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At least 1,207 records · Page 67

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NASA NTRS1985

Fault detection and accommodation testing on an F100 engine in an F-15 airplane

The fault detection and accommodation (FDA) methods that can be used for digital engine control systems are presently subjected to a flight test program in the case of the F-15 fighter's F100 engine electronic controls, inducing selected faults and then evaluating the resulting digital engine control responses. In general, flight test results were found to compare well with both ground tests and predictions. It is noted that the inducement of dual-pressure failures was not feasible, since FDA logic was not designed to accommodate them.

Myers, L. P.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Advanced Information Processing System - Fault detection and error handling

The Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS) is designed to provide a fault tolerant and damage tolerant data processing architecture for a broad range of aerospace vehicles, including tactical and transport aircraft, and manned and autonomous spacecraft. A proof-of-concept (POC) system is now in the detailed design and fabrication phase. This paper gives an overview of a preliminary fault detection and error handling philosophy in AIPS.

Lala, J. H.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Validation of fault-free behavior of a reliable multiprocessor system - FTMP: A case study

A program of experiments has been conducted at NASA-Langley to test the fault-free performance of a Fault-Tolerant Multiprocessor (FTMP) avionics system for next-generation aircraft. Baseline measurements of an operating FTMP system were obtained with respect to the following parameters: instruction execution time, frame size, and the variation of clock ticks. The mechanisms of frame stretching were also investigated. The experimental results are summarized in a table. Areas of interest for future tests are identified, with emphasis given to the implementation of a synthetic workload generation mechanism on FTMP.

Clune, E.↗

NASA NTRS1984

A Fault Tolerant System for an Integrated Avionics Sensor Configuration

An aircraft sensor fault tolerant system methodology for the Transport Systems Research Vehicle in a Microwave Landing System (MLS) environment is described. The fault tolerant system provides reliable estimates in the presence of possible failures both in ground-based navigation aids, and in on-board flight control and inertial sensors. Sensor failures are identified by utilizing the analytic relationships between the various sensors arising from the aircraft point mass equations of motion. The estimation and failure detection performance of the software implementation (called FINDS) of the developed system was analyzed on a nonlinear digital simulation of the research aircraft. Simulation results showing the detection performance of FINDS, using a dual redundant sensor compliment, are presented for bias, hardover, null, ramp, increased noise and scale factor failures. In general, the results show that FINDS can distinguish between normal operating sensor errors and failures while providing an excellent detection speed for bias failures in the MLS, indicated airspeed, attitude and radar altimeter sensors.

Caglayan, A. K.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Fault-tolerant control of large space structures using the stable factorization approach

Large space structures are characterized by the following features: they are in general infinite-dimensional systems, and have large numbers of undamped or lightly damped poles. Any attempt to apply linear control theory to large space structures must therefore take into account these features. Phase I consisted of an attempt to apply the recently developed Stable Factorization (SF) design philosophy to problems of large space structures, with particular attention to the aspects of robustness and fault tolerance. The final report on the Phase I effort consists of four sections, each devoted to one task. The first three sections report theoretical results, while the last consists of a design example. Significant results were obtained in all four tasks of the project. More specifically, an innovative approach to order reduction was obtained, stabilizing controller structures for plants with an infinite number of unstable poles were determined under some conditions, conditions for simultaneous stabilizability of an infinite number of plants were explored, and a fault tolerance controller design that stabilizes a flexible structure model was obtained which is robust against one failure condition.

Razavi, H. C.↗

NASA NTRS1986

A second generation experiment in fault-tolerant software

The primary goal was to determine whether the application of fault tolerance to software increases its reliability if the cost of production is the same as for an equivalent nonfault tolerance version derived from the same requirements specification. Software development protocols are discussed. The feasibility of adapting to software design fault tolerance the technique of N-fold Modular Redundancy with majority voting was studied.

Knight, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Fault-tolerant software for the FIMP

The work reported here provides protection against software failures in the task dispatcher of the FTMP, a particularly critical portion of the system software. Faults in other system modules and application programs can be handled by similar techniques but are not covered in this effort. Goals of the work reported here are: (1) to develop provisions in the software design that will detect and mitigate software failures in the dispatcher portion of the FTMP Executive and, (2) to propose the implementation of specific software reliability measures in other parts of the system. Beyond the specific support to the FTMP project, the work reported here represents a considerable advance in the practical application of the recovery block methodology for fault tolerant software design.

Hecht, H.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Software fault-tolerance by design diversity DEDIX: A tool for experiments

The use of multiple versions of a computer program, independently designed from a common specification, to reduce the effects of an error is discussed. If these versions are designed by independent programming teams, it is expected that a fault in one version will not have the same behavior as any fault in the other versions. Since the errors in the output of the versions are different and uncorrelated, it is possible to run the versions concurrently, cross-check their results at prespecified points, and mask errors. A DEsign DIversity eXperiments (DEDIX) testbed was implemented to study the influence of common mode errors which can result in a failure of the entire system. The layered design of DEDIX and its decision algorithm are described.

Avizienis, A.↗

NASA NTRS1985

The Heart Mountain fault: Implications for the dynamics of decollement

The Hart Mountain docollement in Northwestern Wyoming originally comprised a plate of rock up to 750m thick and 1300 sq kilometers in area. This plate moved rapidly down a slope no steeper than 2 deg. during Early Eocene time, transporting some blocks at least 50m from their original positions. Sliding occurred just before a volcanic erruption and was probably accompanied by seismic events. The initial movement was along a bedding plane fault in the Bighorn Dolomite, 2 to 3 meters above its contact with the Grove Creek member of the Snowy Range formation. The major pecularity of this fault is that it lies in the strong, cliff-forming Bighorn Dolomite, rather than in the weaker underlying shales. The dynamics of decollement are discussed.

Melosh, H. J.↗

NASA NTRS1985

The use of automatic programming techniques for fault tolerant computing systems

It is conjectured that the production of software for ultra-reliable computing systems such as required by Space Station, aircraft, nuclear power plants and the like will require a high degree of automation as well as fault tolerance. In this paper, the relationship between automatic programming techniques and fault tolerant computing systems is explored. Initial efforts in the automatic synthesis of code from assertions to be used for error detection as well as the automatic generation of assertions and test cases from abstract data type specifications is outlined. Speculation on the ability to generate truly diverse designs capable of recovery from errors by exploring alternate paths in the program synthesis tree is discussed. Some initial thoughts on the use of knowledge based systems for the global detection of abnormal behavior using expectations and the goal-directed reconfiguration of resources to meet critical mission objectives are given. One of the sources of information for these systems would be the knowledge captured during the automatic programming process.

Wild, C.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Young thrust-fault scarps in the highlands - Evidence for an initially totally molten moon

Attention is given to thermoelastic stress calculations implying that if only the outer few hundreds of km of a moon with a cool interior were initially molten, the lunar highlands should not have young compressional tectonic features. Extrapolations from Apollo panoramic images showing young thrust faults in the highlands suggest that about 2000 thrust fault scarps exist on the highlands, generally occurring in series or complexes of four or five scarps that are on average 5 km long. The ages of the scarps range from 60 + or - 30 to 680 + or - 250 my, with a possible factor bias of +2 to -4. The scarps are the youngest endogenic features on the moon, and indicate that the moon was initially molten.

Binder, A. B.↗

NASA NTRS1986

FTMP (Fault Tolerant Multiprocessor) programmer's manual

The Fault Tolerant Multiprocessor (FTMP) computer system was constructed using the Rockwell/Collins CAPS-6 processor. It is installed in the Avionics Integration Research Laboratory (AIRLAB) of NASA Langley Research Center. It is hosted by AIRLAB's System 10, a VAX 11/750, for the loading of programs and experimentation. The FTMP support software includes a cross compiler for a high level language called Automated Engineering Design (AED) System, an assembler for the CAPS-6 processor assembly language, and a linker. Access to this support software is through an automated remote access facility on the VAX which relieves the user of the burden of learning how to use the IBM 4381. This manual is a compilation of information about the FTMP support environment. It explains the FTMP software and support environment along many of the finer points of running programs on FTMP. This will be helpful to the researcher trying to run an experiment on FTMP and even to the person probing FTMP with fault injections. Much of the information in this manual can be found in other sources; we are only attempting to bring together the basic points in a single source. If the reader should need points clarified, there is a list of support documentation in the back of this manual.

Feather, F. E.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Reconfigurable tree architectures using subtree oriented fault tolerance

An approach to the design of reconfigurable tree architecture is presented in which spare processors are allocated at the leaves. The approach is unique in that spares are associated with subtrees and sharing of spares between these subtrees can occur. The Subtree Oriented Fault Tolerance (SOFT) approach is more reliable than previous approaches capable of tolerating link and switch failures for both single chip and multichip tree implementations while reducing redundancy in terms of both spare processors and links. VLSI layout is 0(n) for binary trees and is directly extensible to N-ary trees and fault tolerance through performance degradation.

Lowrie, Matthew B.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Detection of faults and software reliability analysis

Specific topics briefly addressed include: the consistent comparison problem in N-version system; analytic models of comparison testing; fault tolerance through data diversity; and the relationship between failures caused by automatically seeded faults.

Knight, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Validation of a fault-tolerant multiprocessor: Baseline experiments and workload implementation

In the future, aircraft must employ highly reliable multiprocessors in order to achieve flight safety. Such computers must be experimentally validated before they are deployed. This project outlines a methodology for validating reliable multiprocessors. The methodology begins with baseline experiments, which tests a single phenomenon. As experiments progress, tools for performance testing are developed. The methodology is used, in part, on the Fault Tolerant Multiprocessor (FTMP) at NASA-Langley's AIRLAB facility. Experiments are designed to evaluate the fault-free performance of the system. Presented are the results of interrupt baseline experiments performed on FTMP. Interrupt causing exception conditions were tested, and several were found to have unimplemented interrupt handling software while one had an unimplemented interrupt vector. A synthetic workload model for realtime multiprocessors is then developed as an application level performance analysis tool. Details of the workload implementation and calibration are presented. Both the experimental methodology and the synthetic workload model are general enough to be applicable to reliable multiprocessors beside FTMP.

Feather, Frank↗

NASA NTRS1985

Sensor-based fault diagnosis in a flight expert system

A prototype of a knowledge-based flight expert system (FLES) has been developed to assist airplane pilots in monitoring, analyzing, and diagnosing faults and to provide support in reducing the pilot's own mistakes. A sensor simulation model has been developed to provide FLES with the airplane status information during the diagnostic process. The simulator is based partly on the Advanced Concept System (ACS), a future-generation airplane, and partly on the Boeing 737, an existing airplane. The architecture of FLES contains several subsystems. One of the major subsystems performs fault diagnosis in the electrical system of the ACS. This paper describes the mechanism and functionality of the automatic diagnosis performed in this expert system.

Ali, M.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Fault-free performance validation of avionic multiprocessors

This paper describes the application of a portion of a validation methodology to NASA's Fault-Tolerant Multiprocessor System (FTMP) and the Software Implemented Fault-Tolerance (SIFT) computer system. The methodology entails a building block approach, starting with simple baseline experiments and building to more complex experiments. The goal of the validation methodology is to thoroughly test and characterize the performance and behavior of ultrareliable computer systems. The validation methodology presented in this paper showed that the methodology is not machine specific and can be used in lieu of life testing approaches. By applying a building block approach at the systems level, the machine complexity was broken down to manageable levels independent of system implementation.

Czeck, Edward W.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Fault structures in rapidly quenched Ni-Mo binary alloys

Fault structures in two Ni-Mo alloy ribbons (Ni-28 at. pct Mo and Ni-35 at. pct Mo) cast by a free jet chill block melt spinning process were studied. Thin foils for TEM studies were made by electrochemical thinning using an alcohol/butyl cellosolve/perchloric acid mixture in a twin jet electropolishing device. The samples displayed typical grains containing linear faulted regions on the wheelside of the two alloy ribbons. However, an anomalous diffraction behavior was observed upon continuous tilting of the sample: the network of diffraction spots from a single grain appeared to expand or contract and rotate. This anomalous diffraction behavior was explained by assuming extended spike formation at reciprocal lattice points, resulting in a network of continuous rel rods. The validity of the model was confirmed by observations of a cross section of the reciprocal lattice parallel to the rel rods.

Jayaraman, N.↗