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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2004

A Universal Formula for Extracting the Euler Angles

Recently, the authors completed a study of the Davenport angles, which are a generalization of the Euler angles for which the initial and final Euler axes need not be either mutually parallel or mutually perpendicular or even along the coordinate axes. During the conduct of that study, those authors discovered a relationship which can be used to compute straightforwardly the Euler angles characterizing a proper-orthogonal direction-cosine matrix for an arbitrary Euler-axis set satisfying n(sub 1) x n(sub 2) = 0 and n(sub 3) x n(sub 1) = 0, which is also satisfied by the more usual Euler angles we encounter commonly in the practice of Astronautics. Rather than leave that relationship hidden in an article with very different focus from the present Engineering note, we present it and the universal algorithm derived from it for extracting the Euler angles from the direction-cosine matrix here. We also offer literal "code" for performing the operations, numerical examples, and general considerations about the extraction of Euler angles which are not universally known, particularly, the treatment of statistical error.

Shuster, Malcolm D.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Numerical calculation of the transonic flow past a swept wing

A numerical method is presented for analyzing the transonic potential flow past a lifting, swept wing. A finite difference approximation to the full potential equation is solved in a coordinate system which is nearly conformally mapped from the physical space in planes parallel to the symmetry plane, and reduces the wing surface to a portion of one boundary of the computational grid. A coordinate invariant, rotated difference scheme is used, and the difference equations are solved by relaxation. The method is capable of treating wings of arbitrary planform and dihedral, although approximations in treating the tips and vortex sheet make its accuracy suspect for wings of small aspect ratio. Comparisons of calculated results with experimental data are shown for examples of both conventional and supercritical transport wings. Agreement is good for both types, but it was found necessary to account for the displacement effect of the boundary layer for the supercritical wing, presumably because of its greater sensitivity to changes in effective geometry.

Jameson, A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Dynamic coordination of a self-reconfigurable manipulator system

The authors present the dynamic coordination of a self-reconfigurable manipulator system capable of changing its mechanical structure according to given task requirements. The self-reconfiguration is achieved by reconfiguring the topology of a dual-arm system through serial, parallel, and bracing structures. Particular emphasis is placed on the dynamic coordination of two arms having three different dual-arm topologies. The authors develop the Cartesian space dynamic models of a dual-arm system of three dual-arm topologies and derive the kinematic and dynamic constraints imposed on two arms in cooperation. Dual-arm dynamic manipulabilities are defined to quantify the dynamic performance of three dual-arm topologies in terms of the efficiency of generating Cartesian accelerations. A methodology of selecting serial, parallel, and bracing structures based on dual-arm dynamic manipulabilities is provided.

Kim, Sungbok↗
NASA NTRS1993

High-resolution Y-axis readout for delay-line microchannel anodes

We have devised a method to obtain a high-resolution Y-axis event position determination from microchannel plate delay-line detectors. The method is based on the double-delay-line wedge-wedge charge partition principle of Lampton et al. (1990), where the X axis is read out by a pair of side-by-side delay lines and the Y-axis coordinate is determined by comparing the charges on the two parallel delay lines. However, our new method abandons the common field return path of the two delay lines, and splits them into two adjacent but independent transformer coupled timing circuits having no common ground connection except via the charge-measurement amplifiers. Thus we eliminate the large electrostatic capacitance of the delay lines from the input of the charge-measuring system. Over its limited working field, the spatial resolution in the Y coordinate can easily equal the resolution provided in the X coordinate by the delay line. Applications to extreme and FUV photon-counting spectroscopy are envisioned.

Raffanti, R.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Feasibility study of a pressure-fed engine for a water recoverable space shuttle booster. Volume 1: Executive summary

The activities leading to a tentative concept selection for a pressure-fed engine and propulsion support are outlined. Multiple engine concepts were evaluted through parallel engine major component and system analyses. Booster vehicle coordination, tradeoffs, and technology/development aspects are included. The concept selected for further evaluation has a regeneratively cooled combustion chamber and nozzle in conjuction with an impinging element injector. The propellants chosen are LOX/RP-1, and combustion stabilizing baffles are used to assure dynamic combustion stability.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1985

Examination of nonadiabatic effects during an electron beam experiment in the ionosphere

Prompt and delayed echo fluxes and superacceleration of electrons were observed during the sounding rocket flight Several Coordinated Experiments using an electron accelerator. Magnetospheric electric fields parallel to the magnetic field were investigated. The degree of nonadiabatic behavior of the injected electron beam and the return flux was examined. It is shown that the region of strong beam-plasma interaction is limited to 300 km in length along the magnetic field but that backscatter or energetic electrons could occur from much larger distances. By appraising the difference in transit times of 1.9 and 3.9 keV electrons it is established that a continuous backscatter model operating out to several thousand kilometres is not consistent with the observations.

Wilhelm, K.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Wire-Guide Manipulator For Automated Welding

Compact motor drive positions guide for welding filler wire. Drive part of automated wire feeder in partly or fully automated welding system. Drive unit contains three parallel subunits. Rotations of lead screws in three subunits coordinated to obtain desired motions in three degrees of freedom. Suitable for both variable-polarity plasma arc welding and gas/tungsten arc welding.

Morris, Tim↗
NASA NTRS1994

Growth-phase thinning of the near-Earth current sheet during the CDAW 6 substorm

The thinning of the near-Earth current sheet during the growth phase of the Coordinated Data Analysis Workshop (CDAW) 6 magnetospheric substorm is studied. The expansion onset of the substorm occurred at 1054 UT, March 22, 1979. During the growth phase, two spacecraft, International Sun Earth Explorer (ISEE) 1 and ISEE 2, were within the current sheet approximately 13 R(sub E) from the Earth and obtained simultaneous high-resolution magnetic data at two points in the current sheet. Plasma data were also provided by the ISEE spacecraft and solar wind data by IMP 8. To facilitate the analysis, the GSM magnetic field data are transformed to a 'neutral sheet coordinate system' in which the new x axis is parallel to the average magnetic field above and below the neutral sheet and the new y axis lies in the GSM equatorial plane. A model based on the assumption that the current sheet is a time-invariant structure fails to predict neutral sheet crossing times. Consequently, the Harris sheet model, which allows one to remove the restriction of time invariancy, is used instead. It is found that during the growth phase, a model parameter corresponding to the thickness of the current sheet decreased exponentially from about 5 R(sub E) to 1 R(sub E) with a time constant of about 14 min. In addition, the ISEE 1 and ISEE 2 neutral sheet crossings after expansion onset indicate that the neutral sheet was moving upward at 7 km/s relative to the spacecraft. Since both crossings occurred in approximately 80 s, the current sheet thickness is estimated to be about 500 km. These results demonstrate that the near-Earth current sheet undergoes dramatic thinning during the substorm growth phase and expansion onset.

Sanny, Jeff↗
NASA NTRS1997

New Anti-Corrosive Coatings with Resin-Bonded Polyaniline and Related Electroactive Groups

It is already known that polyaniline (an electroactive polymer) functions as a corrosion inhibitor for steel and in view of the fact that it is known to perform in the presence of hydrochloric acid, it has been considered likely that it may be useful to NASA for protecting launch structures at KSC which are exposed to not only continual ocean-side salt spray but also to hydrochloric acid at the times that solid-fuel boosters are fired. The currently used zinc-rich silicate-bonded coating is not wholly protective against the hydrochloric acid. Water pollution from zinc salts is another concern. Other earlier and concurrent NASA sponsored projects have been focussed on polyaniline specifically. Our project, administered for NASA by Dr. K. Thompson of KSC and these more-specifically polyaniline-related projects are included in a CRADA coordinated by Dr. F. Via of Akzo Nobel. A parallel project at Polytechnic under Prof K. Levon concentrated more specifically on polyaniline with various dopants. Our exploratory project reported herein was aimed at broadening the range of such corrosion inhibitors, to give protective paint compounders a wider latitude for adding corrosion inhibitors having polyaniline-like performance, and thus we diverged in several probing directions from polyaniline. Our working hypothesis was that physical variants of polyaniline, such as supported formulations on pigments or carriers, and chemical variants of polyaniline, including those having no electroconductive character, may have enhanced anticorrosion activity. We also hypothesized that small (non-polymeric) molecules having structures related to those occurring in polyaniline, may be active as corrosion inhibitors. We did preliminary testing, using an ASTM salt spray method at a nearby commercial paint testing laboratory. Our most interesting findings were that a non-electroconductive meta-isomer of polyaniline showed some corrosion activity, suggesting that the features of the polyaniline molecule associated with conductivity are not necessary for the anticorrosion action. Also, signtficantly, small molecular weight aromatic diamines and diimines resembling the reduced and the oxidized repeating unit in polyaniline showed an interesting degree of anticorrosive activity, suggesting that the polymeric feature of polyaniline is not necessary for anticorrosion action.

Weil, Edward D.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Riemann Curvature tensor in nonholonomic coordinates and non-Riemannian space-times

The calculation of the Riemann Curvature from the deviation of a vector undergoing parallel transport around a closed loop takes a very simple form when expressed in generalized geometrical notation. The parallel transport of a vector and the type of closed loop used in the calculation are discussed. The method generalizes similar work of Morganstern (1977) to nonholonomic coordinates and non-Riemannian space-times.

Smalley, L. L.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Kinematic sensitivity of robot manipulators

Kinematic sensitivity vectors and matrices for open-loop, n degrees-of-freedom manipulators are derived. First-order sensitivity vectors are defined as partial derivatives of the manipulator's position and orientation with respect to its geometrical parameters. The four-parameter kinematic model is considered, as well as the five-parameter model in case of nominally parallel joint axes. Sensitivity vectors are expressed in terms of coordinate axes of manipulator frames. Second-order sensitivity vectors, the partial derivatives of first-order sensitivity vectors, are also considered. It is shown that second-order sensitivity vectors can be expressed as vector products of the first-order sensitivity vectors.

Vuskovic, Marko I.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Extending Validated Human Performance Models to Explore NextGen Concepts

To meet the expected increases in air traffic demands, NASA and FAA are researching and developing Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concepts. NextGen will require substantial increases in the data available to pilots on the flight deck (e.g., weather,wake, traffic trajectory predictions, etc.) to support more precise and closely coordinated operations (e.g., self-separation, RNAV/RNP, and closely spaced parallel operations, CSPOs). These NextGen procedures and operations, along with the pilot's roles and responsibilities, must be designed with consideration of the pilot's capabilities and limitations. Failure to do so will leave the pilots, and thus the entire aviation system, vulnerable to error. A validated Man-machine Integration and design Analysis System (MIDAS) v5 model was extended to evaluate anticipated changes to flight deck and controller roles and responsibilities in NextGen approach and Land operations. Compared to conditions when the controllers are responsible for separation on decent to land phase of flight, the output from these model predictions suggest that the flight deck response time to detect the lead aircraft blunder will decrease, pilot scans to the navigation display will increase, and workload will increase.

Gore, Brian Francis↗
NASA NTRS2016

Electromagnetic Basis of Metabolism and Heredity

Living organisms control their cellular biological clocks to maintain functional oscillation of the redox cycle, also called the "metabolic cycle" or "respiratory cycle". Organization of cellular processes requires parallel processing on a synchronized time-base. These clocks coordinate the timing of all biochemical processes in the cell, including energy production, DNA replication, and RNA transcription. When this universal time keeping function is perturbed by exogenous induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), the rate of metabolism changes. This causes oxidative stress, aging and mutations. Therefore, good temporal coordination of the redox cycle not only actively prevents chemical conflict between the reductive and oxidative partial reactions; it also maintains genome integrity and lifespan. Moreover, this universal biochemical rhythm can be disrupted by ROS induction in vivo. This in turn can be achieved by blocking the electron transport chain either endogenously or exogenously by various metabolites, e.g. hydrogen sulfide (H2S), highly diffusible drugs, and carbon monoxide (CO). Alternatively, the electron transport in vivo can be attenuated via a coherent or interfering transfer of energy from exogenous ultralow frequency (ULF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic (EM) fields, suggesting that-on Earth-such ambient fields are an omnipresent (and probably crucially important) factor for the time-setting basis of universal biochemical reactions in living cells. Our work demonstrated previously un-described evidence for quantum effects in biology by electromagnetic coupling below thermal noise at the universal electron transport chain (ETC) in vivo.

Electromagnetic↗
NASA NTRS1989

A unifying framework for rigid multibody dynamics and serial and parallel computational issues

A unifying framework for various formulations of the dynamics of open-chain rigid multibody systems is discussed. Their suitability for serial and parallel processing is assessed. The framework is based on the derivation of intrinsic, i.e., coordinate-free, equations of the algorithms which provides a suitable abstraction and permits a distinction to be made between the computational redundancy in the intrinsic and extrinsic equations. A set of spatial notation is used which allows the derivation of the various algorithms in a common setting and thus clarifies the relationships among them. The three classes of algorithms viz., O(n), O(n exp 2) and O(n exp 3) or the solution of the dynamics problem are investigated. Researchers begin with the derivation of O(n exp 3) algorithms based on the explicit computation of the mass matrix and it provides insight into the underlying basis of the O(n) algorithms. From a computational perspective, the optimal choice of a coordinate frame for the projection of the intrinsic equations is discussed and the serial computational complexity of the different algorithms is evaluated. The three classes of algorithms are also analyzed for suitability for parallel processing. It is shown that the problem belongs to the class of N C and the time and processor bounds are of O(log2/2(n)) and O(n exp 4), respectively. However, the algorithm that achieves the above bounds is not stable. Researchers show that the fastest stable parallel algorithm achieves a computational complexity of O(n) with O(n exp 4), respectively. However, the algorithm that achieves the above bounds is not stable. Researchers show that the fastest stable parallel algorithm achieves a computational complexity of O(n) with O(n exp 2) processors, and results from the parallelization of the O(n exp 3) serial algorithm.

Fijany, Amir↗
NASA NTRS2011

Parallel Wavefront Analysis for a 4D Interferometer

This software provides a programming interface for automating data collection with a PhaseCam interferometer from 4D Technology, and distributing the image-processing algorithm across a cluster of general-purpose computers. Multiple instances of 4Sight (4D Technology s proprietary software) run on a networked cluster of computers. Each connects to a single server (the controller) and waits for instructions. The controller directs the interferometer to several images, then assigns each image to a different computer for processing. When the image processing is finished, the server directs one of the computers to collate and combine the processed images, saving the resulting measurement in a file on a disk. The available software captures approximately 100 images and analyzes them immediately. This software separates the capture and analysis processes, so that analysis can be done at a different time and faster by running the algorithm in parallel across several processors. The PhaseCam family of interferometers can measure an optical system in milliseconds, but it takes many seconds to process the data so that it is usable. In characterizing an adaptive optics system, like the next generation of astronomical observatories, thousands of measurements are required, and the processing time quickly becomes excessive. A programming interface distributes data processing for a PhaseCam interferometer across a Windows computing cluster. A scriptable controller program coordinates data acquisition from the interferometer, storage on networked hard disks, and parallel processing. Idle time of the interferometer is minimized. This architecture is implemented in Python and JavaScript, and may be altered to fit a customer s needs.

Rao, Shanti R.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Stellar occultation spikes as probes of atmospheric structure and composition

The characteristics of spikes observed in occultation light curves of Beta Scorpii by Jupiter are discussed in terms of the gravity-gradient model. The occultation of Beta Sco by Jupiter on May 13, 1971, is reviewed, and the gravity-gradient model is defined as an isothermal atmosphere of constant composition in which the refractivity is a function only of the radial coordinate from the center of refraction, which is assumed to lie parallel to the local gravity gradient. The derivation of the occultation light curve in terms of the atmosphere, the angular diameter of the occulted star, and the occultation geometry is outlined. It is shown that analysis of the light-curve spikes can yield the He/H2 concentration ratio in a well-mixed atmosphere, information on fine-scale atmospheric structure, high-resolution images of the occulted star, and information on ray crossing. Observational limits are placed on the magnitude of horizontal refractivity gradients, and it is concluded that the spikes are the result of local atmospheric density variations: atmospheric layers, density waves, or turbulence.

Elliot, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Robust recognition of handwritten numerals based on dual cooperative network

An approach to robust recognition of handwritten numerals using two operating parallel networks is presented. The first network uses inputs in Cartesian coordinates, and the second network uses the same inputs transformed into polar coordinates. How the proposed approach realizes the robustness to local and global variations of input numerals by handling inputs both in Cartesian coordinates and in its transformed Polar coordinates is described. The required network structures and its learning scheme are discussed. Experimental results show that by tracking only a small number of distinctive features for each teaching numeral in each coordinate, the proposed system can provide robust recognition of handwritten numerals.

Lee, Sukhan↗
NASA NTRS1991

Micro- and meso-scale simulations of magnetospheric processes related to the aurora and substorm morphology

The primary methodology during the grant period has been the use of micro or meso-scale simulations to address specific questions concerning magnetospheric processes related to the aurora and substorm morphology. This approach, while useful in providing some answers, has its limitations. Many of the problems relating to the magnetosphere are inherently global and kinetic. Effort during the last year of the grant period has increasingly focused on development of a global-scale hybrid code to model the entire, coupled magnetosheath - magnetosphere - ionosphere system. In particular, numerical procedures for curvilinear coordinate generation and exactly conservative differencing schemes for hybrid codes in curvilinear coordinates have been developed. The new computer algorithms and the massively parallel computer architectures now make this global code a feasible proposition. Support provided by this project has played an important role in laying the groundwork for the eventual development or a global-scale code to model and forecast magnetospheric weather.

Swift, Daniel W.↗