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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1996

Smart Materials and Structures Applications at the NASA Langley Research Center

This overview of the presentation covers Langley's smart materials infrastructure, materials research, applications, and summary. Langley's infrastructure consists of fabrication and characterization of smart structures. Materials researched include ceramics, polymers, and polymer-ceramic composites. Applications include interior aircraft noise suppression, aircraft engine noise reduction, active flutter damping of aircraft wings for better performance, active shape control of polymeric reflectors, and aircraft wing distortion to eliminate control surfaces.

Horner, Garnett↗
NASA NTRS2011

A Framework for Testing Automated Detection, Diagnosis, and Remediation Systems on the Smart Grid

America's electrical grid is currently undergoing a multi-billion dollar modernization effort aimed at producing a highly reliable critical national infrastructure for power - a Smart Grid. While the goals for the Smart Grid include upgrades to accommodate large quantities of clean, but transient, renewable energy and upgrades to provide customers with real-time pricing information, perhaps the most important objective is to create an electrical grid with a greatly increased robustness.

autonomous detection, diagnosis, and remediation (↗
NASA NTRS2020

Urban Air Mobility System Testbed Using CAVE Virtual Reality Environment

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) refers to a system of air passenger and small cargo transportation within an urban area. The UAM framework also includes other urban Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) services that will be supported by a mix of onboard, ground, piloted, and autonomous operations. Over the past few years UAM research has gained wide interest from companies and federal agencies as an on-demand innovative transportation option that can help reduce traffic congestion and pollution as well as increase mobility in metropolitan areas. The concepts of UAM/UAS operation in the National Airspace System (NAS) remains an active area of research to ensure safe and efficient operations. With new developments in smart vehicle design and infrastructure for air traffic management, there is a need for methods to integrate and test various components of the UAM framework. In this work, we report on the development of a virtual reality (VR) testbed using the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) technology for human-automation teaming and airspace operation research of UAM. Using a four-wall projection system with motion capture, the CAVE provides an immersive virtual environment with real-time full body tracking capability. We created a virtual environment consisting of San Francisco city and a vertical take-off-and-landing passenger aircraft that can fly between a downtown location and the San Francisco International Airport. The aircraft can be operated autonomously or manually by a single pilot who maneuvers the aircraft using a flight control joystick. The interior of the aircraft includes a virtual cockpit display with vehicle heading, location, and speed information. The system can record simulation events and flight data for post-processing. The system parameters are customizable for different flight scenarios; hence, the CAVE VR testbed provides a flexible method for development and evaluation of UAM framework.

Marayong, Panadda↗
NASA NTRS2021

Role of Cyber-Physical Testing in Developing Resilient Extraterrestrial Habitats

Extraterrestrial long-term habitat systems (henceforth referred to as habitat systems) require groundbreaking technological advances to overcome the extreme demands introduced by isolation and challenging environments. A habitat system must operate as intended under continuous disruptive conditions. Designing for the demands that challenging environments will place on habitat systems (e.g., wild temperature fluctuations, galactic cosmic rays, destructive dust, meteoroid impacts, vibrations, and solar particle events) represents one of the greatest challenges in this endeavor. This engineering problem necessitates that we design and manage habitat systems to be resilient. System resilience requires a comprehensive approach that accounts for disruptions through the design process and adapts to them in operation. As the habitat system evolves—growing in physical size, complexity, population, and connectivity—and diversifies in operations, it must continue to be safe and resilient. In this endeavor, we should take advantage of lessons learned in developing civil infrastructure responsive to catastrophic natural hazards, autonomous robotics platforms, smart buildings, cyber-physical testing, complex systems, and diagnostics and prognostics for intelligent health management. This study highlights the importance of system resilience and cyber-physical testing to address the grand challenge of developing habitat systems.

Public health and safety↗
NASA NTRS2005

Common Badging and Access Control System (CBACS)

This slide presentation presents NASA's Common Badging and Access Control System. NASA began a Smart Card implementation in January 2004. Following site surveys, it was determined that NASA's badging and access control systems required upgrades to common infrastructure in order to provide flexibly, usability, and return on investment prior to a smart card implantation. Common Badging and Access Control System (CBACS) provides the common infrastructure from which FIPS-201 compliant processes, systems, and credentials can be developed and used.

Dischinger, Portia↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Cyber Resiliency and the Implementation of a Host-Based Intrusion Detection System in an Urban Air Mobility Environment

With the growth in urban air mobility systems and the increasing reliance on interconnected technologies, ensuring the security of these complex infrastructures has become critical. As cities evolve into smart urban centers, the vulnerability to cyber threats escalates, possibly endangering citizens’ safety and the efficiency of transportation networks. In response to these challenges, this paper presents a study on implementing a Host-Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) tailored explicitly to urban mobility environments’ unique demands. This study explores the design, development, and deployment of the proposed HIDS, focusing on its adaptability to monitor the hybrid nature of the urban mobility environment. Leveraging machine learning algorithms and anomaly detection techniques, the HIDS is equipped to continuously monitor and analyze the behavior of individual host systems, vehicles, and devices, thereby providing a proactive approach to threat detection. Implementing a HIDS is a pivotal strategy for enhancing cyber resiliency, as it gives an organization granular visibility into internal system activities, enables rapid detection and response to anomalous behavior and cyber threats, and fortifies the organization’s overall cybersecurity posture. In conclusion, this paper highlights the significance of host-based intrusion detection in urban mobility environments and underscores the necessity of tailored security solutions to safeguard against emerging cyber threats.

UAM↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Delay Tolerant, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID )-enabled Sensing

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology offers a completely passive method to transmit fixed data sequences from an RFID tag, which typically doesn’t have its own power supply, to an interrogator. Radio frequency (RF) energy harvested from the interrogator is rectified by the tag and used to charge an integrated circuit (IC). The IC then modulates the received signal with the data stored on the tag and reflects the energy back to the interrogator. RFID has seen great proliferation in terrestrial inventory management applications, and it has recently made the jump to spaceflight applications onboard the International Space Station, augmenting an existing optical bar‐code infrastructure for tracking supplies. A number of advanced automated logistics management (ALM) concepts employing RFID are currently being developed and evaluated, including so‐called “smart” shelves, cubbies, and trash receptacles using low‐power, embeddable RFID interrogators. An infrastructure where both crew members and robotic assistants, such as autonomous free flyers, are similarly equipped with small RFID interrogators seems likely. It therefore behooves us to consider extending this infrastructure beyond ALM to applications such as low power, embedded sensing. Typically, data on an RFID tag can only be written by an RFID interrogator, using interrogator energy. In recent years, however, a few efforts have focused on using that energy to drive data acquisition from the tag IC, allowing the tag to modify its stored data sequence with sensor data before replying to an interrogator. In this way, the tag can act as a completely passive sensing device. One problem exists with this approach, however: the tag cannot gather data when an interrogator is not present. Thus, strictly passive RFID sensing tags cannot gather data at regular intervals, in the manner of a typical wireless sensor network, without careful, and impractical, planning of mobile interrogator movements. To address this shortcoming, we look to a recent advance in RFID technology which allows an external microprocessor to power the tag IC and write directly into its RFID memory using a wired serial interface. In this paradigm, data gathering is driven by a small, on‐board power supply (using batteries or harvested energy), and data transfer is provided passively through the RFID interrogation service. Since communication typically consumes the lion’s share of power in WSNs, such a technique has the potential to enable extremely long‐lived, embedded wireless sensing when used with extremely low‐current microcontrollers. Since the communication channel is only open when an interrogator is present and actively interrogating the RFID sensing tag, transport of periodically‐sampled sensor data presents itself as a delay/disruption‐tolerant networking (DTN) problem. In this paper, we present the design of a DTN‐like overlay on the common EPC Global, Class 1, Generation 2 RFID standard. This overlay allows seamless, guaranteed data transfer using the EPC Global protocol, supporting extremely low‐power, embedded sensing using an infrastructure likely to be already in place for ALM applications. We evaluate a prototype implementation of a complete end‐to‐end system using a robotic RFID interrogation agent, and we present future directions for the development of this sensing technique.

Raymond S. Wagner↗
NASA NTRS2018

Astrobee Robot Software: A Modern Software System for Space

Astrobee is a new free-flyer robot designed to operate inside the International Space Station (ISS). Astrobee capabilities include markerless navigation, autonomous docking for recharge, perching on handrails to minimize power and modular payloads. Astrobee will operate without crew support, controlled by teleoperation, plan execution, or on-board third parties software. This paper presents the Astrobee Robot Software, a NASA Open-Source project, powering the Astrobee robot. The Astrobee Robot Software relies on a distributed architecture based on the Robot Operating System (ROS). The software runs on three interconnected smart phone class processors. We present the software approach, infrastructure required, and main software components. The Astrobee Robot Software embrace modern software practices while respecting flight constraints. The paper concludes with the lessons learned, including examples usage of the software. Several research teams are already using the Astrobee Robot Software to develop novel projects that will fly on Astrobee.

Astrobee↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Applications of Advanced Perception and Distributed Sensing Technology towards Autonomous Advanced Air Mobility Applications

Emerging concepts for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) envisions responsive air transportation capabilities that can safely move people and cargo between places - including local, regional, intraregional, and urban - previously not served or underserved by aviation. Expanding traditional aviation services to these environments, particularly when autonomous operations are involved, face a number of challenges that will require advances beyond the state-of-the-art techniques for airborne sensing and perception, which goes beyond the limits of scalability and applicability of the current air transportation system infrastructure. Additionally, the emerging field of distributed sensing and ‘smart spaces’– where sensing, processing, communication, and actuation are embedded in the environment in which agents are acting and can be exploited by the agents through real-time wireless communication – may provide realistic near-time solutions to limitations imposed by traditional aviation techniques. This paper outlines the needs, challenges, and opportunities for advanced perception and distributed sensing techniques to meet the emerging needs for advanced AAM operations in the national airspace. A general roadmap for research, development, and maturation of perception and distributed sensing (P&DS) technologies is proposed to guide future development through verification, validation, certification into airborne systems. Through this analysis of challenges and the proposed roadmap for technology maturation, we hope to accelerate transition of advanced research techniques from other disciplines into this domain.

Autonomy↗
NASA NTRS2023

Damage Detection of a Pressure Vessel with Smart Sensing and Deep Learning

Structural Health Monitoring plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety and reliability of critical infrastructure, including pressure vessels involved in various applications. This research reports the damage detection of a pressure box employed in space habitat that operates in harsh environment where both structural failure and bolt joint loosening may occur. These failure modes are extremely hard to model based on first principles. We explore proper sensing mechanism and the associated inverse analysis algorithm that can elucidate the health condition of the pressure box. It is identified that piezoelectric impedance based active interrogation can provide necessary information for damage detection in such a system. Concurrently, deep learning technique leveraging spatial convolutional neural network is synthesized to analyze the raw data acquired and identify different types of damage. By training the deep learning model on a dataset of healthy and various damage scenarios, we can achieve high accuracy in identifying the presence of damage and its type. This research provides a data-driven methodology for structural damage detection using deep learning and has the potential to be extended to various systems with different failure modes.

Yang Zhang↗
NASA NTRS2012

Wireless Self-Acquistion of 12-Lead ECG via Android Smart Phone

Researchers at NASA s Johnson Space Center and at Orbital Research, Inc. (a NASA SBIR grant recipient) have recently developed a dry-electrode harness that allows for self-acquisition of resting 12-lead ECGs by minimally trained laypersons. When used in conjunction with commercial wireless (e.g., Bluetooth(TM) or 802.11-enabled) 12-lead ECG devices and custom smart phone-based software, the collected 12-lead ECG data can also immediately be forwarded from any geographic location within cellular range to the user s physician(s) of choice. The system can also be used to immediately forward to central receiving stations 12-lead ECG data collected during space flight or during activities in any remote terrestrial location supported by an internet or cellular phone infrastructure. The main novel aspects of the system are first, the dry-electrode 12-lead ECG harness itself, and second, an accompanying Android(TM) smart phone-based wireless 12-lead ECG capability. The ECG harness nominally employs dry electrodes manufactured by Orbital Research, Inc, recently cleared through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, other dry electrodes that are not yet FDA cleared, for example those recently developed by Nanosonic, Inc as part of another NASA SBIR grant, can also be used. The various advantageous features of the harness include: 1) laypersons can be quickly instructed on its correct use, remotely if necessary; 2) all tangled "leadwire spaghetti" is eliminated, as is the common clinical problem of "leadwire reversal"; 3) all adhesives and disposables are also eliminated, the harness being fully reusable; if multiple individuals intend to use use the same harness, then standard antimicrobial wipes can be employed to sterilize the dry electrodes (and harness surface if needed) between users; 5) padded cushions at the lateral sides of the torso function to press the left arm (LA) and right arm (RA) dry electrodes mounted on the cushions against sideward or downward-rested arms of the subject; 6) sufficient distal placement of the arm electrodes achieves good electrode abutment to the arms without the need for adhesives, straps, bands, bracelets, or gloves; 7) padding over the sternum avoids "tenting" in the V1 through V3 (and, when present, the V3R) electrode positions; 8) easy-to-don, one-piece design with an adjustable, front-side single point of connection and an adjustable shoulder strap; and 9) Lund or "modified Lund" placement of the dry electrodes, the results of which more effectively reproduce results from "standard" 12-lead ECG placements than do results from Mason-Likar placements. The main limitation of the harness is that "one size does not fit all", meaning that an appropriately sized harness (small, medium, large, etc) must be chosen on the basis of an individual's size. To facilitate the use of the harness with inexpensive, commodity-grade cell phones and tablet devices, 12-lead ECG software is also being developed to accompany the harness for wireless use with Android. For this part of the project, NASA has teamed with TopCoder, Inc and the Harvard-affiliated NASA Tournament Lab in sponsoring java-based software programming contests through TopCoder. While ECG signals from the harness can already be wirelessly received and thoroughly processed (locally or remotely) by commercial-grade conventional (as well as advanced) 12-lead ECG software running on Microsoft Windows(TM), the Android-based software, once completed, will "cast a wider net" by allowing for a greater percentage of cell phone owners to participate in inexpensive, store-and-forward recordings of 12-lead ECGs worldwide, including for example Android cell phone users in many remote, third-world locations. At the time of writing, the Android 12-lead ECG software platform consists of a basic but expanding graphical user interface and accompanying software that: 1) wirelessly receives the 12-lead ECG data stream from a Bluetooth-based, FDA-cleared 12-leaCG device attached to the harness; 2) locally stores the same data in binary format to the SD card on the Android cell phone; and 3) makes the data stream in available in real time, for now to TopCoder's java programming contestants.

Schlegel, Todd T.↗
NASA NTRS1996

The smart highway project: Smart highways, smart vehicles, smart engineering

The Smart Highway project is a six mile, limited access roadway being built between Interstate 81 and Blacksburg, Virginia. The initial construction segment will be two miles long and is designed to serve as a test bed and test track for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) research. The Center for Transportation Research (CTR) at Virginia Tech is developing three evaluation tools for its ITS research including DYNAVIMTS (a software framework), and the FLASH Lab (a 1/15th scale model highway and vehicle system). The Smart Highway rounds out the Center's evaluation methodology by allowing full scale operational tests, evaluations, and research under both experimental and conventional traffic conditions. Currently under development is a concept for a fully automated highway using a 'Cooperative Infrastructure Managed System' which involves ultra wide band communication beacons installed in the infrastructure with appropriate sensors, receivers and processors on board the vehicles. The project is part of the research program funded by the National Automated Highway System Consortium. The CTR hopes to develop the automated concept to prototype status by 1997. Other smart transportation and smart engineering concepts are proposed. This presentation will address the goals and objectives of the Smart Highway project, overview its status and importance to the region, and identify some of the transportation technology now under development and planned in the future.

Pethtel, Ray D.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Simulating Secure Data Exchange and Storage for Urban Air Mobility Environments

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) defines an environment for managing operations of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and short takeoff and landing (STOL) vehicles in an urban environment. Within a UAM environment, UAM operators manage fleets of vehicles, relying on Providers of Services for UAM (PSUs) for managing flights in a region of airspace. Flight plan deconfliction is primarily performed by the Discovery and Synchronization Service (DSS), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains control over the UAM space via the FAA-Industry Exchange Protocol (FIDXP). UAM is a federated environment with many different entities owning and operating vehicles, PSUs, and other services. These entities often need to interoperate or access data generated by other organizations. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using blockchain to facilitate a secure data exchange and storage for this flight information in a UAM environment. In particular, this paper is focused on flight plans and telemetry data. A blockchain network was developed with a set of smart contracts for managing relevant flight data. Hyperledger Fabric was chosen as it is performent, scalable, and allows organizations to reuse existing public key infrastructure (PKI) for identity management. A set of simulated UAM services were also developed. These services propose flight plans and negotiate with other UAM services for airspace access. All interactions between UAM services, as well as vehicle telemetry data, is recorded onto the blockchain. Vehicle telemetry data is generated by a vehicle flight simulation service. This paper successfully demonstrates the feasibility of using blockchain as a secure data exchange and storage mechanism in a UAM environment.

UAM↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Data & Reasoning Fabric

A Data & Reasoning Fabric shall provide a set of secured software infrastructure, tools, protocols, governance and policies to implement, administer, manage and operate data sharing and reasoning services across the entire span of air mobility and other ”smart” edge nodes.

Aeronautics↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Data & Reasoning Fabric Overview

A Data & Reasoning Fabric shall provide a set of secured software infrastructure, tools, protocols, governance and policies to implement, administer, manage and operate data sharing and reasoning services across the entire span of air mobility and other ”smart” edge nodes.

National Airspace↗
NASA NTRS2008

Hydrogen Research for Spaceport and Space-Based Applications: Hydrogen Sensors and Systems

The activities presented are a broad based approach to advancing key hydrogen related technologies in areas such as fuel cells, hydrogen production, and distributed sensors for hydrogen-leak detection, laser instrumentation for hydrogen-leak detection, and cryogenic transport and storage. Presented are the results from research projects, education and outreach activities, system and trade studies. The work will aid in advancing the state-of-the-art for several critical technologies related to the implementation of a hydrogen infrastructure. Activities conducted are relevant to a number of propulsion and power systems for terrestrial, aeronautics and aerospace applications. Sensor systems research was focused on hydrogen leak detection and smart sensors with adaptive feedback control for fuel cells. The goal was to integrate multifunction smart sensors, low-power high-efficiency wireless circuits, energy harvesting devices, and power management circuits in one module. Activities were focused on testing and demonstrating sensors in a realistic environment while also bringing them closer to production and commercial viability for eventual use in the actual operating environment.

Anderson, Tim↗
NASA NTRS2010

Spinoff 2010

Topics covered include: Burnishing Techniques Strengthen Hip Implants; Signal Processing Methods Monitor Cranial Pressure; Ultraviolet-Blocking Lenses Protect, Enhance Vision; Hyperspectral Systems Increase Imaging Capabilities; Programs Model the Future of Air Traffic Management; Tail Rotor Airfoils Stabilize Helicopters, Reduce Noise; Personal Aircraft Point to the Future of Transportation; Ducted Fan Designs Lead to Potential New Vehicles; Winglets Save Billions of Dollars in Fuel Costs; Sensor Systems Collect Critical Aerodynamics Data; Coatings Extend Life of Engines and Infrastructure; Radiometers Optimize Local Weather Prediction; Energy-Efficient Systems Eliminate Icing Danger for UAVs; Rocket-Powered Parachutes Rescue Entire Planes; Technologies Advance UAVs for Science, Military; Inflatable Antennas Support Emergency Communication; Smart Sensors Assess Structural Health; Hand-Held Devices Detect Explosives and Chemical Agents; Terahertz Tools Advance Imaging for Security, Industry; LED Systems Target Plant Growth; Aerogels Insulate Against Extreme Temperatures; Image Sensors Enhance Camera Technologies; Lightweight Material Patches Allow for Quick Repairs; Nanomaterials Transform Hairstyling Tools; Do-It-Yourself Additives Recharge Auto Air Conditioning; Systems Analyze Water Quality in Real Time; Compact Radiometers Expand Climate Knowledge; Energy Servers Deliver Clean, Affordable Power; Solutions Remediate Contaminated Groundwater; Bacteria Provide Cleanup of Oil Spills, Wastewater; Reflective Coatings Protect People and Animals; Innovative Techniques Simplify Vibration Analysis; Modeling Tools Predict Flow in Fluid Dynamics; Verification Tools Secure Online Shopping, Banking; Toolsets Maintain Health of Complex Systems; Framework Resources Multiply Computing Power; Tools Automate Spacecraft Testing, Operation; GPS Software Packages Deliver Positioning Solutions; Solid-State Recorders Enhance Scientific Data Collection; Computer Models Simulate Fine Particle Dispersion; Composite Sandwich Technologies Lighten Components; Cameras Reveal Elements in the Short Wave Infrared; Deformable Mirrors Correct Optical Distortions; Stitching Techniques Advance Optics Manufacturing; Compact, Robust Chips Integrate Optical Functions; Fuel Cell Stations Automate Processes, Catalyst Testing; Onboard Systems Record Unique Videos of Space Missions; Space Research Results Purify Semiconductor Materials; and Toolkits Control Motion of Complex Robotics.

Source record↗