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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 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1994

Increasing levels of assistance in refinement of knowledge-based retrieval systems

The task of incrementally acquiring and refining the knowledge and algorithms of a knowledge-based system in order to improve its performance over time is discussed. In particular, the design of DE-KART, a tool whose goal is to provide increasing levels of assistance in acquiring and refining indexing and retrieval knowledge for a knowledge-based retrieval system, is presented. DE-KART starts with knowledge that was entered manually, and increases its level of assistance in acquiring and refining that knowledge, both in terms of the increased level of automation in interacting with users, and in terms of the increased generality of the knowledge. DE-KART is at the intersection of machine learning and knowledge acquisition: it is a first step towards a system which moves along a continuum from interactive knowledge acquisition to increasingly automated machine learning as it acquires more knowledge and experience.

Baudin, Catherine↗
NASA NTRS1992

Cognition and procedure representational requirements for predictive human performance models

Models and modeling environments for human performance are becoming significant contributors to early system design and analysis procedures. Issues of levels of automation, physical environment, informational environment, and manning requirements are being addressed by such man/machine analysis systems. The research reported here investigates the close interaction between models of human cognition and models that described procedural performance. We describe a methodology for the decomposition of aircrew procedures that supports interaction with models of cognition on the basis of procedures observed; that serves to identify cockpit/avionics information sources and crew information requirements; and that provides the structure to support methods for function allocation among crew and aiding systems. Our approach is to develop an object-oriented, modular, executable software representation of the aircrew, the aircraft, and the procedures necessary to satisfy flight-phase goals. We then encode in a time-based language, taxonomies of the conceptual, relational, and procedural constraints among the cockpit avionics and control system and the aircrew. We have designed and implemented a goals/procedures hierarchic representation sufficient to describe procedural flow in the cockpit. We then execute the procedural representation in simulation software and calculate the values of the flight instruments, aircraft state variables and crew resources using the constraints available from the relationship taxonomies. The system provides a flexible, extensible, manipulative and executable representation of aircrew and procedures that is generally applicable to crew/procedure task-analysis. The representation supports developed methods of intent inference, and is extensible to include issues of information requirements and functional allocation. We are attempting to link the procedural representation to models of cognitive functions to establish several intent inference methods including procedural backtracking with concurrent search, temporal reasoning, and constraint checking for partial ordering of procedures. Finally, the representation is being linked to models of human decision making processes that include heuristic, propositional and prescriptive judgement models that are sensitive to the procedural content in which the valuative functions are being performed.

Corker, K.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Beware of agents when flying aircraft: Basic principles behind a generic methodology for the evaluation and certification of advanced aviation systems

There is currently a growing interest in the aeronautical community to assess the effects of the increasing levels of automation on pilots' performance and overall safety. The first effect of automation is the change in the nature of the pilot's role on the flight deck. Pilots have become supervisors who monitor aircraft systems in usual situations and intervene only when unanticipated events occur. Instead of 'hand flying' the airplane, pilots contribute to the control of aircraft by acting as mediators, instructions given to the automation. By eliminating the need for manually controlling normal situations, such a role division has reduced the opportunities for the pilot to acquire experience and skills necessary to safely cope with abnormal events. Difficulties in assessing the state and behavior of automation arise mainly from four factors: (1) the complexity of current systems and consequence mode-related problems; (2) the intrinsic autonomy of automation which is able to fire mode transitions without explicit commands from the pilots; (3) the bad quality of feed-back from the control systems displays and interfaces to the pilots; and (4) the fact that the automation currently has no explicit representation of the current pilots' intentions and strategy. Assuming certification has among its major goals to guarantee the passengers' and pilots' safety and the airplane integrity under normal and abnormal operational conditions, the authors suggest it would be particularly fruitful to come up with a conceptual reference system providing the certification authorities both with a theoretical framework and a list of principles usable for assessing the quality of the equipment and designs under examination. This is precisely the scope of this paper. However, the authors recognize that the conceptual presented is still under development and would thus be best considered as a source of reflection for the design, evaluation and certification processes of advanced aviation technologies.

Javaux, Denis↗
NASA NTRS1995

Mode Transitions in Glass Cockpit Aircraft: Results of a Field Study

One consequence of increased levels of automation in complex control systems is the presence of modes. A mode is a particular configuration of a control system that defines how human command inputs are interpreted. In complex systems, modes also often determine a specific allocation of control authority between the human and automated systems. Even in simple static devices (e.g., electronic watches, word processors), the presence of modes has been found to cause problems in either-the acquisition or production of skilled performance. Many of these problems arise due to the fact that the selection of a mode causes device behavior to be mediated by hidden internal state information. For these simple systems, many of these interaction problems can be solved by the design of appropriate feedback to communicate internal state information to the human operator. In complex dynamic systems, however, the design issues associated with modes seem to trancend the problem of merely communicating internal state information via displayed feedback. In complex supervisory control systems (e.g., aircraft, spacecraft, military command and control), a key function of modes is the selection of a particular configuration of control authority between the human operator and automated control systems. One mode may result in full manual control, another may result in a mix of manual and automatic control, while a third may result in full automatic control over the entire system. The human operator selects an appropriate mode as a function of current goals, operating conditions, and operating procedures. Thus, the operator is put in a position of essentially trying to control two coupled dynamic systems: the target system itself, and also a highly complex suite of automation controlling the target system. From a historical perspective, it should probably not come as a surprise that very little information is available to guide the design of mode-oriented control systems. The topic of function allocation (i.e., the proper division of control authority among human and computer) has a long history in human-machine systems research. Although this research has produced some relevant guidelines, a design approach capable of defining appropriate allocations of control function between the human and automation is not yet available. As a result, the function allocation decision itself has been allocated to the operator, to be performed in real-time, in the operation of mode-oriented control systems. A variety of documented aircraft accidents and incidents suggest that the real-time selection and monitoring of control modes is a weak link in the effective operation of complex supervisory control systems. Research in human-machine systems and human-computer interaction has barely scraped the surface of the problem of understanding how operators manage this task.The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a field study which examined how operators manage mode selection in a complex supervisory control system. Data on mode engagements using the Boeing B757/767 auto-flight system were collected during approach and descent into four major airports in the East Coast of the United States. Protocols documenting mode selection, automatic mode changes, pilot actions, quantitative records of flight-path variables, and verbal reports during and after mode engagements were collected by an observer from the jumpseat. Observations were conducted on two typical trips between three airports. Each trip was be replicated 11 times, which yielded a total of 22 trips and 66 legs on which data were collected. All data collected concerned the same flight numbers, and therefore, the same time of day, same type of aircraft, and identical operational environments (e.g., ATC facilities, weather patterns, traffic flow etc.)

Degani, Asaf↗
NASA NTRS1995

Modes in Supervisory Control Systems: Structure and Transitions

Mode confusion is becoming a major drawback in operator interaction with systems that allow for multiple levels of automation. This drawback has manifested itself in several mode related accidents and incidents in commercial aviation, military control systems, as well as high technology medical systems. In the domain of commercial aviation, there have been four recent airline accidents, all involving highly automated aircraft, in which mode related problems were present. Mode problems, we argue, stem from three principal factors: (1) mis-identification of the current mode, (2) difficulty in apprehending current mode behavior; and (3) difficulty in predicting the consequences of the next mode transition. This combination of factors may lead to mode confusion and possibly unwanted results. We define in this paper a mode as the system's manner of behavior. Any given system or machine, may have several ways of behaving. A controller, either human or machine, provides the input that triggers the transition from one mode of behavior to another. At any point in time, a machine may be in one mode or another modes are mutually exclusive. Complex systems are typically comprised of several subsystems, or components, each one with its own set of modes. Therefore, the status of the system at any point in time can be described as a vector of all the active modes.

Degani, Asaf↗
NASA NTRS2002

Security in Full-Force

When fully developed for NASA, Vanguard Enforcer(TM) software-which emulates the activities of highly technical security system programmers, auditors, and administrators-was among the first intrusion detection programs to restrict human errors from affecting security, and to ensure the integrity of a computer's operating systems, as well as the protection of mission critical resources. Vanguard Enforcer was delivered in 1991 to Johnson Space Center and has been protecting systems and critical data there ever since. In August of 1999, NASA granted Vanguard exclusive rights to commercialize the Enforcer system for the private sector. In return, Vanguard continues to supply NASA with ongoing research, development, and support of Enforcer. The Vanguard Enforcer 4.2 is one of several surveillance technologies that make up the Vanguard Security Solutions line of products. Using a mainframe environment, Enforcer 4.2 achieves previously unattainable levels of automated security management.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2003

Issues and Concerns in Robotic Drilling

Exploration of the Martian subsurface will be essential in the search for life and water, given the desiccated and highly oxidized conditions on the surface. Discovery of these, at least in non-fossil form, is unlikely without drilling or other physical access to the subsurface. Hence subsurface access will be critical for both future in-situ science and Mars sample return. Drilling applications present many new challenges for diagnosis and control technology. Traditionally, diagnosis has concentrated on determining the internal state of a system, and detecting failures of system components. In the case of drilling applications, an additional challenge is to diagnose the interactions between the drill and its environment. This is necessary because particular observations of the drilling operation may be consistent with a number of possible problems, including faults in the equipment, but also changes in the material being drilled (for example, from rock to ice). The diagnosis of a particular observation may also depend on knowledge of geological formations previously encountered during drilling, and different remedial actions may be required for each diagnosis. Current 2009 Mars mission scenarios call for no more than 33 sols to be spent drilling. Yet they also call for a baseline of two 2m-deep holes in each of three target areas, for a total of six drilling operations. Using current levels of automation, it is estimated that 15-16 sols would be required to drill each hole. As a result of this, either the drilling part of the mission plan will need to be severely downscoped to no more than two holes total, or on-board automation and robotics must be increased in order to reduce the number of sols required per hole by removing ground control from the drilling control loop. This lecture will discuss salient issues and concerns of robotic drilling automation compares with other applications, and implementation constraints.

Glass, Brian↗
NASA NTRS2005

Project Integration Architecture: Formulation of Semantic Parameters

One of several key elements of the Project Integration Architecture (PIA) is the intention to formulate parameter objects which convey meaningful semantic information. In so doing, it is expected that a level of automation can be achieved in the consumption of information content by PIA-consuming clients outside the programmatic boundary of a presenting PIA-wrapped application. This paper discusses the steps that have been recently taken in formulating such semantically-meaningful parameters.

Jones, William Henry↗
NASA NTRS2005

Software Certification for Temporal Properties With Affordable Tool Qualification

It has been recognized that a framework based on proof-carrying code (also called semantic-based software certification in its community) could be used as a candidate software certification process for the avionics industry. To meet this goal, tools in the "trust base" of a proof-carrying code system must be qualified by regulatory authorities. A family of semantic-based software certification approaches is described, each different in expressive power, level of automation and trust base. Of particular interest is the so-called abstraction-carrying code, which can certify temporal properties. When a pure abstraction-carrying code method is used in the context of industrial software certification, the fact that the trust base includes a model checker would incur a high qualification cost. This position paper proposes a hybrid of abstraction-based and proof-based certification methods so that the model checker used by a client can be significantly simplified, thereby leading to lower cost in tool qualification.

Xia, Songtao↗
NASA NTRS2006

Central East Pacific Flight Routing

With the introduction of the Federal Aviation Administration s Advanced Technology and Oceanic Procedures system at the Oakland Oceanic Center, a level of automation now exists in the oceanic environment to potentially begin accommodating increased user preferred routing requests. This paper presents the results of an initial feasibility assessment which examines the potential benefits of transitioning from the fixed Central East Pacific routes to user preferred routes. As a surrogate for the actual user-provided routing requests, a minimum-travel-time, wind-optimal dynamic programming algorithm was developed and utilized in this paper. After first describing the characteristics (e.g., origin airport, destination airport, vertical distribution and temporal distribution) of the westbound flights utilizing the Central East Pacific routes on Dec. 14-16 and 19-20, the results of both a flight-plan-based simulation and a wind-optimal-based simulation are presented. Whereas the lateral and longitudinal distribution of the aircraft trajectories in these two simulations varied dramatically, the number of simulated first-loss-of-separation events remained relatively constant. One area of concern that was uncovered in this initial analysis was a potential workload issue associated with the redistribution of traffic in the oceanic sectors due to thc prevailing wind patterns.

Grabbe, Shon↗
NASA NTRS2007

The "Biologically-Inspired Computing" Column

Self-managing systems, whether viewed from the perspective of Autonomic Computing, or from that of another initiative, offers a holistic vision for the development and evolution of biologically-inspired computer-based systems. It aims to bring new levels of automation and dependability to systems, while simultaneously hiding their complexity and reducing costs. A case can certainly be made that all computer-based systems should exhibit autonomic properties [6], and we envisage greater interest in, and uptake of, autonomic principles in future system development.

Hinchey, Mike↗
NASA NTRS2010

A Concept for Robust, High Density Terminal Air Traffic Operations

This paper describes a concept for future high-density, terminal air traffic operations that has been developed by interpreting the Joint Planning and Development Office s vision for the Next Generation (NextGen) Air Transportation System and coupling it with emergent NASA and other technologies and procedures during the NextGen timeframe. The concept described in this paper includes five core capabilities: 1) Extended Terminal Area Routing, 2) Precision Scheduling Along Routes, 3) Merging and Spacing, 4) Tactical Separation, and 5) Off-Nominal Recovery. Gradual changes are introduced to the National Airspace System (NAS) by phased enhancements to the core capabilities in the form of increased levels of automation and decision support as well as targeted task delegation. NASA will be evaluating these conceptual technological enhancements in a series of human-in-the-loop simulations and will accelerate development of the most promising capabilities in cooperation with the FAA through the Efficient Flows Into Congested Airspace Research Transition Team.

Isaacson, Douglas R.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Pilot/Controller Coordinated Decision Making in the Next Generation Air Transportation System

Introduction: NextGen technologies promise to provide considerable benefits in terms of enhancing operations and improving safety. However, there needs to be a thorough human factors evaluation of the way these systems will change the way in which pilot and controllers share information. The likely impact of these new technologies on pilot/controller coordinated decision making is considered in this paper using the "operational, informational and evaluative disconnect" framework. Method: Five participant focus groups were held. Participants were four experts in human factors, between x and x research students and a technical expert. The participant focus group evaluated five key NextGen technologies to identify issues that made different disconnects more or less likely. Results: Issues that were identified were: Decision Making will not necessarily improve because pilots and controllers possess the same information; Having a common information source does not mean pilots and controllers are looking at the same information; High levels of automation may lead to disconnects between the technology and pilots/controllers; Common information sources may become the definitive source for information; Overconfidence in the automation may lead to situations where appropriate breakdowns are not initiated. Discussion: The issues that were identified lead to recommendations that need to be considered in the development of NextGen technologies. The current state of development of these technologies provides a good opportunity to utilize recommendations at an early stage so that NextGen technologies do not lead to difficulties in resolving breakdowns in coordinated decision making.

Bearman, Chris↗
NASA NTRS2010

Human Performance in Space

Human factors is a critical discipline for human spaceflight. Nearly every human factors research area is relevant to space exploration -- from the ergonomics of hand tools used by astronauts, to the displays and controls of a spacecraft cockpit or mission control workstation, to levels of automation designed into rovers on Mars, to organizational issues of communication between crew and ground. This chapter focuses more on the ways in which the space environment (especially altered gravity and the isolated and confined nature of long-duration spaceflight) affects crew performance, and thus has specific novel implications for human factors research and practice. We focus on four aspects of human performance: neurovestibular integration, motor control and musculo-skeletal effects, cognitive effects, and behavioral health. We also provide a sampler of recent human factors studies from NASA.

Jones, Patricia M.↗
NASA NTRS2010

A Perspective on Computational Human Performance Models as Design Tools

The design of interactive systems, including levels of automation, displays, and controls, is usually based on design guidelines and iterative empirical prototyping. A complementary approach is to use computational human performance models to evaluate designs. An integrated strategy of model-based and empirical test and evaluation activities is particularly attractive as a methodology for verification and validation of human-rated systems for commercial space. This talk will review several computational human performance modeling approaches and their applicability to design of display and control requirements.

Jones, Patricia M.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Creating the Deep Space Environment for Testing the James Webb Space Telescope at the Johnson Space Center's Chamber A

Chamber A is the largest thermal vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center and is one of the largest space environment chambers in the world. The chamber is 19.8 m (65 ft) in diameter and 36.6 m (120 ft) tall and is equipped with cryogenic liquid nitrogen panels (shrouds) and gaseous helium shrouds to create a simulated space environment. It was originally designed and built in the mid 1960's to test the Apollo Command and Service Module and several manned tests were conducted on that spacecraft, contributing to the success of the program. The chamber has been used since that time to test spacecraft active thermal control systems, Shuttle DTO, DOD, and ESA hardware in simulated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) conditions. NASA is now moving from LEO towards exploration of locations with environments approaching those of deep space. Therefore, Chamber A has undergone major modifications to enable it to simulate these deeper space environments. Environmental requirements were driven, and the modifications were funded, by the James Webb Space Telescope program, and this telescope which will orbit Solar/Earth L2, will be the first test article to benefit from the chamber s new capabilities. To accommodate JWST, the Chamber A high vacuum system has been modernized, additional LN2 shrouds have been installed, the liquid nitrogen system has been modified to remove dependency on electrical power and increase its reliability, a new helium shroud/refrigeration system has been installed to create a colder more stable and uniform heat sink and, the controls have been updated to increase the level of automation and improve operator interfaces. Testing of these major modifications was conducted in August 2012 and this initial test was very successful, with all major systems exceeding their performance requirements. This paper will outline the changes in the overall environmental requirements, discuss the technical design data that was used in the decisions leading to the extensive modifications, and describe the new capabilities of the chamber.

Homan, Jonathan L.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Creating the Deep Space Environment for Testing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at NASA Johnson Space Center's Chamber A

Chamber A is the largest thermal vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center and is one of the largest space environment chambers in the world. The chamber is 19.8 m (65 ft) in diameter and 36.6 m (120 ft) tall and is equipped with cryogenic liquid nitrogen panels (shrouds) and gaseous helium shrouds to create a simulated space environment. It was originally designed and built in the mid 1960 s to test the Apollo Command and Service Module and several manned tests were conducted on that spacecraft, contributing to the success of the program. The chamber has been used since that time to test spacecraft active thermal control systems, Shuttle DTO, DOD, and ESA hardware in simulated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) conditions. NASA is now moving from LEO towards exploration of locations with environments approaching those of deep space. Therefore, Chamber A has undergone major modifications to enable it to simulate these deeper space environments. Environmental requirements were driven, and modifications were funded by the James Webb Space Telescope program, and this telescope which will orbit Solar/Earth L2, will be the first test article to benefit from the chamber s new capabilities. To accommodate JWST, the Chamber A high vacuum system has been modernized, additional LN2 shrouds have been installed, the liquid nitrogen system has been modified to remove dependency on electrical power and increase its reliability, a new helium shroud/refrigeration system has been installed to create a colder more stable and uniform heat sink, and the controls have been updated to increase the level of automation and improve operator interfaces. Testing of these major modifications was conducted in August of 2012 and this initial test was very successful, with all major systems exceeding their performance requirements. This paper will outline the changes in overall environmental requirements, discuss the technical design data that was used in the decisions leading to the extensive modifications, and describe the new capabilities of the chamber.

Homan, Jonathan L.↗