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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 487 records · Page 27

Using APEX to Model Anticipated Human Error: Analysis of a GPS Navigational Aid

The interface development process can be dramatically improved by predicting design facilitated human error at an early stage in the design process. The approach we advocate is to SIMULATE the behavior of a human agent carrying out tasks with a well-specified user interface, ANALYZE the simulation for instances of human error, and then REFINE the interface or protocol to minimize predicted error. This approach, incorporated into the APEX modeling architecture, differs from past approaches to human simulation in Its emphasis on error rather than e.g. learning rate or speed of response. The APEX model consists of two major components: (1) a powerful action selection component capable of simulating behavior in complex, multiple-task environments; and (2) a resource architecture which constrains cognitive, perceptual, and motor capabilities to within empirically demonstrated limits. The model mimics human errors arising from interactions between limited human resources and elements of the computer interface whose design falls to anticipate those limits. We analyze the design of a hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) device used for radical and navigational decisions in small yacht recalls. The analysis demonstrates how human system modeling can be an effective design aid, helping to accelerate the process of refining a product (or procedure).

VanSelst, Mark↗

Rancor Integrated Procedure System (RIPS): A Computer-Based Procedure Platform for Advanced Reactor Research

The Rancor Microworld Simulator is a simplified, pressurized water, small modular reactor simulator that includes a multi-unit plant model server, an advanced digital human-machine control interface, and the Rancor Integrated Procedure System (RIPS). Rancor provides a research and development tool that can be used for collecting operator performance data and for prototyping concepts of operations (ConOps) for advanced reactor development. RIPS is meant as a research tool and includes many unique features: (1) RIPS has a robust procedure authoring system. (2) RIPS has the capability to run any of the three IEEE-Std-1786 computer-based procedure types. (3) RIPS can be configured to take on the look and feel of different vendors’ computer-based procedure systems for the purpose of developing and evaluating different ConOps for plant upgrades or new builds. (4) RIPS includes the capability for logging operator procedure use, including integrating procedure logs with Rancor simulator logs, thereby allowing automated data collection of operator scenario runs. (5) RIPS integrates with the Human Unimodel for Nuclear Technology to Enhance Reliability (HUNTER), a dynamic human reliability analysis environment that creates a digital human twin or virtual operator to mimic reactor operator performance. (6) RIPS includes support for automation of plant monitoring and control functions. While RIPS is explicitly built into Rancor, it may also be used with full-scope training simulators. This functionality allows RIPS to be used for existing plants and advanced reactors under development.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Artificial Intelligence: Powering Human Exploration of the Moon and Mars

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a growing field of computa- tional science techniques designed to mimic functions per- formed by people. Advancements in autonomy will depend on a portfolio of AI technologies. Automated planning and scheduling is a venerable field of study in AI, and is needed for a variety of mission planning functions. Plan execution technology is less well studied, but important for auton- omy and robotics. Specialized forms of automated reason- ing and machine learning are key technologies to enable fault management. Over the past decade, the NASA Au- tonomous Systems and Operations (ASO) project has devel- oped and demonstrated numerous autonomy enabling tech- nologies employing AI techniques. Our work has employed AI in three distinct ways to enable autonomous mission op- erations capabilities. Crew Autonomy gives astronauts tools to assist in the performance of each of these mission oper-ations functions. Vehicle System Management uses AI tech- niques to turn the astronaut's spacecraft into a robot, allow- ing it to operate when astronauts are not present, or to reduce astronaut workload. AI technology also enables Autonomous Robots as crew assistants or proxies when the crew are not present. When these capabilities are used to enable astro- nauts to operate autonomously, they must be integrated with user interfaces, introducing numerous human factors con- siderations; when these capabilities are used to enable vehi- cle system management, they must be integrated with flight software, and run on embedded processors under the control of real-time operating systems.We first describe human spaceflight mission operations capabilities. The remainder of the paper will describe the ASO project, and the development and demonstration per- formed by ASO since 2011. We will describe the AI tech- niques behind each of these demonstrations, which include a variety of symbolic automated reasoning and machine learn- ing based approaches. Finally, we conclude with an assess- ment of future development needs for AI to enable NASA's future Exploration missions.

Mission Operations↗

Identification of Scenarios for System Interface Design Evaluation: CAST SE-210 Output 2 Report 5 of 6

This report is one in a series of reports describing research to develop enhanced approaches to design and evaluation of flight deck interaction. The research was conducted to support the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) response to incidents and accidents caused by failure of the flight crew to maintain aircraft attitude or energy state awareness. This report partially responds to Safety Enhancement (SE) 210.2 (CAST, 2014) by describing development of operational scenarios for evaluation of flight crew interaction. Evaluations of human performance with an interface rely on asking humans to perform operational tasks in an appropriate operational context. The report includes the major sources of material for developing operational scenarios—which include system state, operational tasks, operational context, and safety events—and a method for developing an appropriate set of operational scenarios for interface evaluation.

commercial aviation↗

Operational behavioral health and performance resources for international space station crews and families

The Behavioral Health and Performance Section (BHP) at NASA Johnson Space Center provides direct and indirect psychological services to the International Space Station (ISS) astronauts and their families. Beginning with the NASA-Mir Program, services available to the crews and families have gradually expanded as experience is gained in long-duration flight. Enhancements to the overall BHP program have been shaped by crewmembers' personal preferences, family requests, specific events during the missions, programmatic requirements, and other lessons learned. The BHP program focuses its work on four areas: operational psychology, behavioral medicine, human-to-system interface, and sleep and circadian. Within these areas of focus are psychological and psychiatric screening for astronaut selection as well as many resources that are available to the crewmembers, families, and other groups such as crew surgeon and various levels of management within NASA. Services include: preflight, in flight, and postflight preparation; training and support; resources from a Family Support Office; in-flight monitoring; clinical care for astronauts and their families; and expertise in the workload and work/rest scheduling of crews on the ISS. Each of the four operational areas is summarized, as are future directions for the BHP program.

Space Flight↗

An operational approach to long-duration mission behavioral health and performance factors

NASA's participation in nearly 10 yr of long-duration mission (LDM) training and flight confirms that these missions remain a difficult challenge for astronauts and their medical care providers. The role of the astronaut's crew surgeon is to maximize the astronaut's health throughout all phases of the LDM: preflight, in flight, and postflight. In support of the crew surgeon, the NASA-Johnson Space Center Behavioral Health and Performance Group (JSC-BHPG) has focused on four key factors that can reduce the astronaut's behavioral health and performance. These factors are defined as: sleep and circadian factors; behavioral health factors; psychological adaptation factors; and human-to-system interface (the interface between the astronaut and the mission workplace) factors. Both the crew surgeon and the JSC-BHPG must earn the crewmember's trust preflight to encourage problem identification and problem solving in these four areas. Once on orbit, the crew medical officer becomes a valuable extension of the crew surgeon and BHPG on the ground due to the crew medical officer's constant interaction with crewmembers and preflight training in these four factors. However, the crew surgeon, BHPG, and the crew medical officer need tools that will help predict, prevent, monitor, and respond to developing problems. Objective data become essential when difficult mission termination decisions must be made. The need for behavioral health and performance tool development creates an environment rich for collaboration between operational healthcare providers and researchers. These tools are also a necessary step to safely complete future, more autonomous exploration-class space missions.

Review↗

Development and application of virtual reality for man/systems integration

While the graphical presentation of computer models signified a quantum leap over presentations limited to text and numbers, it still has the problem of presenting an interface barrier between the human user and the computer model. The user must learn a command language in order to orient themselves in the model. For example, to move left from the current viewpoint of the model, they might be required to type 'LEFT' at a keyboard. This command is fairly intuitive, but if the viewpoint moves far enough that there are no visual cues overlapping with the first view, the user does not know if the viewpoint has moved inches, feet, or miles to the left, or perhaps remained in the same position, but rotated to the left. Until the user becomes quite familiar with the interface language of the computer model presentation, they will be proned to lossing their bearings frequently. Even a highly skilled user will occasionally get lost in the model. A new approach to presenting type type of information is to directly interpret the user's body motions as the input language for determining what view to present. When the user's head turns 45 degrees to the left, the viewpoint should be rotated 45 degrees to the left. Since the head moves through several intermediate angles between the original view and the final one, several intermediate views should be presented, providing the user with a sense of continuity between the original view and the final one. Since the primary way a human physically interacts with their environment should monitor the movements of the user's hands and alter objects in the virtual model in a way consistent with the way an actual object would move when manipulated using the same hand movements. Since this approach to the man-computer interface closely models the same type of interface that humans have with the physical world, this type of interface is often called virtual reality, and the model is referred to as a virtual world. The task of this summer fellowship was to set up a virtual reality system at MSFC and begin applying it to some of the questions which concern scientists and engineers involved in space flight. A brief discussion of this work is presented.

Brown, Marcus↗

Enabling Deformable and Stretchable Batteries

Abstract Deformable energy storage devices are needed to power next‐generation wearable electronics that interface intimately with human skin. Currently, deformable energy storage devices demonstrate poor performance compared to their rigid lithium‐ion counterparts, forcing wearable manufacturers to design their devices around bulky battery compartments. However, technological advances to create deformable batteries at the component and device level have yielded continuous improvement in stretchable batteries over the last five years. In this Essay, the major strategies at the component and device level that have been successfully employed to create stretchable batteries are reviewed. The outstanding challenges facing deformable energy storage are also discussed, namely, energy density, packaging, delamination, device integration, and manufacturing. This Essay will give researchers who are interested in contributing to the development of deformable batteries a cursory understanding of the most successful strategies to date, and provide insights into the most important directions to pursue in the future.

Mackanic, David G.↗

Strain-insensitive intrinsically stretchable transistors and circuits

An all-elastomer strain engineering approach, which uses patterned elastomer layers with tunable stiffnesses, can be used to create intrinsically stretchable transistor arrays with a device density of 340 transistors cm -2 and strain insensitivity of less than 5% performance variation when stretched to 100% strain. Intrinsically stretchable electronics can form intimate interfaces with the human body, creating devices that could be used to monitor physiological signals without constraining movement. However, mechanical strain invariably leads to the degradation of the electronic properties of the devices. Here we show that strain-insensitive intrinsically stretchable transistor arrays can be created using an all-elastomer strain engineering approach, in which the patterned elastomer layers with tunable stiffnesses are incorporated into the transistor structure. By varying the cross-linking density of the elastomers, areas of increased local stiffness are introduced, reducing strain on the active regions of the devices. This approach can be readily incorporated into existing fabrication processes, and we use it to create arrays with a device density of 340 transistors cm -2 and a strain insensitivity of less than 5% performance variation when stretched to 100% strain. We also show that it can be used to fabricate strain-insensitive circuit elements, including NOR gates, ring oscillators and high-gain amplifiers for the stable monitoring of electrophysiological signals.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Identifying key determinants and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2/ACE2 tight interaction

SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of Covid-19, has fired up a global pandemic. The virus interacts with the human receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) for an invasion via receptor binding domain (RBD) on its spike protein. To provide a deeper understanding of this interaction, we performed microsecond simulations of the RBD-ACE2 complex for SARS-CoV-2 and compared it with the closely related SARS-CoV discovered in 2003. We show residues in the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 that were mutated from SARS-CoV, collectively help make the RBD anchor much stronger to the N-terminal part of ACE2 than the corresponding residues on RBD of SARS-CoV. This would result in a reduced dissociation rate of SARS-CoV-2 from human receptor protein compared to SARS-CoV. The phenomenon was consistently observed in simulations beyond 500 ns and was reproducible across different force fields. Altogether, our study adds more insight into the critical dynamics of the key residues at the virus spike and human receptor binding interface and potentially aids the development of diagnostics and therapeutics to combat the pandemic efficiently.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

MIDAS, prototype Multivariate Interactive Digital Analysis System, Phase 1. Volume 2: Diagnostic system

The MIDAS System is a third-generation, fast, multispectral recognition system able to keep pace with the large quantity and high rates of data acquisition from present and projected sensors. A principal objective of the MIDAS Program is to provide a system well interfaced with the human operator and thus to obtain large overall reductions in turn-around time and significant gains in throughout. The hardware and software generated in Phase I of the over-all program are described. The system contains a mini-computer to control the various high-speed processing elements in the data path and a classifier which implements an all-digital prototype multivariate-Gaussian maximum likelihood decision algorithm operating 2 x 105 pixels/sec. Sufficient hardware was developed to perform signature extraction from computer-compatible tapes, compute classifier coefficients, control the classifier operation, and diagnose operation. Diagnostic programs used to test MIDAS' operations are presented.

Kriegler, F. J.↗

MIDAS, prototype Multivariate Interactive Digital Analysis System, phase 1. Volume 3: Wiring diagrams

The Midas System is a third-generation, fast, multispectral recognition system able to keep pace with the large quantity and high rates of data acquisition from present and projected sensors. A principal objective of the MIDAS Program is to provide a system well interfaced with the human operator and thus to obtain large overall reductions in turn-around time and significant gains in throughput. The hardware and software generated in Phase I of the overall program are described. The system contains a mini-computer to control the various high-speed processing elements in the data path and a classifier which implements an all-digital prototype multivariate-Gaussian maximum likelihood decision algorithm operating at 2 x 100,000 pixels/sec. Sufficient hardware was developed to perform signature extraction from computer-compatible tapes, compute classifier coefficients, control the classifier operation, and diagnose operation. The MIDAS construction and wiring diagrams are given.

Kriegler, F. J.↗

MIDAS, prototype Multivariate Interactive Digital Analysis System, phase 1. Volume 1: System description

The MIDAS System is described as a third-generation fast multispectral recognition system able to keep pace with the large quantity and high rates of data acquisition from present and projected sensors. A principal objective of the MIDAS program is to provide a system well interfaced with the human operator and thus to obtain large overall reductions in turnaround time and significant gains in throughput. The hardware and software are described. The system contains a mini-computer to control the various high-speed processing elements in the data path, and a classifier which implements an all-digital prototype multivariate-Gaussian maximum likelihood decision algorithm operating at 200,000 pixels/sec. Sufficient hardware was developed to perform signature extraction from computer-compatible tapes, compute classifier coefficients, control the classifier operation, and diagnose operation.

Kriegler, F. J.↗

MIDAS prototype Multispectral Interactive Digital Analysis System for large area earth resources surveys. Volume 2: Charge coupled device investigation

MIDAS is a third-generation, fast, low cost, multispectral recognition system able to keep pace with the large quantity and high rates of data acquisition from large regions with present and projected sensors. MIDAS, for example, can process a complete ERTS frame in forty seconds and provide a color map of sixteen constituent categories in a few minutes. A principal objective of the MIDAS Program is to provide a system well interfaced with the human operator and thus to obtain large overall reductions in turn-around time and significant gains in throughput. The need for advanced onboard spacecraft processing of remotely sensed data is stated and approaches to this problem are described which are feasible through the use of charge coupled devices. Tentative mechanizations for the required processing operations are given in large block form. These initial designs can serve as a guide to circuit/system designers.

Kriegler, F.↗

MIDAS, prototype Multivariate Interactive Digital Analysis System for large area earth resources surveys. Volume 1: System description

A third-generation, fast, low cost, multispectral recognition system (MIDAS) able to keep pace with the large quantity and high rates of data acquisition from large regions with present and projected sensots is described. The program can process a complete ERTS frame in forty seconds and provide a color map of sixteen constituent categories in a few minutes. A principle objective of the MIDAS program is to provide a system well interfaced with the human operator and thus to obtain large overall reductions in turn-around time and significant gains in throughput. The hardware and software generated in the overall program is described. The system contains a midi-computer to control the various high speed processing elements in the data path, a preprocessor to condition data, and a classifier which implements an all digital prototype multivariate Gaussian maximum likelihood or a Bayesian decision algorithm. Sufficient software was developed to perform signature extraction, control the preprocessor, compute classifier coefficients, control the classifier operation, operate the color display and printer, and diagnose operation.

Christenson, D.↗

Public service user terminus study compendium of terminus equipment

General descriptions and specifications are given for equipments which facilitate satellite and terrestrial communications delivery by acting as interfaces between a human, mechanical, or electrical information generator (or source) and the communication system. Manufactures and suppliers are given as well as the purchase, service, or lease costs of various products listed under the following cateories: voice/telephony/facsimile equipment; data/graphics terminals; full motion and processes video equipment; and multiple access equipment.

Source record↗

State of the art for digital avionics and controls, 1978

A brief summary of a comprehensive state of the art survey is presented. The survey includes five broadly applicable technology areas: flight path management, aircraft control systems, crew station & human factors, integration & interfacing technology, and fundamental technology. In addition the survey included military technologies which have a technology transfer potential to the five broadly applicable technology areas.

Smyth, R. K.↗

Considerations for design of future research and development interactive image analysis systems

Future interactive image analysis systems must provide for the increased processing requirements imposed by a thermal channel to LANDSAT-3 and the increased number of spectral channels with significantly higher spatial resolution provided by the LANDSAT-D thematic mapper. Other design considerations must include the rapidly changing technology in memories and special purpose processors, as well as the analyst-machine interface and the human factors involved. The centralized and distributed system approaches are examined in relation to the optimum design configuration of future systems.

Wilkinson, T. B.↗