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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Autonomous Radiation Mapping and Quantification using an Unmanned Ground Vehicle. Part II - Autonomous Navigation

Nuclear sites across the Unites States and other nations in the world, are prone to extreme radiation effects. To understand the radiation hazards, plan the cleanup efforts; and to meet the quality standards and guidelines, it is important to accurately characterize any nuclear facility. One of the current methods in characterizing facilities is the use of advanced autonomous systems. These are safe, efficient, and cost-effective tools, which can safely deploy state-of-the-art instrumentation without exposing workers to radiation risks. Conventional methods of taking radiation measurements by hand within or around the containment areas, and analyzing the collected data to obtain the result are: Ineffective, Puts scientists at risk of Radiation, Not cost-effective. The platform uses the Robotic Operating Systems (ROS) to integrate multiple sensors seamlessly. It can operate near real time by using a distributed processing system to handle large amounts of data: Surrounding cameras, A multi-channel 3D Lidar, Manipulator arm, High-performance gamma-ray spectrometer.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2023

Toward Autonomous Field Inspection of CSP Collectors With a Polarimetric Imaging Drone

We developed a polarimetric imaging drone to perform field inspections of heliostats and carried out field tests at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF). The preliminary results show that Degree of Linear Polarization (DOLP) and Angle of Polarization (AOP) images greatly enhanced the edge detection results compared with the conventional visible images, supporting fast and accurate detection of heliostat mirror edges and cracks. The system holds the promise to enable future automated detection of heliostats optical errors and mirror defects.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Perception Testing in Fog for Autonomous Flight

As the path towards Urban Air Mobility (UAM) continues to take shape, there are outstanding technical challenges to achieving safe and effective air transportation operations under this new paradigm. To inform and guide technology development for UAM, NASA is investigating the current state-of-the-art in key technology areas including traffic management, detect-and-avoid, and autonomy. In support of this effort, a new perception testbed was developed at NASA Ames Research Center to collect data from an array of sensing systems representative of those that could be found on a future UAM vehicle. This testbed, featuring a Light-Detection-and-Ranging (LIDAR) instrument, a long-wave infrared sensor, and a visible spectrum camera was deployed for a multiday test campaign in the Fog Chamber at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), in Albuquerque, New Mexico. During the test campaign, fog conditions were created for tests with targets including a human, a resolution chart, and a small unmanned aerial vehicle (sUAV). Here, this paper describes in detail, the developed perception testbed, the experimental setup in the fog chamber, the resulting data, and presents an initial result from analysis of the data with the evaluation of methods to increase contrast through filtering techniques.

aeronautics↗
DOE OSTI2023

Opinions from Users Across the Lifespan about Fully Autonomous and Rideshare Vehicles with Associated Features

Fully autonomous vehicles have the potential to fundamentally transform the future transportation system. While previous research has examined individuals’ perceptions towards fully autonomous vehicles, a complete understanding of attitudes and opinions across the lifespan is unknown. Therefore, individuals’ awareness, acceptance, and preferences towards autonomous vehicles were obtained from 75 participants through interviews with three diverse groups of participants: 20 automotive engineering graduate students who were building an autonomous concept vehicle, 21 non-technical adults, and 34 senior citizens. The results showed that regardless of age, an individual’s readiness to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle and the vehicle’s requirements were influenced by the users’ understanding of autonomous vehicles. All of the engineering students understand what a fully autonomous vehicle is and this group was the most willing to ride especially compared to the seniors, where only half of the seniors knew what a fully autonomous vehicle is and 58.8% were not at all ready to ride one. The desire to have a manual control option or the ability to override the vehicle was common (90% of the engineering students, 95.2% of the adults, and 82.4% of the seniors), especially for individuals who reported not being ready to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle. The majority of all three groups of participants (85% of the engineering students, 81% of the adults, and 52.9% of the seniors) considered it essential that the vehicle should convey information about the vehicle’s status and intended behavior. Diagnostic information about the vehicle was desired by the engineering students (71.4%), who had a technical understanding of autonomous vehicles and current automotive related technologies. When autonomous vehicles are available, most participants anticipate preferring to use them as a rideshare service model (75% of the engineering students, 38% of the adults, and 27% of the seniors) rather than owning (5% of the engineering students, 19% of the adults, and 21% of the seniors) the autonomous vehicle themselves. Regarding the topic of sharing rides with strangers, both the automotive engineering students (90%) and the adults (52.6%) were comfortable with the idea of pooled rideshare in comparison to the seniors (29.4%). In future efforts, it will be important to include potential autonomous vehicle users of a wide age range as well as physical, cognitive, and visual abilities.

Gangadharaiah, Rakesh↗
DOE OSTI2020

Integrating Commercial Ready Autonomous Robotic Platforms to Enhance Worker Safety and Efficiency - 20053

This paper will explore the challenges and triumphs of implementing advanced robotic systems and the supporting technology for the waste management industry. Deployment-ready solutions for autonomous robotic platforms are new to the radioactive waste management industry and have been slow to implement across the complex. Specifically, it will explore Hanford Tank Operations Contractor's implementation of ground-based autonomous robotic platforms to enhance workforce safety and efficiency. The first objective of the project is to demonstrate safe operation of autonomous instrumented robots, followed by a scaling up of capabilities for the platform to meet any additional requests of internal stakeholders. Autonomous robotics platforms offer a fantastic range of capabilities that will aid in decreasing long-term liability of radioactive waste management industry by enhancing clean-up efforts and worker safety. Over the past five years, deployment-ready solutions for autonomous robotic platforms have come a long way. Autonomous robotic platforms are increasingly available to purchase from many vendors, often for prices under $100,000. Additionally, the vendors who produce these products are efficient in accommodating customized solutions to unique challenges, such as those often found in the radioactive waste management industry. However, the newness of this technology to the radioactive waste management industry and has resulted in a slow implementation across the complex. This paper will explore the challenges and triumphs of implementing advanced robotic systems and supporting technology for the waste management industry. Specifically, it will explore Hanford Tank Operations Contractor's implementation of ground based autonomous robotic platforms to enhance workforce safety and efficiency. While the company has utilized robots in many parts of the tank farms mission, this was first attempted in the deployment of an autonomous platform that required no operator with only minor maintenance and created challenges not yet encountered. These challenges included stakeholder buy-in, operational safety, procurement uncertainties, adaption of 'off the shelf products, overcoming the 'Fukushima complexity' perception, security concerns, and the initial criteria down select. Hanford Tank Operations Contractor's management identified the need for a workforce protecting low cost robotics solution in the fall of 2017. The project scope generated was part of the response to the Tank Vapor Assessment Team recommendation to enhance the safety of the workforce by utilizing new technology. Since the projects inception, it has been incorporated into the Tank Stewardship Plan. This project was unique to Hanford Tank Operations Contractor, as the company does not frequently incorporate advanced technology for field deployment quickly. The project was also progressive to the Hanford Tank Operations Contractor as it functions as a partnership project with a local university. The first objective of the project is to demonstrate safe operations of autonomous instrumented robotics, monitoring and collecting data, and the wireless transmission of data to a central computing system. Following the completion of this first objective, the project will scale up capabilities of the platform to meet the requests of additional internal stakeholders throughout the tank farms - including completion of specific in-field tasks. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Future Vision for Autonomous Ocean Observations

Autonomous platforms already make observations over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, measuring salinity, temperature, nitrate, pressure, oxygen, biomass; and many other parameters. However, the observations are not comprehensive. Future autonomous systems need to be more affordable, more modular, more capable and easier to operate. Creative new types of platforms and new compact, low power, calibrated and stable sensors are under development to expand autonomous observations. Communications and recharging need bandwidth and power which can be supplied by standardized docking stations. In situ power generation will also extend endurance for many types of autonomous platforms, particularly autonomous surface vehicles. Standardized communications will improve ease of use, interoperability, and enable coordinated behaviors. Improved autonomy and communications will enable adaptive networks of autonomous platforms. Improvements in autonomy will have three aspects: hardware, control, and operations. As sensors and platforms have more onboard processing capability and energy capacity, more measurements become possible. Control systems and software will have the capability to address more complex states and sophisticated reactions to sensor inputs, which allows the platform to handle a wider variety of circumstances without direct operator control. Operational autonomy is increased by reducing operating costs. To maximize the potential of autonomous observations new standards and best practices are needed. In some applications, focus on common platforms and volume purchases could lead to significant cost reductions. Cost reductions could enable order-of-magnitude increases in platform operations and increase sampling resolution for a given level of investment. Energy harvesting technologies should be integral to the system design, for sensors, platforms, vehicles, and docking stations. Connections are needed between the marine energy and ocean observing communities to coordinate among funding sources, researchers, and end users. Regional teams should work with global organizations such as IOC/GOOS in governance development. International networks such as EGO for the emerging glider operations should also provide a forum for addressing governance. Networks of multiple vehicles can improve operational efficiencies and transform operational patterns. There is a need to develop operational architectures at regional and global scales to provide a backbone for active networking of autonomous platforms.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2025

GIScience in the era of Artificial Intelligence: a research agenda towards Autonomous GIS

The advent of generative AI exemplified by large language models (LLMs) opens new ways to represent and compute geographic information and transcends the process of geographic knowledge production, driving geographic information systems (GIS) towards autonomous GIS. Leveraging LLMs as the decision core, autonomous GIS can independently generate and execute geoprocessing workflows to perform spatial analysis. In this vision paper, we further elaborate on the concept of autonomous GIS and present a conceptual framework that defines its five autonomous goals, five levels of autonomy, five core functions, and three operational scales. We demonstrate how autonomous GIS could perform geospatial data retrieval, spatial analysis, and map making with four proof-of-concept GIS agents. We conclude by identifying critical challenges and future research directions, including fine-tuning and self-growing decision-cores, autonomous modelling, and examining the societal and practical implications of autonomous GIS. By establishing the groundwork for a paradigm shift in GIScience, this paper envisions a future where GIS moves beyond traditional workflows to autonomously reason, derive, innovate, and advance geospatial solutions to pressing global challenges. Meanwhile, we emphasize that as we design and deploy increasingly intelligent geospatial systems, we carry a responsibility to ensure they are developed in socially responsible ways, serve the public good, and support the continued value of human geographic insight in an AI-augmented future.

Autonomous GI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Concepts for Autonomous Operation of Microreactors

Microreactor concepts have seen increasing interest in recent years given their potential use for meeting energy needs in remote and grid-isolated communities. Given the small power outputs of microreactors and the potential for remote siting, there is a need to reduce operational staffing levels to improve their economic viability. A key enabling technology for this purpose is autonomous control that enables autonomous operation of microreactors. While several options for autonomous control exist, the level of human operator involvement in operational decision making needs to be defined as part of the system design process. Once this separation of function is achieved, several options exist for autonomous control ranging from simple automation of some procedures to fully autonomous operational mode decision making and execution.A critical aspect of autonomous decision making is the ability to have as complete an awareness of the system state as possible. In addition to data on temperature, pressure, flow, and neutron flux, measurements of the condition of important components will be necessary. This type of information will allow the autonomous control system to adapt its decision making to any changing conditions within the reactor, thereby not compromising safety while continuing to operate for as long as possible. Several technical advances are needed before widespread use of autonomous control in microreactors. These include sensor and instrumentation technologies that are capable of long term, unattended operation in harsh environments, technologies for inferring the state of the microreactor system or subsystems in an automated fashion, algorithms for predictive decision making that account for the assessed condition of the microreactor subsystems as well as the potential impact on those components of any operational decision, and actuators and control system hardware that are also long-lived in a harsh environment. In addition, given the need to remotely monitor the operations, cybersecurity requirements will likely need to be imposed to ensure secure operations.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗