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Advanced Concepts Modeling software validation, analysis, and design. This was a National Institute of Aerospace contract with a lot of pieces. Efforts ranged from software development and validation for structures and aerodynamics, through flight control development, and aeropropulsive analysis, to UAV piloting services.
For over 50 years, NASA's crewed missions have been confined to the Earth-Moon system, where speed-of-light communications delays between crew and ground are practically nonexistent. This ground-centered mode of operations, with a large, ground-based support team, is not sustainable for NASAs future human exploration missions to Mars. Future astronauts will need smarter tools employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques make decisions without inefficient communication back and forth with ground-based mission control. In this talk we will describe several demonstrations of astronaut decision support tools using AI techniques as a foundation. These demonstrations show that astronauts tasks ranging from living and working to piloting can benefit from AI technology development.
For this internship, I was a part of the multi-center NextGen STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) pilot. Specifically, I worked with the Developing Commercial Crew Program (CCP) Capabilities team that focuses on human spaceflight to the space station with NASA’s commercial partners. Composed of NASA employees and contractors (who are connected to KSC, JSC, and LaRC), they work to ensure that students will experience traditional classroom content and be immersed in emerging technologies in order to explore Commercial Crew missions and launch facilities. This group is in the process of creating educational products and resources to inspire the next generation to pursue STEM and to allow educators to have access to unique and enticing STEM activities. These products include: age-appropriate classroom lessons (including activity sheets and challenges) for kindergarten through twelfth grade; a CCP app and corresponding guide; learning experiences for students as well as educators; and virtual field trips and tours using NASA-created Virtual Reality (VR) videos and a custom VR app. My particular assignment was managing the VR equipment, developing an understanding of how to maximize the use of the equipment, creating documents that explain and convey the operations and procedures concerning the equipment (including lessons learned from equipment use), and training others to utilize the equipment effectively and correctly for conference events and group demonstrations. Over the course of this internship, I helped my team outline and learn essential procedures of operation for the VR equipment, solved technology problems that arose (due to the nature of creating unique products), and encouraged audiences at KSC and various conferences to consider using the CCP VR videos in their classrooms as an opportunity to engage and challenge the next generation to pursue STEM careers.
NASA's Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Sub-Project is engaged in research to support the introduction of air taxis into the National Airspace System. Such operations will require a range of communication, navigation, and surveillance systems. Air vehicles for UAM are under development and will initially have human pilots. Separation from other aircraft, obstacles, and weather may be a pilot responsibility or provided by an operator's ground-based systems. Eventually, air taxis may be flown from the ground or fly autonomously. There will be a need for dispatch services for UAM. This report presents a gap analysis, data and capability requirements, and workstation design concepts for the UAM dispatcher or Fleet Manager (FM) position.
NASA's Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Sub-Project is engaged in research to support the introduction of air taxis into the National Airspace System. Such operations will require arrange of communication, navigation, and surveillance systems. Air vehicles for UAM are under development and will initially have human pilots. Separation from other aircraft, obstacles, and weather may be a pilot responsibility or provided by an operator's ground-based systems. Eventually, air taxis may be flown from the ground or fly autonomously. There will be a need for dispatch services for UAM. This report presents a gap analysis, data and capability requirements, and workstation design concepts for the UAM dispatcher or Fleet Manager (FM) position. This presentation reviews the gap analysis report and outlines user interface design.
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a future mode of transportation that will require revolutionary new vehicle concepts and operations. One of the many challenges that these vehicles face is a complex flight control task in a challenging urban environment and in different flight regimes such as hover, forward flight as well as the transitions between both, with a focus on a low workload and minimum required pilot training. This paper discusses the development and evaluation of simplified vehicle operations concepts using representative aircraft models, controls, inceptors and displays. These four aspects are inseparably interconnected. This simplified vehicle operations concept will be evaluated by performing relevant operations within a realistic urban environment. Handling quality evaluations will be performed using modified Mission Task Elements, or Handling Quality Task Elements. This paper focuses on the initial development of controls, inceptors and displays.
NASA’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Sub-Project is engaged in research to support the introduction of air taxis into the National Airspace System. Such operations will require a range of communication, navigation, and surveillance systems. Air vehicles for UAM are under development and will initially have human pilots. Separation from other aircraft, obstacles, and weather may be a pilot responsibility or provided by an operator’s ground-based systems. Eventually, air taxis may be flown from the ground or fly autonomously. The variable separation concept adds separation buffers to air taxis depending upon their situation or location.
The principles and reasons for employing Human Autonomy Teaming is discussed. Application of these techniques to multi-vehicle control is described. In several operational environments from small drone delivery to air taxi to autonomous cargo, many companies will need technologies that will allow for the operation of an unmanned aircraft (UAS or eVTOL) by a small crew of individuals that are located in a remote network operations center. That is, Multiple operators supervising an increasing Number of vehicles (M:N). This will require a new control/supervisory paradigm where the supervisors team with automation to achieve their joint tasks; Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT). This task will follow the HAT philosophy and tenants (e.g., trust, bi-directional communication, pilot directed interfaces). It will also develop and employ specific HAT tools (e.g., playbook, working agreements, predictive timeline displays, transparent interfaces to build trust).
The principles and reasons for employing Human Autonomy Teaming is discussed. Application of these techniques to multi-vehicle control is described. In several operational environments from small drone delivery to air taxi to autonomous cargo, many companies will need technologies that will allow for the operation of an unmanned aircraft (UAS or eVTOL) by a small crew of individuals that are located in a remote network operations center. That is, Multiple operators supervising an increasing Number of vehicles (M:N). This will require a new control/supervisory paradigm where the supervisors team with automation to achieve their joint tasks; Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT). This task will follow the HAT philosophy and tenants (e.g., trust, bi-directional communication, pilot directed interfaces). It will also develop and employ specific HAT tools (e.g., playbook, working agreements, predictive timeline displays, transparent interfaces to build trust).
The principles and reasons for employing Human Autonomy Teaming is discussed. Application of these techniques to multi-vehicle control is described. In several operational environments from small drone delivery to air taxi to autonomous cargo, many companies will need technologies that will allow for the operation of an unmanned aircraft (UAS or eVTOL) by a small crew of individuals that are located in a remote network operations center. That is, Multiple operators supervising an increasing Number of vehicles (M:N). This will require a new control/supervisory paradigm where the supervisors team with automation to achieve their joint tasks; Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT). This task will follow the HAT philosophy and tenants (e.g., trust, bi-directional communication, pilot directed interfaces). It will also develop and employ specific HAT tools (e.g., playbook, working agreements, predictive timeline displays, transparent interfaces to build trust). This presentation discusses the background and progress of the m:N working group.
The principles and reasons for employing Human Autonomy Teaming is discussed. Application of these techniques to multi-vehicle control is described. In several operational environments from small drone delivery to air taxi to autonomous cargo, many companies will need technologies that will allow for the operation of an unmanned aircraft (UAS or eVTOL) by a small crew of individuals that are located in a remote network operations center. That is, Multiple operators supervising an increasing Number of vehicles (M:N). This will require a new control/supervisory paradigm where the supervisors team with automation to achieve their joint tasks; Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT). This task will follow the HAT philosophy and tenants (e.g., trust, bi-directional communication, pilot directed interfaces). It will also develop and employ specific HAT tools (e.g., playbook, working agreements, predictive timeline displays, transparent interfaces to build trust). This presentation discusses the future of GCS control stations and need for Human Systems Integration.
The principles and reasons for employing Human Autonomy Teaming is discussed. Application of these techniques to multi-vehicle control is described. In several operational environments from small drone delivery to air taxi to autonomous cargo, many companies will need technologies that will allow for the operation of an unmanned aircraft (UAS or eVTOL) by a small crew of individuals that are located in a remote network operations center. That is, Multiple operators supervising an increasing Number of vehicles (M:N).This will require a new control/supervisory paradigm where the supervisors team with automation to achieve their joint tasks; Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT).This task will follow the HAT philosophy and tenants (e.g., trust, bi-directional communication, pilot directed interfaces). It will also develop and employ specific HAT tools (e.g., playbook, working agreements, predictive timeline displays, transparent interfaces to build trust). This presentation discusses the barriers and requirements for future m:N operations.
The Path Finding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) subproject under ATM-X is developing concepts and solutions to allow pilots to supervise multiple uncrewed flights at a time. This line of research stems from industry's desire to leverage Uncrewed Aircraft (UA) operations to achieve maximum productivity from pilot and aircraft resources, driven partially by pilot staffing shortages. Trajectory based solutions delivered by data link offer a potential solution to the multi-vehicle (m:N) problem by minimizing the number of instructions between remote pilots and air traffic controllers. Furthermore, such solutions avoid the need for pilots to monitor multiple voice frequencies at a time for air traffic control instructions to manage multiple flights. This panel presentation will give a brief introduction to PAAV followed by a description of NASA's AutoResolver capability for generating comprehensive air traffic control clearances and communicating them via data link for controller approval and flight execution.
Low cost interval metering and communication technology improvements over the past ten years have enabled the maturity of load disaggregation (or non-intrusive load monitoring) technologies to better estimate and report energy consumption of individual end-use loads. With the appropriate performance characteristics, these technologies have the potential to enable many utility and customer facing applications such as billing transparency, itemized demand and energy consumption, appliance diagnostics, commissioning, energy efficiency savings verification, load shape research, and demand response measurement. However, there has been much skepticism concerning the ability of load disaggregation products to accurately identify and estimate energy consumption of end-uses; which has hindered wide-spread market adoption. A contributing factor is that common test methods and metrics are not available to evaluate performance without having to perform large scale field demonstrations and pilots, which can be costly when developing such products. Without common and cost-effective methods of evaluation, more developed disaggregation technologies will continue to be slow to market and potential users will remain uncertain about their capabilities. This paper reviews recent field studies and laboratory tests of disaggregation technologies. Several factors are identified that are important to consider in test protocols, so that the results reflect real world performance. Potential metrics are examined to highlight their effectiveness in quantifying disaggregation performance. This analysis is then used to suggest performance metrics that are meaningful and of value to potential users and that will enable researchers/developers to identify beneficial ways to improve their technologies.
Many of the researchers in this field in the late 1990s and early 2000s were challenged in terms of translation research issues due to the limited production capacity of nanocellulosics on a global stage. To address this call, several pilot-plant production plants have been developed and can now deliver NC on multikilo/ton scale as these issues are gradually being resolved. As means of contributing to our understanding of the pathway forward for nanocellulosics, the April and May 2019 issue of TAPPI Journal contain special content focused on this topic.
Propulsion requirements for large platform orbit raising, cargo and piloted planetary missions, and robotic deep space exploration have rekindled interest in the development and deployment of high power electromagnetic thrusters. Magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters can effectively process megawatts of power over a broad range of specific impulse values to meet these diverse in-space propulsion requirements. As NASA's lead center for electric propulsion, the Glenn Research Center has established an MW-class pulsed thruster test facility and is refurbishing a high-power steady-state facility to design, build, and test efficient gas-fed MPD thrusters. A complimentary numerical modeling effort based on the robust MACH2 code provides a well-balanced program of numerical analysis and experimental validation leading to improved high power MPD thruster performance. This paper reviews the current and planned experimental facilities and numerical modeling capabilities at the Glenn Research Center and outlines program plans for the development of new, efficient high power MPD thrusters.
This project is a collaborative research effort between PKMJ Technical Services LLC, Idaho National Laboratory, and Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) Nuclear, LLC. The collaboration, led by PKMJ Technical Services LLC, is part of the industry Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) award under Advanced Nuclear Technology Development FOA #DE-FOA-0001817. The pilot demonstration focuses on the Circulating Water System (CWS), an important non-safety-related system that impacts the power generation capability of the plant site. Achieving riskinformed condition-based Predictive Maintenance (PdM) on the CWS will result in significant economic benefits, and the developed methodologies can also be applied to other plant systems. This approach supports an industry goal of ensuring that nuclear power generation remains a viable, economically competitive option in the energy market. Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs include labor-intensive Preventive Maintenance (PM) programs that involve manually performed inspection, calibration, testing, and maintenance of plant assets at periodic frequencies as well as time-based replacement of assets, irrespective of condition. This project offers an alternative by focusing on riskinformed condition-based maintenance to reduce O&M costs while still maintaining plant health and safety. This report summarizes the progress made toward achieving a risk-informed condition-based maintenance approach. The research and development (R&D) activities presented in this report are associated with development of a nuclear digital platform application, integration of fault signature models, and automated work management processes. The fault signatures and Machine Learning (ML) models are key components in predictive analytics and are heavily leveraged to improve the insights received by existing plant process data sources. Availability of the analysis results within a centralized digital platform enhances efficiency by enabling automation of activities otherwise performed manually. Personnel are presented with enhanced information that can be used to evaluate plant status and risks. Utilizing the enhancements to data analytics supports automated responses, (i.e. issuance of work orders) to address developing equipment faults and thus preventing forced, unplanned shutdowns of components or systems. The R&D activities described within this report lay the foundation for developing and demonstrating a digital automated platform to centralize the implementation of condition monitoring and response to equipment faults. The digital automated platform is cloud-based and designed to enable improved efficiency of plant processes. The digital platform includes content related to maintenance optimization, fault signature analysis, and plant records, which can all be used to support efficiencies when located within a centralized digital platform. These efficiencies could be further enhanced when deployed through industry-wide deployment of the technology to improve insights and processes based upon economies of scale.
A systematic design methodology for pilot displays in advanced commercial VTOL aircraft was developed and refined. The analyst is provided with a step-by-step procedure for conducting conceptual display/control configurations evaluations for simultaneous monitoring and control pilot tasks. The approach consists of three phases: formulation of information requirements, configuration evaluation, and system selection. Both the monitoring and control performance models are based upon the optimal control model of the human operator. Extensions to the conventional optimal control model required in the display design methodology include explicit optimization of control/monitoring attention; simultaneous monitoring and control performance predictions; and indifference threshold effects. The methodology was applied to NASA's experimental CH-47 helicopter in support of the VALT program. The CH-47 application examined the system performance of six flight conditions. Four candidate configurations are suggested for evaluation in pilot-in-the-loop simulations and eventual flight tests.