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At least 127 records · Page 7

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NASA NTRS1991

An experimental study of nonlinear dynamic system identification

A technique based on the Minimum Model Error optimal estimation approach is employed for robust identification of a nonlinear dynamic system. A simple harmonic oscillator with quadratic position feedback was simulated on an analog computer. With the aid of analog measurements and an assumed linear model, the Minimum Model Error Algorithm accurately identifies the quadratic nonlinearity. The tests demonstrate that the method is robust with respect to prior ignorance of the nonlinear system model and with respect to measurement record length, regardless of initial conditions.

Stry, Greselda I.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Non-developmental item computer systems and the malicious software threat

The following subject areas are covered: a DOD development system - the Army Secure Operating System; non-development commercial computer systems; security, integrity, and assurance of service (SI and A); post delivery SI and A and malicious software; computer system unique attributes; positive feedback to commercial computer systems vendors; and NDI (Non-Development Item) computers and software safety.

Bown, Rodney L.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Simulations of the effect of a warmer climate on atmospheric humidity

Increases in the concentration of water vapor constitute the single largest positive feedback in models of global climate warming caused by greenhouse gases. It has been suggested that sinking air in the regions surrounding deep cumulus clouds will dry the upper troposphere and eliminate or reverse the direction of water vapor feedback. This hypothesis has been tested by performing an idealized simulation of climate change with two different versions of a climate model which both incorporate drying due to subsidence of clear air but differ in their parameterization of moist convection and stratiform clouds. Despite increased drying of the upper troposphere by cumulus clouds, upper-level humidity increases in the warmer climate because of enhanced upward moisture transport by the general circulation and increased accumulation of water vapor and ice at cumulus cloud tops.

Del Genio, Anthony D.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Robotic Gripper With Force Control And Optical Sensors

Robotic gripper locates, measures, recognizes and manipulates objects in assembly-line setting. Fiber-optic sensors in fingertips help locate and identify object. Gripper grasps object and determines size from finger-position feedback, while grasped under force control. Prototype handles geranium cuttings in commercial greenhouse, basic concept and design modified for other objects (rods or nuts), including sorting to size.

Montgomery, James L.↗

NASA NTRS1991

A kind of small hydrogen maser for time-keeping

A kind of small hydrogen maser standard for timekeeping is being developed at Shanghai Observatory. The maser employs a cylindrical capacitively loaded cavity construction, resulting in significant size and weight reduction compared to a traditional hydrogen maser. The Q of the compact cavity is electronically enhanced by a suitable positive feedback into the cavity to enable sustained maser oscillation. The long-term stability of the maser is improved by a cavity frequency stabilization servo-system. The design and development of the maser, as well as photographs of the new maser system during the construction phase.

Z. C. Zhai↗

NASA NTRS1992

Mars secular obliquity change due to the seasonal polar caps

There is a weak positive feedback mechanism between the astronomy and meteorology of Mars. The mechanism is this: the seasonal waxing and waning polar caps cause small changes in Mars' dynamical flattening. Because the changes in flattening are out of phase with the sun, there is a net annual solar torque on the planet which increases the angle between the equatorial and orbital phanes. On the basis of Viking observations of the present climate and simple atmospheric models of past climates, these seasonal shifts of mass between the atmosphere and polar caps are capable of secularly increasing Mars' obliquity by about 1 or 2 deg since the origin of the solar system. Thus, the climate, driven largely by the axial tilt, reacts back on the planet and slightly enhances the seasons on Mars as time progresses. More sophisticated models will probably not change this result much; therefore this mechanism probably produced only minor changes in Mars' climate. It causes negligible changes in the axial tilt and climate of the earth.

Rubincam, David P.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Ozone response to a CO2 doubling - Results from a stratospheric circulation model with heterogeneous chemistry

A spectral 3D model of the stratosphere has been used to study the sensitivity of polar ozone with respect to a carbon dioxide increase. The lower stratospheric cooling associated with an imposed CO2 doubling may increase the probability of polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) formation and this affect ozone. The ozone perturbation obtained with the inclusion of a simple parameterization for heterogeneous chemistry on PSCs is compared to that relative to a pure homogeneous chemistry. In both cases the temperature perturbation is determined by a CO2 doubling, while the total chlorine content is kept at the present level. It is shown that the lower temperature may increase the depth and the extension of the ozone hole by extending the area amenable to PSC formation. It may be argued that this effect, coupled with an increasing amount of chlorine, may produce a positive feedback on the ozone destruction.

Pitari, G.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Neural-network dedicated processor for solving competitive assignment problems

A neural-network processor for solving first-order competitive assignment problems consists of a matrix of N x M processing units, each of which corresponds to the pairing of a first number of elements of (R sub i) with a second number of elements (C sub j), wherein limits of the first number are programmed in row control superneurons, and limits of the second number are programmed in column superneurons as MIN and MAX values. The cost (weight) W sub ij of the pairings is programmed separately into each PU. For each row and column of PU's, a dedicated constraint superneuron insures that the number of active neurons within the associated row or column fall within a specified range. Annealing is provided by gradually increasing the PU gain for each row and column or increasing positive feedback to each PU, the latter being effective to increase hysteresis of each PU or by combining both of these techniques.

Eberhardt, Silvio P.↗

NASA NTRS1992

The annual cycle in equatorial convection and sea surface temperature

The coupled atmosphere-ocean system in the equatorial eastern Pacific and Atlantic exhibits a distinct annual cycle that is reflected in contrasting conditions at the times of the two equinoxes. The contrasts are so strong that they dominate the annual march of zonally averaged outgoing long wave radiation for the equatorial belt. The March equinox corresponds to the warm season when the equatorial cold tongues in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic area absent. With the onset of summer monsoon convection over Colombia, Central America, and West Africa in May-June, northward surface winds strengthen over the eastern Pacific and Atlantic, the equatorial cold tongues reappear, and the marine convection shifts from the equatorial belt to the intertropical convergence zones (ITCZs) along 8 deg N. On the basis of observational evidence concerning the timing and year-to-year regularity of the surface wind changes during the development of the cold tongues, it is argued that (1) the increase in the northward surface winds in response to the onset of the northern summer monsoon may be instrumental in reestablishing the cold tongues, and (2) positive feedbacks involving both the zonal and meridional wind components contribute to the remarkable robustness of the cold tongue-ITCZs complexes in both oceans.

Mitchell, Todd P.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Albedo patterns and gypsum generation in the central Namib Desert - Land, sea and air interactions on an arid West Coast

In the central Namib Desert, dune-free surfaces are separated abruptly from a sea of yellow and red sand dunes at the Kuiseb River canyon. The off-white hues of the dune-free area result from anomalously high surficial gypsum enrichment. Satellite imagery indicates that the gypsum surfaces are associated with lower surface maximum temperatures than those of the darker dune surfaces to the south. One of various sources of sulfate for the gypsum bodies is oceanic H2S, supplied to desert land-surfaces by regular fog incursions. Since fog events are widespread along the coast, the question of anomalous gypsum accumulations north of the dune sea arises. Satellite imagery, in conjunction with more detailed handheld photography from the space shuttle, indicates that the penetration of fog inland is significantly greater over the gypsum surfaces than it is over the dunes. It is postulated that the thermal gradient between these surfaces generates a heat low centered over the northern part of dune sea and that this enhances fog and H2S advection on its north side onto the nearby dune-free zone. In such a system, gypsum/caliche surfaces reinforce advection of fog over themselves in a positive feedback mode.

Wilkinson, M. J.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Electromechanical actuation for cryogenic valve control

The design and analysis of the electromechanical actuator (EMA) being developed for the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center as part of the National Launch System (NLS) Propellant Control Effector Advanced Development Program (ADP) are addressed. The EMA design uses several proven technologies combined into a single modular package which includes single stage high ratio gear reduction, redundant electric motors mounted on a common drive shaft, redundant drive and control electronics, and digital technology for performing the closed loop position feedback, communication, and health monitoring functions. Results of tests aimed at evaluating both component characteristics and overall system performance demonstrated that the goal of low cost, reliable control in a cryogenic environment is feasible.

Lister, M. J.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Powerful Electromechanical Linear Actuator

Powerful electromechanical linear actuator designed to replace hydraulic actuator. Cleaner, simpler, and needs less maintenance. Features rotary-to-linear-motion converter with antibacklash gearing and position feedback via shaft-angle resolvers, which measure rotary motion.

Cowan, John R.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Powerful Electromechanical Linear Actuator

Powerful electromechanical linear actuator designed to replace hydraulic actuator that provides incremental linear movements to large object and holds its position against heavy loads. Electromechanical actuator cleaner and simpler, and needs less maintenance. Two principal innovative features that distinguish new actuator are use of shaft-angle resolver as source of position feedback to electronic control subsystem and antibacklash gearing arrangement.

Cowan, John R.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Implementation issues for a compact 6 degree of freedom force reflecting handcontroller with cueing of modes

Teleoperated control requires a master human interface device that can provide haptic input and output which reflect the responses of a slave robotic system. The effort reported in this paper addresses the design and prototyping of a six degree-of-freedom (DOF) Cartesian coordinate hand controller for this purpose. The device design recommended is an XYZ stage attached to a three-roll wrist which positions a flight-type handgrip. Six degrees of freedom are transduced and control brushless DC motor servo electronics similar in design to those used in computer controlled robotic manipulators. This general approach supports scaled force, velocity, and position feedback to aid an operator in achieving telepresence. The generality of the device and control system characteristics allow the use of inverse dynamics robotic control methodology to project slave robot system forces and inertias to the operator (in scaled form) and at the same time to reduce the apparent inertia of the robotic handcontroller itself. The current control design, which is not multiple fault tolerant, can be extended to make flight control or space use possible. The proposed handcontroller will have advantages in space-based applications where an operator must control several robot arms in a simultaneous and coordinated fashion. It will also have applications in intravehicular activities (within the Space Station) such as microgravity experiments in metallurgy and biological experiments that require isolation from the astronauts' environment. For ground applications, the handcontroller will be useful in underwater activities where the generality of the proposed handcontroller becomes an asset for operation of many different manipulator types. Also applications will emerge in the Military, Construction, and Maintenance/Manufacturing areas including ordnance handling, mine removal, NBC (Nuclear, Chemical, Biological) operations, control of vehicles, and operating strength and agility enhanced machines. Future avionics applications including advanced helicopter and aircraft control may also become important.

Jacobus, Heidi↗

NASA NTRS1995

Improved Speed Control System for the 87,000 HP Wind Tunnel Drive

This paper describes the design, installation, and integrated systems tests for a new drive motor speed control system which was part of a recent rehab project for the NASA Lewis 8x6 Supersonic Wind Tunnel. The tunnel drive consists of three mechanically-coupled 29,000 HP wound rotor induction motors driving an axial flow compressor. Liquid rheostats are used to vary the impedance of the rotor circuits, thus varying the speed of the drive system. The new design utilizes a distributed digital control system with a dual touch screen CRT operator console to provide alarm monitoring, logging, and trending. The liquid rheostats are driven by brushtype servomotor systems with magnetostrictive linear displacement transducers used for position feedback. The new system achieved all goals for speed variations with load, motor load balance, and control of total power.

Becks, Edward A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

TOGA/COARE AMMR 1992 data processing

The complete set of Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA)/Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) flight data for the 91.65 GHz Airborne Meteorological Radiometer (AMMR92) contains data from nineteen flights: two test flights, four transit flights, and thirteen experimental flights. The data flight occurred between December 16, 1992 and February 28, 1993. Data collection from the AMMR92 during the first ten flights of TOGA/COARE was performed using the executable code TSK30041. These are IBM PC/XT programs used by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). During one flight, inconsistencies were found during the operation of the AMMR92 using the GSFC data acquisition system. Consequently, the Georgia Tech (GT) data acquisition system was used during all successive TOGA/COARE flights. These inconsistencies were found during the data processing to affect the recorded data as well. Errors are caused by an insufficient pre- and post-calibration setting period for the splash-plate mechanism. The splash-plate operates asynchronusly with the data acquisition system (there is no position feedback to the GSFC or GT data system). This condition caused both the calibration and the post-calibration scene measurement to be corrupted on a randomly occurring basis when the GSFC system was used. This problem did not occur with the GT data acquisition system due to sufficient allowance for splash-plate settling. After TOGA/COARE it was determined that calibration of the instrument was a function of the scene brightness temperature. Therefore, the orientation error in the main antenna beam of the AMMR92 is hypothesized to be caused by misalignment of the internal 'splash-plate' responsible for directing the antenna beam toward the scene or toward the calibration loads. Misalignment of the splash-plate is responsible for 'scene feedthrough' during calibration. Laboratory investigation at Georgia Tech found that each polarization is affected differently by the splash-plate alignment error. This is likely to cause significant and unique errors in the absolute calibration of each channel.

Kunkee, D. B.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Preferred latitudes of the intertropical convergence zone

The latitude preference of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is examined on the basis of observations, theory, and a modeling analysis. Observations show that convection is enhanced at latitudes of about 4 deg to 10 deg relative to the equator, even in regions where the sea surface temperature (SST) is maximum on the equator. Both linear shallow-water theory and a moist primitive equation model suggest a new explanation for the off-equatorial latitude preference of the ITCZ that requires neither the existence of zonally propagating disturbances nor an off-equatorial maximum in SST. The shallow-water theory indicates that a finite-width, zonally oriented, midtropospheric heat source (i.e., an ITCZ) produces the greatest local low-level convergence when placed a finite distance away from the equator. This result suggests that an ITCZ is most likely to be supported via low-level convergence of moist energy when located at these "preferred" latitudes away from the equator. For a plausible range of heating widths and damping parameters, the theoretically predicted latitude is approximately equal to the observed position (s) of the ITCZ (s). Analysis with an axially symmetric, moist, primitive equation model indicates that when the latent heating field is allowed to be determined internally, a positive feedback develops between the midtropospheric latent heating and the low-level convergence, with the effect of enhancing the organization of convection at latitudes of about 4 deg to 12 deg. Numerical experiments show that (1) two peaks in convective precipitation develop straddling the equator when the SST maximum is located on the equator; (2) steady ITCZ-like structures form only when the SST maximum is located away from the equator; and (3) peaks in convection can develop away from the maximum in SST, with a particular preference for latitudes of about 4 deg to 12 deg, even in the ('cold') hemisphere without the SST maximum. The relationship between this mechanism and earlier theories is discussed, as are implications for the coupled ocean-atmosphere system and the roles played by midlevel latent heating and SST gradients in forcing the low-level atmospheric circulation in the tropics.

Waliser, Duane E.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Particle-in-cell simulations of the critical ionization velocity effect in finite size clouds

The critical ionization velocity (CIV) mechanism in a finite size cloud is studied with a series of electrostatic particle-in-cell simulations. It is observed that an initial seed ionization, produced by non-CIV mechanisms, generates a cross-field ion beam which excites a modified beam-plasma instability (MBPI) with frequency in the range of the lower hybrid frequency. The excited waves accelerate electrons along the magnetic field up to the ion drift energy that exceeds the ionization energy of the neutral atoms. The heated electrons in turn enhance the ion beam by electron-neutral impact ionization, which establishes a positive feedback loop in maintaining the CIV process. It is also found that the efficiency of the CIV mechanism depends on the finite size of the gas cloud in the following ways: (1) Along the ambient magnetic field the finite size of the cloud, L (sub parallel), restricts the growth of the fastest growing mode, with a wavelength lambda (sub m parallel), of the MBPI. The parallel electron heating at wave saturation scales approximately as (L (sub parallel)/lambda (sub m parallel)) (exp 1/2); (2) Momentum coupling between the cloud and the ambient plasma via the Alfven waves occurs as a result of the finite size of the cloud in the direction perpendicular to both the ambient magnetic field and the neutral drift. This reduces exponentially with time the relative drift between the ambient plasma and the neutrals. The timescale is inversely proportional to the Alfven velocity. (3) The transvers e charge separation field across the cloud was found to result in the modulation of the beam velocity which reduces the parallel heating of electrons and increases the transverse acceleration of electrons. (4) Some energetic electrons are lost from the cloud along the magnetic field at a rate characterized by the acoustic velocity, instead of the electron thermal velocity. The loss of energetic electrons from the cloud seems to be larger in the direction of plasma drift relative to the neutrals, where the loss rate is characterized by the neutral drift velocity. It is also shown that a factor of 4 increase in the ambient plasma density, increases the CIV ionization yield by almost 2 orders of magnitude at the end of a typical run. It is concluded that a larger ambient plasma density can result in a larger CIV yield because of (1) larger seed ion production by non-CIV mechanisms, (2) smaller Alfven velocity and hence weak momentum coupling, and (3) smaller ratio of the ion beam density to the ambient ion density, and therefore a weaker modulation of the beam velocity. The simulation results are used to interpret various chemical release experiments in space.

Moghaddam-Taaheri, E.↗