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A complex optical system consisting of a 4f optical correlator with programmatic filters under the control of a digital on-board computer that operates at video rates for filter generation, storage, and management is described.
Several years ago when INTEL and China Lake designed the ETANN chip, analog VLSI appeared to be the only way to do high density neural computing. In the last five years, however, digital parallel processing chips capable of performing neural computation functions have evolved to the point of rough equality with analog chips in system level computational density. The Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, has developed a real time, hardware and software system designed to implement and evaluate biologically inspired retinal and cortical models. The hardware is based on the Adaptive Solutions Inc. massively parallel CNAPS system COHO boards. Each COHO board is a standard size 6U VME card featuring 256 fixed point, RISC processors running at 20 MHz in a SIMD configuration. Each COHO board has a companion board built to support a real time VSB interface to an imaging seeker, a NTSC camera, and to other COHO boards. The system is designed to have multiple SIMD machines each performing different corticomorphic functions. The system level software has been developed which allows a high level description of corticomorphic structures to be translated into the native microcode of the CNAPS chips. Corticomorphic structures are those neural structures with a form similar to that of the retina, the lateral geniculate nucleus, or the visual cortex. This real time hardware system is designed to be shrunk into a volume compatible with air launched tactical missiles. Initial versions of the software and hardware have been completed and are in the early stages of integration with a missile seeker.
The technology developed for operator-in-the-loop simulation in space teleoperation has been applied to Caterpillar's backhoe, wheel loader, and off-highway truck. On an SGI workstation, the simulation integrates computer modeling of kinematics and dynamics, real-time computational and visualization, and an interface with the operator through the operator's console. The console is interfaced with the workstation through an IBM-PC in which the operator's commands were digitized and sent through an RS-232 serial port. The simulation gave visual feedback adequate for the operator in the loop, with the camera's field of vision projected on a large screen in multiple view windows. The view control can emulate either stationary or moving cameras. This simulator created an innovative engineering design environment by integrating computer software and hardware with the human operator's interactions. The backhoe simulation has been adopted by Caterpillar in building a virtual reality tool for backhoe design.
The strength of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate ESMD Faculty Project lies in its ability to meet National Aeronautics Space Administration NASA's Strategic Educational Outcome 1 by developing a sustainable and long-term integration of student involvement at academic institutions with all NASA Centers. This outcome is achieved by a three-fold approach: 1) by collecting Senior Design projects pertaining to Constellation work performed at each of the ten NASA Centers, 2) by engaging students at Minority Serving Institutions in the art of systems engineering and systems design of technologies required for space exploration, and 3) by identifying potential internships at each Center relative to exploration that provide students who are supported by their institutional Space Grant to engage in on-going mission-level and explorative systems designs. The objectives of the ESMD Faculty Project are to: 1. Aid the Centers (both Education Offices and associated technical organizations) in providing relevant opportunities for the ESMD Space Grant Program to support student and faculty in Senior Design projects 2. Enable better matches between the ESMD work required and what the Space Grant Consortia can do to effectively contribute to NASA programs 3. Provide the Space Grant Consortia an opportunity to strengthen relations with the NASA Centers 4. Develop better collective understanding of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy by the Center, Space Grant, faculty, Education Office, and students 5. Enable Space Grant institution faculty to better prepare their students to meet current and future NASA needs 6. Enable the Center Education Offices to strengthen their ties to their technical organizations and Space Grant Consortia 7. Aid KSC in gaining a greater and more detailed understanding of each of the Center activities Senior Design projects are intended to stimulate undergraduate students on current NASA activities related to lunar, Mars, and other planetary missions and to bring out innovative and novel ideas that can be used to complement those currently under development at respective NASA Centers. Additionally, such academic involvement would better the prospects for graduating seniors to pursue graduate studies and to seek careers in the space industry with a strong sense for systems engineering and understanding of design concepts. Internships, on the other hand, are intended to provide hands-on experience to students by engaging them in diverse state-of-the-art technology development, prototype bread-boarding, computer modeling and simulations, hardware and software testing, and other activities that provide students a strong perspective of NASA's vision and mission in enhancing the knowledge of Earth and space planetary sciences. Ten faculty members, each from a Space Grant Consortium-affiliated university, worked at ten NASA Centers for five weeks between June 2 and July 3, 2008. The project objectives listed above were achieved. In addition to collecting data on Senior Design ideas and identifying possible internships that would benefit NASA/ESMD, the faculty fellows promoted and collected data when required for other ESMD-funded programs and helped the Center's Education Office, as,needed. 4
Hybrid optical correlators, which use spatial light modulators and solid state imagers to interface computers and optical Fourier correlators, will allow the rapid changing of filters and digital pre- or post-correlation processing in vision systems. However, optical correlation (particulary with phase-only filtration) is notoriously sensitive to mismatches of rotation and magnification between the reference image and the input image. Such sharpness is not always desirable if the correlation pattern is to be used in a control system. Two methods of conforming the response of an inherently sharp-response optical correlation to an in plane rotation between reference and object images are discussed. The objective is to condition the correlation for better suitability to a vision-controlled system. The first method is controlled convolutional blurring of a reference image followed by construction of a matched filter (perhaps implemented as a phase-only filter). An alternative is discussed in more detail: it is a synthesis from sharp filters, so weighted as to produce a specified off-center behavior.
Research concerning flight computers for use on interplanetary probes is reviewed. The history of these computers from the Viking mission to the present is outlined. The differences between ground commercial computers and computers for planetary exploration are listed. The development of a computer for the Mariner Mark II comet rendezvous asteroid flyby mission is described. Various aspects of recently developed computer systems are examined, including the Max real time, embedded computer, a hypercube distributed supercomputer, a SAR data processor, a processor for the High Resolution IR Imaging Spectrometer, and a robotic vision multiresolution pyramid machine for processsing images obtained by a Mars Rover.
The goal of this effort is to demonstrate telerobotic inspection and mainpulation of space shuttle payloads in the presence of substantial communications time delays between the operator station and the robotic work space. The processing of space shuttle payloads provides a variety of tasks which are typical of both space shuttle ground operations and Space Station in-flight operations, and communications time delays are inevitable in space operations where the operator station will be light-seconds away from the telerobot. With this demonstration we hope to show the efficacy and safety of robotic technology for ground and space operations. Our approach is to develop an experimental telerobotic system with the remote sensing, actuation and reflex portions located at KSC in Florida, while the operator control station will be located at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. The JPL portion of the system includes a high-level operator interface, intelligent spatial planning and machine vision, while the KSC portion includes the robot arm, end effectors, cameras and proximity sensors, and the necessary control and communications computers and software. The communications between JPL and KSC are over a limited-bandwidth network channel (19200 baud) with unpredictable and unrepeatable time delays. In FY89 we integrated a basic version of the robotic, communications, and computer hardware, and we developed the software to perform an operator-supervised inspection of a PAM-D satellite upper stage rocket motor and its shuttle support cradle. The demonstration, though severely limited by the bulk of the available computer arm, showed the potential of telerobotics for inspection tasks. In the future, we plan to develop additional capabilities which will allow manipulation tasks to be performed, including removal of dust covers and lens caps, insertion of connectors and batteries, and installation of payload objects.
This paper describes a vision-guided manipulation algorithm that improves arm end-effector positioning to subpixel accuracy and meets the highly restrictive imaging and computational constraints of a planetary robotic flight system. Analytical, simulation-based, and experimental analyses of the algorithm's effectiveness and sensitivity to camera and arm model error is presented along with results on several prototype research systems and ground-in-the-loop technology experiments on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) vehicles. A computationally efficient and robust subpixel end-effector fiducial detector that is instrumental to the algorithm's ability to achieve high accuracy is also described along with its validation results on MER data.
An experimental investigation was conducted to study the effectiveness of modern flight displays in general aviation cockpits for mitigating Low Visibility Loss of Control and the Controlled Flight Into Terrain accidents. A total of 18 General Aviation (GA) pilots with private pilot, single engine land rating, with no additional instrument training beyond private pilot license requirements, were recruited to evaluate three different display concepts in a fixed-based flight simulator at the NASA Langley Research Center's General Aviation Work Station. Evaluation pilots were asked to continue flight from Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) while performing a series of 4 basic precision maneuvers. During the experiment, relevant pilot/vehicle performance variables, pilot control inputs and physiological data were recorded. Human factors questionnaires and interviews were administered after each scenario. Qualitative and quantitative data have been analyzed and the results are presented here. Pilot performance deviations from the established target values (errors) were computed and compared with the FAA Practical Test Standards. Results of the quantitative data indicate that evaluation pilots committed substantially fewer errors when using the Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) displays than when they were using conventional instruments. Results of the qualitative data indicate that evaluation pilots perceived themselves to have a much higher level of situation awareness while using the SVS display concept.
Faster than most speedy computers. More powerful than its NASA data-processing predecessors. Able to leap large, mission-related computational problems in a single bound. Clearly, it s neither a bird nor a plane, nor does it need to don a red cape, because it s super in its own way. It's Columbia, NASA s newest supercomputer and one of the world s most powerful production/processing units. Named Columbia to honor the STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia crewmembers, the new supercomputer is making it possible for NASA to achieve breakthroughs in science and engineering, fulfilling the Agency s missions, and, ultimately, the Vision for Space Exploration. Shortly after being built in 2004, Columbia achieved a benchmark rating of 51.9 teraflop/s on 10,240 processors, making it the world s fastest operational computer at the time of completion. Putting this speed into perspective, 20 years ago, the most powerful computer at NASA s Ames Research Center, home of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division (NAS), ran at a speed of about 1 gigaflop (one billion calculations per second). The Columbia supercomputer is 50,000 times faster than this computer and offers a tenfold increase in capacity over the prior system housed at Ames. What s more, Columbia is considered the world s largest Linux-based, shared-memory system. The system is offering immeasurable benefits to society and is the zenith of years of NASA/private industry collaboration that has spawned new generations of commercial, high-speed computing systems.
Among the topics discussed are: access control models for a distributed CAIS-conforming system; a knowledge-based advisory system for casualty procedures; and automated interactive simulation modeling system. Consideration is also given to: reusable software concepts and software development methodologies; the electronic device aspects of neutral network memories; an expert system for automated satellite anomaly resolution; and the use of automatic programming techniques for fault-tolerant computing systems. Among additional topics discussed are: systems approaches to software fault tolerance; a Space Shuttle navigation validation system; and a vision-based road following system for an autonomous land vehicle.
The development of an experimental test-bed to investigate the integration and control of perception in a continuously operating vision system is described. The test-bed integrates a 12 axis robotic stereo camera head mounted on a mobile robot, dedicated computer boards for real-time image acquisition and processing, and a distributed system for image description. The architecture was designed to: (1) be continuously operating, (2) integrate software contributions from geographically dispersed laboratories, (3) integrate description of the environment with 2D measurements, 3D models, and recognition of objects, (4) capable of supporting diverse experiments in gaze control, visual servoing, navigation, and object surveillance, and (5) dynamically reconfiguarable.
A viewgraph presentation outlines the development of biomaterials, biomimetics (mimicking biological processes and functions), and biological interfaces research. The different types of biomaterials are described, including details on bio-ceramics, biocompatible materials, materials characterization, and 'hybrid' biomaterials. The vision for biomimetics in creating a virtual human is discussed. Biological interfaces research is outlined, including information on interfaces with materials and computing.
Flood disasters have significant impacts on the development of communities globally. This study describes a public cloud-based flood cyber-infrastructure (CyberFlood) that collects, organizes, visualizes, and manages several global flood databases for authorities and the public in real-time, providing location-based eventful visualization as well as statistical analysis and graphing capabilities. In order to expand and update the existing flood inventory, a crowdsourcing data collection methodology is employed for the public with smartphones or Internet to report new flood events, which is also intended to engage citizen-scientists so that they may become motivated and educated about the latest developments in satellite remote sensing and hydrologic modeling technologies. Our shared vision is to better serve the global water community with comprehensive flood information, aided by the state-of-the- art cloud computing and crowdsourcing technology. The CyberFlood presents an opportunity to eventually modernize the existing paradigm used to collect, manage, analyze, and visualize water-related disasters.
Astronauts are exposed to cephalad fluid shift, increased carbon dioxide levels and other environmental factors during space flight. As a result of these conditions, it is believed that they are at risk of developing increased intracranial pressure (ICP) and intraocular pressure (IOP), which in turn may cause papilledema and other disorders of the eye that can lead to temporary or permanent changes in vision. However, the mechanisms behind this risk are not fully understood. Ground analog and flight studies pose challenges because there are limited non-invasive methods that can be used to study the eye and intracranial space. Therefore it is proposed that computational models can be applied to help address this gap by providing a low cost method for studying the effects of IOP, ICP and various properties of the eye on these diseases. The information presented by the authors provides a summary of several models found in literature that could potentially be augmented and applied to inform research. Specifically, finite element models of the optic nerve head, sclera and other structures of the eye can be readily adapted as potential building blocks. These models may also be integrated with a brain/cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) model which will take into account the interaction between the CSF fluid and its pressure on the optic nerve. This integration can enable the study of the effects of microgravity on the interaction between the vasculature system and CSF system and can determine the effects of these changes on the optic nerve, and in turn the eye. Ultimately, it can help pinpoint the influences of long-term exposure to microgravity on vision and inform the future research into countermeasure development. In addition to spaceflight, these models can provide deeper understanding of the mechanisms of glaucoma, papilledema and other eye disorders observed in terrestrial conditions.
Position and orientation of target measured in six degrees of freedom. Robotic vision subsystem measures relative position and orientation of specially designed target. Uses standard image-processing algorithms implemented directly in circuitry instead of computer programs. This feature makes it possible to extract complete sets of target-tracking data from successive image frames at rate of 30 frames per second. Five bright circles of target positioned in such way that video images of them processed into data on position and orientation of target relative to camera. Subsystem useful in industrial assembly operation requiring automatic joining of parts initially oriented and moving randomly.
A vision-based obstacle detection system that provides information about objects as a function of azimuth and elevation is discussed. The range map is computed using a sequence of images from a passive sensor, and an extended Kalman filter is used to estimate range to obstacles. The magnitude of the optical flow that provides measurements for each Kalman filter varies significantly over the image depending on the helicopter motion and object location. In a standard Kalman filter, the measurement update takes place at fixed intervals. It may be necessary to use a different measurement update rate in different parts of the image in order to maintain the same signal to noise ratio in the optical flow calculations. A range estimation scheme that accepts the measurement only under certain conditions is presented. The estimation results from the standard Kalman filter are compared with results from a multirate Kalman filter and an event-driven Kalman filter for a sequence of helicopter flight images.
A NASA Center for the Commercial Development of Space (CCDS) - developed system for satellite mapping has been commercialized for the first time. Global Visions, Inc. maps an area while driving along a road in a sophisticated mapping van equipped with satellite signal receivers, video cameras and computer systems for collecting and storing mapping data. Data is fed into a computerized geographic information system (GIS). The resulting amps can be used for tax assessment purposes, emergency dispatch vehicles and fleet delivery companies as well as other applications.