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NASA NTRS1988

Knowledge-based graphical interfaces for presenting technical information

Designing effective presentations of technical information is extremely difficult and time-consuming. Moreover, the combination of increasing task complexity and declining job skills makes the need for high-quality technical presentations especially urgent. We believe that this need can ultimately be met through the development of knowledge-based graphical interfaces that can design and present technical information. Since much material is most naturally communicated through pictures, our work has stressed the importance of well-designed graphics, concentrating on generating pictures and laying out displays containing them. We describe APEX, a testbed picture generation system that creates sequences of pictures that depict the performance of simple actions in a world of 3D objects. Our system supports rules for determining automatically the objects to be shown in a picture, the style and level of detail with which they should be rendered, the method by which the action itself should be indicated, and the picture's camera specification. We then describe work on GRIDS, an experimental display layout system that addresses some of the problems in designing displays containing these pictures, determining the position and size of the material to be presented.

Feiner, Steven↗

NASA NTRS2000

Enabling Spacecraft Formation Flying through Position Determination, Control and Enhanced Automation Technologies

Formation Flying is revolutionizing the way the space community conducts science missions around the Earth and in deep space. This technological revolution will provide new, innovative ways for the community to gather scientific information, share that information between space vehicles and the ground, and expedite the human exploration of space. Once fully matured, formation flying will result in numerous sciencecraft acting as virtual platforms and sensor webs, gathering significantly more and better science data than call be collected today. To achieve this goal, key technologies must be developed including those that address the following basic questions posed by the spacecraft: Where am I? Where is the rest of the fleet? Where do I need to be? What do I have to do (and what am I able to do) to get there? The answers to these questions and the means to implement those answers will depend oil the specific mission needs and formation configuration. However, certain critical technologies are common to most formations. These technologies include high-precision position and relative-position knowledge including Global Positioning System (GPS) mid celestial navigation; high degrees of spacecraft autonomy inter-spacecraft communication capabilities; targeting and control including distributed control algorithms, and high precision control thrusters and actuators. This paper provides an overview of a selection of the current activities NASA/DoD/Industry/Academia are working to develop Formation Flying technologies as quickly as possible, the hurdles that need to be overcome to achieve our formation flying vision, and the team's approach to transfer this technology to space. It will also describe several of the formation flying testbeds, such as Orion and University Nanosatellites, that are being developed to demonstrate and validate many of these innovative sensing and formation control technologies.

Bristow, John↗

NASA NTRS1997

By Hand or Not By-Hand: A Case Study of Alternative Approaches to Parallelize CFD Applications

While parallel processing promises to speed up applications by several orders of magnitude, the performance achieved still depends upon several factors, including the multiprocessor architecture, system software, data distribution and alignment, as well as the methods used for partitioning the application and mapping its components onto the architecture. The existence of the Gorden Bell Prize given out at Supercomputing every year suggests that while good performance can be attained for real applications on general purpose multiprocessors, the large investment in man-power and time still has to be repeated for each application-machine combination. As applications and machine architectures become more complex, the cost and time-delays for obtaining performance by hand will become prohibitive. Computer users today can turn to three possible avenues for help: parallel libraries, parallel languages and compilers, interactive parallelization tools. The success of these methodologies, in turn, depends on proper application of data dependency analysis, program structure recognition and transformation, performance prediction as well as exploitation of user supplied knowledge. NASA has been developing multidisciplinary applications on highly parallel architectures under the High Performance Computing and Communications Program. Over the past six years, the transition of underlying hardware and system software have forced the scientists to spend a large effort to migrate and recede their applications. Various attempts to exploit software tools to automate the parallelization process have not produced favorable results. In this paper, we report our most recent experience with CAPTOOL, a package developed at Greenwich University. We have chosen CAPTOOL for three reasons: 1. CAPTOOL accepts a FORTRAN 77 program as input. This suggests its potential applicability to a large collection of legacy codes currently in use. 2. CAPTOOL employs domain decomposition to obtain parallelism. Although the fact that not all kinds of parallelism are handled may seem unappealing, many NASA applications in computational aerosciences as well as earth and space sciences are amenable to domain decomposition. 3. CAPTOOL generates code for a large variety of environments employed across NASA centers: MPI/PVM on network of workstations to the IBS/SP2 and CRAY/T3D.

Yan, Jerry C.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Detecting Unclassified Electromagnetic Signals for Secure Wireless Communication Using Open Set Recognition

We developed multiple machine learning methods for the detection and classification of new wireless communication waveforms, which is critical for targeted attacks in wireless networks and electronic warfare. Our machine learning models are capable of dynamically detecting security threats in near real time through our advanced open set recognition (OSR) approach. This model has demonstrated significant improvements in the detection of unknown waveforms, thereby enhancing the security and reliability of mission critical communications. Our approach to detecting uncertain security threats is novel; we advanced OSR techniques by incorporating domain knowledge of wireless signals. Specifically, we combined time and frequency domain model features to enhance the model’s performance. Utilizing an OSR approach eliminates the need for training data to be distributed similarly to the deployment environment and removes the requirement for the training set to contains all possible threat classes. This is crucial because it is often infeasible to determine and characterize all potential security threats in advance. Our model were trained on simulated data, generated in partnership with the University at Albany, State of New York. The data set contained a diverse array of wireless signals, including those with additive white Gaussian noise and multipath signals, with and without line of sight. This comprehensive training set allowed us to optimize our models to detect unknown waveforms under various challenging scenarios, such as low signal-to-noise ratios. By training on various waveforms, varying signal-to-noise ratio, and different sample sizes under normal conditions, our models were fine tuned to perform effectively in challenging environments.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2019

Abstract for CRADA between VariGrid Explorations Inc. and NETL (AGMT-0863)

As the energy industry continues to invest in data, big data, and advanced analytics to improve production, reduce operation and maintenance costs, improve safety, and reduce risks, uncertainty will serve as a limiting factor in the success of these operations. Intuitive communication of uncertainty can provide more transparency in the decision-making process; offering the ability to more accurately evaluate the risk and impact of decisions, identify data and knowledge gaps, and evaluate trade-offs. The issue of uncertainty will thus play a large role in the success of investments that rely on big data and data analytics. However, no robust method for representation of uncertainty in spatial data visuals currently exists. As such, uncertainty is, at best, communicated using multiple independent visuals and aggregated in final displays, or frequently omitted altogether. Failure to accurately and effectively quantify and communicate uncertainty poses a barrier, limiting critical information that would better allow businesses to make more accurate and intelligent decisions.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

NASA NTRS2004

Communicating Medical Needs to Non-Medical Managers

Differences in communication styles and languages between groups often lead to miscommunication, confusion, and/or frustration. Engineers, computer specialists, clinicians, and managers often utilize the English language in very different ways, with different groups using the same words to represent different concepts ("complaint" is a typical example). In addition, medical issues are often perceived as "off-nominal" and not "primary mission tasks" by managers, which can cause them to assign lower priorities to medical training time and resources. Knowledge bases differ due to variations in training and skill sets, and the goals (both immediate and long-term) of the communicators may also vary, with managers being primarily concerned with overall mission objectives, while clinicians focus on individual or group health issues. Furthermore, true communication is only possible when clinicians possess a deep understanding of mission requirements as well as the ability to communicate medical requirements on a priority basis using risk assessment, added value, and cost benefit analysis. These understandable differences may contribute to difficulties in expressing concerns and ideas in an efficient manner, particularly in projects, such as the space program or many military operations, where these varied groups must collaborate, and where the final decisions must be made by fully informed mission commanders. Methods: Three scenario-based approaches were developed utilizing decision trees and problem based learning, to help define and integrate these concepts. Results: Use of these techniques by NASA and military personnel will be presented. Discussion: To enhance communication, particularly of medical needs, one must identify the concerns and motivating factors for the other groups; for example, members of management may focus on financial concerns, a desire for risk mitigation, public perceptions, mission objectives, etc. Training clinicians to frame issues in these terms may lead to better understanding of the medical concerns by other groups.

Bacal, Kira↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Human System Risk Communication: Directed Acyclic Graphs

- The Human System Risk Board (HSRB) is responsible for the management of a portfolio of 30 human system risks that NASA tracks and configuration manages to mitigate for future crewed exploration missions. - The HSRB has been exploring the concept of causal diagrams (in the form of Directed Acyclic Graphs or DAGs) as an approach to creating knowledge graphs for each risk to enable shared mental models of causal flow from spaceflight hazards to mission outcomes among HSRB Stakeholders. - These diagrams are intended to improve insight and communication of risk across the myriad subject matter experts and management interested in human system risk reduction. This includes program managers, systems engineers, and operators in addition to the Human Health and Performance Directorate. - The DAG project was intended to create the foundation for composition of the 30 baselined DAGs into a single risk network and software is being developed in parallel to enable this forward work.

directed acrylic graph↗

DOE OSTI2023

Experimenting in the cloud: The digital divide's impact on innovation

This paper builds on a recent National Science Foundation working paper that identified a strong association between cloud use and various types of innovation but did not consider whether 1) cloud adoption is a reliable indicator of the innovation orientation of a firm, or 2) cloud adoption enables various types of innovation. We estimate propensity score matching and endogenous treatment effect models to control for innovation orientation, producing evidence to test the second explanation. Here, findings support an enabling effect of the cloud on innovation providing concrete evidence of the adverse impact of the digital divide.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

DOE OSTI2022

Feedback Power Cost Optimization in Power Distribution Networks with Prosumers

Here, we propose a feedback control approach for solving optimal power flow (OPF) problems in power distribution networks (DNs) based on a projected gradient scheme, where the cost is given by the sum of functions of local power injections. This approach does not require detailed knowledge of the grid model and enables real-time tracking of the optimal generation configuration. Moreover, the communication burden is minimal: only a broadcast from a central entity, called the Network Supervisor (NS), to the agents in the network is needed. Hence, agents do not have to share local information that can be sensitive, e.g., their power injections or the value of the local costs. Our approach is then used to solve a particular OPF problem targeting DNs with high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) in which the energy cost is given by the remuneration that the DERs owners receive for the service they provide.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2018

Regulatory and Licensing Strategy for Microreactor Technology

With electricity demand on the rise, an increase in the use of nuclear energy is needed in order to meet future energy demands. The use of nuclear energy will not only begin to positively address this demand, but will also mitigate the negative impacts of carbon-induced climate change and provide energy security to the United States. An appropriate option to address the increasing energy demand is the use of advanced reactor systems like microreactors. Microreactors, often referred to as special-purpose reactors or vSMRs, are neutronically simple, factory manufacturable, easily transportable, and designed to produce less than 20 MWt (for classification as Hazard Category 2 per 10 CFR 830, DOE STD 1027). These reactors are decentralized energy sources that have the ability to provide sustainable and affordable power to remote communities and to industrial users, while having self-contained geometry that requires very low maintenance care. In order for microreactors to be approved for operation, they must abide by and successfully complete a rigorous regulatory and licensing process monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Department of Energy (DOE), or the Department of Defense (DoD). Because microreactors are a relatively new and disruptive technology, there is no clear licensing path for them to follow. Current licensing frameworks are tailored specifically to large, traditional light water reactors (LWRs) that have been developed and understood by the nuclear industry for many years. Unlike LWRs, microreactors have major design differences, specifically in the materials, coolant, reflectors and potential technology applications used. They also have higher in-core operating temperatures, which have the potential to push the materials used past their allowable limits. Because they are much smaller, safety margins, the amount of space required for assembly, and the distances required to meet dose-based regulatory criteria can technically be altered to better fit their new size. The following strategies and recommendations are intended to assure that key licensing issues do not influence the path to microreactor development, demonstration, and commercialization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission • The NRC should address the lack of knowledge and support of risk informed decision-making concepts from staff members and continue to advance and communicate risk initiatives using their Risk Informed Steering Committee • More research should be done into whether or not microreactors, which are small Class 103 facilities, can be licensed using Class 104-type guidance (e.g., NUREG 1537) • The NRC should use frequency-consequence curves to incrementally reduce regulatory uncertainty and risk to facilitate future construction and operation of advanced reactor designs Department of Energy • The DOE should continue to implement their multi-step Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table process in order to help detect and recommend the major design and technology work needed for licensing future reactor systems • The DOE should consider a joint licensing approach with the NRC where microreactors first go through the DOE process, then finish with the NRC process, providing an advantage for both applicants and NRC staff Department of Defense • The DoD should invest in personnel with sufficient expertise, incorporate their military reactors into tactical power systems, and self-regulate using Section 91b of the Atomic Energy Act Transportation • Licensees should convert enriched uranium hexafluoride into metal or oxide at an enrichment facility and then transport them to a fabrication facility • To avoid transportation issues altogether, licensees should consider positioning the enrichment and fabrication facilities on the same site • The DOE should provide their support in developing new shipping packages for safe transport, criticality benchmark data needed to license high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel facilities and transport packages, and provide financial and technical help to the Department of Transportation; and, • The NRC should help transportation efforts by finalizing and developing guidance for implementing 10 CFR 73 and 10 CFR 74 specifically for Category 2 Special Nuclear Material.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

NASA NTRS1989

The potential application of the blackboard model of problem solving to multidisciplinary design

Problems associated with the sequential approach to multidisciplinary design are discussed. A blackboard model is suggested as a potential tool for implementing the multilevel decomposition approach to overcome these problems. The blackboard model serves as a global database for the solution with each discipline acting as a knowledge source for updating the solution. With this approach, it is possible for engineers to improve the coordination, communication, and cooperation in the conceptual design process, allowing them to achieve a more optimal design from an interdisciplinary standpoint.

Rogers, J. L.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Radio Wave Propagation Handbook for Communication on and Around Mars

This handbook examines the effects of the Martian environment on radio wave propagation on Mars and in the space near the planet. The environmental effects include these from the Martian atmosphere, ionosphere, global dust storms, aerosols, clouds, and geomorphologic features. Relevant Martian environmental parameters were extracted from the measurements of Mars missions during the past 30 years, especially from Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor. The results derived from measurements and analyses have been reviewed through an extensive literature search. The updated parameters have been theoretically analyzed to study their effects on radio propagation. This handbook also provides basic information about the entire telecommunications environment on and around Mars for propagation researchers, system engineers, and link analysts. Based on these original analyses, some important recommendations have been made, including the use of the Martian ionosphere as a reflector for Mars global or trans-horizon communication between future Martian colonies, reducing dust storm scattering effects, etc. These results have extended our wave propagation knowledge to a planet other than Earth; and the tables, models, and graphics included in this handbook will benefit telecommunication system engineers and scientific researchers.

Ho, Christian↗

NASA NTRS2003

A Framework for Intelligent Rocket Test Facilities with Smart Sensors

A long-term center goal at the John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is the formulation and implementation of a framework for an Intelligent Rocket Test Facility (IRTF), which incorporates distributed smart sensor elements. The IRTF is to provide reliable, high-confident measurements. Specific objectives include: 1. Definition of a framework and architecture that supports implementation of highly autonomous methodologies founded on basic physical principles and embedded knowledge. 2. Modeling of autonomous sensors and processes as self-sufficient, evolutionary elements. 3. Development of appropriate communications protocols to enable the complex interactions that must take place to allow timely and high-quality flow of of information among all the autonomous elements of the system. 4. Development of lab-scale prototypes of key system elements. Though our application is next-generation rocket test facilities, applications for the approach are much wider and include monitoring of shuttle launch operations, air and spacecraft operations and health monitoring, and other large-scale industrial system operations such as found in processing and manufacturing plans. Elements of prototype IRTF have been implemented in preparation for advanced development and validation using rocket test stand facilities as SSC. This work has identified issues that are important to further development of complex network and should be of interest to other working with sensor networks.

Figueroa, Fernando↗

NASA NTRS2009

NASA Biomedical Informatics Capabilities and Needs

To improve on-orbit clinical capabilities by developing and providing operational support for intelligent, robust, reliable, and secure, enterprise-wide and comprehensive health care and biomedical informatics systems with increasing levels of autonomy, for use on Earth, low Earth orbit & exploration class missions. Biomedical Informatics is an emerging discipline that has been defined as the study, invention, and implementation of structures and algorithms to improve communication, understanding and management of medical information. The end objective of biomedical informatics is the coalescing of data, knowledge, and the tools necessary to apply that data and knowledge in the decision-making process, at the time and place that a decision needs to be made.

Johnson-Throop, Kathy A.↗

NASA NTRS2016

An Influenced Future

Phobos is a vital precursor and catalyst before our next giant leap to Mars. The principle period of a Phobos' mission could be a series of robotic precursor missions for experimental perception, soil examination, ecological approval and landing site distinguishing proof. For my summer intern position at Johnson Space Center I chipped away at creating a GUNNS (General Use Nodal Network Solver) based power subsystem model for the miniATHLETE hopper, which is a conceptual (idea-based) robotic lander that will operate on Phobos. Keeping in mind the end goal to begin on my venture, I needed to comprehend my undertaking before whatever else, in which I concentrated on C++ to see how to implement the code that GUNNS generates to a Trick S_define file. Prior to coming to this internship at Johnson Space Center Dr. Edwin Zack Crues provided a class on modeling and simulation, which introduced me to the Trick simulation environment. The goal of my project was to develop a GUNNS based power subsystem model for the miniATHLETE hopper. The model needed to incorporate a solar array, battery, hopping legs, and onboard scientific instruments (sensitive measuring/recording devices). The secondary bonus goal after I completed the electrical aspect of my model was to develop a GUNNS based thermal subsystem model for the miniATHLETE hopper. Stringing the two aspects together, I would need to code up a signal aspect to make the system work as one. Accomplishing my goals would not be an easy thing, however I had successfully completed the electrical aspect model with twenty-four servos, six cameras, and multiple sensors. Venturing to complete my project has eluded me to many failures in my design to tune many things like the battery to the proper voltage and the load to the proper wattage. During this time I had touched up on advanced topics in calculus in which I implemented in the converter in my electrical model. I am currently working with my mentor Zu Qun Li to create a signal aspect to control the temperatures inside my electrical aspect model. During my time at JSC I had effectively figured out how to create subsystem models utilizing Trick and GUNNS. I obtain essential knowledge of power and thermal subsystem design for a robotic vehicle. I also learned how to work and communicate in a team effectively to accomplish a goal. Before coming to Johnson Space Center my future career and educational goals included uncertainty, however now I have a completely new look on my path to a prosperous future. My NASA experience has unquestionably impacted me to accomplish and surpass my own particular desires. After my time at Johnson Space Center I plan to apply for a coop position for NASA. This has been a dream come true that I adored each moment being at JSC realizing that I am far fit for doing things most individuals can just long for.

Owens, Christopher↗

DOE OSTI2024

Repowering and Retrofitting of Solar Inverters: A Field Case Study [Slides]

A handful of large-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants have undergone retrofitting and/or repowering of inverters for a variety of reasons, such as rapid product life-cycle innovations with lack of reverse compatibility, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) exiting the inverter business, weather damage, more lucrative revenue opportunities driven by high contractual offtake price, and so on. Insights has been collected via expert elicitation and relevant staff involved in these retrofitting/repowering at the case study site. Selecting and installing inverters from a different OEM at the commercially operating PV plant provides a unique opportunity to thoroughly document inverter retrofitting/repowering. The case study describes compatibility of mechanical, electrical, communications, and other important aspects. The goal is to provide a public case study that improves the general knowledge of the solar industry about what is involved in repowering/retrofitting a PV plant and how others can best prepare.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA NTRS2004

Accelerated Training at Mach 20: A Brief Communication Submitted from the International Space Station

The performance of complex tasks on the International Space Station (ISS) requires significant preflight crew training commitments and frequent skill and knowledge refreshment. This report documents a recently developed just-in-time training methodology, which integrates preflight hardware familiarization and procedure training with an on-orbit CD-ROM-based skill enhancement. This just-in-time concept was used to support real-time remote expert guidance to complete medical examinations using the ISS Human Research Facility (HRF). An American and Russian ISS crewmember received 2-hours of hands on ultrasound training 8 months prior to the on-orbit ultrasound exam. A CD-ROM-based Onboard Proficiency Enhancement (OPE) interactive multimedia program consisting of memory enhancing tutorials, and skill testing exercises, was completed by the crewmember six days prior to the on-orbit ultrasound exam. The crewmember was then remotely guided through a thoracic, vascular, and echocardiographic examination by ultrasound imaging experts. Results of the CD ROM based OPE session were used to modify the instructions during a complete 35 minute real-time thoracic, cardiac, and carotid/jugular ultrasound study. Following commands from the ground-based expert, the crewmember acquired all target views and images without difficulty. The anatomical content and fidelity of ultrasound video were excellent and adequate for clinical decision-making. Complex ultrasound experiments with expert guidance were performed with high accuracy following limited pre-flight training and CD-ROM-based in-flight review, despite a 2-second communication latency. In-flight application of multimedia proficiency enhancement software, coupled with real-time remote expert guidance, can facilitate the performance of complex demanding tasks.

Foale, C. Michael↗

DOE OSTI2023

Arrangements for communicating and processing data in a computing system

Systems and methods for reducing data movement in a computer system. The systems and methods use information or knowledge about the structure of an algorithm, operations to be executed at a receiving processing unit, variables or subsets or groups of variables in a distributed algorithm, or other forms of contextual information, for reducing the number of bits transmitted from at least one transmitting processing unit to at least one receiving processing unit or storage device.

Gonzalez, Juan Guillermo↗