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This paper presents some new approaches which are required for a better adequacy of Mission Planning Systems. In particular, the performance flexibility and genericity issues are discussed based on experience acquired through various Mission Planning systems developed by Matra Marconi Space.
A computer program is described for calculating the flexibility coefficients as arm design changes are made for the remote manipulator system. The coefficients obtained are required as input for a second program which reduces the number of payload deployment and retrieval system simulation runs required to simulate the various remote manipulator system maneuvers. The second program calculates end effector flexibility and joint flexibility terms for the torque model of each joint for any arbitrary configurations. The listing of both programs is included in the appendix.
Control/Structures Integration program software needs, computer aided control engineering for flexible spacecraft, computer aided design, computational efficiency and capability, modeling and parameter estimation, and control synthesis and optimization software for flexible structures and robots are among the topics discussed.
The Control/Structures Integration Program, a survey of available software for control of flexible structures, computational efficiency and capability, modeling and parameter estimation, and control synthesis and optimization software are discussed.
This paper presents a general methodology for modeling the dynamics of a flexible structure which moves on the surface of another flexible structure. The relative motion of the two bodies need not follow a straight line, nor need the contact surfaces be planar in their undeformed state. A model reduction approach is also developed, which makes the methodology applicable to large structural systems. The Space Station Freedom Mobile Transporter represents one such system, when attached to the Shuttle Orbiter. Numerical examples are provided.
Prior research has led to the development of input command pre-shapers that can significantly reduce residual vibration. These shapers exhibit marked insensitivity to errors in natural frequency estimates and can be used to minimize vibration at more than one frequency. A method is outlined for the development of multiple mode input shapers. An examination is made of the results of shaper performance tests conducted on linear and non-linear computer models of MACE, an MIT/NASA experimental flexible structure.
A model reduction technique based on aggregation with respect to sensor and actuator influence functions rather than modes is presented for large systems of coupled second-order differential equations. Perturbation expressions which can predict the effects of spillover on both the reduced-order plant model and the neglected plant model are derived. For the special case of collocated actuators and sensors, these expressions lead to the derivation of constraints on the controller gains that are, given the validity of the perturbation technique, sufficient to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop system. A case study demonstrates the derivation of stabilizing controllers based on the present technique. The use of control and observation synthesis in modifying the dimension of the reduced-order plant model is also discussed. A numerical example is provided for illustration.
The software package PLATSIM provides efficient time and frequency domain analysis of large-order generic space platforms. PLATSIM can perform open-loop analysis or closed-loop analysis with linear or nonlinear control system models. PLATSIM exploits the particular form of sparsity of the plant matrices for very efficient linear and nonlinear time domain analysis, as well as frequency domain analysis. A new, original algorithm for the efficient computation of open-loop and closed-loop frequency response functions for large-order systems has been developed and is implemented within the package. Furthermore, a novel and efficient jitter analysis routine which determines jitter and stability values from time simulations in a very efficient manner has been developed and is incorporated in the PLATSIM package. In the time domain analysis, PLATSIM simulates the response of the space platform to disturbances and calculates the jitter and stability values from the response time histories. In the frequency domain analysis, PLATSIM calculates frequency response function matrices and provides the corresponding Bode plots. The PLATSIM software package is written in MATLAB script language. A graphical user interface is developed in the package to provide convenient access to its various features.
At Old Dominion University, we have built Aeronautical Telecommunication Network (ATN) Simulator with NASA being the fund provider. It provides a means to evaluate the impact of modified router scheduling algorithms on the network efficiency, to perform capacity studies on various network topologies and to monitor and study various aspects of ATN through graphical user interface (GUI). In this paper we describe briefly about the proposed ATN model and our abstraction of this model. Later we describe our simulator architecture highlighting some of the design specifications, scheduling algorithms and user interface. At the end, we have provided the results of performance studies on this simulator.
Flexible system of computer programs allows manipulation and retrieval of data related to patient care. System is written in version of FORTRAN developed for CDC-6600 computer.
An important characteristic of flexible multibody systems containing closed-loop topologies is that the component modes used to describe individual bodies will no longer be independent because of loop closure constraints. Thus, the issue of component modal selection becomes even more complicated. In addition, the foreshortening effect that has been studied extensively in the literature in the context of open-loop topologies will also be present in these constraint equations. Simulation results presented demonstrate the effects of modal selection and foreshortening on the dynamic response of closed-loop flexible systems.
The concepts behind operations engineering as applied to the requirements, design, development and testing of data processing systems are presented, together with the associated benefits. The objective of operations engineering is to reduce the overall life cycle costs by integrating operations experience with the development process. To achieve this goal, operations engineering seeks to reduce the development costs by that assuring operational requirements are incorporated into the design and development process as early as possible, and reduce the operational costs by decreasing operations staffing requirements and other related costs through improved system capabilities. The areas for improved system capabilities include: system recovery; data recovery; fault isolation; system operability; system flexibility; system automation; and system reporting. It is described how operations engineering is integrated with the development process, and the difficulties and misconceptions experienced in using operations engineering are discussed.
Flexibly programmable spacecraft data handling system, considering computer aided telemetry system for data acquisition and transmission
Flexible robotic systems for space applications need to use local information to guide their action in uncertain environments where the state of the environment and even the goals may change. They have to be tolerant of unexpected events and robust enough to carry their task to completion. Tactical goals should be modified while maintaining strategic goals. Furthermore, reactive robotic systems need to have a broader view of their environments than sensory-based systems. An architecture and a theory of representation extending the basic cycles of action and perception are described. This scheme allows for dynamic description of the environment and determining purposive and timely action. Applications of this scheme for assembly and repair tasks using a Universal Machine Intelligence RTX robot are being explored, but the ideas are extendable to other domains. The nature of reactivity for sensor-based robotic systems and implementation issues encountered in developing a prototype are discussed.
Flexible commutation system for routing numerous signal-carrying leads to centrally located multiplexer for Saturn
A computational procedure suitable for the solution of equations of motions for flexible multibody systems has been developed. The flexible beams are modeled using a fully nonlinear theory which accounts for both finite rotations and large deformations. The present formulation incorporates physical measures of conjugate Cauchy stress and covariant strain increments. As a consequence, the beam model can easily be interfaced with real-time strain measurements and feedback control systems. A distinct feature of the present work is the computational preservation of total energy for undamped systems; this is obtained via an objective strain increment/stress update procedure combined with an energy-conserving time integration algorithm which contains an accurate update of angular orientations. The procedure is demonstrated via several example problems.
A computational procedure suitable for the solution of equations of motions for flexible multibody systems has been developed. A fully nonlinear continuum approach capable of accounting for both finite rotations and large deformations has been used to model a flexible beam component. The beam kinematics are referred directly to an inertial reference frame such that the degrees of freedom embody both the rigid and flexible deformation motions. As such, the beam inertia expression is identical to that of rigid body dynamics. The nonlinear coupling between gross body motion and elastic deformation is contained in the internal force expression. Numerical solution procedures for the integration of spatial kinematic systems can be directily applied to the generalized coordinates of both the rigid and flexible components. An accurate computation of the internal force term which is invariant to rigid motions is incorporated into the general solution procedure.
Although significant advances have been made in modeling and controlling flexible systems, there remains a need for improvements in model accuracy and in control performance. The finite element models of flexible systems are unduly complex and are almost intractable to optimum parameter estimation for refinement using experimental data. Distributed parameter or continuum modeling offers some advantages and some challenges in both modeling and control. Continuum models often result in a significantly reduced number of model parameters, thereby enabling optimum parameter estimation. The dynamic equations of motion of continuum models provide the advantage of allowing the embedding of the control system dynamics, thus forming a complete set of system dynamics. There is also increased insight provided by the continuum model approach.