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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 271 records · Page 15

Distributed Large Data-Object Environments: End-to-End Performance Analysis of High Speed Distributed Storage Systems in Wide Area ATM Networks

We have developed and deployed a distributed-parallel storage system (DPSS) in several high speed asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) wide area networks (WAN) testbeds to support several different types of data-intensive applications. Architecturally, the DPSS is a network striped disk array, but is fairly unique in that its implementation allows applications complete freedom to determine optimal data layout, replication and/or coding redundancy strategy, security policy, and dynamic reconfiguration. In conjunction with the DPSS, we have developed a 'top-to-bottom, end-to-end' performance monitoring and analysis methodology that has allowed us to characterize all aspects of the DPSS operating in high speed ATM networks. In particular, we have run a variety of performance monitoring experiments involving the DPSS in the MAGIC testbed, which is a large scale, high speed, ATM network and we describe our experience using the monitoring methodology to identify and correct problems that limit the performance of high speed distributed applications. Finally, the DPSS is part of an overall architecture for using high speed, WAN's for enabling the routine, location independent use of large data-objects. Since this is part of the motivation for a distributed storage system, we describe this architecture.

Johnston, William↗

Ionic-content-driven restructuring of spirobisindane ionene networks: implications for mechanics, self-healing, and gas transport

Polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) offer exceptional gas permeability but remain brittle and susceptible to physical aging, limiting their durability in separation applications. Here, we introduce a reconfigurable microporous polymer network that uniquely integrates permanent PIM microporosity with autonomous, intrinsic self-healing driven by imidazolium-based ionic motifs. Spirobisindane units generate the intrinsic free-volume architecture, while an imidazolium-containing polyamide ionene supplies dynamic ionic and hydrogen-bonding interactions that reorganize under mild activation. Incorporation of imidazolium-based ionic liquids further tunes cohesion, mobility, and densification, enabling the network to relax, re-associate, and retain microporosity without structural collapse. Through a comprehensive multiscale approach combining spectroscopy, scattering, thermal and mechanical characterization with all-atom molecular dynamics and density functional theory calculations, we elucidate how ionic content, as a single control parameter that reshapes free-volume distributions, modulates local coordination environments, and governs relaxation and healing kinetics. At intermediate ionic loadings, the networks achieve rapid, repeatable self-healing while maintaining CO$_2$ selectivity, demonstrating an optimal balance between segmental mobility and structural integrity. By establishing how hierarchical ionic interactions couple structure, dynamics, and transport in microporous ionene networks, this work provides generalizable design rules for adaptive soft-matter systems that require simultaneous mechanical resilience, reconfigurability, and selective gas transport.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

FPGA-based HPC accelerators: An evaluation on performance and energy efficiency

Hardware specialization is a promising direction for the future of digital computing. Reconfigurable technologies enable hardware specialization with modest non-recurring engineering cost, but their performance and energy efficiency compared to state-of-the-art processor architectures remain an open question. In this article, we use FPGAs to evaluate the benefits of building specialized hardware for numerical kernels found in scientific applications. In order to properly evaluate performance, we not only compare Intel Arria 10 and Xilinx U280 performance against Intel Xeon, Intel Xeon Phi, and NVIDIA V100 GPUs, but we also extend the Empirical Roofline Toolkit (ERT) to FPGAs in order to assess our results in terms of the Roofline model. We show design optimization and tuning techniques for peak FPGA performance at reasonable hardware usage and power consumption. As FPGA peak performance is known to be far less than that of a GPU, we also benchmark the energy efficiency of each platform for the scientific kernels comparing against microbenchmark and technological limits. Results show that while FPGAs struggle to compete in absolute terms with GPUs on memory- and compute-intensive kernels, they require far less power and can deliver nearly the same energy efficiency.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Optically connected memory for disaggregated data centers

Recent advances in integrated photonics enable the implementation of reconfigurable, high-bandwidth, and low energy-per-bit interconnects in next-generation data centers. We propose and evaluate an Optically Connected Memory (OCM) architecture that disaggregates the main memory from the computation nodes in data centers. OCM is based on micro-ring resonators (MRRs), and it does not require any modification to the DRAM memory modules. We calculate energy consumption from real photonic devices and integrate them into a system simulator to evaluate performance. Here, our results show that (1) OCM is capable of interconnecting four DDR4 memory channels to a computing node using two fibers with 1.02 pJ energy-per-bit consumption and (2) OCM performs up to 5.5× faster than a disaggregated memory with 40G PCIe NIC connectors to computing nodes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Virtual environment architecture for rapid application development

We describe the MITRE Virtual Environment Architecture (VEA), a product of nearly two years of investigations and prototypes of virtual environment technology. This paper discusses the requirements for rapid prototyping, and an architecture we are developing to support virtual environment construction. VEA supports rapid application development by providing a variety of pre-built modules that can be reconfigured for each application session. The modules supply interfaces for several types of interactive I/O devices, in addition to large-screen or head-mounted displays.

Grinstein, Georges G.↗

Adaptive Tunable Laser Spectrometer for Space Applications

An architecture and process for the rapid prototyping and subsequent development of an adaptive tunable laser absorption spectrometer (TLS) are described. Our digital hardware/firmware/software platform is both reconfigurable at design time as well as autonomously adaptive in real-time for both post-integration and post-launch situations. The design expands the range of viable target environments and enhances tunable laser spectrometer performance in extreme and even unpredictable environments. Through rapid prototyping with a commercial RTOS/FPGA platform, we have implemented a fully operational tunable laser spectrometer (using a highly sensitive second harmonic technique). With this prototype, we have demonstrated autonomous real-time adaptivity in the lab with simulated extreme environments.

Flesch, Gregory↗

Reconfigurable, Intelligently-Adaptive, Communication System, an SDR Platform

The Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) provides a common, consistent framework to abstract the application software from the radio platform hardware. STRS aims to reduce the cost and risk of using complex, configurable and reprogrammable radio systems across NASA missions. The NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) team made a software defined radio (SDR) platform STRS compliant by adding an STRS operating environment and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) wrapper, capable of implementing each of the platforms interfaces, as well as a test waveform to exercise those interfaces. This effort serves to provide a framework toward waveform development onto an STRS compliant platform to support future space communication systems for advanced exploration missions. The use of validated STRS compliant applications provides tested code with extensive documentation to potentially reduce risk, cost and e ort in development of space-deployable SDRs. This paper discusses the advantages of STRS, the integration of STRS onto a Reconfigurable, Intelligently-Adaptive, Communication System (RIACS) SDR platform, and the test waveform and wrapper development e orts. The paper emphasizes the infusion of the STRS Architecture onto the RIACS platform for potential use in next generation flight system SDRs for advanced exploration missions.

space communications↗

Field-Programmable Gate Array Implementation of a Single Photon-Counting Receive Modem

We present a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of a single photon-counting receive modem for a pulse position modulated signal. The modem is compliant with the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) High Photon Efficiency (HPE) Optical Communications Coding and Synchronization standard and is capable of a maximum data rate of 267 Mbps. The system is designed on a commercial off-the-shelf FPGA platform and utilizes superconducting nanowire single photon counting detectors, analog to digital converters (ADC s) to sample the detectors, and two FPGAs. Symbol timing recovery, photon counting, convolutional deinterleaving, and codeword synchronization areis performed in the first FPGA. The second FPGA performs iterative decoding on each codeword of the serially concatenated pulse position modulated (SCPPM) signal. A digital filter is included to compensate for timing jitter of the detector, and the decoder throughput can be modified adjusted through reconfigurable parallelization. The decoder also implements a resource-efficient, algorithmic polynomial interleaver and deinterleaver. Both FPGAs can be reconfigured to switch between pulse position modulation (PPM)-16 and PPM-32 with code rates 1/3, 1/2, and 2/3. In this paper, we describe the receiver architecture and FPGA implementation of the timing recovery loop and SCPPM decoder, FPGA utilization for the different modes, and receive modem characterization test results.

Field-programmable Gate Array↗

Phase I Final Technical Report on Energy-Efficient Reconfigurable Universal Accelerator Interconnect

It is well known that application specific computing systems, optimally designed and configured for a given workload, offer much higher energy-efficiency and throughput than general purpose systems. In modern computing systems, heterogeneous computing systems have emerged that exploit the energy and performance benefits of combining various different domain-specific processor architectures. Application domains such as high-performance computing and machine learning now process terabyte-sized data sets, requiring enormous processing and memory resources. These applications have very high-power consumption due to bottlenecks in the electrical interconnection between processing units. This project aims to reduce both communication energy and latency by integrating universally available accelerators with silicon photonics. It also aims to increase system throughput by exploiting emerging technologies in silicon photonic reconfigurable interconnects; this will allow the system to balance itself in real time to accommodate changes in workloads and data flows.

2.5D/3D integration↗

DRIPS: Dynamic Rebalancing of Pipelined Streaming Applications on CGRAs

Coarse-grained reconfigurable arrays (CGRAs) provide higher flexibility than application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and higher efficiency than fine-grained reconfigurable devices such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). However, CGRAs are generally designed to support offloading of a single kernel. While their design, based on communicating functional units, appears to naturally suit data streaming applications composed of multiple cooperating kernels, current approaches only statically partition the resources across application kernels. However, emerging streaming applications at the edge (scientific instruments, sensor networks, network processing) perform much more than digital signal processing and often are data and input dependent. This leads to extremely variable kernel execution times, severely impacting the throughput of the entire pipeline if resources are only statically allocated. Therefore, in this paper, we propose DRIPS — a coarse-grained, dynamically, and partially reconfigurable array for data-dependent streaming applications. We present a unified compiler framework to facilitate the mapping of a given streaming application onto the DRIPS CGRA architecture. The experimental results show that DRIPS achieves an average throughput improvement of 1.46$\times$ across a set of representative applications over a statically partitioned solution. The additional area overhead to enable dynamic rebalancing consumes 16.34% of the entire area for a 5x5 CGRA prototype.

Tan, Cheng↗

An Autonomous Spacecraft Agent Prototype

This paper describes the New Millennium Remote Agent (NMRA) architecture for autonomous spacecraft control systems. This architecture integrates traditional real-time monitoring and control with constraint-based planning and scheduling, robust multi-threaded execution, and model-based diagnosis and reconfiguration.

New Millennium Remote Agent↗

An architecture for object-oriented intelligent control of power systems in space

A control system for autonomous distribution and control of electrical power during space missions is being developed. This system should free the astronauts from localizing faults and reconfiguring loads if problems with the power distribution and generation components occur. The control system uses an object-oriented simulation model of the power system and first principle knowledge to detect, identify, and isolate faults. Each power system component is represented as a separate object with knowledge of its normal behavior. The reasoning process takes place at three different levels of abstraction: the Physical Component Model (PCM) level, the Electrical Equivalent Model (EEM) level, and the Functional System Model (FSM) level, with the PCM the lowest level of abstraction and the FSM the highest. At the EEM level the power system components are reasoned about as their electrical equivalents, e.g, a resistive load is thought of as a resistor. However, at the PCM level detailed knowledge about the component's specific characteristics is taken into account. The FSM level models the system at the subsystem level, a level appropriate for reconfiguration and scheduling. The control system operates in two modes, a reactive and a proactive mode, simultaneously. In the reactive mode the control system receives measurement data from the power system and compares these values with values determined through simulation to detect the existence of a fault. The nature of the fault is then identified through a model-based reasoning process using mainly the EEM. Compound component models are constructed at the EEM level and used in the fault identification process. In the proactive mode the reasoning takes place at the PCM level. Individual components determine their future health status using a physical model and measured historical data. In case changes in the health status seem imminent the component warns the control system about its impending failure. The fault isolation process uses the FSM level for its reasoning base.

Holmquist, Sven G.↗

Pre-Flight Testing and Performance of a Ka-Band Software Defined Radio

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has developed a space-qualified, reprogrammable, Ka-band Software Defined Radio (SDR) to be utilized as part of an on-orbit, reconfigurable testbed. The testbed will operate on the truss of the International Space Station beginning in late 2012. Three unique SDRs comprise the testbed, and each radio is compliant to the Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard. The testbed provides NASA, industry, other Government agencies, and academic partners the opportunity to develop communications, navigation, and networking applications in the laboratory and space environment, while at the same time advancing SDR technology, reducing risk, and enabling future mission capability. Designed and built by Harris Corporation, the Ka-band SDR is NASA's first space-qualified Ka-band SDR transceiver. The Harris SDR will also mark the first NASA user of the Ka-band capabilities of the Tracking Data and Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) for on-orbit operations. This paper describes the testbed's Ka-band System, including the SDR, travelling wave tube amplifier (TWTA), and antenna system. The reconfigurable aspects of the system enabled by SDR technology are discussed and the Ka-band system performance is presented as measured during extensive pre-flight testing.

Downey, Joseph A.↗

A Unified Wireless Charger, On-Board Charger, and Auxiliary Power Module for Electric Vehicle Charging Systems

This paper proposes a unified electric vehicle (EV) charging architecture that integrates wireless power transfer (WPT), an on-board charger (OBC), and an auxiliary power module (APM) within a single architecture. By sharing a multi-functional magnetic structure and active switch bridges, the proposed topology eliminates additional transformers and converter stages, reducing hardware complexity and improving power density. A multipurpose magnetic design achieves magnetic decoupling among the WPT, OBC, and APM functions while maintaining the required coupling for each mode. Through electrical reconfiguration, the WPT operates as an LCC-S converter, whereas the OBC and APM operate as dual-active-bridge (DAB) converters. The system supports multiple operating modes, including simultaneous high-voltage and lowvoltage battery charging. Finite-element and circuit simulations verify the magnetic characteristics and system operation, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed unified architecture for EV charging applications.

Jo, Cheolhui [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000322692434)↗

CSP: A Multifaceted Hybrid Architecture for Space Computing

Research on the CHREC Space Processor (CSP) takes a multifaceted hybrid approach to embedded space computing. Working closely with the NASA Goddard SpaceCube team, researchers at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC) at the University of Florida and Brigham Young University are developing hybrid space computers that feature an innovative combination of three technologies: commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices, radiation-hardened (RadHard) devices, and fault-tolerant computing. Modern COTS processors provide the utmost in performance and energy-efficiency but are susceptible to ionizing radiation in space, whereas RadHard processors are virtually immune to this radiation but are more expensive, larger, less energy-efficient, and generations behind in speed and functionality. By featuring COTS devices to perform the critical data processing, supported by simpler RadHard devices that monitor and manage the COTS devices, and augmented with novel uses of fault-tolerant hardware, software, information, and networking within and between COTS devices, the resulting system can maximize performance and reliability while minimizing energy consumption and cost. NASA Goddard has adopted the CSP concept and technology with plans underway to feature flight-ready CSP boards on two upcoming space missions.

Reconfigurable↗

NASA Tech Briefs, October 2008

Topics covered include: Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing; Algorithm for Wavefront Sensing Using an Extended Scene; CO2 Sensors Based on Nanocrystalline SnO2 Doped with CuO; Improved Airborne System for Sensing Wildfires; VHF Wide-Band, Dual-Polarization Microstrip-Patch Antenna; Onboard Data Processor for Change-Detection Radar Imaging; Using LDPC Code Constraints to Aid Recovery of Symbol Timing; System for Measuring Flexing of a Large Spaceborne Structure; Integrated Formation Optical Communication and Estimation System; Making Superconducting Welds between Superconducting Wires; Method for Thermal Spraying of Coatings Using Resonant-Pulsed Combustion; Coating Reduces Ice Adhesion; Hybrid Multifoil Aerogel Thermal Insulation; SHINE Virtual Machine Model for In-flight Updates of Critical Mission Software; Mars Image Collection Mosaic Builder; Providing Internet Access to High-Resolution Mars Images; Providing Internet Access to High-Resolution Lunar Images; Expressions Module for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program Virtual Satellite; Small-Body Extensions for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP); Scripting Module for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP); XML-Based SHINE Knowledge Base Interchange Language; Core Technical Capability Laboratory Management System; MRO SOW Daily Script; Tool for Inspecting Alignment of Twinaxial Connectors; An ATP System for Deep-Space Optical Communication; Polar Traverse Rover Instrument; Expert System Control of Plant Growth in an Enclosed Space; Detecting Phycocyanin-Pigmented Microbes in Reflected Light; DMAC and NMP as Electrolyte Additives for Li-Ion Cells; Mass Spectrometer Containing Multiple Fixed Collectors; Waveguide Harmonic Generator for the SIM; Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator with Orthogonally Reconfigurable Filter Function; Stable Calibration of Raman Lidar Water-Vapor Measurements; Bimaterial Thermal Compensators for WGM Resonators; Root Source Analysis/ValuStream[Trade Mark] - A Methodology for Identifying and Managing Risks; Ensemble: an Architecture for Mission-Operations Software; Object Recognition Using Feature-and Color-Based Methods; On-Orbit Multi-Field Wavefront Control with a Kalman Filter; and The Interplanetary Overlay Networking Protocol Accelerator.

Source record↗

Design Description of the X-33 Avionics Architecture

In this paper, we provide a design description of the X-33 avionics architecture. The X-33 is an autonomous Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle currently being developed by Lockheed Martin for NASA as a technology demonstrator for the VentureStar Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). The X-33 avionics provides autonomous control of die vehicle throughout takeoff, ascent, descent, approach, landing, rollout, and vehicle safing. During flight the avionics provides communication to the range through uplinked commands and downlinked telemetry. During pre-launch and post-safing activities, the avionics provides interfaces to ground support consoles that perform vehicle flight preparations and maintenance. The X-33 Avionics is a hybrid of centralized and distributed processing elements connected by three dual redundant Mil-Std 1553 data buses. These data buses are controlled by a central processing suite located in the avionics bay and composed of triplex redundant Vehicle Mission Computers (VMCs). The VMCs integrate mission management, guidance, navigation, flight control, subsystem control and redundancy management functions. The vehicle sensors, effectors and subsystems are interfaced directly to the centralized VMCs as remote terminals or through dual redundant Data Interface Units (DIUs). The DIUs are located forward and aft of the avionics bay and provide signal conditioning, health monitoring, low level subsystem control and data interface functions. Each VMC is connected to all three redundant 1553 data buses for monitoring and provides a complete identical data set to the processing algorithms. This enables bus faults to be detected and reconfigured through a voted bus control configuration. Data is also shared between VMCs though a cross channel data link that is implemented in hardware and controlled by AlliedSignal's Fault Tolerant Executive (FTE). The FTE synchronizes processors within the VMC and synchronizes redundant VMCs to each other. The FTE provides an output-voting plane to detect, isolate and contain faults due to internal hardware or software faults and reconfigures the VMCs to accommodate these faults. Critical data in the 1553 messages are scheduled and synchronized to specific processing frames in order to minimize data latency. In order to achieve an open architecture, military and commercial off-the-shelf equipment is incorporated using common processors, standard VME backplanes and chassis, the VxWorks operating system, and MartixX for automatic code generation. The use of off-the-shelf tools and equipment helps reduce development time and enables software reuse. The open architecture allows for technology insertion, while the distributed modular elements allow for expansion to increased redundancy levels to meet the higher reliability goals of future RLVs.

Reichenfeld, Curtis J.↗