SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “visualization application”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,693 records · Page 94

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS2016

Next Generation Flight Displays Using HTML5

The Human Integrated Vehicles and Environments (HIVE) lab at Johnson Space Center (JSC) is focused on bringing together inter-disciplinary talent to design and integrate innovative human interface technologies for next generation manned spacecraft. As part of this objective, my summer internship project centered on an ongoing investigation in to building flight displays using the HTML5 standard. Specifically, the goals of my project were to build and demo "flight-like" crew and wearable displays as well as create a webserver for live systems being developed by the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) program. In parallel to my project, a LabVIEW application, called a display server, was created by the HIVE that uses an XTCE (XML (Extensible Markup Language) Telemetry and Command Exchange) parser and CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data System) space packet decoder to translate telemetry items sent by the CFS (Core Flight Software) over User Datagram Protocol (UDP). It was the webserver's job to receive these UDP messages and send them to the displays. To accomplish this functionality, I utilized Node.js and the accompanying Express framework. On the display side, I was responsible for creating the power system (AMPS) displays. I did this by using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to create web pages that could update and change dynamically based on the data they received from the webserver. At this point, I have not started on the commanding, being able to send back to the CFS, portion of the displays but hope to have this functionality working by the completion of my internship. I also created a way to test the webserver's functionality without the display server by making a JavaScript application that read in a comma-separate values (CSV) file and converted it to XML which was then sent over UDP. One of the major requirements of my project was to build everything using as little preexisting code as possible, which I accomplished by only using a handful of JavaScript libraries. As a side project, I created a model of the HIVE lab and Building 29 using SketchUp. I obtained the floorplans of the building from the JSC Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which were computer-aided design (CAD) files, and imported them into SketchUp. I then took those floorplans and created a 3D model of the building from them. Working in conjunction with the Hybrid Reality lab in Building 32, the SketchUp model was imported into Unreal Engine for use with the HTC Vive. Using the Vive, I was able to interact with the model I created in virtual reality (VR). The purpose of this side project was to be able to visualize potential lab layouts and mockup designs as they are in development in order to finalize design decisions. Pending approval, the model that I created will be used in the Build-As-You-Test: Can Hybrid Reality Improve the SE/HSI Design Process project in the fall. Getting the opportunity to work at NASA has been one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Over the course of my internship, I improved my programming and web development abilities substantially. I will take all the skills and experiences I have had while at NASA back to school with me in the fall and hope to pursue a career in the aerospace industry after graduating in the spring.

Greenwood, Brian↗

NASA NTRS2020

ICESat-2 Tracking App for Public Engagement

Information regarding the predicted ground tracks of Earth observing satellites is typically difficult to find and understand for the general public. This paper will describe and demonstrate an iOS mobile application for tracking NASA’s ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2), making it easier for users to see exactly when the satellite will be passing over any location in the world. ICESat-2, launched in 2018, uses green lasers to track elevation changes in polar ice and indirectly measure trees, land, and water, providing a precise height map of our planet. Most satellite tracking mobile apps display information about where a specific satellite is at that given moment and when it will be passing over the user’s location in the near future. ICESat-2 the app differs by allowing users to search for data about the satellite’s future flybys relative to a specific search location and radius that they get to choose. The search results include points up to three months into the future. By supplying user-centric results, users are provided relevant data in an easy-to- access manner. Additionally, this data is very clear to visualize in-app through maps, pins, and ground track lines. This becomes an incredibly useful tool not only to plan an observation of the satellite as it passes, but also for knowing when elevation data for a specific area will be available. In addition, this flyby information helps students and citizen scientists take more valuable tree height measurements to better validate the elevation data collected by the satellite. To achieve this outreach product, three key components were developed. These include a Python script to simplify the raw ground track data, a Node.js server that actively takes requests, and the iOS app itself. From initial beta tests, it has been noted that providing users with a map for visual awareness of search radius and result coordinates gives them a more comprehensive understanding of the data. Overall, by cleaning the raw data and making it available in a much more accessible and easier to understand way, ICESat-2 the app has exceeded expectations in providing educational and exciting data for all.

Harbeck, Kaitlin↗

NASA NTRS2007

Detailed Globes Enhance Education and Recreation

Orbis World Globes creates inflatable globes-Earthballs-in many sizes that depict Earth as it is seen from space, complete with atmospheric cloud cover. Orbis designs and produces the most visually authentic replicas of Earth ever created, and NASA took notice of Orbis globes and employed a 16-inch diameter EarthBall for an educational film it made aboard the STS-45 shuttle mission. Orbis later collaborated with NASA to create two 16-foot diameter world globes for display at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, using more detailed satellite imagery. The satellite image now printed on all Orbis globes displays 1-kilometer resolution and is 21,600 by 43,200 pixels in size, and Orbis globes are otherwise meteorologically accurate, though the cloud cover has been slightly reduced in order for most of the landforms to be visible. Orbis also developed the exclusive NightGlow Cities feature, enabling EarthBalls to display the world's cities as they appear as the Earth revolves from daylight into night. Orbis inflatable globes are available in sizes from 1 to 100 feet in diameter, with the most common being the standard 16-inch and 1-meter diameter EarthBalls. Applications include educational uses from preschools to universities, games, and for a variety of display purposes at conferences, trade shows, festivals, concerts, and parades. A 16-foot diameter Orbis globe was exhibited at the United Nations' World Urban Forum, in Vancouver, Canada; the Space 2006 conference, in San Jose, California; and the X-Prize Cup Personal Spaceflight Exposition in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Source record↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Innovative Features of NASA's Celestial Mapping System to Support Exploration in the Lunar South Pole

Introduction: NASA's Celestial Mapping System (CMS) is developed to address the need for 3D tools for planetary science investigations, mission planning, in-situ operations, in a 3D-first design constructed around a unified view of a planetary globe. At present CMS provides many critical functionalities that include 1) Equipment planning and optimized placement on Lunar surface 2) Line of sight (visibility ) analysis 3) Powerful measurement tools based on 3D terrain with realistic 3D models to represent rovers, astronauts and equipment 4) Visualization of de-rived mapping products (e.g. resource maps), and 5) Data engine for hosting new observations that are not available in other contemporary lunar data tools. CMS is built on the foundation of powerful NASA WorldWind globe engines. In near future, users will be able to simultaneously deploy CMS onto multiple hardware configurations and platforms such as Windows, Linux, iOS and Android. The users will also have the flexibility to update to the latest imagery and terrain datasets as they are being acquired (in real time) before and/or during the exploration mission. CMS is also capable of consumption and analysis of data from locally hosted and external sources. It supports Open Geospatial Consorti-um (OGC) data and file standards, with current integrations of datasets from the Astrogeology Science Center of USGS which include global and local data acquired from NASA (LRO, Clementine, Lunar Orbiter) and JAXA (SELENE/Kaguya) with the capability of integrating more datasets. With development experience in both the end-user application and planetary engine side, CMS is also able to adapt to newer Lunar cartography standards as they develop and become recognized by international geospatial panels. Overcoming Polar Distortions: 3D geospatial applications traditionally suffer from significant distortion of imagery at the poles due to following reasons – 1) distortions in the source imagery 2) Incompatible tessellation algorithm on the poles 3) map projections. In the lunar context, with the focus on the South pole, this is not acceptable. The CMS team is researching ways to address polar distortion of imagery with new tessellation algorithms and by reprojecting the data using projections that are more accurate in polar scenarios. Figure1 shows the potential error introduced by different tessellation methods, represented by the red and green circles for Shoemaker crater. There is ~2 Km difference in the placement of the crater. Line of Sight Analysis and Traverse Planning: We have developed a built-in line of sight analysis (LOS) tool in CMS that analyzes the terrain profile and obstructions and provides the visibility of a given terrain for a remote observer. Figure 2 shows the viewshed analysis on the PSR in Nobile region. The PSR was created with help of HORUS generated images. The yellow pin shows the observer location outside the PSR. The yellow area shows the visible part of PSR. The obstructed area with no visibility for the observer is shown in red. This analysis was ex-tended further to set different heights for various observers and then perform the viewshed analysis. Combining the different visibility profiles can help designing improved traverses within the crater.

Geospatial Mapping↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Innovative Features of NASA's Celestial Mapping System to Support Exploration in the Lunar South Pole

Geospatial Mapping↗

NASA NTRS2019

Optical Flow for Intermediate Frame Interpolation of Multispectral Geostationary Satellite Data

Applications in areas such as weather tracking and modeling, ecosystem monitoring, wildfire detection, and land-cover change are heavily dependent on spatial and temporal resolutions of satellite observations. However, there are typically trade-offs between spatial and temporal resolutions in dataset selection. For instance, geostationary weather tracking satellites are designed to take snapshots many times throughout the day but sensor hardware limits data collection. In this work we tackle this limitation, developing a method for temporal upsampling of multi-spectral satellite imagery using optical flow video interpolation deep convolutional neural networks. The presented model, extends Super SloMo (SSM) from single optical flow estimates to multichannel where flows are computed per band. We apply this technique on 8 multi-spectral bands of NOAA/NASA's GOES-16 mesoscale dataset to temporally enhance full disk hemispheric snapshots from 15 minutes to 1 minute. Through extensive experimentation, we show SSM vastly outperforms the linear interpolation baseline and that multichannel optical flows improves performance on GOES-16. A visual analysis of optical flow vectors clearly identifies hurricanes and large-scale atmospheric dynamics. Furthermore, we discuss challenges and open questions related to optical flow and temporal interpolation of multispectral geostationary satellite imagery.

Optical Flow↗

NASA NTRS2018

Studying Diurnal Variations of Aerosols with NASA MERRA-2 Reanalysis Data

Aerosols play an important role in atmospheric dynamics, climate variations, and Earth's energy cycle by altering the radiation balance in the atmosphere through interaction with clouds, providing fertilizer for forests and canopy, and as a supply of iron to the ocean over long time periods. Studies suggest that much of the feedback between dust aerosols and dynamics is associated with diurnal and synoptic scale variability. However, the lack of sub-daily resolution of aerosols from satellite observations makes it difficult to study the diurnal characteristics, especially over tropical and subtropical regions. Investigation of this topic utilizes over 37 years of simulated global aerosol products from NASA atmospheric reanalysis, in the second Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) data set, available from NASA Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). MERRA-2 covers the period 1980-present, and is continuing as an ongoing climate analysis. Aerosol assimilation is included throughout the period, using data from MODIS, MISR, AERONET, and AVHRR (in the pre-EOS period). The aerosols are assimilated using the MERRA-2 aerosol model, which interacts directly with radiation parameterization, and is radiatively coupled with atmospheric model dynamics in the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5). Hourly, monthly, and monthly diurnal data are available at spatial resolution of 0.5o x 0.625o (latitude x longitude). By using MERRA-2 hourly and monthly diurnal products, different aerosol diurnal variabilities are observed over North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia, that may be due to different meteorological conditions and aerosol sources. The presentation will also provide an overview of MERRA-2 data services at GES DISC, such as how to find and download data, and how to quickly visualize and analyze data online with Giovanni.

aerosol↗

NASA NTRS2002

Estimating the Single-Trial Characteristics of Event-Related Responses: Evaluation of the MCERP Algorithm

Single-trial event-related responses collected during the course of an experiment are typically averaged before analysis resulting in a rather crude picture of event-related brain dynamics. It has been quite clear for some time that these responses exhibit trial-to-trial variability: however, the computational techniques necessary to deal with such responses in noisy conditions have not been available. To this end we have developed the multiple-component, event-related potential model (mcERP), which assumes that the each event-related response consists of a sum of multiple evoked components each described by a stereotypical waveshape. These waveshapes are allowed to vary in amplitude and onset latency from trial to trial, which allows us to capture, to first-order, the trial-dependent variations in event-related brain dynamics. We have constructed many sets of synthetic data designed to simulate intracortical recordings from a 15 channel, linear-array multielectrode implanted acutely in V1 of an awake-behaving macaque undergoing visual stimulation with a red light flash. This synthetic data was used to characterize the performance of the mcERP algorithm. First we quantified the degree to which such trial-to-trial variability aids in the identification of multiple components, and we demonstrate that amplitude variability is a more important factor in component separation than latency variability. Second, we quantified the behavior of the algorithm under two distinct signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions: Gaussian noise independently present in each channel, and highly correlated (1/f distributed), far-field noise presented identically in each channel of the array. The mcERP algorithm was found to be robust to noise accurately identifying all component waveshapes and their associated single-trial characteristics down to SNR levels of -20dB for Gaussian noise and -7dB for 1/f far-field noise. Comparisons of the performance of this algorithm with factor analysis (FA) and independent component analysis (ICA) will be described by Knuth et al. (SFN abstracts, 2002). In addition, the advantages of application of mcERP to real data will be described by Shah et al, (these abstracts, 2002: SFN abstracts, 2002).

Knuth, K. H.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Urban Environment Initiative

The Urban Environment Initiative (UEI), has been established as part of a Cooperative Agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The UEI is part of NASA's overall High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) and the Information Infrastructure Technology Applications (IITA) programs. The goal of the UEI is to provide public access to Earth Science information and promote its use with a focus on the environment of urban areas. This goal will be accomplished through collaborative efforts of the UEI team with both community-based and local/regional governmental organizations. The UEI team is comprised of four organizations representing private industry, NASA, and universities: Prime Technologies Service Corporation, NASA's Minority University Space Interdisciplinary Network (MU-SPIN) California State University, at Los Angeles, and Central State University (Wilberforce, OH). "Urban Environment" refers to the web of environmental, economic, and social factors that combine to create the urban world in which we live. Examples of these factors are population distribution, neighborhood demographic profiles, economic resources, business activities, location and concentration of environmental hazards and various pollutants, proximity and level of urban services, which form the basis of the urban environment and ultimately affect our lives and experiences. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing allows data to be visualized in the forms of maps and spatial images. The use of these tools allow analysis of information about urban environments. Also included are descriptions of the four query types which will assist in understanding the maps.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2015

Bundle Data Approach at GES DISC Targeting Natural Hazards

Severe natural phenomena such as hurricane, volcano, blizzard, flood and drought have the potential to cause immeasurable property damages, great socioeconomic impact, and tragic loss of human life. From searching to assessing the Big, i.e., massive and heterogeneous scientific data (particularly, satellite and model products) in order to investigate those natural hazards, it has, however, become a daunting task for Earth scientists and applications researchers, especially during recent decades. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Service Center (GES DISC) has served Big Earth science data, and the pertinent valuable information and services to the aforementioned users of diverse communities for years. In order to help and guide our users to online readily (i.e., with a minimum effort) acquire their requested data from our enormous resource at GES DISC for studying their targeted hazard event, we have thus initiated a Bundle Data approach in 2014, first targeting the hurricane event topic. We have recently worked on new topics such as volcano and blizzard. The bundle data of a specific hazard event is basically a sophisticated integrated data package consisting of a series of proper datasets containing a group of relevant (knowledge--based) data variables readily accessible to users via a system-prearranged table linking those data variables to the proper datasets (URLs). This online approach has been developed by utilizing a few existing data services such as Mirador as search engine; Giovanni for visualization; and OPeNDAP for data access, etc. The online Data Cookbook site at GES DISC is the current host for the bundle data. We are now also planning on developing an Automated Virtual Collection Framework that shall eventually accommodate the bundle data, as well as further improve our management in Big Data.

GES DISC↗

NASA NTRS1991

Scalable Performance Environments for Parallel Systems

As parallel systems expand in size and complexity, the absence of performance tools for these parallel systems exacerbates the already difficult problems of application program and system software performance tuning. Moreover, given the pace of technological change, we can no longer afford to develop ad hoc, one-of-a-kind performance instrumentation software; we need scalable, portable performance analysis tools. We describe an environment prototype based on the lessons learned from two previous generations of performance data analysis software. Our environment prototype contains a set of performance data transformation modules that can be interconnected in user-specified ways. It is the responsibility of the environment infrastructure to hide details of module interconnection and data sharing. The environment is written in C++ with the graphical displays based on X windows and the Motif toolkit. It allows users to interconnect and configure modules graphically to form an acyclic, directed data analysis graph. Performance trace data are represented in a self-documenting stream format that includes internal definitions of data types, sizes, and names. The environment prototype supports the use of head-mounted displays and sonic data presentation in addition to the traditional use of visual techniques.

Reed, Daniel A.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Overview of the Contributing Factor Map and How it can Support your Research

The Contributing Factor Map (CFM) is a visual representation of a taxonomy of factors influencing human health and performance in space. This presentation will give an overview of its development and its structure. It will describe various uses of the CFM that can support researchers working within the Human Research Program (HRP) Architecture of Evidence-Risk-Gap-Task-Deliverable. For example, during the Risk phase, the CFM can be used as a "menu" to help formulate a qualitative model of the factors contributing to specific consequences of concern. It provides a reference set of factors from across the operational, vehicle design, and human domains that otherwise might not be considered if approaching a risk from a specific domain perspective. Using the CFM as a reference can increase awareness of potential cross-disciplinary collaborations for overall risk mitigation. The CFM can also be used as a framework for identifying gaps in knowledge about a risk. This identification can support the subsequent development of gaps and tasks comprising the research plan aimed at risk mitigation. Examples of these types of applications of the CFM will be discussed and information on the support available to researchers in using it will be provided.

Mindock, Jennifer A.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Space Station Furnace Facility Management Information System (SSFF-MIS) Development

This report summarizes the chronology, results, and lessons learned from the development of the SSFF-MIS. This system has been nearly two years in development and has yielded some valuable insights into specialized MIS development. General: In December of 1994, the Camber Corporation and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) were contracted to design, develop, and implement a MIS for Marshall Space Flight Center's Space Station Furnace Facility Project. The system was to be accessible from both EBM-Compatible PC and Macintosh platforms. The system was required to contain data manually entered into the MIS as well as data imported from other MSFC sources. Electronic interfaces were established for each data source and retrieval was to be performed at prescribed time intervals. The SOW requirement that predominantly drove the development software selection was the dual-platform (IBM-PC and Macintosh) requirement. The requirement that the system would be maintained by Government personnel influenced the selection of Commercial Off-the-shelf software because of its inherent stability and readily available documentation and support. Microsoft FoxPro Professional 2.6 for Windows and Macintosh was selected as the development tool. This is a software development tool that has been in use for many years. It is stable and powerful. Microsoft has since released the replacement for this product, Microsoft Visual FoxPro, but at the time of this development, it was only available on the Windows platform. The initial contract included included the requirement for capabilities relating to the Work- and Organizational Breakdown Structures, cost (plan and actuals), workforce (plan and actuals), critical path scheduling, trend analysis, procurements and contracts, interface to manufacturing, Safety and Mission Assurance, risk analysis, and technical performance indicators. It also required full documentation of the system and training of users. During the course of the contract, the requirements for Safety and Mission Assurance interface, risk analysis, and technical performance indicators were deleted. Additional capabilities were added as reflected in the Contract Chronology below. Modification 4 added the requirement for Support Contractor manpower data, the ability to manually input data not imported from non-nal sources, a general 'health' indicator screen, and remote usage. Mod 6 included the ability to change the level of planning of Civil Service Manpower at any time and the ability to manually enter Op Codes in the manufacturing data where such codes were not provided by the EMPACS database. Modification 9 included a number of changes to report contents and formats. Modification 11 required the preparation of a detailed System Design Document.

Meade, Robert M.↗

NASA NTRS1991

VERDEX: A virtual environment demonstrator for remote driving applications

One of the key areas of the National Advanced Robotics Centre's enabling technologies research program is that of the human system interface, phase 1 of which started in July 1989 and is currently addressing the potential of virtual environments to permit intuitive and natural interactions between a human operator and a remote robotic vehicle. The aim of the first 12 months of this program (to September, 1990) is to develop a virtual human-interface demonstrator for use later as a test bed for human factors experimentation. This presentation will describe the current state of development of the test bed, and will outline some human factors issues and problems for more general discussion. In brief, the virtual telepresence system for remote driving has been designed to take the following form. The human operator will be provided with a helmet-mounted stereo display assembly, facilities for speech recognition and synthesis (using the Marconi Macrospeak system), and a VPL DataGlove Model 2 unit. The vehicle to be used for the purposes of remote driving is a Cybermotion Navmaster K2A system, which will be equipped with a stereo camera and microphone pair, mounted on a motorized high-speed pan-and-tilt head incorporating a closed-loop laser ranging sensor for camera convergence control (currently under contractual development). It will be possible to relay information to and from the vehicle and sensory system via an umbilical or RF link. The aim is to develop an interactive audio-visual display system capable of presenting combined stereo TV pictures and virtual graphics windows, the latter featuring control representations appropriate for vehicle driving and interaction using a graphical 'hand,' slaved to the flex and tracking sensors of the DataGlove and an additional helmet-mounted Polhemus IsoTrack sensor. Developments planned for the virtual environment test bed include transfer of operator control between remote driving and remote manipulation, dexterous end effector integration, virtual force and tactile sensing (also the focus of a current ARRL contract, initially employing a 14-pneumatic bladder glove attachment), and sensor-driven world modeling for total virtual environment generation and operator-assistance in remote scene interrogation.

Stone, Robert J.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Software Development: 3D Animations and Creating User Interfaces for Realistic Simulations

My fall 2015 semester was spent at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center working in the Integrated Graphics, Operations, and Analysis Laboratory (IGOAL). My first project was to create a video animation that could tell the story of OMICS. OMICS is a term being used in the field of biomedical science to describe the collective technologies that study biological systems, such as what makes up a cell and how it functions with other systems. In the IGOAL I used a large 23 inch Wacom monitor to draw storyboards, graphics, and line art animations. I used Blender as the 3D environment to sculpt, shape, cut or modify the several scenes and models for the video. A challenge creating this video was to take a term used in biomedical science and describe it in such a way that an 8th grade student can understand. I used a line art style because it would visually set the tone for what we thought was an educational style. In order to get a handle on the perspective and overall feel for the animation without overloading my workspace, I split up the 2 minute animation into several scenes. I used Blender's python scripting capabilities which allowed for the addition of plugins to add or modify tools. The scripts can also directly interact with the objects to create naturalistic patterns or movements. After collecting the rendered scenes, I used Blender's built-in video editing workspace to output the animation. My second project was to write software that emulates a physical system's interface. The interface was to simulate a boat, ROV, and winch system. Simulations are a time and cost effective way to test complicated data and provide training for operators without having to use expensive hardware. We created the virtual controls with 3-D Blender models and 2-D graphics, and then add functionality in C# using the Unity game engine. The Unity engine provides several essential behaviors of a simulator, such as the start and update functions. A framework for Unity, which was developed in the lab, provided a way to place the different widgets on the virtual console dock and have them resize correctly based on the window dimensions.. My task in this project was to create the controls and visualizations for the data coming in from the simulator for the boat portion of the project. I wrote a class for each control window to handle the functionality of that widget. I implemented 11 widgets that make up the ship portion of the simulator. The members of the lab were each masters of their craft and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn from them. I learned to plan strategically so I could finish this project on time. I allotted time for storyboarding, development, and refinement. In regards to animating I learned to use modifiers like lattice, boolean and build deformers. I also learned how to animate with drivers, how to use the dope sheet, and how to use the graph editor. In coding I learned to limit the chances for bugs by privatizing functions that should be exclusive to their class. I learned how to use the GIT repository to commit, stash and pull the latest build. I learned a bit of everything because I had the chance to see the entire application development process from the artwork, to the implementation.

Gordillo, Orlando Enrique↗

NASA NTRS1995

The National Grid Project: A system overview

The National Grid Project (NGP) is a comprehensive numerical grid generation software system that is being developed at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Computational Field Simulation (CFS) at Mississippi State University (MSU). NGP is supported by a coalition of U.S. industries and federal laboratories. The objective of the NGP is to significantly decrease the amount of time it takes to generate a numerical grid for complex geometries and to increase the quality of these grids to enable computational field simulations for applications in industry. A geometric configuration can be discretized into grids (or meshes) that have two fundamental forms: structured and unstructured. Structured grids are formed by intersecting curvilinear coordinate lines and are composed of quadrilateral (2D) and hexahedral (3D) logically rectangular cells. The connectivity of a structured grid provides for trivial identification of neighboring points by incrementing coordinate indices. Unstructured grids are composed of cells of any shape (commonly triangles, quadrilaterals, tetrahedra and hexahedra), but do not have trivial identification of neighbors by incrementing an index. For unstructured grids, a set of points and an associated connectivity table is generated to define unstructured cell shapes and neighboring points. Hybrid grids are a combination of structured grids and unstructured grids. Chimera (overset) grids are intersecting or overlapping structured grids. The NGP system currently provides a user interface that integrates both 2D and 3D structured and unstructured grid generation, a solid modeling topology data management system, an internal Computer Aided Design (CAD) system based on Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS), a journaling language, and a grid/solution visualization system.

Gaither, Adam↗

NASA NTRS2002

The Solar-Sail Launched Interstellar Probe: Pre-Perihelion Trajectories and Application of Holography

Design of missions beyond our solar system presents many challenges. Here, we consider certain aspects of the solar-sail launched interstellar probe (ISP), a spacecraft slated for launch in the 2010 time period that is planned to reach the heliopause, at 200 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun after a flight of about 20-years duration. The baseline mission under consideration by NASA / JPL has a sail radius of 200 m, a science payload of 25 kg, a spacecraft areal mass thickness of about two grams per square meter and is accelerated out of the solar system at about 14 AU per year after performing a perihelion pass of about 0.25 AU. In current plans, the sail is to be dropped near Jupiter's orbit (5.2 AU from the Sun) on the outbound trajectory leg. One aspect of this study is application of a realistic model of sail thermo-optics to sail kinematics that includes diffuse / specular reflectance and sail roughness. The effects of solar-wind degradation of sail material, based on recent measurements at the NASA MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) Space Environment Facility were incorporated in the kinematical model. After setting initial and final conditions for the spacecraft, trajectory was optimized using the provision of variable sail aspect angle. The second phase of the study included consideration of rainbow holography as a medium for a message plaque that would be carried aboard the ISP in the spirit of the message plaques aboard Pioneer 10 /11 and Voyager 1 /2. A prototype holographic message plaque was designed and created by artist C. Bangs with the assistance of Ana Maria Nicholson and Dan Schweitzer of the Center for Holographic Arts in Long Island City, NY. The piece was framed by Simon Liu Inc. of Brooklyn, NY. Concurrent to the creation of the prototype message plaque, we explored the potential of this medium to transmit large amounts of visual information to any extraterrestrial civilization that might detect and intercept ISP. It was also necessary to investigate possible degradation of holograms by the space environment. We developed a new way of characterizing the optical quality of holograms.

Gregory L. Matloff↗

NASA NTRS2008

Pattern-Recognition System for Approaching a Known Target

A closed-loop pattern-recognition system is designed to provide guidance for maneuvering a small exploratory robotic vehicle (rover) on Mars to return to a landed spacecraft to deliver soil and rock samples that the spacecraft would subsequently bring back to Earth. The system could be adapted to terrestrial use in guiding mobile robots to approach known structures that humans could not approach safely, for such purposes as reconnaissance in military or law-enforcement applications, terrestrial scientific exploration, and removal of explosive or other hazardous items. The system has been demonstrated in experiments in which the Field Integrated Design and Operations (FIDO) rover (a prototype Mars rover equipped with a video camera for guidance) is made to return to a mockup of Mars-lander spacecraft. The FIDO rover camera autonomously acquires an image of the lander from a distance of 125 m in an outdoor environment. Then under guidance by an algorithm that performs fusion of multiple line and texture features in digitized images acquired by the camera, the rover traverses the intervening terrain, using features derived from images of the lander truss structure. Then by use of precise pattern matching for determining the position and orientation of the rover relative to the lander, the rover aligns itself with the bottom of ramps extending from the lander, in preparation for climbing the ramps to deliver samples to the lander. The most innovative aspect of the system is a set of pattern-recognition algorithms that govern a three-phase visual-guidance sequence for approaching the lander. During the first phase, a multifeature fusion algorithm integrates the outputs of a horizontal-line-detection algorithm and a wavelet-transform-based visual-area-of-interest algorithm for detecting the lander from a significant distance. The horizontal-line-detection algorithm is used to determine candidate lander locations based on detection of a horizontal deck that is part of the lander.

Huntsberger, Terrance↗