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At least 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2014

Rotorcraft Flight Dynamics and Controls Research at NASA

In recent years, NASA has invested in key activities in the areas of flight controls, handling qualities and operations of rotorcraft for civilian applications. More specifically, the flight dynamics and control discipline has focused on analyzing the unique flight control and handling qualities challenges of large rotary wing vehicles anticipated for future passenger service, and examining the effect of control system augmentation on handling qualities for current civilian helicopters in order to improve safety and reduce accident rates. This paper highlights two recent research efforts in these areas. The first is an examination of flight control and handling qualities aspects of large rotorcraft. A series of experiments were performed in the large-motion Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA Ames Research Center to quantify the effects of vehicle size on flight control requirements and piloted handling qualities. These experiments used a large tilt-rotor concept (~100 passengers) to also investigate the control augmentation required to obtain Level 1 handling qualities for a vehicle of this size. The second is an examination of the effect of control system augmentation on handling qualities for current civil rotorcraft, like those currently used for Emergency Medical Service type operations. Many current civilian helicopters have rate response type control systems and little or no control system augmentation, although current technologies allow helicopters to be fitted with stability augmentation systems, either as standard equipment or aftermarket options. A simulation experiment was conducted in the Vertical Motion Simulator to quantify the effects of advanced control modes available with a partial authority stability augmentation system on task performance and handling qualities in both good and degraded visual conditions. In addition to providing an overview of the rotary wing flight dynamics and controls research at NASA, this paper will provide an overview of these two research activities along with key results and conclusions.

Rotorcraft↗
NASA NTRS1978

Versatile communications terminal

Widely-separated parties are linked into efficient communications network by versatile control terminal. Terminal handles voice and data communications via both telephone lines and radio-frequency channels. It includes telephone-to-radio "patch", telephone autodialer, and other advanced features to provide rapid communications for applications such as emergency medical services (EMS) operations.

Belasco, N.↗
NASA NTRS1975

International Conference on Remote Emergency Medical Services

An emergency medical system is characterized. Applications of NASA technology in biomedical telecommunication and bioinstrumentation are explored. The training and effectiveness of paramedics, technicians, nurses, and physicians are evaluated as applied to emergency situations and the operations of trauma centers. Civilian and military aeromedical evacuation is discussed.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1979

A Demonstration Advanced Avionics System for general aviation

A program initiated within NASA has emphasized the use of a data bus, microprocessors, electronic displays and data entry devices for general aviation. A Demonstration Advanced Avionics System (DAAS) capable of evaluating critical and promising elements of an integrating system that will perform the functions of (1) automated guidance and navigation; (2) flight planning; (3) weight and balance performance computations; (4) monitoring and warning; and (5) storage of normal and emergency check lists and operational limitations is described. Consideration is given to two major parts of the DAAS instrument panel: the integrated data control center and an electronic horizontal situation indicator, and to the system architecture. The system is to be installed in the Ames Research Center's Cessna 402B in the latter part of 1980; engineering flight testing will begin in the first part of 1981.

Denery, D. G.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Fast-Response Oxygen-Monitoring and Control System

Oxygen sensor is Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2 ceramic disk maintained at 843 degrees C. Overall system response time reduced to about 0.2 second, equal to or less than 1 percent of tunnel run time. When test gas oxygen concentration differs from normal air concentration by 25 percent or more, alarm sounds, and emergency tunnel shutdown signal operates. New ZrO2 sensors intended for hypersonic-vehicle testing.

Singh, J. J.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Training for long duration space missions

The successful completion of an extended duration manned mission to Mars will require renewed research effort in the areas of crew training and skill retention techniques. The current estimate of inflight transit time is about nine months each way, with a six month surface visit, an order of magnitude beyond previous U.S. space missions. Concerns arise when considering the level of skill retention required for highly critical, one time operations such as an emergency procedure or a Mars orbit injection. The factors responsible for the level of complex skill retention are reviewed, optimal ways of refreshing degraded skills are suggested, and a conceptual crew training design for a Mars mission is outlined. Currently proposed crew activities during a Mars mission were reviewed to identify the spectrum of skills which must be retained over a long time period. Skill retention literature was reviewed to identify those factors which must be considered in deciding when and which tasks need retraining. Task, training, and retention interval factors were identified. These factors were then interpreted in light of the current state of spaceflight and adaptive training systems.

Goldberg, Joseph H.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Considerations for spacecraft design for MSAT

The paper describes the system design considerations and design activities performed at Spar Aerospace in the last 18 months in support of the development of a Canadian Mobile Communication Satellite (MSAT). Recent evolving international agreements and events of importance to MSAT are the emergence of the U.S. Operator and the Mobile WARC 1987. Their impacts on the system requirements and system design are discussed. Solutions to these new requirements are implemented into the 9 Beam baseline design. The system design and the parallel technology development permit the support of a commercial flight program.

Hing, Kunvana↗
NASA NTRS1988

A computer-based Safety Assessment for Flight Evacuation - SAFE

The Safety Assessment for Flight Evacuation (SAFE) system has been developed for the computerized evaluation of safety in civil Emergency Medical Service (EMS) operations. The speed of the microprocessor used to analyze data allows many individual factors to be considered, as well as the interactions among those factors. SAFE's data base is structured as if-then conditional statements. SAFE also allows the most important of the factors to be given greater weight in the final score. The questionnaire filled by EMS crews encompassed mission-, crew-, organization-, environment-, and aircraft-related factors; each of these was subdivided into as many as eight variables affecting the EMS-mission risk of that factor.

Shively, Robert J.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Electrification in winter storms and the analysis of thunderstorm overflight

The emergence of 24 hr operational lightning detection networks has led to the finding that positive lightning strokes, although still much fewer in number than the normal negative strokes, are present in summer and winter storms. Recent papers address the importance of understanding the meteorological conditions which lead to a dominance of one polarity of stroke over another; the appearance of positive strokes at the end of a storm appeared to presage the end-of-storm downdraft and subsidence leading to downburst activity. It is beginning to appear that positive strokes may be important meteorological indicators. Significant research accomplishments on the following topics are addressed: (1) a study to verify that the black boxes used in the lightning networks to detect both negative and positive strokes to ground were accurate; (2) the use of slow tails to determine the polarity of distant lightning; (3) lightning initiation in winter vs. summer storms; (4) the upgrade of sensors for the measurement of electric field signals associated with lightning; (5) the analysis of lightning flash records from storms between 40 and 125 km from the sensor; and (6) an interesting aspect of the initiation process which involves the physical processes driving the stepped leader. The focus of current research and future research plans are presented.

Brook, Marx↗
NASA NTRS2000

Evaluation of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System in the Eastern Range Dispersion Assessment System

The Applied Meteorology Unit is conducting an evaluation of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) contained within the Eastern Range Dispersion Assessment System (ERDAS). ERDAS provides emergency response guidance for operations at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center in the event of an accidental hazardous material release or aborted vehicle launch. The prognostic data from RAMS is available to ERDAS for display and is used to initialize the 45th Range Safety (45 SW/SE) dispersion model. Thus, the accuracy of the 45 SW/SE dispersion model is dependent upon the accuracy of RAMS forecasts. The RAMS evaluation task consists of an objective and subjective component for the Florida warm and cool seasons of 1999-2000. The objective evaluation includes gridded and point error statistics at surface and upper-level observational sites, a comparison of the model errors to a coarser grid configuration of RAMS, and a benchmark of RAMS against the widely accepted Eta model. The warm-season subjective evaluation involves a verification of the onset and movement of the Florida east coast sea breeze and RAMS forecast precipitation. This interim report provides a summary of the RAMS objective and subjective evaluation for the 1999 Florida warm season only.

Case, Jonathan↗
NASA NTRS1993

Storm Warning Service

A Huntsville meteorologist of Baron Services, Inc. has formed a commercial weather advisory service. Weather information is based on data from Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) collected from antennas in Alabama and Tennessee. Bob Baron refines and enhances MSFC's real time display software. Computer data is changed to audio data for radio transmission, received by clients through an antenna and decoded by computer for display. Using his service, clients can monitor the approach of significant storms and schedule operations accordingly. Utilities and emergency management officials are able to plot a storm's path. A recent agreement with two other companies will promote continued development and marketing.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2001

NASA Fire Protection Coordinators' Conference

Fire prevention activities at NASA's Stennis Space Center are reviewed in this viewgraph presentation. The Fire Prevention Office of the Fire Department at NASA Stennis conducts inspections and issues small appliance permits, while the Operations Section responds to emergencies.

Clark, Theodore↗
NASA NTRS2003

First Experiences Using XACML for Access Control in Distributed Systems

Authorization systems today are increasingly complex. They span domains of administration, rely on many different authentication sources, and manage permissions that can be as complex as the system itself. Worse still, while there are many standards that define authentication mechanisms, the standards that address authorization are less well defined and tend to work only within homogeneous systems. This paper presents XACML, a standard access control language, as one component of a distributed and inter-operable authorization framework. Several emerging systems which incorporate XACML are discussed. These discussions illustrate how authorization can be deployed in distributed, decentralized systems. Finally, some new and future topics are presented to show where this work is heading and how it will help connect the general components of an authorization system.

Lorch, Marcus↗
NASA NTRS2004

HEC Applications on Columbia Project

NASA's Columbia system consists of a cluster of twenty 512 processor SGI Altix systems. Each of these systems is 3 TFLOP/s in peak performance - approximately the same as the entire compute capability at NAS just one year ago. Each 512p system is a single system image machine with one Linunx O5, one high performance file system, and one globally shared memory. The NAS Terascale Applications Group (TAG) is chartered to assist in scaling NASA's mission critical codes to at least 512p in order to significantly improve emergency response during flight operations, as well as provide significant improvements in the codes. and rate of scientific discovery across the scientifc disciplines within NASA's Missions. Recent accomplishments are 4x improvements to codes in the ocean modeling community, 10x performance improvements in a number of computational fluid dynamics codes used in aero-vehicle design, and 5x improvements in a number of space science codes dealing in extreme physics. The TAG group will continue its scaling work to 2048p and beyond (10240 cpus) as the Columbia system becomes fully operational and the upgrades to the SGI NUMAlink memory fabric are in place. The NUMlink uprades dramatically improve system scalability for a single application. These upgrades will allow a number of codes to execute faster at higher fidelity than ever before on any other system, thus increasing the rate of scientific discovery even further

Taft, Jim↗
NASA NTRS2010

Suited Occupant Injury Potential During Dynamic Spacecraft Flight Phases

In support of the Constellation Space Suit Element [CSSE], a new space-suit architecture will be created for support of Launch, Entry, Abort, Microgravity Extra- Vehicular Activity [EVA], and post-landing crew operations, safety and, under emergency conditions, survival. The space suit is unique in comparison to previous launch, entry, and abort [LEA] suit architectures in that it utilizes rigid mobility elements in the scye (i.e., shoulder) and the upper arm regions. The suit architecture also utilizes rigid thigh disconnect elements to create a quick disconnect approximately located above the knee. This feature allows commonality of the lower portion of the suit (from the thigh disconnect down), making the lower legs common across two suit configurations. This suit must interface with the Orion vehicle seat subsystem, which includes seat components, lateral supports, and restraints. Due to the unique configuration of spacesuit mobility elements, combined with the need to provide occupant protection during dynamic vehicle events, risks have been identified with potential injury due to the suit characteristics described above. To address the risk concerns, a test series has been developed in coordination with the Injury Biomechanics Research Laboratory [IBRL] to evaluate the likelihood and consequences of these potential issues. Testing includes use of Anthropomorphic Test Devices [ATDs; vernacularly referred to as "crash test dummies"], Post Mortem Human Subjects [PMHS], and representative seat/suit hardware in combination with high linear acceleration events. The ensuing treatment focuses on test purpose and objectives; test hardware, facility, and setup; and preliminary results.

Dub, Mark O.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Development of the International Space Station (ISS) Fine Water Mist (FWM) Portable Fire Extinguisher

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is developing a Fine Water Mist (FWM) Portable Fire Extinguisher (PFE) for use on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS presently uses two different types of fire extinguishers: a water foam extinguisher in the Russian Segment, and a carbon dioxide extinguisher in the United States Orbital Segments, which include Columbus and Kibo pressurized elements. Currently, there are operational concerns with the emergency breathing equipment and the carbon dioxide extinguisher. The toxicity of the carbon dioxide requires the crew members to have an oxygen supply present during a fire event, therefore inherently creating an unsafe environment. The FWM PFE extinguishes a fire without creating a hazardous breathing environment for crew members. The following paper will discuss the unique functional and performance requirements that have been levied on the FWM PFE, identify unique microgravity design considerations for liquid and gas systems, as well as discuss the NASA ISS specific fire standards that were developed to establish an acceptable portable fire extinguisher s performance.

Rodriquez, Branelle↗
NASA NTRS2013

Pilot Subjective Assessments During an Investigation of Separation Function Allocation Using a Human-In-The-Loop Simulation

Two human-in-the-loop simulation experiments were conducted to investigate allocation of separation assurance functions between ground and air and between humans and automation. The experiments modeled a mixed-operations concept in which aircraft receiving ground-based separation services shared the airspace with aircraft providing their own separation service (i.e., self-separation). The two experiments, one pilot-focused and the other controller-focused, addressed selected key issues of mixed operations and modeling an emergence of NextGen technologies and procedures. This paper focuses on the results of the subjective assessments of pilots collected during the pilot-focused human-in-the-loop simulation, specifically workload and situation awareness. Generally the results revealed that across all conditions, pilots' perceived workload was low to medium, with the highest reported levels of workload occurring when the pilots experienced a loss of separation during the scenario. Furthermore, the results from the workload data and situation awareness data were complimentary such that when pilots reported lower levels of workload they also experienced higher levels of situation awareness.

Burke, Kelly A.↗