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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 1,225 records · Page 68
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1987

Location of planar targets in three space from monocular images

Many pieces of existing and proposed space hardware that would be targets of interest for a telerobot can be represented as planar or near-planar surfaces. Examples include the biostack modules on the Long Duration Exposure Facility, the panels on Solar Max, large diameter struts, and refueling receptacles. Robust and temporally efficient methods for locating such objects with sufficient accuracy are therefore worth developing. Two techniques that derive the orientation and location of an object from its monocular image are discussed and the results of experiments performed to determine translational and rotational accuracy are presented. Both the quadrangle projection and elastic matching techniques extract three-space information using a minimum of four identifiable target points and the principles of the perspective transformation. The selected points must describe a convex polygon whose geometric characteristics are prespecified in a data base. The rotational and translational accuracy of both techniques was tested at various ranges. This experiment is representative of the sensing requirements involved in a typical telerobot target acquisition task. Both techniques determined target location to an accuracy sufficient for consistent and efficient acquisition by the telerobot.

Cornils, Karin↗
NASA NTRS1994

Object recognition and pose estimation of planar objects from range data

The Extravehicular Activity Helper/Retriever (EVAHR) is a robotic device currently under development at the NASA Johnson Space Center that is designed to fetch objects or to assist in retrieving an astronaut who may have become inadvertently de-tethered. The EVAHR will be required to exhibit a high degree of intelligent autonomous operation and will base much of its reasoning upon information obtained from one or more three-dimensional sensors that it will carry and control. At the highest level of visual cognition and reasoning, the EVAHR will be required to detect objects, recognize them, and estimate their spatial orientation and location. The recognition phase and estimation of spatial pose will depend on the ability of the vision system to reliably extract geometric features of the objects such as whether the surface topologies observed are planar or curved and the spatial relationships between the component surfaces. In order to achieve these tasks, three-dimensional sensing of the operational environment and objects in the environment will therefore be essential. One of the sensors being considered to provide image data for object recognition and pose estimation is a phase-shift laser scanner. The characteristics of the data provided by this scanner have been studied and algorithms have been developed for segmenting range images into planar surfaces, extracting basic features such as surface area, and recognizing the object based on the characteristics of extracted features. Also, an approach has been developed for estimating the spatial orientation and location of the recognized object based on orientations of extracted planes and their intersection points. This paper presents some of the algorithms that have been developed for the purpose of recognizing and estimating the pose of objects as viewed by the laser scanner, and characterizes the desirability and utility of these algorithms within the context of the scanner itself, considering data quality and noise.

Pendleton, Thomas W.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Evidence for Asteroidal Origin of the Tunguska Object

The progress in the understanding of the Tunguska object is reviewed in the light of evidence presented in numerous recent investigations, which appeared following the publication of my 1983 paper on the object's proposed asteroidal nature. The issues addressed extensively in the present review involve: (i) the fundamental characteristics of the event, such as the object's energy, altitude and velocity at the time of its terminal explosion and the dynamic pressure involved; (ii) the problem of atmospheric fragmentation of very massive impactors and the implications for their ablation and deceleration; (iii) new analysis of the orientation of the Tunguska object's heliocentric orbit based on the best data on the apparent radiant of the fireball's atmospheric trajectory; and (iv) comparison with the findings of other recent investigations, including compositional studies. Also employed in the arguments are the results now available on the impacts of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's fragments into Jupiter and the findings of a recent comparative study of two huge fireballs (one cometary, one stony, both involving impactors several meters across) observed with the cameras of the European Network of fireball monitoring. It is concluded that hypotheses based on presumed cometary origin of the Tunguska object encounter unsurmountable difficulties and that the interpretation of the event as a fall of a small stony or carbonaceous asteroid is not only plausible, but virtually certain.

Sekanina, Z.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Role of orientation reference selection in motion sickness

The overall objective of this proposal is to understand the relationship between human orientation control and motion sickness susceptibility. Three areas related to orientation control will be investigated. These three areas are (1) reflexes associated with the control of eye movements and posture, (2) the perception of body rotation and position with respect to gravity, and (3) the strategies used to resolve sensory conflict situations which arise when different sensory systems provide orientation cues which are not consistent with one another or with previous experience. Of particular interest is the possibility that a subject may be able to ignore an inaccurate sensory modality in favor of one or more other sensory modalities which do provide accurate orientation reference information. We refer to this process as sensory selection. This proposal will attempt to quantify subjects' sensory selection abilities and determine if this ability confers some immunity to the development of motion sickness symptoms. Measurements of reflexes, motion perception, sensory selection abilities, and motion sickness susceptibility will concentrate on pitch and roll motions since these seem most relevant to the space motion sickness problem. Vestibulo-ocular (VOR) and oculomotor reflexes will be measured using a unique two-axis rotation device developed in our laboratory over the last seven years. Posture control reflexes will be measured using a movable posture platform capable of independently altering proprioceptive and visual orientation cues. Motion perception will be quantified using closed loop feedback technique developed by Zacharias and Young (Exp Brain Res, 1981). This technique requires a subject to null out motions induced by the experimenter while being exposed to various confounding sensory orientation cues. A subject's sensory selection abilities will be measured by the magnitude and timing of his reactions to changes in sensory environments. Motion sickness susceptibility will be measured by the time required to induce characteristic changes in the pattern of electrogastrogram recordings while exposed to various sensory environments during posture and motion perception tests. The results of this work are relevant to NASA's interest in understanding the etiology of space motion sickness. If any of the reflex, perceptual, or sensory selection abilities of subjects are found to correlate with motion sickness susceptibility, this work may be an important step in suggesting a method of predicting motion sickness susceptibility. If sensory selection can provide a means to avoid sensory conflict, then further work may lead to training programs which could enhance a subject's sensory selection ability and therefore minimize motion sickness susceptibility.

Peterka, Robert J.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Nonlinear Multiobjective MPC-Based Optimal Operation of a High Consistency Refining System in Papermaking

As one of the most important unit in the papermaking industry, the high consistency (HC) refining system is confronted with challenges such as improving pulp quality, energy saving, and emissions reduction in its operation processes. Here in this correspondence, an optimal operation of HC refining system is presented using nonlinear multiobjective model predictive control strategies that aim at set-point tracking objective of pulp quality, economic objective, and specific energy (SE) consumption objective, respectively. First, a set of input and output data at different times are employed to construct the subprocess model of the state process model for the HC refining system, and then the Wiener-type model can be obtained through combining the mechanism model of Canadian Standard Freeness and the state process model that determines their structures based on Akaike information criterion. Second, the multiobjective optimization strategy that optimizes both the set-point tracking objective of pulp quality and SE consumption is proposed simultaneously, which uses NSGA-II approach to obtain the Pareto optimal set. Furthermore, targeting at the set-point tracking objective of pulp quality, economic objective, and SE consumption objective, the sequential quadratic programming method is utilized to produce the optimal predictive controllers. In conclusion, the simulation results demonstrate that the proposed methods can make the HC refining system provide a better performance of set-point tracking of pulp quality when these predictive controllers are employed. In addition, while the optimal predictive controllers orienting with comprehensive economic objective and SE consumption objective, it has been shown that they have significantly reduced the energy consumption.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2009

Photometric Studies of Orbital Debris at GEO

Orbital debris represents a significant and increasing risk to operational spacecraft. Here we report on photometric observations made in standard BVRI filters at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in an effort to determine the physical characteristics of optically faint debris at geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). Our sample is taken from GEO objects discovered in a survey with the University of Michigan s 0.6-m Curtis-Schmidt telescope (known as MODEST, for Michigan Orbital DEbris Survey Telescope), and then followed up in real-time with the CTIO/SMARTS 0.9-m for orbits and photometry. For a sample of 50 objects, calibrated sequences in RB- V-I-R filters have been obtained with the CTIO/SMARTS 0.9-m. For objects that do not show large brightness variations, the colors are largely redder than solar in both B-R and R-I. The width of the color distribution may be intrinsic to the nature of the surfaces, but also could imply that we are seeing irregularly shaped objects and measuring the colors at different times with just one telescope. For irregularly shaped objects tumbling at unknown orientations and rates, such sequential filter measurements using one telescope are subject to large errors for interpretation. If all observations in all filters in a particular sequence are of the same surface at the same solar and viewing angles, then the colors are meaningful. Where this is not the case, interpretation of the observed colors is impossible. For a smaller sample of objects we have observed with synchronized CCD cameras on the two telescopes. The CTIO/SMARTS 0.9-m observes in B, and the Schmidt in R. The CCD cameras are electronically linked together so that the start time and duration of observations are both the same to better than 50 milliseconds. Now the observed B-R color is a true measure of the scattered illuminated area of the debris piece for that observation.

Seitzer, Patrick↗
DOE OSTI2021

Shape- and Orientation-Dependent Scattering of Isolated Gold Nanostructures Using Polarized Dark-Field Microscopy

In this work, we demonstrate a simple and robust method for measuring the shape- and orientation-dependent optical scattering of various plasmonic nanostructures adsorbed onto a solid surface using polarized dark-field microscopy. By analyzing the dark-field scattering images of gold nanostructures using grazing incidence polarized light with a bench-top microscope, we are able to correlate optical scattering from the individual nanostructures with their shape and orientation. Depending on the size, shape, and orientation of the plasmonic nanostructures, they exhibit characteristic angle- and polarization-dependent scattering signals. Extracting the red, green, and blue channels of the scattering signals from a color-imaging detector as a function of azimuthal angle provides a polar plot of color intensity values that is characteristic of the underlying nanostructure. Examples are presented for various nanostructures, including spherical nanoparticles, nanotriangles, and nanorods. Experimental results are complemented by numerical calculations of the scattering spectra of representative model nanostructures. We demonstrate that the polarization- and orientation-dependent scattering behavior is a consequence of various localized surface plasmon modes existing in the nanostructures and can be used to verify the shape of individual objects as well as quickly identify the orientation of numerous objects on a densely populated substrate. We anticipate that this method will provide a rapid and efficient complement to the typical structural analysis of nanoparticles that is achieved by electron microscopy as well as providing a simple method for generating detailed information of the optical scattering of various types of individual plasmonic nanostructures.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1989

Determining Equilibrium Position For Acoustical Levitation

Equilibrium position and orientation of acoustically-levitated weightless object determined by calibration technique on Earth. From calibration data, possible to calculate equilibrium position and orientation in presence of Earth gravitation. Sample not levitated acoustically during calibration. Technique relies on Boltzmann-Ehrenfest adiabatic-invariance principle. One converts resonant-frequency-shift data into data on normalized acoustical potential energy. Minimum of energy occurs at equilibrium point. From gradients of acoustical potential energy, one calculates acoustical restoring force or torque on objects as function of deviation from equilibrium position or orientation.

Barmatz, M. B.↗
DOE OSTI2026

ObstacleSense: Low-Power Neuromorphic Vision for Corridor Obstacle Awareness in Low-Level ADAS

The automotive industry’s pursuit of Level 5 autonomy is constrained by substantial perception-compute power requirements, often reaching 1, 000 + watts in full autonomy stacks. Reducing this energy burden requires rethinking perception not only at the high-end autonomy level, but also at the foundational Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) level where low-power, safety-critical sensing can have broad impact. Neuromorphic vision provides a promising starting point: HD Dynamic Vision Sensors (DVS) can operate below 100 mW at the sensor level by reporting only asynchronous brightness changes. However, low-power sensing alone is insufficient if downstream perception reintroduces dense, energy-intensive computation. In particular, many event-driven object-detection pipelines still rely on CNN backbones, while purely spiking alternatives often trade away accuracy or ignore deployment constraints. We introduce ObstacleSense, a highly compact, CNN-free hybrid ANN–SNN framework for Level 0–1 forward-corridor obstacle awareness. Instead of performing full-scene object detection with a convolutional feature backbone, ObstacleSense targets the safety-critical question of whether the ego corridor is occupied and how far the nearest obstacle is. The architecture combines polarity-conditioned event encoding, lightweight temporal spiking dynamics, axial spatial mixing, and coarse-to-fine range estimation within a regular fixed-grid compute pattern. This design avoids the dense CNN backbone commonly used in event-based detection while maintaining a small state footprint suitable for eventual small-FPGA deployment. Before hardware mapping, we evaluate the software implementation using a model-side power proxy derived from MACs, weight and activation traffic, and spiking state updates under shared FP16 assumptions. On simulated CARLA event corpora, the deployment-oriented model achieves 0.9464 objectness F1, 0.9978 grid-level mAP, and 0.8987 m distance Mean Absolute Error at an estimated 1.92 mW proxy cost, while maintaining performance on unseen generalization test sequences.

Johnson-Scott, Zac [ORNL]↗
NASA NTRS1991

Spatial vision within egocentric and exocentric frames of reference

It is remarkable that we are able to perceive a stable visual world and judge the directions, orientations, and movements of visual objects given that images move on the retina, the eyes move in the head, the head moves on the body, and the body moves in space. An understanding of the mechanisms underlying perceptual stability and spatial judgements requires precise definitions of relevant coordinate systems. An egocentric frame of reference is defined with respect to some part of the observer. There are four principal egocentric frames of reference, a station-point frame associated with the nodal point of the eye, an retinocentric frame associated with the retina, a headcentric frame associated with the head, and a bodycentric frame (torsocentric) associated with the torso. Additional egocentric frames can be identified with respect to any segment of the body. An egocentric task is one in which the position, orientation, or motion of an object is judged with respect to an egocentric frame of reference. A proprioceptive is a special kind of egocentric task in which the object being judged is also part of the body. An example of a proprioceptive task is that of directing the gaze toward the seen or unseen toe. An exocentric frame of reference is external to the observer. Geographical coordinates and the direction of gravity are examples of exocentric frames of reference. These various frames are listed in tabular form, together with examples of judgements of each type.

Howard, Ian P.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Machine vision based teleoperation aid

When teleoperating a robot using video from a remote camera, it is difficult for the operator to gauge depth and orientation from a single view. In addition, there are situations where a camera mounted for viewing by the teleoperator during a teleoperation task may not be able to see the tool tip, or the viewing angle may not be intuitive (requiring extensive training to reduce the risk of incorrect or dangerous moves by the teleoperator). A machine vision based teleoperator aid is presented which uses the operator's camera view to compute an object's pose (position and orientation), and then overlays onto the operator's screen information on the object's current and desired positions. The operator can choose to display orientation and translation information as graphics and/or text. This aid provides easily assimilated depth and relative orientation information to the teleoperator. The camera may be mounted at any known orientation relative to the tool tip. A preliminary experiment with human operators was conducted and showed that task accuracies were significantly greater with than without this aid.

Hoff, William A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Innovating the next generation of commercial smart building software

Nearly 30% of commercial building energy use is wasted due to equipment faults and HVAC controls problems. The result is increased emissions, compromised comfort and productivity, and less reliable coordination of building power needs with a clean grid. The energy impact alone represents $17 billion in potential savings. Today’s smart building software provides a robust solution to address these operational deficiencies. Energy management and information systems (EMIS) are saving up to 9% on average, with two-year paybacks. They are being incorporated into energy management processes, commissioning services, and utility programs. As effective as they are, two barriers prevent even deeper benefits; limited personnel to fix problems once they are identified, and the expense and time to manually implement changes in control systems. In partnership with the research community, the EMIS industry is developing new capabilities to overcome these barriers. Moving beyond siloed products for either fault detection and diagnostics, or optimal control, these new capabilities empower users to not only automatically identify faults, but also to push corrective action, and control improvements to their buildings. In this paper, several areas for enhancements are documented: ‘one-time’ correction of faults such as setpoints, schedules, and economizer lockouts; short-term active testing for automated proportional integral derivative (PID) loop tuning and functional testing; and continuous supervisory control for demand flexibility and year-round efficiency. Results are presented from a pair of partner implementations out of a dozen providers integrating these enhancements into their products, including field tests from across the country, and insights into operator acceptance and integration into operations and maintenance practices.

Casillas, Armando↗
NASA NTRS1992

Optical monitoring of GRO phase 1 objects

A brief overview is given of the three phases of our Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) optical monitoring program. The acquisition of simultaneous GRO/optical data on targeted Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE) objects, the collection of noncoincident observations of suspected GRO gamma ray emitters to determine their level of activity, and the optical imaging of burst fields in an attempt to identify the burst source are discussed. Finally, a table of future simultaneous optical observations of Phase 1 GRO targets is presented along with plans for the rapid optical imaging of gamma ray burst fields.

Mcnamara, Bernard↗
DOE OSTI2026

Framework for X-ray mirror surface shape fitting

For accurate characterization of grazing-incidence X-ray mirrors, we present a comprehensive framework to fit measured surface shapes (either slope or height) of X-ray mirrors used in synchrotron radiation and free-electron laser facilities. We summarize the closed-form expressions of some typical surface shapes of X-ray mirrors including elliptic cylinders, hyperbolic cylinders, ellipsoids, hyperboloids, and diaboloids. This framework is composed of four layers: definition of standard shapes with closed-form expressions, generation of theoretical surface with pose parameters (six degrees of freedom defining an object's position and orientation relative to a coordinate system), parameter optimization with the ability to select which parameters are fit and which are held constant, and the development of user-friendly fitting function wrappers for particular fitting tasks. A few practical fitting examples are demonstrated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed fitting framework. We discuss the physical meanings of the fitting parameters, and provide several examples using the elliptic cylinder and ellipsoid shapes to highlight some features of the framework. Moreover, we provide the presented framework as open-source codes (MATLAB and Python codes available at https://github.com/nsls2omf/xmf) to the community to encourage academic collaboration and further improvements.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1981

Permanent magnet properties of Mn-Al-C between -50 C and +150 C

Anisotropic Mn-Al-C (Ni) magnets are potential substitutes for Alnico 5 and 8. The limited machinability of the alloy and the fact that it is cobalt-free made it particularly interesting. The low Curie point and the costly warm extrusion process needed for grain orientation are drawbacks. The objective of this study was a detailed magnetic characterization of the material for possible use in electric machinery. The principal subjects of the study were the largest extruded bars presently available, of 31 mm diameter. Easy and hard axis magnetization curves and second-quadrant recoil loop fields were measured at various temperatures ranging from -50 C to +150 C. Property variations over the cross section of a bar were also studied.

Abdelnour, Z. A.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Systematic biases in radiometric diameter determinations

Radiometric diameter determinations are presently shown to often be significantly affected by the effect of rotation. This thermal effect of rotation depends not only on the object's thermal inertia, rotation rate, and pole orientation, but also on its temperature, since colder objects having constant rotation rate and thermal inertia will radiate less of their heat on the diurnal than on the nocturnal hemisphere. A disk-integrated beaming parameter of 0.72 is determined for the moon, and used to correct empirically for the roughness effects in thermophysical models; the standard thermal model is found to systematically underestimate cold object diameters, while overstating their albedos.

Spencer, John R.↗