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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 829 records · Page 46

Ames Research Center SR&T program and earth observations

An overview is presented of the research activities in earth observations at Ames Research Center. Most of the tasks involve the use of research aircraft platforms. The program is also directed toward the use of the Illiac 4 computer for statistical analysis. Most tasks are weighted toward Pacific coast and Pacific basin problems with emphasis on water applications, air applications, animal migration studies, and geophysics.

Poppoff, I. G.↗

Modeling human decision making behavior in supervisory control

An optimal decision control model was developed, which is based primarily on a dynamic programming algorithm which looks at all the available task possibilities, charts an optimal trajectory, and commits itself to do the first step (i.e., follow the optimal trajectory during the next time period), and then iterates the calculation. A Bayesian estimator was included which estimates the tasks which might occur in the immediate future and provides this information to the dynamic programming routine. Preliminary trials comparing the human subject's performance to that of the optimal model show a great similarity, but indicate that the human skips certain movements which require quick change in strategy.

Tulga, M. K.↗

The NASA automation and robotics technology program

The development and objectives of the NASA automation and robotics technology program are reviewed. The objectives of the program are to utilize AI and robotics to increase the probability of mission success; decrease the cost of ground control; and increase the capability and flexibility of space operations. There is a need for real-time computational capability; an effective man-machine interface; and techniques to validate automated systems. Current programs in the areas of sensing and perception, task planning and reasoning, control execution, operator interface, and system architecture and integration are described. Programs aimed at demonstrating the capabilities of telerobotics and system autonomy are discussed.

Holcomb, Lee B.↗

An overview of the Space Station Technology/Advanced Development Program

The Advanced Technology Plan of the Fiscal Year (FY) 1986 is designed to focus on the most promising technology options applicable to the Space Station (SS), selected from the list of tasks identified by the FY 1984 Technology Program as the most critical technologies to be developed for the initial SS Initial Operating Capability. Most of the current activities are in the stages of manufacture and life tests of specific SS subsystems. Special attention is given to major technologies, which include power systems (PSs) (with emphasis on a Solar Dynamic PS concept); the thermal control system (with the focus on the 'thermal bus' concept); the environmental control and life support system; and the data management system; all are illustrated schematically. Other tasks, including dynamics, communications, extravehicular activities, mechanics, propulsion, and fluid, as well as the tasks of cost, maintainability, automation and robotics, and productivity are discussed.

Carlisle, R. F.↗

A Feasible Approach for an Early Manned Lunar Landing. Part II: Detailed Report of Ad Hoc Task Group

This report, in two parts, presents a program development plan for attempting a first manned lunar landing in 1967. The two parts consist of a Summary Report and a Detailed Report representing the coordinated output of the Ad Hoc Task Group assigned to the study. The study was started in response to the request for such a study by the Associate Administrator in his memorandum of May 2, 1961 establishing the Ad Hoc Task Group. The purpose of the study was to take a first cut at the tasks associated with the design, development and construction of the equipment and facilities as well as the development of the crews, and to show the time phasing 6f these tasks. Included are the space sciences, life science and advanced technology tasks whose data and results are needed for designing and developing the systems required in carrying out the mission. The plan presented in the two reports does not presume to be a firm plan. Its basic purpose is, by choosing one feasible method, to size up the scope, schedule and cost of the job, discover the main problems, pacing items and major decisions and provide a threshold from which a firm and detailed project development plan can be jointly formulated by the various elements of NASA.

Fleming, William A.↗

NASA upper atmosphere research program: Research summaries, 1990 - 1991. Report to the Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency

The objectives, status, and accomplishments of the research tasks supported under the NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Program (UARP) are presented. The topics covered include the following: balloon-borne in situ measurements; balloon-borne remote measurements; ground-based measurements; aircraft-borne measurements; rocket-borne measurements; instrument development; reaction kinetics and photochemistry; spectroscopy; stratospheric dynamics and related analysis; stratospheric chemistry, analysis, and related modeling; and global chemical modeling.

Source record↗

STS pilot user development program

Full exploitation of the STS capabilities will be not only dependent on the extensive use of the STS for known space applications and research, but also on new, innovative ideas of use originating with both current and new users. In recognition of this, NASA has been engaged in a User Development Program for the STS. The program began with four small studies. Each study addressed a separate sector of potential new users to identify techniques and methodologies for user development. The collective results established that a user development function was not only feasible, but necessary for NASA to realize the full potential of the STS. This final report begins with a description of the overall pilot program plan, which involved five specific tasks defined in the contract Statement of Work. Each task is then discussed separately; but two subjects, the development of principal investigators and space processing users, are discussed separately for improved continuity of thought. These discussions are followed by a summary of the primary results and conclusions of the Pilot User Development Program. Specific recommendations of the study are given.

Mcdowell, J. R.↗

NASA research and development for space telerobotics

The goal of this research is to explore and prove out robust concepts for telerobotic support of space servicing, assembly, maintenance, and telescience tasks. This goal is being addressed through a program of coordinated work in artificial intelligence, robotics, and human factors. The general research objective is the fusion of robot sensing and manipulation, teleoperation, and human and machine cognitive skills into an effective architecture for supervised task automation. NASA is evaluating results of this research program in a ground laboratory telerobot testbed under development at JPL. The testbed development activity includes integrated technology demonstrations. The demonstrations will show telerobot capabilities to perform tasks of increasing complexity, and duration in increasingly unstructured environments. The first such demonstration is the ground-based grappling, dockling, and servicing of a satellite taskboard.

Schenker, Paul S.↗

Scheduling and Performance of Asynchronous Tasks in Fortran 2018 with FEATS

Most parallel scientific programs contain compiler directives (pragmas) such as those from OpenMP (Hermanns in Parallel programming in Fortran 95 using openMP, 2002. School of Aeronautical Engineering, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, España, 2011), explicit calls to runtime library procedures such as those implementing the Message Passing Interface (MPI) (in A message-passing interface standard version 4.0, 2021. https://www.mpi-forum.org/docs/mpi-4.0/mpi40-report.pdf), or compiler-specific language extensions such as those provided by CUDA (Ruetsch and Fatica in CUDA Fortran for scientists and engineers: best practices for efficient CUDA Fortran programming, Elsevier, 2013). By contrast, the recent Fortran standards empower developers to express parallel algorithms without directly referencing lower-level parallel programming models (Numrich in Parallel programming with co-arrays, CRC Press, 2018, and Curcic in Modern Fortran: building efficient parallel applications, Manning Publications, 2020). Fortran’s parallel features place the language within the Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) class of programming models. When writing programs that exploit data parallelism, application developers often find it straightforward to develop custom parallel algorithms. Problems involving complex, heterogeneous, staged calculations, however, pose much greater challenges. Such applications require careful coordination of tasks in a manner that respects dependencies prescribed by a directed acyclic graph. When rolling one’s own solution proves difficult, extending a customizable framework becomes attractive. Further, the paper presents the design, implementation, and use of the Framework for Extensible Asynchronous Task Scheduling (FEATS), which we believe to be the first task scheduling tool written in modern Fortran. We describe the benefits and compromises associated with choosing Fortran as the implementation language, and we propose ways in which future Fortran standards can best support the use case in this paper.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Q-IRIS: The Evolution of the IRIS Task-Based Runtime to Enable Classical-Quantum Workflows

Extreme heterogeneity in emerging HPC systems are starting to include quantum accelerators, motivating runtimes that can coordinate between classical and quantum workloads. We present a proof-of-concept hybrid execution framework integrating the IRIS asynchronous task-based runtime with the XACC quantum programming framework via the Quantum Intermediate Representation Execution Engine (QIR-EE). IRIS orchestrates multiple programs written in the quantum intermediate representation (QIR) across heterogeneous backends (including multiple quantum simulators), enabling concurrent execution of classical and quantum tasks. Although not a performance study, we report measurable outcomes through the successful asynchronous scheduling and execution of multiple quantum workloads. To illustrate practical runtime implications, we decompose a four-qubit circuit into smaller subcircuits through a process known as quantum circuit cutting, reducing per-task quantum simulation load and demonstrating how task granularity can improve simulator throughput and reduce queueing behavior -- effects directly relevant to early quantum hardware environments. We conclude by outlining key challenges for scaling hybrid runtimes, including coordinated scheduling, classical-quantum interaction management, and support for diverse backend resources in heterogeneous systems.

Miniskar, Narasinga Rao [ORNL] (ORCID:000000018259↗

Modeling of fluidized bed silicon deposition process

The model is intended for use as a means of improving fluidized bed reactor design and for the formulation of the research program in support of the contracts of Silicon Material Task for the development of the fluidized bed silicon deposition process. A computer program derived from the simple modeling is also described. Results of some sample calculations using the computer program are shown.

Kim, K.↗

Fort Yukon wood Energy Program Wood Boiler Deployment (Final Report)

The Fort Yukon Gwitchyaa Zhee Corporation (GZ) worked with partners on the development of an Integrated Biomass Energy Program for Fort Yukon. This integrated approach linked sustainable forest management with an in- village for -profit wood harvest and delivery business to displace diesel energy with wood energy for heat and power. The program was based on the concept of ecological, economic and social sustainability with a goal of displacing as much diesel and fuel oil as is technically feasible and sustainable; essentially systematically converting a village to significant amounts of wood use. Additionally, GZ worked with the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) on the development of a rural power system upgrade (RPSU) project that replaced GZ’s existing antiquated diesel power plant and provided upgrades to the existing electrical distribution system. Due to the synergy of the two projects, the Biomass and RPSU projects were combined to provide improved operating efficiency, economy of scale and increased benefits to GZ, the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments (CATG) and the community of Fort Yukon. The combined project is referred to as the Fort Yukon Combined heat and power (CHP) project. The purpose of the DOE Tribal Energy Program award was to support the preconstruction tasks and installation of wood boilers at the CATG clinic, and at the new GZ diesel power plant as part of an overall program to create a for- profit wood energy utility in Native Village of Fort Yukon. The CHP project provides biomass and diesel generation recovered heat via a new district heating system to the major commercial buildings in Fort Yukon. The CATG clinic will receive heat from a separate biomass boiler to their heating needs. The award from the Department of Energy (DOE) Tribal Energy Program was divided into two phases: Design/Permitting (phase 1) and Construction (phase 2). Phase 1 (Design & Permitting) is cost shared using State of Alaska Renewable Energy Funding (REF) funds through the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA). Phase 2 (Construction) was funded by DOE, AEA and US Department of Agriculture Rural Utility Service (USDA-RUS). Phase 1 of this grant, along with a separate grant from the Denali Commission provided funding for development of the wood delivery infrastructure necessary to support the CHP project. Under phase 2, This DOE grant supported final design of the boiler, bidding, purchase and transport of boilers, installation, technical support and engineering. The AEA and RUS grants supported permitting, final design, material and equipment purchase, and construction and installation of the new diesel power plant and district heating distribution system.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Monopropellant hydrazine resistojet: Data correlation

The design, development, and testing of an engineering model nominal 20-millipound thrust monopropellant hydrazine resistojet program is divided into six basic tasks. Included in these tasks are analyses, design, test, and data correlation of the electrothermal hydrazine thruster (EHT). A brief summary is provided of the analyses conducted for the EHT and the design of the engineering model thruster. Some of the results of the engineering model tests are then compared with the analytical performance models generated early in the program.

Murch, C. K.↗

A new structural analysis/synthesis capability - ACCESS

The creation of an efficient automated capability for minimum weight design of structures is reported. The ACCESS 1 computer program combines finite element analysis techniques and mathematical programming algorithms using an innovative collection of approximation concepts. Design variable linking, constraint deletion techniques and approximate analysis methods are used to generate a sequence of small explicit mathematical programming problems which retain the essential features of the design problem. Organization of the finite element analysis is carefully matched to the design optimization task. The efficiency of the ACCESS 1 program is demonstrated by giving results for several example problems.

Schmit, L. A.↗

Influence of the helicopter environment on patient care capabilities: Flight crew perceptions

Flight crew perceptions of the effect of the rotary wing environment on patient care capabilities have not been subject to statistical analysis. We hypothesized that flight crew perceived significant difficulties in performing patient care tasks during air medical transport. A survey instrument was distributed to a convenience sample of flight crew members from twenty flight programs. Respondents were asked to compare the difficulty of performing patient care tasks in rotary wing and standard (emergency department or intensive care unit) settings. Demographic data collected on respondents included years of flight experience, flights per month, crew duty position, and primary aircraft in which the respondent worked. Statistical analysis was performed as appropriate using Student's t-test, type 111 sum of squares, and analysis of variance. Alpha was defined as p is less than or equal to .05. Fifty-five percent of programs (90 individuals) responded. All tasks were rated significantly more difficult in the rotary wing environment. Ratings were not significantly correlated with flight experience, duty position, flights per month, or aircraft used. We conclude that the performance of patient care tasks are perceived by air medical flight crew to be significantly more difficult during rotary wing air medical transport than in hospital settings.

Meyers, K. Jeffrey↗

EMMA: The expert system for munition maintenance

Expert Missile Maintenance Aid (EMMA) is a first attempt to enhance maintenance of the tactical munition at the field and depot level by using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. The ultimate goal of EMMA is to help a novice maintenance technician isolate and diagnose electronic, electromechanical, and mechanical equipment faults to the board/chassis level more quickly and consistently than the best human expert using the best currently available automatic test equipment (ATE). To this end, EMMA augments existing ATE with an expert system that captures the knowledge of design and maintenance experts. The EMMA program is described, including the evaluation of field-level expert system prototypes, the description of several study tasks performed during EMMA, and future plans for a follow-on program. This paper will briefly address several study tasks performed during EMMA. The paper concludes with a discussion of future plans for a follow-on program and other areas of concern.

Mullins, Barry E.↗

Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project

The Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) program addresses a need for more time to perform experiments and other tasks during Space Shuttle missions. As a part of this program, the Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project (EDOMP) has been instituted to obtain information about physiologic effects of extending mission duration and the effectiveness of countermeasures against factors that might compromise crew health, safety, or performance on extended-duration missions. Only those investigations that address and characterize operational problems, develop countermeasures, or evaluate the effectiveness of countermeasures will be pursued. The EDOMP investigations will include flight-associated Detailed Supplementary Objectives as well as ground-based studies simulating the influence of microgravity. Investigator teams have been formed in the following areas: biomedical physiology, cardiovascular and fluid/electrolyte physiology, environmental health, muscle and exercise physiology, and neurophysiology. Major operational questions must be answered in each of these areas, and investigations have been designed to answer them. The EDO program will proceed only after countermeasures have been shown to be effective in preventing or mitigating the adverse changes they have been designed to attenuate. The program is underway and will continue on each Shuttle flight as the manifest builds toward a 16-day orbital flight.

Leach, C. S.↗

The woman behind the curious invention of modern software: Klára Dán von Neumann’s handwritten letters confirm her legacy

The year 1945 marked not only the birth of the atomic age, but also the birth of modern computer programming. The first fully electronic computing machine, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), came online in December 1945. But programming the ENIAC was an excruciatingly difficult task. Klára Dán von Neumann, who joined the Laboratory at Los Alamos after WWII, helped to revolutionize the process, creating the very first modern computer programs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗