Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “End user”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Preliminary Design of an 'Autonomous Medical Response Agent' Interface Prototype for Long Duration Spaceflight

Major challenges for astronauts in future long-duration exploration missions (LDEMs) will be that crewmembers are not expected to be medical professionals, may be under high workload and stress, are facing physiological challenges caused by spaceflight, and will have limited, delayed voice communications with medical support from Earth. An autonomous medical response agent (AMRA) is envisioned to help astronauts address medical complaints, develop a differential diagnosis, and guide self-treatment until a healthy state is restored. AMRA develops a process of personalized diagnosis and treatment through a Bayesian predictive control system that recommends therapeutic control actions including diagnostic tests and treatments to crewmembers (Menon, 2020). The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) lab from NASA Ames Research Center’s Human Systems Integration Division (Code TH) has collaborated with Nahlia Inc in human-centered design augmentation research for AMRA. The project, titled Design of ‘Autonomous Medical Response Agent Interface Prototype for Long Duration Spaceflight, has been funded by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) and introduces an interactive user-interface prototype that guides astronauts through self-diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation while communicating with remote specialists in ground support (most notably a patient’s flight surgeon). Our project develops the interaction design for the crewmember using AMRA through user research, iterative design, and usability testing to evaluate the user interface and workflow designed. The interface design deliverable for this project, titled AMRA Aggregate Information Display (AMRA AID) is an integrated information display system for comprehensive autonomous medical guidance, diagnosis, and treatment of in-flight medical conditions experienced by crewmembers. AMRA AID demonstrates how we might ensure crew autonomy, increase the crew’s medical capabilities, and decrease cognitive burden within a front-end user interface. AMRA AID refrains from relying on input from ground or mission control for self-treatment of medical issues—though ground awareness and communication with ground is maintained as a means of ensuring trust between mission control and crew. AMRA AID demonstrates how the crew’s on-board medical system might integrate with information from vehicle monitoring and crew schedule, without assuming causal relationships. AMRA AID’s comprehensive view enables efficient information access for both crew and ground support, reducing cognitive burden in the event of an unplanned or emergency medical incident and enabling informed analytical decisions to be made based on both crew and vehicle health. Human-centered design augmentation advanced within the prototype included: enhanced workflow and treatment guidance for two medical scenarios for a non-specialist user base with various levels of medical training, interaction design which considered speech (conversational user interface) elements and on-screen interactions to be developed in future iterations of the project, communication design and functional requirements relevant to self-care versus caring for another astronaut, as well as user testing of the prototype with an international space medical community. This project arrives at critical findings regarding usability needs, communication requirements, and integrated information requirements for a future technology interface functioning to increase confidence between ground support and LDEM crewmembers.

TRISH↗
NASA NTRS1989

Integrating NASA's Land Analysis System (LAS) image processing software with an appropriate Geographic Information System (GIS): A review of candidates in the public domain

A user requirements analysis (URA) was undertaken to determine and appropriate public domain Geographic Information System (GIS) software package for potential integration with NASA's LAS (Land Analysis System) 5.0 image processing system. The necessity for a public domain system was underscored due to the perceived need for source code access and flexibility in tailoring the GIS system to the needs of a heterogenous group of end-users, and to specific constraints imposed by LAS and its user interface, Transportable Applications Executive (TAE). Subsequently, a review was conducted of a variety of public domain GIS candidates, including GRASS 3.0, MOSS, IEMIS, and two university-based packages, IDRISI and KBGIS. The review method was a modified version of the GIS evaluation process, development by the Federal Interagency Coordinating Committee on Digital Cartography. One IEMIS-derivative product, the ALBE (AirLand Battlefield Environment) GIS, emerged as the most promising candidate for integration with LAS. IEMIS (Integrated Emergency Management Information System) was developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). ALBE GIS is currently under development at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Engineering Topographic Laboratory (ETL). Accordingly, recommendations are offered with respect to a potential LAS/ALBE GIS linkage and with respect to further system enhancements, including coordination with the development of the Spatial Analysis and Modeling System (SAMS) GIS in Goddard's IDM (Intelligent Data Management) developments in Goddard's National Space Science Data Center.

Rochon, Gilbert L.↗
NASA NTRS2001

The Paperless Solution

REI Systems, Inc. developed a software solution that uses the Internet to eliminate the paperwork typically required to document and manage complex business processes. The data management solution, called Electronic Handbooks (EHBs), is presently used for the entire SBIR program processes at NASA. The EHB-based system is ideal for programs and projects whose users are geographically distributed and are involved in complex management processes and procedures. EHBs provide flexible access control and increased communications while maintaining security for systems of all sizes. Through Internet Protocol- based access, user authentication and user-based access restrictions, role-based access control, and encryption/decryption, EHBs provide the level of security required for confidential data transfer. EHBs contain electronic forms and menus, which can be used in real time to execute the described processes. EHBs use standard word processors that generate ASCII HTML code to set up electronic forms that are viewed within a web browser. EHBs require no end-user software distribution, significantly reducing operating costs. Each interactive handbook simulates a hard-copy version containing chapters with descriptions of participants' roles in the online process.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2013

Fuel Cell Power Model Version 2: Startup Guide, System Designs, and Case Studies. Modeling Electricity, Heat, and Hydrogen Generation from Fuel Cell-Based Distributed Energy Systems

This guide helps users get started with the U.S. Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory Fuel Cell Power (FCPower) Model Version 2, which is a Microsoft Excel workbook that analyzes the technical and economic aspects of high-temperature fuel cell-based distributed energy systems with the aim of providing consistent, transparent, comparable results. This type of energy system would provide onsite-generated heat and electricity to large end users such as hospitals and office complexes. The hydrogen produced could be used for fueling vehicles or stored for later conversion to electricity.

08 HYDROGEN↗
NASA NTRS1980

Costs and benefits to industry of online literature searches

A description is given of a client survey conducted by the NASA Industrial Application Center, U.S.C., examining user-identified dollar costs and benefits of an online computerized literature search. Telephone interviews were conducted on a random sample of clients using a Denver Research Institute questionnaire. Of the total 159 clients surveyed, over 53% identified dollar benefits. A direct relationship between client dollars invested and benefits derived from the search was shown. The ratio of dollar benefit to investment dollar averaged 2.9 to 1. Precise data on the end user's evaluation of the dollar value of an information search are presented.

Jensen, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1993

NASA Electronic Library System (NELS): The system impact of security

This paper discusses security issues as they relate to the NASA Electronic Library System which is currently in use as the repository system for AdaNET System Version 3 (ASV3) being operated by MountainNET, Inc. NELS was originally designed to provide for public, development, and secure collections and objects. The secure feature for collections and objects was deferred in the initial system for implementation at a later date. The NELS system is now 9 months old and many lessons have been learned about the use and maintenance of library systems. MountainNET has 9 months of experience in operating the system and gathering feedback from the ASV3 user community. The user community has expressed an interest in seeing security features implemented in the current system. The time has come to take another look at the whole issue of security for the NELS system. Two requirements involving security have been put forth by MountainNET for the ASV3 system. The first is to incorporate at the collection level a security scheme to allow restricted access to collections. This should be invisible to end users and be controlled by librarians. The second is to allow inclusion of applications which can be executed only by a controlled group of users; for example, an application which can be executed by librarians only. The requirements provide a broad framework in which to work. These requirements raise more questions than answers. To explore the impact of these requirements a top down approach will be used.

Mcgregor, Terry L.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Easy and Accessible Imaging Software

DATASTAR, Inc., of Picayune, Mississippi, has taken NASA s award-winning Earth Resources Laboratory Applications Software (ELAS) program and evolved it into a user-friendly desktop application and Internet service to perform processing, analysis, and manipulation of remotely sensed imagery data. NASA s Stennis Space Center developed ELAS in the early 1980s to process satellite and airborne sensor imagery data of the Earth s surface into readable and accessible information. Since then, ELAS information has been applied worldwide to determine soil content, rainfall levels, and numerous other variances of topographical information. However, end-users customarily had to depend on scientific or computer experts to provide the results, because the imaging processing system was intricate and labor intensive.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2024

Improving and Automating Building Model Data Exchange

There are many instances throughout a project’s lifecycle where there arises a need for quick and accurate risk assessment of building designs. For example, an unexpected design change during construction may necessitate structural engineers to perform a seismic risk assessment on analytical models of the updated building design using high fidelity structural analysis software, such as ANSYS or Abaqus. However, the efficiency of such workflows often depends upon the interoperability of architectural design software and structural analysis software. When the quality of this interoperability is lacking or even non-existent, the efficiency of virtual engineering workflows is hampered, which increases project costs. A McGraw Hill industry survey of professional users of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies found that there is high demand for BIM interoperability for structural analysis, but that the value/difficulty ratio is currently too low for practical use. There have been efforts by the academic community to facilitate model data exchange between the architectural design and structural analysis domains, but such solutions have not been widely adopted by industry, face technical challenges, and oftentimes are limited in applicability for users of various BIM software. Therefore, INL is developing capabilities to improve, automate, and generalize model data exchange between architectural BIM software (e.g., Revit) and structural analysis software (e.g., SAP2000, ANSYS). The goal is to help expedite and automate as much of the pre-processing step for creating analytical models in finite element analysis software as reasonably as possible. Such a "BIM-to-FEA" conversion tool should provide direct benefit to end-users through accuracy, automation, quick turn-around, and wide applicability. To generalize the application of this BIM-to-FEA conversion tool and increase its useability among the many different commercial BIM software currently used by industry, the program is being developed with the concept of openBIM. OpenBIM is the application of non-proprietary, open data standards that allow for BIM model data exchange in a format that is accessible, retainable, and useable for all users. The most widely used open, non-proprietary data exchange format for BIM is the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema. IFC is developed by buildingSMART international and is ISO certified (ISO 16739-1:2018). The BIM-to-FEA conversion tool is being developed for compatibility with typical commercial building designs of steel framed structures. The tool is currently capable of importing architectural BIM data of framed building structures, recognizing and extracting the aspects of the model that are required for structural analysis, adjusting the connectivity of frame members, and finally exporting to an analytical model stored in the IFC format. The exported IFC analytical model can then be imported into various openBIM compliant software, such as SAP2000. Such capabilities have already been tested on commercial software, as shown above, and continue to be improved. Work is underway to test the conversion on various commercial BIM software, develop a user-friendly interface, incorporate the program into the broader DeepLynx data warehouse project being developed by INL, and to eventually open-source the tool for the benefit of the community. Future development of the tool envisions the ability for efficient iterative risk assessment of generative building designs, all within a workflow utilizing open-source tools. One such open-source tool will be MOOSE, an advanced finite element analysis tool developed at INL. The conversion tool will also branch out from typical commercial building designs and will aim to incorporate nuclear construction. The aim will be to convert both structural and non-structural components of nuclear facilities, such as curved concrete containment structures and piping systems, respectively.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

MCR Container Tools

MathWorks' MATLAB is widely used in academia and industry for prototyping, data analysis, data processing, etc. Many users compile their programs using the MATLAB Compiler to run on workstations/computing clusters via the free MATLAB Compiler Runtime (MCR). The MCR facilitates the execution of code calling Application Programming Interfaces (API) functions from both base MATLAB and MATLAB toolboxes. In a Linux environment, a sizable number of third-party runtime dependencies (i.e. shared libraries) are necessary. Unfortunately, to the MTLAB community's knowledge, these dependencies are not documented, leaving system administrators and/or end-users to find/install the necessary libraries either as runtime errors resulting from them missing or by inspecting the header information of Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) libraries of the MCR to determine which ones are missing from the system. To address various shortcomings, Docker Images based on Community Enterprise Operating System (CentOS) 7, a derivative of Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7, containing recent (2015-2017) MCR releases and their dependencies were created. These images, along with a provided sample Docker Compose YAML Script, can be used to create a simulated computing cluster where MATLAB Compiler created binaries can be executed using a sample Slurm Workload Manager script.

Haas, NicholasQ↗
DOE OSTI2020

VENTSAR V3.0: A Python GUI for Estimating Contaminant Concentrations on or Near Buildings Due to Building Effects and Plume Rise and For Calculating Inhalation and Plume Shine Doses

VENTSAR: Originated as VENTAX (Smith and Weber 1983) on the IBM Mainframe at the Savannah River Site (SRS) as a Fortran program. Updated to VENTSAR XL V1.0 (Simpkins 1997) as a spreadsheet version using macros created in Microsoft Excel. Later updated to VENTSAR XL V2.0 (Dixon 2018) as a spreadsheet executing a modified version of the original VENTAX Fortran code. Estimates contaminant concentrations on or near a building from a release at a nearby location. Calculates concentrations for a given meteorological exceedance probability or for a given stability and wind speed combination. Can model a single building with or without a penthouse on top or a ground location from either a stack or ground release. Plume rise can be considered. Contaminant releases can be chemical or radioactive with downwind concentrations determined at user-specified distances. Wind passing over and around buildings creates a complicated dispersion pattern. Air-intake vents may be located on building roofs or near the ground downwind of a release source. An estimation of pollutant concentrations on or near a structure is important in determining expected pollutant levels. Meteorological data are selected based on a specific area of the site. Fortran-based VENTAX able to make fast, complex mathematical calculations. Not user-friendly VENTSAR XL V1.0 no longer supported due to obsolete Excel macros. VENTSAR XL V2.0 an interim solution using an Excel spreadsheet to interface with the modified VENTAX Fortran code. Requires user to have Microsoft Excel. Not an intuitive interface for someone unfamiliar with VENTSAR. Does not perform dose calculations. VENTSAR V3.0 goal to combine the strengths of previous versions of VENTSAR into a single, powerful yet user-friendly program with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Not dependent upon a specific program or plug-ins. Self-contained package to be used on any computer running Microsoft Windows. User-friendly, intuitive GUI created in Python for parameter input. Executes same modified VENTAX Fortran code as VENTSAR XL V2.0. Outputs formatted text file of completed calculations for easy review and dissemination. Performs inhalation and plume shine dose calculations for up to 11 user-selected nuclides from a nuclide dose factor library of almost 500 nuclides. 12 test cases were created for verification of V1.0 and V2.0. Same test cases run in V3.0 to verify correct performance. V3.0 produced similar results to V1.0. Confirmed GUI did not alter calculations in any way. Comparisons of the test case results confirm the V3.0 GUI does not influence the VENTSAR calculations. Simply passes same input parameters to VENTAX Fortran code for execution. Provides end user an easy-to-use, intuitive tool to quickly make building effect and plume rise calculations, as well as, inhalation and plume shine dose calculations. No experience with or working knowledge of Fortran, Excel, command line, or macros required. Self-contained package allows VENTSAR be deployed to any Windows computer without the need for specific programs or plug-ins.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
NASA NTRS1986

Remote access for NAS: Supercomputing in a university environment

The experiment was designed to assist the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Project Office in the testing and evaluation of long haul communications for remote users. The objectives of this work were to: (1) use foreign workstations to remotely access the NAS system; (2) provide NAS with a link to a large university-based computing facility which can serve as a model for a regional node of the Long-Haul Communications Subsystem (LHCS); and (3) provide a tail circuit to the University of Colorado a Boulder thereby simulating the complete communications path from NAS through a regional node to an end-user.

Johnson, G.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Parametric Mechanism Design Through Numerical Optimization and Physics Simulation

Design-Build-Test approaches for developing spaceflight hardware are prohibitively time and cost intensive and often lead to suboptimal mechanism designs. Approaches that couple machine learning and high-fidelity physics simulation could eliminate the need for hardware prototyping and dramatically accelerate the engineering design cycle, ultimately reducing cost. This work presents a modular NASA-developed toolchain to optimize hardware mechanisms in a virtual environment using numerical optimization and multi-body physics simulation. The toolchain enables multi-objective optimization, generates parametric CAD files that can be further post-processed by an end user, and can be expanded to optimize full systems and non-mechanical parameters such as feedback control variables. We demonstrate the toolchain through an independently verifiable design problem that optimizes wheel radius to achieve a desired linear velocity in a rigid-body physics environment when the wheel rotates at a constant angular speed, and then post-process the parametric CAD file of the optimal design generated by the tool before ultimately manufacturing it via 3D printing. We end with a discussion of how the toolchain can incorporate other analysis tools, including finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and granular media simulations.

Optimization↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Optimization-Based Toolchain for Parametric Mechanism Design

Design-Build-Test approaches for developing spaceflight hardware are prohibitively time and cost intensive and often lead to suboptimal mechanism designs. Approaches that couple machine learning and high-fidelity physics simulation could eliminate the need for hardware prototyping and dramatically accelerate the engineering design cycle, ultimately reducing cost. This work presents a modular NASA-developed toolchain to optimize hardware mechanisms in a virtual environment using numerical optimization and multi-body physics simulation. The toolchain enables multi-objective optimization, generates parametric CAD files that can be further post-processed by an end user, and can be expanded to optimize full systems and non-mechanical parameters such as feedback control variables. We demonstrate the toolchain through an independently verifiable design problem that optimizes wheel radius to achieve a desired linear velocity in a rigid-body physics environment when the wheel rotates at a constant angular speed, and then post-process the parametric CAD file of the optimal design generated by the tool before ultimately manufacturing it via 3D printing. We end with a discussion of how the toolchain can incorporate other analysis tools, including finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and granular media simulations.

Optimization↗
NASA NTRS2023

Improved Space Weather Observations and Modeling for Aviation Radiation

In recent years there has been a growing interest from the aviation community for space weather radiation forecasts tailored to the needs of the aviation industry. In 2019 several space weather centers began issuing advisories for the International Civil Aviation Organization alerting users to enhancements in the radiation environment at aviation flight levels. Due to a lack of routine observations, radiation modeling is required to specify the dose rates experienced by flight crew and passengers. While mature models exist, support for key observational inputs and further modeling advancements are needed. Observational inputs required from the ground-based neutron monitor network must be financially supported for research studies and operations to ensure real-time data is available for forecast operations and actionable end user decision making. An improved understanding of the geomagnetic field is required to reduce dose rate uncertainties in regions close to the open/closed geomagnetic field boundary, important for flights such as those between the continental US and Europe which operate in this region. Airborne radiation measurements, which are crucial for model validation and improvement, are lacking, particularly during solar energetic particle events. New measurement campaigns must be carried out to ensure progress and in situ atmospheric radiation measurements made available for real-time situational awareness. Furthermore, solar energetic particle forecasting must be improved to move aviation radiation nowcasts to forecasts in order to meet customer requirements for longer lead times for planning and mitigation.

space weather↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enabling API Access to the Space Weather Services at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center

Over the span of 20 years, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC, https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov) has been leading a number of community-driven services and applications that provide a free and open access to the cutting-edge space weather and Heliophysics models through a simple web-based interface. CCMC also oversees an open archive of user model simulations and related metadata, maintains space weather-related data streams, curates validation and event datasets, and more. To maximize utility of its complementary services and data holdings, CCMC has been gradually building up an ad-hoc set of interfaces and specifications that facilitate coupling and interconnection within the organization, while also simplifying management and monitoring of the data. As the models continue to grow in maturity and complexity, CCMC is looking to reduce the complexity for its end users by making public some of the internal APIs as well as implementing dedicated interfaces as required by the community. In this presentation, we will overview the current run services at CCMC and will describe our current and near-future efforts in providing interfaces to these services.

space weather↗
DOE OSTI2016

Wind power forecasting: IEA Wind Task 36 & future research issues

Here, this paper presents the new International Energy Agency Wind Task 36 on Forecasting, and invites to collaborate within the group. Wind power forecasts have been used operatively for over 20 years. Despite this fact, there are still several possibilities to improve the forecasts, both from the weather prediction side and from the usage of the forecasts. The new International Energy Agency (IEA) Task on Forecasting for Wind Energy tries to organise international collaboration, among national meteorological centres with an interest and/or large projects on wind forecast improvements (NOAA, DWD, MetOffice, met.no, DMI,...), operational forecaster and forecast users. The Task is divided in three work packages: Firstly, a collaboration on the improvement of the scientific basis for the wind predictions themselves. This includes numerical weather prediction model physics, but also widely distributed information on accessible datasets. Secondly, we will be aiming at an international pre-standard (an IEA Recommended Practice) on benchmarking and comparing wind power forecasts, including probabilistic forecasts. This WP will also organise benchmarks, in cooperation with the IEA Task WakeBench. Thirdly, we will be engaging end users aiming at dissemination of the best practice in the usage of wind power predictions. As first results, an overview of current issues for research in short-term forecasting of wind power is presented.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2011

A Hyperbolic Ontology Visualization Tool for Model Application Programming Interface Documentation

Spacecraft modeling, a critically important portion in validating planned spacecraft activities, is currently carried out using a time consuming method of mission to mission model implementations and integration. A current project in early development, Integrated Spacecraft Analysis (ISCA), aims to remedy this hindrance by providing reusable architectures and reducing time spent integrating models with planning and sequencing tools. The principle objective of this internship was to develop a user interface for an experimental ontology-based structure visualization of navigation and attitude control system modeling software. To satisfy this, a number of tree and graph visualization tools were researched and a Java based hyperbolic graph viewer was selected for experimental adaptation. Early results show promise in the ability to organize and display large amounts of spacecraft model documentation efficiently and effectively through a web browser. This viewer serves as a conceptual implementation for future development but trials with both ISCA developers and end users should be performed to truly evaluate the effectiveness of continued development of such visualizations.

mission operations system (MOS)↗
DOE OSTI2014

Sampling Approaches for Multi-Domain Internet Performance Measurement Infrastructures

The next-generation of high-performance networks being developed in DOE communities are critical for supporting current and emerging data-intensive science applications. The goal of this project is to investigate multi-domain network status sampling techniques and tools to measure/analyze performance, and thereby provide “network awareness” to end-users and network operators in DOE communities. We leverage the infrastructure and datasets available through perfSONAR, which is a multi-domain measurement framework that has been widely deployed in high-performance computing and networking communities; the DOE community is a core developer and the largest adopter of perfSONAR. Our investigations include development of semantic scheduling algorithms, measurement federation policies, and tools to sample multi-domain and multi-layer network status within perfSONAR deployments. We validate our algorithms and policies with end-to-end measurement analysis tools for various monitoring objectives such as network weather forecasting, anomaly detection, and fault-diagnosis. In addition, we develop a multi-domain architecture for an enterprise-specific perfSONAR deployment that can implement monitoring-objective based sampling and that adheres to any domain-specific measurement policies.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗