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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

Analysis of Complexity Evolution Management and Human Performance Issues in Commercial Aircraft Automation Systems

Autoflight systems in the current generation of aircraft have been implicated in several recent incidents and accidents. A contributory aspect to these incidents may be the manner in which aircraft transition between differing behaviours or 'modes.' The current state of aircraft automation was investigated and the incremental development of the autoflight system was tracked through a set of aircraft to gain insight into how these systems developed. This process appears to have resulted in a system without a consistent global representation. In order to evaluate and examine autoflight systems, a 'Hybrid Automation Representation' (HAR) was developed. This representation was used to examine several specific problems known to exist in aircraft systems. Cyclomatic complexity is an analysis tool from computer science which counts the number of linearly independent paths through a program graph. This approach was extended to examine autoflight mode transitions modelled with the HAR. A survey was conducted of pilots to identify those autoflight mode transitions which airline pilots find difficult. The transitions identified in this survey were analyzed using cyclomatic complexity to gain insight into the apparent complexity of the autoflight system from the perspective of the pilot. Mode transitions which had been identified as complex by pilots were found to have a high cyclomatic complexity. Further examination was made into a set of specific problems identified in aircraft: the lack of a consistent representation of automation, concern regarding appropriate feedback from the automation, and the implications of physical limitations on the autoflight systems. Mode transitions involved in changing to and leveling at a new altitude were identified across multiple aircraft by numerous pilots. Where possible, evaluation and verification of the behaviour of these autoflight mode transitions was investigated via aircraft-specific high fidelity simulators. Three solution approaches to concerns regarding autoflight systems, and mode transitions in particular, are presented in this thesis. The first is to use training to modify pilot behaviours, or procedures to work around known problems. The second approach is to mitigate problems by enhancing feedback. The third approach is to modify the process by which automation is designed. The Operator Directed Process forces the consideration and creation of an automation model early in the design process for use as the basis of the software specification and training.

Vakil, Sanjay S.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Even on a bad day, looking down from orbit is a powerful and enjoyable experience, enhanced by the knowledge that time in orbit represents only a tiny fraction of one's life. You look down at Earth and you feel a sense of peace and solidarity. You look at the stars, and because they are not obscured by atmosphere, they are far more abundant than you realized, and they shine very bright. Later on you will reflect on this as one of life's greatest moments. Today astronauts and a few wealthy space tourists have been able to experience staying on the International Space Station. As representatives of humankind in space, astronauts have to get out there and tell people what it's like, and to encourage successive generations of children to consider careers in space. Perhaps the more people who can experience this view, the nicer we will all be to one another. Astronauts must speak authoritatively, without arrogance or a lack of humility. Each astronaut is an emissary who can share his or her experiences and educate people who will not have the opportunity to fly in space. This chapter is a part of that communication process.

Williams, Sunita↗
NASA NTRS2009

The Effect of Center of Gravity and Anthropometrics on Human Performance in Simulated Lunar Gravity

NASA EVA Physiology, Systems and Performance (EPSP) Project at JSC has been investigating the effects of Center of Gravity and other factors on astronaut performance in reduced gravity. A subset of the studies have been performed with the water immersion technique. Study results show correlation between Center of Gravity location and performance. However, data variability observed between subjects for prescribed Center of Gravity configurations. The hypothesis is that Anthropometric differences between test subjects could be a source of the performance variability.

Mulugeta, Lealem↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Multi-Attribute Task Battery II (MATB-II) Software for Human Performance and Workload Research: A User's Guide

The Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MAT Battery). is a computer-based task designed to evaluate operator performance and workload, has been redeveloped to operate in Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems.MATB-II includes essentially the same tasks as the original MAT Battery, plus new configuration options including a graphical user interface for controlling modes of operation. MATB-II can be executed either in training or testing mode, as defined by the MATB-II configuration file. The configuration file also allows set up of the default timeouts for the tasks, the flow rates of the pumps and tank levels of the Resource Management (RESMAN) task. MATB-II comes with a default event file that an experimenter can modify and adapt

Santiago-Espada, Yamira↗
NASA NTRS2012

Extending Validated Human Performance Models to Explore NextGen Concepts

To meet the expected increases in air traffic demands, NASA and FAA are researching and developing Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concepts. NextGen will require substantial increases in the data available to pilots on the flight deck (e.g., weather,wake, traffic trajectory predictions, etc.) to support more precise and closely coordinated operations (e.g., self-separation, RNAV/RNP, and closely spaced parallel operations, CSPOs). These NextGen procedures and operations, along with the pilot's roles and responsibilities, must be designed with consideration of the pilot's capabilities and limitations. Failure to do so will leave the pilots, and thus the entire aviation system, vulnerable to error. A validated Man-machine Integration and design Analysis System (MIDAS) v5 model was extended to evaluate anticipated changes to flight deck and controller roles and responsibilities in NextGen approach and Land operations. Compared to conditions when the controllers are responsible for separation on decent to land phase of flight, the output from these model predictions suggest that the flight deck response time to detect the lead aircraft blunder will decrease, pilot scans to the navigation display will increase, and workload will increase.

Gore, Brian Francis↗
NASA NTRS2017

NASA Health and Human Performance in Spaceflight

NASA, because of its mission and history, has tended to be an insular organization dominated by traditional engineering. Because of the engineering problems associated with early space endeavors, the historical approach to solving problems has been that of engineering. Long duration space travel will require a different approach, one requiring wider participation of those with expertise in divergent, emerging, and evolving fields. NASA has only recently begun to recognize this insufficiency and to reach out to communities, both domestic and international, to gain expertise on how to remedy it.

Antonsen, Erik↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Monitoring Human Performance on Future Deep Space Missions Abstract

NASA and the commercial spacecraft community are working diligently to put the first woman on the moon in the 2024 timeframe. At the same time, NASA researchers are thinking about how to solve the even larger challenges that future deep space missions will bring. Space travel itself is difficult, but astronauts on deep space missions will face obstacles and unknowns never before experienced. In addition to the altered gravity and hostile/closed environment of a spacecraft, deep space crews will face increased radiation, isolation, and distance from Earth. During Extravehicular Activity (EVA, or “spacewalk”) operations, crew will experience increased physical and cognitive workload due to extended types, frequencies and durations of tasks performed on exploration missions in partial gravity environments. All of these stressors will impact crew physical and mental health and performance in difficult-to-anticipate ways. Crew autonomy may be one of the biggest challenges faced. Communication delays and blackouts will occur, and in those situations, the crew may not have access to the Mission Control Center (MCC). They may be forced to be solely dependent on each other and the available information onboard to stay alive, healthy, and achieve the mission. The only conceivable way to meet the challenges of Earth independence is to enable the crew to monitor their own health and performance -- preferably unobtrusively as they perform their duties. Technologies and techniques must be developed to aid the crew in these assessments. A deep space mission is expected to have relatively short periods of high cognitive demand, stress, and fatigue, alongside potentially long periods of cognitive underload during the transit, where boredom, loneliness, and depression can set in. Both ends of this spectrum are dangerous. Crew must be made aware when their task performance drops significantly, when their cognitive workload is too high, when they have lost situation awareness, or when they are too stressed or too fatigued to perform well. They must be able to identify these risks, and then mitigate them with countermeasures available onboard. A number of self-monitoring technologies are presently being explored by NASA to advance crew state determination capabilities. These range from real-time, physiological workload and situation awareness assessments, to crew health measurements determining physical and mental fitness for duty, to task performance metrics such as suit resource expenditures. For EVA tasks during surface exploration missions, biomedical information such as metabolic rate may be provided to crewmembers for situational awareness related to task performance efficiency. In addition, translation distances, hydration, nutrition, inspired CO2 exposure and other consumables usage rates may be useful input metrics for modeling individualized performance during tasks to inform crew or provide estimates of work efficiency. Oculomotor metrics such as gaze dwell time, pupilometry, and eye tracking collected in advanced helmet mounted displays could potentially be used to characterize crew situation awareness. This paper highlights some of these projects, and provides broader discussion about the need for advanced monitoring and smart technologies, as NASA takes the leap into the next generation of space exploration.

Kritina Holden↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Monitoring Human Performance on Future Deep SpaceMissions

NASA and the commercial spacecraft community are working diligently to put the first woman on the moon in the 2024 timeframe. At the same time, NASA researchers are thinking about how to solve the even larger challenges that future deep space missions will bring – primary among them is crew autonomy. Deep space mission crews will face communication delays and blackouts, and in those situations, the crew may not have access to Mission Control Center (MCC) experts. They will be dependent on each other and the available information onboard to stay alive, healthy, and achieve the mission. The only conceivable way to meet the challenges of Earth independence is to enable the crew to monitor their own health and performance. A number of technologies are presently being explored by NASA to enable crew self-monitoring. This paper highlights select projects, and provides broader discussion about the need for advanced monitoring technologies

Kritina Anderson↗