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At least 667 records · Page 37

Self-Sustainable IoT-Based Remote Sensing Powered by Energy Harvesting Using Stacked Piezoelectric Transducer and Thermoelectric Generator

We propose a self-powered remote multi-sensing system for traffic sensing which is powered by the collective energy harvested from the mechanical vibration of the road caused by the passing vehicles and from the temperature gradient between the asphalt of the road and the soil underneath. A stacked piezoelectric transducer converts mechanical vibrations into electrical energy and a thermoelectric generator harvests the thermal energy from the thermal gradient. Electrical energy signals from the stacked piezoelectric transducer and the thermoelectric generators are converted into usable DC power to recharge the battery using AC-DC and DC-DC converters working simultaneously. The multi-sensing system comprises an embedded system with a microcontroller that acquires data from the sensors and sends the sensory data to an IoT transceiver which transmits the data as RF packets to an ethernet gateway. The gateway converts the RF packets into Internet Protocol (IP) packets and sends them to a remote server. Laboratory and road-testing results showed over 98% sensory data accuracy with the system functioning solely powered by the energy harvested from the alternative energy sources. The successful maximum transmission distance obtained between the IoT, and the gateway was approximately 1 mile, which is a considerable transmission distance achieved in an urban environment. Successful operation of the self-powered multi-sensing system under both laboratory and road conditions contributes considerably to the fields of energy harvesting and self-powered remote sensing systems. The energy flow chart and efficiency for the steps in the system were found to be mechanical power from vehicles to the energy harvester of 0.25%, stacked PZT transducer efficiency was found to be 37%, and for the TEGs the efficiency is 11%. AC-to-DC and DC-to-DC converters’ efficiencies were found to be 90% and 11%. The wireless communication RF transceiver efficiency was found to be 62.5%.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Ubiquitous Wireless Smart Sensing and Control. Pumps and Pipes JSC: Uniquely Houston

Need new technologies to reliably and safely have humans interact within sensored environments (integrated user interfaces, physical and cognitive augmentation, training, and human-systems integration tools).Areas of focus include: radio frequency identification (RFID), motion tracking, wireless communication, wearable computing, adaptive training and decision support systems, and tele-operations. The challenge is developing effective, low cost/mass/volume/power integrated monitoring systems to assess and control system, environmental, and operator health; and accurately determining and controlling the physical, chemical, and biological environments of the areas and associated environmental control systems.

Wagner, Raymond↗

Atmospheric propagation issues relevant to optical communications

Atmospheric propagation issues relevant to space-to-ground optical communications for near-earth applications are studied. Propagation effects, current optical communication activities, potential applications, and communication techniques are surveyed. It is concluded that a direct-detection space-to-ground link using redundant receiver sites and temporal encoding is likely to be employed to transmit earth-sensing satellite data to the ground some time in the future. Low-level, long-term studies of link availability, fading statistics, and turbulence climatology are recommended to support this type of application.

Churnside, James H.↗

Transition from Research to Operations: Assessing Value of Experimental Forecast Products within the NWSFO Environment

The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center seeks to accelerate the infusion of NASA Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) observations, data assimilation and modeling research into NWS forecast operations and decision-making. To meet long-term program expectations, it is not sufficient simply to give forecasters sophisticated workstations or new forecast products without fully assessing the ways in which they will be utilized. Close communication must be established between the research and operational communities so that developers have a complete understanding of user needs. In turn, forecasters must obtain a more comprehensive knowledge of the modeling and sensing tools available to them. A major goal of the SPoRT Program is to develop metrics and conduct assessment studies with NWS forecasters to evaluate the impacts and benefits of ESE experimental products on forecast skill. At a glance the task seems relatively straightforward. However, performing assessment of experimental products in an operational environment is demanding. Given the tremendous time constraints placed on NWS forecasters, it is imperative that forecaster input be obtained in a concise unobtrusive manor. Great care must also be taken to ensure that forecasters understand their participation will eventually benefit them and WFO operations in general. Two requirements of the assessment plan developed under the SPoRT activity are that it 1) Can be implemented within the WFO environment; and 2) Provide tangible results for BOTH the research and operational communities. Supplemental numerical quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF) were chosen as the first experimental SPoRT product to be evaluated during a Pilot Assessment Program conducted 1 May 2003 within the Huntsville AL National Weather Service Forecast Office. Forecast time periods were broken up into six- hour bins ranging from zero to twenty-four hours. Data were made available for display in AWIPS on an operational basis so they could be efficiently incorporated into the forecast process. The methodology used to assess the value of experimental QPFs compared to available operational products is best described as a three-tier approach involving both forecasters and research scientists. Tier-one is a web-based survey completed by duty forecasters on the aviation and public desks. The survey compiles information on how the experimental product was used in the forecast decision making process. Up to 6 responses per twenty-four hours can be compiled during a precipitation event. Tier-two consists of an event post mortem and experimental product assessment performed daily by the NASA/NWS Liaison. Tier-three is a detailed breakdown/analysis of specific events targeted by either the NWS SO0 or SPoRT team members. The task is performed by both NWS and NASA research scientists and may be conducted once every couple of months. The findings from the Pilot Assessment Program will be reported at the meeting.

Lapenta, William M.↗

NASA Tech Briefs, May 2011

Topics covered include: 1) Method to Estimate the Dissolved Air Content in Hydraulic Fluid; 2) Method for Measuring Collimator-Pointing Sensitivity to Temperature Changes; 3) High-Temperature Thermometer Using Cr-Doped GdAlO3 Broadband Luminescence; 4)Metrology Arrangement for Measuring the Positions of Mirrors of a Submillimeter Telescope; 5) On-Wafer S-Parameter Measurements in the 325-508-GHz Band; 6) Reconfigurable Microwave Phase Delay Element for Frequency Reference and Phase-Shifter Applications; 7) High-Speed Isolation Board for Flight Hardware Testing; 8) High-Throughput, Adaptive FFT Architecture for FPGA-Based Spaceborne Data Processors; 9) 3D Orbit Visualization for Earth-Observing Missions; 10) MaROS: Web Visualization of Mars Orbiting and Landed Assets; 11) RAPID: Collaborative Commanding and Monitoring of Lunar Assets; 12) Image Segmentation, Registration, Compression, and Matching; 13) Image Calibration; 14) Rapid ISS Power Availability Simulator; 15) A Method of Strengthening Composite/Metal Joints; 16) Pre-Finishing of SiC for Optical Applications; 17) Optimization of Indium Bump Morphology for Improved Flip Chip Devices; 18) Measuring Moisture Levels in Graphite Epoxy Composite Sandwich Structures; 19) Marshall Convergent Spray Formulation Improvement for High Temperatures; 20) Real-Time Deposition Monitor for Ultrathin Conductive Films; 21) Optimized Li-Ion Electrolytes Containing Triphenyl Phosphate as a Flame-Retardant Additive; 22) Radiation-Resistant Hybrid Lotus Effect for Achieving Photoelectrocatalytic Self-Cleaning Anticontamination Coatings; 23) Improved, Low-Stress Economical Submerged Pipeline; 24) Optical Fiber Array Assemblies for Space Flight on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter; 25) Local Leak Detection and Health Monitoring of Pressurized Tanks; 26) Dielectric Covered Planar Antennas at Submillimeter Wavelengths for Terahertz Imaging; 27) Automated Cryocooler Monitor and Control System; 28) Broadband Achromatic Phase Shifter for a Nulling Interferometer; 29) Super Dwarf Wheat for Growth in Confined Spaces; 30) Fine Guidance Sensing for Coronagraphic Observatories; 31) Single-Antenna Temperature- and Humidity-Sounding Microwave Receiver; 32) Multi-Wavelength, Multi-Beam, and Polarization-Sensitive Laser Transmitter for Surface Mapping; 33) Optical Communications Link to Airborne Transceiver; 34) Ascent Heating Thermal Analysis on Spacecraft Adaptor Fairings; 35) Entanglement in Self-Supervised Dynamics; 36) Prioritized LT Codes; 37) Fast Image Texture Classification Using Decision Trees; 38) Constraint Embedding Technique for Multibody System Dynamics; 39) Improved Systematic Pointing Error Model for the DSN Antennas; 40) Observability and Estimation of Distributed Space Systems via Local Information-Exchange Networks; 41) More-Accurate Model of Flows in Rocket Injectors; 42) In-Orbit Instrument-Pointing Calibration Using the Moon as a Target; 43) Reliability of Ceramic Column Grid Array Interconnect Packages Under Extreme Temperatures; 44) Six Degrees-of-Freedom Ascent Control for Small-Body Touch and Go; and 45) Optical-Path-Difference Linear Mechanism for the Panchromatic Fourier Transform Spectrometer.

Source record↗

NASA’s Mid-Atlantic Communities and Areas at Intensive Risk Demonstration: Translating Compounding Hazards to Societal Risk

Remote sensing provides a unique perspective on our dynamic planet, tracking changes and revealing the course of complex interactions. Long term monitoring and targeted observation combine with modeling and mapping to provide increased awareness of hydro-meteorological and geological hazards. Disasters often follow hazards and the goal of NASA’s Disasters Program is to look at the earth as a highly coupled system to reduce risk and enable resilience. Remote sensing and geospatial science are used as tools to help answer critical questions that inform decisions. Data is not the same as information, nor does understanding of processes necessarily translate into decision support for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. Accordingly, NASA is engaging the scientific and decision-support communities to apply remote sensing, modeling, and related applications in Communities and Areas at Intensive Risk (CAIR). In 2017, NASA’s Applied Sciences Disasters Program hosted a regional workshop to explore these issues with particular focus on coastal Virginia and North Carolina. The workshop brought together partners in academia, emergency management, and scientists from NASA and partnering federal agencies to explore capabilities among the team that could improve understanding of the physical processes related to these hazards, their potential impact to changing communities, and to identify methodologies for supporting emergency response and risk mitigation. The resulting initiative, the mid-Atlantic CAIR project, demonstrates the ability to integrate satellite derived earth observations and physical models into actionable, trusted knowledge. Severe storms and associated storm surge, sea level rise, and land subsidence coupled with increasing populations and densely populated, aging critical infrastructure often leave coastal regions and their communities extremely vulnerable. The integration of observations and models allow for a comprehensive understanding of the compounding risk experienced in coastal regions and enables individuals in all positions make risk-informed decisions. This initiative uses a representative storm surge case as a baseline to produce flood inundation maps. These maps predict building level impacts at current day and for sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence scenarios of the future in order to inform critical decisions at both the tactical and strategic levels. To accomplish this analysis, the mid-Atlantic CAIR project brings together Federal research activities with academia to examine coastal hazards in multiple ways: 1) reanalysis of impacts from 2011 Hurricane Irene, using numerical weather modeling in combination with coastal surge and hydrodynamic, urban inundation modeling to evaluate combined impact scenarios considering SLR and subsidence, 2) remote sensing of flood extent from available optical imagery, 3) adding value to remotely sensed flood maps through depth predictions, and 4) examining coastal subsidence as measured through time-series analysis of synthetic aperture radar observations. Efforts and results are published via ArcGIS story maps to communicate neighborhoods and infrastructure most vulnerable to changing conditions. Story map features enable time-aware flood mapping using hydrodynamic models, photographic comparison of flooding following Hurricane Irene, as well as visualization of heightened risk in the future due to SLR and land subsidence.

Rogers, Laura↗

The Operational NASA Anomaly Gas Analyzer and Exploration Follow-Ons

The NASA Anomaly Gas Analyzer (AGA) is the culmination of nearly ten years of advancement of core technology originally developed by Vista Photonics through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and expanded using NASA program funding. The AGA is a portable, battery operated, optical gas detection instrument for continuous monitoring of H 2 O, CO 2 , O 2 , CO, NH 3 , HCN, HF, HCl in the spacecraft environment. Real time, in-situ monitored, gas concentrations are communicated at 1 Hz through a built-in display on-orbit and additionally through a serial interface on the ground. The instruments function over the typical range of temperatures and pressures required for the spacecraft environment. A ten-year operational life is targeted. Seven AGA instruments are currently deployed on the International Space Station and two Orion-specific units are manifested for Artemis 2. A variation of the operational AGA is under development for lunar Human Landing Systems. A wider calibrated operating pressure envelope is required in this application. Otherwise, the instruments straightforwardly address lessons learned from the original AGA by improving aspects of thermal control, ruggedness, and ease-of-use. A subset of AGA-developed sensed gases (H 2 O, CO 2 , O 2 ) is the subject of the Primary Constituent Monitor (PCM) development for the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) destined for lunar orbit. Two PCMs will be installed in HALO as part of the environmental control loop where they will interface with vehicle power and communications. While the basic sensor techniques are unchanged from the AGA, these instruments have been radiation hardened to survive for many years in the harsh target environment. Current development status for these instruments will be presented along with recent developments of a naval submarine variant.

Air Monitoring↗

Flight Test Design and Implementation for Independent Surveillance of an Airspace Through a Distributed Ground Sensing Network

The paper presents a system architecture for distributed sensing, networking and computing, its hardware implementation, and execution of initial flight experiments to validate theoretical findings. It induces development of distributed sensing requirements, framework, and architecture, development of distributed ground node hardware prototypes, integration of all nodes and testing of baseline functionalities, integration of in-house developed perception, migration and tracking software packages, establishing flight scenario and flyable path for a selected UAS, flying the air vehicle along the path, recording sensors measurements, pre-processing them and transferring the resulting data to an optimal computing center. It also addresses the challenges related to pre-flight hardware calibration, clock synchronization, sensor registration and establishing a communication network. Sensors data processing results demonstrate the functionality of the presented distributed architecture and satisfactory performance of the applied technologies.

Distributed sensing↗

Cloud Optical Depth Measured with Ground-Based, Uncooled Infrared Imagers

Recent advances in uncooled, low-cost, long-wave infrared imagers provide excellent opportunities for remotely deployed ground-based remote sensing systems. However, the use of these imagers in demanding atmospheric sensing applications requires that careful attention be paid to characterizing and calibrating the system. We have developed and are using several versions of the ground-based "Infrared Cloud Imager (ICI)" instrument to measure spatial and temporal statistics of clouds and cloud optical depth or attenuation for both climate research and Earth-space optical communications path characterization. In this paper we summarize the ICI instruments and calibration methodology, then show ICI-derived cloud optical depths that are validated using a dual-polarization cloud lidar system for thin clouds (optical depth of approximately 4 or less).

remote sensing↗

Manipulation of Scattering Spectra with Topology of Light and Matter

Structured lights, including beams carrying spin and orbital angular momenta, radially and azimuthally polarized vector beams, as well as spatiotemporal optical vortices, have attracted significant interest due to their unique amplitude, phase front, polarization, and temporal structures, enabling a variety of applications in optical and quantum communications, micromanipulation, and super-resolution imaging. In parallel, structured optical materials, metamaterials, and metasurfaces consisting of engineered unit cells—meta-atoms, opened new avenues for manipulating the flow of light and optical sensing. While several studies explored structured light effects on the individual meta-atoms, their shapes are largely limited to simple spherical geometries. However, the synergy of the structured light and complex-shaped meta-atoms has not been fully explored. Here, in this paper, the role of the helical wavefront of Laguerre–Gaussian beams in the excitation and suppression of higher-order resonant modes inside all-dielectric meta-atoms of various shapes, aspect ratios, and orientations, is demonstrated and the excitation of various multipolar moments that are not accessible via unstructured light illumination is predicted. The presented study elucidates the role of the complex phase distribution of the incident light in shape-dependent resonant scattering, which is of utmost importance in a wide spectrum of applications ranging from remote sensing to spectroscopy.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Semiconductor quantum dots: Technological progress and future challenges

In quantum-confined semiconductor nanostructures, electrons exhibit distinctive behavior compared with that in bulk solids. This enables the design of materials with tunable chemical, physical, electrical, and optical properties. Zero-dimensional semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) offer strong light absorption and bright narrowband emission across the visible and infrared wavelengths and have been engineered to exhibit optical gain and lasing. These properties are of interest for imaging, solar energy harvesting, displays, and communications. Here, we offer an overview of advances in the synthesis and understanding of QD nanomaterials, with a focus on colloidal QDs, and discuss their prospects in technologies such as displays and lighting, lasers, sensing, electronics, solar energy conversion, photocatalysis, and quantum information.

García de Arquer, F. Pelayo↗

Potential medical applications of TAE

In cooperation with scientists in the University of Washington Medical School, a microcomputer-based image processing system for quantitative microscopy, called DMD1 (Digital Microdensitometer 1) was constructed. In order to make DMD1 transportable to different hosts and image processors, we have been investigating the possibility of rewriting the lower level portions of DMD1 software using Transportable Applications Executive (TAE) libraries and subsystems. If successful, we hope to produce a newer version of DMD1, called DMD2, running on an IBM PC/AT under the SCO XENIX System 5 operating system, using any of seven target image processors available in our laboratory. Following this implementation, copies of the system will be transferred to other laboratories with biomedical imaging applications. By integrating those applications into DMD2, we hope to eventually expand our system into a low-cost general purpose biomedical imaging workstation. This workstation will be useful not only as a self-contained instrument for clinical or research applications, but also as part of a large scale Digital Imaging Network and Picture Archiving and Communication System, (DIN/PACS). Widespread application of these TAE-based image processing and analysis systems should facilitate software exchange and scientific cooperation not only within the medical community, but between the medical and remote sensing communities as well.

Fahy, J. Ben↗

Satellite Data Processing System (SDPS) users manual V1.0

SDPS is a menu driven interactive program designed to facilitate the display and output of image and line-based data sets common to telemetry, modeling and remote sensing. This program can be used to display up to four separate raster images and overlay line-based data such as coastlines, ship tracks and velocity vectors. The program uses multiple windows to communicate information with the user. At any given time, the program may have up to four image display windows as well as auxiliary windows containing information about each image displayed. SDPS is not a commercial program. It does not contain complete type checking or error diagnostics which may allow the program to crash. Known anomalies will be mentioned in the appropriate section as notes or cautions. SDPS was designed to be used on Sun Microsystems Workstations running SunView1 (Sun Visual/Integrated Environment for Workstations). It was primarily designed to be used on workstations equipped with color monitors, but most of the line-based functions and several of the raster-based functions can be used with monochrome monitors. The program currently runs on Sun 3 series workstations running Sun OS 4.0 and should port easily to Sun 4 and Sun 386 series workstations with SunView1. Users should also be familiar with UNIX, Sun workstations and the SunView window system.

Caruso, Michael↗

Splash 2

Splash 2 is an attached processor system for Sun SPARC 2 workstations that uses Xilinx 4010 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA's) as its processing elements. The purpose of this paper is to describe Splash 2. The predecessor system, Splash 1, was designed to be used as a systolic processing system. Although it was very successful in that mode, there were many other applications that were not systolic, but which were successful, nonetheless, on Splash 1, or that were not implemented successfully due to one or more architectural limitations, most notably I/O bandwidth and interprocessor communication. Although other uses to increase computational performance have been found for the Xilinx FPGA's that are Splash's processing elements. Splash is unique in its goal to be programmable in a general sense.

Arnold, Jeffrey M.↗

A Visual Analytics Approach to Debugging Cooperative, Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems’ Worldviews

Autonomous multi-robot systems, where a team of robots shares information to perform tasks that are beyond an individual robot’s abilities, hold great promise for a number of applications, such as planetary exploration missions. Each robot in a multi- robot system autonomously schedules which robots should perform a given task and when, using its worldview–the robot’s internal representation of its belief about the environment and other robots’ states. A key problem for operators is that robots’ worldviews can fall out of sync (often due to weak communication links), leading to desynchronization of the robots’ scheduling decisions and inconsistent emergent behavior (e.g., tasks not performed, or performed by multiple robots). Operators face the time-consuming and difficult task of making sense of the robots’ scheduling decisions, detecting de-synchronizations, and pinpointing their cause by comparing every robot’s worldview. To address these challenges, we introduce MOSAIC Viewer, a visual analytics system that helps operators (i) make sense of the robots’ schedules and (ii) detect and conduct a root cause analysis of the robots’ desynchronized worldviews. Over a year-long partnership with roboticists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a formative study was performed to identify the necessary system design requirements, which supports the design of the system. A qualitative study with 12 roboticists reveals that MOSAIC Viewer is faster- and easier-to-use than the users’ current approaches, and it allows them to stitch low-level details to formulate a high-level understanding of the robots’ schedules and detect and pin-point the cause of desynchronized worldviews.

Ma, Kwan-Liu↗

Experimental Verification of the Parabolic Deformable Mirror for the ExoSpec Project

For the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), it is essential to broaden the controllable wavelength bandwidth for high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy to increase the exoEarth yield and characterization. The Parabolic Deformable Mirrors (PDM) subpackage, under the NASA Headquarters-directed Exoplanet Spectroscopy (ExoSpec) Work Package, is specifically tailored to do so. We have successfully procured a first-generation (Gen 1) PDM device and completed in-depth characterization of the device. This robust evaluation has become instrumental in informing subsequent stages of development, particularly in shaping the design and specifying requirements for the next generation, Gen 2, PDM device. We have built a testbed in an environmentally controlled cleanroom to experimentally demonstrate the use of a PDM in a coronagraph instrument with an integral field spectrograph (IFS). This versatile testbed is designed to test different DM architectures, low-order wavefront sensing schemes, and a lenslet-based IFS. This provides us with a basis for comparison with different DM configurations: 1) flat DM, 2) PDMs, and 3) a flat DM and PDMs. In this communication, we will discuss the testbed design and updates, PDM characterization, and Gen 2 requirement definitions.

Hari B. Subedi↗

Onboard Hyperspectral Image Classification via Transfer Learning for Communication-Limited Spacecraft

Employing deep-learning and artificial-intelligence (AI) techniques onboard spacecraft can dramatically improve priority data selection to ensure more effective use of the available downlink. However, deployment of effective deep-learning models requires significant training on the ground, which may not be feasible, due to limited data available in an unexplored environment. Therefore, this research explores building robust classification models for onboard data processing where training data is highly limited using transfer-learning techniques. In this paper, we focus on the use case of hyperspectral imaging for remote sensing, a domain where the high dimensionality of the data from the sensor can rapidly saturate the downlink bandwidth. With this bottleneck, there is an impending need to autonomously and robustly classify data onboard to optimize downlink of high-impact measurements, thus maximizing the scientific utility per bit transmitted to the ground. This paper examines the use of deep neural networks onboard for hyperspectral image classification in a communication-limited scenario to analyze how the models perform with limited training data. The use of transfer learning can ameliorate the issue of poor generalization by transferring features learned from training on a large source dataset for one classification task to the target classification task with limited training data. For two deep-learning models from literature, we compare the accuracy of the models trained using transfer learning to models trained from scratch using a random weight initialization with varying amounts of training data. We demonstrate the feasibility and performance of running inference of the deep-learning models on representative flight-like hardware.

Advanced Avionics, Machine Learning, Data Processi↗

Pilot-aided modulation for narrow-band satellite communications

This paper discusses a number of tone-aided modulation techniques which have been studied as part of the Mobile Satellite Experiment (MSAT-X) Program. In all instances tone(s) are inserted into data-free portions of the transmit spectrum and used by the receiver to sense the amplitude and frequency/phase distortions introduced by the channel. The receiver then uses this information in a feedforward manner to lessen the effect of the distortions on the data detection performance. Particular techniques discussed are the Tone Calibration Technique (TCT), the Dual Tone Calibrated Technique (DTCT), Transparent Tone-In-Band (TTIB), and Dual-Tone Single Sideband (DTSSB).

Saulnier, Gary J.↗