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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 109 records · Page 6

Fast generation of three-dimensional computational boundary-conforming periodic grids of C-type

A fast computer program, GRID3C, was developed to generate multilevel three dimensional, C type, periodic, boundary conforming grids for the calculation of realistic turbomachinery and propeller flow fields. The technique is based on two analytic functions that conformally map a cascade of semi-infinite slits to a cascade of doubly infinite strips on different Riemann sheets. Up to four consecutively refined three dimensional grids are automatically generated and permanently stored on four different computer tapes. Grid nonorthogonality is introduced by a separate coordinate shearing and stretching performed in each of three coordinate directions. The grids are easily clustered closer to the blade surface, the trailing and leading edges and the hub or shroud regions by changing appropriate input parameters. Hub and duct (or outer free boundary) have different axisymmetric shapes. A vortex sheet of arbitrary thickness emanating smoothly from the blade trailing edge is generated automatically by GRID3C. Blade cross sectional shape, chord length, twist angle, sweep angle, and dihedral angle can vary in an arbitrary smooth fashion in the spanwise direction.

Dulikravich, D. S.↗

Automated Generation and Assessment of Autonomous Systems Test Cases

This slide presentation reviews some of the issues concerning verification and validation testing of autonomous spacecraft routinely culminates in the exploration of anomalous or faulted mission-like scenarios using the work involved during the Dawn mission's tests as examples. Prioritizing which scenarios to develop usually comes down to focusing on the most vulnerable areas and ensuring the best return on investment of test time. Rules-of-thumb strategies often come into play, such as injecting applicable anomalies prior to, during, and after system state changes; or, creating cases that ensure good safety-net algorithm coverage. Although experience and judgment in test selection can lead to high levels of confidence about the majority of a system's autonomy, it's likely that important test cases are overlooked. One method to fill in potential test coverage gaps is to automatically generate and execute test cases using algorithms that ensure desirable properties about the coverage. For example, generate cases for all possible fault monitors, and across all state change boundaries. Of course, the scope of coverage is determined by the test environment capabilities, where a faster-than-real-time, high-fidelity, software-only simulation would allow the broadest coverage. Even real-time systems that can be replicated and run in parallel, and that have reliable set-up and operations features provide an excellent resource for automated testing. Making detailed predictions for the outcome of such tests can be difficult, and when algorithmic means are employed to produce hundreds or even thousands of cases, generating predicts individually is impractical, and generating predicts with tools requires executable models of the design and environment that themselves require a complete test program. Therefore, evaluating the results of large number of mission scenario tests poses special challenges. A good approach to address this problem is to automatically score the results based on a range of metrics. Although the specific means of scoring depends highly on the application, the use of formal scoring - metrics has high value in identifying and prioritizing anomalies, and in presenting an overall picture of the state of the test program. In this paper we present a case study based on automatic generation and assessment of faulted test runs for the Dawn mission, and discuss its role in optimizing the allocation of resources for completing the test program.

Testing challenges↗

A Natural Language Understanding Approach for Digitizing Aircraft Ground Taxi Instructions

Recent Advancements in spoken language processing technologies have enabled the development of reliable automation tools to assist air traffic control (ATC) operations. These advancements present a unique opportunity to strategically implement digital taxi instructions for aircraft movement on the ground. Digital taxi instructions issue taxiing procedures to pilots as textual or graphical instructions. There are several benefits of digital instructions, including a reduction in radio congestion, elimination of communication errors, and improved aircraft monitoring capabilities. Natural language understanding (NLU) models can extract digital taxi instructions from verbal instructions issued by air traffic controllers. This capability enables the implementation of a digital taxi communication framework with minimal changes to the existing air traffic controller operational environment. We explore a novel application for NLU: automatically generating digital taxi instructions from air traffic controller speech. We describe the development of an annotation scheme to represent (aircraft) ground traffic communications in the US National Airspace System (NAS).Our annotation scheme uses intent classification and slot filling to extract taxi instructions, enabling NLU models to leverage syntactic information. Several neural network models were trained to categorize the controller’s intent and label information relevant to his or her intent.Our research demonstrates that it is feasible to use NLU to automatically generate digitaltaxi instructions, suggesting that it is a powerful tool for the implementation of digital taxi communications.

Hillel Steinmetz↗

Parallel automated adaptive procedures for unstructured meshes

Consideration is given to the techniques required to support adaptive analysis of automatically generated unstructured meshes on distributed memory MIMD parallel computers. The key areas of new development are focused on the support of effective parallel computations when the structure of the numerical discretization, the mesh, is evolving, and in fact constructed, during the computation. All the procedures presented operate in parallel on already distributed mesh information. Starting from a mesh definition in terms of a topological hierarchy, techniques to support the distribution, redistribution and communication among the mesh entities over the processors is given, and algorithms to dynamically balance processor workload based on the migration of mesh entities are given. A procedure to automatically generate meshes in parallel, starting from CAD geometric models, is given. Parallel procedures to enrich the mesh through local mesh modifications are also given. Finally, the combination of these techniques to produce a parallel automated finite element analysis procedure for rotorcraft aerodynamics calculations is discussed and demonstrated.

Shephard, M. S.↗

NASA automatic subject analysis technique for extracting retrievable multi-terms (NASA TERM) system

Current methods for information processing and retrieval used at the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Facility are reviewed. A more cost effective computer aided indexing system is proposed which automatically generates print terms (phrases) from the natural text. Satisfactory print terms can be generated in a primarily automatic manner to produce a thesaurus (NASA TERMS) which extends all the mappings presently applied by indexers, specifies the worth of each posting term in the thesaurus, and indicates the areas of use of the thesaurus entry phrase. These print terms enable the computer to determine which of several terms in a hierarchy is desirable and to differentiate ambiguous terms. Steps in the NASA TERMS algorithm are discussed and the processing of surrogate entry phrases is demonstrated using four previously manually indexed STAR abstracts for comparison. The simulation shows phrase isolation, text phrase reduction, NASA terms selection, and RECON display.

Kirschbaum, J.↗

Computer-aided design of curved surfaces with automatic model generation

The design and visualization of three-dimensional objects with curved surfaces have always been difficult. The paper given below describes a computer system which facilitates both the design and visualization of such surfaces. The system enhances the design of these surfaces by virtue of various interactive techniques coupled with the application of B-Spline theory. Visualization is facilitated by including a specially built model-making machine which produces three-dimensional foam models. Thus, the system permits the designer to produce an inexpensive model of the object which is suitable for evaluation and presentation.

Staley, S. M.↗

Generative engineering databases - Toward expert systems

Engineering data management, incorporating concepts of optimization with data representation, is receiving increasing attention as the amount and complexity of information necessary for performing engineering operations increases and the need to coordinate its representation and use increases. Research in this area promises advantages for a wide variety of engineering applications, particularly those which seek to use data in innovative ways in the engineering process. This paper presents a framework for a comprehensive, relational database management system that combines a knowledge base of design constraints with a database of engineering data items in order to achieve a 'generative database' - one which automatically generates new engineering design data according to the design constraints stored in the knowledge base. The representation requires a database that is able to store all of the data normally associated with engineering design and to accurately represent the interactions between constraints and the stored data while guaranteeing its integrity. The representation also requires a knowledge base that is able to store all the constraints imposed upon the engineering design process.

Rasdorf, W. J.↗

Automatic procedures generator for orbital rendezvous maneuver

This paper describes the development of an expert system for defining and dynamically updating procedures for an orbital rendezvous maneuver. The product of the expert system is a procedure represented by a Moore automaton. The construction is recursive and driven by a simulation of the rendezvousing bodies.

Kohn, W.↗

Expert Script Generator

Program provides additional level of interface to facilitate use of telerobotic system. ESG (Expert Script Generator) is software package automatically generating high-level task objective commands from complex menu-driven language of the NASA Intelligent Systems Research Laboratory (ISRL). Makes telerobotics laboratory accessible to researchers not familiar with comprehensive language developed by ISRL for interacting with various systems of ISRL test bed. Incorporates expert-system technology to capture typical rules of operation that skilled operator uses. Result: operator interfact optimizing ability of system to perform task remotely in hazardous environment, in timely manner, and without undue stress to operator, while minimizing change for operator erros that damage equipment. Written in CLIPS.

Sliwa, Nancy E.↗

Users manual for AUTOMESH-2D: A program of automatic mesh generation for two-dimensional scattering analysis by the finite element method

AUTOMESH-2D is a computer program specifically designed as a preprocessor for the scattering analysis of two dimensional bodies by the finite element method. This program was developed due to a need for reproducing the effort required to define and check the geometry data, element topology, and material properties. There are six modules in the program: (1) Parameter Specification; (2) Data Input; (3) Node Generation; (4) Element Generation; (5) Mesh Smoothing; and (5) Data File Generation.

Hua, Chongyu↗

A rule-based software test data generator

Rule-based software test data generation is proposed as an alternative to either path/predicate analysis or random data generation. A prototype rule-based test data generator for Ada programs is constructed and compared to a random test data generator. Four Ada procedures are used in the comparison. Approximately 2000 rule-based test cases and 100,000 randomly generated test cases are automatically generated and executed. The success of the two methods is compared using standard coverage metrics. Simple statistical tests showing that even the primitive rule-based test data generation prototype is significantly better than random data generation are performed. This result demonstrates that rule-based test data generation is feasible and shows great promise in assisting test engineers, especially when the rule base is developed further.

Deason, William H.↗

A Generic Software Safety Document Generator

Formal certification is based on the idea that a mathematical proof of some property of a piece of software can be regarded as a certificate of correctness which, in principle, can be subjected to external scrutiny. In practice, however, proofs themselves are unlikely to be of much interest to engineers. Nevertheless, it is possible to use the information obtained from a mathematical analysis of software to produce a detailed textual justification of correctness. In this paper, we describe an approach to generating textual explanations from automatically generated proofs of program safety, where the proofs are of compliance with an explicit safety policy that can be varied. Key to this is tracing proof obligations back to the program, and we describe a tool which implements this to certify code auto-generated by AutoBayes and AutoFilter, program synthesis systems under development at the NASA Ames Research Center. Our approach is a step towards combining formal certification with traditional certification methods.

Denney, Ewen↗

Requirements to Design to Code: Towards a Fully Formal Approach to Automatic Code Generation

A general-purpose method to mechanically transform system requirements into a provably equivalent model has yet to appear. Such a method represents a necessary step toward high-dependability system engineering for numerous possible application domains, including sensor networks and autonomous systems. Currently available tools and methods that start with a formal model of a system and mechanically produce a provably equivalent implementation are valuable but not sufficient. The gap that current tools and methods leave unfilled is that their formal models cannot be proven to be equivalent to the system requirements as originated by the customer. For the classes of systems whose behavior can be described as a finite (but significant) set of scenarios, we offer a method for mechanically transforming requirements (expressed in restricted natural language, or in other appropriate graphical notations) into a provably equivalent formal model that can be used as the basis for code generation and other transformations.

Hinchey, Michael G.↗

Requirements to Design to Code: Towards a Fully Formal Approach to Automatic Code Generation

A general-purpose method to mechanically transform system requirements into a provably equivalent model has yet to appear. Such a method represents a necessary step toward high-dependability system engineering for numerous possible application domains, including distributed software systems, sensor networks, robot operation, complex scripts for spacecraft integration and testing, and autonomous systems. Currently available tools and methods that start with a formal model of a system and mechanically produce a provably equivalent implementation are valuable but not sufficient. The gap that current tools and methods leave unfilled is that their formal models cannot be proven to be equivalent to the system requirements as originated by the customer. For the classes of systems whose behavior can be described as a finite (but significant) set of scenarios, we offer a method for mechanically transforming requirements (expressed in restricted natural language, or in other appropriate graphical notations) into a provably equivalent formal model that can be used as the basis for code generation and other transformations.

Hinchey, Michael G.↗

Automatic Mesh Generation of Hybrid Mesh on Valves in Multiple Positions in Feedline Systems

Fluid flow simulations through a valve often require evaluation of the valve in multiple opening positions. A mesh has to be generated for the valve for each position and compounding. The problem is the fact that the valve is typically part of a larger feedline system. In this paper, we propose to develop a system to create meshes for feedline systems with parametrically controlled valve openings. Herein we outline two approaches to generate the meshes for a valve in a feedline system at multiple positions. There are two issues that must be addressed. The first is the creation of the mesh on the valve for multiple positions. The second is the generation of the mesh for the total feedline system including the valve. For generation of the mesh on the valve, we will describe the use of topology matching and mesh generation parameter transfer. For generation of the total feedline system, we will describe two solutions that we have implemented. In both cases the valve is treated as a component in the feedline system. In the first method the geometry of the valve in the feedline system is replaced with a valve at a different opening position. Geometry is created to connect the valve to the feedline system. Then topology for the valve is created and the portion of the topology for the valve is topology matched to the standard valve in a different position. The mesh generation parameters are transferred and then the volume mesh for the whole feedline system is generated. The second method enables the user to generate the volume mesh on the valve in multiple open positions external to the feedline system, to insert it into the volume mesh of the feedline system, and to reduce the amount of computer time required for mesh generation because only two small volume meshes connecting the valve to the feedline mesh need to be updated.

Ross, Douglass H.↗

Requirements to Design to Code: Towards a Fully Formal Approach to Automatic Code Generation

A general-purpose method to mechanically transform system requirements into a provably equivalent model has yet to appear. Such a method represents a necessary step toward high-dependability system engineering for numerous possible application domains, including distributed software systems, sensor networks, robot operation, complex scripts for spacecraft integration and testing, and autonomous systems. Currently available tools and methods that start with a formal model of a: system and mechanically produce a provably equivalent implementation are valuable but not sufficient. The "gap" that current tools and methods leave unfilled is that their formal models cannot be proven to be equivalent to the system requirements as originated by the customer. For the ciasses of systems whose behavior can be described as a finite (but significant) set of scenarios, we offer a method for mechanically transforming requirements (expressed in restricted natural language, or in other appropriate graphical notations) into a provably equivalent formal model that can be used as the basis for code generation and other transformations.

Hinchey, Michael G.↗

The KATE shell: An implementation of model-based control, monitor and diagnosis

The conventional control and monitor software currently used by the Space Center for Space Shuttle processing has many limitations such as high maintenance costs, limited diagnostic capabilities and simulation support. These limitations have caused the development of a knowledge based (or model based) shell to generically control and monitor electro-mechanical systems. The knowledge base describes the system's structure and function and is used by a software shell to do real time constraints checking, low level control of components, diagnosis of detected faults, sensor validation, automatic generation of schematic diagrams and automatic recovery from failures. This approach is more versatile and more powerful than the conventional hard coded approach and offers many advantages over it, although, for systems which require high speed reaction times or aren't well understood, knowledge based control and monitor systems may not be appropriate.

Cornell, Matthew↗