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At least 253 records · Page 14

Human-Centered Design of Human-Computer-Human Dialogs in Aerospace Systems

A series of ongoing research programs at Georgia Tech established a need for a simulation support tool for aircraft computer-based aids. This led to the design and development of the Georgia Tech Electronic Flight Instrument Research Tool (GT-EFIRT). GT-EFIRT is a part-task flight simulator specifically designed to study aircraft display design and single pilot interaction. ne simulator, using commercially available graphics and Unix workstations, replicates to a high level of fidelity the Electronic Flight Instrument Systems (EFIS), Flight Management Computer (FMC) and Auto Flight Director System (AFDS) of the Boeing 757/767 aircraft. The simulator can be configured to present information using conventional looking B757n67 displays or next generation Primary Flight Displays (PFD) such as found on the Beech Starship and MD-11.

Mitchell, Christine M.↗

Results for an Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Design Exploration

An electrified aircraft propulsion (EAP) design exploration study was performed to determine the impact of EAP technologies on a set of regional transport aircraft concepts. A range of aircraft sizes and types were assessed, including 18, 48, and 70 passenger turboprops, as well as 50 and 78 passenger turbofan aircraft configurations. A previous paper discussed the approaches, technology assumptions, and tools used to carry out the design exploration. The study team designed a series of baseline and advanced EAP aircraft concepts based on existing reference aircraft in the fleet. We then conducted a set of parametric trade studies on the EAP aircraft to better understand the design and performance implications of EAP. This paper documents results from the trade studies, including battery weight versus motor size, climb hybrid power versus cruise hybrid power, and range vs. battery specific energy. Assuming a 500 W-hr/kg battery specific energy, the turboprop aircraft demonstrated a significant fuel savings and modest energy savings. The turbofan aircraft demonstrated no fuel or energy benefits from electrification. In addition, operating cost results are presented on the most promising EAP designs. The cost analysis revealed that the EAP aircraft concepts were not competitive with their baselines, mainly due to the additional depreciation and interest cost for the much heavier and more expensive EAP aircraft.

Ty V Marien↗

Toward Real Time Neural Net Flight Controllers

NASA Ames Research Center has an ongoing program in neural network control technology targeted toward real time flight demonstrations using a modified F-15 which permits direct inner loop control of actuators, rapid switching between alternative control designs, and substitutable processors. An important part of this program is the ACTIVE flight project which is examining the feasibility of using neural networks in the design, control, and system identification of new aircraft prototypes. This paper discusses two research applications initiated with this objective in mind: utilization of neural networks for wind tunnel aircraft model identification and rapid learning algorithms for on line reconfiguration and control. The first application involves the identification of aerodynamic flight characteristics from analysis of wind tunnel test data. This identification is important in the early stages of aircraft design because complete specification of control architecture's may not be possible even though concept models at varying scales are available for aerodynamic wind tunnel testing. Testing of this type is often a long and expensive process involving measurement of aircraft lift, drag, and moment of inertia at varying angles of attack and control surface configurations. This information in turn can be used in the design of the flight control systems by applying the derived lookup tables to generate piece wise linearized controllers. Thus, reduced costs in tunnel test times and the rapid transfer of wind tunnel insights into prototype controllers becomes an important factor in more efficient generation and testing of new flight systems. NASA Ames Research Center is successfully applying modular neural networks as one way of anticipating small scale aircraft model performances prior to testing, thus reducing the number of in tunnel test hours and potentially, the number of intermediate scaled models required for estimation of surface flow effects.

Jorgensen, C. C.↗

Characterization of Aircraft Produced Soot and Contrails Near the Tropopause

Participation in the SUCCESS project primarily involved development and deployment of specific instruments for characterizing jet aircraft exhaust emissions as particulates and their subsequent evolution as contrail particles, either liquid or solid, as cirrus. Observations can be conveniently considered in two categories - close or distant from the aircraft. Thus close to the aircraft the exhaust is mixing through the engine turbulence with a much drier and colder environment and developing water/ ice supersaturation along the trail depending on circumstances (near field), whereas distant from the aircraft (far field) the exhaust has cooled essentially to ambient temperature, the turbulence has decayed and any particle growth or evaporation is controlled by the prevailing ambient conditions. Intermediate between these two regions the main aircraft vortices form (one on each side of the aircraft) which tend to inhibit mixing under some conditions, a region extending from a few aircraft lengths to sometimes a hundred times this distance. Our approach to the problem lay in experience gained in characterizing the smoke from hydrocarbon combustion in terms of its cloud forming properties and its potential influence on the radiation properties of the smoke and subsequent cloud from the viewpoint of reduction (absorbtion and scattering ) of solar radiation flux leading to significant global cooling (Hudson et al 1991; Hallett and Hudson 1991). Engine exhaust contains a much smaller proportion of the fuel carbon than is sometimes present in ordinary combustion (less than 0.01% compared with 10%) and influences condensation in quite different ways, to be characterized by the Cloud Condensation Nucleus, CCN - supersaturation spectrum. The transition to ice is to be related to the dilution of solution droplets to freeze by homogeneous nucleation at temperatures somewhat below -40C (Pueschel et al 1998). The subsequent growth of ice particles depends critically on temperature, supersaturation and to some extent pressure, as is demonstrated in an NSF funded project being carried out in parallel with the work reported here. As will be discussed below, nucleation processes themselves and also exhaust impurities also influence the growth of ice particles and may control some aspects of growth of ice in contrails. Instrumentation was designed to give insight into these questions and to be flown on the NASA DC- 8 as a platform. In addition a modest program was undertaken to investigate the properties of laboratory produced smoke produced under controlled conditions from the viewpoint of forming both CCN and CN. The composition of the smoke could inferred from a thermal characterization technique; larger particles were captured by formvar replicator for detailed analysis; ice particles were captured and evaporated in flight on a new instrument, the cloudscope, to give their mass, density and impurity content.

Hallett, John↗

Optimizing the Model of the Viking-400 UAS

This project intends to update and redesign imperfections in the scanned 3D CAD model of the Viking 400 aircraft. This aircraft, similar to the Sierra-B UAS, will carry payloads of scientific instruments for research purposes. The goals of this project are to modify the current scanned model such that it better represents the physical qualities of the aircraft, as well as creating the features that are missing from the model. As the model was imported from a different software, many of the critical surfaces did not accurately reflect the actual aircraft. Those parts of the model were redesigned entirely so that they can be edited for future use, as well as correctly representing the aircraft as it is now. Additionally, parts of the aircraft that did not appear in the scanned model were designed and added to the new model. In order to prioritize ease of use for future missions, the model has been reorganized in a logical fashion that enables modification of specific parts of the aircraft. The organization of this model imitates the drawing tree of the Sierra-B, with the intention of maintaining a functional system of redesign, analysis, and implementation. Ultimately, this project will be a catalyst for making Viking 400 into a functional aircraft and increasing scientific research in airborne vehicles.

Wandrocke, Evan W. J.↗

Western energy related overhead monitoring project. Phase 2: Summary

Assistance by NASA to EPA in the establishment and maintenance of a fully operational energy-related monitoring system included: (1) regional analysis applications based on LANDSAT and auxiliary data; (2) development of techniques for using aircraft MSS data to rapidly monitor site specific surface coal mine activities; and (3) registration of aircraft MSS data to a map base. The coal strip mines used in the site specific task were in Campbell County, Wyoming; Big Horn County, Montana; and the Navajo mine in San Juan County, New Mexico. The procedures and software used to accomplish these tasks are described.

Anderson, J. E.↗

Analytical evaluation of the impact of broad specification fuels on high bypass turbofan engine combustors

Six conceptual combustor designs for the CF6-50 high bypass turbofan engine and six conceptual combustor designs for the NASA/GE E3 high bypass turbofan engine were analyzed to provide an assessment of the major problems anticipated in using broad specification fuels in these aircraft engine combustion systems. Each of the conceptual combustor designs, which are representative of both state-of-the-art and advanced state-of-the-art combustion systems, was analyzed to estimate combustor performance, durability, and pollutant emissions when using commercial Jet A aviation fuel and when using experimental referee board specification fuel. Results indicate that lean burning, low emissions double annular combustor concepts can accommodate a wide range of fuel properties without a serious deterioration of performance or durability. However, rich burning, single annular concepts would be less tolerant to a relaxation of fuel properties. As the fuel specifications are relaxed, autoignition delay time becomes much smaller which presents a serious design and development problem for premixing-prevaporizing combustion system concepts.

Taylor, J. R.↗

Assessment of Airframe Noise Reduction Technologies Based on EPNL from Flight Tests

The acoustic performance of various airframe noise reduction technologies – Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge flap, main landing gear fairings, and gear cavity treatments – was determined, individually and in combination, using the Effective Perceived Noise Level metric. These noise measurements and calculations closely follow the Federal Aviation Administration aircraft noise certification standards, specifically for the approach noise measurement point. The flyover data correspond to pole-mounted, single-microphone measurements obtained during a series of flight tests, conducted under the NASA Flight Demonstrations and Capabilities project, that evaluated flap and landing gear noise reduction technologies. To minimize contributions from the propulsion system, the aircraft was flown along the approach path with engine thrust set at ground idle. Although contamination from engine, background, and secondary airframe noise sources partially masked the true performance of the tested technologies, the resulting acoustic data clearly showed substantial noise reductions relative to baseline levels. The acoustic benefits measured by the single microphones are consistent with previously reported trends in acoustic levels obtained from phased microphone array data.

Ravetta, Patricio A.↗

Digitizing Named Entities Found Within Letters of Agreement

Letters of Agreement (LOAs) are text-based air traffic control documents that contain procedures and actions agreed upon by the different parties, typically two or more FAA facilities, that are subject to an agreement. The documents contain among other things generic constraints, which are explicit and implicit combinations of procedures that limit a flight’s trajectory and affects pilot actions. For example, a controller may be required, to assign a specific altitude to an aircraft crossing the boundary between two airspaces. Although LOA generic constraints directly impact the trajectory of an aircraft, they are not currently available in a digital form that can be used for (or directly ingested into automated) flight planning. Instead, the constraints are manually input into an onboard or ground based system. LOA documents are primarily stored at a controlling facility and the generic constraints are implemented by experienced air traffic controllers and pilots primarily using voice instructions. This increases the workload of the controllers, likelihood of error (e.g., due to noisy communication) and makes it impractical for implementation with unmanned aircraft. Therefore, steps must be taken to make existing constraints machine interpretable to enable e.g., automated handoffs which in turn would reduce controller workload. With recent advances in natural language processing, especially the rise in digitization of text documents (e.g., medical documents) and automated extraction of information therein, it is now possible to extract flight specific constraints from LOAs. The goal of this work is to digitize named entities through a combination of natural language processing tasks: named entity disambiguation, toponym resolution, and numeric parsing to extract general constraint components contained within LOAs, herein referred to as Entity Enhancement (EE). Starting with a small list of named entities (e.g., ARTCC, Tower, Altitude and Speed), EE can extract the named entities while simultaneously converting the string-based output into a digital format using an ensemble of processes like rule-based gazetteers and syntactic-lexical patterns. The digital format contains a diverse set of information based on the entity label in question, ranging from standardized facility names to units of measure (e.g., feet) and other numeric information. Upon validating our approach using a truth dataset, we show an overall F1-Score of 0.71 for the extraction process. Looking beyond entity enhancement, we are also working towards the goal of completely digitizing the general constraints by performing EE and fitting them into a standardized exchange model (XM) such as the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM). This will allow for easy distribution and dissemination of LOA constraints to air users, better searchability within documents, and enable ingestion into automated flight planning. Finally, we show a preliminary version of the proposed XM architecture and demonstrate how the model can be populated from the EE output.

Stephen S. B. Clarke↗

Study of new flight test techniques

The modification and testing of a small electromechanical vibrator are described. The vibrator was designed for the flutter testing of aircraft wings and was built to specifications that make it compatible with the X-29 experimental aircraft. The device uses alternating electromagnetic forces to move a magnetic mass and produce vibration. Its unconventional way of producing vibration avoids the need for complex mechanisms and makes efficient use of space and weight.

Deam, D.↗

Computation of the tip vortex flowfield for advanced aircraft propellers

The tip vortex flowfield plays a significant role in the performance of advanced aircraft propellers. The flowfield in the tip region is complex, three-dimensional and viscous with large secondary velocities. An analysis is presented using an approximate set of equations which contains the physics required by the tip vortex flowfield, but which does not require the resources of the full Navier-Stokes equations. A computer code was developed to predict the tip vortex flowfield of advanced aircraft propellers. A grid generation package was developed to allow specification of a variety of advanced aircraft propeller shapes. Calculations of the tip vortex generation on an SR3 type blade at high Reynolds numbers were made using this code and a parametric study was performed to show the effect of tip thickness on tip vortex intensity. In addition, calculations of the tip vortex generation on a NACA 0012 type blade were made, including the flowfield downstream of the blade trailing edge. Comparison of flowfield calculations with experimental data from an F4 blade was made. A user's manual was also prepared for the computer code (NASA CR-182178).

Tsai, Tommy M.↗

Performance of an Electro-Hydrostatic Actuator on the F-18 Systems Research Aircraft

An electro-hydrostatic actuator was evaluated at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. The primary goal of testing this actuator system was the flight demonstration of power-by-wire technology on a primary flight control surface. The electro-hydrostatic actuator uses an electric motor to drive a hydraulic pump and relies on local hydraulics for force transmission. This actuator replaced the F-18 standard left aileron actuator on the F-18 Systems Research Aircraft and was evaluated throughout the Systems Research Aircraft flight envelope. As of July 24, 1997 the electro-hydrostatic actuator had accumulated 23.5 hours of flight time. This paper presents the electro-hydrostatic actuator system configuration and component description, ground and flight test plans, ground and flight test results, and lessons learned. This actuator performs as well as the standard actuator and has more load capability than required by aileron actuator specifications of McDonnell- Douglas Aircraft, St. Louis, Missouri. The electro-hydrostatic actuator system passed all of its ground tests with the exception of one power-off test during unloaded dynamic cycling.

Robert Navarro↗

Advanced Weather Hazard Perception Capabilities for Remotely Piloted Aircraft in Wildland Fire Operations

Weather, specifically winds, are the most variable and least predictable of the weather-related elements that affect wildfire behavior.1 This leads to aviation operations which must deal with increased risks due to dynamic weather factors. Remotely piloted aircraft provide the opportunity to remove human loss of life from these risk consequences and mitigate the overall risks for air operations for fire suppression and dropping of retardant. UAS also allows the opportunity to continue fire suppression with nighttime operations. However, with the use of new technologies in aviation operations comes additional risk factors and the need for remote sensing capabilities to identify and permit navigation around extreme weather conditions, with turbulence being the most unforeseeable. This paper presents advanced concepts for weather hazard perception capabilities for remote pilot operators to include data and display techniques intended for dynamic environments and low altitude operations. This work can support the potential of weather sensing capabilities to create hazard maps to track high-risk weather patterns in mountainous regions. Advanced sensing may provide opportunity to locate extreme turbulence hazards for uninhabited aerial systems (UAS) and decrease the likelihood of flying into unknown weather conditions to enable safe operations to assist in wildfire air support.

Tyler L Willhite↗

Durability Characterization of Low Ice Adhesion and Impact Resistance Coatings

Glaze, rime and mixed icing conditions can cause significant variation in aerodynamic performance, fuel efficiency, and flight safety. For commercial aircraft, active icing mitigation strategies are utilized to enable safe flight within icing conditions according to the FAR Part 25/29 Appendix C icing envelope. For general aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles that cannot support active anti-icing technologies, avoidance is the only recourse. Passive approaches have been investigated to reduce weight and energy consumption for active systems and to expand the operational envelope for smaller aircraft. Coatings are one passive method to reduce or mitigate ice accretion on frontal surfaces of commercial aircraft with the greatest region of interest being wing leading edges. Aircraft wing leading edges represent an extreme environment. Durability must be considered for any material to be applied as a coating in this area. Currently, there are no specifications regarding coating durability of a low ice adhesion material applied on the wing leading edge. Therefore, a reasonable starting point is to use the durability specifications put forth for an aircraft external coating. Besides the tests called out in these specifications, others were included such as Taber abrasion to simulate wear and erosion. Beyond durability, performance metrics with regards to adhesion strength of accreted in-flight (i.e., impact) icing are central to determine coating usefulness. Determination of this property though is particularly challenging and only a few facilities have the capability to quantify this. An instrument at NASA Langley Research Center [Adverse Environment Rotary Test Stand Jr., (AERTS Jr.)], based on the AERTS system at The Pennsylvania State University, allows for screening numerous coatings subjected to the icing environment. To establish a benchmark for comparison with research coatings, a state-of-the-art (SOA) commercial aircraft coating was subjected to an array of salient durability and performance experiments. The same tests were conducted using a baseline epoxy (BE) resin formulation that demonstrated some initial promising results for comparison. Results from this initial screening will be discussed herein.

Miranda L Beaudry↗

Activation of the Navy's indirect effects lightning simulation laboratory

The Naval Air Test Center is currently the Navy's lead lab for electromagnetic effects testing. As part of this charter, it has been performing lightning effects testing on Navy aircraft in support of specification compliance since 1973. An overview is presented of lightning test and evaluation efforts at NATC, both past and present, as well as its plans for the future. The array of simulation capabilities presently operational are described, and a high level look is given to the test methodology now being used. The principal discussion centers on the results from the recent air launched ordnance test and testing of the Navy's A-6E all weather attack aircraft. Particular attention is paid to the NATC's test approach, including details about coaxial return construction, aircraft preparation, and the test waveforms and data acquisition systems that were used.

Whitaker, Mike↗

Real time digital propulsion system simulation for manned flight simulators

The QCSEE (Quiet, Clean Short-haul Experimental Engine) Program was initiated by NASA to develop and demonstrate propulsion system technology for an advanced commercial STOL aircraft. One of the specific technical objectives was to provide technology for digital electronic control of future commercial engines. An element of this technology development was to evaluate the digital control in a simulated flight environment. In this connection a simulation program was initiated to evaluate the QCSEE UTW (Under-the-Wing) digital control system over a range of conditions encountered in typical airport operations. The goal of the simulation effort was to derive a real time digital propulsion simulation which could be integrated into a multiengine aircraft simulation. A summary is provided of the accomplishments which have been made in this program.

Mihaloew, J. R.↗

Rapid Assessment of Aircraft Structural Topologies for Multidisciplinary Optimization and Weight Estimation

Algorithms for rapid generation of moderate-fidelity structural finite element models of air vehicle structures to allow more accurate weight estimation earlier in the vehicle design process have been developed. Application of these algorithms should help to rapidly assess many structural layouts before the start of the preliminary design phase and eliminate weight penalties imposed when actual structure weights exceed those estimated during conceptual design. By defining the structural topology in a fully parametric manner, the structure can be mapped to arbitrary vehicle configurations being considered during conceptual design optimization. Recent enhancements to this approach include the porting of the algorithms to a platform-independent software language Python, and modifications to specifically consider morphing aircraft-type configurations. Two sample cases which illustrate these recent developments are presented.

Samareh, Jamshid A.↗