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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 415 records · Page 23

Using Social Media and Mobile Devices to Discover and Share Disaster Data Products Derived From Satellites

Data products derived from Earth observing satellites are difficult to find and share without specialized software and often times a highly paid and specialized staff. For our research effort, we endeavored to prototype a distributed architecture that depends on a standardized communication protocol and applications program interface (API) that makes it easy for anyone to discover and access disaster related data. Providers can easily supply the public with their disaster related products by building an adapter for our API. Users can use the API to browse and find products that relate to the disaster at hand, without a centralized catalogue, for example floods, and then are able to share that data via social media. Furthermore, a longerterm goal for this architecture is to enable other users who see the shared disaster product to be able to generate the same product for other areas of interest via simple point and click actions on the API on their mobile device. Furthermore, the user will be able to edit the data with on the ground local observations and return the updated information to the original repository of this information if configured for this function. This architecture leverages SensorWeb functionality [1] presented at previous IGARSS conferences. The architecture is divided into two pieces, the frontend, which is the GeoSocial API, and the backend, which is a standardized disaster node that knows how to talk to other disaster nodes, and also can communicate with the GeoSocial API. The GeoSocial API, along with the disaster node basic functionality enables crowdsourcing and thus can leverage insitu observations by people external to a group to perform tasks such as improving water reference maps, which are maps of existing water before floods. This can lower the cost of generating precision water maps. Keywords-Data Discovery, Disaster Decision Support, Disaster Management, Interoperability, CEOS WGISS Disaster Architecture

Power Take-Off Design Study for a Small-Scale Oscillating Surge Wave Energy Converter for Powering the Blue Economy Applications: Preprint

The power take-off (PTO) is an integral part of wave energy conversion, and the design process is nontrivial. Better PTOs, and better processes for selecting and designing PTO architectures for various applications, would benefit devices that assist in powering the blue economy by decreasing time and money spent on PTO design and increasing the overall energy capture performance of these devices. This paper chronicles the selection process of a PTO for a small-scale surge-type wave energy converter (WEC) for the purpose of informing future PTO selection processes. Three PTO architectures are evaluated in WEC-Sim: a hydraulic check valve PTO, a hydraulic active valving PTO, and a directly electrified PTO. Simple models of each PTO are constructed. Because a model for the small-scale device was initially unavailable, the PTOs are simulated on a large-scale device. The results are scaled down using Froude scaling and compared to results from directly simulating a small-scale model. Strong assumptions are made because this work is early in the design stages, and a coarse look at PTO options was desired. Specifically, the effectiveness of controls is investigated, along with the efficiency of energy conversion. However, energy capture is only part of the consideration; there are also logistic concerns to be considered when selecting a PTO. For example, components for large-scale WECs are so large and expensive that it may make sense to custom-build PTO components, but small- scale WECs would benefit from off-the-shelf availability because the cost of customization would be a significant portion of the total capital cost of deployment at a small scale. Submersible, off-the-shelf components are much easier to source for hydraulic PTOs. Because of highly effective controls, efficient energy conversion, and availability of marine-grade components, an active valving hydraulic PTO is selected for this small-scale surge-type WEC.

electric PTO↗

A Revised International Standard for Gearboxes in Wind Turbine Systems

Gearbox and wind turbine design and application standards have contributed significantly to improvements in reliability over the past two decades. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61400-4 standard of wind turbine gearbox design is currently being revised by a joint working group (JWG) of experts in IEC TC 88 (wind energy) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) TC60 (gears) to further that effort. Experts from ISO TC4 (rolling bearings) and ISO TC28 (lubricants) have actively participated. This revision has implemented lessons learned from industry use of edition 1 since its publication in 2012. The main document, IEC 61400-4, was pared down to essential design requirements and application-specific recommendations along with a design verification framework. The JWG leveraged concurrent development of other standards, such as IEC 61400-8 on wind turbine structures, to replace edition 1 content. These are described along with how this works with the IEC Renewable Energy certification scheme for wind turbines (IECRE-WE). The JWG recognized the interest in maintaining informative parts of edition 1 including annexes on wind turbine architecture and loads, bearing and gear arrangements, bearing selection, lubrication system descriptions and lubricant performance recommendations. This information was retained in two technical reports: IEC/TR 61400-4-2 Lubrication and IEC/TR 61400-4-3 Explanatory Notes. Additionally, a technical specification, IEC/TS 61400-4-1, was drafted to provide a reliability calculation method for comparing different design options or conditions. Salient elements of these documents are described. All four documents were recently distributed for IEC/ISO review, ballot, and comment. Publication is expected in 2023.

gearbox↗

A Revised International Standard for Gearboxes in Wind Turbine Systems: Preprint

Gearbox and wind turbine design and application standards have contributed significantly to improvements in reliability over the past two decades. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61400-4 standard of wind turbine gearbox design is currently being revised by a joint working group (JWG) of experts in IEC TC 88 (wind energy) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) TC60 (gears) to further that effort. Experts from ISO TC4 (rolling bearings) and ISO TC28 (lubricants) have actively participated. This revision has implemented lessons learned from industry use of edition 1 since its publication in 2012. The main document, IEC 61400-4, was pared down to essential design requirements and application-specific recommendations along with a design verification framework. The JWG leveraged concurrent development of other standards, such as IEC 61400-8 on wind turbine structures, to replace edition 1 content. These are described along with how this works with the IEC Renewable Energy certification scheme for wind turbines (IECRE-WE). The JWG recognized the interest in maintaining informative parts of edition 1 including annexes on wind turbine architecture and loads, bearing and gear arrangements, bearing selection, lubrication system descriptions and lubricant performance recommendations. This information was retained in two technical reports: IEC/TR 61400-4-2 Lubrication and IEC/TR 61400-4-3 Explanatory Notes. Additionally, a technical specification, IEC/TS 61400-4-1, was drafted to provide a reliability calculation method for comparing different design options or conditions. Salient elements of these documents are described. All four documents were recently distributed for IEC/ISO review, ballot, and comment. Publication is expected in 2023.

ENGINEERING,WIND ENERGY↗

Leveraging Structures in Fault Diagnosis for Lithium-Ion Battery Packs

Lithium-ion battery systems consist of a varying number of single cells, designed to meet specific application requirements for output voltage and capacity. Effective fault diagnosis in these battery systems is an essential prerequisite for ensuring their safe and reliable operation. To address this need, we introduce a novel model-based fault diagnosis approach that distinguishes itself by leveraging informative structures inherent in battery systems such as architecture, uniformity among the constituent cells, and sparsity of fault occurrences to enhance its fault diagnosis capabilities. The proposed approach formulates a moving horizon estimation (MHE) problem, incorporating such structural information to estimate different fault signals—specifically, internal short circuits, external short circuits, and voltage and current sensors faults. We conduct various simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach under different fault types and magnitudes. The obtained results validate the proposed approach and promise effective fault diagnosis for battery systems.

Farakhor, Amir↗

A network architecture for precision formation flying using the IEEE 802.11 MAC Protocol

Precision Formation Flying missions involve the tracking and maintenance of spacecraft in a desired geometric formation. The strong coupling of spacecraft in formation flying control requires inter-spacecraft communication to exchange information. In this paper, we present a network architecture that supports PFF control, from the initial random deployment phase to the final formation. We show that a suitable MAC layer for the application protocol is IEEE's 802.11 MAC protocol. IEEE 802.11 MAC has two modes of operations: DCF and PCF. We show that DCF is suitable for the initial deployment phase while switching to PCF when the spacecraft are in formation improves jitter and throughput. We also consider the effect of routing on protocol performance and suggest when it is profitable to turn off route discovery to achieve better network performance.

precision formation flying↗

Automated Assembly Center (AAC)

The objectives of this project are as follows: to integrate advanced assembly and assembly support technology under a comprehensive architecture; to implement automated assembly technologies in the production of high-visibility DOD weapon systems; and to document the improved cost, quality, and lead time. This will enhance the production of DOD weapon systems by utilizing the latest commercially available technologies combined into a flexible system that will be able to readily incorporate new technologies as they emerge. Automated assembly encompasses the following areas: product data, process planning, information management policies and framework, three schema architecture, open systems communications, intelligent robots, flexible multi-ability end effectors, knowledge-based/expert systems, intelligent workstations, intelligent sensor systems, and PDES/PDDI data standards.

Stauffer, Robert J.↗

Acting to gain information

This report is concerned with agents that act to gain information. In previous work, we developed agent models combining qualitative modeling with real-time control. That work, however, focused primarily on actions that affect physical states of the environment. The current study extends that work by explicitly considering problems of active information-gathering and by exploring specialized aspects of information-gathering in computational perception, learning, and language. In our theoretical investigations, we analyzed agents into their perceptual and action components and identified these with elements of a state-machine model of control. The mathematical properties of each was developed in isolation and interactions were then studied. We considered the complexity dimension and the uncertainty dimension and related these to intelligent-agent design issues. We also explored active information gathering in visual processing. Working within the active vision paradigm, we developed a concept of 'minimal meaningful measurements' suitable for demand-driven vision. We then developed and tested an architecture for ongoing recognition and interpretation of visual information. In the area of information gathering through learning, we explored techniques for coping with combinatorial complexity. We also explored information gathering through explicit linguistic action by considering the nature of conversational rules, coordination, and situated communication behavior.

Rosenchein, Stanley J.↗

Flexible Rover Architecture for Science Instrument Integration and Testing

At NASA Ames Research Center, the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) fields the K9 and K10 class rovers. Both use a mobile robot hardware architecture designed for extensibility and reconfigurability that allows for rapid changes in instrumentation and provides a high degree of modularity. Over the past ssveral years, we have worked with instrument developers at NASA centers, universities, and national laboratories to integrate or partially integrate their instruments onboard the K9 and K10 rovers. Early efforts required considerable interaction to work through integration issues such as power, data protocol and mechanical mounting. These interactions informed the design of our current avionics architecture, and have simplified more recent integration projects. In this paper, we will describe the IRG extensible avionics and software architecture and the effect it has had on our recent instrument integration efforts, including integration of four Mars Instrument Development Program devices.

Bualat, Maria G.↗

Distributed Load Shedding Application Architecture and Bi-Level Predictive Estimator Algorithm

Increasing penetrations of distributed renewables are decreasing the effectiveness of traditional decentralized under-frequency load shedding (UFLS) schemes. As more distribution circuits begin to back-feed the transmission system, operation of traditional UFLS may exacerbate frequency instability. This paper presents the conceptual framework for a data-rich environment to coordinate UFLS across multiple distribution providers based on the laminar coordination framework in order to ensure optimal adaptive setting of UFLS relays. Communication and control are enabled through a distributed implementation of the IEC 61968-1 Common Information Model message bus structure. In addition to the proposed architecture, a novel adaptive UFLS scheme informed by a bi-level state estimator to create optimal relay setpoints is introduced. Initial simulation results are presented for the IEEE 14-bus test system on scenarios leading to mis-operation of traditional UFLS.

Anderson, Alexander A.↗

Sensor Webs with a Service-Oriented Architecture for On-demand Science Products

This paper describes the work being managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Information System Division (ISD) under a NASA Earth Science Technology Ofice (ESTO) Advanced Information System Technology (AIST) grant to develop a modular sensor web architecture which enables discovery of sensors and workflows that can create customized science via a high-level service-oriented architecture based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) web service standards. These capabilities serve as a prototype to a user-centric architecture for Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). This work builds and extends previous sensor web efforts conducted at NASA/GSFC using the Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) satellite and other low-earth orbiting satellites.

Mandl, Daniel↗

An unpredictable-dynamics approach to neural intelligence

The theoretical basis for a dynamic neural network architecture that takes advantage of the notion of terminal chaos to process information in a way that is phenomenologically similar to brain activity is presented. The architecture exploits the phenomenology of nonlinear dynamic systems as an alternative to the traditional paradigm of finite-state machines. It is based on some effects of non-Lipschitzian dynamics. The nonlinear phenomenon of terminal chaos and its relevance to brain activity are examined.

Zak, Michail↗

A Standard Reference Model for Data Archives

An implementable Data Archive Architecture is being developed for trusted digital repositories based on the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) – ISO 14721. A set of interoperable protocols and interface specifications are planned that will offer capabilities for accessing, merging, and re-using data, both within and across the operational boundaries of trustworthy digital repositories. The model will also provide support for the fundamental scientific need to verify the reproducibility of results. This standards development task is being performed by the Data Archive Interoperability (DAI) working group within the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The architecture integrates concepts from the OAIS Reference Model, the ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registry (MDR) standard, the CCSDS Reference Architecture for Space Information Management (RASIM), the proposed draft recommended practice document, Information Preparation to Enable Long Term Use (IPELTU), and three decades of digital repository development for science research.

Ambacher, Bruce↗

A Network Scheduling Model for Distributed Control Simulation

Distributed engine control is a hardware technology that radically alters the architecture for aircraft engine control systems. Of its own accord, it does not change the function of control, rather it seeks to address the implementation issues for weight-constrained vehicles that can limit overall system performance and increase life-cycle cost. However, an inherent feature of this technology, digital communication networks, alters the flow of information between critical elements of the closed-loop control. Whereas control information has been available continuously in conventional centralized control architectures through virtue of analog signaling, moving forward, it will be transmitted digitally in serial fashion over the network(s) in distributed control architectures. An underlying effect is that all of the control information arrives asynchronously and may not be available every loop interval of the controller, therefore it must be scheduled. This paper proposes a methodology for modeling the nominal data flow over these networks and examines the resulting impact for an aero turbine engine system simulation.

distributed control↗

Incremental States for Precise On-Orbit Relative Knowledge in Formation Flight

High precision and close proximity formation flight is an enabling technology for future space missions and requires an on-board relative navigation capability that is accurate to the mm-level and robust to formation parameters. Common estimation techniques linearize the entire formation about one spacecraft’s position, resulting in degraded accuracy due to linearization errors when separation distances become large. Additionally, methods which decouple absolute and relative state estimates usually require ad-hoc methods to incorporate the estimates together. This work discusses an alternative ”incremental” formulation of the relative navigation problem which is in variant to formation size, robust to coupling between absolute and relative dynamics, and can undergo similarity transformations to smoothly incorporate either absolute or relative information without numerical issues. A specific example of this architecture is presented in the context of formation navigation using Carrier-Differential Global Positioning System measurements, and is compared to a traditional leader-linearized filter. In the presence of accurate measurements, the incremental architecture is shown to reduce linearization errors and mean estimate errors by up to three orders of magnitude without the incorporation of new sensor information.

Seubert, Carl↗

A Reliable Service-Oriented Architecture for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission

The Collaborative Information Portal (CIP) was enterprise software developed jointly by the NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA's highly successful Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. Both MER and CIP have performed far beyond their original expectations. Mission managers and engineers ran CIP inside the mission control room at JPL, and the scientists ran CIP in their laboratories, homes, and offices. All the users connected securely over the Internet. Since the mission ran on Mars time, CIP displayed the current time in various Mars and Earth time zones, and it presented staffing and event schedules with Martian time scales. Users could send and receive broadcast messages, and they could view and download data and image files generated by the rovers' instruments. CIP had a three-tiered, service-oriented architecture (SOA) based on industry standards, including J2EE and web services, and it integrated commercial off-the-shelf software. A user's interactions with the graphical interface of the CIP client application generated web services requests to the CIP middleware. The middleware accessed the back-end data repositories if necessary and returned results for these requests. The client application could make multiple service requests for a single user action and then present a composition of the results. This happened transparently, and many users did not even realize that they were connecting to a server. CIP performed well and was extremely reliable; it attained better than 99% uptime during the course of the mission. In this paper, we present overviews of the MER mission and of CIP. We show how CIP helped to fulfill some of the mission needs and how people used it. We discuss the criteria for choosing its architecture, and we describe how the developers made the software so reliable. CIP's reliability did not come about by chance, but was the result of several key design decisions. We conclude with some of the important lessons we learned form developing, deploying, and supporting the software.

Mak, Ronald↗

Mars Sample Return Conceptual Mission Overview

This talk will provide an overview of an overall Mars Sample Return campaign architecture, and the current concepts and options for the architecture and design of a Mars Sample Retrieval Lander (called Sample Retrieval Lander, SRL). The overall SRL mission concept and key mission objectives will be described, including the mission’s concept of operations and a notional timeline from launch to entry, through surface operations, to delivery of the samples to Mars orbit. The overall lander vehicle concept will be described, including current options being evaluated. Key lander element options will be discussed, including a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), Fetch Rover, Orbiting Sample container (OS), and tube transfer robotics systems. Details of the notional Fetch Rover functions, constraints and operations will be discussed. Specific challenges and approaches for addressing those challenges will be discussed, including key technical margins and planetary protection. Major trade studies and implementation approaches and a proposed schedule will also be discussed. The information provided about possible Mars sample return architectures and concepts is for planning and discussion purposes only. NASA and ESA have made no official decisions to implement Mars Sample Return.

Beyer, Friederike↗

Mars Sample Return Conceptual Mission Overview

This talk will provide an overview of an overall Mars Sample Return campaign architecture, and the current concepts and options for the architecture and design of a Mars Sample Retrieval Lander (called Sample Retrieval Lander, SRL). The overall SRL mission concept and key mission objectives will be described, including the mission’s concept of operations and a notional timeline from launch to entry, through surface operations, to delivery of the samples to Mars orbit. The overall lander vehicle concept will be described, including current options being evaluated. Key lander element options will be discussed, including a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), Fetch Rover, Orbiting Sample container (OS), and tube transfer robotics systems. Details of the notional Fetch Rover functions, constraints and operations will be discussed. Specific challenges and approaches for addressing those challenges will be discussed, including key technical margins and planetary protection. Major trade studies and implementation approaches and a proposed schedule will also be discussed. The information provided about possible Mars sample return architectures and concepts is for planning and discussion purposes only. NASA and ESA have made no official decisions to implement Mars Sample Return.

Beyer, Friederike↗