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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Visual and Inertial Datasets for an eVTOL Aircraft Approach and Landing Scenario

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) project developing computer vision algorithms for autonomous flight is producing real-world datasets with cameras mounted on aircraft. In related domains, such as autonomous driving, open datasets are key to innovation and advancement in computer vision and autonomous perception for future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations. Few vision datasets, however, are publicly available in the aviation context. This paper introduces preliminary datasets containing several examples of approach and landing scenarios. The platform aircraft include a multirotor small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) and a crewed helicopter as surrogates for future electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The dataset provides video imagery with associated inertial navigation system-global positioning system (INS-GPS) position and attitude estimates and other sensors. Surveyed locations of the visual features of the landing area are included. This dataset is the first to be released in an ongoing effort to collect and share large, diverse datasets relevant to autonomous aviation; community critique that can inform and improve future flight campaigns is welcome.

Nelson Brown↗
NASA NTRS1997

Optical Verification Laboratory Demonstration System for High Security Identification Cards

Document fraud including unauthorized duplication of identification cards and credit cards is a serious problem facing the government, banks, businesses, and consumers. In addition, counterfeit products such as computer chips, and compact discs, are arriving on our shores in great numbers. With the rapid advances in computers, CCD technology, image processing hardware and software, printers, scanners, and copiers, it is becoming increasingly easy to reproduce pictures, logos, symbols, paper currency, or patterns. These problems have stimulated an interest in research, development and publications in security technology. Some ID cards, credit cards and passports currently use holograms as a security measure to thwart copying. The holograms are inspected by the human eye. In theory, the hologram cannot be reproduced by an unauthorized person using commercially-available optical components; in practice, however, technology has advanced to the point where the holographic image can be acquired from a credit card-photographed or captured with by a CCD camera-and a new hologram synthesized using commercially-available optical components or hologram-producing equipment. Therefore, a pattern that can be read by a conventional light source and a CCD camera can be reproduced. An optical security and anti-copying device that provides significant security improvements over existing security technology was demonstrated. The system can be applied for security verification of credit cards, passports, and other IDs so that they cannot easily be reproduced. We have used a new scheme of complex phase/amplitude patterns that cannot be seen and cannot be copied by an intensity-sensitive detector such as a CCD camera. A random phase mask is bonded to a primary identification pattern which could also be phase encoded. The pattern could be a fingerprint, a picture of a face, or a signature. The proposed optical processing device is designed to identify both the random phase mask and the primary pattern [1-3]. We have demonstrated experimentally an optical processor for security verification of objects, products, and persons. This demonstration is very important to encourage industries to consider the proposed system for research and development.

Javidi, Bahram↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Vision for Spaceflight Computing

Future NASA mission applications demand onboard computing performance, power efficiency, and flexibility not available from current products. To address these needs, NASA’s High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) project is developing a radiation hardened, general purpose multi-core processor. Key HPSC objectives include natural space radiation hardness, fault tolerance, computation performance and extensibility, and power scalability. This presentation will first highlight how advances in spaceflight computing are key to NASA’s envisioned future for advanced avionics. Descriptions will then be provided for NASA mission applications and use cases that demand advanced spaceflight computing. The presentation will then provide an overview of NASA’s HPSC project and how it will address the computational demands of future missions.

Wesley Powell↗
NASA NTRS2007

Recent Advances in Photonic Devices for Optical Computing and the Role of Nonlinear Optics-Part II

The twentieth century has been the era of semiconductor materials and electronic technology while this millennium is expected to be the age of photonic materials and all-optical technology. Optical technology has led to countless optical devices that have become indispensable in our daily lives in storage area networks, parallel processing, optical switches, all-optical data networks, holographic storage devices, and biometric devices at airports. This chapters intends to bring some awareness to the state-of-the-art of optical technologies, which have potential for optical computing and demonstrate the role of nonlinear optics in many of these components. Our intent, in this Chapter, is to present an overview of the current status of optical computing, and a brief evaluation of the recent advances and performance of the following key components necessary to build an optical computing system: all-optical logic gates, adders, optical processors, optical storage, holographic storage, optical interconnects, spatial light modulators and optical materials.

Abdeldayem, Hossin↗
NASA NTRS1972

Computer program user's manual for advanced general aviation propeller study

A user's manual is presented for a computer program for predicting the performance (static, flight, and reverse), noise, weight and cost of propellers for advanced general aviation aircraft of the 1980 time period. Complete listings of this computer program with detailed instructions and samples of input and output are included.

Worobel, R.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Models for evaluating the performability of degradable computing systems

Recent advances in multiprocessor technology established the need for unified methods to evaluate computing systems performance and reliability. In response to this modeling need, a general modeling framework that permits the modeling, analysis and evaluation of degradable computing systems is considered. Within this framework, several user oriented performance variables are identified and shown to be proper generalizations of the traditional notions of system performance and reliability. Furthermore, a time varying version of the model is developed to generalize the traditional fault tree reliability evaluation methods of phased missions.

Wu, L. T.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Simulating Alpha Particles Incident on MKID Chips for Quantum Sensitivity Analysis

Superconducting quantum devices, such as microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), are highly sensitive instruments used in quantum computing and advanced sensing technologies. However, their extreme sensitivity also makes them vulnerable to background noise from natural sources like radiation. One significant contributor to this noise is alpha particles emitted by 210Po, a radon decay daughter that accumulates on surfaces near the detector. This project investigates how alpha particles emitted from 210Po interact with MKID chips. These particles can deposit energy on the detector surface, disrupting its operation and generating false signals. Understanding the energy and behavior of these particles is crucial for improving the design and reliability of quantum devices. To explore this, we first modeled the decay chain starting from 210Pb to 210Po using differential equations. This allowed us to predict how the activity of alpha-emitting isotopes changes over time, reaching a steady state after about two years. Next, we simulated alpha particle interactions with the MKID chip using the Geant4 software toolkit. We built a detailed computer model of the detector housing, including the copper lid where alpha particles originate, the silicon chip, and a thin aluminum sensor layer. Alpha particles were emitted isotropically from just beneath the copper lid’s surface, mimicking natural decay conditions. The simulation tracked how these particles deposit energy on the chip, generating electron-hole pairs and phonons. The results provide insight into the behavior of the resultant electron-hole pairs and phonons, giving us a clear understanding of the energy deposition distribution on the chip. This work supports efforts to mitigate background noise in superconducting sensors, advancing their use in quantum computing and sensitive physics experiments.

Hall, Matthew [Fermilab; UCLA]↗
DOE OSTI2026

Ultrasonic Resonance Techniques for Materials Research

Mechanical resonances are directly related to the physical behavior of a system at the bulk and microscopic levels. In materials science, resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) has long been a preferred nondestructive method to study mechanical resonances of solids and precisely measure quantitative material properties, namely elasticity. In recent years, advances in computational power and hardware have enabled RUS to be relevant for an increasing range of applications, such as advanced manufacturing. An extension of this technique, nonlinear RUS (NRUS), has been demonstrated to provide unmatched sensitivity to early-stage damage. NRUS was originally developed to probe geologic materials but has become a vital tool in nondestructive evaluation and materials research, offering a powerful means of quantifying and characterizing microstructural nonlinearity in a broad range of materials. This review summarizes recent developments and growth opportunities in RUS and NRUS techniques, modeling, and applications across a wide range of material systems including metals, composites, geomaterials, and explosives.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

SWIPE: Spectral Water Inversion Processor and Emulator

Degradation of Earth’s inland water resources due to anthropogenic perturbations and climate anomalies at both local and global scales continues to place human health at substantial risk. There is now a growing necessity to develop pragmatic approaches that allow timely and effective extrapolation of local processes, to spatially resolved global products, and to promote operational and sustainable resource policy management. This presentation will be discussing the progress made developing SWIPE: Spectral Water Inversion Processor and Emulator. SWIPE is a platform for advanced modeling of coastal and inland aquatic habitats. The goal is create a comprehensive and cohesive system to leverage recent advancements in computation and machine learning to develop a synthetic training ground for sensitivity studies and algorithm development. The four principal facets of SWIPE include: 1. Advanced two-layer coated sphere bio-optical modeling and GPU radiative transfer modeling, 2. Big Data involving massive synthetic spectral libraries of optical properties of various global aquatic particles, surface reflectance, and top-of-atmosphere reflectance, all at hyperspectral resolution leveraging high-end computing systems at NASA Ames Research Center, 3. Deep Learning for algorithm development for water quality inversion of concentrations of common biogeophysical variables as well as optics, full uncertainty characterization by water type, and forward emulation, and lastly, 4. Image Processing for application of developed retrieval algorithms for both hyperspectral and multispectral sensors with experimental corrections for global adjacency, noise, sunglint, and benthic reflectance. This presentation will demonstrate the Equivalent Algal Populations (EAP) two-layer coated sphere scattering model which has been used develop spectral libraries of hyperspectral inherent optical properties of roughly 80 species of phytoplankton, covering 15 different classes and nine taxonomic functional types. The EAP model was also used to derive spectral properties of 10 different non-algal particle functional types. Examples of how the SMART-G (Speed-up Monte-carlo Advanced Radiative Transfer using GPU) radiative transfer code is used to model optically complex aquatic signals will be presented and discussed in the context of creating a massive synthetic database which can leverage the full power of next generation machine learning techniques and high end computing for water quality inversion. We will discuss our active investigation in things like appropriate model architectures, dimensionality reduction techniques such as PCA and autoencoders, uncertainty quantification and abstaining, and which variables actually benefit most from hyperspectral information versus multispectral resolution. We are also curious about questions relating to cost/benefit analysis in terms of computation resources, neural network complexity, and data volumes. Answers to these questions will hopefully elaborate on cost efficiency for potential future sensor design considerations.

SWIPE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Ten questions on building stock modeling to inform energy efficiency and sustainability

To enhance economic competitiveness and ensure energy efficiency, resilience, and security, cities and governments are adopting technologies and strategies to improve their existing building stocks. This approach aims to reduce energy use, improve energy affordability, and ensure a reliable power supply while safeguarding occupants during extreme weather events that may disrupt energy services. The effectiveness of these solutions will depend on building stock characteristics, use patterns, weather conditions, evolving technologies and their markets, and a city’s socio-economic conditions. This paper presents ten questions and answers that highlight the most important issues regarding the use of building stock modeling as a powerful tool to provide insights for informing stakeholders’ actions and decision-making on energy efficiency, costs reduction, and resilience of buildings in cities. Building stock modeling should build upon the fit-for-purpose framework, balancing the use case accuracy requirements, level of complexity, and needed resources (expertise, compute). The advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), the increasingly available open dataset of building stock in cities, and the more affordable powerful computing will accelerate the adoption of building stock modeling across scales by researchers and practitioners to inform decision making on sustainability and efficiency.

AI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing Capabilities in Physical and Computational Sciences

The Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate (PCSD) performs fundamental research in support of the science missions of Offices of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), High Energy Physics (HEP), Nuclear Physics (NP), and Fusion Energy Sciences (FES), and others within the domains of the chemical, materials, computational sciences, mathematics, and physics. This LDRD project aims to provide funding to develop/demonstrate research capabilities for proposals and publications to support these science missions. Staff will propose small research tasks/projects to be performed under this overall project.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1984

Impact of computers on aerodynamics research and development

Factors motivating the development of computational aerodynamics as a discipline are traced back to the limitations of the tools available to the aerodynamicist before the development of digital computers. Governing equations in exact and approximate forms are discussed together with approaches to their numerical solution. Example results obtained from the successively refined forms of the equations are presented and discussed, both in the context of levels of computer power required and the degree of the effect that their solution has on aerodynamic research and development. Factors pacing advances in computational aerodynamics are identified, including the amount of computational power required to take the next major step in the discipline. Finally, the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Program - with its 1987 target of achieving a sustained computational rate of 1 billion floating-point operations per second operating on a memory of 240 million words - is briefly discussed in terms of its projected effect on the future of computational aerodynamics.

Peterson, V. L.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Faster Finances

TRW has applied the Apollo checkout procedures to retail-store and bank-transaction systems, as well as to control systems for electric power transmission grids -- reducing the chance of power blackouts. Automatic checkout equipment for Apollo Spacecraft is one of the most complex computer systems in the world. Used to integrate extensive Apollo checkout procedures from manufacture to launch, it has spawned major advances in computer systems technology. Store and bank credit system has caused significant improvement in speed and accuracy of transactions, credit authorization, and inventory control. A similar computer service called "Validata" is used nationwide by airlines, airline ticket offices, car rental agencies, and hotels.

Source record↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Models, In situ, and Remote Sensing of Aerosols (MIRA)

There is a natural partitioning of scientific interest amongst three specialties of aerosol re-search: modeling, in situ measurements, and remote sensing. The broader aerosol community benefits when these groups interact, and this strengthens overall scientific impact on climate and air quality research and predictions. The new MIRA working group establishes a forum for identifying collaborations and improving discussions amongst specialties and across regional boundaries. One area of keen interest is uniting satellite and ground-based lidar groups with other aerosol disciplines. Elastic backscatter lidars depend upon a priori knowledge of aerosol properties to convert measured lidar profiles into aerosol extinction profiles. Acquiring additional insight on aerosol properties and transport is highly valuable to these lidar groups to improve the data quality and aid in their scientific interpretation. Another area of interest is to facilitate the incorporation of measurements into global aerosol models. Modelers need aerosol optical look-up tables that enable quick conversions of hydrated (and dry) polydisperse size distributions into aerosol optical properties (extinction, scattering, etc.), but many of the existing tables are based upon outdated measurements. Thus, MIRA is building the Tables of Aerosol Optics (TAO), which is a community collection of aerosol optical calculations. This expands on the historical efforts of Shettle and Fenn, d’Almeida, GADS, OPAC, etc., except that TAO seeks continual input from the community. Thus, as aerosol measurement and computational techniques advance, so does the TAO collective. Since TAO is a community collective, it is expected that users will optionally upload computations for aerosol type as well as computations for all of the traditional aerosol species(like amm sulfate, amm nitrate, organics, etc.). The near-term purpose of the MIRA working group is to: *Characterize regional aerosol lidar ratios to support improvements of aerosol extinction profiles and understanding of aerosol typing. *Create TAO --a community cooperative of aerosol optical tables. *Facilitate international communications between aerosol measurement and modeling groups. *Encourage the use of regional knowledge to develop and improve remote sensing techniques for current and future backscatter lidars located in space. *Enable and foster communication between the scientists who run global aerosol models and scientists who analyze space-based lidar data. We will discuss how a collaborative aerosol working group will be organized on this topic. Those who are interested in MIRA can sign up for the MIRA email listserver at https://forms.gle/qdbCnngzNJc5YJi57.

Greg Schuster↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Models, In situ, and Remote sensing of Aerosols (MIRA): Formation of an International Working Group

There is a natural partitioning of scientific interest amongst three specialties of aerosol re- search: modeling, in situ measurements, and remote sensing. The broader aerosol community benefits when these groups interact, and this strengthens overall scientific impact on climate and air quality research and predictions. The new MIRA working group establishes a forum for identifying collaborations and improving discussions amongst specialties and across regional boundaries. One area of keen interest is uniting satellite and ground-based lidar groups with other aerosol disciplines. Elastic backscatter lidars depend upon a priori knowledge of aerosol properties to convert measured lidar profiles into aerosol extinction profiles. Acquiring additional insight on aerosol properties and transport is highly valuable to these lidar groups to improve the data quality and aid in their scientific interpretation. Another area of interest is to facilitate the incorporation of measurements into global aerosol models. Modelers need aerosol optical look-up tables that enable quick conversions of hydrated (and dry) polydisperse size distributions into aerosol optical properties (extinction, scattering, etc.), but many of the existing tables are based upon outdated measurements. Thus, MIRA is building the Tables of Aerosol Optics (TAO), which is a community collection of aerosol optical calculations. This expands on the historical efforts of Shettle and Fenn, d’Almeida, GADS, OPAC, etc., except that TAO seeks continual input from the community. Thus, as aerosol measurement and computational techniques advance, so does the TAO collective. Since TAO is a community collective, it is expected that users will optionally upload computations for aerosol type as well as computations for all of the traditional aerosol species (like amm sulfate, amm nitrate, organics, etc.). The near-term purpose of the MIRA working group is to: * Characterize regional aerosol lidar ratios to support improvements of aerosol extinction profiles and understanding of aerosol typing. * Create TAO -- a community cooperative of aerosol optical tables. * Facilitate international communications between aerosol measurement and modeling groups. * Encourage the use of regional knowledge to develop and improve remote sensing techniques for current and future backscatter lidars located in space. * Enable and foster communication between the scientists who run global aerosol models and scientists who analyze space-based lidar data. We will discuss how a collaborative aerosol working group will be organized on this topic. Send email to calipso_v5alr-join@lists.nasa.gov with the word `subscribe' in the subject line to join MIRA.

Gregory Schuster↗
NASA NTRS1972

LSI computer design - SUMC/DV.

Advanced Technology Laboratories has designed, built, and tested the first CMOS general-purpose computer. The computer executes 32 instructions that are operation-code compatible with the IBM 360 and RCA Spectra 70 series of computers. The computer is supported by 2k words of main-memory LSI storage and a TTY peripheral for input and output operations. Additionally, a simulator, an assembler, and a loader have been constructed to provide software support to the hardware. This paper provides an overall picture of this computer project.

Clapp, W. A.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Recent progress in research pertaining to estimates of gas-side heat transfer in an aircraft gas turbine

A decade ago several important fundamental heat transfer phenomena were identified which were considered basic to the ability to predict heat transfer loads in aircraft gas turbines. The progress in addressing these fundamentals over the past ten years is assessed. Much reseach effort has been devoted to their study in university, industry and government labs and significant progress has been achieved. Advances in computer technology have enabled the modeling of complex 3-D fluid flow in gas turbines so necessary for heat transfer calculations. Advances in instrumentation plus improved data acquisition have brought about more reliable data sets. While much has advanced in the 1980's, much challenging research remains to be done. Several of these areas are suggested.

Graham, Robert W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

A brief overview of computational structures technology related activities at NASA Lewis Research Center

The presentation gives a partial overview of research and development underway in the Structures Division of LeRC, which collectively is referred to as the Computational Structures Technology Program. The activities in the program are diverse and encompass four major categories: (1) composite materials and structures; (2) probabilistic analysis and reliability; (3) design optimization and expert systems; and (4) computational methods and simulation. The approach of the program is comprehensive and entails exploration of fundamental theories of structural mechanics to accurately represent the complex physics governing engine structural performance, formulation, and implementation of computational techniques and integrated simulation strategies to provide accurate and efficient solutions of the governing theoretical models by exploiting the emerging advances in computer technology, and validation and verification through numerical and experimental tests to establish confidence and define the qualities and limitations of the resulting theoretical models and computational solutions. The program comprises both in-house and sponsored research activities. The remainder of the presentation provides a sample of activities to illustrate the breadth and depth of the program and to demonstrate the accomplishments and benefits that have resulted.

Hopkins, Dale A.↗