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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 937 records · Page 52

Decentralized Carrier Phase Shifting for Optimal Harmonic Minimization in Asymmetric Parallel-Connected Inverters

This paper presents a carrier phase shifting technique for minimizing the aggregate harmonics in networks of asymmetric parallel-connected inverters for distributed power generation system applications. The proposed technique is: 1) implemented in a decentralized manner, relying only on local voltage and current measurements, and 2) optimal in the sense that it minimizes a cost function representing the carrier-frequency current harmonics. The analysis indicates that the proposed optimal carrier phase shifting technique can enable order-of-magnitude reductions in harmonic power, and also universal improvements compared to symmetric carrier interleaving for asymmetric inverter networks. Moreover, compared to existing methods that require either centralized communication or information exchange between inverters to coordinate carriers, the proposed technique is completely decentralized, which provides important practical benefits for implementation, including improved robustness and reduced cost. The technique is experimentally validated on a network of three single-phase 2-kW inverters and demonstrates a 36.5% reduction in the weighted total harmonic distortion factor of the aggregate inverter current, and the ability to converge to the optimal carrier phase spacing dynamically in less than one line frequency cycle (16.7 ms) in steady state and transient operating conditions.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Spinoff 2009

Topics covered include: Image-Capture Devices Extend Medicine's Reach; Medical Devices Assess, Treat Balance Disorders; NASA Bioreactors Advance Disease Treatments; Robotics Algorithms Provide Nutritional Guidelines; "Anti-Gravity" Treadmills Speed Rehabilitation; Crew Management Processes Revitalize Patient Care; Hubble Systems Optimize Hospital Schedules; Web-based Programs Assess Cognitive Fitness; Electrolyte Concentrates Treat Dehydration; Tools Lighten Designs, Maintain Structural Integrity; Insulating Foams Save Money, Increase Safety; Polyimide Resins Resist Extreme Temperatures; Sensors Locate Radio Interference; Surface Operations Systems Improve Airport Efficiency; Nontoxic Resins Advance Aerospace Manufacturing; Sensors Provide Early Warning of Biological Threats; Robot Saves Soldier's Lives Overseas (MarcBot); Apollo-Era Life Raft Saves Hundreds of Sailors; Circuits Enhance Scientific Instruments and Safety Devices; Tough Textiles Protect Payloads and Public Safety Officers; Forecasting Tools Point to Fishing Hotspots; Air Purifiers Eliminate Pathogens, Preserve Food; Fabrics Protect Sensitive Skin from UV Rays; Phase Change Fabrics Control Temperature; Tiny Devices Project Sharp, Colorful Images; Star-Mapping Tools Enable Tracking of Endangered Animals; Nanofiber Filters Eliminate Contaminants; Modeling Innovations Advance Wind Energy Industry; Thermal Insulation Strips Conserve Energy; Satellite Respondent Buoys Identify Ocean Debris; Mobile Instruments Measure Atmospheric Pollutants; Cloud Imagers Offer New Details on Earth's Health; Antennas Lower Cost of Satellite Access; Feature Detection Systems Enhance Satellite Imagery; Chlorophyll Meters Aid Plant Nutrient Management; Telemetry Boards Interpret Rocket, Airplane Engine Data; Programs Automate Complex Operations Monitoring; Software Tools Streamline Project Management; Modeling Languages Refine Vehicle Design; Radio Relays Improve Wireless Products; Advanced Sensors Boost Optical Communication, Imaging; Tensile Fabrics Enhance Architecture Around the World; Robust Light Filters Support Powerful Imaging Devices; Thermoelectric Devices Cool, Power Electronics; Innovative Tools Advance Revolutionary Weld Technique; Methods Reduce Cost, Enhance Quality of Nanotubes; Gauging Systems Monitor Cryogenic Liquids; Voltage Sensors Monitor Harmful Static; and Compact Instruments Measure Heat Potential.

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Innovative Networking Concepts Tested on the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite

This paper describes a program of experiments conducted over the advanced communications technology satellite (ACTS) and the associated TI-VSAT (very small aperture terminal). The experiments were motivated by the commercial potential of low-cost receive only satellite terminals that can operate in a hybrid network environment, and by the desire to demonstrate frame relay technology over satellite networks. The first experiment tested highly adaptive methods of satellite bandwidth allocation in an integrated voice-data service environment. The second involved comparison of forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) methods of error control for satellite communication with emphasis on the advantage that a hybrid architecture provides, especially in the case of multicasts. Finally, the third experiment demonstrated hybrid access to databases and compared the performance of internetworking protocols for interconnecting local area networks (LANs) via satellite. A custom unit termed frame relay access switch (FRACS) was developed by COMSAT Laboratories for these experiments; the preparation and conduct of these experiments involved a total of 20 people from the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado and COMSAT Laboratories, from late 1992 until 1995.

Friedman, Daniel↗

Photonic circuits for laser stabilization with integrated ultra-high Q and Brillouin laser resonators

The integration of stabilized lasers, sources that generate spectrally pure light, will provide compact, low-cost solutions for applications including quantum information sciences, precision navigation and timing, metrology, and high-capacity fiber communications. We report a significant advancement in this field, demonstrating stabilization of an integrated waveguide Brillouin laser to an integrated waveguide reference cavity, where both resonators are fabricated using the same CMOS-compatible integration platform. We demonstrate reduction of the free running Brillouin laser linewidth to a 292 Hz integral linewidth and carrier stabilization to a 4.9 × 10 –13 fractional frequency at 8 ms reaching the cavity-intrinsic thermorefractive noise limit for frequencies down to 80 Hz. We achieve this level of performance using a pair of 56.4 x 10 6 quality factor Si 3 N 4 waveguide ring-resonators that reduce the high-frequency noise by the nonlinear Brillouin process and the low-frequency noise by Pound–Drever–Hall locking to the ultra-low loss resonator. These results represent an important step toward integrated stabilized lasers with reduced sensitivity to environmental disturbances for atomic, molecular, and optical physics (AMO), quantum information processing and sensing, and other precision scientific, sensing, and communications applications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

IceNet for FireBox - A Berkeley Warehouse-Scale Computer

Berkeley’s FireBox is a next-generation warehouse-scale computer (WSC) that utilizes the energy-efficiency and bandwidth density of integrated silicon-photonic interconnects to enable a new high-bandwidth and low-latency network fabric connecting thousands of compute nodes to petabytes of DRAM and Flash storage. The high bandwidth, low latency and high connectivity of FireBox’s WSC network fabric (IceNet) will enable dramatic improvements in the overall system energy efficiency enabling fine-grain power control on system resources (processors, links and memory/storage components). IceNet is a special 3-stage photonic Clos network architected to achieve ultra-low-latency connectivity between processor nodes and memory, drastically cutting down on the energy wasted in resource idling (processors and memory stalled due to pending network requests). This is achieved by integration of the first and last switch stages into processor/memory hub clients and by heavy over-provisioning of the high-radix middle switches (FlareSwitches). A key hardware component developed in this program is an active laser power management photonic integrated circuits called LightSpark. It interacts with the FlareSwitch and provides laser power to a subset of occupied switch ports, increasing the utilization of laser light in the photonic network by an order of magnitude. In addition to guiding the laser power where it is needed, the laser-power management module enables both wavelength and laser redundancy, significantly increasing the robustness of the system. The goal of the IceNet fabric is to enable communication between 1000s of processor nodes and PBs of memory/storage with <100ns latency, <10pJ/b wall-plug energy cost at multiple Pb/s of available connectivity bandwidth. These metrics represent two-orders of magnitude improvement with respect to the status of current data-center technology.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Collapsible module extends tenfold in height

Low-cost hollow module rapidly converts into elevated platform for field applications. Module can be used as support for communication antennas or for TV or movie cameras operated by news reporters. Alternatively, it can be used as extendible boom on vehicles.

Mcdougal, A. R.↗

Summary of antenna technology development at the Langley Research Center

Compatible antenna systems for the STS are discussed. Potential applications of the systems include communications, radiometry, and radio astronomy. The technologies discussed are those needed to evaluate, fabricate, package, design, transport, and cost effectively deploy the antenna systems.

Campbell, T. G.↗

Research in space commercialization, technology transfer, and communications

Research and internship programs in technology transfer, space commercialization, and information and communications policy are described. The intern's activities are reviewed. On-campus research involved work on the costs of conventional telephone technology in rural areas, an investigation of the lag between the start of a research and development project and the development of new technology, using NASA patent and patent waiver data, studies of the financial impact and economic prospects of a space operation center, a study of the accuracy of expert forecasts of uncertain quantities and a report on frequency coordination in the fixed and fixed satellite services at 4 and 6 GHz.

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Communications payload concepts for geostationary facilities

Summarized and compared are the major results of two NASA sponsored studies that defined potential communication payload concepts to meet the satellite traffic forecast for the turn of the century for the continental US and Region 2 of the International Telecommunications Union. The studies were performed by the Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation and RCA Astro-Electronics (now GE-RCA Astro-Space Division). Future scenarios of aggregations of communications services are presented. Payload concepts are developed and defined in detail for nine of the scenarios. Payload costs and critical technologies per payload are also presented. Finally the payload concepts are compared and the findings of the reports are discussed.

Poley, William A.↗

Adaptive interference techniques for mobile antennas

The results of a study performed to investigate effective, low cost adaptive signal processing techniques for suppressing mutual satellite interference that can arise in a mobile satellite (MSAT) communication system are discussed. The study focused on the use of adaptive sidelobe cancelling as a method to overcome undesired interference caused by a multiplicity of satellite transmissions within the field of view of the ground station. Results are presented which show that the conventional sidelobe canceller produces undesired reduction of the useful signal. This effect is due to the presence of the useful component in the reference antenna element. An alternative structure, the generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC), has been proposed to overcome this difficulty. A preliminary investigation of possible implementations of the GSC was conducted. It was found that at most 8 bits would be required to implement the GSC processor under conditions in which the desired signal-to-interference ratio is 25 dB.

Griffiths, Lloyd J.↗

Direct broadcast satellite-radio market, legal, regulatory, and business considerations

A Direct Broadcast Satellite-Radio (DBS-R) System offers the prospect of delivering high quality audio broadcasts to large audiences at costs lower than or comparable to those incurred using the current means of broadcasting. The maturation of mobile communications technologies, and advances in microelectronics and digital signal processing now make it possible to bring this technology to the marketplace. Heightened consumer interest in improved audio quality coupled with the technological and economic feasibility of meeting this demand via DBS-R make it opportune to start planning for implementation of DBS-R Systems. NASA-Lewis and the Voice of America as part of their on-going efforts to improve the quality of international audio broadcasts, have undertaken a number of tasks to more clearly define the technical, marketing, organizational, legal, and regulatory issues underlying implementation of DBS-R Systems. The results and an assessment is presented of the business considerations underlying the construction, launch, and operation of DBS-R Systems.

Sood, Des R.↗

Optimal expression evaluation for data parallel architectures

A data parallel machine represents an array or other composite data structure by allocating one processor per data item. A pointwise operation can be performed between two such arrays in unit time, provided their corresponding elements are allocated in the same processors. If the arrays are not aligned in this fashion, the cost of moving one or both of them is part of the cost of operation. The choice of where to perform the operation then affects this cost. If an expression with several operands is to be evaluated, there may be many choices of where to perform the intermediate operations. An efficient algorithm is given to find the minimum cost way to evaluate an expression, for several different data parallel architectures. The algorithm applies to any architecture in which the metric describing the cost of moving an array has a property called robustness. This encompasses most of the common data parallel communication architectures, including meshes of arbitrary dimension and hypercubes.

Gilbert, J. R.↗

High rate information systems - Architectural trends in support of the interdisciplinary investigator

Data systems requirements in the Earth Observing System (EOS) Space Station Freedom (SSF) eras indicate increasing data volume, increased discipline interplay, higher complexity and broader data integration and interpretation. A response to the needs of the interdisciplinary investigator is proposed, considering the increasing complexity and rising costs of scientific investigation. The EOS Data Information System, conceived to be a widely distributed system with reliable communication links between central processing and the science user community, is described. Details are provided on information architecture, system models, intelligent data management of large complex databases, and standards for archiving ancillary data, using a research library, a laboratory and collaboration services.

Handley, Thomas H., Jr.↗

Optimal expression evaluation for data parallel architectures

A data parallel machine represents an array or other composits data structure by allocating one processor per data item. A pointwise operation can be performed between two such arrays in unit time, provided their corresponding elements are allocated in the same processors. If the arrays are not aligned in this fashion, the cost of moving one or both of them is part of the cost of operation. The choice of where to perform the operation then affects this cost. If an expression with several operands is to be evaluated, there may be many choices of where to perform the intermediate operations. An efficient algorithm is given to find the minimum cost way to evaluate an expression, for several different data parallel architectures. The algorithm applies to any architecture in which the metric describing the cost of moving an array has a property called robustness. This encompasses most of the common data parallel communication architectures, including meshes of arbitrary dimension and hypercubes.

Gilbert, John R.↗

Nonlinear optical polymers for electro-optic signal processing

Photonics is an emerging technology, slated for rapid growth in communications systems, sensors, imagers, and computers. Its growth is driven by the need for speed, reliability, and low cost. New nonlinear polymeric materials will be a key technology in the new wave of photonics devices. Electron-conjubated polymeric materials offer large electro-optic figures of merit, ease of processing into films and fibers, ruggedness, low cost, and a plethora of design options. Several new broad classes of second-order nonlinear optical polymers were developed at the Navy's Michelson Laboratory at China Lake, California. Polar alignment in thin film waveguides was achieved by electric-field poling and Langmuir-Blodgett processing. Our polymers have high softening temperatures and good aging properties. While most of the films can be photobleached with ultraviolet (UV) light, some have excellent stability in the 500-1600 nm range, and UV stability in the 290-310 nm range. The optical nonlinear response of these polymers is subpicosecond. Electro-optic switches, frequency doublers, light modulators, and optical data storage media are some of the device applications anticipated for these polymers.

Lindsay, Geoffrey A.↗

Transportation analyses for the lunar-Mars initiative

This paper focuses on certain results of an ongoing NASA-sponsored study by Boeing, including (1) a series of representative space exploration scenarios; (2) the levels of effort required to accomplish each; and (3) a range of candidate transportation system as partial implementations of the scenarios. This effort predated release of the Synthesis report; the three levels of activity described are not responses to the Synthesis architectures. These three levels (minimum, median and ambitious), do envelope the range of scope described in the four Synthesis architecture models. The level of analysis detail was to the current known level of detail of transportation hardware systems and mission scenarios. The study did not include detailed analysis of earth-to-orbit transportation, surface systems, or tracking and communications systems. The influence of earth-to-orbit systems was considered in terms of delivery capacity and cost. Aspects of additional options, such as in situ resource utilization are explored as needed to indicate potential benefits. Results favored cryogenic chemical propulsion for low activity levels and undemanding missions (such as cargo and some lunar missions), nuclear thermal propulsion for median activity levels similar to the Synthesis architectures, and nuclear thermal propulsion with aerobraking or nuclear electric propulsion for high activity levels. Solar electric propulsion was seen as having an important role if the present high unit cost (i.e., dollars per watt) of space photovoltaics could be reduced by a factor of five or more at production rates of megawatts per year.

Woodcock, Gordon R.↗

Fourier transform spectrometry for fiber-optic sensor systems

An integrated-optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer is used as a Fourier transform spectrometer to analyze the input and output spectra of a temperature-sensing thin-film etalon. This type of spectrometer has an advantage over conventional grating spectrometers because it is better suited for use with time-division-multiplexed sensor networks. In addition, this spectrometer has the potential for low cost due to its use of a component that could be manufactured in large quantities for the optical communications industry.

Beheim, Glenn↗

MO/DSD online information server and global information repository access

Often in the past, standards and new technology information have been available only in hardcopy form, with reproduction and mailing costs proving rather significant. In light of NASA's current budget constraints and in the interest of efficient communications, the Mission Operations and Data Systems Directorate (MO&DSD) New Technology and Data Standards Office recognizes the need for an online information server (OLIS). This server would allow: (1) dissemination of standards and new technology information throughout the Directorate more quickly and economically; (2) online browsing and retrieval of documents that have been published for and by MO&DSD; and (3) searching for current and past study activities on related topics within NASA before issuing a task. This paper explores a variety of available information servers and searching tools, their current capabilities and limitations, and the application of these tools to MO&DSD. Most importantly, the discussion focuses on the way this concept could be easily applied toward improving dissemination of standards and new technologies and improving documentation processes.

Nguyen, Diem↗