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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 667 records · Page 37

Building flexible real-time systems using the Flex language

The design and implementation of a real-time programming language called Flex, which is a derivative of C++, are presented. It is shown how different types of timing requirements might be expressed and enforced in Flex, how they might be fulfilled in a flexible way using different program models, and how the programming environment can help in making binding and scheduling decisions. The timing constraint primitives in Flex are easy to use yet powerful enough to define both independent and relative timing constraints. Program models like imprecise computation and performance polymorphism can carry out flexible real-time programs. In addition, programmers can use a performance measurement tool that produces statistically correct timing models to predict the expected execution time of a program and to help make binding decisions. A real-time programming environment is also presented.

Kenny, Kevin B.↗

C-SIDE: The control-structure interaction demonstration experiment

The Control-Structure Interaction Demonstration Experiment (C-SIDE) is sponsored by the Electro-Optics and Cryogenics Division of Ball Aerospace Systems Group. Our objective is to demonstrate methods of solution to structure control problems utilizing currently available hardware in a system that is an extension of our corporate experience. The larger space structures with which Ball has been associated are the SEASAT radar antenna, Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR) -A, -B and -C antennas and the Radarsat spacecraft. The motivation for the C-SIDE configuration is to show that integration of active figure control in the radar's system-level design can relieve antenna mechanical design constraints. This presentation is primarily an introduction to the C-SIDE testbed. Its physical and functional layouts, and major components are described. The sensor is of special interest as it enables direct surface figure measurements from a remote location. The Remote Attitude Measurement System (RAMS) makes high-rate, unobtrusive measurements of many locations, several of which may be collocated easily with actuators. The control processor is a 386/25 executing a reduced order model-based algorithm with provision for residual mode filters to compensate for structure interaction. The actuators for the ground demonstration are non-contacting, linear force devices. Results presented illustrate some basic characteristics of control-structure interaction with this hardware. The testbed will be used for evaluation of current technologies and for research in several areas. A brief indication of the evolution of the C-SIDE is given at the conclusion.

Mohl, James B.↗

Blasim: A computational tool to assess ice impact damage on engine blades

A portable computer called BLASIM was developed at NASA LeRC to assess ice impact damage on aircraft engine blades. In addition to ice impact analyses, the code also contains static, dynamic, resonance margin, and supersonic flutter analysis capabilities. Solid, hollow, superhybrid, and composite blades are supported. An optional preprocessor (input generator) was also developed to interactively generate input for BLASIM. The blade geometry can be defined using a series of airfoils at discrete input stations or by a finite element grid. The code employs a coarse, fixed finite element mesh containing triangular plate finite elements to minimize program execution time. Ice piece is modeled using an equivalent spherical objective that has a high velocity opposite that of the aircraft and parallel to the engine axis. For local impact damage assessment, the impact load is considered as a distributed force acting over a region around the impact point. The average radial strain of the finite elements along the leading edge is used as a measure of the local damage. To estimate damage at the blade root, the impact is treated as an impulse and a combined stress failure criteria is employed. Parametric studies of local and root ice impact damage, and post-impact dynamics are discussed for solid and composite blades.

Reddy, E. S.↗

Materials and structure synergistic with in-space materials utilization

The significant advances made recently toward actual hardware realizations of various concepts for the application of in-space materials utilization (ISMU) are demonstrated. The overall plan for taking innovative concepts through technical feasibility, small-scale tests, scale-up, computer modeling, and larger-scale execution is outlined. Two specific fields of endeavor are surveyed: one has direct applications to construction on the moon, while the other has more basic implications, in addition to the practical aspects of lunar colonies. Several fundamental scientific advances made in the characterization of the physical and chemical processes that need to be elucidated for any intelligent application of the ISMU concepts in future space missions are described. A rigorous quantitative technique for the unambiguous evaluation of various components and component technology that form any space (or terrestrial mission) is also described.

Ramohalli, Kumar↗

CD volume design and verification

In this paper, we describe a prototype for CD-ROM volume design and verification. This prototype allows users to create their own model of CD volumes by modifying a prototypical model. Rule-based verification of the test volumes can then be performed later on against the volume definition. This working prototype has proven the concept of model-driven rule-based design and verification for large quantity of data. The model defined for the CD-ROM volumes becomes a data model as well as an executable specification.

Li, Y. P.↗

Reinventing The Design Process: Teams and Models

The future of space mission designing will be dramatically different from the past. Formerly, performance-driven paradigms emphasized data return with cost and schedule being secondary issues. Now and in the future, costs are capped and schedules fixed-these two variables must be treated as independent in the design process. Accordingly, JPL has redesigned its design process. At the conceptual level, design times have been reduced by properly defining the required design depth, improving the linkages between tools, and managing team dynamics. In implementation-phase design, system requirements will be held in crosscutting models, linked to subsystem design tools through a central database that captures the design and supplies needed configuration management and control. Mission goals will then be captured in timelining software that drives the models, testing their capability to execute the goals. Metrics are used to measure and control both processes and to ensure that design parameters converge through the design process within schedule constraints. This methodology manages margins controlled by acceptable risk levels. Thus, teams can evolve risk tolerance (and cost) as they would any engineering parameter. This new approach allows more design freedom for a longer time, which tends to encourage revolutionary and unexpected improvements in design.

Wall, Stephen D.↗

Intelligent Rover Execution for Detecting Life in the Atacama Desert

On-board supervisory execution is crucial for the deployment of more capable and autonomous remote explorers. Planetary science is considering robotic explorers operating for long periods of time without ground supervision while interacting with a changing and often hostile environment. Effective and robust operations require on-board supervisory control with a high level of awareness of the principles of functioning of the environment and of the numerous internal subsystems that need to be coordinated. We describe an on-board rover executive that was deployed on a rover as past of the "Limits of Life in the Atacama Desert (LITA)" field campaign sponsored by the NASA ASTEP program. The executive was built using the Intelligent Distributed Execution Architecture (IDEA), an execution framework that uses model-based and plan-based supervisory control of its fundamental computational paradigm. We present the results of the third field experiment conducted in the Atacama desert (Chile) in August - October 2005.

Baskaran, Vijayakumar↗

Simultaneous Excitation of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output CFD-Based Unsteady Aerodynamic Systems

A significant improvement to the development of CFD-based unsteady aerodynamic reduced-order models (ROMs) is presented. This improvement involves the simultaneous excitation of the structural modes of the CFD-based unsteady aerodynamic system that enables the computation of the unsteady aerodynamic state-space model using a single CFD execution, independent of the number of structural modes. Four different types of inputs are presented that can be used for the simultaneous excitation of the structural modes. Results are presented for a flexible, supersonic semi-span configuration using the CFL3Dv6.4 code.

Silva, Walter A.↗

Simultaneous Excitation of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output CFD-Based Unsteady Aerodynamic Systems

A significant improvement to the development of CFD-based unsteady aerodynamic reduced-order models (ROMs) is presented. This improvement involves the simultaneous excitation of the structural modes of the CFD-based unsteady aerodynamic system that enables the computation of the unsteady aerodynamic state-space model using a single CFD execution, independent of the number of structural modes. Four different types of inputs are presented that can be used for the simultaneous excitation of the structural modes. Results are presented for a flexible, supersonic semi-span configuration using the CFL3Dv6.4 code.

Silva, Walter A.↗

The Capillary Flow Experiments Aboard the International Space Station: Increments 9-15

This report provides a summary of the experimental, analytical, and numerical results of the Capillary Flow Experiment (CFE) performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The experiments were conducted in space beginning with Increment 9 through Increment 16, beginning August 2004 and ending December 2007. Both primary and extra science experiments were conducted during 19 operations performed by 7 astronauts including: M. Fincke, W. McArthur, J. Williams, S. Williams, M. Lopez-Alegria, C. Anderson, and P. Whitson. CFE consists of 6 approximately 1 to 2 kg handheld experiment units designed to investigate a selection of capillary phenomena of fundamental and applied importance, such as large length scale contact line dynamics (CFE-Contact Line), critical wetting in discontinuous structures (CFE-Vane Gap), and capillary flows and passive phase separations in complex containers (CFE-Interior Corner Flow). Highly quantitative video from the simply performed flight experiments provide data helpful in benchmarking numerical methods, confirming theoretical models, and guiding new model development. In an extensive executive summary, a brief history of the experiment is reviewed before introducing the science investigated. A selection of experimental results and comparisons with both analytic and numerical predictions is given. The subsequent chapters provide additional details of the experimental and analytical methods developed and employed. These include current presentations of the state of the data reduction which we anticipate will continue throughout the year and culminate in several more publications. An extensive appendix is used to provide support material such as an experiment history, dissemination items to date (CFE publication, etc.), detailed design drawings, and crew procedures. Despite the simple nature of the experiments and procedures, many of the experimental results may be practically employed to enhance the design of spacecraft engineering systems involving capillary interface dynamics.

Jenson, Ryan M.↗

On-Board Planning for New Millenium Deep Space One Autonomy

The Deep Space One (DS1) mission, scheduled to fly in 1998, will be the first NASA spacecraft to feature an on-board planner. The planner is part of an artificial intelligence based control architecture that comprises the planner/scheduler, a plan execution engine, and a model-based fault diagnosis and reconfiguration engine...This paper describes the on-board planning and scheduling component of the DS1 autonomy architecture.

Deep↗

The Path to Crew Autonomy - Situational Awareness in Scheduling and Rescheduling Tasks for Novice Schedulers

To increase crew autonomy for long duration exploration-class missions (LDEM), certain mission support tasks need to be completed by crew. Currently, crew activities are scheduled over the course of several weeks by ground-based experts with years of experience-based training. These experts display extensive amounts of situational awareness (SA) throughout task execution by maintaining a mental model of additional factors during scheduling such as constraints (e.g. physical space/layout), abilities and skills of the crew, and crew preferences allowing them to anticipate and mitigate potential issues. Thus, situational awareness is a key component for crews to manage their own schedules. In this paper, we examined situational awareness in novice schedulers in both a scheduling and rescheduling task. Our findings indicate that there is no significant difference between scheduling and rescheduling tasks for the development of SA in novice schedulers. Additionally, our experiment shows that novice schedulers are less able to develop sufficient SA for constraints that are dependent on one or more activities. Thus, we propose that software aids may be useful to support novice schedulers and increase SA in scheduling/rescheduling tasks. This work is vital to ensure the successful transfer of mission support tasks to the crew for future LDEM.

situation awareness↗

Apollo

Modern performance portability frameworks provide application developers with a flexible way to determine how to run application kernels, however, they provide no guidance as to the best configuration for a given kernel. Apollo provides a model-generation framework that, when integrated with the RAJA library, uses lightweight decision tree models to select the fastest execution configuration on a per-kernel basis

Beckingsal, David↗

Parallel quantum computing simulations via quantum accelerator platform virtualization

Quantum circuit execution is a central task in quantum computation. Due to inherent quantum-mechanical constraints, quantum computing workflows often involve a considerable number of independent measurements over a large set of slightly different quantum circuits. Here we discuss a simple model for parallelizing such quantum circuit executions that is based on introducing a large array of virtual quantum processing units (mapped to HPC nodes in our case) as a parallel quantum computing platform. Implemented within the XACC framework, the model can readily take advantage of its backend-agnostic features, enabling parallel quantum computing/simulation over any target backend supported by XACC. We illustrate the performance of this approach by demonstrating strong scaling in two pertinent domain science problems, namely in computing the gradients for the multi-contracted variational quantum eigensolver and in data-driven quantum circuit learning, where we vary the number of qubits and the number of circuit layers. Here, the latter simulation leverages the cuQuantum library to run efficiently on GPU-accelerated HPC platforms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A Rewriting-Based Approach to Trace Analysis

We present a rewriting-based algorithm for efficiently evaluating future time Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formulae on finite execution traces online. While the standard models of LTL are infinite traces, finite traces appear naturally when testing and/or monitoring red applications that only run for limited time periods. The presented algorithm is implemented in the Maude executable specification language and essentially consists of a set of equations establishing an executable semantics of LTL using a simple formula transforming approach. The algorithm is further improved to build automata on-the-fly from formulae, using memoization. The result is a very efficient and small Maude program that can be used to monitor program executions. We furthermore present an alternative algorithm for synthesizing probably minimal observer finite state machines (or automata) from LTL formulae, which can be used to analyze execution traces without the need for a rewriting system, and can hence be used by observers written in conventional programming languages. The presented work is part of an ambitious runtime verification and monitoring project at NASA Ames, called PATHEXPLORER, and demonstrates that rewriting can be a tractable and attractive means for experimenting and implementing program monitoring logics.

Havelund, Klaus↗

NOS3: NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites

The NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3) is a suite of open-source software tools to aid in areas such as software development, integration & test (I&T), mission operations/training, verification and validation (V&V), and software systems check-out. NOS3 provides a software development environment, a multi-target build system, operational interface/ground software, dynamics and environment simulations, and software-based hardware models. NOS3 has just recently been open-sourced by NASA and is available for immediate use. It enables the development of flight software (FSW) early in the project life cycle when hardware availability is limited. Small satellite development suffers from extensive lead times on many of the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components as well as limited funding for engineering test units (ETUs). To alleviate the need to provide a hardware test-bed for each developer/tester, NOS3 hardware models are based upon characteristic data or manufacturer's data sheets for each individual component. The NOS3 hardware models' fidelity is such that FSW executes unaware that physical hardware is not present. This allows FSW binaries to be compiled for both the simulation environment and the flight computer without changing the FSW source code. For hardware models that provide data which is dependent upon the environment and spacecraft dynamics, such as a GPS receiver or magnetometer, an open-source tool from NASA GSFC (42 Spacecraft Simulator) is used to provide the necessary data. The underlying infrastructure used to transfer messages between FSW and the hardware models can also be used to monitor, intercept, and inject messages, which has proven to be beneficial for V&V of larger missions such as James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). As hardware is selected and becomes available, drivers can be added to the NOS3 environment to enable hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing. When strict time synchronization is not vital, any number of combinations of hardware components and software-based models can be tested. NOS3 was actively used for FSW development and component testing of the Simulation-to-Flight 1 (STF-1) CubeSat and the Lunar IceCube CubeSat. As NOS3 matures, hardware models have been added for common small satellite components such as GPS receivers, electrical power systems and batteries, and antenna systems.

Suder, Mark↗

Turbine Electrified Energy Management with Model Predictive Control

Affordability, sustainability, and efficiency are primary motivators driving the future of NASA aeronautics research. These factors are realized, in part, through the development and implementation of new technologies and strategies enabling efficient, affordable, and safe hybrid-electric aircraft. Research supporting electrified aircraft propulsion control systems exemplifies such new methodologies, offering varied opportunities to integrate electric machines with gas-based turbine engines. For hybrid-electric propulsion systems, current conceptual architectures seek to introduce energy storage and exploit electrical power system components to assist gas-based system components. Capitalizing on the electric machines in hybridized engines, Turbine Electrified Energy Management (TEEM) is a control approach that enhances transient operability to improve overall propulsion and vehicle efficiency by injecting or extracting power from engine shafts. Traditionally implemented with proportional-integral (PI) control, this study expands the application of TEEM by presenting model predictive control (MPC) schemes to execute the TEEM concept. Via cost function design and constraint selection, the transient operability goals for TEEM are considered in the controller designs. The proposed MPCs are simulated on a nonlinear turbofan engine model at two environmental conditions, with comparisons drawn to a baseline PI. Performance is evaluated using compressor maps and two TEEM-specific metrics: transient stack usage and transient excursion integral. Simulation results reveal the developed schemes perform comparably to the benchmark controller and can be implemented in two distinct configurations. Potential modifications for future investigations include cost function measures that optimize energy use, additional performance effectiveness measures, and battery storage capabilities.

Elyse D. Hill↗