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At least 1,027 records · Page 57
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Cyber-Informed Engineering Principles: What’s in it for me?

CIE is an emerging method to integrate cybersecurity considerations into the conception, design, development, and operation of any physical system that has digital connectivity, monitoring, or control. CIE complements—but does not replace—the application of cybersecurity standards or practices currently in place within an organization. Rather, it expands cybersecurity decisions into the engineering space, not by asking engineers to become cyber experts, but by calling on engineers to apply engineering tools and make engineering decisions that improve cybersecurity outcomes. CIE examines the engineering consequences that a sophisticated cyber attacker could achieve, and drives engineering changes that may provide deterministic mitigations to limit or eliminate those consequences. Engineers and technicians that design critical energy infrastructure installations can integrate the 12 principles of CIE into each phase of the engineering lifecycle, from concept to retirement. These principles are aimed at system or design engineers, operators, and technicians, rather than software engineers or operational cybersecurity practitioners, because the engineers who design, build, operate, and maintain the physical infrastructure are best positioned to leverage a system’s engineering design to diminish the severity of cyber attacks or digital technology failures. This approach creates new opportunities for engineering teams—and not just cybersecurity teams—to secure the system using the physics and mechanics of engineering controls—not just digital monitoring and controls.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Irradiation Assessment of a Lightweight Industrial Robot - Towards Faster, Safer and Sooner Waste Decommissioning - 20317

Robotic systems have been successfully applied in the nuclear industry for several decades as a safe approach to minimize the exposure dose of human operators. As nuclear waste management and decommissioning gathers pace, there is an emerging interest integrating modern off-the-shelf industrial robots in nuclear robotic systems which make use of complex electronics and software to improve functionality over traditional machines. The use of the industrial robots will significantly increase the pace of development of automated waste management systems at a reduced cost, and although these off-the-shelf robots are proven robust in typical industrial environments, performance in radioactive environments is less clear. This paper investigates the performance degradation of a lightweight industrial robot (KUKA iiwa 7 LBR 800) in a controlled radiation field, aiming to simulate conditions in highly radioactive nuclear waste handling facilities. The degradation of the industrial robot's performance is identified while measuring the air kerma dose-tolerance of sensitive components, via a systematic experimental methodology. The experience from this experiment has demonstrated the significant capabilities of industrial robots, which tolerated a large gamma dose of 164 Gy before a system failure. Future tests are planned, aiming to enable faster, safer and sooner waste management and decommissioning using complex robotic systems. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

Overview of Quantum Sensing Materials and Techniques for Energy Sector Applications

The energy sector has become increasingly dependent upon highly sensitive sensing devices for a wide range of applications. Variables such as temperature, pH, electromagnetic fields, ions, and pressure must be measured with high precision, often in harsh conditions (e.g. highly corrosive environments due to high temperature, pressure and humidity). These sensors are deployed in infrastructure such as transformers, pipelines, mines, nuclear power plants, and other areas to ensure safe operating conditions and uninterrupted, optimized service. Moreover, new opportunities for sensors have emerged due to the expansion of smart grids/meters, driverless vehicles, and the discovery of new oil, gas, and critical mineral deposits. The continued maturation of quantum sensing technologies offers exciting opportunities for quantum-enhanced measurements within the energy sector that may provide significant improvements in sensitivity beyond the classical limit. Here, an overview of established and emerging quantum materials for sensing applications will be provided, from trapped ions to color centers in diamond and silicon carbide. Associated quantum sensing methods for these materials will be discussed, with an emphasis on platforms that are nearing commercial viability. Specific application opportunities within the energy sector for quantum sensors will then be analyzed, including oil/gas discovery, greenhouse gas emission monitoring, pH and ion sensing, current measurement in electric vehicle batteries, and quantum-enhanced spectroscopy. Remaining barriers, such as quantum sensor platform miniaturization and ruggedization, will also be analyzed. A specific project at the National Energy Technology Laboratory involving the functionalization of qubits using metal-organic frameworks for enhanced quantum sensing will also be highlighted. Here, nitrogen vacancy centers (NV) in nanodiamonds, a commercially available qubit with long coherence times and utilizable quantum properties at room temperature, are encapsulated in a controlled way using the metal-organic framework ZIF-8. The ZIF-8 provides a well-defined, porous scaffold that can be controlled to promote the selective uptake of specific target analytes, such as gas molecules or ions. The quantum sensing performance of this composite material is either preserved or enhanced following ZIF-8 encapsulation; the optically detected magnetic resonance response of the NV nanodiamonds with and without the ZIF-8 coating are identical, while the ZIF-8 coating increases the longitudinal spin relaxation lifetime (T1) of the NV centers, an important parameter for spin relaxometry-based quantum sensing experiments. Taken together, these results demonstrate the importance of qubit functionalization as a crucial step for rationally designing high performance quantum sensors.

Crawford, Scott↗
DOE OSTI2025

INL Creep Testing Capabilities

Motivation – Advanced Reactors Developing, emerging, and nascent advanced reactor technologies involve new materials, manufacturing methods Extreme operating conditions In some cases, material service life needs to be defined or reassessed

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cyber-Informed Engineering Briefing for ABET

Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) is an emerging method to integrate cybersecurity considerations into the conception, design, development, and operation of any physical system, energy or otherwise, to mitigate or even eliminate avenues for cyber-enabled attacks.?CIE concepts use design decisions and engineering controls to prioritize defense against the worst possible consequences of cyberattacks facing critical infrastructure systems and asset owners. These slides offer a deep dive into Cyber-Informed Engineering for engineering educators.

42 - ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

WellPINN: Accurate Well Representation for Transient Fluid Pressure Diffusion in Subsurface Reservoirs With Physics‐Informed Neural Networks

Accurate representation of pumping wells is essential for reliable reservoir characterization and simulation of operational scenarios in subsurface flow models. Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) are emerging as a promising alternative to numerical models for reservoir modeling, offering seamless integration of monitoring data and governing physical equations. However, existing PINN-based studies face major challenges in capturing fluid pressure near wells when using a source/sink term, particularly during the early stages after pumping begins. We address this problem by introducing WellPINN, a workflow in which an initially trained PINN infers fluid pressure across the entire reservoir domain using a large equivalent well radius. This initial PINN solution is then locally refined around the well by a set of subdomain PINNs that are trained for smaller equivalent well radii. Continuity across these subdomain interfaces as well as at the initial condition is ensured by hard-constraining each PINN on its subdomain boundary. Our results demonstrate WellPINN as the first workflow of its kind to focus on accurate inference of fluid pressure from pumping rates throughout the entire injection period, significantly advancing the potential of PINNs for inverse modeling and operational scenario simulations. All data and code for this paper are openly available at https://doi.org/10.20350/DIGITALCSIC/17260.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2020

Supervised Autonomy for Communication-Degraded Subterranean Exploration by a Robot Team

The importance of autonomy in robotics is magnified when the robots need to be deployed and operated in areas that are too dangerous or not accessible for humans, ranging from disaster areas (to assist in emergency situations) to Mars exploration (to uncover the mystery of our neighboring planet). The DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge presents a great opportunity and a formidable robotics challenge to foster such technological advancement for operations in extreme and underground environments. Robot teams are expected to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments including natural cave networks, tunnel systems, and urban underground infrastructure. Subterranean environments pose significant challenges for manned and unmanned operations due to limited situational awareness. In the first phase of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (held in August 2019; targeting underground tunnels and mines), Team CoSTAR, led by NASA JPL, placed second among 11 teams across the world, accurately mapping several kilometers of two mine systems and localizing 17 target objects in the course of four one-hour missions. While the main goal of Team CoSTAR at the end of this threeyear challenge (August 2021) is a fully autonomous robotic solution, this paper describes Team CoSTAR’s results in the first phase of the challenge (August 2019), focusing on supervised autonomy of a multi-robot team under severe communication constraints. This paper also presents the design and initial results obtained from field test campaigns conducted in various tunnel-like environments, leading to the competition.

Otsu, Kyohei↗
DOE OSTI2025

Application of Cyber-Informed Engineering for Protecting BESS

This white paper synthesizes an array of crucial grid services provided by BESS technology, assesses its architecture and communications, and presents a case study for analysis against the principles introduced by Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE). Furthermore, in walking through the analysis, this paper presents a framework to evaluate risks and solutions when considering BESS components. Asset owners and buyers could perform this analysis to assess their BESS product implementations, alternative inverter-based resources (IBR), and energy management systems (EMS). Battery systems fulfill various roles contingent on the unique market demands and the specific challenges presented by regional grid infrastructures. These roles also vary due to the differing utility models for ownership and operation, which are adapted to meet regional and local capabilities and requirements. Concerns have been raised regarding the potential for adversaries to exploit knowledge of battery operational patterns to orchestrate decisive attacks. However, the security of operational data for these systems may not be the primary vulnerability, as much of this information is already well-understood within the community. Applying a modest degree of subject matter expertise can often yield valuable predictions regarding how a battery will respond under certain conditions, such as grid emergencies, high or low-temperature days, Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events, and outages. The operational characteristics of batteries are well-documented, and their capabilities, including the risks associated with misoperation and the resulting consequences, are published and understood within the industry. CIE practices represent the next step in gaining functional assurance and providing an acceptable level of risk, regardless of whether a battery vendor can support a trusted and validated supply chain. While this issue has exacerbated supply chain challenges, it is not an isolated condition. This foreign supply route is the primary source of BESS for the U.S. market. Significant efforts are underway through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to change that. Still, strategic short-term operational mitigations are needed to ensure the security of our operational technology (OT) systems, which are enhanced by instilling trust and are separate from vendors implementing CIE principles.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS1978

Emergency Communications Console

NASA has applied its communications equipment expertise to development of a communications console that provides, in a compact package only slightly larger than an electric typewriter, all the emergency medical services communications functions needed for a regional hospital. A prototype unit, built by Johnson Space Center, has been installed in the Odessa (Texas) Medical Center Hospital. The hospital is the medical control center for the 17-county Permian Basin Emergency Medical System in west Texas. The console project originated in response to a request to NASA from the Texas governor's office, which sought a better way of providing emergency medical care in rural areas. Because ambulance travel time is frequently long in remote areas of west Texas, it is important that treatment begin at the scene of the emergency rather than at the hospital emergency room. A radio and telephone system linking ambulance emergency technicians and hospital staff makes this possible. But earlier equipment was complex, requiring specialized operators. A highly reliable system was needed to minimize breakdowns and provide controls of utmost simplicity, so that the system could be operated by physicians and nurses rather than by communications specialists. The resulting console has both radio and telephone sections. With the radio equipment, hospital personnel can communicate with ambulance drivers and paramedics, receive incoming electrocardiagrams, consult with other hospitals, page hospital staff and set up a radio-to-telephone "patch." The telephone portion of the system includes a hotline from the Permian Basin Emergency Medical Service's resource control center, an automatic dialer for contacting special care facilities in the Permian Basin network, a hospital intercom terminal and a means of relaying cardioscope displays and other data between hospitals. The integrated system also provides links with local disaster and civil defense organizations and with emergency "Dial 911" control points.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2000

Radiation Effects on Emerging Technologies: Implications of Space Weather Risk Management

As NASA and its space partners endeavor to develop a network of satellites capable of supporting humankind's needs for advanced space weather prediction and understanding, one of the key challenges is to design a space system to operate in the natural space radiation environment In this paper, we present a description of the natural space radiation environment, the effects of interest to electronic or photonic systems, and a sample of emerging technologies and their specific issues. We conclude with a discussion of operations in the space radiation hazard and considerations for risk management.

LaBel, Kenneth A.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Oceanic Flights and Airspace: Improving Efficiency by Trajectory-Based Operations

Oceanic operations suffer from multiple inefficiencies, including pre-departure planning that does not adequately consider uncertainty in the proposed trajectory, restrictions on the routes that a flight operator can choose for an oceanic crossing, time-consuming processes and procedures for amending en route trajectories, and difficulties exchanging data between Flight Information Regions (FIRs). These inefficiencies cause aircraft to fly suboptimal trajectories, burning fuel and time that could be conserved. A concept to support integration of existing and emerging capabilities and concepts is needed to transition to an airspace system that employs Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) to improve efficiency and safety in oceanic operations. This paper describes such a concept and the results of preliminary activities to evaluate the concept, including a stakeholder feedback activity, user needs analysis, and high level benefits analysis.

Fernandes, Alicia Borgman↗
NASA NTRS2020

Architecture and Information Requirements to Assess and Predict Flight Safety Risks During Highly Autonomous Urban Flight Operations

As aviation adopts new and increasingly complex operational paradigms, vehicle types, and technologies to broaden airspace capability and efficiency, maintaining a safe system will require recognition and timely mitigation of new safety issues as they emerge and before significant consequences occur. A shift toward a more predictive risk mitigation capability becomes critical to meet this challenge. In-time safety assurance comprises monitoring, assessment, and mitigation functions that proactively reduce risk in complex operational environments where the interplay of hazards may not be known (and therefore not accounted for) during design. These functions can also help to understand and predict emergent effects caused by the increased use of automation or autonomous functions that may exhibit unexpected non-deterministic behaviors. The envisioned monitoring and assessment functions can look for precursors, anomalies, and trends (PATs) by applying model-based and data-driven methods. Outputs would then drive downstream mitigation(s) if needed to reduce risk. These mitigations may be accomplished using traditional design revision processes or via operational (and sometimes automated) mechanisms. The latter refers to the ‘in-time’ aspect of the system concept. This report comprises architecture and information requirements and considerations toward enabling such a capability within the domain of low altitude highly autonomous urban flight operations. This domain may span, for example, public-use surveillance missions flown by small unmanned aircraft (e.g., infrastructure inspection, facility management, emergency response, law enforcement, and/or security) to transportation missions flown by larger aircraft that may carry passengers or deliver products. Caveat: Any stated requirements in this report should be considered initial requirements that are intended to drive research and development (R&D). These initial requirements are likely to evolve based on R&D findings, refinement of operational concepts, industry advances, and new industry or regulatory policies or standards related to safety assurance.

Young, Steven↗
NASA NTRS1982

Ceramic applications in turbine engines

In the past the potential of vehicular gas engines could not be realized because component materials served to limit the turbine operating temperature, thereby restricting fuel economy and initial cost. It was, therefore, not possible for the vehicular gas turbine to compete with more conventional engines. The emergence of low-cost, high-temperature ceramic components has the potential to reverse this situation. For example, the Allison GT404 engine, operating with ceramic components at turbine inlet temperatures up to 2350 F to 2500 F, has the potential of a fuel economy which is better than that of current Diesel engines. The Allison AGT100 engine operating with ceramic components offers the possibility of a 30% improvement in fuel economy over 1985 spark ignition engines. The materials considered for an employment in the ceramic components include silicon carbide, silicon nitride, aluminum silicate, and lithium aluminum silicate.

Byrd, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Approach for Autonomous Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Using Intelligent Agents for Knowledge Creation

This paper describes the development of a planned approach for Autonomous operation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). A Hybrid approach will seek to provide Knowledge Generation thru the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligent Agents (IA) for UAV control. The application of many different types of AI techniques for flight will be explored during this research effort. The research concentration will be directed to the application of different AI methods within the UAV arena. By evaluating AI approaches, which will include Expert Systems, Neural Networks, Intelligent Agents, Fuzzy Logic, and Complex Adaptive Systems, a new insight may be gained into the benefits of AI techniques applied to achieving true autonomous operation of these systems thus providing new intellectual merit to this research field. The major area of discussion will be limited to the UAV. The systems of interest include small aircraft, insects, and miniature aircraft. Although flight systems will be explored, the benefits should apply to many Unmanned Vehicles such as: Rovers, Ocean Explorers, Robots, and autonomous operation systems. The flight system will be broken down into control agents that will represent the intelligent agent approach used in AI. After the completion of a successful approach, a framework of applying a Security Overseer will be added in an attempt to address errors, emergencies, failures, damage, or over dynamic environment. The chosen control problem was the landing phase of UAV operation. The initial results from simulation in FlightGear are presented.

Dufrene, Warren R., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2020

A Quiet Helicopter for Air Taxi Operations

NASA is exploring rotorcraft designs for VTOL air taxi operations, also known as urban air mobility (UAM) or on-demand mobility (ODM) applications. Several concept vehicles have been developed, intended to focus and guide NASA research activities in support of aircraft development for this emerging market. This paper examines a single main-rotor helicopter designed specifically for low-noise air taxi operations. Based on demonstrated technology, the aircraft uses a turboshaft engine with a sound-absorbing installation, and the NOTAR anti-torque system to eliminate tail-rotor noise, consequently the noise and annoyance of the aircraft are dominated by the main rotor. Several design parameters are explored to reduce the noise, including rotor tip speed, blade geometry, and higher-harmonic control. Commensurate with the level of design detail, the noise is calculated for compact loading and thickness sources on the rotating blades. The metric is the reduction of the noise for the helicopter certification conditions (takeoff, flyover, and approach), relative a baseline aircraft with typical (high) tip speed, conventional blade planform, and no higher-harmonic control.

Johnson, Wayne↗
NASA NTRS2016

Wire Rope Failure on the Guppy Winch

On January 6, 2016 at El Paso, the Guppy winch motor was changed. After completion of the operational checks, the load bar was being reinstalled on the cargo pallet when the motor control FORWARD relay failed in the energized position. The pallet was pinned at all locations (each pin has a load capacity of 16,000 lbs.) while the winch was running. The wire rope snapped before aircraft power could be removed. After disassembly, the fractured wire rope was shipped to ES4 lab for further characterization of the wire rope portion of the failure. The system was being operated without a clear understanding of the system capability and function. The proximate cause was the failure of the K48 -Forward Winch Control Relay in the energized position, which allowed the motor to continuously run without command from the hand controller, and operation of the winch system with both controllers connected to the system. This prevented the emergency stop feature on the hand controller from functioning as designed. An electrical checkout engineering work instruction was completed and identified the failed relay and confirmed the emergency stop only paused the system when the STOP button on both connected hand controllers were depressed simultaneously. The winch system incorporates a torque limiting clutch. It is suspected that the clutch did not slip and the motor did not stall or overload the current limiter. Aircraft Engineering is looking at how to change the procedures to provide a checkout of the clutch and set to a slip torque limit appropriate to support operations.

Figert, John↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

High Density Vertiplex: Scalable Autonomous Operations Prototype Assessment Simulation

Urban Air Mobility is a rapidly growing topic within the field of aviation because of the impact a refined ecosystem and uncrewed aerial vehicles could have on modern society, such as urban air, cargo, and emergency transport. Before the UAM concept can be actualized, research is needed to understand how to integrate these new classes of vehicles and operations into the National Airspace System. One under-researched but critical piece of infrastructure required for UAM operations is Vertiport operations. Vertiports are the envisioned takeoff and landing locations for these uncrewed aerial vehicles. To accommodate the high use of the vertiport, new technologies and roles will be required for optimal use. At NASA, the High Density Vertiplex sub-project targets research into vertiports. The High Density Vertiplex team created their own Advanced Air Mobility ecosystem to test and evaluate different concepts and tools used to support higher density operations at vertiports. Part of the test and evaluation included the Prototype Assessment Operations simulation of high-density operations around a vertiport to study vertiport management and vertiport operations. The research team also evaluated how their simulated Urban Air Mobility ecosystem supported fleet managers, ground control station operators, and vertiport managers in execution of nominal and off-nominal high-density operations. Takeaways from this simulation helped the team evaluate well how the users of the ecosystem were able to use the components of the ecosystem to complete Urban Air Mobility missions.

Small Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (sUAS)↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Investigation and Evaluation of Advanced Spectrum Management Concepts for Aeronautical Communications

With the emergence of new aerial vehicles into the airspace and the continued growth of aviation operations, there will be an increasing demand for voice and data communications within the National Airspace System (NAS). The continued use of existing VHF and UHF frequency allocations is not a sustainable approach, and as a result, a new spectrum management solution is required to support future mission needs. The proposed spectrum management concepts leverage modern advancements such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to dynamically optimize the spectrum utilization based on the predicted communications demand throughout the airspace. This technical investigation considers both air-ground and air-air communications networks, and can be applied to both existing applications such as the air traffic control (ATC) system, as well as future applications, such as the emerging Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). To support the evaluation of the proposed concepts and technologies, a modeling and simulation capability is currently under development and will continue to evolve to support new and advanced airspace applications. It is anticipated that this proposed spectrum concept will better serve the spectrum needs of future NAS applications.

Eric J Knoblock↗