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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 307 records · Page 17

Behavioral consequences of radiation exposure to simulated space radiation in the C57BL/6 mouse: open field, rotorod, and acoustic startle

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the consequences of exposure to proton radiation, such as might occur for astronauts during space flight. C57BL/6 mice were exposed, either with or without 15-g/cm2 aluminum shielding, to 0-, 3-, or 4-Gy proton irradiation mimicking features of a solar particle event. Irradiation produced transient direct deficits in open-field exploratory behavior and acoustic startle habituation. Rotorod performance at 18 rpm was impaired by exposure to proton radiation and was impaired at 26 rpm, but only for mice irradiated with shielding and at the 4-Gy dose. Long-term (>2 weeks) indirect deficits in open-field activity appeared as a result of impaired experiential encoding immediately following exposure. A 2-week recovery prior to testing decreased most of the direct effects of exposure, with only rotorod performance at 26 rpm being impaired. These results suggest that the performance deficits may have been mediated by radiation damage to hippocampal, cerebellar, and possibly, forebrain dopaminergic function.

Non-NASA Center↗

Learning to behave: adaptive behavior for planetary surface rovers

Robotic missions to planetary surfaces are becoming more ambitious and of longer duration. The nominal mission timeline for the MER called Spirit currently on the Martian surface is 90 days, with extensions to 180 days depending on rover health. The upcoming 2009 MSL mission is planned to be 300-500 days and will possibly involve traverses on the order of a kilometer or more.

autonomous robots↗

Development of a Digital Twin for Electrified Aircraft Powertrain Health Management

The augmentation of aircraft powertrains with electrical power systems is a promising path to reducing aircraft fuel consumption, emissions, and noise. Like conventional propulsion systems, electrified aircraft propulsion (EAP) systems will be subject to wear and tear throughout their lifecycles. System health management for EAP will enable efficient flight and maintenance scheduling, realizing economic, safety, and reliability benefits. A digital twin is, broadly, a dynamically updated virtual representation of an individual physical asset. This paper presents a Kalman filter-based approach for the development of a digital twin for an electrified powertrain and applies the approach to an EAP controls testbed. Measurements from nominal testbed operations are used to update a nonlinear model of the testbed. A Kalman filter is then created and used to identify and isolate anomalous testbed behavior based on measurements from off- nominal operations. Results show that the Kalman filter-based digital twin can monitor individual powertrain components’ health for degradation or other changes in performance. The applicability of the presented digital twin approach to any hybrid- or fully-electrified powertrain is emphasized.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Long-term changes in amphetamine-induced reinforcement and aversion in rats following exposure to 56Fe particle

Exposing rats to heavy particles produces alterations in the functioning of dopaminergic neurons and in the behaviors that depend upon the integrity of the dopaminergic system. Two of these dopamine-dependent behaviors include amphetamine-induced reinforcement, measure using the conditioned place preference procedure, and amphetamine-induced reinforcement, measured using the conditioned place preference procedure, and amphetamine-induced aversion, measured using the conditioned taste aversion. Previous research has shown that exposing rats to 1.0 Gy of 1GeV/n 56Fe particles produced a disruption of an amphetamine-induced taste aversion 3 days following exposure, but produced an apparent enhancement of the aversion 112 days following exposure. The present experiments were designed to provide a further evaluation of these results by examining taste aversion learning 154 days following exposure to 1.0 Gy 56Fe particles and to establish the convergent validity of the taste aversion results by looking at the effects of exposure on the establishment of an amphetamine-induced conditioned place preference 3, 7, and 16 weeks following irradiation. The taste aversion results failed to confirm the apparent enhancement of the amphetamine-induced CTA observed in the prior experiment. However, exposure to 56Fe particles prevented the acquisition of amphetamine-induced place preference at all three-time intervals. The results are interpreted as indicating that exposure to heavy particles can produce long-term changes in behavioral functioning. c2002 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Non-NASA Center↗

Effects of the space environment on the health and safety of space workers

Large numbers of individuals are required to work in space to assemble and operate a Solar Power Satellite. The physiological and behavioral consequences for large groups of men and women who perform complex tasks in the vehicular or extravehicular environments over long periods of orbital stay time were considered. The most disturbing consequences of exposure to the null gravity environment found relate to: (1) a generalized cardiovascular deconditioning along with loss of a significant amount of body fluid volume; (2) loss of bone minerals and muscle mass; and (3) degraded performance of neutral mechanisms which govern equilibrium and spatial orientation.

Hull, W. E.↗

Using NASA Earth Observations to Identify Wildfire Impacts on Hydrologic Functions and Recovery in the Gila National Forest

Wildfires can dramatically influence both abiotic and biotic components of a landscape, including soil stability and chemistry; vegetation health, density, and composition; and water flow and quality. In addition to the immediate hazards posed by wildfires, subsequent hazards such as flooding and debris flow can impact the area. In New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, wildfire events have occurred with increasing frequency and severity over recent years, notably including the Whitewater Baldy Complex Fire (2012) and Silver Fire (2013), which burned over 290,000 acres and 138,698 acres, respectively, according to the Burned Area Emergency Response Team Executive Summary reports. Following a significant wildfire, land and resource management decisions are made, including when and where to focus vegetation and stream restoration efforts. This research is the result of a collaboration between the NASA DEVELOP National Program and the US Forest Service, which aimed to utilize NASA Earth observations to help inform those critical land management decisions. The project had two main objectives: 1) assess the efficacy of post-fire vegetation restoration efforts and 2) analyze the impact of burn events on the hydrology at the watershed-scale. To accomplish this first goal, data from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) were used to study the vegetation health over time of treated and non-treated burn areas. To accomplish the latter, various aspects of stream behavior were examined in relation to burn events, including the runoff coefficient and “flashiness” of streams based on USGS stream gauge data and Integrated Multi-satelllite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) precipitation data. This will allow land managers to better understand the complex ecological relationship between the cascading effects after wildfire and the greater forest ecosystem.

Madeline Allen↗

The effects of proton exposure on neurochemistry and behavior

Future space missions will involve long-term travel beyond the magnetic field of the Earth, where astronauts will be exposed to radiation hazards such as those that arise from galactic cosmic rays. Galactic cosmic rays are composed of protons, alpha particles, and particles of high energy and charge (HZE particles). Research by our group has shown that exposure to HZE particles, primarily 600 MeV/n and 1 GeV/n 56Fe, can produce significant alterations in brain neurochemistry and behavior. However, given that protons can make up a significant portion of the radiation spectrum, it is important to study their effects on neural functioning and on related performance. Therefore, these studies examined the effects of exposure to proton irradiation on neurochemical and behavioral endpoints, including dopaminergic functioning, amphetamine-induced conditioned taste aversion learning, and spatial learning and memory as measured by the Morris water maze. Male Sprague-Dawley rats received a dose of 0, 1.5, 3.0 or 4.0 Gy of 250 MeV protons at Loma Linda University and were tested in the different behavioral tests at various times following exposure. Results showed that there was no effect of proton irradiation at any dose on any of the endpoints measured. Therefore, there is a contrast between the insignificant effects of high dose proton exposure and the dramatic effectiveness of low dose (<0.1 Gy) exposures to 56Fe particles on both neurochemical and behavioral endpoints. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of COSPAR.

Non-NASA Center↗

Assessing and Promoting Functional Resilience in Flight Crews During Exploration Missions

NASA plans to send humans to Mars in about 20 years. The NASA Human Research Program supports research to mitigate the major risks to human health and performance on extended missions. However, there will undoubtedly be unforeseen events on any mission of this nature - thus mitigation of known risks alone is not sufficient to ensure optimal crew health and performance. Research should be directed not only to mitigating known risks, but also to providing crews with the tools to assess and enhance resilience, as a group and individually. We can draw on ideas from complexity theory and network theory to assess crew and individual resilience. The entire crew or the individual crewmember can be viewed as a complex system that is composed of subsystems (individual crewmembers or physiological subsystems), and the interactions between subsystems are of crucial importance for overall health and performance. An understanding of the structure of the interactions can provide important information even in the absence of complete information on the component subsystems. This is critical in human spaceflight, since insufficient flight opportunities exist to elucidate the details of each subsystem. Enabled by recent advances in noninvasive measurement of physiological and behavioral parameters, subsystem monitoring can be implemented within a mission and also during preflight training to establish baseline values and ranges. Coupled with appropriate mathematical modeling, this can provide real-time assessment of health and function, and detect early indications of imminent breakdown. Since the interconnected web of physiological systems (and crewmembers) can be interpreted as a network in mathematical terms, we can draw on recent work that relates the structure of such networks to their resilience (ability to self-organize in the face of perturbation). There are many parameters and interactions to choose from. Normal variability is an established characteristic of a healthy physiological response. Healthy coupling has been investigated less extensively, but there are cases in which too tight or too loose coupling can be problematic. This might be in inter-individual behaviors, such as sleep cycles, coordination of work and meal times, and coupled motions during communication. Less apparent are couplings of physiological systems, nevertheless examples abound of coupled systems which might be monitored: cardio-respiratory rhythms; circadian rhythms, body temperature, and sleep; stress markers and cognition, sleep, and performance; profiles of biochemical markers related to immune function and nutritional status; sensorimotor aspects such as motion sickness, ataxia, reaction time, and manual control. Tools for resilience are then the means to measure and analyze these parameters, incorporate them into appropriate models of normal variability and interconnectedness, and recognize when parameters or their couplings are outside of normal limits. What to do when a problem is identified depends on its nature. Changes can be made to crew procedures, work pacing, interpersonal interactions, sleep cycles, meal timing and content, as guided by the model. Use and continued development of these methods could not only provide tools for resilience, but also meaningful autonomous work for the crew on an extended flight.

Shelhamer, Mark↗

Assessing and Promoting Functional Resilience in Flight Crews During Exploration Missions

The NASA Human Research Program works to mitigate risks to health and performance on extended missions. However, research should be directed not only to mitigating known risks, but also to providing crews with tools to assess and enhance resilience, as a group and individually. We can draw on ideas from complexity theory to assess resilience. The entire crew or the individual crewmember can be viewed as a complex system composed of subsystems; the interactions between subsystems are of crucial importance. Understanding the interactions can provide important information even in the absence of complete information on the component subsystems. Enabled by advances in noninvasive measurement of physiological and behavioral parameters, subsystem monitoring can be implemented within a mission and during training to establish baselines. Coupled with mathematical modeling, this can provide assessment of health and function. Since the web of physiological systems (and crewmembers) can be interpreted as a network in mathematical terms, we can draw on recent work that relates the structure of such networks to their resilience (ability to self-organize in the face of perturbation). Some of the many parameters and interactions to choose from include: sleep cycles, coordination of work and meal times, cardiorespiratory rhythms, circadian rhythms and body temperature, stress markers and cognition, sleep and performance, immune function and nutritional status. Tools for resilience are then the means to measure and analyze these parameters, incorporate them into models of normal variability and interconnectedness, and recognize when parameters or their couplings are outside of normal limits.

Shelhamer, M.↗

Advances in Rodent Research Missions on the International Space Station

A Research platform for rodent experiment on the ISS is an essential tool for advancing biomedical research in space. The Rodent Research allows for experiments of much longer duration that experiments on the Shuttle. NASA’s Rodent Research (RR)-1 mission was successfully completed, including post-flight analysis and achieved a number of objectives including validation of flight hardware, on-orbit operations, and science capabilities that were developed at the NASA Ames Research Center. Briefly, twenty C57BL/6J adult female mice were launched on the SpX4 Dragon vehicle, which thrived for up to 37 days in microgravity. Daily health checks of the mice were performed during the mission via downlinked video; all animals were healthy and displayed normal behavior without any significant signs of stress. Behavioral analysis demonstrated that Flight and Ground Control mice exhibited the same range of behaviors, including eating, drinking, exploratory behavior, self- and allo-grooming, and social interactions indicative of healthy animals. The animals were euthanized and select tissues were collected from some of the mice on orbit to assess the long-term sample storage capabilities of the ISS. The data obtained from the flight mice were comparable to those from the 3 groups of control mice (baseline, vivarium and ground controls), suggesting that the ISS has adequate capability to support long-duration rodent experimentations. We recovered over 35 tissues from 40 RR1 frozen carcasses, yielded over 3200 aliquots of tissues, and distributed to the scientific community, including NASA’s GeneLab and scientists in the U.S. through Biospecimen Sharing Program via Ames Life Science Data Archive. Tissues were also distributed to Russian research colleagues at the Institute for Biomedical Problems. The expression levels of select genes including albumin, catalase, GAPDH, HMGCoA Reductase, and IGF1 were determined using RNA isolated from the livers by qPCR and no significant differences by one factor ANOVA were found between flight and ground control groups. In addition, some of the liver samples were subject to transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics. The data are now available to the scientific community through GeneLab’s open science data website. Since the RR1 mission, another long duration mission (Rodent Research-2) was completed on the ISS in 2015 in which 20 female C57 BL/6J mice were successfully maintained on the ISS for varying time points, with the last group of 5 animals being on-orbit for 54 days. This second Rodent Research flight expanded the program’s capabilities with the introduction of new technologies including blood collection and separation and bone densitometry scanning. Furthermore, we have continued to expand the ISS’s capabilities by running a series of ground-based verification testing using male mice. Our next step is to fly male mice for Rodent Research-4 on SpaceX-10 to study the effects of microgravity on bone healing and regeneration. It will be the first long-duration mission using male mice using Rodent Hardware. In addition, the number of mice will increase from 20 mice (on RR-1 and RR-2) to 40 for RR-4. When samples return to Earth, a number of tissues will be dissected from the frozen carcasses and select tissue samples will become available to the scientific community via BSP. Altogether, we have continued to expand our capabilities for performing long-duration missions on the ISS as emphasized in the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey released in 2011 and to maximize science return from each mission.

Choi, S.↗

Anaphylaxis, Intra-Abdominal Infections, Skin Lacerations, and Behavioral Emergencies: A Literature Review of Austere Analogs for a near Earth Asteroid Mission

As space exploration is directed towards destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, the consequent new set of medical risks will drive requirements for new capabilities and more resources to ensure crew health. The Space Medicine Exploration Medical Conditions List (SMEMCL), developed by the Exploration Medical Capability element of the Human Research Program, addresses the risk of "unacceptable health and mission outcomes due to limitations of in-flight medical capabilities". It itemizes 85 evidence-based clinical requirements for eight different mission profiles and identifies conditions warranting further research and technology development. Each condition is given a clinical priority for each mission profile. Four conditions -- intra-abdominal infections, skin lacerations, anaphylaxis, and behavioral emergencies -- were selected as a starting point for analysis. A systematic literature review was performed to understand how these conditions are treated in austere, limited-resource, space-analog environments (i.e., high-altitude and mountain environments, submarines, military deployments, Antarctica, isolated wilderness environments, in-flight environments, and remote, resource-poor, rural environments). These environments serve as analogs to spaceflight because of their shared characteristics (limited medical resources, delay in communication, confined living quarters, difficulty with resupply, variable time to evacuation). Treatment of these four medical conditions in austere environments provides insight into medical equipment and training requirements for exploration-class missions.

Chough, Natacha G.↗

Integrating Spaceflight Human System Risk Research

NASA is working to increase the likelihoods of human health and performance success during exploration missions, and subsequent crew long-term health. To manage the risks in achieving these goals, a system modeled after a Continuous Risk Management framework is in place. "Human System Risks" (Risks) have been identified, and approximately 30 are being actively addressed by NASA's Human Research Program (HRP). Research plans for each of HRP's Risks have been developed and are being executed. Ties between the research efforts supporting each Risk have been identified, however, this has been in an ad hoc fashion. There is growing recognition that solutions developed to address the full set of Risks covering medical, physiological, behavioral, vehicle, and organizational aspects of the exploration missions must be integrated across Risks and disciplines. We will discuss how a framework of factors influencing human health and performance in space is being applied as the backbone for bringing together sometimes disparate information relevant to the individual Risks. The resulting interrelated information is allowing us to identify and visualize connections between Risks and research efforts in a systematic and standardized way. We will discuss the applications of the visualizations and insights to research planning, solicitation, and decision-making processes.

Mindock, J.↗

Geospatial Modeling of Asthma Population in Relation to Air Pollution

Current observations indicate that asthma is growing every year in the United States, specific reasons for this are not well understood. This study stems from an ongoing research effort to investigate the spatio-temporal behavior of asthma and its relatedness to air pollution. The association between environmental variables such as air quality and asthma related health issues over Mississippi State are investigated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools and applications. Health data concerning asthma obtained from Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) for 9-year period of 2003-2011, and data of air pollutant concentrations (PM2.5) collected from USEPA web resources, and are analyzed geospatially to establish the impacts of air quality on human health specifically related to asthma. Disease mapping using geospatial techniques provides valuable insights into the spatial nature, variability, and association of asthma to air pollution. Asthma patient hospitalization data of Mississippi has been analyzed and mapped using quantitative Choropleth techniques in ArcGIS. Patients have been geocoded to their respective zip codes. Potential air pollutant sources of Interstate highways, Industries, and other land use data have been integrated in common geospatial platform to understand their adverse contribution on human health. Existing hospitals and emergency clinics are being injected into analysis to further understand their proximity and easy access to patient locations. At the current level of analysis and understanding, spatial distribution of Asthma is observed in the populations of Zip code regions in gulf coast, along the interstates of south, and in counties of Northeast Mississippi. It is also found that asthma is prevalent in most of the urban population. This GIS based project would be useful to make health risk assessment and provide information support to the administrators and decision makers for establishing satellite clinics in future.

Kethireddy, Swatantra R.↗

Advances in Rodent Research Missions on the International Space Station

A research platform for rodent experiment on the ISS is a valuable tool for advancing biomedical research in space. Capabilities offered by the Rodent Research project developed at NASA Ames Research Center can support experiments of much longer duration on the ISS than previous experiments performed on the Space Shuttle. NASAs Rodent Research (RR)-1 mission was completed successfully and achieved a number of objectives, including validation of flight hardware, on-orbit operations, and science capabilities as well as support of a CASIS-sponsored experiment (Novartis) on muscle atrophy. Twenty C57BL6J adult female mice were launched on the Space-X (SpX) 4 Dragon vehicle, and thrived for up to 37 days in microgravity. Daily health checks of the mice were performed during the mission via downlinked video; all flight animals were healthy and displayed normal behavior, and higher levels of physical activity compared to ground controls. Behavioral analysis demonstrated that Flight and Ground Control mice exhibited the same range of behaviors, including eating, drinking, exploratory behavior, self- and allo-grooming, and social interactions indicative of healthy animals. The animals were euthanized on-orbit and select tissues were collected from some of the mice on orbit to assess the long-term sample storage capabilities of the ISS. In general, the data obtained from the flight mice were comparable to those from the three groups of control mice (baseline, vivarium and ground controls, which were housed in flight hardware), showing that the ISS has adequate capability to support long-duration rodent experiments. The team recovered 35 tissues from 40 RR-1 frozen carcasses, yielding 3300 aliquots of tissues to distribute to the scientific community in the U.S., including NASAs GeneLab project and scientists via Space Biology's Biospecimen Sharing Program Ames Life Science Data Archive. Tissues also were distributed to Russian research colleagues at the Institute for Biomedical Problems. The expression levels of select genes including albumin, catalase, GAPDH, HMGCoA Reductase, and IGF1 were determined using RNA isolated from the livers by qPCR and no significant differences by one factor ANOVA were found between flight and ground control groups. In addition, some of the liver samples were analyzed for transcriptomic, epigenomic and proteomic profiles; some of the data sets are now available to the scientific community through GeneLabs open science data website. A second long duration mission, Rodent Research-2 (RR-2) was completed on the ISS in 2015; 20 female C57BL6J mice were successfully maintained on the ISS for various durations, with the last group of 5 animals living on-orbit for 54 days. Furthermore, we continue to expand the ISSs capabilities by introducing new on-orbit technologies including blood collection and separation, bone densitometry scanning, muscle grip strength and anesthesia with recovery. In addition, series of ground-based verification testing to fly male mice and increase the total number of mice on-orbit from 20 to 40. Subsequent missions will provide the capability to return live mice from the ISS animals to evaluate recovery on Earth, further expanding operational and science capabilities of the RR project on the ISS.

Choi, S. Y.↗

Enabling Mission Flexibility to Battery Driven Deep Space Endeavors With Generalized Battery-Health-Monitoring Using Physics-Based and Data-Driven Reduced-Order Models

The needs and requirements for an electrochemical energy storage for deep space exploration is well explored. It is often understood that different mission sites and environmental conditions require different battery chemistries or technologies. Additionally, various engineering solutions are deployed to overcome specific chemical challenges. One often overlooked need is the “health” monitoring of an electrochemical storage system. The term generalized health monitoring, as envisioned in this work, refers to the monitoring of various aspects such as electrode health, electrolyte health, reaction pathway health, cooling system health, sensor health, and BMS health [1]. Generalized health monitoring allows mission leads, engineers, and scientists to incorporate flexibility in mission designs, make on-the-fly mission changes, and extend the duration of science missions. Moreover, it enables automation and data-driven decision-making without compromising safety and performance. Recently, our group developed a hierarchy of thermal reduced-order models (TROM) by combining a physics-based modeling approach and data-driven model reduction techniques applied to flight data [2]. The resulting TROMs were found to be not only accurate but also identifiable from the flight data. Consequently, the coefficient of variance of the model parameters is small over the course of hundreds of flights, allowing for monitoring the parameter evolution trajectories as the battery ages and degrades. These parameters constitute the metrics of the generalized health of a battery. Monitoring their evolution allows such models to be used for anomaly detection and prognostics, improving early detection of abnormal behavior and thus enabling timely maintenance, longer battery life, and enhanced battery safety. For this presentation, the practicality of the thermal model will be validated on a pack of 14cells under various topology configurations such as 1S14P, 2P7S, 7S2P, and 1P14S. It is well known that manufacturing and non-uniform aging lead to variability in the performance of a cell, which is exacerbated by cell balancing during active load. Additionally, in extreme scenarios, the paramount objective is to complete the mission, regardless of the stresses on the battery. Topology-induced balancing issues further stress the battery. The goal of this study is to determine if the noise (identifiability) in the reduced-order thermal model parameters is sensitive to topology, cell spacing, cooling strategy, and manufacturing or age variability. The variability in cells is considered by assuming a multimodal distribution for microscopic parameters of a cell (such as porosity, tortuosity, reaction kinetics, volumetric thermal conductivity, and volumetric heat capacity). The compounded effect of manufacturing variability, topological selection, cooling strategies, and cell balancing ages each cell in a battery differently. The study aims to clarify whether the challenge in extracting maximum information depends on the minimum number of sensors or models used for data extraction.

Automation↗

Lactating Rats Retain Nursing Behavior and Maternal Care in Space

In 1997, suckling mammals were flown in space for the first time as part of the NIH.R3 experiment sponsored jointly by NIH (National Institutes of Health) and NASA. Six rat dams and litters (Rattus norvegicus) were launched on an eight-day Space Shuttle mission at each of three postnatal ages (P5, P8, and P15). Dams and litters (N = 10 pups/litter) were housed within modified Animal Enclosure Modules (AEMs). Comparisons were made to ground controls. Dams and litters were videotaped daily in flight. The P8 and P15 flight litters showed excellent survival (99%) and weight gain relative to AEM ground controls, whereas P5 litters showed reduced survival (0% and 60%, respectively) and weight gain (less than 40% AEM). To examine the possibility that failures of maternal care contributed to P5 results, we analyzed the dams' in-flight nursing, licking and retrieving from four video segments ranging from twelve to fifteen minutes in length with control data derived from multiple ground segments. Video analyses revealed clear evidence of maternal care in flight. For P5 dams, frequency and duration of nursing and licking bouts fell within or above one standard deviation of control values. Retrieving was noted in the P5 and P8 groups only. The observed results suggest that factors other than maternal care contributed to the low survival rates and body weight gains of the P5 flight offspring.

Daly, Megan E.↗

Prognostics and Health Monitoring: Application to Electric Vehicles

As more and more autonomous electric vehicles emerge in our daily operation progressively, a very critical challenge lies in accurate prediction of remaining useful life of the systemssubsystems, specifically the electrical powertrain. In case of electric aircrafts, computing remaining flying time is safety-critical, since an aircraft that runs out of power (battery charge) while in the air will eventually lose control leading to catastrophe. In order to tackle and solve the prediction problem, it is essential to have awareness of the current state and health of the system, especially since it is necessary to perform condition-based predictions. To be able to predict the future state of the system, it is also required to possess knowledge of the current and future operations of the vehicle.Our research approach is to develop a system level health monitoring safety indicator either to the pilotautopilot for the electric vehicles which runs estimation and prediction algorithms to estimate remaining useful life of the vehicle e.g. determine state-of-charge in batteries. Given models of the current and future system behavior, a general approach of model-based prognostics can be employed as a solution to the prediction problem and further for decision making.

Prognostics↗

Towards Resilient Autonomous Navigation of Drones

Robots and particularly drones are especially useful in exploring extreme environments that pose hazards to humans. To ensure safe operations in these situations, usually perceptually degraded and without good GNSS, it is critical to have a reliable and robust state estimation solution. The main body of literature in robot state estimation focuses on developing complex algorithms favoring accuracy. Typically, these approaches rely on a strong underlying assumption: the main estimation engine will not fail during operation. In contrast, we propose an architecture that pursues robustness in state estimation by considering redundancy and heterogeneity in both sensing and estimation algorithms. The architecture is designed to expect and detect failures and adapt the behavior of the system to ensure safety. To this end, we present HeRO (Heterogeneous Redundant Odometry): a stack of estimation algorithms running in parallel supervised by a resiliency logic. This logic carries out three main functions: a) perform confidence tests both in data quality and algorithm health; b) re-initialize those algorithms that might be malfunctioning; c) generate a smooth state estimate by multiplexing the inputs based on their quality. The state and quality estimates are used by the guidance and control modules to adapt the mobility behaviors of the system. The validation and utility of the approach are shown with real experiments on a ying robot for the use case of autonomous exploration of subterranean environments, with particular results from the STIX event of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.

Agha-mohammadi, Ali-akbar↗