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Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA): Challenges and New Considerations

Use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components and emerging technologies often require space flight missions to accept elevated risk. The Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) flow includes environment definition, hazard evaluation, requirements definition, evaluation of design, and design trades to accommodate and mitigate the risk a project or program takes. Depending on the mission profile and environment, different missions may not necessarily benefit from the same risk reduction efforts or cost reduction attempts. While this poses challenges for the radiation engineer, it also presents opportunities to tailor the RHA flow to minimize risk based on the environment or design criticality while remaining within budget. This presentation will focus on an approach to RHA amidst the present challenges, using the same RHA flow as in the past, with examples from recent radiation test results. The current challenges and the types of risk will be identified. How these risks drive requirements development and realization will be explained with examples of device results and data for single event effects (SEE) and in one case total ionizing dose (TID).

Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA); Risk Managemen↗

Strategies for SEE Hardness Assurance - From Buy-It-And-Fly-It to Bullet Proof

This part of the course first outlines the conventional Single Event Effect (SEE), radiation hardness assurance (RHA) approach, which emphasizes mission success. Next, Dr. Ladbury will discuss the challenges posed by new satellite platforms (e.g., cubesats, nanosats, etc.), where cost and schedule receive emphasis equal to if not greater than mission success. These additional pressures, along with growing demands to reduce size, weight and power, coupled with increased performance, drive many projects toward expanding their use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies. While this may reduce direct parts cost and procurement lead times, it undermines many cost-reduction strategies used for conventional SEE RHA and can make radiation testing and analysis one of the most significant risks or worse, a risk neglected altogether. That section will end with some approaches for restoring balance in the troika of mission success, cost, and schedule. This is captured in SEE RHA as risk management: identify the threat, evaluate the threat, and mitigate the threat.

commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)↗

Strategies for SEE Hardness Assurance From Buy-It-And-Fly-It to Bullet Proof

This part of the course first outlines the conventional Single Event Effect (SEE), radiation hardness assurance (RHA) approach, which emphasizes mission success. Next, Dr. Ladbury will discuss the challenges posed by new satellite platforms (e.g., cubesats, nanosats, etc.), where cost and schedule receive emphasis equal to if not greater than mission success. These additional pressures, along with growing demands to reduce size, weight and power, coupled with increased performance, drive many projects toward expanding their use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies. While this may reduce direct parts cost and procurement lead times, it undermines many cost-reduction strategies used for conventional SEE RHA and can make radiation testing and analysis one of the most significant risksor worse, a risk neglected altogether. That section will end with some approaches for restoring balance in the troika of mission success, cost, and schedule. This is captured in SEE RHA as risk management: identify the threat, evaluate the threat, and mitigate the threat.

commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)↗

Runtime Assurance Protection for Advanced Turbofan Engine Control

This paper describes technical progress made in the application of run time assurance (RTA) methods to turbofan engines with advanced propulsion control algorithms that are employed to improve engine performance. It is assumed that the advanced algorithms cannot be fully certified using current verification and validation approaches and therefore need to be continually monitored by an RTA system that ensures safe operation. However, current turbofan engine control systems utilize engine protection logic for safe combustion dynamics and stable airflow through the engine. It was determined that the engine protection logic should continue to be used to provide system safety and should be considered as a part of the overall RTA system. The additional function that an RTA system provides is to perform diagnostics on anomalous conditions to determine if these conditions are being caused by errors in the advanced controller. If this is the case, the RTA system switches operation to a trusted reversionary controller. Initial studies were performed to demonstrate this benefit. The other focus was to improve the performance of the engine protection logic, which was deemed too conservative and reduced engine performance during transient operations. It was determined that the conservative response was due to poor tuning of one of the controller channels within the protection logic. An automatic tuning algorithm was implemented to optimize the protection logic control gains based on minimizing tracking error. Improved tracking responses were observed with no change to the existing protection logic control architecture.

runtime monitoring↗

NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) Program: Overview and Technology Focus Areas - Responsive Technology Assurance for Civil Space

NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) Program Overview and Technology Highlights – The NEPP Program provides NASA's leadership for developing and maintaining guidance for the screening, qualification, test, and reliable use of electrical, electronic, and electromechanical parts by NASA, in collaboration with other government agencies and industry. The NASA Electronic Parts Assurance Group (NEPAG) is a core portion of NEPP. This presentation highlights key focus areas for 2019.

radiation effects↗

Strategic Time-Based Metering that Assures Separation for Integrated Operations in a Terminal Airspace

This paper reports an algorithm for strategic time-based metering of air traffic arriving and departing from a large ( tens of nautical miles) area (called here, the commitment region) around an airport or metroplex. The algorithm assures separation continuously in time and avoids a dictation of intent to an aircraft crew. This is accomplished by allowing an aircraft (specifically, its Flight Management System) to specify, and commit to, an intended route and ground speed profile along that route within the commitment region, and by supplying the time at which to enter the region to the aircraft crew. The airspace that comprises the commitment region need not be confined to the terminal airspace and can include some of the enroute space: the size and shape of the commitment region are parameters in the algorithm. An exact formula for including speed profile uncertainty in the algorithm is provided. The algorithm is applied to a number of data sets recorded during actual air traffic operations in the Southern California TRACON in July of 2014 and the Atlanta TRACON in November and December of 2013. The results of the numerical simulations indicate that the algorithm succeeds at keeping the aircraft separated, but introduces, in its current implementation, more separation than that observed in actual operations. This excess separation can be reduced by modeling more accurately the Visual Flight Rules separation practices, a direction for future research.

air traffic management↗

Radiation Hardness Assurance: Evolving for NewSpace

During the past decade, numerous small satellites have been launched into space, with dramatically expanded dependence on advanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies and systems required for mission success. While the radiation effects vulnerabilities of small satellites are the same as those of their larger, traditional relatives, revised approaches are needed for risk management because of differences in technical requirements and programmatic resources. While moving to COTS components and systems may reduce direct costs and procurement lead times, it undermines many cost-reduction strategies used for conventional radiation hardness assurance (RHA). Limited resources are accompanied by a lack of radiation testing and analysis, which can pose significant risks - or worse, be neglected altogether. Small satellites have benefited from short mission durations in low Earth orbits with respect to their radiation response, but as mission objectives grow and become reliant on advanced technologies operating for longer and in harsher environments, requirements need to reflect the changing scope without hindering developers that provide new capabilities.

Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA)↗

Radiation Hardness Assurance: Evolving for NewSpace

During the past decade, government agencies, private companies and academic institutions, have launched hundreds of small satellites into space, with dramatically expanded dependence on advanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies and systems required for mission success. While the radiation effects vulnerabilities of components within small satellites are the same as those of their larger, traditional relatives, revised approaches are needed for risk management because of differences in technical requirements and programmatic resources. While moving to COTS components and systems may reduce direct costs and procurement lead times, it undermines many cost-reduction strategies used for conventional radiation hardness assurance (RHA). Limited resources are accompanied by a lack of radiation testing and analysis, which can pose significant risks. Small satellites have benefited from short mission durations in low Earth orbits with respect to their radiation response, but as mission objectives grow and become reliant on advanced technologies operating for longer and in harsher environments, requirements need to reflect the changing scope without hindering developers that provide new capabilities. In this course we suggest RHA strategies that engineers and scientists can apply to a wide range of aerospace systems, including constellations, with a focus on how to manage aggressive system scaling for smaller platforms.

Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA)↗

Radiation Hardness Assurance: Evolving for NewSpace

During the past decade, numerous small satellites have been launched into space, with dramatically expanded dependence on advanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies and systems required for mission success. While the radiation effects vulnerabilities of small satellites are the same as those of their larger, traditional relatives, revised approaches are needed for risk management because of differences in technical requirements and programmatic resources. While moving to COTS components and systems may reduce direct costs and procurement lead times, it undermines many cost-reduction strategies used for conventional radiation hardness assurance (RHA). Limited resources are accompanied by a lack of radiation testing and analysis, which can pose significant risks—or worse, be neglected altogether. Small satellites have benefited from short mission durations in low Earth orbits with respect to their radiation response, but as mission objectives grow and become reliant on advanced technologies operating for longer and in harsher environments, requirements need to reflect the changing scope without hindering developers that provide new capabilities.

Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA)↗

Update on Wide Bandgap (WBG) Device Radiation Hardness Assurance

This presentation provides an overview of recent wide bandgap device radiation hardness assurance activities at NASA and via NASA-funded grant vehicles. Devices include enhancement mode power GaN HEMTs, RF GaN HEMTs, and SiC MOSFETs and JBS diodes.

wide bandgap↗

Model-Based Radiation Assurance for Satellites with Commercial Parts

Presents a methodology for modeling radiation hardness assurance activities into MBSE throughout the NASA project life cycle. Also includes information about quantitatively and qualitatively modeling radiation-induced failures with system models.

Radiation Hardness Assurance↗

Avionics Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) Guidelines

Based on the need to develop and adopt timely and up-to-date guidance to ensure that natural space radiation environment threats do not compromise mission success, the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) was solicited to develop and publish guidance for deriving radiation hardness assurance (RHA) requirements and for evaluating avionics hardware elements with respect to total ionizing dose, total non-ionizing dose, and single event effects. This document contains the outcome of the NESC assessment.

Guidelines↗

Assured Contingency Landing Management for Advanced Air Mobility

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is quickly developing as a new air transportation system that moves people and packages in the regions previously not / less served by the current aviation systems. Such AAM must operate safely despite the potential to encounter hazards and experience anomalies and failures in-flight. It becomes especially important to have systematic auto-mitigation strategies to perform safe contingency actions in AAM flight operations, as pilots have limited Situational Awareness (SA) and limited time to make prompt decisions when encountering failures/anomalies in high-density low altitude airspace. This paper presents Assured Contingency Landing Management (ACLM) with an online landing strategy selection to decide between the following three options when a contingency landing is required: (1) Return-to-launch landing site, (2) Land immediately at a nearby clear but unprepared site, (3) Land at a prepared landing site from the approximate footprint. Our presented algorithm shows a real-time auto-mitigation loop with multiple threads that run simultaneously to check controllability, reachability, and intermediate decisions to hold/ loiter or continue the flight plan as the landing strategy solution is being computed. Case study simulation is demonstrated with the safety-critical propulsion system and battery system and shows how different failure scenarios impact the landing strategy selection.

Autonomous Mitigation↗

Distributed Sensing and Reasoning for Advanced Air Mobility Health Management and Mission Assurance

As envisioned, Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) will introduce new vehicles and operations within the national airspace, moving people and cargo safely and efficiently at a much larger scale than today. Driven by transformative technology and revolutionary aircraft, this movement must still manage technical, regulatory, operational, and policy challenges. NASA’s work in support of AAM and UAM includes, but is not limited to tools, technologies, and architectures for distributed sensing of aircraft, data & reasoning services exchange, Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT), contingency management, and vehicle health management. This paper builds upon these concepts and evaluates the use of distributed sensing and infrastructure assistance towards health management and mission assurance of UAM vehicles in specific operational scenarios. Through analysis of these example missions, aided by the data produced by the conceptual distributed sensing and reasoning infrastructure, we define opportunities for state estimation, diagnosis, and key decision points affecting the health state of the vehicle and the airspace volume. As a result, we define a number of measurable health state parameters providing relevant information to drive decision-making in contingency situations or feed automation tools in support of operators and managers.

Safety↗

A New, Cots-Inclusive, Approach for Parts Assurance in NASA

This talk will provide insights into new options for parts assurance that are being introduced into NASA policy, which build on the results of the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) COTS Phase 2 study. It will provide some of the highlights and drivers for the use of COTS and brief recommendations for how to successfully select and use COTS parts.

risk↗

A Formal Verification Framework for Runtime Assurance

The simplex architecture is an instance of Runtime Assurance (RTA) where a trusted component takes control of a safety-critical system when an untrusted component violates a safety property. This paper presents a formalization of the simplex RTA framework in the language of hybrid programs. A feature of this formal verification framework is that, for a given system, a specific instantiation can be created and its safety properties are guaranteed by construction. Instantiations may be kept at varying levels of generality, allowing for black box components, such as ML/AI-based controllers, to be modeled. The framework is written in the Prototype Verification System (PVS) using Plaidypvs, an embedding of differential dynamic logic in PVS. As a proof of concept, the framework is illustrated on an automatic vehicle braking system.

Runtime assurance↗