a valued national asset located in an area with high biodiversity including 33 species of special management concern. Numerical and advanced Bayesian and Monte Carlo statistical modeling is being conducted using LiDAR digital elevation models coupled with relevant GIS layers to assess potential future conditions. Results are provided to the Environmental Management Branch, Master Planning, Construction of Facilities, Engineering Construction Innovation Committee and our regional partners to support Spaceport development, management, and adaptation planning and design. Potential impacts to natural resources include conversion of 50% of the Center to open water, elevation of the surficial aquifer, alterations of rainfall and evapotranspiration patterns, conversion of salt marsh to mangrove forest, reductions in distribution and extent of upland habitats, overwash of the barrier island dune system, increases in heat stress days, and releases of chemicals from legacy contamination sites. CASI has proven successful in bringing climate change planning to KSC including recognition of the need to increase resiliency and development of a green managed shoreline retreat approach to maintain coastal ecosystem services while maximizing life expectancy of Center launch and payload processing resources.

plant communities↗
NASA NTRS2019

Short Course on Lithium-Ion Batteries: Fundamental Concepts, Battery Safety, and Modeling Techniques

When developing this course several years back I asked myself, "What do I think the TFAWS community needs to know about lithium-ion batteries and why should they care?" I think the answers to these questions can be boiled down to the following statements: 1. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery electrical performance and efficiency are heavily driven by thermal conditions. 2. Li-ion battery assemblies can experience single cell thermal runaway events which can lead to cell-to-cell propagation; these are thermally driven failure events that can be controlled with effective thermal management systems. 3. Knowledge of BOTH Li-ion battery fundamentals AND traditional thermal design principles are required to develop safe battery assemblies that are both gravimetrically and volumetrically optimized.This year the Short Course on Lithium-ion Batteries will be presented in a 2-part series. The first portion, "Fundamentals, Battery Safety, and Thermal Runaway," will focus on educating participants on the fundamental aspects of Li-ion batteries and on battery safety related topics (i.e. thermal runaway, cell-to-cell propagation, safe handling practices, et...). The second portion, "Practical Thermal Simulation Techniques," will provide participants with a real time demonstration of how to use Thermal Desktop to model of Li-ion battery assemblies. This part of the lesson will cover geometry simplification, mesh development, boundary conditions, and heat loads for both nominal operations (charge and discharge) and for thermal runaway events.

Walker, William↗
NASA NTRS2021

FRESCO: A Framework for Spacecraft Systems Autonomy

Achieving the science exploration and defense goals of the following decades will require flight systems capable of operations with limited operator contact, system mode changes and retasking based on sensor data, and complex robotic operations. To support these capabilities, increasingly autonomous flight systems are required that can perform dedicated mission functions, e.g. payload targeting and communications, and system-level functions, e.g. planning and goal monitoring. Architecting an autonomous system requires a well-reasoned, self-consistent framework to avoid \textit{ad hoc} design choices that will introduce complexity and risk. The Framework for Robust Execution and Scheduling of Commands On-Board, FRESCO, is the result of lessons learned in developing a software architecture to enable autonomous solar system exploration. FRESCO generalizes this work to offer a modular, software-agnostic approach to developing verifiable architecture for autonomous space systems. FRESCO specifies guiding principles, functions, interfaces, and interactions from which mission-specific autonomous control architectures can be derived. FRESCO is a principled framework relying on explicit, state-based goal definitions, centralized management of state knowledge, clearly separated control boundaries, and hierarchical reasoning. Using components from FRESCO reference architecture, an autonomous decision-making architecture can be designed for spacecraft which can then be mapped to flight software architecture. FRESCO is flexibly defined to enable autonomous control of flight systems built using extensive software and hardware heritage. Finally, FRESCO-derived architectures support a spectrum of operator/spacecraft interactions, ranging from traditional commanding to goal-driven commanding with the ability to change mission goals autonomously. FRESCO has been used in defining the autonomy architectures for the ASTERIA mission and have been demonstrated in laboratory and software simulation for small body rendezvous and in-space servicing missions.

Kolcio, Ksenia↗
NASA NTRS1989

Hubble Space Telescope Design Engineering Knowledgebase (HSTDEK)

The research covered here pays specific attention to the development of tools to assist knowledge engineers in acquiring knowledge and to assist other technical, engineering, and management personnel in automatically performing knowledge capture as part of their everyday work without adding any extra work to what they already do. Requirements for data products, the knowledge base, and methods for mapping knowledge in the documents onto the knowledge representations are discussed, as are some of the difficulties of capturing in the knowledge base the structure of the design process itself, along with a model of the system designed. The capture of knowledge describing the interactions of different components is also discussed briefly.

Johannes, James D.↗
NASA NTRS2015

ATM Technology Demonstration 1 (ATD-1) Project: Terminal Airspace Technologies for NextGen (Public)

This video highlights the human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulations conducted by the ATD-1 project and features visual elements developed for Traffic Management Advisor - Terminal Metering, Controller Managed Spacing, and Flight Deck Interval Management. The video content is fairly technical and intended for audiences that have some knowledge of air traffic management issues. This includes researchers and management from NASA, FAA, industry partners, and others interested in terminal metering, controller managed spacing, and interval management technologies. Please note that the media release only clears the video for peer audiences such as ATM conferences or as part of presentations to researchers.

Robinson, John E.↗