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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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Memory circuit maintains the signal voltage at the output of an analog signal amplifier when the input signal is interrupted or removed. The circuit uses MOSFET /Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor/ devices as voltage-controlled switches, triggered by an external voltage-sensing device.
Installation information for a solar heating system installed in Hyde Memorial Observatory at Lincoln, Nebraska is presented. This package included a system operation and maintenance manual, hardware brochures, schematics, system operating modes, and drawings. This prototype solar heating system consisted of the following subsystems: solar collector, control, and storage.
A computer study was performed to assess the accuracy of three brake pressure-torque mathematical models. The investigation utilized one main gear wheel, brake, and tire assembly of a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 series 10 airplane. The investigation indicates that the performance of aircraft antiskid braking systems is strongly influenced by tire characteristics, dynamic response of the antiskid control valve, and pressure-torque response of the brake. The computer study employed an average torque error criterion to assess the accuracy of the models. The results indicate that a variable nonlinear spring with hysteresis memory function models the pressure-torque response of the brake more accurately than currently used models.
The Fault-Tolerant Multiprocessor (FTMP) is a highly reliable computer designed to meet a goal of 10 to the -10th failures per hour and built with the objective of flying an active-control transport aircraft. Fault detection, identification, and recovery software is described, and experimental results obtained by injecting faults in the pin level in the FTMP are presented. Over 21,000 faults were injected in the CPU, memory, bus interface circuits, and error detection, masking, and error reporting circuits of one LRU of the multiprocessor. Detection, isolation, and reconfiguration times were recorded for each fault, and the results were found to agree well with earlier assumptions made in reliability modeling.
The overall objective of the experiment was to evaluate the effect of the space environment on components considered for a Space-Based Radar (SBR) Phased-Array Antenna. Of primary interest was a study of the degradation of the polyimide film Kapton (DuPont trademark), the material considered for use in the antenna plane. The most striking result of the experiment was the overall good condition of the Kapton antenna planes and Kapton tensile specimens, despite nearly six years of exposure to the space environment. This was largely attributable to the orientation of the Kapton (parallel and flush on the space end) and the stability of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) in orbit. However, weathering of exposed Kapton surfaces was not insignificant. Results on elongation and mechanical properties of the plain and the fiberglass-reinforced Kapton are presented. Reduction in strain to failure of flight-exposed Kapton is attributed to surface defects of these specimens. Physical property testing of the materials to date reveals no significant difference between flight-exposed and control material. The second objective was to investigate the interaction between high-voltage electrodes and typical spacecraft contaminants in simulation of discharge triggering across differentially charged dielectric surfaces (spacecraft charging conditions). Electronic data acquisition and memory systems appeared to operate correctly, but very few discharges were recorded. Induced radioactivity, contamination, impacts, and orientation features of atomic oxygen erosion were observed.
Body temperature has been reported to influence human performance. Performance is reported to be better when body temperature is high/near its circadian peak and worse when body temperature is low/near its circadian minimum. We assessed whether this relationship between performance and body temperature reflects the regulation of both the internal biological timekeeping system and/or the influence of body temperature on performance independent of circadian phase. Fourteen subjects participated in a forced desynchrony protocol allowing assessment of the relationship between body temperature and performance while controlling for circadian phase and hours awake. Most neurobehavioral measures varied as a function of internal biological time and duration of wakefulness. A number of performance measures were better when body temperature was elevated, including working memory, subjective alertness, visual attention, and the slowest 10% of reaction times. These findings demonstrate that an increased body temperature, associated with and independent of internal biological time, is correlated with improved performance and alertness. These results support the hypothesis that body temperature modulates neurobehavioral function in humans.
Splintered offloading techniques with receive batch processing are described for network acceleration. Such techniques offload specific functionality to a NIC while maintaining the bulk of the protocol processing in the host operating system ("OS"). The resulting protocol implementation allows the application to bypass the protocol processing of the received data. Such can be accomplished this by moving data from the NIC directly to the application through direct memory access ("DMA") and batch processing the receive headers in the host OS when the host OS is interrupted to perform other work. Batch processing receive headers allows the data path to be separated from the control path. Unlike operating system bypass, however, the operating system still fully manages the network resource and has relevant feedback about traffic and flows. Embodiments of the present disclosure can therefore address the challenges of networks with extreme bandwidth delay products (BWDP).
A model for motor learning, generalization, and adaptation is presented. It is shown that the equations of motion of a limb can be expressed in a parametric form that facilitates transformation of desired trajectories into plans. These parametric equations are used in conjunction with a quantized multi-dimensional memory organized by state variables. The memory is supplied with data derived from the analysis of practice movements. A small computer and mechanical arm are used to implement the model and study its properties. Results verify the ability to acquire new movements, adapt to mechanical loads, and generalize between similar movements.
The performance degradation due to multiprogramming overhead is quantified for a parallel-processing machine. Measurements of real workloads were taken, and it was found that there is a moderate correlation between the completion time of a program and the amount of system overhead measured during program execution. Experiments in controlled environments were then conducted to calculate a lower bound on the performance degradation of parallel jobs caused by multiprogramming overhead. The results show that the multiprogramming overhead of parallel jobs consumes at least 4 percent of the processor time. When two or more serial jobs are introduced into the system, this amount increases to 5.3 percent
Processor-in-Memory (PIM) architectures avoid the von Neumann bottleneck in conventional machines by integrating high-density DRAM and CMOS logic on the same chip. Parallel systems based on this new technology are expected to provide higher scalability, adaptability, robustness, fault tolerance and lower power consumption than current MPPs or commodity clusters. In this paper we describe the design of Gilgamesh, a PIM-based massively parallel architecture, and elements of its execution model. Gilgamesh extends existing PIM capabilities by incorporating advanced mechanisms for virtualizing tasks and data and providing adaptive resource management for load balancing and latency tolerance. The Gilgamesh execution model is based on macroservers, a middleware layer which supports object-based runtime management of data and threads allowing explicit and dynamic control of locality and load balancing. The paper concludes with a discussion of related research activities and an outlook to future work.
As communication and networking technologies advance, networks will become highly complex and heterogeneous, interconnecting different network domains. There is a need to provide user authentication and data protection in order to further facilitate critical mission operations, especially in the tactical and mission-critical net-centric networking environment. The Autonomous Information Unit (AIU) technology was designed to provide the fine-grain data access and user control in a net-centric system-testing environment to meet these objectives. The AIU is a fundamental capability designed to enable fine-grain data access and user control in the cross-domain networking environments, where an AIU is composed of the mission data, metadata, and policy. An AIU provides a mechanism to establish trust among deployed AIUs based on recombining shared secrets, authentication and verify users with a username, X.509 certificate, enclave information, and classification level. AIU achieves data protection through (1) splitting data into multiple information pieces using the Shamir's secret sharing algorithm, (2) encrypting each individual information piece using military-grade AES-256 encryption, and (3) randomizing the position of the encrypted data based on the unbiased and memory efficient in-place Fisher-Yates shuffle method. Therefore, it becomes virtually impossible for attackers to compromise data since attackers need to obtain all distributed information as well as the encryption key and the random seeds to properly arrange the data. In addition, since policy can be associated with data in the AIU, different user access and data control strategies can be included. The AIU technology can greatly enhance information assurance and security management in the bandwidth-limited and ad hoc net-centric environments. In addition, AIU technology can be applicable to general complex network domains and applications where distributed user authentication and data protection are necessary. AIU achieves fine-grain data access and user control, reducing the security risk significantly, simplifying the complexity of various security operations, and providing the high information assurance across different network domains.
Abstract Forecasting models are a central part of many control systems, where high-consequence decisions must be made on long latency control variables. These models are particularly relevant for emerging artificial intelligence (AI)-guided instrumentation, in which prescriptive knowledge is needed to guide autonomous decision-making. Here we describe the implementation of a long short-term memory model (LSTM) for forecasting in situ electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) data, one of the richest analytical probes of materials and chemical systems. We describe key considerations for data collection, preprocessing, training, validation, and benchmarking, showing how this approach can yield powerful predictive insight into order-disorder phase transitions. Finally, we comment on how such a model may integrate with emerging AI-guided instrumentation for powerful high-speed experimentation.
While the literature has numerous examples of Monte Carlo and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) coupling, most are hard-wired codes intended primarily for research rather than as standalone, general-purpose applications. In this work, we describe an open source application, ENRICO, that enables coupled neutronic and thermal-hydraulic simulations between multiple codes that can be chosen at runtime (as opposed to a coupling between two specific codes). The application has been designed such that the control flow logic, domain mapping, nonlinear fixed-point iteration, solution transfers, and convergence checks are all agnostic to the underlying physics solvers used. Special emphasis has also been placed on enabling efficient execution on distributed-memory computing environments. The transfer of solution fields between solvers is performed in memory rather than through filesystem I/O. Additionally, solvers can be configured to run on overlapping or disjoint sets of processes. To date, coupling with the OpenMC and Shift Monte Carlo codes, the Nek5000 CFD code, and a simplified heat diffusion and subchannel solver has been implemented in ENRICO. We present results for coupled simulations of a single light-water reactor fuel assembly based on the NuScale reactor using various combinations of the physics solvers. For this problem, the coupled simulations are shown to converge in about four Picard iterations. A comparison of the heat source and temperature distributions computed by ENRICO using OpenMC coupled with Nek5000 and Shift coupled with Nek5000 illustrates remarkable agreement between the codes.
Cutting-edge science is increasingly data-driven due to the emergence of scientific machine learning models that can guide scientists toward fruitful areas of exploration. Experimental science facilities such as light and neutron sources, particle colliders, and radio astronomy telescopes are also producing raw measurement data at rates that exceed available data storage and computing capacity at those facilities. As a result, scientific workflows are being developed that concurrently couple experiments at science facilities with high-performance computing (HPC) facilities to enable analysis of experimental data while the experiment is ongoing, and where analysis results are potentially fed back to the experiment for use in experimental control and/or steering in a time-sensitive manner. Our goal is to design, prototype, and deploy a new capability for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) that enables such workflows through support for bidirectional, memory-based streaming of data from external experiments into and out of OLCF HPC systems. This high-level design document describes the related work and motivating use cases that inform our understanding of the technical requirements for this capability, and describes a proposed architectural solution that meets these requirements and our plans for demonstrating the capability.
Electrical characteristization tests were performed on 35 RCA CDP1822SD, 256-by-4-bit, CMOS, random access memories. The tests included three functional tests, AC and DC parametric tests, a series of schmoo plots, rise/fall time screening, and a data retention test. All tests were performed on an automated IC test system with temperatures controlled by a thermal airstream unit. All the functional tests, the data retention test, and the AC and DC parametric tests were performed at ambient temperatures of 25 C, -20 C, -55 C, 85 C, and 125 C. The schmoo plots were performed at ambient temperatures of 25 C, -55 C, and 125 C. The data retention test was performed at 25 C. Five devices failed one or more functional tests and four of these devices failed to meet the expected limits of a number of AC parametric tests. Some of the schmoo plots indicated a small degree of interaction between parameters.
An examination is conducted of the feasibility of searching targets in aerial photographs by means of a parallel associative memory (PAM) that is based on the nearest-neighbor algorithm; the Hamming distance is used as a measure of closeness, in order to discriminate patterns. Attention has been given to targets typically used for ground-control points. The method developed sorts out approximate target positions where precise localizations are needed, in the course of the data-acquisition process. The majority of control points in different images were correctly identified.
The next generation of space systems will require large apertures in order to image faint targets or cover large areas of Earth. These large apertures must be able to fit inside a launch vehicle fairing, be light enough for launch into orbit, and deploy on orbit with repeatability and reliability. The current state-of-the-art in flight optics is represented by the 4 meter LAMP telescope, with an areal density of 10 km sq m. Development of a Beryllium mirror demonstration article for NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope) at the University of Arizona indicate areal densities of 0.5 kg sq m with flight hardware in the 12 meter range. With progressive improvements in existing deployment, packaging, and structural technologies, the size of optics and reflectors will continue to increase, while mass is reduced. However, without a breakthrough in materials, packaging and/or deployment technologies, the goal for Gossamer structures of 0.1 kg sq m is unachievable for the near and mid-term NASA missions. Membrane technology provides the best hope of achieving such low areal densities. In combination with advances in membrane materials and structures, development of revolutionary techniques for deployment systems can provide significant improvements in large aperture technology. In this paper, the results of a six-month Phase I research effort to demonstrate the application of thin film NiTi to aerospace-qualified membrane and mesh materials are presented. Deposition of shape memory thin film was achieved Astromesh (trademark) metal mesh and CP-1, and optical-quality polymer membrane. Not only was full-coating deposition demonstrated, but also small segment deposition which holds potential for local surface control. Deployment of these materials was also demonstrated, setting the stage for the development of a larger test article.
Memory cells in a matrix are provided by a thin film of amorphous semiconductor material overlayed by a thin film of resistive material. An array of parallel conductors on one side perpendicular to an array of parallel conductors on the other side enable the amorphous semiconductor material to be switched in addressed areas to be switched from a high resistance state to a low resistance state with a predetermined level of electrical energy applied through selected conductors, and thereafter to be read out with a lower level of electrical energy. Each cell may be fabricated in the channel of an MIS field-effect transistor with a separate common gate over each section to enable the memory matrix to be selectively blanked in sections during storing or reading out of data. This allows for time sharing of addressing circuitry for storing and reading out data in a synaptic network, which may be under control of a microprocessor.