Results for “emergency response operations” — Page 6

NASA NTRS1977

Automatic vehicle monitoring systems study. Report of phase O. Volume 1: Executive summary

A set of planning guidelines is presented to help law enforcement agencies and vehicle fleet operators decide which automatic vehicle monitoring (AVM) system could best meet their performance requirements. Improvements in emergency response times and resultant cost benefits obtainable with various operational and planned AVM systems may be synthesized and simulated by means of special computer programs for model city parameters applicable to small, medium, and large urban areas. Design characteristics of various AVM systems and the implementation requirements are illustrated and cost estimated for the vehicles, the fixed sites, and the base equipments. Vehicle location accuracies for different RF links and polling intervals are analyzed.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1976

Automatic vehicle monitoring systems study. Report of phase O. Volume 2: Problem definition and derivation of AVM system selection techniques

A set of planning guidelines is presented to help law enforcement agencies and vehicle fleet operators decide which automatic vehicle monitoring (AVM) system could best meet their performance requirements. Improvements in emergency response times and resultant cost benefits obtainable with various operational and planned AVM systems may be synthesized and simulated by means of special computer programs for model city parameters applicable to small, medium and large urban areas. Design characteristics of various AVM systems and the implementation requirements are illustrated and cost estimated for the vehicles, the fixed sites and the base equipments. Vehicle location accuracies for different RF links and polling intervals are analyzed. Actual applications and coverage data are tabulated for seven cities whose police departments actively cooperated in the study.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2016

The IOAG Recommendations on Spacecraft Emergency Cross Support

In 2014, the Inter-agency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) chartered a multi-agency team effort to study how to best handle spacecraft emergency as part of cross support among network assets. The original intent is to put in place for the first time a process and guidelines to make emergency support as part of a permanent cross-support capability between space agencies. From the perspective of space communications service providers, a few key issues, common to all agencies, concerning the Spacecraft Emergency Cross Support (SECS) have been explored. They are: context of emergency support, provision of emergency support under a cross-support agreement, provision of emergency support with no cross-support agreement, legal and liability issues, response time, support priority, services provided, sustaining emergency support capabilities, and charge for the support. The positions of the various participating agencies with respect to these issues have been collected, analyzed, and finally harmonized to form the recommended IOAG positions. A central challenge most communications service providers are facing is that since the spacecraft emergency is an unplanned critical event, it typically requires fast response to the emergency call, hence lacking an international standard process for the operational interfaces seems to exacerbate the difficulty in providing SECS. For reducing the response time, i.e. from the time of accepting a request for SECS to the readiness for support, it is recommended that a “cross-support emergency system” be established by IOAG member agencies. Along with it, the IOAG core services, just-in-time ground communications line, cross support service management (CSSM), and standard operations procedures (SOP) for operational interfaces form the basic foundation of the “cross support emergency system”. Of the above, new to the cross support conducted thus far in the IOAG community is the concept of the SOP specifically for the interfaces between the service provider and service user during the SECS. Use cases, salient features, and definition of the key operational activities/tasks relevant to the interfaces are addressed by the effort. Underpinning such a system is the availability of the RF license granted by the local authority, at national and/or regional level, for a given ground station to communicate with and track the spacecraft in emergency mode at the uplink and downlink frequencies assigned to that spacecraft. That means it is critical for the IOAG member agencies to obtain a priori all-band licenses (for the entire X-band or S-band) for some, if not all, of their ground stations that are most capable of or likely to provide SECS. It is also recommended that certain prior arrangements be made with the relevant local licensing authorities for a process that will allow expedited authorization to transmit/receive signals to/from the declared spacecraft over the declared ground stations specifically and solely for the emergency case. Our analysis of the SECS has also uncovered a few fundamental programmatic issues. Recognizing any IOAG positions reached on these issues do not necessarily lead to any binding authority, it is recommended that they, along with those key attributes of the cross support emergency system, be explicitly stated as multi-agency guidelines to guide the implementation and provision of the SECS. The paper will present the results of the working group on Spacecraft Emergency Cross Support and, in particular, its findings, products and recommendations. It will also identify the next steps of this work that may include the production of some international standards as an extension of this work, or the process to make this emergency system usable by other spacecraft operators beyond the space agencies.

Tai, Wallace S.↗

NASA NTRS2016

The IOAG Recommendations on Spacecraft Emergency Cross Support

In 2014, the Inter-agency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) chartered a multi-agency team effort to study how to best handle spacecraft emergency as part of cross support among network assets. The original intent is to put in place for the first time a process and guidelines to make emergency support as part of a permanent cross-support capability between space agencies. From the perspective of space communications service providers, a few key issues, common to all agencies, concerning the Spacecraft Emergency Cross Support (SECS) have been explored. They are: context of emergency support, provision of emergency support under a cross-support agreement, provision of emergency support with no cross-support agreement, legal and liability issues, response time, support priority, services provided, sustaining emergency support capabilities, and charge for the support. The positions of the various participating agencies with respect to these issues have been collected, analyzed, and finally harmonized to form the recommended IOAG positions. A central challenge most communications service providers are facing is that since the spacecraft emergency is an unplanned critical event, it typically requires fast response to the emergency call, hence lacking an international standard process for the operational interfaces seems to exacerbate the difficulty in providing SECS. For reducing the response time, i.e. from the time of accepting a request for SECS to the readiness for support, it is recommended that a “cross-support emergency system” be established by IOAG member agencies. Along with it, the IOAG core services, just-in-time ground communications line, cross support service management (CSSM), and standard operations procedures (SOP) for operational interfaces form the basic foundation of the “cross support emergency system”. Of the above, new to the cross support conducted thus far in the IOAG community is the concept of the SOP specifically for the interfaces between the service provider and service user during the SECS. Use cases, salient features, and definition of the key operational activities/tasks relevant to the interfaces are addressed by the effort. Underpinning such a system is the availability of the RF license granted by the local authority, at national and/or regional level, for a given ground station to communicate with and track the spacecraft in emergency mode at the uplink and downlink frequencies assigned to that spacecraft. That means it is critical for the IOAG member agencies to obtain a priori all-band licenses (for the entire X-band or S-band) for some, if not all, of their ground stations that are most capable of or likely to provide SECS. It is also recommended that certain prior arrangements be made with the relevant local licensing authorities for a process that will allow expedited authorization to transmit/receive signals to/from the declared spacecraft over the declared ground stations specifically and solely for the emergency case. Our analysis of the SECS has also uncovered a few fundamental programmatic issues. Recognizing any IOAG positions reached on these issues do not necessarily lead to any binding authority, it is recommended that they, along with those key attributes of the cross support emergency system, be explicitly stated as multi-agency guidelines to guide the implementation and provision of the SECS. The paper will present the results of the working group on Spacecraft Emergency Cross Support and, in particular, its findings, products and recommendations. It will also identify the next steps of this work that may include the production of some international standards as an extension of this work, or the process to make this emergency system usable by other spacecraft operators beyond the space agencies.

Tai, Wallace S.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Towards the Development of Real-Time Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Delta NBR Imagery from GOES-16/17 and S-NPP

Burned landscapes present difficult hydrologic forecasting challenges for National Weather Service Offices. Burned soils and landscapes can be conducive to the development of flash flooding and landslides from heavy precipitation events. The severity of the burn scar can be directly related to the risk for debris flows and flash flooding. Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) map is generated to indicate the degree of burn severity, which is generated initially by high-resolution satellite imagery from sources such as Landsat, and later by labor-intensive efforts conducted at the burn scar by Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) teams. The challenge for operational meteorologists is that these sources of information are not readily available in near real-time. Landsat imagery, for example, may only be available about once every eight days, and cloudy conditions can obstruct the observation of the burn scar during a single pass. BAER teams cannot conduct assessments until the wildfire has been at least 40 percent contained (up to 80 percent in some regions), and the process itself can take further days to weeks to complete depending on a number of factors. To help remedy this lapse in knowledge, NASA SPoRT has developed the generation of NBR imagery in the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) using data from the operational GOES 16 and 17 satellites and S-NPP. This presentation will discuss the development of the GOES- and SNPP-derived NBR and dNBR imagery and their initial evaluation by real-time decision makers.

Berndt, Emily↗

NASA NTRS1996

The Implementation and Evaluation of the Emergency Response Dose Assessment System (ERDAS) at Cape Canaveral Air Station/Kennedy Space Center

The Emergency Response Dose Assessment System (ERDAS) is a system which combines the mesoscale meteorological prediction model RAMS with the diffusion models REEDM and HYPACT. Operators use a graphical user interface to run the models for emergency response and toxic hazard planning at CCAS/KCS. The Applied Meteorology Unit has been evaluating the ERDAS meteorological and diffusion models and obtained the following results: (1) RAMS adequately predicts the occurrence of the daily sea breeze during non-cloudy conditions for several cases. (2) RAMS shows a tendency to predict the sea breeze to occur slightly earlier and to move it further inland than observed. The sea breeze predictions could most likely be improved by better parameterizing the soil moisture and/or sea surface temperatures. (3) The HYPACT/REEDM/RAMS models accurately predict launch plume locations when RAMS winds are accurate and when the correct plume layer is modeled. (4) HYPACT does not adequately handle plume buoyancy for heated plumes since all plumes are presently treated as passive tracers. Enhancements should be incorporated into the ERDAS as it moves toward being a fully operational system and as computer workstations continue to increase in power and decrease in cost. These enhancements include the following: activate RAMS moisture physics; use finer RAMS grid resolution; add RAMS input parameters (e.g. soil moisture, radar, and/or satellite data); automate data quality control; implement four-dimensional data assimilation; modify HYPACT plume rise and deposition physics; and add cumulative dosage calculations in HYPACT.

Evans, Randolph J.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Remote Support of ISS Payload Operations During the COVID19 Pandemic

As part of the Human Health and Performance Contract (HHPC) with the NASA Johnson Space Center, the Human Research Program’s (HRP) Research Operations and Integration (ROI) element conducts the planning, implementation, and closing of human research operations on-board the International Space Station (ISS). These operations are supported out of the Telescience Support Center (TSC) located in the Mission Control Center at Houston’s Johnson Space Center (MCC-H). HRP ROI has an Emergency Response Plan in place to allow for remote operations to be completed in the case of inclement weather or other natural disaster; however, nominally, the remote support is only expected to last one to two weeks. In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, HRP ROI was challenged to complete a quick transition to supporting on-orbit operations remotely and distanced for an indefinite amount of time. This shift in ground support required close collaboration with various external groups as well as the implementation or adaptation of various technologies and tools to ensure no loss of science data. Operational adjustments were put into place for ground commanding, telemetry monitoring, personnel staffing and private and public audio and video with the ISS. Adjustments were also put in place for communication and collaboration with MCC-H, the Payload Operation and Integration Center (POIC) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), as well as between the various HRP ROI console team members spread across Houston, TX. The ability to successfully support a variety of on-orbit operations from any remote location is more in demand as the commercialization of low Earth orbit is expanding.

Operations↗

NASA NTRS1985

Mathematical models for space shuttle ground systems

Math models are a series of algorithms, comprised of algebraic equations and Boolean Logic. At Kennedy Space Center, math models for the Space Shuttle Systems are performed utilizing the Honeywell 66/80 digital computers, Modcomp II/45 Minicomputers and special purpose hardware simulators (MicroComputers). The Shuttle Ground Operations Simulator operating system provides the language formats, subroutines, queueing schemes, execution modes and support software to write, maintain and execute the models. The ground systems presented consist primarily of the Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen Cryogenic Propellant Systems, as well as liquid oxygen External Tank Gaseous Oxygen Vent Hood/Arm and the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) High Bay Cells. The purpose of math modeling is to simulate the ground hardware systems and to provide an environment for testing in a benign mode. This capability allows the engineers to check out application software for loading and launching the vehicle, and to verify the Checkout, Control, & Monitor Subsystem within the Launch Processing System. It is also used to train operators and to predict system response and status in various configurations (normal operations, emergency and contingent operations), including untried configurations or those too dangerous to try under real conditions, i.e., failure modes.

Tory, E. G.↗

NASA NTRS2022

NASA System-Wide Safety Wildland Firefighting Operations Workshop Report

On March 9-11, 2022, NASA’s System-Wide Safety Wildland Firefighting Operations Workshop engaged the broader wildland firefighting management ecosystem in a safety-oriented discussion via a virtual platform. This enabled a better understanding of how NASA and community expertise can be leveraged in the safe development of current and future firefighting systems and operations. The goals of the workshop were to: (1) identify and prioritize the top safety-oriented risks, gaps in capabilities, and emerging technologies to enhance wildland firefighting for both near-term and far-term concepts, with a specific focus on aviation operations and (2) engage the stakeholder community in defining emergent safety-oriented scope, roles, responsibilities, and procedures for agents undergoing increasingly complex wildland firefighting operations in information-rich, but uncertain environments. Workshop participants were solicited from wildland firefighting stakeholders across government, industry, and academia. All levels of government were engaged, as NASA sought attendees from federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies. Industry participants from traditional wildland firefighting domains such as data visualization and equipment manufacturers were invited, and corporate attendees from novel application domains such as aerial robotics and autonomous systems were present as well. The top three findings were as follows: (1) Enhancing situation awareness is a safety priority, especially in the use of aerial assets; (2) Timely access to information along with data fusion and integrated displays will enhance safety-critical decision-making both inside and outside aviation contexts; and (3) Tailorable standards and common operating pictures in the field will enhance inter-agency cooperation in the wildland firefighting lifecycle and enable the optimal use of limited resources such as aerial assets. The workshop helped inform NASA of the relevant safety-related wildland firefighting concerns and aided the broader ecosystem in understanding the potential safety-oriented role NASA might play in this community. Increased engagement with crucial governmental stakeholders (e.g., U.S. Forest Service, CAL FIRE, etc.) along with industry partners in cutting- edge information -centric domains is a fundamental next step. Additionally, the workshop findings will help define the first of a series of operationally challenging demonstrations, held in concert with strategic ecosystem partners, known as the Safety Demonstrator Series for NASA’s System-Wide Safety project. The first demonstration is set in the wildland firefighting application domain and will: (1) examine high risk operational scenarios to reduce their overall risk via services, functions or capabilities that act as risk mitigators (or transfer that risk to automated systems better able to tolerate it) and (2) explore novel tools and technologies that will enhance safety margins by enabling non-traditional or neoteric operational paradigms.

wildland firefighting↗

NASA NTRS2019

The Value of Near Real-Time Earth Observations for Improved Flood Disaster Response

Information is a critical resource in disaster response scenarios. Data regarding the geographic extent, severity, and socioeconomic impacts of a disaster event can help guide emergency responders and relief operations, particularly when delivered within hours of data acquisition. Information from remote observations provides a valuable tool for assessing conditions "on the ground" more quickly and efficiently. Here, we evaluate the social value of a near real-time flood impact system using a disaster response case study, and quantify the Value of Information (VOI) of satellite-based observations for rapid response using a hypothetical flooding disaster in Bangkok, Thailand. MODIS imagery from NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) system is used to produce operational estimates of inundation depths and economic damages.These rapid Earth observations are coupled with a decision-analytical model to inform decisions on emergency vehicle routing. Emergency response times from vehicles routed using flood damage data are compared with baseline routes without the benefit of advance information on road conditions. Our results illustrate how the application of near real-time Earth observations can improve the response time and reduce potential encounters with flood hazards when compared with baseline routing strategies. Results indicate a potential significant economic benefit (i.e.,millions of dollars) from applying near real-time Earth observations for improved flood disaster response and management.

emergency response↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

(ODIN): An Open Source, Low-Latency Data Integration & Visualization Framework for the NASA System Wide Safety Project's Disaster Response Safety Demonstration Series

The Open Data Integration Framework (ODIN) is an open source, low latency data integration and visualization framework (https://github.com/NASARace/race-odin) developed under NASA’s System WideSafety Program to demonstrate new safety capabilities designed to improve US airspace operations. Safety demonstrations are a set of increasingly complex (from public safety perspective) disaster response scenarios under which air systems must operate with increased capacity and include: 1) Wildland fire response, 2) Hurricane relief and recovery, 4) Emergency medical delivery via UAS and 4) Urban disaster relief. To accommodate disaster response, ODIN is field deployable and can scale on one or more multi-core, commodity laptops operating with full to limited or intermittent internet connectivity, conditions likely encountered during operations. ODIN runs as webserver with local, persistent data storage to serve either public or a secured, ad hoc network (e.g., an incident command post). The current released ODIN, ODIN-Fire is tailored for wildland fire management incorporating information on satellite overpasses with links to the near real-time data and imagery from the respective agencies. Included are winds data, an important variable for emergency responders and airspace operations, and high-resolution wind forecasts generated by super-computing resources and ingested into ODIN. As an open-source project, ODIN has attracted interest from multiple entities. We will show how 1) a commercial field instrument and data provider uses ODIN to help users visualize, publish and integrate their in-situ sensor network data and 2) ODIN’s capabilities to ingest, integrate and display near-real time satellite data with air traffic and a USFS winds forecast model used in fire response and post-fire assessment. Within NASA ODIN demonstrated novel, near terminal airspace safety capabilities for a project close-out event and previously it monitored the national airspace in real-time to meet an agency milestone. ODIN is presently under development for the anticipated hurricane relief and response demonstration notionally scheduled for the 2025-27 time frame and is available from NASA's github at the above link.

Aeronautics↗

NASA NTRS2003

Environmental Assessment for the NASA First Response Facility

NASA intends to construct a First Response Facility for integrated emergency response and health management. This facility will consolidate the Stennis Space Center fire department, medical clinic, security operations, emergency operations and the energy management and control center. The alternative considered is the "No Action Alternative". The proposed action will correct existing operational weaknesses and enhance capabilities to respond to medical emergencies and mitigate any other possible threats. Environmental impacts include are emissions, wetlands disturbance, solid waste generation, and storm water control.

Kennedy, Carolyn↗

NASA NTRS2018

The Evolution of Payload Data Capabilities on the Commercial Visiting Vehicles that Service the International Space Station

For over 10 years, NASA has been working with U.S.-based commercial companies to support the design, development, and operations of new commercial space vehicles. The purpose of these vehicles is to provide cargo and crew transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS) and to stimulate the commercial space transportation industry to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). Along with the ability to provide a couple tons of cargo to the ISS each mission, the commercial visiting vehicles also provide the ability to transfer NASA payloads to and from the ISS in an active, powered state. To take advantage of this capability, NASA requirements for the data services that payloads need while they are integrated into the visiting vehicles have grown with each set of commercial contracts. Today, NASA desires for payload data services encompass a variety of capabilities including payload health and status (H&S) telemetry monitoring, visiting vehicle environment data monitoring, and payload commanding. The intent of these capabilities is to provide payload developers with situational awareness and the ability to quickly diagnose any problems with payload operations prior to vehicle docking or post-landing to support immediate troubleshooting response. As new requirements for payload data services have emerged over the years, the ISS Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has established ground segment interfaces to the visiting vehicle control centers to enable payload developers to use these services. Many technical and programmatic challenges have been faced while establishing these interfaces. The most significant challenge faced has been in finding the right balance amongst providing interfaces to payloads that are compatible with the ISS so that payload hardware or software changes are not necessary to ensure compatibility with the visiting vehicles; keeping POIC ground system development costs low by standardizing implementation approaches across commercial vehicle partners; and fostering commercialization through supporting vendor-unique implementations that are commercially economical. This paper will first detail the data services that will be available to payload users under each commercial visiting vehicle contract. Secondly, this paper will offer discussion of the most significant technical and programmatic challenges faced to-date in offering these new data services to payload developers.

Wiggins, Lindsay M.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Factors Affecting the Use of Emergency and Abnormal Checklists: Implications for Current and NextGen Operations

The purpose of the current study was two-fold: 1) identify current practices associated with the design and content of checklists used to guide pilot response to emergency and abnormal situations, particularly those known to be challenging for checklist developers and affect checklist usability, including aspects that affect pilots' ability to identify and access the correct checklist and to complete only those items that are pertinent for a specific situation; and 2) identify and analyze checklists for use in aspects of NextGen operations that have already been implemented (e.g., Data Comm, in oceanic operations, and required navigation performance (RNP)).

Emergency↗

NASA NTRS2005

Decision Support for Emergency Operations Centers

The Flood Disaster Mitigation Decision Support System (DSS) is a computerized information system that allows regional emergency-operations government officials to make decisions regarding the dispatch of resources in response to flooding. The DSS implements a real-time model of inundation utilizing recently acquired lidar elevation data as well as real-time data from flood gauges, and other instruments within and upstream of an area that is or could become flooded. The DSS information is updated as new data become available. The model generates realtime maps of flooded areas and predicts flood crests at specified locations. The inundation maps are overlaid with information on population densities, property values, hazardous materials, evacuation routes, official contact information, and other information needed for emergency response. The program maintains a database and a Web portal through which real-time data from instrumentation are gathered into the database. Also included in the database is a geographic information system, from which the program obtains the overlay data for areas of interest as needed. The portal makes some portions of the database accessible to the public. Access to other portions of the database is restricted to government officials according to various levels of authorization. The Flood Disaster Mitigation DSS has been integrated into a larger DSS named REACT (Real-time Emergency Action Coordination Tool), which also provides emergency operations managers with data for any type of impact area such as floods, fires, bomb

Harvey, Craig↗

NASA NTRS1974

The prologue - A look at Apollo and Apollo/Soyuz

The importance of man to the success of the Apollo missions is considered, giving attention to man's capabilities to provide rapid response to emergencies, the ability to carry out self-contained operations in the absence of communication with the ground, and the ability for rapid sensing, reaction, and vehicle control. In the upcoming Shuttle era the capabilities possessed by man are to be further utilized. The concern for the safety of men in space is one of the major reasons for the flight of the Apollo/Soyuz test project. Details regarding this project are discussed, taking into account the mission profile, hardware, program organization, mission communication modes, tracking, the participating astronauts and cosmonauts, and scientific studies.

Lee, C. M.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Rotorcraft Flight Dynamics and Controls Research at NASA

In recent years, NASA has invested in key activities in the areas of flight controls, handling qualities and operations of rotorcraft for civilian applications. More specifically, the flight dynamics and control discipline has focused on analyzing the unique flight control and handling qualities challenges of large rotary wing vehicles anticipated for future passenger service, and examining the effect of control system augmentation on handling qualities for current civilian helicopters in order to improve safety and reduce accident rates. This paper highlights two recent research efforts in these areas. The first is an examination of flight control and handling qualities aspects of large rotorcraft. A series of experiments were performed in the large-motion Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA Ames Research Center to quantify the effects of vehicle size on flight control requirements and piloted handling qualities. These experiments used a large tilt-rotor concept (~100 passengers) to also investigate the control augmentation required to obtain Level 1 handling qualities for a vehicle of this size. The second is an examination of the effect of control system augmentation on handling qualities for current civil rotorcraft, like those currently used for Emergency Medical Service type operations. Many current civilian helicopters have rate response type control systems and little or no control system augmentation, although current technologies allow helicopters to be fitted with stability augmentation systems, either as standard equipment or aftermarket options. A simulation experiment was conducted in the Vertical Motion Simulator to quantify the effects of advanced control modes available with a partial authority stability augmentation system on task performance and handling qualities in both good and degraded visual conditions. In addition to providing an overview of the rotary wing flight dynamics and controls research at NASA, this paper will provide an overview of these two research activities along with key results and conclusions.

Research at NASA↗

NASA NTRS2014

Rotorcraft Flight Dynamics and Controls Research at NASA

In recent years, NASA has invested in key activities in the areas of flight controls, handling qualities and operations of rotorcraft for civilian applications. More specifically, the flight dynamics and control discipline has focused on analyzing the unique flight control and handling qualities challenges of large rotary wing vehicles anticipated for future passenger service, and examining the effect of control system augmentation on handling qualities for current civilian helicopters in order to improve safety and reduce accident rates. This paper highlights two recent research efforts in these areas. The first is an examination of flight control and handling qualities aspects of large rotorcraft. A series of experiments were performed in the large-motion Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA Ames Research Center to quantify the effects of vehicle size on flight control requirements and piloted handling qualities. These experiments used a large tilt-rotor concept (~100 passengers) to also investigate the control augmentation required to obtain Level 1 handling qualities for a vehicle of this size. The second is an examination of the effect of control system augmentation on handling qualities for current civil rotorcraft, like those currently used for Emergency Medical Service type operations. Many current civilian helicopters have rate response type control systems and little or no control system augmentation, although current technologies allow helicopters to be fitted with stability augmentation systems, either as standard equipment or aftermarket options. A simulation experiment was conducted in the Vertical Motion Simulator to quantify the effects of advanced control modes available with a partial authority stability augmentation system on task performance and handling qualities in both good and degraded visual conditions. In addition to providing an overview of the rotary wing flight dynamics and controls research at NASA, this paper will provide an overview of these two research activities along with key results and conclusions.

Rotorcraft↗