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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 91 records · Page 5

Transonic Wind-Tunnel Tests of an Error-Compensated Static-Pressure Probe

An investigation of the pressure-sensing characteristics of an error-compensated static-pressure probe mounted on the nose section of a missile body has been conducted in the Langley 16-foot transonic tunnel. The probe was free to rotate about its roll axis and was equipped with a vane so that the crossflow velocity component due to angles of attack or sideslip was always alined with the probe's vertical plane of symmetry. The probe was tested in five axial positions with respect to the missile nose at Mach numbers from 0.30 to 1.08 and at angles of attack from -2.7 to 15.3 deg. The test Reynolds number per foot varied from 1.79 x 10(exp 6) to 4.05 x 10(exp 6). Results showed that at a Mach number of 1.00 the static-pressure error decreased from 3.5 percent to 0.8 percent of the free-stream static pressure, as a result of a change in orifice location from 0.15 maximum missile diameter to 0.20 maximum missile diameter forward of the missile nose. Although compensation for pressure-sensing errors due to angles of attack up to 15.3 was maintained at Mach numbers from M = 0.30 to M = 0.50, there was an increase in error with an increase in angle of attack for Mach numbers between M 0.50 and M = 1.08.

Capone, Francis J.↗

Satellite baseband processor test performance summary

A satellite baseband processor (BBP) has been developed for the NASA Lewis 30/20 GHz Satellite Communications Program. The BBP design, reported elsewhere, has been implemented in a proof-of-concept (POC) model. The results of the laboratory system tests of the POC are summarized. Bit error rate test results are presented for the FDM/TDMA communication system operating at 27.5, 110, and 550 Mbps over a variety of operating conditions. The results clearly demonstrate the applicability of baseband processing to future high capacity satellite communication system concepts. A brief description of the system concept, its function, and the role of the baseband processor are presented. The test conditions and means of simulation are also described. The methods of test evaluation and their significance in a system context are given.

Shaneyfelt, J. T.↗

Acceptable testing of VLSI components which contain error correctors

If a VLSI chip is partitioned into functional units (FU's) and redundant FU's are added, error correcting codes may be employed to increase the yield and/or reliability of the chip. Acceptable testing is defined to be testing the chip with the error corrector functioning, thus obtaining the maximum increase in yield afforded by the error correction. The acceptable testing theorem shows that the use of coding and error correction in conjunction with acceptable testing can significantly increase the yield of VLSI chips without seriously compromising their reliability.

Cliff, R. A.↗

Mars Exploration Rover potentiometer problems, failures and lessons learned

During qualification testing of three types of nonwire-wound precision potentiometers for the Mars Exploration Rover, a variety of problems and failures were encountered. This paper will describe some of the more interesting problems, detail their investigations and present their final solutions. The failures were found to be caused by design errors, manufacturing errors, improper handling, test errors, and carelessness. A trend of decreasing total resistance was noted, and a resistance histogram was used to identify an outlier. A gang fixture is described for simultaneously testing multiple pots, and real time X-ray imaging was used extensively to assist in the failure analyses. Lessons learned are provided.

potentiometer↗

Mars Exploration Rover Potentiometer Problems, Failures and Lessons Learned

During qualification testing of three types of non-wire-wound precision potentiometers for the Mars Exploration Rover, a variety of problems and failures were encountered. This paper will describe some of the more interesting problems, detail their investigations and present their final solutions. The failures were found to be caused by design errors, manufacturing errors, improper handling, test errors, and carelessness. A trend of decreasing total resistance was noted, and a resistance histogram was used to identify an outlier. A gang fixture is described for simultaneously testing multiple pots, and real time X-ray imaging was used extensively to assist in the failure analyses. Lessons learned are provided.

Balzer, Mark↗

Optical guidance vidicon test program

A laboratory and field test program was conducted to quantify the optical navigation parameters of the Mariner vidicons. A scene simulator and a camera were designed and built for vidicon tests under a wide variety of conditions. Laboratory tests characterized error sources important to the optical navigation process and field tests verified star sensitivity and characterized comet optical guidance parameters. The equipment, tests and data reduction techniques used are described. Key test results are listed. A substantial increase in the understanding of the use of selenium vidicons as detectors for spacecraft optical guidance was achieved, indicating a reduction in residual offset errors by a factor of two to four to the single pixel level.

Eiseman, A. R.↗

Twin Telescope Tests: Assessing Station Oriented Systematic Errors

Each of NASA’s three Deep Space Network sites has multiple large antennas capable of acquiring VLBI data. The long range plan is to have four 34-meter beam waveguide antennas at each site. At present Goldstone has three, Canberra has three, and Madrid has two with two more under construction. These antennas offer the opportunity to do connected element interferometry (CEI) over the few hundred meter baselines within each complex. Given that all antennas within a site are of nominally the same structural design, are run off the same clock, observe through almost the same atmosphere, and are subject to almost the same geophysics, doing CEI experiments is an excellent way to probe the limits of VLBI accuracy and expose station-specific systematic errors. This paper will report the results of just such tests which achieved about 0.2 mm baseline precision per pass. Some stations exhibit more than 1 mm systematics. Based on this data we will discuss the implications for whether the IAG’s goal of 1 mm station stability in VLBI geodesy is possible for large antennas.

Jacobs, Christopher↗

Satellite ground-terminal user simulation

Realistic simulation of satellite communication systems and evaluation of satellite networking schemes require emulation of the systems's users. A laboratory model of a Ka-band satellite-switched time-division multiple-access (SS-TDMA) communication network, referred to as the System Integration, Test, and Evaluation (SITE) project, uses special bit-error-rate (BER) test sets to simulate the transmitting and receiving users of a communication network. The bit-error-rate test sets contain circuit boards that can be modified to create a variety of interfaces to satellite system ground terminals.

Shalkhauser, Mary Jo W.↗

Accurate Magnetometer/Gyroscope Attitudes Using a Filter with Correlated Sensor Noise

Magnetometers and gyroscopes have been shown to provide very accurate attitudes for a variety of spacecraft. These results have been obtained, however, using a batch-least-squares algorithm and long periods of data. For use in onboard applications, attitudes are best determined using sequential estimators such as the Kalman filter. When a filter is used to determine attitudes using magnetometer and gyroscope data for input, the resulting accuracy is limited by both the sensor accuracies and errors inherent in the Earth magnetic field model. The Kalman filter accounts for the random component by modeling the magnetometer and gyroscope errors as white noise processes. However, even when these tuning parameters are physically realistic, the rate biases (included in the state vector) have been found to show systematic oscillations. These are attributed to the field model errors. If the gyroscope noise is sufficiently small, the tuned filter 'memory' will be long compared to the orbital period. In this case, the variations in the rate bias induced by field model errors are substantially reduced. Mistuning the filter to have a short memory time leads to strongly oscillating rate biases and increased attitude errors. To reduce the effect of the magnetic field model errors, these errors are estimated within the filter and used to correct the reference model. An exponentially-correlated noise model is used to represent the filter estimate of the systematic error. Results from several test cases using in-flight data from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory are presented. These tests emphasize magnetometer errors, but the method is generally applicable to any sensor subject to a combination of random and systematic noise.

Sedlak, J.↗

Testing and Performance Analysis of the Multichannel Error Correction Code Decoder

This report provides the test results and performance analysis of the multichannel error correction code decoder (MED) system for a regenerative satellite with asynchronous, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) uplink channels. It discusses the system performance relative to various critical parameters: the coding length, data pattern, unique word value, unique word threshold, and adjacent-channel interference. Testing was performed under laboratory conditions and used a computer control interface with specifically developed control software to vary these parameters. Needed technologies - the high-speed Bose Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codec from Harris Corporation and the TRW multichannel demultiplexer/demodulator (MCDD) - were fully integrated into the mesh very small aperture terminal (VSAT) onboard processing architecture and were demonstrated.

Soni, Nitin J.↗

A Full-Envelope Air Data Calibration and Three-Dimensional Wind Estimation Method Using Global Output-Error Optimization and Flight-Test Techniques

A novel, efficient air data calibration method is proposed for aircraft with limited envelopes. This method uses output-error optimization on three-dimensional inertial velocities to estimate calibration and wind parameters. Calibration parameters are based on assumed calibration models for static pressure, angle of attack, and flank angle. Estimated wind parameters are the north, east, and down components. The only assumptions needed for this method are that the inertial velocities and Euler angles are accurate, the calibration models are correct, and that the steady-state component of wind is constant throughout the maneuver. A two-minute maneuver was designed to excite the aircraft over the range of air data calibration parameters and de-correlate the angle-of-attack bias from the vertical component of wind. Simulation of the X-48B (The Boeing Company, Chicago, Illinois) aircraft was used to validate the method, ultimately using data derived from wind-tunnel testing to simulate the un-calibrated air data measurements. Results from the simulation were accurate and robust to turbulence levels comparable to those observed in flight. Future experiments are planned to evaluate the proposed air data calibration in a flight environment.

Taylor, Brian R.↗

The effect of errors in the assignment of the transmission functions on the accuracy of the thermal sounding of the atmosphere

In order to test the error of calculation in assumed values of the transmission function for Soviet and American radiometers sounding the atmosphere thermally from orbiting satellites, the assumptions of the transmission calculation is varied with respect to atmospheric CO2 content, transmission frequency, and atmospheric absorption. The error arising from variations of the assumptions from the standard basic model is calculated.

Timofeyev, Y. M.↗

(Quickly) Testing the Tester via Path Coverage

The configuration complexity and code size of an automated testing framework may grow to a point that the tester itself becomes a significant software artifact, prone to poor configuration and implementation errors. Unfortunately, testing the tester by using old versions of the software under test (SUT) may be impractical or impossible: test framework changes may have been motivated by interface changes in the tested system, or fault detection may become too expensive in terms of computing time to justify running until errors are detected on older versions of the software. We propose the use of path coverage measures as a "quick and dirty" method for detecting many faults in complex test frameworks. We also note the possibility of using techniques developed to diversify state-space searches in model checking to diversify test focus, and an associated classification of tester changes into focus-changing and non-focus-changing modifications.

evaluation of test systems↗