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At least 649 records · Page 36

Application of a stochastic snowmelt model for probabilistic decisionmaking

A stochastic form of the snowmelt runoff model that can be used for probabilistic decision-making was developed. The use of probabilistic streamflow predictions instead of single valued deterministic predictions leads to greater accuracy in decisions. While the accuracy of the output function is important in decisionmaking, it is also important to understand the relative importance of the coefficients. Therefore, a sensitivity analysis was made for each of the coefficients.

Mccuen, R. H.↗

The ATAMM procedure model for concurrent processing of large grained control and signal processing algorithms

An overview is presented of a model for describing data and control flow associated with the execution of large-grained, decision-free algorithms in a special distributed computer environment. The ATAMM (Algorithm-To-Architecture Mapping Model) model provides a basis for relating an algorithm to its execution in a dataflow multicomputer environment. The ATAMM model features a marked graph Petri net description of the algorithm behavior with regard to both data and control flow. The model provides an analytical basis for calculating performance bounds on throughput characteristics which are demonstrated here.

Stoughton, John W.↗

Sensor-model prediction, monitoring and in-situ control of liquid RTM advanced fiber architecture composite processing

In-situ frequency dependent electromagnetic sensors (FDEMS) and the Loos resin transfer model have been used to select and control the processing properties of an epoxy resin during liquid pressure RTM impregnation and cure. Once correlated with viscosity and degree of cure the FDEMS sensor monitors and the RTM processing model predicts the reaction advancement of the resin, viscosity and the impregnation of the fabric. This provides a direct means for predicting, monitoring, and controlling the liquid RTM process in-situ in the mold throughout the fabrication process and the effects of time, temperature, vacuum and pressure. Most importantly, the FDEMS-sensor model system has been developed to make intelligent decisions, thereby automating the liquid RTM process and removing the need for operator direction.

Kranbuehl, D.↗

The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center: A Collaborative Model for Accelerating Research into Operations

The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center in Huntsville, Alabama was created to accelerate the infusion of NASA earth science observations, data assimilation and modeling research into NWS forecast operations and decision-making. The principal focus of experimental products is on the regional scale with an emphasis on forecast improvements on a time scale of 0-24 hours. The SPoRT Center research is aligned with the regional prediction objectives of the US Weather Research Program dealing with 0-1 day forecast issues ranging from convective initiation to 24-hr quantitative precipitation forecasting. The SPoRT Center, together with its other interagency partners, universities, and the NASA/NOAA Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, provides a means and a process to effectively transition NASA Earth Science Enterprise observations and technology to National Weather Service operations and decision makers at both the global/national and regional scales. This paper describes the process for the transition of experimental products into forecast operations, current products undergoing assessment by forecasters, and plans for the future.

Goodman, S. J.↗

NIRSS Upgrades: Final Report

This year we were able to further the NIRSS program by re-writing the data ingest and display code from LabVIEW to C++ and Java. This was leveraged by a University of Colorado Computer Science Department Senior Project. The upgrade made the display more portable and upgradeable. Comparisons with research aircraft flights conducted during AIRS-2 were also done and demonstrate reasonable skill in determining cloud altitudes and liquid water distribution. Improvements can still be made to the cloud and liquid logic. The icing hazard index was not evaluated here since that represents work in progress and needs to be made compatible with the new CIP-Severity algorithm. CIP is the Current Icing Potential product that uses a combination decision tree/fuzzy logic algorithm to combine numerical weather model output with operational sensor data (NEXRAD, GOES, METARs and voice pilot reports) to produce an hourly icing diagnosis across the CONUS. The new severity algorithm seeks to diagnose liquid water production through rising, cooling air, and depletion by ice processes. The information used by CIP is very different from that ingested by NIRSS but some common ground does exist. Additionally, the role of NIRSS and the information it both needs and provides needs to be determined in context of the Next Generation Air Traffic System (NGATS). The Weather Integrated Products Team has a plan for an Initial Operating Capability (IOC) to take place in 2012. NIRSS is not explicitly a part of that IOC but should be considered as a follow-on as part of the development path to a 2025 full capability.

Politovich, Marcia K.↗

Analysis of a Hypergolic Propellant Explosion During Processing of Launch Vehicles in the VAB

NASA is developing launch vehicles to support missions to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the moon and deep space. Whether manned or unmanned, the vehicle components will likely be integrated in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and typically include a fueled spacecraft (SC) that sits on top of one or more stages. The processing of a fueled SC involves hazardous operations when it is brought into the VAB Transfer Aisle and lifted a significant height for mating with lower stages. Accidents resulting from these hazardous operations could impact unrelated personnel working in buildings adjacent to the VAB. Safe separation distances based on the DOD Explosives Standards Quantity-Distance (Q-D) approach result in large IBD arcs. This paper presents site-specific air blast and fragmentation hazard analyses for comparison with the Q-D arcs as well as consequence and risk analyses to provide added information for the decision maker. A new physics-based fragmentation model is presented that includes: a) the development of a primary fragment list (which defines the fragment characteristics) associated with a hypergolic propellant explosion, b) a description of a 3D fragment bounce model, c) the results of probabilistic Monte-Carlo simulations (that include uncertainties in the fragment characteristics) to determine: i) the hazardous fragment density distance, ii) the expected number of wall/roof impacts and penetrations to over 40 buildings adjacent to the VAB, and iii) the risk to building occupants.

Chrostowski, Jon D.↗

Integration of Linear Dynamic Emission and Climate Models with Air Traffic Simulations

Future air traffic management systems are required to balance the conflicting objectives of maximizing safety and efficiency of traffic flows while minimizing the climate impact of aviation emissions and contrails. Integrating emission and climate models together with air traffic simulations improve the understanding of the complex interaction between the physical climate system, carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and aviation activity. This paper integrates a national-level air traffic simulation and optimization capability with simple climate models and carbon cycle models, and climate metrics to assess the impact of aviation on climate. The capability can be used to make trade-offs between extra fuel cost and reduction in global surface temperature change. The parameters in the simulation can be used to evaluate the effect of various uncertainties in emission models and contrails and the impact of different decision horizons. Alternatively, the optimization results from the simulation can be used as inputs to other tools that monetize global climate impacts like the FAA s Aviation Environmental Portfolio Management Tool for Impacts.

Sridhar, Banavar↗

SERVIR Town Hall - Connecting Space to Village

SERVIR, a joint NASA-USAID project, strives to improve environmental decision making through the use of Earth observations, models, and geospatial technology innovations. SERVIR connects these assets with the needs of end users in Mesoamerica, East Africa, and Hindu Kush-Himalaya regions. This Town Hall meeting will engage the AGU community by exploring examples of connecting Space to Village with SERVIR science applications.

Limaye, Ashutosh S.↗

Uncertainty Quantification for JPL Retrievals

We define the notions of verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification (VVUQ), and place them in the context of retrievals of Earth science data. Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is the process of characterizing the uncertainty of a measurement system relative to the true, physical quantity it measures. UQ is needed when measurements are used for scientific inference, assimilated into models with other data, and used for decision-making and risk analysis. Many measurements come with measures of standard error and bias, but these uncertainty measures are often inaccurate, due to the operational need to assume crisp values for parameters which are in fact uncertain, as well as the failure of technical assumptions needed by operational error-estimation approaches. UQ provides a way to study which assumptions fail to hold, and a tool to improve the measurement. We describe a particular, broadly-applicable UQ setup that has been successful for JPL retrievals including OCO-2, and provide recommendations for furthering the UQ state of the practice at JPL.

Turmon, Michael↗

NASA DEVELOP’s Approach to Co-Production and Collaborative STEM Engagement

The NASA DEVELOP Program conducts 50-60 projects each year with the goal of bringing the benefits of NASA Earth science to local decision-making challenges. DEVELOP, part of NASA’s Applied Sciences’ Capacity Building Program, connects end users with students, recent graduates, and early and transitioning career professionals through 10-week rapid feasibility studies. These projects are a collaboration between NASA, DEVELOP office host locations (universities and other federal installations), project partners (federal agencies, state and local governments, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and international organizations), and the project teams who conduct them. The projects take place under the guidance of science advisors from NASA, academia, and partner organizations, and introduces communities to new applications of NASA Earth observations data with the desired outcome of informed decision-making. This presentation will highlight the DEVELOP model of co-production and programmatic collaboration, lessons learned in partnering, and evaluation activities that look at the impact of the program’s efforts.

Capacity Building↗

Dissemination of Global Flood Information Through Nasa Disasters Program Global Initiative for Flood Forecasting and Alerting (GIFFT)

The Global Initiative for Flood Forecasting and Alerting (GIFFT) is an initiative to disseminate flood products from different sensors to global stakeholders via the Pacific Disaster Center’s (PDC) DisasterAWARE®, the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal and potentially other mechanisms. GIFFT will also generate an integrated product(s) using ensembled hydrologic models and Earth observation derived flood outputs to stakeholders globally. This initiative combines the results of several Disasters Program funded projects that focus on flood forecasting, flood severity estimation, post-event flood mapping, flooddepth estimation and resulting flood severity using remote sensing-based flood information derived from SAR and optical imagery. PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform is a global multi-hazard alerting platform that currently incorporatesModel of Models (MoM) outputs as flood “incidents,” visually depicting potential floods in the context ofpopulation and infrastructure that may become affected. Automated procedures are being developed tocategorize MoM outputs as DisasterAWARE “hazards,” allowing for their dissemination to users alongwith other flood products that assess potential impacts. PDC’s stakeholders include UN, DoD, FEMA andtheir equivalents around the world. Additionally, the DisasterALERT mobile platform has 2 million usersworldwide and is a fully functional and sustained platform used to disseminate alerts and analyticalproducts for 18 different hazard types. GIFFT has incorporated HydroSAR products that will bedistributed via DisasterAWARE.

remote sensing↗

Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO)

The Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project is expected to develop, integrate, demonstrate, and transition to operations, evolving aviation technologies from NASA and industry to identify, monitor, and suppress wildland fires as a means to enhance safety, improve operational efficiency, and prevent economic loss. Some of the concepts ACERO explores are: wildfire airspace mangement to improve safety and resource utilization during a disaster, applying new aviation technologies to improve safety and demonstrate new mission-support capabilities, second-shift operations to enable progress towards 24/7 aerial response, and the integration of capabilities across NASA's Aeronautics Research, Science, and Space Technology mission directorates to enable expanded and scalable operations. Realizing this vision is expected to bring positive impact to such areas as: consistency of technology adoption through a unified concept of operations, airspace coordination and deconfliction that integrates portable solutions and enables diverse operations, remote sensing and data fusion for modeling and predictions that support in-time decision making, aircraft technologies for hazard avoidance and state management, and increased response capabilities through persistent communications and surveillance. ACERO continues the research begun under the Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) activity, which brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA’s UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an informational overview of the ACERO and STEReO projects to the Council of Western State Foresters (CWSF) Western State Fire Managers (WSFM) Committee.

emergency response operations↗

A First Approach to Global Runoff Simulation using Satellite Rainfall Estimation

Many hydrological models have been introduced in the hydrological literature to predict runoff but few of these have become common planning or decision-making tools, either because the data requirements are substantial or because the modeling processes are too complicated for operational application. On the other hand, progress in regional or global rainfall-runoff simulation has been constrained by the difficulty of measuring spatiotemporal variability of the primary causative factor, i.e. rainfall fluxes, continuously over space and time. Building on progress in remote sensing technology, researchers have improved the accuracy, coverage, and resolution of rainfall estimates by combining imagery from infrared, passive microwave, and space-borne radar sensors. Motivated by the recent increasing availability of global remote sensing data for estimating precipitation and describing land surface characteristics, this note reports a ballpark assessment of quasi-global runoff computed by incorporating satellite rainfall data and other remote sensing products in a relatively simple rainfall-runoff simulation approach: the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) runoff Curve Number (CN) method. Using an Antecedent Precipitation Index (API) as a proxy of antecedent moisture conditions, this note estimates time-varying NRCS-CN values determined by the 5-day normalized API. Driven by multi-year (1998-2006) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis, quasi-global runoff was retrospectively simulated with the NRCS-CN method and compared to Global Runoff Data Centre data at global and catchment scales. Results demonstrated the potential for using this simple method when diagnosing runoff values from satellite rainfall for the globe and for medium to large river basins. This work was done with the simple NRCS-CN method as a first-cut approach to understanding the challenges that lie ahead in advancing the satellite-based inference of global runoff. We expect that the successes and limitations revealed in this study will lay the basis for applying more advanced methods to capture the dynamic variability of the global hydrologic process for global runoff monlto~ngin real time. The essential ingredient in this work is the use of global satellite-based rainfall estimation.

Hong, Yang↗

Impact of uncertainty on modeling and testing

A thorough understanding of the uncertainties associated with the modeling and testing of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) Engine will greatly aid decisions concerning hardware performance and future development efforts. This report will describe the determination of the uncertainties in the modeling and testing of the Space Shuttle Main Engine test program at the Technology Test Bed facility at Marshall Space Flight Center. Section 2 will present a summary of the uncertainty analysis methodology used and discuss the specific applications to the TTB SSME test program. Section 3 will discuss the application of the uncertainty analysis to the test program and the results obtained. Section 4 presents the results of the analysis of the SSME modeling effort from an uncertainty analysis point of view. The appendices at the end of the report contain a significant amount of information relative to the analysis, including discussions of venturi flowmeter data reduction and uncertainty propagation, bias uncertainty documentations, technical papers published, the computer code generated to determine the venturi uncertainties, and the venturi data and results used in the analysis.

Coleman, Hugh W.↗

The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME): Phase-1 Seasonal to Interannual Prediction, Phase-2 Toward Developing Intra-Seasonal Prediction

The recent US National Academies report "Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability" was unequivocal in recommending the need for the development of a North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) operational predictive capability. Indeed, this effort is required to meet the specific tailored regional prediction and decision support needs of a large community of climate information users. The multi-model ensemble approach has proven extremely effective at quantifying prediction uncertainty due to uncertainty in model formulation, and has proven to produce better prediction quality (on average) then any single model ensemble. This multi-model approach is the basis for several international collaborative prediction research efforts, an operational European system and there are numerous examples of how this multi-model ensemble approach yields superior forecasts compared to any single model. Based on two NOAA Climate Test Bed (CTB) NMME workshops (February 18, and April 8, 2011) a collaborative and coordinated implementation strategy for a NMME prediction system has been developed and is currently delivering real-time seasonal-to-interannual predictions on the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) operational schedule. The hindcast and real-time prediction data is readily available (e.g., http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.Models/.NMME/) and in graphical format from CPC (http://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wd51yf/NMME/index.html). Moreover, the NMME forecast are already currently being used as guidance for operational forecasters. This paper describes the new NMME effort, presents an overview of the multi-model forecast quality, and the complementary skill associated with individual models.

NOAA CPC↗

Ares-I-X Stability and Control Flight Test: Analysis and Plans

The flight test of the Ares I-X vehicle provides a unique opportunity to reduce risk of the design of the Ares I vehicle and test out design, math modeling, and analysis methods. One of the key features of the Ares I design is the significant static aerodynamic instability coupled with the relatively flexible vehicle - potentially resulting in a challenging controls problem to provide adequate flight path performance while also providing adequate structural mode damping and preventing adverse control coupling to the flexible structural modes. Another challenge is to obtain enough data from the single flight to be able to conduct analysis showing the effectiveness of the controls solutions and have data to inform design decisions for Ares I. This paper will outline the modeling approaches and control system design to conduct this flight test, and also the system identification techniques developed to extract key information such as control system performance (gain/phase margins, for example), structural dynamics responses, and aerodynamic model estimations.

Brandon, Jay M.↗

Future Surface Decision Support Overview

This presentation presents the capabilities of the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) system as a surface decision support tool for users, including Air Traffic Control (ATC) personnel working at the tower and Center facilities and airline Ramp personnel. The ATD-2 IADS capabilities include data exchange and integration, modeling and scheduling, surface metering, and departure scheduling for overhead stream insertion of constrained flights.

Surface Decision Support↗

A development of logistics management models for the Space Transportation System

A new analytic queueing approach was described which relates stockage levels, repair level decisions, and the project network schedule of prelaunch operations directly to the probability distribution of the space transportation system launch delay. Finite source population and limited repair capability were additional factors included in this logistics management model developed specifically for STS maintenance requirements. Data presently available to support logistics decisions were based on a comparability study of heavy aircraft components. A two-phase program is recommended by which NASA would implement an integrated data collection system, assemble logistics data from previous STS flights, revise extant logistics planning and resource requirement parameters using Bayes-Lin techniques, and adjust for uncertainty surrounding logistics systems performance parameters. The implementation of these recommendations can be expected to deliver more cost-effective logistics support.

Carrillo, M. J.↗