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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 811 records · Page 45
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

ROSE: A reduced-order scattering emulator for optical models

A new generation of phenomenological optical potentials requires robust calibration and uncertainty quantification, motivating the use of Bayesian statistical methods. These Bayesian methods usually require calculating observables for thousands or even millions of parameter sets, making fast and accurate emulators highly desirable or even essential. Emulating scattering across different energies or with interactions such as optical potentials is challenging because of the nonaffine parameter dependence, meaning the parameters do not all factorize from individual operators. Here we introduce and demonstrate the reduced-order scattering emulator ( ROSE ) framework, a reduced basis emulator that can handle nonaffine problems. ROSE is fully extensible and works within the publicly available band framework software suite for calibration, model mixing, and experimental design. As a demonstration problem, we use ROSE to calibrate a realistic nucleon-target scattering model through the calculation of elastic cross sections. This problem shows the practical value of the ROSE framework for Bayesian uncertainty quantification with controlled trade-offs between emulator speed and accuracy as compared to high-fidelity solvers. Finally, planned extensions of ROSE are discussed.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) Web Application (BETTER Web App) v1.0

The Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) V.1.0 web application identifies cost-saving energy and emissions reductions in buildings and portfolios, without site visits or complex modeling. With minimal data entry, BETTER benchmarks a building's or portfolio's energy use against peers; quantifies energy, cost, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction potential; and recommends energy efficiency measures for individual buildings or portfolios, targeting specific energy savings levels. The source code of BETTER's modular, cross-platform analytical engine has previously been disclosed (2019-001) and is available on GitHub and can be adopted, redeveloped, and redistributed freely under an open-source license, allowing users to incorporate BETTER's analytical capabilities into their own software platforms and tools. The BETTER V.1.0 web application, developed with the Django web-framework and the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture being disclosed here, provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for any user to view the software tutorials, download and upload a data entry template, configure and run the BETTER analyses, and view the final analytical reports.

Szum, Carolyn↗
DOE OSTI2020

Coastal Community Resiliency Enhancement Using Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) Resources and Networked Microgrids

Enormous challenges are inherent in the operation of modern distribution grids. In particular, distribution feeders can be severely compromised under extreme conditions such as large-scale weather events (e.g., hurricanes, floods, and other types of natural disasters). To combat this problem, they turn to local energy support from distributed energy resources, such as solar and wind, marine hydrolinetic (MHK), and other types of energy. In this report, we investigate the actual characteristics of MHK resources to enhance coastal community resiliency. Two typical types of MHK resources (i.e., wave and tidal resources) illustrate the coastal resilience enhancement framework. By identifying their operational characteristics, such as target time-scales and potential power generation variations, we detail a holistic coastal community resiliency enhancement framework that integrates both optimization and control efforts. The optimization problem is formulated to significantly minimize the power outage time at the critical infrastructures in coastal communities by implementing multiple autonomous and dynamic microgrids around MHK resources. Therefore, during severe power outages caused by natural disasters (e.g., floods, hurricanes), the coastal community load profiles can be satisfied using local MHK resources in each microgrid with limited or no power support from upstream power grids.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2022

System Integration Analysis for Modular Solid-State Substations

Structural modularity is critical to solid-state transformer (SST) and solid-state power substation (SSPS) concepts, but operational aspects related to this modularity are not yet fully understood. Previous studies and demonstrations of modular power conversion systems assume identical module compositions, but dependence on module uniformity undercuts the value of the modular framework. In this project, a hierarchical control approach was developed for modular SSTs which achieves system-level objectives while ensuring equitable power sharing between nonuniform building block modules. This enables module replacements and upgrades which leverage circuit and device technology advancements to improve system-level performance. The functionality of the control approach is demonstrated in detailed time-domain simulations. Results of this project provide context and strategic direction for future LDRD projects focusing on technologies supporting the SST crosscut outcome of the resilient energy systems mission campaign.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Zero Emission Cargo Transport (ZECT) II Demonstration: South Coast Air Quality Management District (Final Report)

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD), California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) — the agencies responsible for preparing the State Implementation Plan required under the federal Clean Air Act — have agreed that attainment of federal air quality standards for the region will require a transition to the broad use of zero and near-zero emission energy sources in cars, trucks and other equipment. Accordingly, the 2012 South Coast AQMD Air Quality Management Plan, the SCAG 2012 Regional Transportation Plan, and the “Vision for Clean Air: A Framework for Air Quality and Climate Control Planning” all identify the need to immediately enact a phasing in of zero and near-zero emission technologies to meet air quality goals. In 2014, South Coast AQMD was awarded grant funding under the US Department of Energy Zero Emission Cargo Transport (ZECT) II Demonstration program to develop and demonstrate zero-emission drayage trucks for goods movement operations between the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and Port of Long Beach (POLB) near dock rail yards and warehouses: 1) development and demonstration of zero-emission fuel cell range extended electric drayage trucks and 2) development and demonstration of hybrid electric drayage trucks. The purpose of this project was to accelerate deployment of zero emission cargo transport technologies to reduce harmful diesel emissions, petroleum consumption and greenhouse gases in the surrounding communities along the goods movement corridors that are impacted by heavy diesel traffic and the associated air pollution. Between 2014 – 2024, six ZECT II zero-emission fuel cell drayage truck platforms, including fuel cell range extended and CNG hybrid trucks, were successfully designed, developed, integrated, built, tested, and demonstrated with drayage fleet operators in transportation corridors within areas of the South Coast AQMD jurisdiction in Southern California such as in and around POLA and POLB. Portable hydrogen refueling was deployed to support the fuel cell vehicles. The project had real-time improvement with on-going debugging and optimizations while the vehicles were under demonstration. All platforms demonstrated sufficient or excess power, torque, and energy to support 82,000lbs Gross Vehicle Weight Rating and gradeability to perform their daily duty cycles. Collectively, the trucks drove over 23,000 miles during their respective demonstration phases. The ZECT II project was the first of its kind to demonstrate the commercial viability that supported the additional technology breakthroughs for Class 8 zero emission trucks and validations as well as the regulatory basis for all the zero-emission regulation that we know today, such as the Innovative Clean Transit regulation, Advanced Clean Trucks and Clean Fleet regulations.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Precursor Analysis Report: Industroyer Targeting Ukraine Electric Power Transport Utility (Ukrenergo) 2016

The Industroyer Targeting Ukraine Electric Power Transport Utility (Ukrenergo) 2016 Precursor Analysis Report leverages publicly available information about the December 2016 cyber attack against the Ukrainian Ukrenergo electric transmission utility and catalogs anomalous observables for each technique employed in the attack. This analysis is based upon the methodology of the Cybersecurity for the Operational Technology Environment (CyOTE) program. Industroyer is a modular malware framework designed to deploy several Industrial Control System (ICS) protocol-specific attack payloads to disrupt electricity distribution. Adversaries deployed Industroyer within the target network on a Microsoft Windows endpoint capable of directly manipulating or communicating with ICS. Industroyer abuses the functionality of a targeted ICS’s legitimate control system to achieve its intended impact. Adversaries likely first gained access to Ukrenergo enterprise networks in early 2016 after a successful spearphishing campaign against organizations in the electric power sector. Adversaries then began capturing credentials beginning on 1 December 2016. This allowed access to the ICS environment at the Pivnichna electric transmission substation outside Kyiv through a device dual-homed on the Information Technology (IT) and ICS networks. Adversaries conducted discovery, targeting, and access to this device using information and previously captured credentials from compromised enterprise IT machines. Finally, the adversaries deployed and launched the Industroyer malware just before midnight on 17 December. By midnight, Ukrenergo had lost control of a targeted substation, resulting in electric power outages for over an hour in the city of Kyiv and the Kyiv region. Researchers and analysts identified 31 unique techniques (used in a sequence of 33 steps) utilized during the attack with a total of 846 observables using MITRE ATT&CK® for Industrial Control Systems. The CyOTE program assesses observables accompanying techniques used prior to the triggering event to identify opportunities to detect malicious activity. If observables accompanying the attack techniques are perceived and investigated prior to the triggering event, earlier comprehension of malicious activity can take place. Twenty-nine of the identified techniques used during the Industroyer cyber attack were precursors to the triggering event. Analysis identified 548 observables associated with these precursor techniques, 353 of which were assessed to have an increased likelihood of being perceived in the 300 days preceding the triggering event. The response and comprehension time could have been reduced if the observables had been identified earlier. The information gathered in this report contributes to a library of observables tied to a repository of artifacts, data sources, and technique detection references for practitioners and developers to support the comprehension of indicators of attack. Asset owners and operators can use these products if they experience similar observables or to prepare for comparable scenarios.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2025

Influence of simple terrain on the spatial variability of a low-level jet and wind farm performance in the AWAKEN field campaign

In wind energy research, scientific challenges are often associated with complex terrain sites, where orography, vegetation, and buildings disrupt flow uniformity. However, even sites characterized as simple terrain can exhibit significant spatial variability in wind speed, particularly during stable boundary layers (SBLs) and low-level jets (LLJs). This study investigates these terrain interactions using both simulations and observations from the American WAKe ExperimeNt (AWAKEN). We employ a multiscale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulation, integrating mesoscale forcing in the coarse domains and representing three rows of turbines from the King Plains wind farm as generalized actuator disks (GAD) in the large-eddy simulation (LES) domains. During a nocturnal LLJ event on 3 April 2023, the downstream, wake-affected turbine rows outperformed the upstream, unwaked row by 25 %–51 %. This counterintuitive result arises from terrain-induced streamwise variations in hub-height wind speed of approximately 4 m s −1 over 5 km – equivalent to ∼50 % of the upstream reference speed. This enhancement outweighs the wake-induced reduction in mean wind speed (∼12 %) and global blockage effects reported in the literature (∼1 %–3.4 %). The multiscale simulations capture the intra-farm spatial variability in power performance observed in SCADA data. Terrain-induced vertical displacement of the LLJ, coupled with large wind shear below the jet maximum, drives the substantial streamwise acceleration within the wind farm. These findings underscore the importance of accounting for spatial variability related to terrain, even in simple landscapes, particularly during LLJ conditions. Incorporating such effects into reduced-order modeling frameworks for wind farm design and control could significantly enhance their effectiveness.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1995

A Subband Coding Method for HDTV

This paper introduces a new HDTV coder based on motion compensation, subband coding, and high order conditional entropy coding. The proposed coder exploits the temporal and spatial statistical dependencies inherent in the HDTV signal by using intra- and inter-subband conditioning for coding both the motion coordinates and the residual signal. The new framework provides an easy way to control the system complexity and performance, and inherently supports multiresolution transmission. Experimental results show that the coder outperforms MPEG-2, while still maintaining relatively low complexity.

Chung, Wilson↗
NASA NTRS2002

Modular Certification

Airplanes are certified as a whole: there is no established basis for separately certifying some components, particularly software-intensive ones, independently of their specific application in a given airplane. The absence of separate certification inhibits the development of modular components that could be largely "precertified" and used in several different contexts within a single airplane, or across many different airplanes. In this report, we examine the issues in modular certification of software components and propose an approach based on assume-guarantee reasoning. We extend the method from verification to certification by considering behavior in the presence of failures. This exposes the need for partitioning, and separation of assumptions and guarantees into normal and abnormal cases. We then identify three classes of property that must be verified within this framework: safe function, true guarantees, and controlled failure. We identify a particular assume-guarantee proof rule (due to McMillan) that is appropriate to the applications considered, and formally verify its soundness in PVS.

Rushby, John↗
NASA NTRS2006

Composites Damage Tolerance Workshop

The Composite Damage Tolerance Workshop included participants from NASA, academia, and private industry. The objectives of the workshop were to begin dialogue in order to establish a working group within the Agency, create awareness of damage tolerance requirements for Constellation, and discuss potential composite hardware for the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) Upper Stage (US) and Crew Module. It was proposed that a composites damage tolerance working group be created that acts within the framework of the existing NASA Fracture Control Methodology Panel. The working group charter would be to identify damage tolerance gaps and obstacles for implementation of composite structures into manned space flight systems and to develop strategies and recommendations to overcome these obstacles.

Gregg, Wayne↗
NASA NTRS2011

Structural Load Alleviation Applied to Next Generation Aircraft and Wind Turbines

Reducing the environmental impact of aviation is a goal of the Subsonic Fixed Wing Project under the Fundamental Aeronautics Program of NASAs Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. Environmental impact of aviation is being addressed by novel aircraft configurations and materials that reduce aircraft weight and increase aerodynamic efficiency. NASA is developing tools to address the challenges of increased airframe flexibility created by wings constructed with reduced structural material and novel light-weight materials. This talk will present a framework and demonstration of a flight control system using optimal control allocation with structural load feedback and constraints to achieve safe aircraft operation. As wind turbines age, they become susceptible to many forms of blade degradation. Results will be presented on work in progress that uses adaptive contingency control for load mitigation in a wind turbine simulation with blade damage progression modeled.

adaptive control↗
NASA NTRS2013

Towards Human-Friendly Efficient Control of Multi-Robot Teams

This paper explores means to increase efficiency in performing tasks with multi-robot teams, in the context of natural Human-Multi-Robot Interfaces (HMRI) for command and control. The motivating scenario is an emergency evacuation by a transport convoy of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that have to traverse, in shortest time, an unknown terrain. In the experiments the operator commands, in minimal time, a group of rovers through a maze. The efficiency of performing such tasks depends on both, the levels of robots' autonomy, and the ability of the operator to command and control the team. The paper extends the classic framework of levels of autonomy (LOA), to levels/hierarchy of autonomy characteristic of Groups (G-LOA), and uses it to determine new strategies for control. An UGVoriented command language (UGVL) is defined, and a mapping is performed from the human-friendly gesture-based HMRI into the UGVL. The UGVL is used to control a team of 3 robots, exploring the efficiency of different G-LOA; specifically, by (a) controlling each robot individually through the maze, (b) controlling a leader and cloning its controls to followers, and (c) controlling the entire group. Not surprisingly, commands at increased G-LOA lead to a faster traverse, yet a number of aspects are worth discussing in this context.

multi-robot control↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Simulation of Acetylene Adsorption Columns for Regenerative Life Support Systems

In oxygen recovery systems using Sabatier reactors, hydrogen (H 2 ) is the limiting factor in the Sabatier reaction. Aboard the International Space Station, electrolysis of water produces H 2 . However, additional H 2 can be provided by plasma pyrolysis of hydrocarbons, increasing the amount of H 2 available to the Sabatier reaction.

Regenerative Life Support↗
NASA NTRS2021

SoMo: Fast and Accurate Simulations of Continuum Robots in Complex Environments

Engineers and scientists often rely on their intuition and experience when designing soft robotic systems. The development of performant controllers and motion plans for these systems commonly requires time-consuming iterations on hardware. We present the SoMo (Soft Motion) toolkit, a software framework that makes it easy to instantiate and control typical continuum manipulators in an accurate physics simulator. SoMo introduces a standardized and human-readable description format for continuum manipulators. It leverages this description format and the Bullet physics engine to enable fast and accurate simulations of soft and soft-rigid hybrid robots in environments with complex contact interactions. This allows users to vary design and control parameters across simulations with minimal effort. We compare the capabilities of SoMo to other physics simulators and highlight the benefits and accuracy of SoMo by demonstrating the agreement between simulation and real-world experiments on several examples; these include an in-hand manipulation task with continuum fingers, an automated exploration of how to design soft fingers for precision grasping, and a brief snake locomotion study. Overall, SoMo provides an accessible way for designers of soft robotic hardware and control systems to gain access to a simulation-accelerated workflow.

Moritz A. Graule↗
DOE OSTI2026

Optimal Co-Design of Integrated Thermal-Electrical Networks and Control Systems for Grid-interactive Efficient District (GED) Energy Systems

This project advances a unified, open-source framework for the optimal co-design of thermal, electrical, and control systems in grid-interactive efficient districts (GEDs). As communities integrate growing levels of distributed energy resources, traditional approaches that model thermal and electrical networks independently lead to reduced efficiency, limited flexibility, and missed opportunities for coordinated operation. To address these challenges, the research team developed a comprehensive suite of physics-based models, control algorithms, and software tools that enable holistic simulation, optimization, and demonstration of district-scale energy systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Efficient sparse state preparation via quantum walks

Continuous-time quantum walks (CTQWs) on dynamic graphs, referred to as dynamic CTQWs, are a recently introduced universal model of computation that offers a new paradigm in which to envision quantum algorithms. In this work, we develop an algorithm that converts single-edge and self-loop dynamic CTQWs to the gate model of computation. We use this mapping to introduce an efficient sparse quantum state preparation framework based on dynamic CTQWs. Our approach utilizes combinatorics techniques such as minimal hitting sets, minimum spanning trees, and shortest Hamiltonian paths to reduce the number of controlled gates required to prepare sparse states. We show that our framework encompasses the current state of the art ancilla-free sparse state preparation method by reformulating this method as a CTQW. This CTQW-based framework offers an alternative to the uniformly controlled rotation method used by Qiskit by requiring fewer CX gates when the target state has a polynomial number of non-zero amplitudes.

dynamic continuous time quantum walks↗
NASA NTRS2006

An Executable Choreography Framework for Dynamic Service-Oriented Architectures

Interoperability and loose coupling requirements are pushing the next generation of distributed applications towards more decentralized and more dynamic interaction schemes, which the classic requestJresponse communication paradigm can hardly accommodate. Hence, sound foundations and mechanisms for the establishment of unmticiptitteb peer-to-peer interactions across organizational boundaries are of significant importance to upcoming middleware platforms. The Executable Choreography Framework (ECF) is a middleware-level framework that targets dynamic and decentralized service compositions. The ECF combines transparent context propagation with aspect-oriented software composition techniques to dynamically refine the default control and data flow of service invocations. The framework provides a ground for experimentation with dynamic and distributed workflows, and a base to assess their safety and applicability when depioyed across organizational boundaries.

Akkawi, Faisal↗