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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2017

R2U2: Tool Overview

R2U2 (Realizable, Responsive, Unobtrusive Unit) is an extensible framework for runtime System HealthManagement (SHM) of cyber-physical systems. R2U2 can be run in hardware (e.g., FPGAs), or software; can monitorhardware, software, or a combination of the two; and can analyze a range of different types of system requirementsduring runtime. An R2U2 requirement is specified utilizing a hierarchical combination of building blocks: temporal formula runtime observers (in LTL or MTL), Bayesian networks, sensor filters, and Boolean testers. Importantly, the framework is extensible; it is designed to enable definitions of new building blocks in combination with the core structure. Originally deployed on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), R2U2 is designed to run on a wide range of embedded platforms, from autonomous systems like rovers, satellites, and robots, to human-assistive ground systems and cockpits. R2U2 is named after the requirements it satisfies; while the exact requirements vary by platform and mission, the ability to formally reason about realizability, responsiveness, and unobtrusiveness is necessary for flight certifiability, safety-critical system assurance, and achievement of technology readiness levels for target systems. Realizability ensures that R2U2 is suficiently expressive to encapsulate meaningful runtime requirements while maintaining adaptability to run on different platforms, transition between different mission stages, and update quickly between missions. Responsiveness entails continuously monitoring the system under test, real-time reasoning, reporting intermediate status, and as-early-as-possible requirements evaluations. Unobtrusiveness ensures compliance with the crucial properties of the target architecture: functionality, certifiability, timing, tolerances, cost, or other constraints.

Rozier, Kristin Y.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Evaluation of Ultem 1000, 1010, and 9085 for Radome Applications at 24.5 GHz

The UAS in the NAS project Flight Test 6 (FT6) campaign scheduled for FY19Q3 will evaluate the proficiency of a Honeywell DAPA-Lite Radar installed on a Tiger Shark unmanned vehicle to detect the presence of air traffic operating in its vicinity. A 3D printed radome will be manufactured for the front of the Tiger Shark to enclose the radar during FT6 operations. The DAPA-Lite radar operates in the 24.5 GHz frequency band. Material properties of 3D printer filaments are widely available for the mechanical and thermal properties, but limited knowledge exists on the electrical properties for radome applications and no data was found to correspond at the 24.5 Ghz frequency band. To minimize project risk associated with the radome performance, transmissivity and reflectivity measurements were conducted on two candidate 3D printed dielectric material filaments (Ultem 1010 Natural and Ultem 9085 Black) and two thicknesses of a solid laminate (Ultem 1000) material. The 3D printed Ultem coupons were tested shortly after being printed and again 8 months later to examine ageing effects of the open cell structure. This paper presents the transmissivity and reflectivity measurement results collected on the Ultem coupons and concludes the 3D printed 1010 Natural coupon is a suitable candidate filament for radome applications at 24.5 GHz. The design of the structure’s open cell matrix has a significant impact on the material’s surface reflectivity.

Szatkowski, George N.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Terminal Area Test Vector Development

This presentation provides an overview of work being done to develop test vectors for the terminal area, in coordination with RTCA Special Committee 228, an organization developing the Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Detect and Avoid (DAA) systems. The work leverages existing encounter data to develop a set of encounters to be used to define and refine both performance-based and functionally-based terminal area MOPS requirements. The encounter set would be used across various organizations supporting MOPS terminal area requirements development to provide some level of consistency in terms of terminal area assumptions. The work will investigate other potentially applicable data sets and make any similarly needed adjustments to arrive at a consolidated set of terminal area encounters.

terminal area↗
NASA NTRS2019

Supporting NASA Science with High-Altitude Long-Endurance Aircraft

NASA Earth Science and Aeronautics researchers have been involved in development and use of High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) since the 1990's. The NASA Environmental Research Aircraft Sensor and Technology Program (ERAST) demonstrated the promise of HALE aircraft for providing observations while also proving the importance of triple-redundant avionics to improve system reliability for large unmanned aircraft. Early efforts to develop an operational HALE capability for earth observations languished for nearly two decades owing to insufficient solar panel efficiency, battery power density, and light-weight, yet strong, materials. During this time NASA researchers focused on using the Global Hawk to demonstrate the utility of providing diurnal measurements over severe storms (ie. HS3) and to track stratospheric water vapor transport (ATTREX). Recent significant commercial investments are now leading to the realization of a long-held goal of week- to month-long sustained observations and measurements from the stratosphere. In addition to a historical review of NASA use and interest in HALE aircraft, this paper will present current concepts for exploiting current and planned HALE aircraft capabilities including in situ characterization of atmospheric composition and dynamics as well as imagery collection. NASA researchers anticipate HALE will provide a useful means to test smallsat instruments and components. Observations from HALE-based instruments might also provide useful gap-filler observations to flagship satellite missions where the repeat time doesn't allow for measurements of quickly changing phenomenon. HALE will likely also provide measurements and communications relay to facilitate other aircraft in multi-aircraft campaigns. We will also report on progress towards a NASA-funded flight test planned for summer 2019 of a solar-electric vehicle designed to carry 7kg (15lbs) for 30 days at 20km altitude.

earth observations↗
NASA NTRS2019

NASA SIERRA-B Capability Returns to Flight

The Sensor Integrated Evaluation Remote Research Aircraft (SIERRA-B) is a medium-class, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that can perform remote sensing and atmospheric sampling missions in isolated and often inaccessible regions, such as over mountain ranges, the open ocean, or the Arctic. This capability developed by NASA Ames Research Center is a unique way for Scientists and Engineers to gather important Earth science data as well as perform flight research using an innovative, safe, and cost-effective aerial platform. This poster describes the aircraft system architecture, capabilities, and provides an overview of current payloads and mission concepts.

Cahill, S.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Cellular Based Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) MIMO Communications

The use of remotely piloted unmanned aircraft systems/vehicles (UAS/UAV or drones) increases dramatically in recent years. This paper discusses the use of multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) technologies in cellular (i.e., LTE) based small UAS (sUAS) communications. More specifically, we will first provide background information about this work, followed by a review of state-of-the-art. Then, we will discuss the benefits of MIMO technologies and propose practical MIMO configurations (e.g., the type, size and number of antennas) that are suitable for NASA's sUAS research and operations. Finally, the design tradeoff among multiplexing, diversity, and interference/jamming cancellation will also be discussed.

Li, Hongxiang↗
NASA NTRS2019

Onboard Decision-Making for Nominal and Contingency sUAS Flight

This study presents an onboard decision-making architecture for small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS). The decision-maker is part of NASA's SAFE50 project that is working under the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) Technical Capability Level (TCL) 4 to provide autonomous point-to-point UAV flight in BVLOS, high-density urban environments. The decision-maker monitors various metrics to determine the safety and feasibility of the mission and categorizes flight states as Nominal, Off-Nominal, Alternate Land, and Land Now in a finite state machine. Changes in the monitored metrics serve as transitions in the state machine and trigger replanning. Navigation degradation and communication failure are simulated to show the feasibility of the decision-maker framework in appropriately switching the flight state.

Baculi, Joshua↗
NASA NTRS2019

Why is UTM Needed?

This presentation is to provide an overview of NASA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management research and testing. The content presents the background and need for a UTM system and the concept elements incorporated in the approach. The testing conducted within the project, the architecture, and overall impact of the research is presented as well.

NASA↗
NASA NTRS2019

Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project: QTech

Overview of QTech work, assessing the feasibility of using quantum computation and communication to assure the availability of the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) network against communication disruptions.

Eleanor Rieffel↗
NASA NTRS2018

Independent Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operation of Unmanned Systems with Distributed Onboard Services

This paper presents the development of ICAROUS-2 (Independent Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operation of Unmanned Systems with Distributed Onboard Services), the second generation of a software architecture that integrates several algorithms as distributed onboard services to enable robust autonomous UAS applications. In particular, the ICAROUS architecture defines a framework to perform detect and avoid, geofencing, path monitoring, path planning, and autonomous decision making to ensure safety and mission progress. Most of the core algorithms implemented in ICAROUS are formally verified using an interactive theorem prover. These algorithms are composed together using a plan execution engine, whose operational semantics is formally specified. A description of the integrated architecture, services currently available, and flight test results highlighting the capability of ICAROUS are presented.

Balachandran, Swee↗
NASA NTRS2018

Sensor Uncertainty Mitigation and Dynamic Well Clear Volumes in DAIDALUS

This paper presents recent updates to DAIDALUS (Detect & Avoid Alerting Logic for Unmanned Systems), a detect and avoid (DAA) software package for the integration of civil UAS into the airspace. DAIDALUS is the reference implementation of detect and avoid for unmanned aircraft systems chosen by RTCA Special Committee 228 (SC-228), and it is included in its corresponding Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) document, DO-365. This paper reports on the integration into DAIDALUS of two new capabilities, namely dynamic well clear volumes and sensor uncertainty mitigation.'

Narkawicz, Anthony↗
NASA NTRS2018

Independent Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operation of Unmanned Systems with Distributed Onboard Services

This paper presents the development of ICAROUS-2 (Independent Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operation of Unmanned Systems with Distributed Onboard Services), the second generation of a software architecture that integrates several algorithms as distributed onboard services to enable robust autonomous UAS applications. In particular, the ICAROUS architecture defines a framework to perform detect and avoid, geofencing, path monitoring, path planning, and autonomous decision making to ensure safety and mission progress. Most of the core algorithms implemented in ICAROUS are formally verified using an interactive theorem prover. These algorithms are composed together using a plan execution engine, whose operational semantics is formally specified. A description of the integrated architecture, services currently available, and flight test results highlighting the capability of ICAROUS are presented.

Balachandran, Swee↗
NASA NTRS2020

Adaptive Airborne Separation to Enable UAM Autonomy in Mixed Airspace

The excitement and promise generated by Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concepts have inspired both new entrants and large aerospace companies throughout the world to invest hundreds of millions in research and development of air vehicles, both piloted and unpiloted, to fulfill these dreams. The management and separation of all these new aircraft have received much less attention, however, and even though NASA’s lead is advancing some promising concepts for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), most operations today are limited to line of sight with the vehicle, airspace reservation and geofencing of individual flights. Various schemes have been proposed to control this new traffic, some modeled after conventional air traffic control and some proposing fully automatic management, either from a ground-based entity or carried out on board among the vehicles themselves. Previous work has examined vehicle-based traffic management in the very low altitude airspace within a metroplex called UTM airspace in which piloted traffic is rare. A management scheme was proposed in that work that takes advantage of the homogeneous nature of the traffic operating in UTM airspace. This paper expands that concept to include a traffic management plan usable at all altitudes desired for electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing urban and short-distance, inter-city transportation. The interactions with piloted aircraft operating under both visual and instrument flight rules are analyzed, and the role of Air Traffic Control services in the postulated mixed traffic environment is covered. Separation values that adapt to each type of traffic encounter are proposed, and the relationship between required airborne surveillance range and closure speed is given. Finally, realistic scenarios are presented illustrating how this concept can reliably handle the density and traffic mix that fully implemented and successful UAM operations would entail.

Cotton, William B.↗
NASA NTRS2019

The Role of Synthetic Biology in NASA's Missions

The time has come to for NASA to exploit the nascent field of synthetic biology in pursuit of its mission, including aeronautics, earth science, astrobiology and notably, human exploration. Conversely, NASA advances the fundamental technology of synthetic biology as no one else can because of its unique expertise in the origin of life and life in extreme environments, including the potential for alternate life forms. This enables unique, creative "game changing" advances. NASA's requirement for minimizing upmass in flight will also drive the field toward miniaturization and automation. These drivers will greatly increase the utility of synthetic biology solutions for military, health in remote areas and commercial purposes. To this end, we have begun a program at NASA to explore the use of synthetic biology in NASA's missions, particularly space exploration. As part of this program, we began hosting an iGEM team of undergraduates drawn from Brown and Stanford Universities to conduct synthetic biology research at NASA Ames Research Center. The 2011 team (http://2011.igem.org/Team:Brown-Stanford) produced an award-winning project on using synthetic biology as a basis for a human Mars settlement and the 2012 team has expanded the use of synthetic biology to estimate the potential for life in the clouds of other planets (http://2012.igem.org/Team:Stanford-Brown; http://www.calacademy.org/sciencetoday/igem-competition/). More recent projects from the Stanford-Brown team have expanded our ideas of how synthetic biology can aid NASA's missions from "Synthetic BioCommunication" (http://2013.igem.org/Team:Stanford-Brown) to a "Biodegradable UAS (drone)" in collaboration with Spelman College (http://2014.igem.org/Team:StanfordBrownSpelman#SBS%20iGEM) and most recently, "Self-Folding Origami" (http://2015.igem.org/Team:Stanford-Brown), the winner of the 2015 award for Manufacturing.

Rothschild, Lynn J.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Flight Test 6 VIP Day: A Little Bit of How We Got Here

This presentation provides an overview of the Detect and Avoid subproject of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project. It discusses efforts and contributions for Phase 1 and on-going work for Phase 2.

Shively, Jay↗
NASA NTRS2017

Managing Cyber Risk: from the Ground to the Air and Beyond Out There

Experts from the aerospace sector with the focus of presenting current state-of-the-art in aviation cyber security and discussing major challenges, requirements, and developments. A variety of topics will be addressed by the panel, including: Aviation cyber security regulations, standards, and best practices Aviation information sharing and analysis challenges Aircraft systems and avionics cyber security challenges Airline and airport stakeholder cyber perspectives CNSATM cyber security challenges UAS cyber security and privacy requirements Military aviation cyber security issues in the NAS

Davis, Jerry L.↗