SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Raw Data”

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 415 records · Page 23

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS2005

A Testbed Demonstration of an Intelligent Archive in a Knowledge Building System

The last decade's influx of raw data and derived geophysical parameters from several Earth observing satellites to NASA data centers has created a data-rich environment for Earth science research and applications. While advances in hardware and information management have made it possible to archive petabytes of data and distribute terabytes of data daily to a broad community of users, further progress is necessary in the transformation of data into information, and information into knowledge that can be used in particular applications in order to realize the full potential of these valuable datasets. In examining what is needed to enable this progress in the data provider environment that exists today and is expected to evolve in the next several years, we arrived at the concept of an Intelligent Archive in context of a Knowledge Building System (IA/KBS). Our prior work and associated papers investigated usage scenarios, required capabilities, system architecture, data volume issues, and supporting technologies. We identified six key capabilities of an IA/KBS: Virtual Product Generation, Significant Event Detection, Automated Data Quality Assessment, Large-Scale Data Mining, Dynamic Feedback Loop, and Data Discovery and Efficient Requesting. Among these capabilities, large-scale data mining is perceived by many in the community to be an area of technical risk. One of the main reasons for this is that standard data mining research and algorithms operate on datasets that are several orders of magnitude smaller than the actual sizes of datasets maintained by realistic earth science data archives. Therefore, we defined a test-bed activity to implement a large-scale data mining algorithm in a pseudo-operational scale environment and to examine any issues involved. The application chosen for applying the data mining algorithm is wildfire prediction over the continental U.S. This paper reports a number of observations based on our experience with this test-bed. While proof-of-concept for data mining scalability and utility has been a major goal for the research reported here, it was not the only one. The other five capabilities of an WKBS named above have been considered as well, and an assessment of the implications of our experience for these other areas will also be presented. The lessons learned through the testbed effort and presented in this paper will benefit technologists, scientists, and system operators as they consider introducing IA/KBS capabilities into production systems.

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram↗

NASA NTRS1996

Backscatter for Ice Sheet 2 Growth Phase in the Winter 1994 Winter Sea Ice Experiment

None. This is raw data from a data set taken during the CRRELEX94 experiment. The data are polarimetric C-band radar measurements of a saline ice sheet grown in the outdoor Geophysical Research Facility at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab. See references for other descriptions of data.

sea ice ice sheet backscatter sea ice backscatter ↗

NASA NTRS2004

A Portable Universal Hazardous Gas Detector

Experimental work on the Miniature Mass Spectrometer (MMS) at JPL has resulted in a 'table top' configuration with a CCD detector that has demonstrated a detection limit of 50 parts per billion. The CCD detector operates at ambient temperature. Intelligent Ion, Inc., a commercial instrument developer, has taken out a license on the JPL technology and has built a prototype using a Faraday Cup Array detector as a placeholder detector. The prototype instrument was tested at Kennedy Space Center and demonstrated detection limits in the parts per million range. The test results are presented as well as detailed photographs of the prototype instrument. A presentation of the MMS was made to an expert review panel for 'On-Board Environmental Monitoring Systems for the International Space Station (ISS).' The scores obtained by the MMS system are presented. The prototype instrument will be retro fitted with a CCD array detector in August 2004 and will again be tested at KSC. The instrument is expected to show a detection level for hydrazines of 10 ppb and a detection level for solvents below 10 ppb.The expectations are based on raw data from the first batch of CCD's that was tested.

spacecraft fuels↗

NASA NTRS2007

Sources of and Remedies for Removing Unwanted Reflections in Millimeter Wave Images of Complex SOFI-Covered Structures

In the recent years, continuous-wave (CW) near-field and lens-focused millimeter wave imaging systems have been effectively. used to demonstrate their utility for producing high-resolution images of metallic structures covered with spray on foam insulation (SOFI) such as the space shuttle external tank. These systems have produced images with a spatial resolution of approximately 2 mm at a frequency of 150 GHz, and can easily interrogate thin as well as thick SOFI (> 9") enabling detection and evaluation of flaws such as voids, disbands, delaminations and corrosion. These systems are relatively simple, inexpensive, easy-to-use, require little to no signal processing of the raw data, on-site friendly, real-time and small. However, for some specific structures a certain interference pattern may be superimposed on the produced images. Generally, this occurs when the SOFI surface is at a relatively significant angle with respect to the surface of the substrate (or other sub-structures) on which it is sprayed. Consequently, the reflection from the surface of the SOFI and that from the substrate (or sub-structure) coherently combine into an interference pattern as the SOFI surface is scanned. There are methods by which the influence of this unwanted interference can be reduced, such as the incorporation of an incidence angle and the proper use of signal polarization. This paper presents the basics of this problem and describes the use of the methods for reducing this unwanted influence through several specific examples. A discussion on how the use of a swept-frequency or pulsed method may also alleviate this problem is also presented.

Khakovsky, S.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Arctic and Antarctic Analogs for Planetary Surface Traverses

The proposed paper summarizes the workshop presentations and discusses several of the key findings or lessons including: (1) A recognition that NASA s current approach for long duration planetary surface operations has fundamental differences from any of the operational approaches described by the invited speakers. These approaches drive the crew size and skill mix to accomplish basic objectives and, in turn, drive the logistical pyramid needed to support these operations. NASA will review the operational approaches of the organizations represented to understand the differentiating factors. NASA will then decide if it should alter its current approach to surface exploration. (2) There are potential parallels between key characteristics of the systems used for exploration in these environments, such as heated volume as an analog for pressurized volume or energy usage for various activities. NASA will look at these characteristics to identify which could help with preliminary planning and gather raw data from the presenters to model these characteristics. (3) New technologies are being applied and design approaches are being tailored to take advantage of these technologies on both side. Interactions between these two communities has begun or is expanding to understand how these new technologies are being leveraged: NASA habitation designers are exchanging ideas and approaches with the Antarctic station designers; Antarctic support

Hoffman, Stephen J.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Situational Awareness from a Low-Cost Camera System

A method gathers scene information from a low-cost camera system. Existing surveillance systems using sufficient cameras for continuous coverage of a large field necessarily generate enormous amounts of raw data. Digitizing and channeling that data to a central computer and processing it in real time is difficult when using low-cost, commercially available components. A newly developed system is located on a combined power and data wire to form a string-of-lights camera system. Each camera is accessible through this network interface using standard TCP/IP networking protocols. The cameras more closely resemble cell-phone cameras than traditional security camera systems. Processing capabilities are built directly onto the camera backplane, which helps maintain a low cost. The low power requirements of each camera allow the creation of a single imaging system comprising over 100 cameras. Each camera has built-in processing capabilities to detect events and cooperatively share this information with neighboring cameras. The location of the event is reported to the host computer in Cartesian coordinates computed from data correlation across multiple cameras. In this way, events in the field of view can present low-bandwidth information to the host rather than high-bandwidth bitmap data constantly being generated by the cameras. This approach offers greater flexibility than conventional systems, without compromising performance through using many small, low-cost cameras with overlapping fields of view. This means significant increased viewing without ignoring surveillance areas, which can occur when pan, tilt, and zoom cameras look away. Additionally, due to the sharing of a single cable for power and data, the installation costs are lower. The technology is targeted toward 3D scene extraction and automatic target tracking for military and commercial applications. Security systems and environmental/ vehicular monitoring systems are also potential applications.

Freudinger, Lawrence C.↗

NASA NTRS2010

HyspIRI Intelligent Payload Module(IPM) and Benchmarking Algorithms for Upload

Features: Hardware: a) Xilinx Virtex-5 (GSFC Space Cube 2); b) 2 x 400MHz PPC; c) 100MHz Bus; d) 2 x 512MB SDRAM; e) Dual Gigabit Ethernet. Support Linux kernel 2.6.31 (gcc version 4.2.2). Support software running in stand alone mode for better performance. Can stream raw data up to 800 Mbps. Ready for operations. Software Application Examples: Band-stripping Algiotrhmsl:cloud, sulfur, flood, thermal, SWIL, NDVI, NDWI, SIWI, oil spills, algae blooms, etc. Corrections: geometric, radiometric, atmospheric. Core Flight System/dynamic software bus. CCSDS File Delivery Protocol. Delay Tolerant Network. CASPER /onboard planning. Fault monitoring/recovery software. S/C command and telemetry software. Data compression. Sensor Web for Autonomous Mission Operations.

Mandl, Daniel↗

NASA NTRS2011

Automatic Generation of Overlays and Offset Values Based on Visiting Vehicle Telemetry and RWS Visuals

The development of computer software as a tool to generate visual displays has led to an overall expansion of automated computer generated images in the aerospace industry. These visual overlays are generated by combining raw data with pre-existing data on the object or objects being analyzed on the screen. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) uses this computer software to generate on-screen overlays when a Visiting Vehicle (VV) is berthing with the International Space Station (ISS). In order for Mission Control Center personnel to be a contributing factor in the VV berthing process, computer software similar to that on the ISS must be readily available on the ground to be used for analysis. In addition, this software must perform engineering calculations and save data for further analysis.

Dunne, Matthew J.↗

NASA NTRS2005

Predicting Numbers of Problems in Development of Software

A method has been formulated to enable prediction of the amount of work that remains to be performed in developing flight software for a spacecraft. The basic concept embodied in the method is that of using an idealized curve (specifically, the Weibull function) to interpolate from (1) the numbers of problems discovered thus far to (2) a goal of discovering no new problems after launch (or six months into the future for software already in use in orbit). The steps of the method can be summarized as follows: 1. Take raw data in the form of problem reports (PRs), including the dates on which they are generated. 2. Remove, from the data collection, PRs that are subsequently withdrawn or to which no response is required. 3. Count the numbers of PRs created in 1-week periods and the running total number of PRs each week. 4. Perform the interpolation by making a least-squares fit of the Weibull function to (a) the cumulative distribution of PRs gathered thus far and (b) the goal of no more PRs after the currently anticipated launch date. The interpolation and the anticipated launch date are subject to iterative re-estimation.

Simonds, Charles H.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Collaborative Software Development Approach Used to Deliver the New Shuttle Telemetry Ground Station

United Space Alliance (USA) developed and used a new software development method to meet technical, schedule, and budget challenges faced during the development and delivery of the new Shuttle Telemetry Ground Station at Kennedy Space Center. This method, called Collaborative Software Development, enabled KSC to effectively leverage industrial software and build additional capabilities to meet shuttle system and operational requirements. Application of this method resulted in reduced time to market, reduced development cost, improved product quality, and improved programmer competence while developing technologies of benefit to a small company in California (AP Labs Inc.). Many modifications were made to the baseline software product (VMEwindow), which improved its quality and functionality. In addition, six new software capabilities were developed, which are the subject of this article and add useful functionality to the VMEwindow environment. These new software programs are written in C or VXWorks and are used in conjunction with other ground station software packages, such as VMEwindow, Matlab, Dataviews, and PVWave. The Space Shuttle Telemetry Ground Station receives frequency-modulation (FM) and pulse-code-modulated (PCM) signals from the shuttle and support equipment. The hardware architecture (see figure) includes Sun workstations connected to multiple PCM- and FM-processing VersaModule Eurocard (VME) chassis. A reflective memory network transports raw data from PCM Processors (PCMPs) to the programmable digital-to-analog (D/A) converters, strip chart recorders, and analysis and controller workstations.

Kirby, Randy L.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Configuration Management (CM) Support for KM Processes at NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Collection and processing of information are critical aspects of every business activity from raw data to information to an executable decision. Configuration Management (CM) supports KM practices through its automated business practices and its integrated operations within the organization. This presentation delivers an overview of JSC/Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) and its methods to encourage innovation through collaboration and participation. Specifically, this presentation will illustrate how SLSD CM creates an embedded KM activity with an established IT platform to control and update baselines, requirements, documents, schedules, budgets, while tracking changes essentially managing critical knowledge elements.

Cioletti, Louis↗

NASA NTRS2012

Histogrammatic Method for Determining Relative Abundance of Input Gas Pulse

To satisfy the Major Constituents Analysis (MCA) requirements for the Vehicle Cabin Atmosphere Monitor (VCAM), this software analyzes the relative abundance ratios for N2, O2, Ar, and CO2 as a function of time and constructs their best-estimate mean. A histogram is first built of all abundance ratios for each of the species vs time. The abundance peaks corresponding to the intended measurement and any obfuscating background are then separated via standard peak-finding techniques in histogram space. A voting scheme is then used to include/exclude this particular time sample in the final average based on its membership to the intended measurement or the background population. This results in a robust and reasonable estimate of the abundance of trace components such as CO2 and Ar even in the presence of obfuscating backgrounds internal to the VCAM device. VCAM can provide a means for monitoring the air within the enclosed environments, such as the ISS (International Space Station), Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), a Lunar Habitat, or another vehicle traveling to Mars. Its miniature pre-concentrator, gas chromatograph (GC), and mass spectrometer can provide unbiased detection of a large number of organic species as well as MCA analysis. VCAM s software can identify the concentration of trace chemicals and whether the chemicals are on a targeted list of hazardous compounds. This innovation s performance and reliability on orbit, along with the ground team s assessment of its raw data and analysis results, will validate its technology for future use and development.

Mandrake, Lukas↗

NASA NTRS2012

Broad-Bandwidth FPGA-Based Digital Polyphase Spectrometer

With present concern for ecological sustainability ever increasing, it is desirable to model the composition of Earth s upper atmosphere accurately with regards to certain helpful and harmful chemicals, such as greenhouse gases and ozone. The microwave limb sounder (MLS) is an instrument designed to map the global day-to-day concentrations of key atmospheric constituents continuously. One important component in MLS is the spectrometer, which processes the raw data provided by the receivers into frequency-domain information that cannot only be transmitted more efficiently, but also processed directly once received. The present-generation spectrometer is fully analog. The goal is to include a fully digital spectrometer in the next-generation sensor. In a digital spectrometer, incoming analog data must be converted into a digital format, processed through a Fourier transform, and finally accumulated to reduce the impact of input noise. While the final design will be placed on an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), the building of these chips is prohibitively expensive. To that end, this design was constructed on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). A family of state-of-the-art digital Fourier transform spectrometers has been developed, with a combination of high bandwidth and fine resolution. Analog signals consisting of radiation emitted by constituents in planetary atmospheres or galactic sources are downconverted and subsequently digitized by a pair of interleaved analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). This 6-Gsps (gigasample per second) digital representation of the analog signal is then processed through an FPGA-based streaming fast Fourier transform (FFT). Digital spectrometers have many advantages over previously used analog spectrometers, especially in terms of accuracy and resolution, both of which are particularly important for the type of scientific questions to be addressed with next-generation radiometers.

Jamot, Robert F.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Ka-band Digitally Beamformed Airborne Radar Using SweepSAR Technique

A paper describes a frequency-scaled SweepSAR demonstration that operates at Ka-Band (35.6 GHz), and closely approximates the DESDynl mission antenna geometry, scaled by 28. The concept relies on the SweepSAR measurement technique. An array of digital receivers captures waveforms from a multiplicity of elements. These are combined using digital beamforming in elevation and SAR processing to produce imagery. Ka-band (35.6 GHz) airborne SweepSAR using array-fed reflector and digital beamforming features eight simultaneous receive beams generated by a 40-cm offset-fed reflector and eight-element active array feed, and eight digital receiver channels with all raw data recorded and later used for beamforming. Illumination of the swath is accomplished using a slotted-waveguide antenna radiating 250 W peak power. This experiment has been used to demonstrate digital beamforming SweepSAR systems.

Sadowy, Gregory A.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Airborne Tomographic Swath Ice Sounding Processing System

Glaciers and ice sheets modulate global sea level by storing water deposited as snow on the surface, and discharging water back into the ocean through melting. Their physical state can be characterized in terms of their mass balance and dynamics. To estimate the current ice mass balance, and to predict future changes in the motion of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, it is necessary to know the ice sheet thickness and the physical conditions of the ice sheet surface and bed. This information is required at fine resolution and over extensive portions of the ice sheets. A tomographic algorithm has been developed to take raw data collected by a multiple-channel synthetic aperture sounding radar system over a polar ice sheet and convert those data into two-dimensional (2D) ice thickness measurements. Prior to this work, conventional processing techniques only provided one-dimensional ice thickness measurements along profiles.

Wu, Xiaoqing↗

NASA NTRS2008

Smart Networked Elements in Support of ISHM

At the core of ISHM is the ability to extract information and knowledge from raw data. Conventional data acquisition systems sample and convert physical measurements to engineering units, which higher-level systems use to derive health and information about processes and systems. Although health management is essential at the top level, there are considerable advantages to implementing health-related functions at the sensor level. The distribution of processing to lower levels reduces bandwidth requirements, enhances data fusion, and improves the resolution for detection and isolation of failures in a system, subsystem, component, or process. The Smart Networked Element (SNE) has been developed to implement intelligent functions and algorithms at the sensor level in support of ISHM.

Oostdyk, Rebecca↗

NASA NTRS2013

VERA Geodetic Activities

This report briefly describes the geodetic activities of VERA in the year 2012. The regular geodetic observations are carried out both in K- and S/X-bands. The frequency of regular observations is three times a month-twice for the VERA internal observations in K-band. The networks of the S/X sessions are JADE of GSI and IVS-T2. The raw data of the T2 and JADE sessions are electronically transferred to the Bonn, Haystack, and GSI correlators via Internet. Gravimetric observations are carried out at the VERA stations. An SG was installed at Mizusawa and placed in the vicinity of the VERA antenna in order to monitor vertical displacement at the end of 2008, and the observations continued throughout the year. Also at the VERA-Ishigakijima station, continuous operation of the SG started in 2012. The crustal movements generated by the 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku continued during 2012, and displacement of the VERA-Mizusawa position by post-seismic creeping continued.

Jike, Takaaki↗

NASA NTRS2015

Improved Detection System Description and New Method for Accurate Calibration of Micro-Channel Plate Based Instruments and Its Use in the Fast Plasma Investigation on NASA's Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission

The Fast Plasma Investigation (FPI) on NASAs Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) mission employs 16 Dual Electron Spectrometers (DESs) and 16 Dual Ion Spectrometers (DISs) with 4 of each type on each of 4 spacecraft to enable fast (30 ms for electrons; 150 ms for ions) and spatially differentiated measurements of the full 3D particle velocity distributions. This approach presents a new and challenging aspect to the calibration and operation of these instruments on ground and in flight. The response uniformity, the reliability of their calibration and the approach to handling any temporal evolution of these calibrated characteristics all assume enhanced importance in this application, where we attempt to understand the meaning of particle distributions within the ion and electron diffusion regions of magnetically reconnecting plasmas. Traditionally, the micro-channel plate (MCP) based detection systems for electrostatic particle spectrometers have been calibrated using the plateau curve technique. In this, a fixed detection threshold is set. The detection system count rate is then measured as a function of MCP voltage to determine the MCP voltage that ensures the count rate has reached a constant value independent of further variation in the MCP voltage. This is achieved when most of the MCP pulse height distribution (PHD) is located at higher values (larger pulses) than the detection system discrimination threshold. This method is adequate in single-channel detection systems and in multi-channel detection systems with very low crosstalk between channels. However, in dense multi-channel systems, it can be inadequate. Furthermore, it fails to fully describe the behavior of the detection system and individually characterize each of its fundamental parameters. To improve this situation, we have developed a detailed phenomenological description of the detection system, its behavior and its signal, crosstalk and noise sources. Based on this, we have devised a new detection system calibration method that enables accurate and repeatable measurement and calibration of MCP gain, MCP efficiency, signal loss due to variation in gain and efficiency, crosstalk from effects both above and below the MCP, noise margin, and stability margin in one single measurement. More precise calibration is highly desirable as the instruments will produce higher quality raw data that will require less post-acquisition data correction using results from in-flight pitch angle distribution measurements and ground calibration measurements. The detection system description and the fundamental concepts of this new calibration method, named threshold scan, will be presented. It will be shown how to derive all the individual detection system parameters and how to choose the optimum detection system operating point. This new method has been successfully applied to achieve a highly accurate calibration of the DESs and DISs of the MMS mission. The practical application of the method will be presented together with the achieved calibration results and their significance. Finally, it will be shown that, with further detailed modeling, this method can be extended for use in flight to achieve and maintain a highly accurate detection system calibration across a large number of instruments during the mission.

detection system↗