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NASA NTRS2016

Cardiac-Activity Measures for Assessing Airport Ramp-Tower Controller's Workload

Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) potentially offer objective, continuous, and non-intrusive measures of human-operator's mental workload. Such measurement capability is attractive for workload assessment in complex laboratory simulations or safety-critical field testing. The present study compares mean HR and HRV data with self-reported subjective workload ratings collected during a high-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulation of airport ramp traffic control operations, which involve complex cognitive and coordination tasks. Mean HR was found to be weakly sensitive to the workload ratings, while HRV was not sensitive or even contradictory to the assumptions. Until more knowledge on stress response mechanisms of the autonomic nervous system is obtained, it is recommended that these cardiac-activity measures be used with other workload assessment tools, such as subjective measures.

Hayashi, Miwa↗
NASA NTRS2016

Cardiac-Activity Measures for Assessing Airport Ramp-Tower Controller's Workload

Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) potentially offer objective, continuous, and non-intrusive measures of human-operators mental workload. Such measurement capability is attractive for workload assessment in complex laboratory simulations or safety-critical field testing. The present study compares mean HR and HRV data with self-reported subjective workload ratings collected during a high-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulation of airport ramp traffic control operations, which involve complex cognitive and coordination tasks. Mean HR was found to be weakly sensitive to the workload ratings, while HRV was not sensitive or even contradictory to the assumptions. Until more knowledge on stress response mechanisms of the autonomic nervous system is obtained, it is recommended that these cardiac-activity measures be used with other workload assessment tools, such as subjective measures.

Hayashi, Miwa↗
NASA NTRS2017

NEEMO 21: Tools, Techniques, Technologies and Training for Science Exploration

The 21st mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) was a highly integrated operational field test and evaluation of tools, techniques, technologies, and training for science driven exploration during extravehicular activity (EVA). The mission was conducted in July 2016 from the Aquarius habitat, an underwater laboratory, off the coast of Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. An international crew of eight (comprised of NASA and ESA astronauts, engineers, medical personnel, and habitat technicians) lived and worked in and around Aquarius and its surrounding reef environment for 16 days. The integrated testing (both interior and exterior objectives) conducted from this unique facility continues to support current and future human space exploration endeavors. Expanding on the scientific and operational evaluations conducted during NEEMO 20, the 21st NEEMO mission further incorporated a diverse Science Team comprised of planetary geoscientists from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES/XI) Division from the Johnson Space Center, marine scientists from the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University (FIU) Integrative Marine Genomics and Symbiosis (IMaGeS) Lab, and conservationists from the Coral Restoration Foundation. The Science Team worked in close coordination with the long-standing EVA operations, planning, engineering, and research components of NEEMO in all aspects of mission planning, development, and execution.

Graff, T.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Evaluation of Early Ground Control Station Configurations for Interacting with a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) System

The purpose of this paper is to report on a human factors evaluation of ground control station design concepts for interacting with an unmanned traffic management system. The data collected for this paper comes from recent field tests for NASA's Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) project, and covers the following topics; workload, situation awareness, as well as flight crew communication, coordination, and procedures. The goal of this evaluation was to determine if the various software implementations for interacting with the UTM system can be described and classified into design concepts to provide guidance for the development of future UTM interfaces. We begin with a brief description of NASA's UTM project, followed by a description of the test range configuration related to a second development phase. We identified (post hoc) two classes in which the ground control stations could be grouped. This grouping was based on level of display integration. The analysis was exploratory and informal. It was conducted to compare ground stations across those two classes and against the aforementioned topics. Herein, we discuss the results.

unmanned traffic management↗
NASA NTRS2017

UTM Weather Presentation

Presentation highlighting how weather affected UAS operations during the UTM field tests. Research to develop UAS weather translation models with a description of current and future work for UTM weather.

UTM↗
NASA NTRS2017

Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET) Interface Control Document

This Interface Control Document (ICD) documents the airspace adaptation and air traffic inputs of NASA's Future ATM Concepts and Evaluation Tool (FACET). Its intended audience is the project manager, project team, development team, and stakeholders interested in interfacing with the system. FACET equips Air Traffic Management (ATM) researchers and service providers with a way to explore, develop and evaluate advanced air transportation concepts before they are field-tested and eventually deployed. FACET is a flexible software tool that is capable of quickly generating and analyzing thousands of aircraft trajectories. It provides researchers with a simulation environment for preliminary testing of advanced ATM concepts. Using aircraft performance profiles, airspace models, weather data, and flight schedules, the tool models trajectories for the climb, cruise, and descent phases of flight for each type of aircraft. An advanced graphical interface displays traffic patterns in two and three dimensions, under various current and projected conditions for specific airspace regions or over the entire continental United States. The system is able to simulate a full day's dynamic national airspace system (NAS) operations, model system uncertainty, measure the impact of different decision-makers in the NAS, and provide analysis of the results in graphical form, including sector, airport, fix, and airway usage statistics. NASA researchers test and analyze the system-wide impact of new traffic flow management algorithms under anticipated air traffic growth projections on the nation's air traffic system. In addition to modeling the airspace system for NASA research, FACET has also successfully transitioned into a valuable tool for operational use. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) traffic flow managers and commercial airline dispatchers have used FACET technology for real-time operations planning. FACET integrates live air traffic data from FAA radar systems and weather data from the National Weather Service to summarize NAS performance. This information allows system operators to reroute flights around congested airspace and severe weather to maintain safety and minimize delay. FACET also supports the planning and post-operational evaluation of reroute strategies at the national level to maximize system efficiency. For the commercial airline passenger, strategic planning with FACET can result in fewer flight delays and cancellations. The performance capabilities of FACET are largely due to its architecture, which strikes a balance between flexibility and fidelity. FACET is capable of modeling the airspace operations for the continental United States, processing thousands of aircraft on a single computer. FACET was written in Java and C, enabling the portability of its software to a variety of operating systems. In addition, FACET was designed with a modular software architecture to facilitate rapid prototyping of diverse ATM concepts. Several advanced ATM concepts have already been implemented in FACET, including aircraft self-separation, prediction of aircraft demand and sector congestion, system-wide impact assessment of traffic flow management constraints, and wind-optimal routing.

FACET↗
NASA NTRS2018

Evaluation of Usability and Workload Associated with Paper Strips as Compared to Virtual Flight Strips Used for Ramp Operations

This paper describes a study comparing the use of paper strips with virtual flight strips depicted on a new user interface, the Ramp Traffic Console (RTC), designed for use by ramp controllers to be used in place of paper strips. A Human-In-the-Loop (HITL) experiment was performed as the fifth in a series of six HITL simulation studies designed to evaluate a pushback Decision Support Tool (DST) concept for Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT). Workload and usability were assessed in post-run and post-study questionnaires. In the RTC virtual flight strip condition, post-run questionnaire results show lower workload ratings across all aspects of workload; additionally a trend is found toward increased usability ratings. Post-study questionnaire results indicate a preference for RTC over paper strips. Additional research is suggested with more training runs and a greater number of participants to increase statistical power. It is also suggested that this new technology be re-evaluated as a part of the ATD-2 (Airspace Technology Demonstration 2) field testing activities.

Human Factors↗
NASA NTRS2016

Auto-Gopher-2 - Wireline Deep Sampler Driven by Percussive Piezoelectric Actuator and Rotary EM Motors

Two of the key purposes of future NASA’s solar system exploration of planetary bodies are the search for potentially preserved bio-signatures and for habitable regions. To address these objectives, a biologically inspired wireline deep rotary-percussive drill, called Auto-Gopher, has been developed. This drill employs a piezoelectric-actuated percussive mechanism for generating impulsive stresses and breaking formations, and an electric motor to rotate the bit to break material and remove the cuttings. Initially, the drill was designed as percussive mechanism for sampling ice and was demonstrated in 2005 at Lake Vida, Antarctica, reaching about 2 meters depth. The lessons learned suggested there is a need to augment the percussive action with bit rotation in order to maximize the penetration rate. The first generation implementation of the rotary augmentation was focused on the demonstration of this capability. In 2012, during the 3-day field test, the drill reached a 3-meter deep in gypsum. A separate mechanism was used to break and remove the cores. The average drilling power consumption was in the range of 100-150 Watts, while the rate of penetration was approximately 2.4 meters per hour. Currently under development is the second-generation drill, called Auto-Gopher-2. The drill will be fully autonomous. In this paper, the capabilities that are being integrated into the Auto-Gopher-2 are described and discussed.

Auto-Gopher Drill↗
NASA NTRS2019

Remote ID for Rapid Assessment of Flight and Vehicle Information

The ability to rapidly identify UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) in the field has emerged as a critical need for the integration of small UASs into the national airspace and counter-UAS operations. This paper proposes an architecture for rapid retrieval of UAS information leveraging NASA's current Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) system. The proposed architecture utilizes UTM components: FIMS (Flight Information Management System), USS (UAS Service Supplier), and vehicle registration and model database in order to provide assessment of the UAS reported in the field including the ability to distinguish between participating and non- participating UTM actors. Detailed system descriptions are provided and preliminary results from field tests conducted during UTM TCL (Technical Capability Level) 3 are discussed. It is found that 94 percent of the remote ID look-ups were successful. The average time of a look-up is found to be 1.2 seconds. Failure cases are examined and recommendations on next steps to advance UAS remote identification are provided.

USS (UAS Service Supplier)↗
NASA NTRS2019

Remote ID for Rapid Assessment of Flight and Vehicle Information

The ability to rapidly identify UAS in the field has emerged as a critical need for the integration of small UASs into the national airspace and counter-uas operations. This paper proposes an architecture for rapid retrieval of UAS information leveraging NASA's current Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) system. The proposed architecture utilizes UTM components: FIMS (Flight Information Management System), USS (UAS Service Supplier), and vehicle registration and model database in order to provide assessment of the UAS reported in the field including the ability to distinguish between participating and non- participating UTM actors. Detailed system descriptions are provided and preliminary results from field tests conducted during UTM TCL (Technical Capability Level) 3 are discussed. It is found that 94% of the remote ID look-ups were successful. The average time of a look-up is found to be 1.2 seconds. Failure cases are examined and recommendations on next steps to advance UAS remote identification are provided.

Ishihara, Abraham K.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Sensorimotor Predictors of Post-Landing Functional Task Performance

Spaceflight drives adaptive changes in healthy individuals appropriate for sensorimotor function in a microgravity environment. These changes are maladaptive for return to earth's gravity. The inter-individual variability of sensorimotor decrements is striking, although poorly understood. The goal of this study is to identify a set of behavioral, neuroimaging and genetic measures that can potentially be used to predict early performance following G-transitions such as return to Earth on a set of sensorimotor tasks. Astronauts are being recruited who previously participated in sensorimotor field tests and/or dynamic posturography (MedB) within R+1 days following long-duration spaceflight.

Wood, S. J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-12833-DND

A field test on a 3-microphone array at NASA Langley Research Center was conducted using a mobile controlled infrasonic source. A Helmholtz resonator, used to provide a simulated point source for infrasonic propagation studies, had an output SPL of 99 dB (at 1 m) at its resonance frequency of 9.45 Hz. The 3-microphone array was arranged as an equilateral triangle with microphones spacing of 30.48 m (100 ft) and at a distance of more than 85.3 m (280 ft) from the source. The signal level was 40 dB above the background noise in a 1-Hz band. Measurements of the acoustical response for each of the array microphones were recorded and the received signal was measured at the nearest microphone to be 60 dB (6 dB per doubling of distance).

Qamar A Shams↗
NASA NTRS2020

Lessons Learned: Using UTM Paradigm for Urban Air Mobility

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) aims to reduce congestion on the roads and highways by offering air taxi as an alternative to driving on surface roads. Integration of UAM operations in the National Airspace System (NAS) has been the focus of the research conducted at NASA Ames Research Center. A simulation was performed in collaboration with Uber Technologies Inc to investigate if NASA’s UTM architecture and its implementation as demonstrated in the 2019 UTM field tests were extensible for UAM operations, and if the data exchange between multiple operators as planned under UTM were adequate for UAM operations in the shared airspace. In order to explore these research questions, three Use Cases were defined to investigate different airspace management challenges. This paper will describe the lessons learned from exercising the uses cases and the airspace management services including scheduling and separation developed to facilitate initial UAM operations.

Urban Air Mobility↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lessons Learned: Using UTM paradigm for Urban Air Mobility Operations

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) aims to reduce congestion on the roads and highways by offering air taxi as an alternative to driving on surface roads. Integration of UAM operations in the National Airspace System (NAS) has been the focus of the research conducted at NASA Ames Research Center. A simulation was performed in collaboration with Uber Technologies Inc to investigate if NASA’s UTM architecture and its implementation as demonstrated in the 2019 UTM field tests were extensible for UAM operations, and if the data exchange between multiple operators as planned under UTM were adequate for UAM operations in the shared airspace. In order to explore these research questions, three Use Cases were defined to investigate different airspace management challenges. This paper will describe the lessons learned from exercising the uses cases and the airspace management services including scheduling and separation developed to facilitate initial UAM operations.

Urban Air Mobility↗
NASA NTRS2018

Small Spacecraft for Planetary Atmospheric, Surface, and Interior Structure Using Radio Links

Scientific studies using spacecraft radio links have been conducted on almost every Solar System exploration mission in the past five decades and have led to numerous discoveries. Radio Science experiments have elucidated the thermal history of the Moon from high resolution gravitational field measurements, unveiled the interiors of Titan, Enceladus, Mercury, Phobos, Vesta and Ceres providing key evidence for identifying subsurface oceans on icy moons; sounded Titan, Saturn, and Pluto’s atmospheres, and refined models for the atmospheres, surfaces, and interior structure of Mars and Venus. A Juno experiment is in progress measuring the gravitational field of Jupiter to reveal its interior structures, as did a similar recent Cassini experiment with Saturn. Experiments at Mercury, the Jovian system, and other targets, are in development or planning phases. Over the next 30 years, significant advances in radio and laser link-science technologies, including nearly one order of magnitude improvement achievable in range-rate and range accuracy, could enable many new scientific breakthroughs. Future exploration concepts in many cases focus on applications of small spacecraft and can include spacecraft constellations for studies of atmospheric dynamics, interior structures, and surface properties. A set of science-enabling radio link technologies specific to small spacecraft instrumentation on future solar system missions are under study and development. Examples include field tests of radio scattering to determine soil properties, smallsat constellations for dense geographic and temporal atmospheric probing, small science-quality software-defined transponders, miniature ultra-stable oscillators, and advanced radio-metric calibrations at the Deep Space Network. This paper describes many of these technologies and their scientific applications.

Elliott, Harvey↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Replication of Segments of STS-94 as a Lunar Surface Mission

The Artemis program established the goal to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, but that is only the beginning of the program. Artemis plans to move towards a sustainable phase, with four crew living on the lunar surface for roughly 30-day annual missions, operating from a Pressurized Rover (PR) and a Surface Habitat (SH). The crew will split up – two living and operating from the PR and the others in the SH, perhaps swapping places halfway through the surface mission. There is a significant degree of maturity surrounding PR operations due to the NASA Desert Research and Technology Studies field tests from 2007-2011. However, there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding activity in the SH, with anecdotal speculation among some Artemis lunar surface engineers that the SH crew might not be fully utilized. Contrary to this belief, there is evidence in US human spaceflight history that the SH crew may instead be extremely busy. In particular, portions of the STS-94 Microgravity Science Lab mission demonstrate a science-based use case for crew activity in the SH. Fifteen Spacelab missions (not including STS-83, which was terminated early due to a fuel cell problem and reflown as STS-94) and eight Spacehab missions used the previously mentioned modules as science labs to expand the science capability of shuttle orbital missions, most flown prior to the assembly of the International Space Station. STS-94 is selected as an example of these flights. STS-94 was a 15.7-day mission with a 7-person crew. The crew operated in split 12-hour shifts, enabling 24-hour science operations. STS-94 used the space shuttle Columbia with the Spacelab module and Extended Duration Orbiter pallet in the cargo bay. The STS-94 physical science investigations were intended to explore various physical aspects of microgravity. These same investigations can be conducted on the Moon to explore 1/6 gravity. The Spacelab module was outfitted with several key facilities to enable this research: Large Isothermal Furnace, Combustion Module-1, Droplet Combustion Experiment, EXPRESS Rack, TEMPUS, Gravity Measurement Devices, and Middeck Glovebox. The current reference concept for the SH is a hybrid inflatable in a vertical orientation. Fairly typical of hybrid inflatables, the SH has an aluminum core pressurized section and a larger inflatable volume, in this case attaching to the top of the core. Two crew will live in the SH at a time, though four can briefly occupy the habitat, such as for contingency or handover activities. This paper will discuss use of the STS-94 physical science equipment in the SH and options for the architectural layout of a resulting physics laboratory. It will also discuss how this laboratory may accompany other science facilities such as biology, human research, and geology. The person hours used by the STS-94 crew to conduct physical science research will be estimated and then mapped to a two-person SH crew, making it possible to determine how many days are required in the SH to complete the lunar gravity physical science investigations at varying levels of crew availability.

STS-94↗