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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 451 records · Page 25

Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions on Atmospheric Concentrations of O3 and NO2 Across the Globe

We use a machine learning algorithm combining information from the NASA GEOS composition forecast (GEOS-CF) model and surface observations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3) at more than 5,000 observation sites to assess the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on surface air quality in 46 countries. Our methodology removes the compounding impacts of meteorology, seasonality and atmospheric chemistry on air pollution, thus allowing for a quantitative estimate of the change in surface air quality following COVID-19 containment measures. Compared to GEOS-CF model predictions that do not include emission reductions related to COVID-19 restrictions, surface observations show a drop in surface NO2 of up to 60% after the implementation of lockdowns. Average NO2 concentrations between February 2020 to June 2020 were 18% lower than business as usual. The earliest and strongest declines are observed over China, followed by Europe and the US. While NO2 concentrations over China recovered within 2 months, the recovery has been slower over Europe and the US. The impact of COVID-19 restrictions on O3 is complicated by non-linear atmospheric chemistry. Locally, O3 can show a short-term increase of up to 50% as a result of the decrease in NO2, which leads to a reduction in night time titration. However, this effect is offset by a decrease in photochemical production during the day. Our results indicate that these two competing processes resulted in a net zero change in average surface ozone during the first 5 months of the pandemic. The results also indicate that the reduced photochemical production becomes increasingly important over time. Our analysis is based on surface observations and model simulations available in near real-time, and we will present an up-to-date view of the short and medium-term impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on air quality around the world.

COVID-19↗

Greenland Geothermal Heat Flow Database and Map (Version 1)

We compile and analyze all available geothermal heat flow measurements collected in and around Greenland into a new database of 419 sites and generate an accompanying spatial map. This database includes 290 sites previously reported by the International Heat Flow Commission (IHFC), for which we now standardize measurement and metadata quality. This database also includes 129 new sites, which have not been previously reported by the IHFC. These new sites consist of 88 offshore measurements and 41 onshore measurements, of which 24 are subglacial. We employ machine learning to synthesize these in situ measurements into a gridded geothermal heat flow model that is consistent across both continental and marine areas in and around Greenland. This model has a native horizontal resolution of 55 km. In comparison to five existing Greenland geothermal heat flow models, our model has the lowest mean geothermal heat flow for Greenland onshore areas. Our modeled heat flow in central North Greenland is highly sensitive to whether the NGRIP (North GReenland Ice core Project) elevated heat flow anomaly is included in the training dataset. Our model's most distinctive spatial feature is pronounced low geothermal heat flow (< 40 mW m−2) across the North Atlantic Craton of southern Greenland. Crucially, our model does not show an area of elevated heat flow that might be interpreted as remnant from the Icelandic plume track. Finally, we discuss the substantial influence of paleoclimatic and other corrections on geothermal heat flow measurements in Greenland. The in situ measurement database and gridded heat flow model, as well as other supporting materials, are freely available from the GEUS Dataverse (https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/F9P03L; Colgan and Wansing, 2021).

William Colgan↗

arcjetCV: automating recession extraction from video

Arc jet Computer Vision (arcjetCV)[1][2] is a software application built to automate time-resolved recession tracking of edges in test videos, specifically for tracking material recession and the shock-material standoff. This provides a new capability to resolve and validate new physics associated with non-linear processes and an essential step to reduce testing, modeling, and validation uncertainties for heatshield material performance. ArcticCV uses several types of machine learning (convolutional neural net: CNN, decision tree: DT, k-means unsupervised clustering: KM) to automate the video processing pipeline. These include inferring the start/stop of time segments of interest (1D CNN), measuring the time-dependent 2D recession of the material samples (2D CNN, DT), measuring the time-dependent shock standoff distance (2D CNN, DT), and post-processing cleaning of the recession data (KM). The software also provides a graphical user interface for ease of use. The results of using this tool on arc jet videos show non-linear time-dependent effects can be important for certain materials and characterizing certain failure modes.

Recession tracking↗

ArcjetCV: Automating Recession Tracking

Arc jet Computer Vision (arcjetCV) is a software application built to automate time-resolved recession tracking of edges in test videos, specifically for tracking material recession and the shock-material standoff. This provides a new capability to resolve and validate new physics associated with non-linear processes and an essential step to reduce testing, modeling, and validation uncertainties for heatshield material performance. ArcticCV uses several types of machine learning (convolutional neural net: CNN, decision tree: DT, k-means unsupervised clustering: KM) to automate the video processing pipeline. These include inferring the start/stop of time segments of interest (1D CNN), measuring the time-dependent 2D recession of the material samples (2D CNN, DT), measuring the time-dependent shock standoff distance (2D CNN, DT), and post-processing cleaning of the recession data (KM). The software also provides a graphical user interface for ease of use. The results of using this tool on arc jet videos show non-linear time-dependent effects can be important for certain materials and characterizing certain failure modes.

Recession tracking↗

ArcjetCV: Automating Arc Jet Analysis

Arc jet Computer Vision (arcjetCV) is a software application built to automate time-resolved recession tracking of edges in test videos, specifically for tracking material recession and the shock-material standoff. This provides a new capability to resolve and validate new physics associated with non-linear processes and an essential step to reduce testing, modeling, and validation uncertainties for heatshield material performance. ArcticCV uses several types of machine learning (convolutional neural net: CNN, decision tree: DT, k-means unsupervised clustering: KM) to automate the video processing pipeline. These include inferring the start/stop of time segments of interest (1D CNN), measuring the time-dependent 2D recession of the material samples (2D CNN, DT), measuring the time-dependent shock standoff distance (2D CNN, DT), and post-processing cleaning of the recession data (KM). The software also provides a graphical user interface for ease of use. The results of using this tool on arc jet videos show non-linear time-dependent effects can be important for certain materials and characterizing certain failure modes.

Recession tracking↗

A Photometric Machine-Learning Method to Infer Stellar Metallicity

Following its formation, a star's metal content is one of the few factors that can significantly alter its evolution. Measurements of stellar metallicity ([Fe/H]) typically require a spectrum, but spectroscopic surveys are limited to a few x 10(exp 6) targets; photometric surveys, on the other hand, have detected > 10(exp 9) stars. I present a new machine-learning method to predict [Fe/H] from photometric colors measured by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The training set consists of approx. 120,000 stars with SDSS photometry and reliable [Fe/H] measurements from the SEGUE Stellar Parameters Pipeline (SSPP). For bright stars (g' < or = 18 mag), with 4500 K < or = Teff < or = 7000 K, corresponding to those with the most reliable SSPP estimates, I find that the model predicts [Fe/H] values with a root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) of approx.0.27 dex. The RMSE from this machine-learning method is similar to the scatter in [Fe/H] measurements from low-resolution spectra..

machine learning↗

Estimating Helicopter Noise Abatement Information with Machine Learning

Machine learning techniques are applied to the NASA Langley Research Center's expansive database of helicopter noise measurements containing over 1500 steady flight conditions for ten different helicopters. These techniques are then used to develop models capable of predicting the operating conditions under which significant Blade-Vortex Interaction noise will be generated for any conventional helicopter. A measure for quantifying the overall ground noise exposure of a particular helicopter operating condition is developed. This measure is then used to classify the measured flight conditions as noisy or not-noisy. These data are then parameterized on a nondimensional basis that defines the main rotor operating condition and are then scaled to remove bias. Several machine learning methods are then applied to these data. The developed models show good accuracy in identifying the noisy operating region for helicopters not included in the training data set. Noisy regions are accurately identified for a variety of different helicopters. One of these models is applied to estimate changes in the noisy operating region as vehicle drag and ambient atmospheric conditions are varied.

Greenwood, Eric↗

Transient Optimization of an Electrified Gas Turbine Engine Using Machine Learning

Gas turbine engines are designed with sufficient margin to prevent stall under normal operating conditions throughout their life. This compromise ensures that during rapid accelerations, compressor operation remains stable, but at the cost of efficiency and thrust responsiveness. The design margin encompasses multiple sources of uncertainty and systematic deviances from the operating line, the largest of which is the transient allowance. This set-aside accounts for the temporary incoordination of the engine spools during an acceleration while still enabling it to meet the certification requirement to accelerate from low to high power within a specified time, and without experiencing overtemperature, surge, stall, or other detrimental factors. Electrification of the powertrain provides the opportunity to address this reserve and truly optimize the design. The addition of electric machines inherent in hybrid propulsion concepts offers a means to interact with the engine shafts such that the necessary margin can be reduced, which can positively impact the engine design. By adjusting the amount of power extracted from or injected to the engine spools by the electric machines during transient operation, excursions from the operating line can be minimized. Past work using a dynamic engine model has shown that optimization of the fuel flow schedule during acceleration can reduce the required margin while still meeting the time requirement, and results are further improved when combined with power injection and extraction. The current work uses machine learning through a genetic algorithm to address the problem holistically by concurrently optimizing the electric machine power command and fuel flow acceleration schedule using an updated, higher fidelity version of the original engine model.

Stall Margin↗

Transient Optimization of an Electrified Gas Turbine Engine Using Machine Learning

Gas turbine engines are designed with sufficient margin to prevent stall under normal operating conditions throughout their life. This compromise ensures that during rapid accelerations, compressor operation remains stable, but at the cost of efficiency and thrust responsiveness. The design margin encompasses multiple sources of uncertainty and systematic deviances from the operating line, the largest of which is the transient allowance. This set-aside accounts for the temporary incoordination of the engine spools during an acceleration while still enabling it to meet the certification requirement to accelerate from low to high power within a specified time, and without experiencing overtemperature, surge, stall, or other detrimental factors. Electrification of the powertrain provides the opportunity to address this reserve and truly optimize the design. The addition of electric machines inherent in hybrid propulsion concepts offers a means to interact with the engine shafts such that the necessary margin can be reduced, which can positively impact the engine design. By adjusting the amount of power extracted from or injected to the engine spools by the electric machines during transient operation, excursions from the operating line can be minimized. Past work using a dynamic engine model has shown that optimization of the fuel flow schedule during acceleration can reduce the required margin while still meeting the time requirement, and results are further improved when combined with power injection and extraction. The current work uses machine learning through a genetic algorithm to address the problem holistically by concurrently optimizing the electric machine power command and fuel flow acceleration schedule using an updated, higher fidelity version of the original engine model.

Stall Margin↗

Transient Optimization of an Electrified Gas Turbine Engine Using Machine Learning

Gas turbine engines are designed with sufficient margin to prevent stall under normal operating conditions throughout their life. This compromise ensures that during rapid accelerations, compressor operation remains stable, but at the cost of efficiency and thrust responsiveness. The design margin encompasses multiple sources of uncertainty and systematic deviances from the operating line, the largest of which is the transient allowance. This set-aside accounts for the temporary incoordination of the engine spools during an acceleration while still enabling it to meet the certification requirement to accelerate from low to high power within a specified time, and without experiencing overtemperature, surge, stall, or other detrimental factors. Electrification of the powertrain provides the opportunity to address this reserve and truly optimize the design. The addition of electric machines inherent in hybrid propulsion concepts offers a means to interact with the engine shafts such that the necessary margin can be reduced, which can positively impact the engine design. By adjusting the amount of power extracted from or injected to the engine spools by the electric machines during transient operation, excursions from the operating line can be minimized. Past work using a dynamic engine model has shown that optimization of the fuel flow schedule during acceleration can reduce the required margin while still meeting the time requirement, and results are further improved when combined with power injection and extraction. The current work uses machine learning through a genetic algorithm to address the problem holistically by concurrently optimizing the electric machine power command and fuel flow acceleration schedule using an updated, higher fidelity version of the original engine model.

Stall Margin↗

Linear Regression Model for Predictive Service Provider Selection

The increasing number of satellites in orbit has led to a growing reliance on third-party service providers for data transfer between Earth and space. Traditional approaches to managing satellite communications require human intervention, which becomes more burdensome with the escalating number of satellites. This research addresses the need for an efficient and automated system to optimize service provider selection for NASA space communication. Previous research has utilized human-operated approaches for service provider management. Our study fills a gap by developing a cognitive algorithm that automates and optimizes the selection process based on various parameters, such as data volume, priority, quality of service and cost. This novel solution reduces user burden, facilitates service management, and contributes to the development of cognitive spaceflight missions, ultimately supporting NASA’s research into Cognitive Communications technology. The algorithm design consists of three major steps: modeling data, developing a Link Selection Algorithm (LSA) based on a grading system, and applying machine learning using linear regression. The LSA evaluates providers based on user-defined constraints, considering factors such as delivery time, cost, and quality of service. We define a suitability metric which allows our algorithm to make a recommendation to a user regarding which commercial service providers to select. The addition of Linear Regression predicts the future suitability value. Our main findings demonstrate that the resulting algorithm can autonomously manage connections between satellites and providers, maximizing communication channel efficiency. This research has significant implications, as it not only addresses a pressing issue in satellite communication management but also advances the field of cognitive spaceflight missions.

Linear regression↗

Real-time Unimpeded Taxi Out Machine Learning Service

This paper describes a study on the estimation of the unimpeded taxi out time using Machine Learning (ML) tools and proposes an implementation that can be used to make real-time predictions at any airport in the National Airspace System. Kedro, an open-source pipeline framework, is used to develop the model definition and training. Models are stored in scikit-learn containers on a MLFlow server where they can be retrieved and served to make predictions in the live system. These open source frameworks provide common structures between ML services, allow for easier maintenance and updates, and overall deliver an easier CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) process. The current models were trained on data acquired at KCLT and KDFW from June 1st to December 31st, 2019 and compute taxi time in the ramp, airport movement area (AMA) and total (from gates to runways). The current versions of the models achieve relatively low uncertainties of about 10 to 15% for the total and AMA taxi times and about 20% for the ramp taxi time at both KCLT and KDFW. Initial tests on offline data from 2020 and 2021 show a small degradation (10 to 15%) in accuracy performance indicating the model’s resilience to operational changes over time.

machine learning↗

Real-time Unimpeded Taxi Out Machine Learning Service

This presentation describes a study on the estimation of the unimpeded taxi out time using Machine Learning (ML) tools and proposes an implementation that can be used to make real-time predictions at any airport in the National Airspace System. Kedro, an open-source pipeline framework, is used to develop the model definition and training. Models are stored in scikit-learn containers on a MLFlow server where they can be retrieved and served to make predictions in the live system. These open source frameworks provide common structures between ML services, allow for easier maintenance and updates, and overall deliver an easier CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) process. The current models were trained on data acquired at KCLT and KDFW from June 1st to December 31st, 2019 and compute taxi time in the ramp, airport movement area (AMA) and total (from gates to runways). The current versions of the models achieve relatively low uncertainties of about 10 to 15% for the total and AMA taxi times and about 20% for the ramp taxi time at both KCLT and KDFW. Initial tests on offline data from 2020 and 2021 show a small degradation (10 to 15%) in accuracy performance indicating the model’s resilience to operational changes over time.

Machine Learning↗

Neural Network Machine Learning and Dimension Reduction for Data Visualization

Neural network machine learning in computer science is a continuously developing field of study. Although neural network models have been developed which can accurately predict a numeric value or nominal classification, a general purpose method for constructing neural network architecture has yet to be developed. Computer scientists are often forced to rely on a trial-and-error process of developing and improving accurate neural network models. In many cases, models are constructed from a large number of input parameters. Understanding which input parameters have the greatest impact on the prediction of the model is often difficult to surmise, especially when the number of input variables is very high. This challenge is often labeled the "curse of dimensionality" in scientific fields. However, techniques exist for reducing the dimensionality of problems to just two dimensions. Once a problem's dimensions have been mapped to two dimensions, it can be easily plotted and understood by humans. The ability to visualize a multi-dimensional dataset can provide a means of identifying which input variables have the highest effect on determining a nominal or numeric output. Identifying these variables can provide a better means of training neural network models; models can be more easily and quickly trained using only input variables which appear to affect the outcome variable. The purpose of this project is to explore varying means of training neural networks and to utilize dimensional reduction for visualizing and understanding complex datasets.

Liles, Charles A.↗

A Novel Framework for Multi-Path Data Fusion in Earth Observation and New Observing Strategies: Applications to Predicting Forest Canopy Height

Exponential growth of data from Earth Observation (EO) assets has necessitated the development of sophisticated methods for data interpretation and management. NASA’s New Observing Strategy (NOS) approach aims to coordinate operations among complex heterogenous systems of constellations, requiring advanced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) techniques. Despite significant advancements in AI/ML across various domains, the EO and machine learning for satellite (SatML) fields remain fragmented, often relying on adapted techniques rather than domain-specific solutions. We present a novel end-to-end data fusion framework tailored specifically for EO and SatML, addressing this gap by facilitating rapid development of AI/ML applications. This framework, called, Multimodal Earth Observation Workflow for Machine Learning (MEOW-ML), sup- ports the entire AI/ML lifecycle, from dataset manipulation, to model training, evaluation, and logging, and is designed to expedite the development of next-generation NOS deployments and SOTA in EO. We apply our framework to predict canopy height model (CHM) derived from lidar data. We integrate multiple data modalities through a hierarchical, multi-path model architecture, effectively identifying and leveraging the unique strengths of each data source to enhance predictive accuracy. Our experiments demonstrate that the multi-path architecture outperforms traditional single-path models and provides significant advantages in both accuracy and computational efficiency.

Mark Moussa↗

High-Dimensional Similarity Search with Quantum-Assisted Variational Autoencoder

Recent progress in quantum algorithms and hardware indicates the potential importance of quantum computing in the near future. However, finding suitable application areas remains an active area of research. Quantum machine learning is touted as a potential approach to demonstrate quantum advantage within both the gate-model and the adiabatic schemes. For instance, the QVAE has been proposed as a quantum enhancement to the discrete VAE. We extend on previous work and study the real-world applicability of a QVAE by presenting a proof-of-concept for similarity search in large-scale high-dimensional datasets. While exact and fast similarity search algorithms are available for low dimensional datasets, scaling to high-dimensional data is non-trivial. We show how to construct a space-efficient search index based on the latent space representation of a QVAE. Our experiments show a correlation between the Hamming distance in the embedded space and the Euclidean distance in the original space on the MODIS dataset. Further, we find real-world speedups compared to linear search and demonstrate memory-efficient scaling to half a billion data points.

Data mining, similarity search, quantum machine le↗

MARGInS: Model-Based Analysis of Realizable Goals in Systems

Under NASAs Constellation effort, the Exploration Technology Development Program funded research toward a system validation capability that applied machine learning and test-case generation techniques to the analysis of black-box system behavior. The behavior analysis capability scaled to spaces of hundreds of input parameters and tens of thousands of test cases. Aerospace systems at the vehicle level, especially those systems which contain some level of autonomy, are best described by hybrid and non-linear mathematics. Even simplified models of such systems need parameter dimensionalities in the hundreds or thousands of parameters in order to capture sufficient fidelity. The System Safety Assessments (such as those described in the SAE ARP 4761A Safety Assessment Process guidelines) for these systems are prone to errorinteractions between the vehicles subsystems are complex, and can display emergent behaviors. NASA captured this new analysis in the Model-based Analysis of Realizable Goals in Systems (MARGInS) tool and applied it to the Pad Abort 1 (PA-1) simulation as part of the independent validation and verification cycle before the PA-1 flight test in May of 2010. MARGInS evaluated the adherence of the high-fidelity simulation to its requirements, and deter- mined the margins to failure from the expected nominal input conditions. Following the PA-1 test, the capabilities within the MARGInS framework have been extended with sophisticated statistical and white-box test case generation techniques and applied to other NASA missions. The frame- work now includes a critical factors analysis that was applied to NASAs Orion simulation and design. NASAs Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) leveraged the existing MARGInS framework for work on aviation safety for civil transport vehicles and for research on autonomy issues. The NASA ARMD effort created a time series output prediction capability that has been used to characterize trajectories for a plane with an adaptive control system, and a safety boundary detection capability that has been applied to an air traffic control concept of operation for the Federal Aviation Administration. The statistical and machine- learning based techniques within MARGInS have been successfully combined with concolic execution to improve the coverage of a critical unit by driving system-level inputs. The use case driving the concolic execution and MARGInS integration was inspired by the Air France 447 disaster in which the loss of a critical functionality (the airspeed calculation from the pitot tubes) led to loss of the entire plane with the people aboard. To illustrate capabilities and limitations, we will highlight the analyses for the applications listed above. We will then discuss the future plans for MARGInS and its interfaces with other tools.

Validation↗