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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

Autonomous Navigation With Ground Station One-Way Forward-Link Doppler Data

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has spent several years developing operational onboard navigation systems (ONS's) to provide real time autonomous, highly accurate navigation products for spacecraft using NASA's space and ground communication systems. The highly successful Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRSS) ONS (TONS) experiment on the Explorer Platform/Extreme Ultraviolet (EP/EUV) spacecraft, launched on June 7, 1992, flight demonstrated the ONS for high accuracy navigation using TDRSS forward link communication services. In late 1994, a similar ONS experiment was performed using EP/EUV flight hardware (the ultrastable oscillator and Doppler extractor card in one of the TDRSS transponders) and ground system software to demonstrate the feasibility of using an ONS with ground station forward link communication services. This paper provides a detailed evaluation of ground station-based ONS performance of data collected over a 20 day period. The ground station ONS (GONS) experiment results are used to project the expected performance of an operational system. The GONS processes Doppler data derived from scheduled ground station forward link services using a sequential estimation algorithm enhanced by a sophisticated process noise model to provide onboard orbit and frequency determination. Analysis of the GONS experiment performance indicates that real time onboard position accuracies of better than 125 meters (1 sigma) are achievable with two or more 5-minute contacts per day for the EP/EUV 525 kilometer altitude, 28.5 degree inclination orbit. GONS accuracy is shown to be a function of the fidelity of the onboard propagation model, the frequency/geometry of the tracking contacts, and the quality of the tracking measurements. GONS provides a viable option for using autonomous navigation to reduce operational costs for upcoming spacecraft missions with moderate position accuracy requirements.

Horstkamp, G. M.↗

A distributed computing approach to mission operations support

Computing mission operation support includes orbit determination, attitude processing, maneuver computation, resource scheduling, etc. The large-scale third-generation distributed computer network discussed is capable of fulfilling these dynamic requirements. It is shown that distribution of resources and control leads to increased reliability, and exhibits potential for incremental growth. Through functional specialization, a distributed system may be tuned to very specific operational requirements. Fundamental to the approach is the notion of process-to-process communication, which is effected through a high-bandwidth communications network. Both resource-sharing and load-sharing may be realized in the system.

Larsen, R. L.↗

A SIMULINK environment for flight dynamics and control analysis: Application to the DHC-2 Beaver. Part 1: Implementation of a model library in SIMULINK. Part 2: Nonlinear analysis of the Beaver autopilot

The design of advanced Automatic Aircraft Control Systems (AACS's) can be improved upon considerably if the designer can access all models and tools required for control system design and analysis through a graphical user-interface, from within one software environment. This MSc-thesis presents the first step in the development of such an environment, which is currently being done at the Section for Stability and Control of Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. The environment is implemented within the commercially available software package MATLAB/SIMULINK. The report consists of two parts. Part I gives a detailed description of the AACS design environment. The heart of this environment is formed by the SIMULINK implementation of a nonlinear aircraft model in block-diagram format. The model has been worked out for the old laboratory aircraft of the Faculty, the De Havilland DHC-2 'Beaver', but due to its modular structure, it can easily be adapted for other aircraft. Part I also describes MATLAB programs which can be applied for finding steady-state trimmed-flight conditions and for linearization of the aircraft model, and it shows how the built-in simulation routines of SIMULINK have been used for open-loop analysis of the aircraft dynamics. Apart from the implementation of the models and tools, a thorough treatment of the theoretical backgrounds is presented. Part II of this report presents a part of an autopilot design process for the 'Beaver' aircraft, which clearly demonstrates the power and flexibility of the AACS design environment from part I. Evaluations of all longitudinal and lateral control laws by means of nonlinear simulations are treated in detail. The AACS design environment from part I proved to be a very useful tool for designing the control laws of the 'Beaver' autopilot within a very tight time-schedule. The autopilot design process itself will be used as a guideline for future AACS research at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Flight tests of the 'Beaver' autopilot, done after evaluating the control laws in the SIMULINK package, proved to be quite successful. In the future, the AACS design package will evolve into a standardized, integrated design environment which can be applied to virtually any type of aircraft. The AACS design cycle will be shortened further by developing tools for automatically porting control laws from the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment to a piloted real-time flight simulator and the Flight Control Computers of the aircraft.

Flight Control System Design↗

Application of the Life Safety Code to a Historic Test Stand

NASA has conducted a study to assess alternatives to refurbishing existing launch vehicle modal test facilities as opposed to developing new test facilities to meet the demands of a very fiscally constrained test and evaluation environment. The results of this study showed that Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Test Stand (TS) 4550 could be made compliant, within reasonable cost and schedule impacts, if safety processes and operational limitations were put in place to meet the safety codes and concerns of the Fire Marshall. Trades were performed with key selection criteria to ensure that appropriate levels of occupant safety are incorporated into test facility design modifications. In preparation for the ground vibration tests that were to be performed on the Ares I launch vehicle, the Ares Flight and Integrated Test Office (FITO) organization evaluated the available test facility options, which included the existing mothballed structural dynamic TS4550 used by Apollo and Shuttle, alternative ground vibration test facilities at other locations, and construction of a new dynamic test stand. After an exhaustive assessment of the alternatives, the results favored modifying the TS4550 because it was the lowest cost option and presented the least schedule risk to the NASA Constellation Program for Ares Integrated Vehicle Ground Vibration Test (IVGVT). As the renovation design plans and drawings were being developed for TS4550, a safety concern was discovered the original design for the construction of the test stand, originally built for the Apollo Program and renovated for the Shuttle Program, was completed before NASA s adoption of the currently imposed safety and building codes per National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code [NFPA 101] and International Building Codes. The initial FITO assessment of the design changes, required to make TS4550 compliant with current safety and building standards, identified a significant cost increase and schedule impact. An effort was launched to thoroughly evaluate the applicable life safety requirements, examine the context in which they were derived, and determine a means by which the TS4550 modifications could be made within budget and on schedule, while still providing the occupants with appropriate levels of safety.

Askins, Bruce↗

Real-Time Background Oriented Schlieren: Catching Up With Knife Edge Schlieren

Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) is a widely used technique that provides density gradient information in flow fields of interest, without imposing stringent optical quality requirements on the facility/experiment windows and/or optics used in the BOS setup. Typically, the BOS reference image is acquired before the test begins (flow off) and then the "live" image data are acquired during the actual testing/experiment (flow on). The raw BOS image data, while displayed in real-time as they are acquired from the camera, unfortunately provide little if any visual indication of the density gradients in the flow. Generally, the "live" images must be processed off-line after the testing is completed, providing no indication of the success of the BOS setup and no feedback on the operational success of the test. Advances in computer processing hardware enables the implementation of real-time processing and display of the BOS image data. Two different approaches to implementing the real-time BOS (RT-BOS) processing capability are described herein. First, a traditional multi-core Central Processing Unit (CPU) based approach using scheduled parallel threads is used to build a RT-BOS processing engine. In the second approach, a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) approach is used to costruct a RT-BOS processing engine. Generally, high core count CPU processors can provide a useful processing rate for RT-BOS. However, the GPU based approach exceeds the processing capability of the CPU approach, at a fraction of the cost. The GPU approach places no restrictions on the Host PC processing capability, except that it be capable of acquiring the BOS image data from the camera in real-time.

Wernet, Mark P.↗

Design tool for multiprocessor scheduling and evaluation of iterative dataflow algorithms

A graph-theoretic design process and software tool is defined for selecting a multiprocessing scheduling solution for a class of computational problems. The problems of interest are those that can be described with a dataflow graph and are intended to be executed repetitively on a set of identical processors. Typical applications include signal processing and control law problems. Graph-search algorithms and analysis techniques are introduced and shown to effectively determine performance bounds, scheduling constraints, and resource requirements. The software tool applies the design process to a given problem and includes performance optimization through the inclusion of additional precedence constraints among the schedulable tasks.

Jones, Robert L., III↗

Models and Strategies for Optimal Demand Side Management in the Chemical Industries

Deregulation and the increase of renewable electricity generation from wind and solar photovoltaics have transformed the U.S. electricity market. Economic and environmental benefits notwithstanding, the presence of renewables has increased variability and uncertainty on the supply side of the grid. Managing demand, rather than generation – a strategy referred to as “demand response (DR)” – is an attractive approach for mitigating this imbalance. DR efforts aim to reduce electricity usage during peak demand times, lessening stress on the grid. Industrial users are particularly attractive entities for DR participation since they present large, localized loads that can provide significant relief on grid demand and –unlike other large loads, such as buildings – are minimally dependent on human needs and preferences. In this project, we accomplished three main objectives. (1) We developed data-driven low-order DR scheduling-relevant dynamic models of chemical processes. Concurrently, we studied the formulation and solution of the associated optimal DR production scheduling problems. (a) A prototype air separation unit (ASU) model was used to generate simulated operating data for initial modeling efforts, which enabled the later use of industrial data for data-driven modeling. (b) We utilized Hammerstein-Wiener (HW) and Finite Step Response (FSR) models to represent nonlinear plant dynamics. (c) The HW models were linearized using exact linearization so they could potentially be embedded in power system models, which are formulated as mixed integer linear programs (MILPs). (d) We solved DR optimization problems under uncertainty and found that even naïve predictions of electricity price and product demand led to significant cost savings benefits. (2) Our DR scheduling optimization problem formulations are amenable to real-time solution. (a) We utilized Lagrangian Relaxation (LR) to efficiently solve the optimization problem by decoupling subproblems linked by complicating constraints. (b) We have achieved computation times for the 3-day DR scheduling problem of an ASU as low as 1.88 minutes. (3) Our representations of the DR behavior of chemical process as grid-level batteries were embedded in power system models. (a) For a small-scale grid, we found that incorporating the dynamics of the chemical plant in the optimal power flow calculations resulted in better resource management leading to up to 15% and 46% cost reduction for the grid and chemical plant operations, respectively, during periods of power line congestion. We have published several works dedicated to modeling and solving DR optimization problems from the user side. These were published in top peer-reviewed journals and are summarized in this report. The most recent work (and papers in preparation) considers DR scheduling from the grid side. Future efforts will consider networked plants (e.g., air separation units operating on a common pipeline) for DR participation, which is expected to amplify the capabilities of industrial DR participants to perform load-shifting. Our consideration of uncertainty in DR has inspired future directions in this area as well: we plan to develop multistage methods to fully account for the effects of uncertainty in DR scheduling.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

GEOTAIL Spacecraft historical data report

The purpose of this GEOTAIL Historical Report is to document ground processing operations information gathered on the GEOTAIL mission during processing activities at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). It is hoped that this report may aid management analysis, improve integration processing and forecasting of processing trends, and reduce real-time schedule changes. The GEOTAIL payload is the third Delta 2 Expendable Launch Vehicle (ELV) mission to document historical data. Comparisons of planned versus as-run schedule information are displayed. Information will generally fall into the following categories: (1) payload stay times (payload processing facility/hazardous processing facility/launch complex-17A); (2) payload processing times (planned, actual); (3) schedule delays; (4) integrated test times (experiments/launch vehicle); (5) unique customer support requirements; (6) modifications performed at facilities; (7) other appropriate information (Appendices A & B); and (8) lessons learned (reference Appendix C).

Boersig, George R.↗

Robust Scheduling of Microgrids Considering Unintentional Islanding Conditions

This paper proposes a robust scheduling model for microgrids considering the stochastic unintentional islanding conditions. The proposed model minimizes the total operating cost of the microgrid by efficiently coordinating the supply of power from local distributed energy resources and the main grid. To capture the prevailing uncertainties in renewable generation and demand as well as unintentional islanding conditions, a two-stage adaptive robust optimization model is formulated to minimize the total operating cost under the worst realization of the modeled uncertainties. The column and constraint generation (C&CG) method is used to solve the problem in an iterative manner. The solution of the proposed scheduling model ensures robust microgrid operation in consideration of all possible realization of renewable generation, demand and unintentional islanding condition. Numerical simulations on a microgrid consisting of a wind turbine, a PV panel, a fuel cell, two micro-turbines, a diesel generator and a battery demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Liu, Guodong↗

Integrated payload and mission planning, phase 3. Volume 1: Integrated payload and mission planning process evaluation

The integrated payload and mission planning process for STS payloads was defined, and discrete tasks which evaluate performance and support initial implementation of this process were conducted. The scope of activity was limited to NASA and NASA-related payload missions only. The integrated payload and mission planning process was defined in detail, including all related interfaces and scheduling requirements. Related to the payload mission planning process, a methodology for assessing early Spacelab mission manager assignment schedules was defined.

Sapp, T. P.↗

Project resource reallocation algorithm

A methodology for adjusting baseline cost estimates according to project schedule changes is described. An algorithm which performs a linear expansion or contraction of the baseline project resource distribution in proportion to the project schedule expansion or contraction is presented. Input to the algorithm consists of the deck of cards (PACE input data) prepared for the baseline project schedule as well as a specification of the nature of the baseline schedule change. Output of the algorithm is a new deck of cards with all work breakdown structure block and element of cost estimates redistributed for the new project schedule. This new deck can be processed through PACE to produce a detailed cost estimate for the new schedule.

Myers, J. E.↗

Measurement of soil moisture trends with airborne scatterometers

In an effort to investigate aircraft multisensor responses to soil moisture and vegetation in agricultural fields, an intensive ground sampling program was conducted in Guymon, Oklahoma and Dalhart, Texas in conjunction with aircraft data collected for visible/infrared and passive and active microwave systems. Field selections, sampling techniques, data processing, and the aircraft schedule are discussed for both sites. Field notes are included along with final (normalized and corrected) data sets.

Jones, C. L.↗

The 1988 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence

This publication comprises the papers presented at the 1988 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence held at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland on May 24, 1988. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed. The papers in these proceedings fall into the following areas: mission operations support, planning and scheduling; fault isolation/diagnosis; image processing and machine vision; data management; modeling and simulation; and development tools/methodologies.

Rash, James↗

Technology forecast and applications for autonomous, intelligent systems

Significant research products which have emerged from the core program of NASA's Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) are discussed. The Space Station Thermal Control System, the Space Shuttle Integrated Communications Officer Station, the Launch Processing System, the Expert Scheduling System for Pioneer Venus Spacecraft, a Bayesian classification system, and a spaceborne multiprocessor system are included. The technology trends which led to these results are discussed and future developments in technology are forecasted.

Lum, Henry, Jr.↗

1988 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Greenbelt, MD, May 24, 1988, Proceedings

This publication comprises the papers presented at the 1988 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence held at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland on May 24, 1988. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed. The papers in these proceedings fall into the following areas: mission operations support, planning and scheduling; fault isolation/diagnosis; image processing and machine vision; data management; modeling and simulation; and development tools methodologies.

Rash, James L.↗

The 1990 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence

The papers presented at the 1990 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence are given. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed. The proceedings fall into the following areas: Planning and Scheduling, Fault Monitoring/Diagnosis, Image Processing and Machine Vision, Robotics/Intelligent Control, Development Methodologies, Information Management, and Knowledge Acquisition.

Rash, James L.↗

Characterization of robotics parallel algorithms and mapping onto a reconfigurable SIMD machine

The kinematics, dynamics, Jacobian, and their corresponding inverse computations are six essential problems in the control of robot manipulators. Efficient parallel algorithms for these computations are discussed and analyzed. Their characteristics are identified and a scheme on the mapping of these algorithms to a reconfigurable parallel architecture is presented. Based on the characteristics including type of parallelism, degree of parallelism, uniformity of the operations, fundamental operations, data dependencies, and communication requirement, it is shown that most of the algorithms for robotic computations possess highly regular properties and some common structures, especially the linear recursive structure. Moreover, they are well-suited to be implemented on a single-instruction-stream multiple-data-stream (SIMD) computer with reconfigurable interconnection network. The model of a reconfigurable dual network SIMD machine with internal direct feedback is introduced. A systematic procedure internal direct feedback is introduced. A systematic procedure to map these computations to the proposed machine is presented. A new scheduling problem for SIMD machines is investigated and a heuristic algorithm, called neighborhood scheduling, that reorders the processing sequence of subtasks to reduce the communication time is described. Mapping results of a benchmark algorithm are illustrated and discussed.

Lee, C. S. G.↗