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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 559 records · Page 31

Algorithms for Efficient Computation of Transfer Functions for Large Order Flexible Systems

An efficient and robust computational scheme is given for the calculation of the frequency response function of a large order, flexible system implemented with a linear, time invariant control system. Advantage is taken of the highly structured sparsity of the system matrix of the plant based on a model of the structure using normal mode coordinates. The computational time per frequency point of the new computational scheme is a linear function of system size, a significant improvement over traditional, still-matrix techniques whose computational times per frequency point range from quadratic to cubic functions of system size. This permits the practical frequency domain analysis of systems of much larger order than by traditional, full-matrix techniques. Formulations are given for both open- and closed-loop systems. Numerical examples are presented showing the advantages of the present formulation over traditional approaches, both in speed and in accuracy. Using a model with 703 structural modes, the present method was up to two orders of magnitude faster than a traditional method. The present method generally showed good to excellent accuracy throughout the range of test frequencies, while traditional methods gave adequate accuracy for lower frequencies, but generally deteriorated in performance at higher frequencies with worst case errors being many orders of magnitude times the correct values.

Maghami, Peiman G.↗

Validation of space/ground antenna control algorithms using a computer-aided design tool

The validation of the algorithms for controlling the space-to-ground antenna subsystem for Space Station Alpha is an important step in assuring reliable communications. These algorithms have been developed and tested using a simulation environment based on a computer-aided design tool that can provide a time-based execution framework with variable environmental parameters. Our work this summer has involved the exploration of this environment and the documentation of the procedures used to validate these algorithms. We have installed a variety of tools in a laboratory of the Tracking and Communications division for reproducing the simulation experiments carried out on these algorithms to verify that they do meet their requirements for controlling the antenna systems. In this report, we describe the processes used in these simulations and our work in validating the tests used.

Gantenbein, Rex E.↗

Computing the Fast Fourier Transform on a vector computer

Two algorithms are presented for performing a Fast Fourier Transform on a vector computer and are compared on the Control Data Corporation STAR-100. The relative merits of the two algorithms are shown to depend upon whether only a few or many independent transforms are desired. A theorem is proved which shows that a set of independent transforms can be computed by performing a partial transformation on a single vector. The results of this theorem also apply to nonvector machines and have reduced the average time per transform by a factor of two on the CDC 6600 computer.

Korn, D. G.↗

Using the boundary-layer equations in three-dimensional viscous flow simulation

A simple and computationally efficient algorithm for solving the unsteady three dimensional boundary layer equations in a time accurate or relaxation mode is presented. The algorithm is used to compute the separated flow over a 6:1 ellipsoid at angle of attack and the transonic flow over a finite wing with shock induced separation. These results are compared to available experimental data. A method of using the boundary layer algorithm to accelerate a Navier-Stokes computation is also presented. Example computations indicate that a boundary layer algorithm can be used to improve both the accuracy and efficiency of a Navier-Stokes algorithm.

Vandalsem, William R.↗

Improving Computational Efficiency of Prognostics Algorithms in Resource-Constrained Settings

In engineering and aerospace applications, it is vital to operational success to have insight into the expected performance and health of physical systems. The field of prognostics and health management provides quantitative methods for monitoring, predicting, and managing system health. Prognostics algorithms can be employed to assess the current state of a system, propagate the system throughout time, and predict potential anomalies or failures that may occur. While they can provide accurate prediction results, effective prognostics algorithms can be challenging to use in resource-constrained settings due to computational limitations and high computational latency, leading to obsolete predictions. Thus, computationally efficient and accurate algorithms are necessary for future remaining useful life predictions. In this work, we implement new algorithmic approaches for prediction, quantitatively compare them via a battery degradation use-case, and provide recommendations of potential improvements to a prognostics framework. One approach to prediction is through sampling, whereby the current state of a physical system is sampled many times and each sample is propagated forward until failure is reached, resulting in a distribution of failure values. To improve the efficiency of this process, we implemented five new algorithmic approaches to prediction, including three distinct sampling methods (standard Monte Carlo, Quasi-Monte Carlo, and Latin Hypercube Sampling), a variable time step algorithm, and a variable sample size algorithm. To compare the algorithms, we employ a variety of metrics designed specifically to analyze both computational efficiency and model accuracy. Our metrics include accuracy to compare the average predicted value to ground truth, mean absolute deviation to illustrate dispersion, specific percentile error to describe accuracy within a user-defined risk tolerance, and code run-time. To quantitatively analyze our results, we employ a use-case of degradation of a Lithium-ion battery. We use an electrochemistry-based model to describe the current health state of the battery, and implement our prediction algorithms to propagate forward in time until end-of-discharge (EOD) is reached. Notably, through this work it was found that none of our sampling approaches had a significant impact on computational efficiency or model accuracy in predicting EOD of the battery. We find that while the sampling methods are unique, the distributions they generate are similar, ultimately producing final predictions that are nearly identical. In exploring the effect of the time step within the prediction algorithm, we found that prediction accuracy was highly dependent on the time step used, and that implementing a variable time step within a particular prediction may provide an increase in computational efficiency while also maintaining prediction accuracy. Finally, implementing a variable sample size also affected prediction, and our results show that tuning both the magnitude and timing of the sample size adjustment can result in improved computation speed and maintained prediction accuracy. Taken together, our findings highlight the challenge of performing prognostics in resource-constrained settings, and illustrate the potential of developing new prediction algorithms to improve computational efficiency.

prognostics↗

A computer method for schedule processing and quick-time updating.

A schedule analysis program is presented which can be used to process any schedule with continuous flow and with no loops. Although generally thought of as a management tool, it has applicability to such extremes as music composition and computer program efficiency analysis. Other possibilities for its use include the determination of electrical power usage during some operation such as spacecraft checkout, and the determination of impact envelopes for the purpose of scheduling payloads in launch processing. At the core of the described computer method is an algorithm which computes the position of each activity bar on the output waterfall chart. The algorithm is basically a maximal-path computation which gives to each node in the schedule network the maximal path from the initial node to the given node.

Mccoy, W. H.↗

Parallel O(log n) algorithms for open- and closed-chain rigid multibody systems based on a new mass matrix factorization technique

In this paper, parallel O(log n) algorithms for computation of rigid multibody dynamics are developed. These parallel algorithms are derived by parallelization of new O(n) algorithms for the problem. The underlying feature of these O(n) algorithms is a drastically different strategy for decomposition of interbody force which leads to a new factorization of the mass matrix (M). Specifically, it is shown that a factorization of the inverse of the mass matrix in the form of the Schur Complement is derived as M(exp -1) = C - B(exp *)A(exp -1)B, wherein matrices C, A, and B are block tridiagonal matrices. The new O(n) algorithm is then derived as a recursive implementation of this factorization of M(exp -1). For the closed-chain systems, similar factorizations and O(n) algorithms for computation of Operational Space Mass Matrix lambda and its inverse lambda(exp -1) are also derived. It is shown that these O(n) algorithms are strictly parallel, that is, they are less efficient than other algorithms for serial computation of the problem. But, to our knowledge, they are the only known algorithms that can be parallelized and that lead to both time- and processor-optimal parallel algorithms for the problem, i.e., parallel O(log n) algorithms with O(n) processors. The developed parallel algorithms, in addition to their theoretical significance, are also practical from an implementation point of view due to their simple architectural requirements.

Fijany, Amir↗

Model of optical scatter from microimpacts on the Hubble Telescope

The investigation and modelling of optical scatter from damaged or contaminated mirrors is of interest to those who wish to estimate the working life cycle of an optical system. A space born telescope faces a threat to its survival from naturally occurring micrometeoroids and man-made debris. High velocity, in the range of 4 to 14 km/s, impacts of small particles, in the range of 1 to 100 microns, will produce small craters on the impacted surface. These microcraters will typically have a size range of 3 to 300 microns for debris impacts and 6 to 600 microns for micrometeoroid impacts. If the microcraters accumulate on a telescope mirror, there will be an increase in optical scatter and a loss of image resolution. The micrometeoroid model of Cour-Palais and the orbital debris model of Kessler have been encoded in a computer program (SPENV) by the author. The output from this program has been matched with previous calculations and compared with impact data on the LDEF satellite. Subsequent work has been done to marry this computer program with an algorithm to compute optical scatter. The optical scatter algorithm employs Mie theory of scatter from small particles.

Crowell, L. B.↗

Computing Bounds on Resource Levels for Flexible Plans

A new algorithm efficiently computes the tightest exact bound on the levels of resources induced by a flexible activity plan (see figure). Tightness of bounds is extremely important for computations involved in planning because tight bounds can save potentially exponential amounts of search (through early backtracking and detection of solutions), relative to looser bounds. The bound computed by the new algorithm, denoted the resource-level envelope, constitutes the measure of maximum and minimum consumption of resources at any time for all fixed-time schedules in the flexible plan. At each time, the envelope guarantees that there are two fixed-time instantiations one that produces the minimum level and one that produces the maximum level. Therefore, the resource-level envelope is the tightest possible resource-level bound for a flexible plan because any tighter bound would exclude the contribution of at least one fixed-time schedule. If the resource- level envelope can be computed efficiently, one could substitute looser bounds that are currently used in the inner cores of constraint-posting scheduling algorithms, with the potential for great improvements in performance. What is needed to reduce the cost of computation is an algorithm, the measure of complexity of which is no greater than a low-degree polynomial in N (where N is the number of activities). The new algorithm satisfies this need. In this algorithm, the computation of resource-level envelopes is based on a novel combination of (1) the theory of shortest paths in the temporal-constraint network for the flexible plan and (2) the theory of maximum flows for a flow network derived from the temporal and resource constraints. The measure of asymptotic complexity of the algorithm is O(N O(maxflow(N)), where O(x) denotes an amount of computing time or a number of arithmetic operations proportional to a number of the order of x and O(maxflow(N)) is the measure of complexity (and thus of cost) of a maximumflow algorithm applied to an auxiliary flow network of 2N nodes. The algorithm is believed to be efficient in practice; experimental analysis shows the practical cost of maxflow to be as low as O(N1.5). The algorithm could be enhanced following at least two approaches. In the first approach, incremental subalgorithms for the computation of the envelope could be developed. By use of temporal scanning of the events in the temporal network, it may be possible to significantly reduce the size of the networks on which it is necessary to run the maximum-flow subalgorithm, thereby significantly reducing the time required for envelope calculation. In the second approach, the practical effectiveness of resource envelopes in the inner loops of search algorithms could be tested for multi-capacity resource scheduling. This testing would include inner-loop backtracking and termination tests and variable and value-ordering heuristics that exploit the properties of resource envelopes more directly.

Muscvettola, Nicola↗

Robust tuning of robot control systems

The computed torque control problem is examined for a robot arm with flexible, geared, joint drive systems which are typical in many industrial robots. The standard computed torque algorithm is not directly applicable to this class of manipulators because of the dynamics introduced by the joint drive system. The proposed approach to computed torque control combines a computed torque algorithm with torque controller at each joint. Three such control schemes are proposed. The first scheme uses the joint torque control system currently implemented on the robot arm and a novel form of the computed torque algorithm. The other two use the standard computed torque algorithm and a novel model following torque control system based on model following techniques. Standard tasks and performance indices are used to evaluate the performance of the controllers. Both numerical simulations and experiments are used in evaluation. The study shows that all three proposed systems lead to improved tracking performance over a conventional PD controller.

Minis, I.↗

Cloud identification using genetic algorithms and massively parallel computation

As a Guest Computational Investigator under the NASA administered component of the High Performance Computing and Communication Program, we implemented a massively parallel genetic algorithm on the MasPar SIMD computer. Experiments were conducted using Earth Science data in the domains of meteorology and oceanography. Results obtained in these domains are competitive with, and in most cases better than, similar problems solved using other methods. In the meteorological domain, we chose to identify clouds using AVHRR spectral data. Four cloud speciations were used although most researchers settle for three. Results were remarkedly consistent across all tests (91% accuracy). Refinements of this method may lead to more timely and complete information for Global Circulation Models (GCMS) that are prevalent in weather forecasting and global environment studies. In the oceanographic domain, we chose to identify ocean currents from a spectrometer having similar characteristics to AVHRR. Here the results were mixed (60% to 80% accuracy). Given that one is willing to run the experiment several times (say 10), then it is acceptable to claim the higher accuracy rating. This problem has never been successfully automated. Therefore, these results are encouraging even though less impressive than the cloud experiment. Successful conclusion of an automated ocean current detection system would impact coastal fishing, naval tactics, and the study of micro-climates. Finally we contributed to the basic knowledge of GA (genetic algorithm) behavior in parallel environments. We developed better knowledge of the use of subpopulations in the context of shared breeding pools and the migration of individuals. Rigorous experiments were conducted based on quantifiable performance criteria. While much of the work confirmed current wisdom, for the first time we were able to submit conclusive evidence. The software developed under this grant was placed in the public domain. An extensive user's manual was written and distributed nationwide to scientists whose work might benefit from its availability. Several papers, including two journal articles, were produced.

Buckles, Bill P.↗

Computer architecture for efficient algorithmic executions in real-time systems: New technology for avionics systems and advanced space vehicles

Improvements and advances in the development of computer architecture now provide innovative technology for the recasting of traditional sequential solutions into high-performance, low-cost, parallel system to increase system performance. Research conducted in development of specialized computer architecture for the algorithmic execution of an avionics system, guidance and control problem in real time is described. A comprehensive treatment of both the hardware and software structures of a customized computer which performs real-time computation of guidance commands with updated estimates of target motion and time-to-go is presented. An optimal, real-time allocation algorithm was developed which maps the algorithmic tasks onto the processing elements. This allocation is based on the critical path analysis. The final stage is the design and development of the hardware structures suitable for the efficient execution of the allocated task graph. The processing element is designed for rapid execution of the allocated tasks. Fault tolerance is a key feature of the overall architecture. Parallel numerical integration techniques, tasks definitions, and allocation algorithms are discussed. The parallel implementation is analytically verified and the experimental results are presented. The design of the data-driven computer architecture, customized for the execution of the particular algorithm, is discussed.

Carroll, Chester C.↗

Implementation of a Wavefront-Sensing Algorithm

A computer program has been written as a unique implementation of an image-based wavefront-sensing algorithm reported in "Iterative-Transform Phase Retrieval Using Adaptive Diversity" (GSC-14879-1), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 31, No. 4 (April 2007), page 32. This software was originally intended for application to the James Webb Space Telescope, but is also applicable to other segmented-mirror telescopes. The software is capable of determining optical-wavefront information using, as input, a variable number of irradiance measurements collected in defocus planes about the best focal position. The software also uses input of the geometrical definition of the telescope exit pupil (otherwise denoted the pupil mask) to identify the locations of the segments of the primary telescope mirror. From the irradiance data and mask information, the software calculates an estimate of the optical wavefront (a measure of performance) of the telescope generally and across each primary mirror segment specifically. The software is capable of generating irradiance data, wavefront estimates, and basis functions for the full telescope and for each primary-mirror segment. Optionally, each of these pieces of information can be measured or computed outside of the software and incorporated during execution of the software.

Smith, Jeffrey S.↗

Study of the mapping of Navier-Stokes algorithms onto multiple-instruction/multiple-data-stream computers

Implicit approximate-factored algorithms have certain properties that are suitable for parallel processing. A particular computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, using this algorithm, is mapped onto a multiple-instruction/multiple-data-stream (MIMD) computer architecture. An explanation of this mapping procedure is presented, as well as some of the difficulties encountered when trying to run the code concurrently. Timing results are given for runs on the Ames Research Center's MIMD test facility which consists of two VAX 11/780's with a common MA780 multi-ported memory. Speedups exceeding 1.9 for characteristic CFD runs were indicated by the timing results.

Eberhardt, D. S.↗

Computation of Symmetric Discrete Cosine Transform Using Bakhvalov's Algorithm

A number of algorithms for recursive computation of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) have been developed recently. This paper presents a new method for computing the discrete cosine transform and its inverse using Bakhvalov's algorithm, a method developed for evaluation of a polynomial at a point. In this paper, we will focus on both the application of the algorithm to the computation of the DCT-I and its complexity. In addition, Bakhvalov s algorithm is compared with Clenshaw s algorithm for the computation of the DCT.

Aburdene, Maurice F.↗

Improving Computational Efficiency of Prognostics Algorithms in Resource-Constrained Settings

The field of prognostics and health management provides quantitative methods for monitoring and predicting the health of physical systems. Prognostics algorithms are useful in that they can be employed to assess the current state of a system, propagate the system state throughout time, and predict potential anomalies or failures that may occur. However, effective prognosis can be challenging to achieve in resource-constrained settings due to computational limitations and high computational latency, leading to obsolete predictions. Thus, computationally efficient and accurate algorithms are necessary for some prognostics applications. In this work, we implement three new algorithmic approaches to prediction (sampling methods, variable prediction time step, variable prediction sample size) with the goal of improving computational efficiency while minimizing decrease in model accuracy. To quantitatively analyze our results, we examine a use-case of degradation of a Lithium-ion battery. Notably, through this work it was found that none of the sampling approaches had a significant impact on computational efficiency or model accuracy in predicting EOD of the battery. However, our results show that prediction accuracy is highly dependent on the time step used, and that an appropriate time step can optimize both model accuracy and simulation efficiency. Finally, implementing a variable sample size also affected prediction, and our results show that tuning both the magnitude and timing of the sample size adjustment in an application-specific manner may prove useful in some applications. Taken together, our findings highlight the challenge of performing prognostics in resource-constrained settings, and illustrate the potential of developing new prediction algorithms to improve computational efficiency of prognosis.

Prognostics↗