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NASA NTRSDate not supplied

National Campaign Partner Demonstration Team Annual Review April 2023

- NASA developed the Advanced Air Mobility Project (AAM) and the National Campaign (NC) series to identify and address challenges ahead for advanced air mobility concepts. - NC seeks to challenge industry as follows; - Execute progressively more difficult ecosystem-wide system-level safety and integration scenarios - Demonstrate practical and scalable system concepts - Build a knowledge base for development of requirements and standards - There are currently three focus areas within the NASA AAM NC Portfolio - Vehicle Development and Operations: test and inform capabilities that are critical enablers for AAM such as electric aircraft propulsion and increasing levels of automation - Airspace Design and Operations: develop and validate an operational concept to integrate and manage AAM traffic safely and efficiently - Community Integration: understand and address critical barriers to community integration, such as public acceptance (noise, security, privacy, etc.), supporting infrastructure, and local regulation

Eric N Becker↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Command and Control Concepts for an Lift Plus Cruise Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicle

Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles have the potential to enable cost effective Urban Air Mobility (UAM) applications. Many of these vehicle concepts will takeoff vertically like a helicopter, transition to fly like an airplane, and then transition back to land vertically like a helicopter. However, these concepts may also pose several challenging handling and control problems, which must be addressed prior to safe and reliable urban operations. This study investigates some of these challenges by evaluating different command and control concepts for a conceptual Lift Plus Cruise vehicle designed by NASA’s Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) project. Four different command concepts with increasing levels of automation are developed. The command and control architecture for these concepts is presented along with findings from the evaluation of these concepts in a series of three piloted studies in the Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA Ames Research Center, where pilots flew operationally relevant flight test maneuvers specifically designed to expose potential deficiencies. The higher-level control systems and the associated pilot interfaces were shown to improve performance and handling in many cases, especially for higher precision and lower to moderate aggression maneuvers. The benefits were limited for higher aggression tasks in environmentally stressing conditions, due to the slower response of the automation and inherent limitations of the vehicle design, which highlights the potential need for tradeoffs between concept of operations and vehicle capabilities

Thomas Lombaerts↗

DOE OSTI2020

Communications for the Future Electric Grid: Systems and Implications

As the operation of the electric grid continues to become more automated, the associated increase in sensors and systems places increasing demands for fast response, cybersecure communications. This paper presents a review of advances underway in communications and networking technologies that may be implemented to meet these future electric grid requirements.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2026

A Scoping Review of Mixed Initiative Visual Analytics in the Automation Renaissance

Artificial agents are increasingly integrated into data analysis workflows, carrying out tasks that were primarily done by humans. Our research explores how the introduction of automation recalibrates the dynamic between humans and automating technology. To explore this question, we conducted a scoping review encompassing twenty years of mixed-initiative visual analytic systems. To describe and contrast the relationship between humans and automation, we developed an integrated taxonomy to delineate the objectives of these mixed-initiative visual analytics tools, how much automation they support, and the assumed roles of humans. Here, we describe our qualitative approach of integrating existing theoretical frameworks with new codes we developed. Our analysis shows that the visualization research literature lacks consensus on the definition of mixed-initiative systems and explores a limited potential of the collaborative interaction landscape between people and automation. Our research provides a scaffold to advance the discussion of human-AI collaboration during visual data analysis. Our integrated taxonomy is available in the form of a web application on https://smonadjemi.github.io/miva.

Monadjemi, Shayan [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000293855969)↗

NASA NTRS1990

Summary of astronaut inputs concerning automation

An assessment of the potential for increased productivity on Space Station Freedom through advanced automation and robotics was recently completed. Sponsored by the Office of Space Station, the study involved reviews of on-orbit operations experience documentation, interviews with 23 current and former astronauts/payload specialists as well as other NASA and contractor personnel, and a survey of 32 astronauts and payload specialists. Assessed areas of related on-orbit experience included Skylab, space shuttle, Spacelab, and the Soviet space program, as well as the U.S. nuclear submarine program and Antarctic research stations analogs. The survey questionnaire asked the respondents to rate the desirability of advanced automation, EVA robotics, and IVA robotics. They were also asked to rate safety impacts of automated fault diagnosis, isolation, and recovery (FDIR); automated exception reporting and alarm filtering; and an EVA retriever. The respondents were also asked to evaluate 26 specific applications of advanced automation and robotics related to perceived impact on productivity.

Weeks, David J.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Intern Poster: AIBOMs in Automated Defense: Capabilities & Challenges

AI is increasingly used in critical infrastructure, but it's often a “black box” that is difficult to understand. AIBOMs, or AI Bill of Materials, are one way to increase AI transparency and accountability. They can also be used in automated cyber defense. AIBOMs are a new concept with challenges to widespread adoption, but their potential in cybersecurity makes them a worthwhile investment.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

NASA NTRS2015

Analysis of Aviation Safety Reporting System Incident Data Associated with the Technical Challenges of the System-Wide Safety and Assurance Technologies Project

The Aviation Safety Program (AvSP) System-Wide Safety and Assurance Technologies (SSAT) Project asked the AvSP Systems and Portfolio Analysis Team to identify SSAT-related trends. SSAT had four technical challenges: advance safety assurance to enable deployment of NextGen systems; automated discovery of precursors to aviation safety incidents; increasing safety of human-automation interaction by incorporating human performance, and prognostic algorithm design for safety assurance. This report reviews incident data from the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) for system-component-failure- or-malfunction- (SCFM-) related and human-factor-related incidents for commercial or cargo air carriers (Part 121), commuter airlines (Part 135), and general aviation (Part 91). The data was analyzed by Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) part, phase of flight, SCFM category, human factor category, and a variety of anomalies and results. There were 38 894 SCFM-related incidents and 83 478 human-factorrelated incidents analyzed between January 1993 and April 2011.

Withrow, Colleen A.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Development of Automated Material Handling System with Alternate Gripper Designs for the Purpose of Increased Performance & Worker Safety

Savannah River National Laboratory’s (SRNL) Surplus Plutonium Disposition (SPD) Program leads the development and transition of automated unit operations for the processing of Plutonium oxide. A mixing can is opened, filled with material, mixed, set inside of a die can, and finally punched into compressed material. Replication of the process is constructed in A-area, where the mixing can weighs 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs.) and the compressed material weighs 4 kg (8.8 lbs.). Due to the constant process of Plutonium disposition, the fatigue on workers and worker dose accumulates quickly over time. SPD aims to automate this process by using a robotic arm to replace the hands-on worker. Automation will: Reduce worker radiation dose; Increase process throughout; Reduce costs for the disposition of Plutonium oxide.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS2000

An Overview of SAL

To become practical for assurance, automated formal methods must be made more scalable, automatic, and cost-effective. Such an increase in scope, scale, automation, and utility can be derived from an emphasis on a systematic separation of concerns during verification. SAL (Symbolic Analysis Laboratory) attempts to address these issues. It is a framework for combining different tools to calculate properties of concurrent systems. The heart of SAL is a language, developed in collaboration with Stanford, Berkeley, and Verimag for specifying concurrent systems in a compositional way. Our instantiation of the SAL framework augments PVS with tools for abstraction, invariant generation, program analysis (such as slicing), theorem proving, and model checking to separate concerns as well as calculate properties (i.e., perform, symbolic analysis) of concurrent systems. We. describe the motivation, the language, the tools, their integration in SAL/PAS, and some preliminary experience of their use.

Bensalem, Saddek↗

NASA NTRS1988

Networks Of Executive Controllers For Automation

Paper discusses principal issues to be resolved in development of autonomous executive-controller shell for Space Station. Shell represents major increase in complexity of automated systems. More-complex control tasks require system that deals with different goals requiring sequences of tasks that change state of system world in complex ways. Requires integration of all functions. Applications include space station communications, tracking, life support, data processing support, navigation, and control of thermal and structural subsystems.

Erickson, William K.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Generative Representations for Computer-Automated Evolutionary Design

With the increasing computational power of computers, software design systems are progressing from being tools for architects and designers to express their ideas to tools capable of creating designs under human guidance. One of the main limitations for these computer-automated design systems is the representation with which they encode designs. If the representation cannot encode a certain design, then the design system cannot produce it. To be able to produce new types of designs, and not just optimize pre-defined parameterizations, evolutionary design systems must use generative representations. Generative representations are assembly procedures, or algorithms, for constructing a design thereby allowing for truly novel design solutions to be encoded. In addition, by enabling modularity, regularity and hierarchy, the level of sophistication that can be evolved is increased. We demonstrate the advantages of generative representations on two different design domains: the evolution of spacecraft antennas and the evolution of 3D objects.

Hornby, Gregory S.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Generative Representations for Computer-Automated Design Systems

With the increasing computational power of Computers, software design systems are progressing from being tools for architects and designers to express their ideas to tools capable of creating designs under human guidance. One of the main limitations for these computer-automated design programs is the representation with which they encode designs. If the representation cannot encode a certain design, then the design program cannot produce it. Similarly, a poor representation makes some types of designs extremely unlikely to be created. Here we define generative representations as those representations which can create and reuse organizational units within a design and argue that reuse is necessary for design systems to scale to more complex and interesting designs. To support our argument we describe GENRE, an evolutionary design program that uses both a generative and a non-generative representation, and compare the results of evolving designs with both types of representations.

Hornby, Gregory S.↗

NASA NTRS1979

Spacecraft automated operations

Trends in automation of planetary spacecraft are examined using data from missions as far back as Mariner '67 and up to the highly sophisticated Galileo. Nine design considerations which influence the degree of automation such as protection against catastrophic failures, highly repetitive functions, loss of spacecraft communications, and the need for near-real-time adaptivity are discussed. Rapid growth of automation is shown in terms of on-board hardware by plots of number of processors on board, the average speed of processors, and total core memory. The number of commands transmitted from the ground has grown to 5 million bits in Voyager, so that increases in mission complexity have increased both in spacecraft automation and ground operations. Achieving greater automation by transferring ground operations to the spacecraft with the current means of controlling missions, are considered noting proposed changes. For the future, improved computer technology, more microprocessors and increased core storage will be used, and the number of automated functions and their complexity will grow. It is concluded that using the growing computational capability of spacecraft will achieve more autonomy thus reversing the trend of increased mission complexity and cost.

Bird, T. H.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Contingency Management with Human Autonomy Teaming

Automation is playing an increasingly important role in many operations. It is often cheaper faster and more precise than human operators. However, automation is not perfect. There are many situations in which a human operator must step in. We refer to these instances as contingencies and the act of stepping in contingency management. Here we propose coupling Human Autonomy Teaming (HAT) with contingency management. We describe two aspects to HAT, bi-directional communication, and working agreements (or plays). Bi-directional communication like Crew Resource Management in traditional aviation, allows all parties to contribute to a decision. Working agreements specify roles and responsibilities. Importantly working agreements allow for the possibility of roles and responsibilities changing depending on environmental factors (e.g., situations the automation was not designed for, workload, risk, or trust). This allows for the automation to "automatically" become more autonomous as it becomes more trusted and/or it is updated to deal with a more complete set of possible situations. We present a concrete example using a prototype contingency management station one might find in a future airline operations center. Automation proposes reroutes for aircraft that encounter bad weather or are forced to divert for environmental or systems reasons. If specific conditions are met, these recommendations may be autonomously datalinked to the affected aircraft.

dispatch↗

NASA NTRS1984

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation

A generic computer simulation for manipulator systems (ROBSIM) was implemented and the specific technologies necessary to increase the role of automation in various missions were developed. The specific items developed are: (1) capability for definition of a manipulator system consisting of multiple arms, load objects, and an environment; (2) capability for kinematic analysis, requirements analysis, and response simulation of manipulator motion; (3) postprocessing options such as graphic replay of simulated motion and manipulator parameter plotting; (4) investigation and simulation of various control methods including manual force/torque and active compliances control; (5) evaluation and implementation of three obstacle avoidance methods; (6) video simulation and edge detection; and (7) software simulation validation.

Haley, D. C.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation, appendix A

A generic computer simulation for manipulator systems (ROBSIM) was implemented and the specific technologies necessary to increase the role of automation in various missions were developed. The specific items developed were: (1) Capability for definition of a manipulator system consisting of multiple arms, load objects, and an environment; (2) Capability for kinematic analysis, requirements analysis, and response simulation of manipulator motion; (3) Postprocessing options such as graphic replay of simulated motion and manipulator parameter plotting; (4) Investigation and simulation of various control methods including manual force/torque and active compliance control; (5) Evaluation and implementation of three obstacle avoidance methods; (6) Video simulation and edge detection; and (7) Software simulation validation. This appendix is the user's guide and includes examples of program runs and outputs as well as instructions for program use.

Haley, D. C.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Bayesian Safety Risk Modeling of Human-Flightdeck Automation Interaction

Usage of automatic systems in airliners has increased fuel efficiency, added extra capabilities, enhanced safety and reliability, as well as provide improved passenger comfort since its introduction in the late 80's. However, original automation benefits, including reduced flight crew workload, human errors or training requirements, were not achieved as originally expected. Instead, automation introduced new failure modes, redistributed, and sometimes increased workload, brought in new cognitive and attention demands, and increased training requirements. Modern airliners have numerous flight modes, providing more flexibility (and inherently more complexity) to the flight crew. However, the price to pay for the increased flexibility is the need for increased mode awareness, as well as the need to supervise, understand, and predict automated system behavior. Also, over-reliance on automation is linked to manual flight skill degradation and complacency in commercial pilots. As a result, recent accidents involving human errors are often caused by the interactions between humans and the automated systems (e.g., the breakdown in man-machine coordination), deteriorated manual flying skills, and/or loss of situational awareness due to heavy dependence on automated systems. This paper describes the development of the increased complexity and reliance on automation baseline model, named FLAP for FLightdeck Automation Problems. The model development process starts with a comprehensive literature review followed by the construction of a framework comprised of high-level causal factors leading to an automation-related flight anomaly. The framework was then converted into a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) using the Hugin Software v7.8. The effects of automation on flight crew are incorporated into the model, including flight skill degradation, increased cognitive demand and training requirements along with their interactions. Besides flight crew deficiencies, automation system failures and anomalies of avionic systems are also incorporated. The resultant model helps simulate the emergence of automation-related issues in today's modern airliners from a top-down, generalized approach, which serves as a platform to evaluate NASA developed technologies

Ancel, Ersin↗

NASA NTRS2016

Becoming Earth Independent: Human-Automation-Robotics Integration Challenges for Future Space Exploration

Future exploration missions will require NASA to integrate more automation and robotics in order to accomplish mission objectives. This presentation will describe on the future challenges facing the human operator (astronaut, ground controllers) as we increase the amount of automation and robotics in spaceflight operations. It will describe how future exploration missions will have to adapt and evolve in order to deal with more complex missions and communication latencies. This presentation will outline future human-automation-robotic integration challenges.

human-robotic↗