MAGIC - A machine for automatic graphics interface to a computer.
Salient hardware, software, and operational features of machine for automatic graphics interface to computer /MAGIC/ operating display system
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NASA Tech Briefs, March 2011
Topics covered include: Optimal Tuner Selection for Kalman-Filter-Based Aircraft Engine Performance Estimation; Airborne Radar Interferometric Repeat-Pass Processing; Plug-and-Play Environmental Monitoring Spacecraft Subsystem; Power-Combined GaN Amplifier with 2.28-W Output Power at 87 GHz; Wallops Ship Surveillance System; Source Lines Counter (SLiC) Version 4.0; Guidance, Navigation, and Control Program; Single-Frame Terrain Mapping Software for Robotic Vehicles; Auto Draw from Excel Input Files; Observation Scheduling System; CFDP for Interplanetary Overlay Network; X-Windows Widget for Image Display; Binary-Signal Recovery; Volumetric 3D Display System with Static Screen; MMIC Replacement for Gunn Diode Oscillators; Feature Acquisition with Imbalanced Training Data; Mount Protects Thin-Walled Glass or Ceramic Tubes from Large Thermal and Vibration Loads; Carbon Nanotube-Based Structural Health Monitoring Sensors; Wireless Inductive Power Device Suppresses Blade Vibrations; Safe, Advanced, Adaptable Isolation System Eliminates the Need for Critical Lifts; Anti-Rotation Device Releasable by Insertion of a Tool; A Magnetically Coupled Cryogenic Pump; Single Piezo-Actuator Rotary-Hammering Drill; Fire-Retardant Polymeric Additives; Catalytic Generation of Lift Gases for Balloons; Ionic Liquids to Replace Hydrazine; Variable Emittance Electrochromics Using Ionic Electrolytes and Low Solar Absorptance Coatings; Spacecraft Radiator Freeze Protection Using a Regenerative Heat Exchanger; Multi-Mission Power Analysis Tool; Correction for Self-Heating When Using Thermometers as Heaters in Precision Control Applications; Gravitational Wave Detection with Single-Laser Atom Interferometers; Titanium Alloy Strong Back for IXO Mirror Segments; Improved Ambient Pressure Pyroelectric Ion Source; Multi-Modal Image Registration and Matching for Localization of a Balloon on Titan; Entanglement in Quantum-Classical Hybrid; Algorithm for Autonomous Landing; Quantum-Classical Hybrid for Information Processing; Small-Scale Dissipation in Binary-Species Transitional Mixing Layers; Superpixel-Augmented Endmember Detection for Hyperspectral Images; Coding for Parallel Links to Maximize the Expected Value of Decodable Messages; and Microwave Tissue Soldering for Immediate Wound Closure.
Source record↗
Evolving Our Evaluation of Luminous Environments
The advance in solid state light emitting technologies and optics for lighting and visual communication necessitates the evaluation of how NASA envisions spacecraft lighting architectures and how NASA uses industry standards for the design and evaluation of lighting systems. Current NASA lighting standards and requirements for existing architectures focus on the separate ability of a lighting system to throw light against a surface or the ability of a display system to provide the appropriate visual contrast. This project investigated large luminous surface lamps as an alternative or supplement to overhead lighting. The efficiency of the technology was evaluated for uniformity and power consumption.
Clark, Toni↗
Evolving Our Evaluation of Lighting Environments Project
Imagine you are an astronaut on their 100th day of your three year exploration mission. During your daily routine to the small hygiene compartment of the spacecraft, you realize that no matter what you do, your body blocks the light from the lamp. You can clearly see your hands or your toes but not both! What were those design engineers thinking! It would have been nice if they could have made the walls glow instead! The reason the designers were not more innovative is that their interpretation of the system lighting requirements didn't allow them to be so! Currently, our interior spacecraft lighting standards and requirements are written around the concept of a quantity of light illuminating a spacecraft surface. The natural interpretation for the engineer is that a lamp that throws light to the surface is required. Because of certification costs, only one lamp is designed and small rooms can wind up with lamps that may be inappropriate for the room architecture. The advances in solid state light emitting technologies and optics for lighting and visual communication necessitates the evaluation of how NASA envisions spacecraft lighting architectures and how NASA uses industry standards for the design and evaluation of lighting system. Current NASA lighting standards and requirements for existing architectures focus on the separate ability of a lighting system to throw light against a surface or the ability of a display system to provide the appropriate visual contrast. Realization that these systems can be integrated is not realized. The result is that the systems are developed independent from one another and potential efficiencies that could be realized from borrowing from the concept of one technology and applying it for the purpose of the other does not occur. This project investigated the possibility of incorporating large luminous surface lamps as an alternative or supplement to overhead lighting. We identified existing industry standards for architectural luminous or brightness uniformity as part of a lighting system definition. The efficiency of the surface lighting technology was evaluated for uniformity and power consumption. Finally, the team investigated possible performance savings if the walls were made to glow via a self luminous surface system instead of creating brightness by use of direct lighting of a highly reflective diffuse surface.
Terrier, Douglas↗
New capabilities and recent research programs of the NASA/Army CH-47B variable-stability helicopter
The CH-47B is the third in a series of variable-stability helicopters developed and operated by NASA since 1952 to investigate helicopter and VTOL handling qualities. Recently, several new capabilities were added to this helicopter to enable it to better support new and evolving research requirements. The installation of a programmable force-feel system for the evaluation pilot's conventional cyclic stick, and a four-axis side-stick controller permit a range of in-flight investigations concerning manipulator characteristics and augmentation system features that had not been possible with earlier NASA research helicopters. A recently installed color electronic display system with a programmable symbol generator will permit the investigation of display formats for a variety of VTOL and helicopter missions. Finally, a powerful new general-purpose flight computer is now in operation. It is programmable in high-level languages and will provide more efficient support of research programs. In addition to these new hardware capabilities, flight-control software has been developed to improve the in-flight simulation capability of the aircraft. A brief description of the CH-47B's variable-stability research equipment is provided, recent research programs are summarized, and some remarks concerning the potential of the helicopter are presented.
Hindson, W. S.↗
Space Shuttle interactive meteorological data system study
Although focused toward the operational meteorological support review and definition of an operational meteorological interactive data display systems (MIDDS) requirements for the Space Meteorology Support Group at NASA/Johnson Space Center, the total operational meteorological support requirements and a systems concept for the MIDDS network integration of NASA and Air Force elements to support the National Space Transportation System are also addressed.
Young, J. T.↗
Energy spectrum and flux of 3- to 20-Mev neutrons and 1- to 10-Mev gamma rays in the atmosphere
An experiment is described which was designed to measure the neutron and gamma ray energy spectrums and fluxes in the energy intervals 3 to 20 MeV and 1 to 10 MeV, respectively. In addition, from the 3 to 20-MeV proton recoil spectrums it is possible to infer the shape of the neutron energy spectrum from 20 to 50 MeV. The detecting system utilized a separate charged particle rejection scheme and a two-parameter display system for the output from the pulse shape discrimination which separated gamma rays from neutrons (n). Two long-duration flights were made with this detector in 1970 at Palestine, Tex. (P sub c = 4.6 Gv) and at Ft. Churchill, Canada (P sub c = 0.3 Gv).
Klumpar, D. M.↗
A real-time, portable, microcomputer-based jet engine simulator
Modern piloted flight simulators require detailed models of many aircraft components, such as the airframe, propulsion system, flight deck controls and instrumentation, as well as motion drive and visual display systems. The amount of computing power necessary to implement these systems can exceed that offered by dedicated mainframe computers. One approach to this problem is through the use of distributed computing, where parts of the simulation are assigned to computing subsystems, such as microcomputers. One such subsystem, such as microcomputers. One such subsystem, a real-time, portable, microcomputer-based jet engine simulator, is described in this paper. The simulator will be used at the NASA Ames Vertical Motion Simulator facility to perform calculations previously done on the facility's mainframe computer. The mainframe will continue to do all other system calculations and will interface to the engine simulator through analog I/0. The engine simulator hardware includes a 16-bit microcomputer and floating-point coprocessor. There is an 8 channel analog input board and an 8 channel analog output board. A model of a small turboshaft engine/control is coded in floating-point FORTRAN. The FORTRAN code and a data monitoring program run under the control of an assembly language real-time executive. The monitoring program allows the user to isplay and/or modify simulator variables on-line through a data terminal. A dual disk drive system is used for mass storage of programs and data. The CP/M-86 operating system provides file management and overall system control. The frame time for the simulator is 30 milliseconds, which includes all analog I/0 operations.
Blech, R. A.↗
Visual enhancements in pick-and-place tasks - Human operators controlling a simulated cylindrical manipulator
A teleoperation simulator has been constructed with vector display system, joysticks, and a simulated cylindrical manipulator, in order to quantitatively evaluate various display conditions. The first of two experiments thus conducted investigated the effects of perspective parameter variations on human operators' pick-and-place performance, using a monoscopic perspective display. The second experiment involved visual enhancements of the monoscopic perspective display, by adding a grid and reference lines, by comparison with visual enhancements of a stereoscopic display; results indicate that stereoscopy generally permits superior pick-and-place performance, but that monoscopy nevertheless allows equivalent performance when defined with appropriate perspective parameter values and adequate visual enhancements.
Kim, Won S.↗
Airplane-Acceleration Display For Low-Gravity Research
Bar-graph display facilitates precise control of trajectories. Overall display system includes accelerometer block, power-supply-and-interface box, thrust-axis display, and pitch-and-lateral-axes display. Accelerometer block includes three servoaccelerometers orthogonally mounted on adjustable triaxial base allowing fine alignment of accelerometers with respect to airplane. Accelerometer block and power-supply-and-interface box located near center of gravity of airplane in lugguage area. LED bar-graph displays take up less panel space and easier to align with axes represented. No moving parts and not subject to parallax. With help of display, pilot adheres to predetermined fraction of g, with minimal lateral acceleration.
Millis, Marc G.↗
Visual enhancements in pick-and-place tasks: Human operators controlling a simulated cylindrical manipulator
A teleoperation simulator was constructed with vector display system, joysticks, and a simulated cylindrical manipulator, in order to quantitatively evaluate various display conditions. The first of two experiments conducted investigated the effects of perspective parameter variations on human operators' pick-and-place performance, using a monoscopic perspective display. The second experiment involved visual enhancements of the monoscopic perspective display, by adding a grid and reference lines, by comparison with visual enhancements of a stereoscopic display; results indicate that stereoscopy generally permits superior pick-and-place performance, but that monoscopy nevertheless allows equivalent performance when defined with appropriate perspective parameter values and adequate visual enhancements.
Kim, Won S.↗
TDRSS momentum unload planning
A knowledge-based system is described which monitors TDRSS telemetry for problems in the momentum unload procedure. The system displays TDRSS telemetry and commands in real time via X-windows. The system constructs a momentum unload plan which agrees with the preferences of the attitude control specialists and the momentum growth characteristics of the individual spacecraft. During the execution of the plan, the system monitors the progress of the procedure and watches for unexpected problems.
Cross, George R.↗
In-Flight Assessment of a Pursuit Guidance Display Format for Manually Flown Precision Instrument Approaches
In-flight evaluations of a pursuit guidance display system for manually flown precision instrument approaches were performed. The guidance system was integrated into the RASCAL JUH-60A Black Hawk helicopter. The applicability of the pursuit guidance disp1aFs to the operation of Runway Independent Aircraft (RIA) is made evident because the displays allow the pilot to fly a complex, multi-segment, descending, decelerating approach trajectory. The complex trajectory chosen for this in-flight assessment began from a downwind abeam position at 110 knots and was hand-flown to a 50 ft decision altitude at 40 knots using a rate-command/attitude-hold plus turn-coordination control system. The elements of the pursuit guidance format displayed on a 10-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) flat panel consisted of a flightpath vector and a "leader" aircraft as the pursuit guidance element. Approach guidance was based primarily on carrier-phase differential Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation, and secondarily on both medium accuracy inertial navigation unit states and air data computer states. Required Navigation Performance (RNP) concepts were applied to the construction of display elements such as lateral/vertical deviation indicators and a tunnel that indicated to the pilot, in real-time, the performance with respect to RNP error bounds. The results of the flight evaluations of the guidance display show that precise path control for operating within tight RNP boundaries (RNP 0.007NM/24ft for initial approach, RNP 0.008NM/19ft for intermediate approach, and RNP 0.002NM/9ft for final approach) is attainable with minimal to moderate pilot workload.
Moralez, Ernesto, III↗
Pilot Non-Conformance to Alerting System Commands During Closely Spaced Parallel Approaches
Cockpit alerting systems monitor potentially hazardous situations, both inside and outside the aircraft. When a hazard is projected to occur, the alerting system displays alerts and/or command decisions to the pilot. However, pilots have been observed to not conform to alerting system commands by delaying their response or by not following the automatic commands exactly. This non-conformance to the automatic alerting system can reduce its benefit. Therefore, a need exists to understand the causes and effects of pilot non-conformance in order to develop automatic alerting systems whose commands the pilots are more likely to follow. These considerations were examined through flight simulator evaluations of the collision avoidance task during closely spaced parallel approaches. This task provided a useful case-study because the effects of non-conformance can be significant, given the time-critical nature of the task. A preliminary evaluation of alerting systems identified non-conformance in over 40% of the cases and a corresponding drop in collision avoidance performance. A follow-on experiment found subjects' alerting and maneuver selection criteria were consistent with different strategies than those used by automatic systems, indicating the pilot may potentially disagree with the alerting system if the pilot attempts to verify automatic alerts and commanded avoidance maneuvers. A final experiment found supporting automatic alerts with the explicit display of its underlying criteria resulted in more consistent subject reactions. In light of these experimental results, a general discussion of pilot non-conformance is provided. Contributing factors in pilot non-conformance include a lack of confidence in the automatic system and mismatches between the alerting system's commands and the pilots' own decisions based on the information available to them. The effects of non-conformance on system performance are discussed. Possible methods of reconciling mismatches are given, and design considerations for alerting systems which alleviate the problem of non-conformance are provided.
Pritchett, Amy Ruth↗
Tool for Forecasting Cool-Season Peak Winds Across Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
The expected peak wind speed for the day is an important element in the daily morning forecast for ground and space launch operations at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). The 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) must issue forecast advisories for KSC/CCAFS when they expect peak gusts for >= 25, >= 35, and >= 50 kt thresholds at any level from the surface to 300 ft. In Phase I of this task, the 45 WS tasked the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) to develop a cool-season (October - April) tool to help forecast the non-convective peak wind from the surface to 300 ft at KSC/CCAFS. During the warm season, these wind speeds are rarely exceeded except during convective winds or under the influence of tropical cyclones, for which other techniques are already in use. The tool used single and multiple linear regression equations to predict the peak wind from the morning sounding. The forecaster manually entered several observed sounding parameters into a Microsoft Excel graphical user interface (GUI), and then the tool displayed the forecast peak wind speed, average wind speed at the time of the peak wind, the timing of the peak wind and the probability the peak wind will meet or exceed 35, 50 and 60 kt. The 45 WS customers later dropped the requirement for >= 60 kt wind warnings. During Phase II of this task, the AMU expanded the period of record (POR) by six years to increase the number of observations used to create the forecast equations. A large number of possible predictors were evaluated from archived soundings, including inversion depth and strength, low-level wind shear, mixing height, temperature lapse rate and winds from the surface to 3000 ft. Each day in the POR was stratified in a number of ways, such as by low-level wind direction, synoptic weather pattern, precipitation and Bulk Richardson number. The most accurate Phase II equations were then selected for an independent verification. The Phase I and II forecast methods were compared using an independent verification data set. The two methods were compared to climatology, wind warnings and advisories issued by the 45 WS, and North American Mesoscale (NAM) model (MesoNAM) forecast winds. The performance of the Phase I and II methods were similar with respect to mean absolute error. Since the Phase I data were not stratified by precipitation, this method's peak wind forecasts had a large negative bias on days with precipitation and a small positive bias on days with no precipitation. Overall, the climatology methods performed the worst while the MesoNAM performed the best. Since the MesoNAM winds were the most accurate in the comparison, the final version of the tool was based on the MesoNAM winds. The probability the peak wind will meet or exceed the warning thresholds were based on the one standard deviation error bars from the linear regression. For example, the linear regression might forecast the most likely peak speed to be 35 kt and the error bars used to calculate that the probability of >= 25 kt = 76%, the probability of >= 35 kt = 50%, and the probability of >= 50 kt = 19%. The authors have not seen this application of linear regression error bars in any other meteorological applications. Although probability forecast tools should usually be developed with logistic regression, this technique could be easily generalized to any linear regression forecast tool to estimate the probability of exceeding any desired threshold . This could be useful for previously developed linear regression forecast tools or new forecast applications where statistical analysis software to perform logistic regression is not available. The tool was delivered in two formats - a Microsoft Excel GUI and a Tool Command Language/Tool Kit (Tcl/Tk) GUI in the Meteorological Interactive Data Display System (MIDDS). The Microsoft Excel GUI reads a MesoNAM text file containing hourly forecasts from 0 to 84 hours, from one model run (00 or 12 UTC). The GUI then displays e peak wind speed, average wind speed, and the probability the peak wind will meet or exceed the 25-, 35- and 50-kt thresholds. The user can display the Day-1 through Day-3 peak wind forecasts, and separate forecasts are made for precipitation and non-precipitation days. The MIDDS GUI uses data from the NAM and Global Forecast System (GFS), instead of the MesoNAM. It can display Day-1 and Day-2 forecasts using NAM data, and Day-1 through Day-5 forecasts using GFS data. The timing of the peak wind is not displayed, since the independent verification showed that none of the forecast methods performed significantly better than climatology. The forecaster should use the climatological timing of the peak wind (2248 UTC) as a first guess and then adjust it based on the movement of weather features.
Barrett, Joe H., III↗
Grayscale/resolution trade-off for text: Model predictions and psychophysical results for letter confusion and letter discrimination
In a series of papers presented in 1994, we examined the grayscale/resolution trade-off for natural images displayed on devices with discrete pixellation, such as AMLCD's. In the present paper we extend this study by examining the grayscale/resolution trade-off for text images on discrete-pixel displays. Halftoning in printing is an example of the grayscale/resolution trade-off. In printing, spatial resolution is sacrificed to produce grayscale. Another example of this trade-off is the inherent low-pass spatial filter of a CRT, caused by the point-spread function of the electron beam in the phosphor layer. On a CRT, sharp image edges are blurred by this inherent low-pass filtering, and the block noise created by spatial quantization is greatly reduced. A third example of this trade-off is text anti-aliasing, where grayscale is used to improve letter shape, size and location when rendered at a low spatial resolution. There are additional implications for display system design from the grayscale/resolution trade-off. For example, reduced grayscale can reduce system costs by requiring less complexity in the framestore, allowing the use of lower cost drivers, potentially increasing data transfer rates in the image subsystem, and simplifying the manufacturing processes that are used to construct the active matrix for AMLCD (active-matrix liquid-crystal display) or AMTFEL (active-matrix thin-film electroluminescent) devices. Therefore, the study of these trade-offs is important for display designers and manufacturing and systems engineers who wish to create the highest performance, lowest cost device possible. Our strategy for investigating this trade-off is to generate a set of simple test images, manipulate grayscale and resolution, predict discrimination performance using the ViDEOS(Sarnoff) Human Vision Model, conduct an empirical study of discrimination using psychophysical procedures, and verify the computational results using the psychophysical results.
Gille, Jennifer↗
The Effects of Morphology and Hydration on Anion Transport in Self-Assembled Nanoporous Membranes
Ordered nanoporous polymer membranes offer opportunities for systematically probing the mechanisms of ion transport under confinement and for realizing useful materials for electrochemical devices. Here, we examine the impact of morphology and ion hydration on the transport of hydroxide and bromide anions in nanostructured polymer membranes with 1 nm scale pores. We use aqueous lyotropic self-assembly of an amphiphilic monomer, with a polymerizable surfactant to create direct hexagonal (H I ) and gyroid mesophases. UV-induced cross-linking leads to the formation of nanoporous polymers with water continuous channels. The membranes are mechanically robust and chemically durable, resisting degradation during extended exposure to 1 M NaOH solutions. We use a combination of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, pulsed-field gradient NMR spectroscopy, and molecular simulations to elucidate anion and water transport. The as-prepared hexagonal systems display higher conductivity and lower activation energies for both anions relative to the gyroid system. When compared at equivalent hydration, however, gyroid and hexagonal membranes show similar activation energies, with nearly identical conductivities at ambient temperatures. Both ionic conductivity and water diffusivity increase with increasing hydration. Here, the water uptake as a function of relative humidity for the hexagonal and gyroid mesophases ultimately dictates the water diffusion and magnitude of the ionic conductivity, with the hexagonal system showing overall higher capacity for hydration and thus faster ion transport. The durability of these materials under aggressive alkaline conditions and their relatively high hydroxide ion conductivity suggest that these nanostructured polymers could be of interest as membranes for alkaline fuel cells.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
Discovery and Characterization of a Metastable Cubic Interstitial Nickel–Carbon System with an Expanded Lattice
Metastable, i.e., kinetically favored but thermodynamically not stable, interstitial solid solutions of carbon in iron are well-understood. Carbon can occupy the interstitial atoms of the host metal, altering its properties. Alloying of the host metal results in the stabilization of the FeC x phases, widening its application. Pure nickel finds niche applications, mainly focusing on catalysis, while nickel alloys are widely applied, e.g., in gas turbines, reactors, and seawater piping. Nickel carbide (Ni 3 C) is the well-known stable Ni–C system displaying a rhombohedral (R3̅c) crystal structure. Some reports describe an elusive cubic Ni–C system, observed during certain catalytic reactions occurring on nickel and formed by the occupation of the interstitials of the metal with carbon: to date, the stabilization and characterization of this phase have not been accomplished. Hereby, we report on the synthesis of a cubic metastable NiC x phase using chemical vapor deposition of methane on supported nickel nanoparticles. The structure was predicted by DFT/ReaxFF, synthesized and monitored with in situ time-resolved synchrotron XRD, and experimentally confirmed by Rietveld refinement and (S)TEM-EELS under ambient conditions. The results show an Fm3̅m phase with a lattice parameter of a = 3.749 ± 0.037 Å at room temperature, with the highest ever reported atomic percentage of carbon occupying the octahedral interstices of 23.1%, resulting in a NiC 0.3 phase. The degree of occupation of the interstitial voids by carbon can be controlled, enabling the tuning of the host metal’s d-spacing and composition, highlighting the applicability of this synthesis route for catalytic nanoparticle preparation.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗