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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1996

A Digital Control Algorithm for Magnetic Suspension Systems

An ongoing program exists to investigate and develop magnetic suspension technologies and modelling techniques at NASA Langley Research Center. Presently, there is a laboratory-scale large air-gap suspension system capable of five degree-of-freedom (DOF) control that is operational and a six DOF system that is under development. Those systems levitate a cylindrical element containing a permanent magnet core above a planar array of electromagnets, which are used for levitation and control purposes. In order to evaluate various control approaches with those systems, the Generic Real-Time State-Space Controller (GRTSSC) software package was developed. That control software package allows the user to implement multiple control methods and allows for varied input/output commands. The development of the control algorithm is presented. The desired functionality of the software is discussed, including the ability to inject noise on sensor inputs and/or actuator outputs. Various limitations, common issues, and trade-offs are discussed including data format precision; the drawbacks of using either Direct Memory Access (DMA), interrupts, or program control techniques for data acquisition; and platform dependent concerns related to the portability of the software, such as memory addressing formats. Efforts to minimize overall controller loop-rate and a comparison of achievable controller sample rates are discussed. The implementation of a modular code structure is presented. The format for the controller input data file and the noise information file is presented. Controller input vector information is available for post-processing by mathematical analysis software such as MATLAB1.

Britton, Thomas C.↗
NASA NTRS2014

NDE Software Developed at NASA Glenn Research Center

NASA Glenn Research Center has developed several important Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) related software packages for different projects in the last 10 years. Three of the software packages have been created with commercial-grade user interfaces and are available to United States entities for download on the NASA Technology Transfer and Partnership Office server (https://sr.grc.nasa.gov/). This article provides brief overviews of the software packages.

image processing↗
NASA NTRS1997

Astronomical Software Directory Service

With the support of NASA's Astrophysics Data Program (NRA 92-OSSA-15), we have developed the Astronomical Software Directory Service (ASDS): a distributed, searchable, WWW-based database of software packages and their related documentation. ASDS provides integrated access to 56 astronomical software packages, with more than 16,000 URLs indexed for full-text searching. Users are performing about 400 searches per month. A new aspect of our service is the inclusion of telescope and instrumentation manuals, which prompted us to change the name to the Astronomical Software and Documentation Service. ASDS was originally conceived to serve two purposes: to provide a useful Internet service in an area of expertise of the investigators (astronomical software), and as a research project to investigate various architectures for searching through a set of documents distributed across the Internet. Two of the co-investigators were then installing and maintaining astronomical software as their primary job responsibility. We felt that a service which incorporated our experience in this area would be more useful than a straightforward listing of software packages. The original concept was for a service based on the client/server model, which would function as a directory/referral service rather than as an archive. For performing the searches, we began our investigation with a decision to evaluate the Isite software from the Center for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR). This software was intended as a replacement for Wide-Area Information Service (WAIS), a client/server technology for performing full-text searches through a set of documents. Isite had some additional features that we considered attractive, and we enjoyed the cooperation of the Isite developers, who were happy to have ASDS as a demonstration project. We ended up staying with the software throughout the project, making modifications to take advantage of new features as they came along, as well as influencing the software development. The Web interface to the search engine is provided by a gateway program written in C++ by a consultant to the project (A. Warnock).

Hanisch, Robert J.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Finite Element Simulation of Smart Structures

Finite element equations representing the behavior of piezoelectric materials when bounded to a typical structure and used as sensors and actuators were developed. Emphasis was placed on generating sensor output equations of piezoelectric sensors and responses of a typical structure bonded with piezoelectric sensors and actuators on the basis of finite element formulation. The model can predict not only structural responses due to both mechanical and electrical loading but also electrical potential due to mechanical or thermal effects. The resulted finite element equations were then used for simple control design and performance evaluation. In the control algorithm, voltages coming out from piezoelectric sensors, which are proportional to strains at sensing locations, are taken as input. The voltages applied to the piezoelectric actuators are used as output. The feasibility of integrating control algorithm with the element routine developed herein and FEAP was demonstrated. In particular, optimal independent modal space control was implemented in a software package on the basis of finite element formulation. A rudimentary finite element-control algorithm package was also developed to evaluate the performance of candidate control laws. A few numerical simulations using the software package developed herein were given. The integrated software package will provide a design tool to address issues such as how adaptive smart systems will scale to a full size aircraft, the amount of piezoelectric materials and the powers needed to actuate it for desired performance. It will also provide a viable new structural control design concept for practical applications in large flexible structures such as aerospace vehicles and aircraft.

Cui, Y. Lawrence↗
NASA NTRS1980

Finite element for rotor/stator interactive forces in general engine dynamic simulation. Part 1: Development of bearing damper element

A general purpose squeeze-film damper interactive force element was developed, coded into a software package (module) and debugged. This software package was applied to nonliner dynamic analyses of some simple rotor systems. Results for pressure distributions show that the long bearing (end sealed) is a stronger bearing as compared to the short bearing as expected. Results of the nonlinear dynamic analysis, using a four degree of freedom simulation model, showed that the orbit of the rotating shaft increases nonlinearity to fill the bearing clearance as the unbalanced weight increases.

Adams, M. L.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Testing and Application of Commercial Thermodynamics Software for Solid-Gas Equilibria in Planetary Science Applications

The ability to calculate chemical equilibria from thermochemical constants (e.g., H, S, Cp) or other experimental data is a tool widely employed by scientists. However, phase equilibria for planetary science problems is limited by easy access to libraries of thermochemical data, as well as the software to invert that data. Many academic software packages are focused on specific types of problems (e.g., aqueous solutions or melting and crystallization of magmas). This focus makes them excellent tools for specific uses, but poorer tools for other scenarios, especially those involving elements or chemical species that are less well-studied in that specific scientific field (e.g. NaCl vapor). Amongst the more general thermodynamic software tools, there are closed academic software packages, open-source options, as well as commercial software. We have explored the extent to which commercial chemistry/chemical engineering software may be able to satisfy the need for thermochemical modeling packages that can accommodate the diverse species and conditions of planetary science problems. Here we compare the output of software package HSC Chemistry™ (Metso Outotec) to published vapor-solid phase diagrams for a variety of major and minor elements. HSC Chemistry™ has been used in several recent geochemical studies of terrestrial volcanic systems [2- 4]. However, it has not to our knowledge been benchmarked against peer-reviewed model results for the conditions and compositions relevant to planetary science. We present one such comparison here, the low- pressure environment of the solar nebula, using literature data. In short, we find excellent agreement between HSC Chemistry™ and the well-regarded academic software package CONDOR. These preliminary results suggest that at least some commercial software packages are capable of robust thermochemical calculations for planetary science.

planetary science↗
NASA NTRS2005

Computational Materials Program for Alloy Design

The research program sponsored by this grant, "Computational Materials Program for Alloy Design", covers a period of time of enormous change in the emerging field of computational materials science. The computational materials program started with the development of the BFS method for alloys, a quantum approximate method for atomistic analysis of alloys specifically tailored to effectively deal with the current challenges in the area of atomistic modeling and to support modern experimental programs. During the grant period, the program benefited from steady growth which, as detailed below, far exceeds its original set of goals and objectives. Not surprisingly, by the end of this grant, the methodology and the computational materials program became an established force in the materials communitiy, with substantial impact in several areas. Major achievements during the duration of the grant include the completion of a Level 1 Milestone for the HITEMP program at NASA Glenn, consisting of the planning, development and organization of an international conference held at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in August of 2002, finalizing a period of rapid insertion of the methodology in the research community worlwide. The conference, attended by citizens of 17 countries representing various fields of the research community, resulted in a special issue of the leading journal in the area of applied surface science. Another element of the Level 1 Milestone was the presentation of the first version of the Alloy Design Workbench software package, currently known as "adwTools". This software package constitutes the first PC-based piece of software for atomistic simulations for both solid alloys and surfaces in the market.Dissemination of results and insertion in the materials community worldwide was a primary focus during this period. As a result, the P.I. was responsible for presenting 37 contributed talks, 19 invited talks, and publishing 71 articles in peer-reviewed journals, as detailed later in this Report.

Bozzolo, Guillermo↗
DOE OSTI2024

SCA Tools - SCRM Value Add or Lossy Noise Machines

Software supply chain risk management (SCRM) depends upon accurate information regarding the software components that comprise any given software system. The collection of components included in a software package can be organized within a software bill of materials, or SBOM. SBOMs are ideally generated when the software components are put together, such as at compile time, but for many reasons that has not and is not always possible. For example, legacy or proprietary software packages often do not have SBOMs available to downstream consumers of that software. It’s not just end users that are affected, manufacturers themselves also must deal with this problem. To answer these questions, the market has seen the rise of several commercial software composition analysis (SCA) tools. These tools aim to peer into completed software systems, automatically identifying hidden software dependencies and looking up known vulnerabilities associated with those dependencies to enable end-users to enhance their cyber supply chain risk management processes. These tools are potentially a huge boon to end users of legacy and proprietary software – and a potential bane, depending on how accurate they are. This research asks that question – how accurate are currently available binary SCA tools – and provides answers to several other questions: What does it mean to be “accurate”? What limitations do the tools have in identifying common edge cases that take place in modern software development? Can they help you avoid a devastating supply chain attack, or is it all just noise? After researching SCA tools on the market, we identified three vendors that fit our use case and would provide analysis on compiled binaries. Using these tools, we submitted firmware for critical infrastructure devices for analysis and SBOM generation. The SBOM outputs were then cross referenced with SBOMs generated through manual analysis for comparison. In addition to the firmware samples, we also submitted edge case samples based off a popular open-source library that were specifically crafted to evaluate each tools’ ability to accurately identify components. These samples were customized to be consistent with modifications we have seen in modern software development as well as a couple that are representative of supply chain attacks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1997

PLATSIM: A Simulation and Analysis Package for Large-Order Flexible Systems

The software package PLATSIM provides efficient time and frequency domain analysis of large-order generic space platforms. PLATSIM can perform open-loop analysis or closed-loop analysis with linear or nonlinear control system models. PLATSIM exploits the particular form of sparsity of the plant matrices for very efficient linear and nonlinear time domain analysis, as well as frequency domain analysis. A new, original algorithm for the efficient computation of open-loop and closed-loop frequency response functions for large-order systems has been developed and is implemented within the package. Furthermore, a novel and efficient jitter analysis routine which determines jitter and stability values from time simulations in a very efficient manner has been developed and is incorporated in the PLATSIM package. In the time domain analysis, PLATSIM simulates the response of the space platform to disturbances and calculates the jitter and stability values from the response time histories. In the frequency domain analysis, PLATSIM calculates frequency response function matrices and provides the corresponding Bode plots. The PLATSIM software package is written in MATLAB script language. A graphical user interface is developed in the package to provide convenient access to its various features.

Maghami, Peiman G.↗
DOE OSTI2023

AI and Machine Learning with Encrypted Data (CRADA Final Report)

The proposed project aimed to develop faster algorithms for FHE and zk-SNARKs processing. The research team previously developed a fast Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) and other fast arithmetic algorithms. The project team explored using these fast algorithms to enable FHE and zk-SNARKSs acceleration, with specific attention to how the algorithms would need to be integrated into specific FHE and zk-SNARKs software packages to become useful. Existing FHE/zk-SNARKs software packages have been written for CPUs, however this project’s technology targeted FPGAs and GPUs. The team explored how to modify existing CPU software to support FPGAs/GPUs as well as ways they could implement entirely new software stacks that run purely on FPGAs/GPUs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1984

Mesoscale and severe storms (Mass) data management and analysis system

Progress on the Mesoscale and Severe Storms (MASS) data management and analysis system is described. An interactive atmospheric data base management software package to convert four types of data (Sounding, Single Level, Grid, Image) into standard random access formats is implemented and integrated with the MASS AVE80 Series general purpose plotting and graphics display data analysis software package. An interactive analysis and display graphics software package (AVE80) to analyze large volumes of conventional and satellite derived meteorological data is enhanced to provide imaging/color graphics display utilizing color video hardware integrated into the MASS computer system. Local and remote smart-terminal capability is provided by installing APPLE III computer systems within individual scientist offices and integrated with the MASS system, thus providing color video display, graphics, and characters display of the four data types.

Hickey, J. S.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Infrastructure and Process Improvements After LADEE

The purpose of the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission was to measure the density, composition and time variability of the lunar dust environment. The successful mission launched Sept 7, 2013 and was de-orbited and impacted the moon's surface on April 17, 2014. The spacecraft had 3 primary science instruments, the Lunar Dust Experiment, Neutral Mass Spectrometer, and the Ultra Violet Spectrometer. The mission also had a Laser Communications payload that set a record download rate of 622 Mbps (megabits per second) from the moon orbit. The goal is to use the LADEE software base for upcoming smallsat missions. The onboard flight software for the mission was developed using a Model-Based Software methodology and agile software development practices. High level models were developed in Simulink, autocoded to C and layered on Core Flight Executive and Core Flight Software, VxWorks and required board support packages. Software package versions were frozen several years ago, and need to be brought to modern standards for future spacecraft missions. We are evaluating alternate Real Time Operating Systems and avionics architectures that comply with CubeSat form-factor and power limitations. In addition, the tool chain for the software development process has been improved. We will discuss the rationale, trades and implementation for the upgrade path after the LADEE mission.

Software Maintenance↗
DOE OSTI2025

Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning

The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a long history of deploying ground-breaking leadership-class supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy. The latest in this line of supercomputers is Frontier, the first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier (1018 floating-point operations per second) on the TOP500 list. Frontier serves a wide array of scientific domains, from traditional simulation-based workloads to newer AI and Machine Learning workloads. To best serve the NCCS user community, NCCS uses Spack to deploy a comprehensive software stack of scientific software packages, providing straightforward access to these packages through Lmod Environment Modules. Maintaining a large software stack while also including multiple new compiler releases each year is a very time-consuming task. Additionally, it is not straightforward to provide a software stack alongside existing vendor-provided software such as the HPE/Cray Programming Environment (CPE), and existing CPE, Spack, and Lmod integration does not allow for multiple versions of GPU libraries such as AMD’s ROCm to be used. To address these challenges and shortcomings, NCCS has developed the NCCS Software Provisioning tool (NSP)1, a tool for deploying and monitoring software stacks on HPC systems. NSP allows NCCS to quickly and effectively provision software stacks from the ground up using template-driven recipes and configuration files. NSP is successfully deployed on Frontier and several other NCCS clusters, enabling the NCCS software team to quickly deploy software stacks for newly-released compilers, expand current software offerings, better support GPU-based software, and monitor Lmod module usage to identify unused software packages that can be removed from the software stack. In this work, we discuss the shortcomings of the previous CPE, Spack, and Lmod usage at NCCS, provide further details on the implementation and structure of NSP, then discuss the benefits that NSP provides.

Rentschler, Asa [ORNL] (ORCID:0009000597694743)↗
NASA NTRS1995

PLATSIM: An efficient linear simulation and analysis package for large-order flexible systems

PLATSIM is a software package designed to provide efficient time and frequency domain analysis of large-order generic space platforms implemented with any linear time-invariant control system. Time domain analysis provides simulations of the overall spacecraft response levels due to either onboard or external disturbances. The time domain results can then be processed by the jitter analysis module to assess the spacecraft's pointing performance in a computationally efficient manner. The resulting jitter analysis algorithms have produced an increase in speed of several orders of magnitude over the brute force approach of sweeping minima and maxima. Frequency domain analysis produces frequency response functions for uncontrolled and controlled platform configurations. The latter represents an enabling technology for large-order flexible systems. PLATSIM uses a sparse matrix formulation for the spacecraft dynamics model which makes both the time and frequency domain operations quite efficient, particularly when a large number of modes are required to capture the true dynamics of the spacecraft. The package is written in MATLAB script language. A graphical user interface (GUI) is included in the PLATSIM software package. This GUI uses MATLAB's Handle graphics to provide a convenient way for setting simulation and analysis parameters.

Maghami, Periman↗
NASA NTRS1997

Issues in Defining Software Architectures in a GIS Environment

The primary mission of the Pan-American Center for Earth and Environmental Studies (PACES) is to advance the research areas that are relevant to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program. One of the activities at PACES is the establishment of a repository for geographical, geological and environmental information that covers various regions of Mexico and the southwest region of the U.S. and that is acquired from NASA and other sources through remote sensing, ground studies or paper-based maps. The center will be providing access of this information to other government entities in the U.S. and Mexico, and research groups from universities, national laboratories and industry. Geographical Information Systems(GIS) provide the means to manage, manipulate, analyze and display geographically referenced information that will be managed by PACES. Excellent off-the-shelf software exists for a complete GIS as well as software for storing and managing spatial databases, processing images, networking and viewing maps with layered information. This allows the user flexibility in combining systems to create a GIS or to mix these software packages with custom-built application programs. Software architectural languages provide the ability to specify the computational components and interactions among these components, an important topic in the domain of GIS because of the need to integrate numerous software packages. This paper discusses the characteristics that architectural languages address with respect to the issues relating to the data that must be communicated between software systems and components when systems interact. The paper presents a background on GIS in section 2. Section 3 gives an overview of software architecture and architectural languages. Section 4 suggests issues that may be of concern when defining the software architecture of a GIS. The last section discusses the future research effort and finishes with a summary.

Acosta, Jesus↗
DOE OSTI2023

Generating MCNP Input Files for Unstructured Mesh Geometries

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP)1 transport code version 6.3 (also known as MCNP6.3) has the capability for tracking particles on unstructured mesh (UM) geometry models embedded into constructive solid geometry (CSG) cells. This feature has been developed for performing calculations of complex geometry models because manually creating CSG models is time-consuming and error-prone as the complexities of geometries increase. A UM geometry model is a collection of finite elements representing a solid geometry. The first step of the MCNP UM calculation is using other software packages to create a finite element mesh representation of a solid 3D geometry because the MCNP code cannot be used to generate a UM model. Computer-aided design (CAD) software is typically used to create a solid geometry model, which is later imported into mesh generation software to create a UM model. Some mesh generation software packages may also be used to create solid geometries and thus CAD files are not needed. The MCNP UM feature was originally designed for models generated by the Abaqus/CAE software suite. The MCNP code version 6.0 and later can process UM models formatted as Abaqus input files. Starting with a 6.3 version, the MCNP code can process HDF5 mesh input files. We only focus on the UM models formatted as Abaqus input files in this report since currently no external software can be used to generate HDF5 mesh input files for MCNP UM calculations. The MCNP code version 6.3 can be used to convert the Abaqus mesh input files into the HDF5 mesh input files, but this option is typically used by the MCNP code development team to test the HDF5 mesh input file feature. Several software packages (such as Abaqus, Attila4MC, or Cubit) can be used to create the Abaqus input files for MCNP UM calculations. An MCNP UM calculation using an Abaqus model requires two input file types: MCNP and Abaqus input files. The Abaqus input files needed for MCNP UM calcu lations must have the correct Abaqus syntax and meet the additional requirements by the MCNP code. The MCNP code can process only Abaqus input files that make use of part and assembly definitions, where elements in each part must be grouped into one or more element sets (i.e., elset) using *Elset keyword lines with specified naming formats. The MCNP and Abaqus input files required for MCNP UM simulations must be related; pseudo-cells in an MCNP input file must be constructed from mesh model data from an Abaqus input file. For large complex UM models, it is tedious to manually create MCNP UM input files. The um pre op (unstructured mesh pre operations) program with the -m option can be used to create a skeleton MCNP input file from an Abaqus input file [6]. Since the um pre op program was written in Fortran and was not written for optimized performance, this program is a deprecated feature in the MCNP code version 6.3 and may be removed in the next release of the code. To improve calculation flow of multiphysics calculations, a Python3 code called write mcnp um input has been developed to generate an MCNP input file instead of using the um_pre_op -m option. This Python code was initially released to the public in 2020. We have updated this Python code for MCNP6.3 and it was used to generate the MCNP input files used to verify the MCNP6.3 code. The write_mcnp_um_input code is included with the MCNP6.3 code package which will be released to the public through the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This report is a revision of LA-UR-20-27139 report.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

PVAnalytics: A Python Package for Automated Processing of Solar Time Series Data

Multiple publicly available software packages exist that analyze solar time series data, including RdTools and Solar Data Tools, among others. Several of these packages contain their own unique quality assurance (QA) and feature recognition algorithms. The python PVAnalytics package was developed to offer an internally consistent source for these analysis tools, making it easier for the end user to deploy these routines on his or her solar data. The PVAnalytics package currently contains routines for outlier detection, inverter clipping detection, irradiance and temperature checks, orientation checks, and data shift detection, among other functions. These functions have been aggregated from various sources including Solar Forecast Arbiter, RdTools, and the QA process developed by NREL's PV Fleets Initiative. We are continuously adding new functionality to the package, including documentation, examples and algorithms. By bundling QA functionality into a single software package, we hope to make PVAnalytics a comprehensive software library to support analysis of solar metadata and time series data.

data cleaning↗
NASA NTRS1989

Numerical simulation of controlled large space structures

Large Space Structures do not have much damping, which necessitates the installation of a controller onto the structure. If the controller is improperly designed, the structure may become unstable and be destroyed. Since Large Space Structures are extremely expensive pieces of hardware, new controllers must not be tested first on the structure. They must first be tested in computer simulations. Until now, the usual procedure for simulating controlled Large Space Structures is to compute a reduced order modal representation of the structure and then apply the controller. However, this procedure entails modal truncation error. A new software package which is free from this error is currently under development within the Center for Space Construction. The more accurate finite element representation of the structure is used in the simulation, instead of the less accurate reduced order modal representation. This software also features an efficient matrix storage scheme, which effectively deals with the asymmetric system matrices which occur when control is added to the structure. Also, an integration algorithm was chosen so that the simulation is a reliable indicator of system stability or instability. The software package is fairly general in nature. Linearity of the finite element model and of the controller is the only assumption made. Actuator dynamics, sensor dynamics, noise, and disturbances can be handled by the package. In addition, output feedback of displacement, velocity, and/or acceleration signals can be simulated. Kalman state estimation was also implemented. This software was tested on a finite element model of a real Large Space Structure: The Mini-Mast Truss. Mini-Mast is a testbed at NASA-Langley which is currently under development. A 714 degree of freedom finite element model was computed, and a 19 state controller was designed for it. Torque wheel dynamics were added to the model, and the entire closed loop system was simulated with the software package.

Quan, Ralph↗