Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Software interfaces”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,045 records · Page 58

Oxygen Generation System Laptop Bus Controller Flight Software

The Oxygen Generation System Laptop Bus Controller Flight Software was developed to allow the International Space Station (ISS) program to activate specific components of the Oxygen Generation System (OGS) to perform a checkout of key hardware operation in a microgravity environment, as well as to perform preventative maintenance operations of system valves during a long period of what would otherwise be hardware dormancy. The software provides direct connectivity to the OGS Firmware Controller with pre-programmed tasks operated by on-orbit astronauts to exercise OGS valves and motors. The software is used to manipulate the pump, separator, and valves to alleviate the concerns of hardware problems due to long-term inactivity and to allow for operational verification of microgravity-sensitive components early enough so that, if problems are found, they can be addressed before the hardware is required for operation on-orbit. The decision was made to use existing on-orbit IBM ThinkPad A31p laptops and MIL-STD-1553B interface cards as the hardware configuration. The software at the time of this reporting was developed and tested for use under the Windows 2000 Professional operating system to ensure compatibility with the existing on-orbit computer systems.

Rowe, Chad↗

Blackcomb2: Hardware-Software Co-design for Nonvolatile Memory in Exascale Systems

The impending shift from DRAM and Flash to fast nonvolatile memory (NVM) provides a game-changing opportunity to rethink traditional system architectures; to address their energy inefficiencies; to leverage the new devices for greater performance; and to exploit the new capability of nonvolatility to enhance system resilience, even in the face of larger system scale and degraded reliability of components. Building on the accomplishments of the Blackcomb Project, funded in 2010, we propose to identify, evaluate, and optimize the most promising NVM hardware and software technologies, which are essential to provide the necessary memory capacity, performance, resilience, and energy efficiency in exascale systems. Capacity and energy are the key drivers. Today's pressing application requirements mandate exascale computing; the datasets and concurrency of these applications demand memory capacity that cannot be met by traditional memory technologies. Although charge-based DRAM will endure, experts foresee only modest DRAM capacity gains. And, as moving data between levels of the hierarchy, and storing and accessing data on disk consumes significant energy, a more energy efficient solution is required. We, therefore, posit that exascale systems will need high density, energy-efficient storage technologies, such as nonvolatile memory for access, transformation, and management of exascale data. To address these issues, in this renewal request, we propose continue the work of our vertically- integrated, focussed team, where our co-design is informed by proxies and interactions with DOE co-design centers. In software, we start by assuming that nonvolatility requires new abstractions and new infrastructure, allowing persistent objects, and delivering performance gains for _le systems and robustness through fast checkpointing. In architecture, we evaluate the tradeoffs of performance and energy by employing a scalable and accurate simulation system to analyze realistic proxy applications. Through this co-design process, we rethink the whole memory architecture, from the cell to the array to the device, with ECC, wearout management, and interfaces. Finally, we provide open-source software models of these NVM-based memory systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Parallel Fenics Implementation of Block Solvers (pFibs)

This software is a Python package designed to act as an interface between FEniCS and PETSc to facilitate the construction and application of parallel block solvers/preconditioners. The original intent of this software was to help enable Battery and Wind Farm simulations for use on high performance computing systems. The code is written in Python and uses the petsc4py module to access the more advance features of the PETSc Krylov Solver. In essence, pFibs is an interface to make accessing these features more streamlined. Additionally, pFibs also provides a template for building custom Python based preconditioning algorithms.

Allen, Jeffery↗

Presentation layer of CMS Online Monitoring System

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is one of the experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The CMS Online Monitoring system (OMS) is an upgrade and successor to the CMS Web-Based Monitoring (WBM)system, which is an essential tool for shift crew members, detector subsystem experts, operations coordinators, and those performing physics analyses. The CMS OMS is divided into aggregation and presentation layers. Communication between layers uses RESTful JSON:API compliant requests. The aggregation layer is responsible for collecting data from heterogeneous sources, storage of transformed and pre-calculated (aggregated) values and exposure of data via the RESTful API. The presentation layer displays detector information via a modern, user-friendly and customizable web interface. The CMS OMS user interface is composed of a set of cutting-edge software frameworks and tools to display non-event data to any authenticated CMS user worldwide. The web interface tree-like component structure comprises (top-down): workspaces, folders, pages, controllers and portlets. A clear hierarchy gives the required flexibility and control for content organization. Each bottom element instantiates a portlet and is a reusable component that displays a single aspect of data, like a table, a plot, an article, etc. Pages consist of multiple different portlets and can be customized at runtime by using a drag-and-drop technique. This is how a single page can easily include information from multiple online sources. Different pages give access to a summary of the current status of the experiment, as well as convenient access to historical data. This paper describes the CMS OMS architecture, core concepts and technologies of the presentation layer.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

End-to-End Data System Architecture for the Space Station Biological Research Project

The Space Station Biological Research Project (SSBRP) Is developing hardware referred to as the "facility" for providing life sciences research capability on the International Space Station. This hardware includes several biological specimen habitats, habitat holding racks, a centrifuge and a glovebox. An SSBRP end to end data system architecture has been developed to allow command and control of the facility from the ground, either with crew assistance or autonomously. The data system will be capable of handling commands, sensor data, and video from multiple cameras. The data will traverse through several onboard and ground networks and processing entities including the SSBRP and Space Station onboard and ground data systems. A large number of onboard and ground (,entities of the data system are being developed by the Space Station Program, other NASA centers and the International Partners. The SSBRP part of the system which includes the habitats, holding racks, and the ground operations center, User Operations Facility (UOF) will be developed by a multitude of geographically distributed development organizations. The SSBRP has the responsibility to define the end to end data and communications systems to make the interfaces manageable and verifiable with multiple contractors with widely varying development constraints and schedules. This paper provides an overview of the SSBRP end-to-end data system. Specifically, it describes the hardware, software and functional interactions of individual systems, and interface requirements among various entities of the end-to-end system.

Mian, Arshad↗

Yeast Transformation on Hamilton Vantage (YT Vantage) v1

Our software program is designed for the Hamilton Vantage liquid handling robot, automating the Build step in the Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) cycle for Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This program minimizes human intervention, enabling rapid identification of pathway bottlenecks and genes that enhance verazine production. The program takes competent yeast and plasmid DNA as input and generates an output library of engineered strains compatible with automated colony picking, high-throughput culturing, and chemical extraction for downstream LC-MS analysis. A user-friendly interface, developed using the Hamilton Method Editor software, allows for on-demand parameter customization. By automating this process, our program streamlines the construction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, reducing manual labor and increasing efficiency. While the manual process is well-documented, integration with robotic automation is less common, making our program a valuable tool for researchers. With this software, we achieved 2-5 fold increases in verazine production, demonstrating its potential to accelerate research in this field.

Louie, Randy [Lawrence Berkeley National Laborator↗

CAD/CAE Integration Enhanced by New CAD Services Standard

A Government-industry team led by the NASA Glenn Research Center has developed a computer interface standard for accessing data from computer-aided design (CAD) systems. The Object Management Group, an international computer standards organization, has adopted this CAD services standard. The new standard allows software (e.g., computer-aided engineering (CAE) and computer-aided manufacturing software to access multiple CAD systems through one programming interface. The interface is built on top of a distributed computing system called the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). CORBA allows the CAD services software to operate in a distributed, heterogeneous computing environment.

Claus, Russell W.↗

Updated status of the ART neutronic fast reactor tools integration to the NEAMS Workbench

The Workbench initiative was launched in FY-2017 within the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Integration Product Line to facilitate the transition from conventional tools to high-fidelity tools. The Workbench provides a common user interface for model creation, real-time validation, execution, output processing, and visualization for integrated codes. The integration of the Argonne Reactor Computation (ARC) suite of codes into the NEAMS Workbench was initiated in FY-2017. The ARC codes contain both legacy codes like DIF3D and REBUS-3 that were developed with over 30 years of experience, and newer NEAMS additions like MC 2 -3 and PERSENT. The ARC integration into the NEAMS Workbench interface relies on the PyARC module which handles the pre- and post-processing of the native ARC codes input, and the runtime environment. The PyARC module together with the NEAMS Workbench interface are both released under Open Source Software licenses. This report describes the ARC capabilities available with the Workbench at the end of FY-2018, and a tutorial is provided together with the automatically-generated code documentation. Integrating the ARC codes into the Workbench benefits directly the Advanced Reactor Technology (ART) Campaign by providing a set of controlled, maintained and validated scripts to generate ARC inputs, which promotes best practices, reduces the learning curve, and facilitates project collaboration. The second benefit from this project is to improve the user experience with the ARC codes: the Workbench interface provides assistance for building an input through auto-completion, real-time validation, access to templates, and visualization. Finally, the ARC integration into the NEAMS Workbench enables new modeling capabilities, those will be extremely useful for advanced reactor design and analyses. The PyARC module facilitates and automatizes complex calculations and workflows for reactor analysis enabling geometrical perturbations, cross-section update through depletion, etc. The Dakota/PyARC coupling in the Workbench was also demonstrated to enable mathematical optimization and sensitivity analysis/uncertainty quantification (SA/UQ) techniques with ARC neutronic simulations. For demonstration purposes, the ARC codes were used through the Workbench for solving the Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor Uncertainty Analysis in Modelling (SFR-UAM) benchmark problems. The ARC codes are currently used at ANL through the Workbench by nuclear engineers for SFR core design analyses. Future efforts will focus on continuously adding modeling capabilities available with the ARC codes, training new users to continue building some experience, and on integrating high-fidelity codes such as PROTEUS into the Workbench.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Advanced information processing system: Local system services

The Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS) is a multi-computer architecture composed of hardware and software building blocks that can be configured to meet a broad range of application requirements. The hardware building blocks are fault-tolerant, general-purpose computers, fault-and damage-tolerant networks (both computer and input/output), and interfaces between the networks and the computers. The software building blocks are the major software functions: local system services, input/output, system services, inter-computer system services, and the system manager. The foundation of the local system services is an operating system with the functions required for a traditional real-time multi-tasking computer, such as task scheduling, inter-task communication, memory management, interrupt handling, and time maintenance. Resting on this foundation are the redundancy management functions necessary in a redundant computer and the status reporting functions required for an operator interface. The functional requirements, functional design and detailed specifications for all the local system services are documented.

Burkhardt, Laura↗

Infrastructure for Rapid Development of Java GUI Programs

The Java Application Shell (JAS) is a software framework that accelerates the development of Java graphical-user-interface (GUI) application programs by enabling the reuse of common, proven GUI elements, as distinguished from writing custom code for GUI elements. JAS is a software infrastructure upon which Java interactive application programs and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for those programs can be built as sets of plug-ins. JAS provides an application- programming interface that is extensible by application-specific plugins that describe and encapsulate both specifications of a GUI and application-specific functionality tied to the specified GUI elements. The desired GUI elements are specified in Extensible Markup Language (XML) descriptions instead of in compiled code. JAS reads and interprets these descriptions, then creates and configures a corresponding GUI from a standard set of generic, reusable GUI elements. These elements are then attached (again, according to the XML descriptions) to application-specific compiled code and scripts. An application program constructed by use of JAS as its core can be extended by writing new plug-ins and replacing existing plug-ins. Thus, JAS solves many problems that Java programmers generally solve anew for each project, thereby reducing development and testing time.

Jones, Jeremy↗

Mantaray: A Rust Package for Ray Tracing Ocean Surface Gravity Waves

Ocean surface gravity waves are an important component of air-sea interaction, influencing energy, momentum, and gas exchanges across the ocean-atmosphere interface. In specific applications such as refraction by ocean currents or bathymetry, ray tracing provides a computationally efficient way to gain insight into wave propagation. In this paper, we introduce Mantaray, an open-source software package implemented in Rust, with a Python interface, that solves the ray equations for ocean surface gravity waves. Mantaray is designed for performance, robustness, and ease of use. The package is modular to facilitate further development and can currently be applied to both idealized and realistic wave propagation problems (Fig. 1).

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

Spacecraft Onboard Software Maintenance: An Effective Approach which Reduces Costs and Increases Science Return

Flight software (FSW) is a mission critical element of spacecraft functionality and performance. When ground operations personnel interface to a spacecraft, they are dealing almost entirely with onboard software. This software, even more than ground/flight communications systems, is expected to perform perfectly at all times during all phases of on-orbit mission life. Due to the fact that FSW can be reconfigured and reprogrammed to accommodate new spacecraft conditions, the on-orbit FSW maintenance team is usually significantly responsible for the long-term success of a science mission. Failure of FSW can result in very expensive operations work-around costs and lost science opportunities. There are three basic approaches to staffing on-orbit software maintenance, namely: (1) using the original developers, (2) using mission operations personnel, or (3) assembling a Center of Excellence for multi-spacecraft on-orbit FSW support. This paper explains a National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC) experience related to the roles of on-orbit FSW maintenance personnel. It identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each of the three approaches to staffing the FSW roles, and demonstrates how a cost efficient on-orbit FSW Maintenance Center of Excellence can be established and maintained with significant return on the investment.

Shell, Elaine M.↗

Broadening the interface bandwidth in simulation based training

Currently most computer based simulations rely exclusively on computer generated graphics to create the simulation. When training is involved, the method almost exclusively used to display information to the learner is text displayed on the cathode ray tube. MICROEXPERT Systems is concentrating on broadening the communications bandwidth between the computer and user by employing a novel approach to video image storage combined with sound and voice output. An expert system is used to combine and control the presentation of analog video, sound, and voice output with computer based graphics and text. Researchers are currently involved in the development of several graphics based user interfaces for NASA, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Navy. Here, the focus is on the human factors considerations, software modules, and hardware components being used to develop these interfaces.

Somers, Larry E.↗

Graphical workstation capability for reliability modeling

In addition to computational capabilities, software tools for estimating the reliability of fault-tolerant digital computer systems must also provide a means of interfacing with the user. Described here is the new graphical interface capability of the hybrid automated reliability predictor (HARP), a software package that implements advanced reliability modeling techniques. The graphics oriented (GO) module provides the user with a graphical language for modeling system failure modes through the selection of various fault-tree gates, including sequence-dependency gates, or by a Markov chain. By using this graphical input language, a fault tree becomes a convenient notation for describing a system. In accounting for any sequence dependencies, HARP converts the fault-tree notation to a complex stochastic process that is reduced to a Markov chain, which it can then solve for system reliability. The graphics capability is available for use on an IBM-compatible PC, a Sun, and a VAX workstation. The GO module is written in the C programming language and uses the graphical kernal system (GKS) standard for graphics implementation. The PC, VAX, and Sun versions of the HARP GO module are currently in beta-testing stages.

Bavuso, Salvatore J.↗

pyam: Python Implementation of YaM

pyam is a software development framework with tools for facilitating the rapid development of software in a concurrent software development environment. pyam provides solutions for development challenges associated with software reuse, managing multiple software configurations, developing software product lines, and multiple platform development and build management. pyam uses release-early, release-often development cycles to allow developers to integrate their changes incrementally into the system on a continual basis. It facilitates the creation and merging of branches to support the isolated development of immature software to avoid impacting the stability of the development effort. It uses modules and packages to organize and share software across multiple software products, and uses the concepts of link and work modules to reduce sandbox setup times even when the code-base is large. One sidebenefit is the enforcement of a strong module-level encapsulation of a module s functionality and interface. This increases design transparency, system stability, and software reuse. pyam is written in Python and is organized as a set of utilities on top of the open source SVN software version control package. All development software is organized into a collection of modules. pyam packages are defined as sub-collections of the available modules. Developers can set up private sandboxes for module/package development. All module/package development takes place on private SVN branches. High-level pyam commands support the setup, update, and release of modules and packages. Released and pre-built versions of modules are available to developers. Developers can tailor the source/link module mix for their sandboxes so that new sandboxes (even large ones) can be built up easily and quickly by pointing to pre-existing module releases. All inter-module interfaces are publicly exported via links. A minimal, but uniform, convention is used for building modules.

Myint, Steven↗

Monte Carlo Simulation with CAD Interface for Calculation of 3D Maps of Residual Dose (CRADA)

Objective: To develop an easy-to-use software application to predict and mitigate radiation effects in research environment, space instruments, nuclear plants and medical facilities and help nonproliferation and national security efforts. Tech-X will develop standalone software libraries and command-line tools for ( 1) translating CAD into tessellated surfaces and tetrahedral meshes in GDML (for Geant4 and MARS 15), ROOT (for MARS 15) and HDF5 (for compact representation and for the visualization) formats, (2) healing CAD geometries to make them suitable for Monte Carlo simulations; (3) creating uniform and variable Cartesian and cylindrical meshes for detailed scoring; and ( 4) efficient Monte Carlo navigation in CAD geometries. JLAB will finish automation of simulations of residual dose in CAD geometries and integrate Tech-X software into Geant4 and MARS15. Finally, Tech-X will develop a Graphical User Interface to set up and heal CAD geometries, create input files, run and visualize simulations for residual dose. This application will run on local desktops, local and remote clusters and supercomputers and will be made available through public clouds, such as Amazon Web Services.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Investigation into the development of computer aided design software for space based sensors

The described effort is phase one of the development of a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to be used to perform radiometric sensor design. The software package will be referred to as SCAD and is directed toward the preliminary phase of the design of space based sensor system. The approach being followed is to develop a modern, graphic intensive, user friendly software package using existing software as building blocks. The emphasis will be directed toward the development of a shell containing menus, smart defaults, and interfaces, which can accommodate a wide variety of existing application software packages. The shell will offer expected utilities such as graphics, tailored menus, and a variety of drivers for I/O devices. Following the development of the shell, the development of SCAD is planned as chiefly selection and integration of appropriate building blocks. The phase one development activities have included: the selection of hardware which will be used with SCAD; the determination of the scope of SCAD; the preliminary evaluation of a number of software packages for applicability to SCAD; determination of a method for achieving required capabilities where voids exist; and then establishing a strategy for binding the software modules into an easy to use tool kit.

Pender, C. W.↗

Online Learning Flight Control for Intelligent Flight Control Systems (IFCS)

The research accomplishments for the cooperative agreement 'Online Learning Flight Control for Intelligent Flight Control Systems (IFCS)' include the following: (1) previous IFC program data collection and analysis; (2) IFC program support site (configured IFC systems support network, configured Tornado/VxWorks OS development system, made Configuration and Documentation Management Systems Internet accessible); (3) Airborne Research Test Systems (ARTS) II Hardware (developed hardware requirements specification, developing environmental testing requirements, hardware design, and hardware design development); (4) ARTS II software development laboratory unit (procurement of lab style hardware, configured lab style hardware, and designed interface module equivalent to ARTS II faceplate); (5) program support documentation (developed software development plan, configuration management plan, and software verification and validation plan); (6) LWR algorithm analysis (performed timing and profiling on algorithm); (7) pre-trained neural network analysis; (8) Dynamic Cell Structures (DCS) Neural Network Analysis (performing timing and profiling on algorithm); and (9) conducted technical interchange and quarterly meetings to define IFC research goals.

Niewoehner, Kevin R.↗