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At least 559 records · Page 31

Systems cost/performance analysis (study 2.3). Volume 3: Programmer's manual and user's guide

The systems cost/performance model was implemented as a digital computer program to perform initial program planning, cost/performance tradeoffs, and sensitivity analyses. The computer is described along with the operating environment in which the program was written and checked, the program specifications such as discussions of logic and computational flow, the different subsystem models involved in the design of the spacecraft, and routines involved in the nondesign area such as costing and scheduling of the design. Preliminary results for the DSCS-II design are also included.

Janz, R. F.↗

FCAP - A new tool for the evaluation of active control technology

A computer program has been developed for the evaluation of flight control systems designed for flexible aircraft. This Flight Control Analysis Program (FCAP) is designed in a modular fashion to incorporate sensor, actuator, and control logic element dynamics as well as aircraft dynamics and aerodynamics for complex configurations. Formulation of the total aircraft dynamic system is accomplished in matrix form by casting the equations in state vector format. The system stability and performance are determined in either the frequency or time domain using classical analysis techniques. The aerodynamic method used also permits evaluation of the flutter characteristics of the aircraft.

Noll, R. B.↗

Systems cost/performance analysis; study 2.3. Volume 3: Programmer's manual and user's guide

The implementation of the entire systems cost/performance model as a digital computer program was studied. A discussion of the operating environment in which the program was written and checked, the program specifications such as discussions of logic and computational flow, the different subsystem models involved in the design of the spacecraft, and routines involved in the nondesign area such as costing and scheduling of the design were covered. Preliminary results for the DSCS-2 design are also included.

Source record↗

Critique of a Hughes shuttle Ku-band data sampler/bit synchronizer

An alternative bit synchronizer proposed for shuttle was analyzed in a noise-free environment by considering the basic operation of the loop via timing diagrams and by linearizing the bit synchronizer as an equivalent, continuous, phased-lock loop (PLL). The loop is composed of a high-frequency phase-frequency detector which is capable of detecting both phase and frequency errors and is used to track the clock, and a bit transition detector which attempts to track the transitions of the data bits. It was determined that the basic approach was a good design which, with proper implementation of the accumulator, up/down counter and logic should provide accurate mid-bit sampling with symmetric bits. However, when bit asymmetry occurs, the bit synchronizer can lock up with a large timing error, yet be quasi-stable (timing will not change unless the clock and bit sequence drift). This will result in incorrectly detecting some bits.

Holmes, J. K.↗

Design and operation of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter ultraviolet spectrometer

The University of Colorado's ultraviolet spectrometer instrument carried on the Pioneer Venus Orbiter spacecraft is a 125-mm f/5 Ebert-Fastie design with a 250-mm Cassegrain telescope. The instrument has extensive logic to control the grating motor drive and to adapt the basic spectrometer to the constraints and opportunities of the mission. Success has been achieved in reconciling the conflicting requirements of spectroscopic, limb profile, and imaging observations. A description of the instrument operating techniques is given together with representative results of all three types.

Stewart, A. I. F.↗

Terminology and concepts of control and Fuzzy Logic

Viewgraphs on terminology and concepts of control and fuzzy logic are presented. Topics covered include: control systems; issues in the design of a control system; state space control for inverted pendulum; proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller; fuzzy controller; and fuzzy rule processing.

Aldridge, Jack↗

Simulation of Flywheel Energy Storage System Controls

This paper presents the progress made in the controller design and operation of a flywheel energy storage system. The switching logic for the converter bridge circuit has been redefined to reduce line current harmonics, even at the highest operating speed of the permanent magnet motor-generator. An electromechanical machine model is utilized to simulate charge and discharge operation of the inertial energy in the flywheel. Controlling the magnitude of phase currents regulates the rate of charge and discharge. The resulting improvements are demonstrated by simulation.

Truong, Long V.↗

New Instrumentation, Patterns and Their Effects on TID Testing of Antifuse-Based FPGAs

TID-induced leakage currents for some families of antifuse-based Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices are significantly affected by the state of bias of a device's internal nodes; proper consideration of this effect is essential for proper testing of these devices and interpretation of test results. Variations in TID performance based on utilization of different internal logic modules for implementing identical circuits may be utilized by circuit designers for improvement in TID performance by tailoring the placement algorithm. Propagation delays are significantly affected by TID-induced damage for the devices of 54SX32S family.

Kleyner, Igor↗

Switching LPV Control for High Performance Tactical Aircraft

This paper examines a switching Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV) control approach to determine if it is practical to use for flight control designs within a wide angle of attack region. The approach is based on multiple parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions. The full parameter space is partitioned into overlapping subspaces and a family of LPV controllers are designed, each suitable for a specific parameter subspace. The hysteresis switching logic is used to accomplish the transition among different parameter subspaces. The proposed switching LPV control scheme is applied to an F-16 aircraft model with different actuator dynamics in low and high angle of attack regions. The nonlinear simulation results show that the aircraft performs well when switching among different angle of attack regions.

Lu, Bei↗

Mars Technology Rover with Arm-Mounted Percussive Coring Tool, Microimager, and Sample-Handling Encapsulation Containerization Subsystem

A report describes the PLuto (programmable logic) Mars Technology Rover, a mid-sized FIDO (field integrated design and operations) class rover with six fully drivable and steerable cleated wheels, a rocker-bogey suspension, a pan-tilt mast with panorama and navigation stereo camera pairs, forward and rear stereo hazcam pairs, internal avionics with motor drivers and CPU, and a 5-degrees-of-freedom robotic arm. The technology rover was integrated with an arm-mounted percussive coring tool, microimager, and sample handling encapsulation containerization subsystem (SHEC). The turret of the arm contains a percussive coring drill and microimager. The SHEC sample caching system mounted to the rover body contains coring bits, sample tubes, and sample plugs. The coring activities performed in the field provide valuable data on drilling conditions for NASA tasks developing and studying coring technology. Caching of samples using the SHEC system provide insight to NASA tasks investigating techniques to store core samples in the future.

Younse, Paulo J.↗

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project: Advanced Collision Avoidance System for UAS (ACAS Xu) Interoperability White Paper Presentation

The Phase 1 DAA Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) provided requirements for two classes of DAA equipment: equipment Class 1 contains the basic DAA equipment required to assist a pilot in remaining well clear, while equipment Class 2 integrates the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance (TCAS) II system. Thus, the Class 1 system provides RWC functionality only, while the Class 2 system is intended to provide both RWC and Collision Avoidance (CA) functionality, in compliance with the Minimum Aviation System Performance (MASPS) for the Interoperability of Airborne Collision Avoidance Systems. The FAAs TCAS Program Office is currently developing Airborne Collision Avoidance System X (ACAS X) to support the objectives of the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) Next Generation Air Transportation System Program (NextGen). ACAS X has a suite of variants with a common underlying design that are intended to be optimized for their intended airframes and operations. ACAS Xu being is designed for UAS and allows for new surveillance technologies and tailored logic for platforms with different performance characteristics. In addition to Collision Avoidance (CA) alerting and guidance, ACAS Xu is being tuned to provide RWC alerting and guidance in compliance with the SC 228 DAA MOPS. With a single logic performing both RWC and CA functions, ACAS Xu will provide industry with an integrated DAA solution that addresses many of the interoperability shortcomings of Phase I systems. While the MOPS for ACAS Xu will specify an integrated DAA system, it will need to show compliance with the RWC alerting thresholds and alerting requirements defined in the DAA Phase 2 MOPS. Further, some functional components of the ACAS Xu system such as the remote pilots displayed guidance might be mostly references to the corresponding requirements in the DAA MOPS. To provide a seamless, integrated, RWC-CA system to assist the pilot in remaining well clear and avoiding collisions, several issues need to be addressed within the Phase 2 SC-228 DAA efforts. Interoperability of the RWC and CA alerting and guidance, and ensuring pilot comprehension, compliance and performance, will be a primary research area.

detect and avoid↗

The Space Technology 5 Avionics System

The Space Technology 5 (ST5) mission is a NASA New Millennium Program project that will validate new technologies for future space science missions and demonstrate the feasibility of building launching and operating multiple, miniature spacecraft that can collect research-quality in-situ science measurements. The three satellites in the ST5 constellation will be launched into a sun-synchronous Earth orbit in early 2006. ST5 fits into the 25-kilogram and 24-watt class of very small but fully capable spacecraft. The new technologies and design concepts for a compact power and command and data handling (C&DH) avionics system are presented. The 2-card ST5 avionics design incorporates new technology components while being tightly constrained in mass, power and volume. In order to hold down the mass and volume, and quali& new technologies for fUture use in space, high efficiency triple-junction solar cells and a lithium-ion battery were baselined into the power system design. The flight computer is co-located with the power system electronics in an integral spacecraft structural enclosure called the card cage assembly. The flight computer has a full set of uplink, downlink and solid-state recording capabilities, and it implements a new CMOS Ultra-Low Power Radiation Tolerant logic technology. There were a number of challenges imposed by the ST5 mission. Specifically, designing a micro-sat class spacecraft demanded that minimizing mass, volume and power dissipation would drive the overall design. The result is a very streamlined approach, while striving to maintain a high level of capability, The mission's radiation requirements, along with the low voltage DC power distribution, limited the selection of analog parts that can operate within these constraints. The challenge of qualifying new technology components for the space environment within a short development schedule was another hurdle. The mission requirements also demanded magnetic cleanliness in order to reduce the effect of stray (spacecraft-generated) magnetic fields on the science-grade magnetometer.

Speer, Dave↗

Computational Study of Flow Interactions in Coaxial Rotors

Although the first idea of coaxial rotors appeared more than 150 years ago, most helicopters have used single main-rotor/tail-rotor combination. Since reactive moments of coaxial rotors are canceled by contra-rotation, no tail rotor is required to counter the torque generated by the main rotor. Unlike the single main rotor design that distributes power to both main and tail rotors, all of the power for coaxial rotors is used for vertical thrust. Thus, no power is wasted for anti-torque or directional control. The saved power helps coaxial rotors reach a higher hover ceiling than single rotor helicopters. Another advantage of coaxial rotors is that the overall rotor diameter can be reduced for a given vehicle gross weight because each rotor provides a maximum contribution to vertical thrust to overcome vehicle weight. However, increased mechanical complexity of the hub has been one of the challenges for manufacturing coaxial rotorcraft. Only the Kamov Design Bureau of Russia had been notably successful in production of coaxial helicopters until Sikorsky built X2, an experimental compound helicopter. Recent developments in unmanned aircraft systems and high-speed rotorcraft have renewed interest in the coaxial configuration. Multi-rotors are frequently used for small electric unmanned rotorcraft partly due to mechanical simplicity. The use of multiple motors provides redundancy as well as cost-efficiency. The multi-rotor concept has rarely been used until recently because of its inherent stability and control problems. However, advances in inexpensive electronic flight control systems have opened the floodgates for small drones using multirotors. Coaxial rotors have started to appear in some multi-rotor configurations. Small coaxial rotors have often been designed using a hundred year old approach that is "sketch, build, fly, and iterate." In that approach, there is no systematic way to explore trade-offs or determine logical next steps. It is neither possible to account for multiple real-world constraints up front in design nor possible to know what performance is possible with a given design. Since unmanned vehicles are sized and optimized for the particular mission, a modern low-fidelity conceptual design and sizing tool that has been used for the design of large helicopters can be used for design of small coaxial rotorcraft. However, unlike most helicopters with single main rotor, the interactions between the upper and lower rotors emerge as an important factor to consider in design because an increase in performance of a multi-rotor system is not proportional to the number of rotors. Interference losses and differences in thrusts between the upper and lower rotors were investigated by theoretical methods as well as a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. In this work, hybrid turbulence models are used to investigate the physics of interactions between coaxial rotors and a fuselage that are not well understood. Present study covers not only small-scale drones but also large-scale coaxial rotors for heavy-lifting missions. Considering the recently proposed FAA drone rules that require the flight only in visual line-of-sight, a large multirotor might be used as an airborne carrier for launch and recovery of unmanned aircraft systems with a human operator onboard. For applications to civil operations, their aerodynamic performance and noise levels need to be assessed. Noise is one of the largest limiting factors to rotorcraft operations in urban area. Since the high-frequency noise of multi-rotors may increase the annoyance, noise may turn out to be a key issue that must be addressed for market acceptability. One of the objectives of the present work is to study the effects of inter-rotor spacing and collectives on the performance, efficiency, and acoustics of coaxial rotor systems.

Study↗

Real-time Hardware-in-the-Loop Evaluation of a Partially Turboelectric Propulsion Control Design

In support of aviation fuel burn and emission reduction goals, NASA is pursuing high-payoff research investments that promise to transform aviation. This includes investments in Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP). Multiple technology challenges must be addressed to unlock the full potential of EAP. This includes addressing challenges related to propulsion controls, which will be vital for ensuring efficient coordinated operation of EAP subsystems. This paper presents results from real-time hardware-in-the-loop testing of a control design for a single aisle partially-turboelectric aircraft propulsion concept conducted at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) facility. The control system under test is designed for a propulsion concept consisting of two wing-mounted turbofan engines that produce thrust and generate electrical power to drive a boundary layer ingesting tailfan propulsor via an electrical motor. An integrated control strategy is applied to ensure coordinated operation of the turbofan and tailfan subsystems during steady-state and transient operation throughout the flight envelope. The NEAT test of this integrated control design consists of a partially hardware-in-the-loop, partially simulated configuration. A subscale representation of the electrical system design is implemented in hardware and mechanically coupled to electric machines that emulate turbomachinery and propulsor shaft dynamics. The hardware configuration is then operated under the control of a real-time computer application that runs a simulation of the propulsion system and the developed control logic. The NEAT facility test campaign includes a series of experiments that subject the control design to throttle transients conducted throughout the flight envelope and full-flight mission profiles. Testing under simulated performance degradation is also conducted to evaluate control design robustness. This includes constant and abrupt changes in degradation levels. Results from the hardware-in-the-loop test are presented and shown to be in good agreement with pre-test simulation predictions demonstrating the efficacy of the integrated control design approach.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Real-time Hardware-in-the-Loop Evaluation of a Partially Turboelectric Propulsion Control Design

In support of aviation fuel burn and emission reduction goals, NASA is pursuing high-payoff research investments that promise to transform aviation. This includes investments in Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP). Multiple technology challenges must be addressed to unlock the full potential of EAP. This includes addressing challenges related to propulsion controls, which will be vital for ensuring efficient coordinated operation of EAP subsystems. This paper presents results from real-time hardware-in-the-loop testing of a control design for a single aisle partially-turboelectric aircraft propulsion concept conducted at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) facility. The control system under test is designed for a propulsion concept consisting of two wing-mounted turbofan engines that produce thrust and generate electrical power to drive a boundary layer ingesting tailfan propulsor via an electrical motor. An integrated control strategy is applied to ensure coordinated operation of the turbofan and tailfan subsystems during steady-state and transient operation throughout the flight envelope. The NEAT test of this integrated control design consists of a partially hardware-in-the-loop, partially simulated configuration. A subscale representation of the electrical system design is implemented in hardware and mechanically coupled to electric machines that emulate turbomachinery and propulsor shaft dynamics. The hardware configuration is then operated under the control of a real-time computer application that runs a simulation of the propulsion system and the developed control logic. The NEAT facility test campaign includes a series of experiments that subject the control design to throttle transients conducted throughout the flight envelope and full-flight mission profiles. Testing under simulated performance degradation is also conducted to evaluate control design robustness. This includes constant and abrupt changes in degradation levels. Results from the hardware-in-the-loop test are presented and shown to be in good agreement with pre-test simulation predictions demonstrating the efficacy of the integrated control design approach.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop Evaluation of A Partially Turboelectric Propulsion Control Design

In support of aviation fuel burn and emission reduction goals, NASA is pursuing high-payoff research investments that promise to transform aviation. This includes investments in Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP). Multiple technology challenges must be addressed to unlock the full potential of EAP. This includes addressing challenges related to propulsion controls, which will be vital for ensuring efficient coordinated operation of EAP subsystems. This paper presents results from real-time hardware-in-theloop (HIL) testing of a control design for a single aisle partially-turboelectric aircraft propulsion concept conducted at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) facility. The control system under test is designed for a propulsion concept consisting of two wing-mounted turbofan engines that produce thrust and generate electrical power to drive a boundary layer ingesting tailfan propulsor via an electrical motor. An integrated control strategy is applied to ensure coordinated operation of the turbofan and tailfan subsystems during steady-state and transient operation throughout the flight envelope. The NEAT test of this integrated control design consists of a partially HIL, partially simulated configuration. A subscale representation of the electrical system design is implemented in hardware and mechanically coupled to electric machines that emulate turbomachinery and propulsor shaft dynamics. The hardware configuration is then operated under the control of a real-time computer application that runs a simulation of the propulsion system and the developed control logic. The NEAT facility test campaign includes a series of experiments that subject the control design to throttle transients conducted throughout the flight envelope and full-flight mission profiles. Testing under simulated performance degradation is also conducted to evaluate control design robustness. This includes constant and abrupt changes in degradation levels. Results from the HIL test are presented and shown to be in good agreement with pretest simulation predictions demonstrating the efficacy of the integrated control design approach.

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

Understanding Reliability Trade-Offs in 1T-nC and 2T-nC FeRAM Designs

Ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) is a promising candidate for energy-efficient nonvolatile memory, particularly for logic-in-memory and compute-in-memory (CIM) applications. Among the available cell architectures, One-Transistor–n-Capacitor (1T-nC) and two-transistor–n-capacitor (2T-nC) FeRAMs each offer distinct trade-offs in density, scalability, and reliability. In this work, we present a comparative study of these two architectures under both dimensional scaling ( XY/Z shrinkage) and vertical integration (increasing stacked capacitors per cell). Using technology computer-aided design (TCAD) and circuit-level simulations, we analyze how scaling impacts ferroelectric capacitance, parasitic coupling, and floating-node (FN) dynamics, which together dictate sense margin (SM) and read stability. A key mitigation strategy—floating unselected capacitors—is applied to both architectures, effectively decoupling the SM from the number of stacked capacitors and enabling tractable analysis across scaling regimes. Results show that 1T-nC suffers more from charge sharing with the bitline (BL), while 2T-nC benefits from transistor isolation and stronger low-voltage sensing at the cost of increased area. By systematically evaluating these behaviors across scaling directions, this work establishes the reliability trade-offs of 1T-nC and 2T-nC cells and provides design guidelines for high-density, vertically integrated FeRAM systems.

1T-nC↗