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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.

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At least 469 records · Page 26
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1972

The use of linear programming techniques to design optimal digital filters for pulse shaping and channel equalization

A time domain technique is developed to design finite-duration impulse response digital filters using linear programming. Two related applications of this technique in data transmission systems are considered. The first is the design of pulse shaping digital filters to generate or detect signaling waveforms transmitted over bandlimited channels that are assumed to have ideal low pass or bandpass characteristics. The second is the design of digital filters to be used as preset equalizers in cascade with channels that have known impulse response characteristics. Example designs are presented which illustrate that excellent waveforms can be generated with frequency-sampling filters and the ease with which digital transversal filters can be designed for preset equalization.

Houts, R. C.↗
NASA NTRS2015

An Expert System-Driven Method for Parametric Trajectory Optimization During Conceptual Design

During the early phases of engineering design, the costs committed are high, costs incurred are low, and the design freedom is high. It is well documented that decisions made in these early design phases drive the entire design's life cycle cost. In a traditional paradigm, key design decisions are made when little is known about the design. As the design matures, design changes become more difficult in both cost and schedule to enact. The current capability-based paradigm, which has emerged because of the constrained economic environment, calls for the infusion of knowledge usually acquired during later design phases into earlier design phases, i.e. bringing knowledge acquired during preliminary and detailed design into pre-conceptual and conceptual design. An area of critical importance to launch vehicle design is the optimization of its ascent trajectory, as the optimal trajectory will be able to take full advantage of the launch vehicle's capability to deliver a maximum amount of payload into orbit. Hence, the optimal ascent trajectory plays an important role in the vehicle's affordability posture yet little of the information required to successfully optimize a trajectory is known early in the design phase. Thus, the current paradigm of optimizing ascent trajectories involves generating point solutions for every change in a vehicle's design parameters. This is often a very tedious, manual, and time-consuming task for the analysts. Moreover, the trajectory design space is highly non-linear and multi-modal due to the interaction of various constraints. When these obstacles are coupled with the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST), an industry standard program to optimize ascent trajectories that is difficult to use, expert trajectory analysts are required to effectively optimize a vehicle's ascent trajectory. Over the course of this paper, the authors discuss a methodology developed at NASA Marshall's Advanced Concepts Office to address these issues. The methodology is two-fold: first, capture the heuristics developed by human analysts over their many years of experience; and secondly, leverage the power of modern computing to evaluate multiple trajectories simultaneously and therefore enable the exploration of the trajectory's design space early during the pre- conceptual and conceptual phases of design. This methodology is coupled with design of experiments in order to train surrogate models, which enables trajectory design space visualization and parametric optimal ascent trajectory information to be available when early design decisions are being made.

Dees, Patrick D.↗
DOE OSTI2021

CUDAMicroBench

CUDAMicroBench is a collection of fourteen microbenchmarks that demonstrate performance challenges in CUDA programming and techniques to optimize the CUDA programs to address these challenges. It also includes examples and techniques for using advanced CUDA features such as data shuffling between threads, dynamic parallelism, etc that can help users optimize the CUDA program for performance.

Liao, Chunhua↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tightest Mixed-Integer Programming Formulations for Quadratic SCUC Optimization

In this project, we developed new, tighter Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) formulations for the combined Alternating Current (AC) Security-Constrained Unit Commitment (SCUC) and Security-Constrained Optimal Power Flow (SCOPF). The work addresses a critical challenge in power system operations: efficiently determining which generation units to commit and how to optimally dispatch them while maintaining network reliability constraints for both normal and contingency scenarios. Our efforts: 1. Advance the Understanding of SCUC/SCOPF Modeling: By introducing tighter MIP formulations and leveraging cutting-edge optimization tools (Julia/JuMP, PowerModels.jl), this project has pushed forward the state of the art in efficient power systems scheduling. 2. Enhance Technical and Economic Feasibility: The methods developed provide more accurate and potentially faster solutions to large-scale, realistic scheduling and dispatch problems in electric power systems, which can translate into improved reliability and potentially lower costs for grid operations. 3. Benefit to the Public: Greater efficiency in power system operations leads to cost savings for utilities and end-users. Improved reliability and integration of advanced modeling approaches can facilitate the adoption of clean energy resources and better accommodate uncertainties in renewable generation. Because this technology could impact bulk power markets and reliability, these innovations have far-reaching public benefits in terms of cost savings, reliability, and sustainability.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2018

An Efficient Algorithm for Automatic Structure Optimization in X-ray Standing-Wave Experiments

We present that x-ray standing-wave photoemission experiments involving multilayered samples are emerging as unique probes of the buried interfaces that are ubiquitous in current device and materials research. Such data require for their analysis a structure optimization process comparing experiment to theory that is not straightforward. In this work, we present a new computer program for optimizing the analysis of standing-wave data, called SWOPT, that automates this trial-and-error optimization process. The program includes an algorithm that has been developed for computationally expensive problems: so-called black-box simulation optimizations. It also includes a more efficient version of the Yang X-ray Optics Program (YXRO) [Yang, S.-H., Gray, A.X., Kaiser, A.M., Mun, B.S., Sell, B.C., Kortright, J.B., Fadley, C.S., J. Appl. Phys. 113, 1 (2013)] which is about an order of magnitude faster than the original version. Human interaction is not required during optimization. We tested our optimization algorithm on real and hypothetical problems and show that it finds better solutions significantly faster than a random search approach. The total optimization time ranges, depending on the sample structure, from minutes to a few hours on a modern laptop computer, and can be up to 100x faster than a corresponding manual optimization. Finally, these speeds make the SWOPT program a valuable tool for realtime analyses of data during synchrotron experiments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Optimization with the OpenACC-to-FPGA framework on the Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGAs

The reconfigurable computing paradigm with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) has received renewed interest in the high-performance computing field due to FPGAs’ unique combination of performance and energy efficiency. However, difficulties in programming and optimizing FPGAs have prevented them from being widely accepted as general-purpose computing devices. In accelerator-based heterogeneous computing, portability across diverse heterogeneous devices is also an important issue, but the unique architectural features in FPGAs make this difficult to achieve. To address these issues, a directive-based, high-level FPGA programming and optimization framework was previously developed. In this work, developed optimizations were combined holistically using the directive-based approach to show that each individual benchmark requires a unique set of optimizations to maximize performance. We perform this exploration on Intel Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGAs. We also explored the relationships between performance, resource usages, and compilation times, and investigated implications for performance portability. Finally, we present an initial evaluation of a real-world proxy application, LULESH.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-T-787: Utility of the Two Candidate 192-Ir and 169-Yb HDR Sources for Use with a Novel Direction Modulated Brachytherapy Tandem Applicator for Cervical Cancer Treatment

Purpose: A novel tungsten alloy shielded, MRI-compatible, direction modulated brachytherapy (DMBT) concept tandem applicator, which enables unprecedented intensity modulation, was used to evaluate treatment plan quality improvement over a conventional tandem. The utility of the 192-Ir and 169-Yb HDR sources, for use with the DMBT applicator, was evaluated. Methods: The total diameter of the DMBT tandem applicator is 6.0 mm, which consists of 5.4-mm diameter tungsten alloy and 0.3 mm thick plastic sheath. The tandem has 6 symmetric peripheral 1.3-mm diameter grooves for the source to travel. MCNPX v.2.6 was used to simulate the 192-Ir and 169-Yb sources inside the DMBT applicator. First, TG-43 source parameters were evaluated. Second, 3D dose matrix with 1 mm3 resolution were imported into an in-house-coded inverse optimization treatment planning program to obtain optimal plans for 19 clinical cases. All plans were compared with the standard tandem and ring plans. Prescription dose was 15.0 Gy. All plans were normalized to receive the same HRCTV D90. Results: Generally, the DMBT tandem (and ring) plans were better than the conventional tandem and ring plans for 192-Ir and 169-Yb HDR sources. The mean data of D2cc for bladder, rectum, and sigmoid were 11.65±2.30 Gy, 7.47±3.05 Gy, and 9.84±2.48 Gy for Ir-192 DMBT tandem, respectively. These data for Yb-169 were 11.67±2.26 Gy, 7.44±3.02 Gy, and 9.83±2.38 Gy, respectively. The HR-CTV D98 and V100 were 16.37±1.86 Gy and 97.37 ± 1.92 Gy for Ir-192 DMBT, respectively. The corresponding values for Yb-169 were 16.43±1.86 Gy, and 97.51 ± 1.91 Gy. Plans with the 169-Yb source generally produced more favorable results where V100 increased by 13.65% while D2cc across all OARs reduced by 0.54% compared with the 192-Ir plans. Conclusion: For the DMBT tandem applicator, 169-Yb source seems to produce more directional beams resulting in increased intensity modulation capacity, thus resulting in more conformal plans.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1974

Space Tug systems study (storable). Volume 1: Overview presentation

Program plans are established for a storable propellant space tug used to perform high energy orbit transfers from the space transportation system (STS) orbiter. The mission model for the STS in the 1980's is analyzed. Performance and mission requirements are determined. Various flight operations modes are evaluated and selected. Subsystems are selected and synthesized into various tug configurations. Program options for these configurations are defined, analyzed, and selected. Selected program options are further defined and optimized, including program requirements, tug vehicle definition, mission accomplishment, ground and flight operations, programmatics and costs.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2014

Hyperion

The Hyperion system was designed to "look inside" an executable program and determine software's function or "behavior" without the use of the software's source code. Hyperion accomplishes this by generating associated program behaviors and the complete set of conditions under which they occur. These behaviors can be automatically checked for known malicious signatures and inspected by domain experts to assure correct operation and the absence of malicious content. Hyperion can also be used to check a program's security properties and to optimize a program.

Prowell, Stacy↗
NASA NTRS1974

A comparison of two types of structural optimization procedures for satisfying flutter requirements

A comparison is made of results obtained from mathematical programming and optimality criteria procedures for the minimum-mass design of typical aircraft wing structures to satisfy prescribed flutter requirements. The mathematical programming method is based on an interior penalty function approach. A rigorous optimality criterion and an intuitive optimality criterion based on uniform strain energy density are considered. An intuitive resizing procedure is used for both optimality criterion solutions. All results are calculated using the same computer program, changing only the optimization procedure. Both high- and low-aspect-ratio wings are examined. Finite elements are used for structural modeling, and the generalized coordinates for the flutter solution are based on the natural vibration modes of the structure.

Haftka, R. T.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Application of a neural network to simulate analysis in an optimization process

A new experimental software package called NETS/PROSSS aimed at reducing the computing time required to solve a complex design problem is described. The software combines a neural network for simulating the analysis program with an optimization program. The neural network is applied to approximate results of a finite element analysis program to quickly obtain a near-optimal solution. Results of the NETS/PROSSS optimization process can also be used as an initial design in a normal optimization process and make it possible to converge to an optimum solution with significantly fewer iterations.

Rogers, James L.↗
DOE OSTI2020

In-Depth Optimization with the OpenACC-to-FPGA Framework on an Arria 10 FPGA

The reconfigurable computing paradigm that uses field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) has received renewed interest in the high-performance computing field due to FPGAs' unique combination of performance and energy efficiency. However, difficulties in programming and optimizing FPGAs have prevented them from being widely accepted as general-purpose computing devices. In accelerator-based heterogeneous computing, portability across diverse heterogeneous devices is also an important issue, but the unique architectural features in FPGAs make this difficult to achieve. To address these issues, a directive-based, high-level FPGA programming and optimization framework was previously developed. In this work, developed optimizations were combined holistically using the directive-based approach to show that each individual benchmark requires a unique set of optimizations to maximize performance. The relationships between FPGA resource usages and runtime performance were also explored.

Lambert, Jacob↗
NASA NTRS1973

Program user's manual for optimizing the design of a liquid or gaseous propellant rocket engine with the automated combustor design code AUTOCOM

This computer program manual describes in two parts the automated combustor design optimization code AUTOCOM. The program code is written in the FORTRAN 4 language. The input data setup and the program outputs are described, and a sample engine case is discussed. The program structure and programming techniques are also described, along with AUTOCOM program analysis.

Reichel, R. H.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Optimal Power Flow for Distribution Systems under Uncertain Forecasts

The paper focuses on distribution systems featuring renewable energy sources and energy storage devices, and develops an optimal power flow (OPF) approach to optimize the system operation in spite of forecasting errors. The proposed method builds on a chance-constrained multi-period AC OPF formulation, where probabilistic constraints are utilized to enforce voltage regulation with a prescribed probability. To enable a computationally affordable solution approach, a convex reformulation of the OPF task is obtained by resorting to i) pertinent linear approximations of the power flow equations, and ii) convex approximations of the chance constraints. Particularly, the approximate chance constraints provide conservative bounds that hold for arbitrary distributions of the forecasting errors. An adaptive optimization strategy is then obtained by embedding the proposed OPF task into a model predictive control framework.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1975

Digital program for solving the linear stochastic optimal control and estimation problem

A computer program is described which solves the linear stochastic optimal control and estimation (LSOCE) problem by using a time-domain formulation. The LSOCE problem is defined as that of designing controls for a linear time-invariant system which is disturbed by white noise in such a way as to minimize a performance index which is quadratic in state and control variables. The LSOCE problem and solution are outlined; brief descriptions are given of the solution algorithms, and complete descriptions of each subroutine, including usage information and digital listings, are provided. A test case is included, as well as information on the IBM 7090-7094 DCS time and storage requirements.

Geyser, L. C.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Application of A Dual-Quaternion Six Degree-of-Freedom Guidance to Human-Scale Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing

Landing humans on Mars comes with many challenges, including the execution of a safe and precise entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence. Various NASA studies have shown that there are a variety of EDL guidance methods that potentially offer solutions to the human-scale EDL precision landing problem and work is ongoing to assess new and novel methods. As part of these ongoing studies, a dual-quaternion-based six degree-of-freedom guidance algorithm was implemented in the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II (POST2), a NASA-and industry-standard spacecraft trajectory and vehicle design tool. This algorithm considers both translational and rotational dynamics and casts the trajectory optimization problem as a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP) with various constraints at discrete nodes throughout the trajectory. The QCQP problem is solved via an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) approach, and the output is a discretized optimal trajectory. The guidance is applied to a NASA reference human-scale Mars EDL system, and results are compared and discussed.

Optimization↗