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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 343 records · Page 19

Investigations of the Effects of Altered Vestibular System Function on Hindlimb Anti-Gravity Muscles

Exposure to different gravitational environments, both the microgravity of spaceflight and the hypergravity of centrifugation, result in altered vestibulo-spinal function which can be reversed by reacclimation to earth gravity (2). Control of orientation, posture, and locomotion are functions of the vestibular system which are altered by changes in gravitational environment. Not only is the vestibular system involved with coordination and proprioception, but the gravity sensing portion of the vestibular system also plays a major role in maintaining muscle tone through projections to spinal cord motoneurons that control anti-gravity muscles. I have been involved with investigations of several aspects of the link between vestibular inputs and muscle morphology and function during my work with Dr. Nancy Daunton this summer and the previous summer. We have prepared a manuscript for submission (4) to Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine based on work that I performed last summer in Dr. Daunton's lab. Techniques developed for that project will be utilized in subsequent experiments begun in the summer of 1998. I have been involved with the development of a pilot project to test the effects of vestibular galvanic stimulation (VGS) on anti-gravity muscles and in another project testing the effects of the ototoxic drug streptomycin on the otolith-spinal reflex and anti-gravity muscle morphology.

Lowery, Mary Sue↗

Photometric Monitoring of Triton at Sommers-Bausch Observatory in 2000

We undertook pilot program to develop an observing and analysis strategy that can be used to measure Triton's B and V albedos with 0.05 magnitude accuracy at moderate-to-small telescopes, under moderate-to-poor seeing conditions. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Young, L. A.↗

An Experimental Study of the Effect of Shared Information on Pilot/Controller Re-Route Negotiation

Air-ground data link systems are being developed to enable pilots and air traffic controllers to share information more fully. The sharing of information is generally expected to enhance their shared situation awareness and foster more collaborative decision making. An exploratory, part-task simulator experiment is described which evaluates the extent to which shared information may lead pilots and controllers to cooperate or compete when negotiating route amendments. The results indicate an improvement in situation awareness for pilots and controllers and a willingness to work cooperatively. Independent of data link considerations, the experiment also demonstrates the value of providing controllers with a good-quality weather representation on their plan view displays. Observed improvements in situation awareness and separation assurance are discussed. It is argued that deployment of this relatively simple, low-risk addition to the plan view displays be accelerated.

Farley, Todd C.↗

Autoreturn Function for a Remotely Piloted Vehicle

An algorithm to maneuver an air vehicle to intercept and follow a pre-planned path while remaining within an arbitrary, closed boundary is outlined. The immediate application is for an autonomous lost-link return-to-runway function for a remotely piloted vehicle being developed by NASA, but other applications are hypothesized. Results of implementation in a flight simulator are given.

McMinn, J. D.↗

Security Verification Techniques Applied to PatchLink COTS Software

Verification of the security of software artifacts is a challenging task. An integrated approach that combines verification techniques can increase the confidence in the security of software artifacts. Such an approach has been developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the University of California at Davis (UC Davis). Two security verification instruments were developed and then piloted on PatchLink's UNIX Agent, a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software product, to assess the value of the instruments and the approach. The two instruments are the Flexible Modeling Framework (FMF) -- a model-based verification instrument (JPL), and a Property-Based Tester (UC Davis). Security properties were formally specified for the COTS artifact and then verified using these instruments. The results were then reviewed to determine the effectiveness of the approach and the security of the COTS product.

patch↗

Gliding Experiments of the Wright Brothers: The Wrights and Flight Research 1899-1908

This viewgraph presentation reviews the Wright Brothers's flight research during the 10 years between 1899 and 1908. The Wright Brothers began their research in flight with gliders. The presentation shows pictures, replicas and characteristics of the gliders that the Wright Brothers used. This presentation is not just a history lesson. In the end it investigates "What Does Flight Research Accomplish?" Flight research can serve many uses, such as Separates the Real from the Imagined, Uncovers the Unexpected and the Overlooked, Forces the Realistic Integration of the Pilot, Forces the Development of Reliable Prediction and Test Processes, Requires Every Problem to Be Addressed, Promotes Technology Transfer, and Builds a Core Technical Team,

Bowers, Al↗

Helicopter Flight Procedures for Community Noise Reduction

A computationally efficient, semiempirical noise model suitable for maneuvering flight noise prediction is used to evaluate the community noise impact of practical variations on several helicopter flight procedures typical of normal operations. Turns, "quick-stops," approaches, climbs, and combinations of these maneuvers are assessed. Relatively small variations in flight procedures are shown to cause significant changes to Sound Exposure Levels over a wide area. Guidelines are developed for helicopter pilots intended to provide effective strategies for reducing the negative effects of helicopter noise on the community. Finally, direct optimization of flight trajectories is conducted to identify low noise optimal flight procedures and quantify the magnitude of community noise reductions that can be obtained through tailored helicopter flight procedures. Physically realizable optimal turns and approaches are identified that achieve global noise reductions of as much as 10 dBA Sound Exposure Level.

Greenwood, Eric↗

Natural Language Based Multimodal Interface for UAV Mission Planning

As the number of viable applications for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems increases at an exponential rate, interfaces that reduce the reliance on highly skilled engineers and pilots must be developed. Recent work aims to make use of common human communication modalities such as speech and gesture. This paper explores a multimodal natural language interface that uses a combination of speech and gesture input modalities to build complex UAV flight paths by defining trajectory segment primitives. Gesture inputs are used to define the general shape of a segment while speech inputs provide additional geometric information needed to fully characterize a trajectory segment. A user study is conducted in order to evaluate the efficacy of the multimodal interface.

Chandarana, Meghan↗

Characterization of Volatiles from Simulated Lunar Highland Melts Under Vacuum

As part of the Artemis program that returns humans to the Moon for sustained presence, the in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) pilot plant is developing hardware to test systems in relevant lunar environments. As this evolves, the ever-growing field of interest requires in-depth understanding of the environment for operations. Lunar regolith contains compounds that can be harvested as resources such as fuel, or life support and construction feedstocks. Therefore, this necessitates an understanding of its constituents and processed by-products under some of the extreme conditions imposed for resource extraction.

Oxygen Extraction↗

Characterization of Volatiles from Simulated Lunar Highland Melts Under Vacuum

As part of the Artemis program that returns humans to the Moon for sustained presence, the in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) pilot plant is developing hardware to test systems in relevant lunar environments. As this evolves, the ever-growing field of interest requires in-depth understanding of the environment for operations. Lunar regolith contains compounds that can be harvested as resources such as fuel, or life support and construction feedstocks. Therefore, this necessitates an understanding of its constituents and processed by-products under some of the extreme conditions imposed for resource extraction.

Oxygen Extraction↗

Digital Engineering Design Center (DEDC): Modelling an ISRU System

The DEDC provides immersive project-based learning on digital engineering toolsets and processes supporting NASA’s digital transformation goals: - Digital Engineering uses authoritative sources of systems' data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support integrated digital approach life cycle activities from concept through disposal. - The digital environment provided includes the state-of-the-art digital engineering suite, Siemens Xcelerator. The pilot project is developing an end-to-end integrated model of an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) system for commodities production: - ISRU uses local resources to provide mission consumables to enable a sustainable Moon or Mars surface presence. - The final digital twin product will include a methanation reactor, condenser, and electrolyzer subsystem.

Digital Engineering Design Center↗

ExMC Systems Engineering Developments

The Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element within the Human Research Program (HRP) applies systems engineering (SE) principles along with the use of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tools to identify and communicate the requirements for medical and crew health and performance (CHP) systems. In the past fiscal year, the MBSE approach sought to advance the digital engineering toolset for medical and CHP system representation. These digital artifacts provide enhanced views of the relationships among requirements, standards, functions, and capabilities, to name a few, that is best suited for a user’s objectives. The MBSE tools and SE practices were applied to the development of the revised Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO) medical system and the Artemis III and IV CHP System models. In addition, a System of Systems concept was integrated into the EIMO model to facilitate the identification of system interfaces that interact with the medical system. Finally, the ExMC SE team has initiated several efforts to bring operationally relevant digital engineering practices to the Human Health and Performance Directorate (HHPD). This included the development of a pilot program within the directorate to help foster utilization of tools such as MagicDraw for system modeling and Power BI for visualizing extracted data in an easily accessible dashboard format. Additionally, with the increase in complexity of the integration effort for Artemis missions, ExMC has endeavored to bring digital engineering strategies to potentially increase efficiency in review processes. This talk will provide a high-level overview of the ExMC SE team accomplishments since the last Investigators’ Workshop, an introduction to upcoming SE talks, and the ongoing systems engineering work.

systems engineering↗

ICAST Solar Projects Case Study

ICAST (International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit social enterprise that has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to implement a ~$2 Million initiative to overcome the hurdles of deploying solar energy for low-income populations. The project will develop, coordinate, and pilot a new approach that partners with local utilities, affordable multifamily housing (MFAH) owners, investors, and other stakeholders, to create a utility-scale program that aggregates demand from MFAH properties into a solar project for the utility to own and manage. This case study is an overview of recent solar efforts by ICAST to inform the current SETO project.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Insights from PPL's DERMS Implementation

PPL Electric Utilities’ Keystone Solar Future Project (KSFP) is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewables, Energy Enabling Extreme Real-time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) grant. The three-year project, beginning in October, 2017, funded an innovative pilot program to develop and evaluate a technology platform and framework for managing high levels of distributed energy resources (DER), and improving future DER interconnection. The KSFP aimed to bridge gaps between existing and future technology, including Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS), by monitoring, managing, and optimizing a system with high penetration of solar and other DER. Specifically, the project worked to make Demand Management Systems (DMS) applications, devices, and real-time communications technology DER-aware to allow for advanced applications for utility operations. Here, by installing and implementing a DERMS, project designers transformed how DERs interact with PPL’s distribution system, offering learnings and results worth sharing industry-wide.

Leader, Jared↗

Artificial Intelligence Application to D and D - 20492

As aging facilities across the DOE complex await decommissioning, there is an ongoing need to understand any changes in the structural conditions. Many of these facilities were built over 50 years ago and, in some cases, these facilities have gone beyond the expected operational lifetime. Many facilities have been placed in a state of 'cold and dark,' sitting unused and awaiting decommissioning. Especially challenging are the aging facilities that provide unique operational/production capabilities to support critical DOE missions and cannot be shut down. In any of these scenarios, the structural integrity of these facilities may become compromised as time passes. It is critical that adequate inspections be performed on a continual basis and that the data collected undergoes sufficient analysis to support timely identification of any new or worsening structural issues as well as prompt needed maintenance and repairs to maintain the facilities in a safe condition. In recent days, Artificial Intelligence (AI) [1] and its application to various domains are growing at fast speed. FIU is performing research in this area and exploring the associated technologies to solve nuclear decommissioning problems. Artificial intelligence refers to the capability of a program to autonomously act, react and adapt to the working environment. AI enables the machine to behave like humans and perform the cognitive functions such as 'learning' and 'problem solving'. AI systems gradually moving from traditional approaches (algorithms and expert systems) towards more efficient and advanced technologies (machine learning [1] and deep learning [2] [3]). AI is the study of algorithms and statistical models that is being used by computers to perform specific tasks without using explicit instructions. FIU is working to develop a pilot-scale infrastructure to implement structural health monitoring using AI technologies with focus on machine learning, deep learning. This research is focused on Computer Vision/Image Classification area of AI applications. This can also be expanded to other areas of AI related to Object Recognition and Character Recognition in images. In addition to utilizing existing data sets, FIU will collect and investigate image and video data using FIU test-bed mockups to monitor structural health of the facility. Resulting data will be processed and analyzed using machine learning/deep learning technologies. The proposed pilot system is intended to serve as a starting point to engage the DOE field sites on related data sets and their decision making needs. It is anticipated that proposed machine learning/deep learning technologies can be effectively employed using anomaly detection to solve EM challenges in surveillance and maintenance of the D and D facilities. FIU will work with research stakeholders to identify applications at various sites and other DOE facilities. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Users guide: The LaRC human-operator-simulator-based pilot model

A Human Operator Simulator (HOS) based pilot model has been developed for use at NASA LaRC for analysis of flight management problems. The model is currently configured to simulate piloted flight of an advanced transport airplane. The generic HOS operator and machine model was originally developed under U.S. Navy sponsorship by Analytics, Inc. and through a contract with LaRC was configured to represent a pilot flying a transport airplane. A version of the HOS program runs in batch mode on LaRC's (60-bit-word) central computer system. This document provides a guide for using the program and describes in some detail the assortment of files used during its operation.

Bogart, E. H.↗

An approach to the multi-axis problem in manual control

The multiaxis control problem is addressed within the context of the optimal pilot model. The problem is developed to provide efficient adaptation of the optimal pilot model to complex aircraft systems and real world, multiaxis tasks. This is accomplished by establishing separability of the longitudinal and lateral control problems subject to the constraints of multiaxis attention and control allocation. Control solution adaptation to the constrained single axis attention allocations is provided by an optimal control frequency response algorithm. An algorithm is developed to solve the multiaxis control problem. The algorithm is then applied to an attitude hold task for a bare airframe fighter aircraft case with interesting multiaxis properties.

Harrington, W. W.↗