Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “synchronization operation”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2

Integrated Control Design for A Partially Turboelectric Aircraft Propulsion System

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) holds great potential for reducing aviation emissions and fuel burn. A variety of EAP architectures have been proposed including partially-turboelectric configurations that combine turbofan engines with motor-driven propulsors. Such architectures exhibit coupling between subsystems and thus require an integrated control solution. To address this need, this paper presents an integrated control design strategy for a commercial single-aisle partially-turboelectric aircraft concept consisting of two wing-mounted turbofan engines and an electric motor driven tailfan propulsor. Within this architecture the turbofans serve the dual purpose of generating thrust and supplying mechanical offtake power used to generate electricity for the tailfan motor. The propulsion control system is tasked with coordinating turbofan and tailfan operation under both steady-state and transient scenarios. The paper introduces a linear state-space representation of the architecture reflecting the coupling between the turbofan and tailfan subsystems along with loop transfer functions reflecting open- and closed-loop system dynamics. Also discussed is an applied strategy for scheduling the tailfan setpoint command based on the average sensed fan speed of the two turbofans. This approach ensures synchronized operation of the turbofan and tailfan subsystems while also allowing the turbofan fuel control design to be simplified. Performance of the integrated control design is assessed through a real-time hardware-in-the-loop test conducted at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed. During this test a scaled version of the electrical system and turbomachinery shaft dynamics were implemented in electrical machine hardware and evaluated under closed-loop control. Results from this facility test are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the applied integrated control design approach under steady-state and transient scenarios including a full-flight mission profile.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Integrated Control Design for A Partially Turboelectric Aircraft Propulsion System

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) holds great potential for reducing aviation emissions and fuel burn. A variety of EAP architectures have been proposed including partially-turboelectric configurations that combine turbofan engines with motor-driven propulsors. Such architectures exhibit coupling between subsystems and thus require an integrated control solution. To address this need, this paper presents an integrated control design strategy for a commercial single-aisle partially-turboelectric aircraft concept consisting of two wing-mounted turbofan engines and an electric motor driven tailfan propulsor. Within this architecture the turbofans serve the dual purpose of generating thrust and supplying mechanical offtake power used to generate electricity for the tailfan motor. The propulsion control system is tasked with coordinating turbofan and tailfan operation under both steady-state and transient scenarios. The paper introduces a linear state-space representation of the architecture reflecting the coupling between the turbofan and tailfan subsystems along with loop transfer functions reflecting open- and closed-loop system dynamics. Also discussed is an applied strategy for scheduling the tailfan setpoint command based on the average sensed fan speed of the two turbofans. This approach ensures synchronized operation of the turbofan and tailfan subsystems while also allowing the turbofan fuel control design to be simplified. Performance of the integrated control design is assessed through a real-time hardware-in-the-loop test conducted at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed. During this test a scaled version of the electrical system and turbomachinery shaft dynamics were implemented in electrical machine hardware and evaluated under closed-loop control. Results from this facility test are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the applied integrated control design approach under steady-state and transient scenarios including a full-flight mission profile.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Integrated Control Design for A Partially Turboelectric Aircraft Propulsion System

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) holds great potential for reducing aviation emissions and fuel burn. A variety of EAP architectures have been proposed including partially-turboelectric configurations that combine turbofan engines with motor-driven propulsors. Such architectures exhibit coupling between subsystems and thus require an integrated control solution. To address this need, this paper presents an integrated control design strategy for a commercial single-aisle partially-turboelectric aircraft concept consisting of two wing-mounted turbofan engines and an electric motor driven tailfan propulsor. Within this architecture the turbofans serve the dual purpose of generating thrust and supplying mechanical offtake power used to generate electricity for the tailfan motor. The propulsion control system is tasked with coordinating turbofan and tailfan operation under both steady-state and transient scenarios. The paper introduces a linear state-space representation of the architecture reflecting the coupling between the turbofan and tailfan subsystems along with loop transfer functions reflecting open- and closed-loop system dynamics. Also discussed is an applied strategy for scheduling the tailfan setpoint command based on the average sensed fan speed of the two turbofans. This approach ensures synchronized operation of the turbofan and tailfan subsystems while also allowing the turbofan fuel control design to be simplified. Performance of the integrated control design is assessed through a real-time hardware-in-the-loop test conducted at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed. During this test a scaled version of the electrical system and turbomachinery shaft dynamics were implemented in electrical machine hardware and evaluated under closed-loop control. Results from this facility test are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the applied integrated control design approach under steady-state and transient scenarios including a full-flight mission profile.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Accelerating Parallel Applications in Cloud Platforms via Adaptive Time-Slice Control

Cloud platforms can provide flexible and cost-effective environments for parallel applications. However, the resource over-commitment issues, i.e., cloud providers often provide much more executable virtual CPUs than available physical CPUs, still impede the synchronization operations of parallel applications, causing severe performance degradation. Existing methods optimize parallel applications by promoting the priorities of involved VMs. They cannot fully explore the performance of parallel applications, because they ignore the time-slice requirements of different phases of parallel applications. Furthermore, non-parallel applications experience unsatisfied performance because of low scheduling priorities. Given empirical analysis on time-slices of virtual machines (VMs), we find that shortening time-slices can mitigate synchronization overhead which incurs during communication phases, while over-short time-slices cause frequent cache misses in computation phases. Accordingly, we propose an Adaptive Time-slice Control (ATC) mechanism. ATC first detects the phases of parallel applications based on lock latency or cache misses. Then, ATC shortens time-slices during communication phases and prolongs time-slices during computation phases for parallel applications, and sets a uniform time-slice for non-parallel applications. Finally, we evaluate ATC using seven well-known benchmarks with 25+ applications. Experiments show that ATC obtains 1.5-75x performance gain for running parallel applications than state-of-the-art solutions, with nearly unaffected impact on non-parallel applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

X-SAR: The X-band synthetic aperture radar on board the Space Shuttle

The X-band synthetic aperture radar (X-SAR) is the German/Italian contribution to the NASA/JPL Shuttle Radar Lab missions as part of the preparation for the Earth Observation System (EOS) program. The Shuttle Radar Lab is a combination of several radars: an L-band (1.2 GHz) and a C-band (5.3 GHz) multipolarization SAR known as SIR-C (Shuttle Imaging Radar); and an X-band (9.6 GHz) vertically polarized SAR which will be operated synchronously over the same target areas to deliver calibrated multifrequency and multipolarization SAR data at multiple incidence angles from space. A joint German/Italian project office at DARA (German Space Agency) is responsible for the management of the X-SAR project. The space hardware has been developed and manufactured under industrial contract by Dornier and Alenia Spazio. Besides supporting all the technical and scientific tasks, DLR, in cooperation with ASI (Agencia Spaziale Italiano) is responsible for mission operation, calibration, and high precision SAR processing. In addition, DLR developed an airborne X-band SAR to support the experimenters with campaigns to prepare for the missions. The main advantage of adding a shorter wavelength (3 cm) radar to the SIR-C radars is the X-band radar's weaker penetration into vegetation and soil and its high sensitivity to surface roughness and associated phenomena. The performance of each of the three radars is comparable with respect to radiometric and geometric resolution.

Werner, Marian U.↗

Centering a DDR Strobe in the Middle of a Data Packet

The Orion CEV Northstar ASIC (application- specific integrated circuit) project required a DDR (double data rate) memory bus driver/receiver (DDR PHY block) to interface with external DDR memory. The DDR interface (JESD79C) is based on a source synchronous strobe (DQS\) that is sent along with each packet of data (DQ). New data is provided concurrently with each edge of strobe and is sent irregularly. In order to capture this data, the strobe needs to be delayed and used to latch the data into a register. A circuit solves the need for training a DDR PRY block by incorporating a PVT-compensated delay element in the strobe path. This circuit takes an external reference clock signal and uses the regular clock to calibrate a known delay through a data path. The compensated delay DQS signal is then used to capture the DQ data in a normal register. This register structure can be configured as a FIFO (first in first out), in order to transfer data from the DDR domain to the system clock domain. This design is different in that it does not rely upon the need for training the system response, nor does it use a PLL (phase locked loop) or a DLL (delay locked loop) to provide an offset of the strobe signal. The circuit is created using standard ASIC building blocks, plus the PVT (process, voltage, and temperature) compensated delay line. The design uses a globally available system clock as a reference, alleviating the need to operate synchronously with the remote memory. The reference clock conditions the PVT compensated delay line to provide a pre-determined amount of delay to any data signal that passes through this delay line. The delay line is programmed in degrees of offset, so that one could think of the clock period representing 360deg of delay. In an ideal environment, delaying the strobe 1/4 of a clock cycle (90deg) would place the strobe in the middle of the data packet. This delayed strobe can then be used to clock the data into a register, satisfying setup and hold requirements of the system.

Johnson, Michael↗

Metamodels for Rapid Analysis of Large Sets of Building Designs for Robotic Constructability: Technology Demonstration Using the NASA 3D Printed Mars Habitat Challenge

Disruptive robotic construction technologies such as additive deposition of cementitious materials like concrete (or "3D concrete printing") require the synchronous operation of multiple pieces of equipment in the production setup. In such an environment, it is crucial to simulate the robotic motions (for toolpath clashes) and the cementitious material behavior (for toolpath failures) to ensure fail-proof constructability of the envisioned building geometry. However, toolpath clash detection requires 4D simulations of the production setup, which are computationally graphics intensive, whereas toolpath failure detection requires actual 3D printing of test parts from the geometry to identify areas prone to failure while 3D printing, which is physically tedious. Both these processes, being computationally and physically intensive, have largely curtailed designers from simulating and exploring large sets of design options with varying geometries and toolpath configurations. To overcome this and allow designers to explore large sets of design possibilities, this paper proposes two novel computational metamodels capable of performing robotic toolpath clash detection and failure detection with significantly reduced times than the earlier approaches. The developed metamodels were used to rapidly simulate large sets of building design options for robotic constructability in the NASA 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Challenge.

clash detection↗

Asynchronous Iterative Solvers for Extreme-Scale Computing

The Asynchronous Iterative Solvers for Extreme-Scale Computing (AsyncIS) project aims to explore more efficient numerical algorithms by decreasing their overhead. AsyncIS does this by replacing the outer Krylov subspace solver with an asynchronous optimized Schwarz method, thereby removing the global synchronization and bulk synchronous operations typically used in numerical codes. AsyncIS—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded collaboration between Georgia Tech, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Temple University, and Sandia National Laboratories—also focuses on the development and optimization of asynchronous preconditioners (i.e., preconditioners that are generated and/or applied in an asynchronous fashion). The novel preconditioning algorithms that provide fine-grained parallelism enable preconditioned Krylov solvers to run efficiently on large-scale distributed systems and manycore accelerators like GPUs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

The Architectural Dynamics of the Bacterial Flagellar Motor Switch

The rotary bacterial flagellar motor is remarkable in biochemistry for its highly synchronized operation and amplification during switching of rotation sense. The motor is part of the flagellar basal body, a complex multi-protein assembly. Sensory and energy transduction depends on a core of six proteins that are adapted in different species to adjust torque and produce diverse switches. Motor response to chemotactic and environmental stimuli is driven by interactions of the core with small signal proteins. The initial protein interactions are propagated across a multi-subunit cytoplasmic ring to switch torque. Torque reversal triggers structural transitions in the flagellar filament to change motile behavior. Subtle variations in the core components invert or block switch operation. The mechanics of the flagellar switch have been studied with multiple approaches, from protein dynamics to single molecule and cell biophysics. The architecture, driven by recent advances in electron cryo-microscopy, is available for several species. Computational methods have correlated structure with genetic and biochemical databases. The design principles underlying the basis of switch ultra-sensitivity and its dependence on motor torque remain elusive, but tantalizing clues have emerged. This review aims to consolidate recent knowledge into a unified platform that can inspire new research strategies.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Demonstrating the Need for Adaptive Droop Control for Grid-Forming Inverters in Islanded and Grid-Connected Modes

This paper demonstrates the need of adaptive droop of grid-forming (GFM) inverters operating in different operation modes (grid-connected and islanded). A pure hardware microgrid comprising multiple grid-forming (GFM) inverters from different vendors, multiple grid-following inverters, and a diesel generator is used for the demonstration. The key findings are summarized as follows: Tighter droop slope should be used in the islanded mode, and looser droop slope should be used in the grid-connected mode to ensure stability. It is important to have adaptive droop control in GFM inverters to ensure stable and reliable microgrid operation.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Synchronous charge-constrained electroquasistatic generator

Electroquasistatic generator depends on electroquasistatic interactions to provide synchronous operation. The generator employs a moving insulating belt, with an ac electric potential source to establish positively and negatively charged regions on the belt. The field effect of the charges on the belt creates an ac output voltage.

Melcher, J. R.↗

Multispectral facsimile reproducer

Facsimile reproducer records spatially well-registered true-color and false-color video data on tape. Proposed optical arrangement allows light sources to be adjusted along the mirror scanning direction in such a manner that no electronic delays are required if the reproducer is operated synchronously with the camera.

Burcher, E. E.↗

Improved convolutional coding

Convolutional coding, used to upgrade digital data transmission under adverse signal conditions, has been improved by a method which ensures data transitions, permitting bit synchronizer operation at lower signal levels. Method also increases decoding ability by removing ambiguous condition.

Doland, G. D.↗

An all digital phase locked loop for FM demodulation.

A phase-locked loop designed with all-digital circuitry which avoids certain problems, and a digital voltage controlled oscillator algorithm are described. The system operates synchronously and performs all required digital calculations within one sampling period, thereby performing as a real-time special-purpose computer. The SNR ratio is computed for frequency offsets and sinusoidal modulation, and experimental results verify the theoretical calculations.

Greco, J.↗

Advanced Avionics Breadboard Executive Design and Implementation

The advanced avionics breadboard (AAB) executive evolved from an effort to design and develop an avionics system. This executive is unique in that it supervises a triple redundant avionics computer system. Three IBM System 4 Pi/CP computers, operating synchronously and executing identical software, comprise the central processors which route data to and from a data bus via an input/output controller. The executive's basic function is to provide application programs with an efficient software structure within which to perform specific avionics application tasks. Although implemented in a triplex data management system, the AAB executive contains the flexibility to be adapted to other systems with minimal change.

Adams, L. R.↗

Drive Train Normal Modes Analysis for the ERDA/NASA 100-Kilowatt Wind Turbine Generator

Natural frequencies, as a function of power were determined using a finite element model. Operating conditions investigated were operation with a resistive electrical load and operation synchronized to an electrical utility grid. The influence of certain drive train components on frequencies and mode shapes is shown. An approximate method for obtaining drive train natural frequencies is presented.

Sullivan, T. L.↗

The indirect binary n-cube array

The array is built from a large number (hundreds or thousands) of microprocessors or microcomputers linked through a switching network into an indirect binary n-cube array. Control is two level, the array operating synchronously, or in lock step, at the higher level, and with the broadcast commands being locally interpreted into rewritable microinstruction streams in the microprocessors and in the switch control units. The key to the design is the switching array. By properly programming it, the array can be made into a wide variety of virtual arrays which are well adapted to a wide range of applications. It is believed that the flexibility of the switching array can be used to obtain fault avoidance, which appears necessary in any highly parallel design.

Pease, M. C.↗

Monitoring of particulate contamination and background brightness from IECM based instrumentation

Of particular concern to the astronomical community is the effect of Shuttle Transportation System induced contamination in the form of individual particles and general background on astronomical experiments. In an effort to investigate this problem, two camera/photometers in the Induced Environment Contamination Monitor (IECM) will be used to determine the size and velocity distribution of contaminant particles, their origin, and the extent of sunlit background brightness resulting from spacecraft contamination. The cameras will operate synchronously as a stereo pair to make continuous photographic measurements throughout the missions.

Clifton, K. S.↗