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At least 1,405 records · Page 78

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1987

Acquisition-Management Program

NASA Acquisition Management Subsystem (AMS) program integrated NASA-wide standard automated-procurement-system program developed in 1985. Designed to provide each NASA installation with procurement data-base concept with on-line terminals for managing, tracking, reporting, and controlling contractual actions and associated procurement data. Subsystem provides control, status, and reporting for various procurement areas. Purpose of standardization is to decrease costs of procurement and operation of automatic data processing; increases procurement productivity; furnishes accurate, on-line management information and improves customer support. Written in the ADABAS NATURAL.

Avery, Don E.↗

NASA NTRS1987

The JPL functional requirements tool

Planetary spacecraft are complex vehicles which are built according to many thousands of requirements. Problems encountered in documenting and maintaining these requirements led to the current attempt to reduce or eliminate these problems by a computer automated data base Functional Requirements Tool. The tool developed at JPL and in use on several JPL Projects is described. The organization and functionality of the Tool, together with an explanation of the data base inputs, their relationships, and use are presented. Methods of interfacing with external documents, representation of tables and figures, and methods of approval and change processing are discussed. The options available for disseminating information from the Tool are identified. The implementation of the Requirements Tool is outlined, and the operation is summarized. The conclusions drawn from this work is that the Requirements Tool represents a useful addition to the System Engineer's Tool kit, it is not currently available elsewhere, and a clear development path exists to expand the capabilities of the Tool to serve larger and more complex projects.

Giffin, Geoff↗

NASA NTRS1993

High-performance mass storage system for workstations

Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) workstations and Personnel Computers (PC) are very popular tools for office automation, command and control, scientific analysis, database management, and many other applications. However, when using Input/Output (I/O) intensive applications, the RISC workstations and PC's are often overburdened with the tasks of collecting, staging, storing, and distributing data. Also, by using standard high-performance peripherals and storage devices, the I/O function can still be a common bottleneck process. Therefore, the high-performance mass storage system, developed by Loral AeroSys' Independent Research and Development (IR&D) engineers, can offload a RISC workstation of I/O related functions and provide high-performance I/O functions and external interfaces. The high-performance mass storage system has the capabilities to ingest high-speed real-time data, perform signal or image processing, and stage, archive, and distribute the data. This mass storage system uses a hierarchical storage structure, thus reducing the total data storage cost, while maintaining high-I/O performance. The high-performance mass storage system is a network of low-cost parallel processors and storage devices. The nodes in the network have special I/O functions such as: SCSI controller, Ethernet controller, gateway controller, RS232 controller, IEEE488 controller, and digital/analog converter. The nodes are interconnected through high-speed direct memory access links to form a network. The topology of the network is easily reconfigurable to maximize system throughput for various applications. This high-performance mass storage system takes advantage of a 'busless' architecture for maximum expandability. The mass storage system consists of magnetic disks, a WORM optical disk jukebox, and an 8mm helical scan tape to form a hierarchical storage structure. Commonly used files are kept in the magnetic disk for fast retrieval. The optical disks are used as archive media, and the tapes are used as backup media. The storage system is managed by the IEEE mass storage reference model-based UniTree software package. UniTree software will keep track of all files in the system, will automatically migrate the lesser used files to archive media, and will stage the files when needed by the system. The user can access the files without knowledge of their physical location. The high-performance mass storage system developed by Loral AeroSys will significantly boost the system I/O performance and reduce the overall data storage cost. This storage system provides a highly flexible and cost-effective architecture for a variety of applications (e.g., realtime data acquisition with a signal and image processing requirement, long-term data archiving and distribution, and image analysis and enhancement).

Chiang, T.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Investigation of registration algorithms for the automatic tile processing system

The Robotic Tile Inspection System (RTPS), under development in NASA-KSC, is expected to automate the processes of post-flight re-water-proofing and the process of inspection of the Shuttle heat absorbing tiles. An important task of the robot vision sub-system is to register the 'real-world' coordinates with the coordinates of the robot model of the Shuttle tiles. The model coordinates relate to a tile data-base and pre-flight tile-images. In the registration process, current (post-flight) images are aligned with pre-flight images to detect the rotation and translation displacement required for the coordinate systems rectification. The research activities performed this summer included study and evaluation of the registration algorithm that is currently implemented by the RTPS, as well as, investigation of the utility of other registration algorithms. It has been found that the current algorithm is not robust enough. This algorithm has a success rate of less than 80% and is, therefore, not suitable for complying with the requirements of the RTPS. Modifications to the current algorithm has been developed and tested. These modifications can improve the performance of the registration algorithm in a significant way. However, this improvement is not sufficient to satisfy system requirements. A new algorithm for registration has been developed and tested. This algorithm presented very high degree of robustness with success rate of 96%.

Tamir, Dan E.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Development Status: Automation Advanced Development Space Station Freedom Electric Power System

Electric power system automation for Space Station Freedom is intended to operate in a loop. Data from the power system is used for diagnosis and security analysis to generate Operations Management System (OMS) requests, which are sent to an arbiter, which sends a plan to a commander generator connected to the electric power system. This viewgraph presentation profiles automation software for diagnosis, scheduling, and constraint interfaces, and simulation to support automation development. The automation development process is diagrammed, and the process of creating Ada and ART versions of the automation software is described.

Dolce, James L.↗

NASA NTRS2008

NASA 2007 Western States Fire Missions (WSFM)

This viewgraph presentation describes the Western states Fire Missions (WSFM) that occurred in 2007. The objectives of this mission are: (1) Demonstrate capabilities of UAS to overfly and collect sensor data on widespread fires throughout Western US. (1) Demonstrate long-endurance mission capabilities (20-hours+). (2) Image multiple fires (greater than 4 fires per mission), to showcase extendable mission configuration and ability to either linger over key fires or station over disparate regional fires. (3) Demonstrate new UAV-compatible, autonomous sensor for improved thermal characterization of fires. (4) Provide automated, on-board, terrain and geo-rectified sensor imagery over OTH satcom links to national fire personnel and Incident commanders. (5) Deliver real-time imagery to (within 10-minutes of acquisition). (6) Demonstrate capabilities of OTS technologies (GoogleEarth) to serve and display mission-critical sensor data, coincident with other pertinent data elements to facilitate information processing (WX data, ground asset data, other satellite data, R/T video, flight track info, etc).

Buoni, Greg↗

NASA NTRS2010

Using PHP/MySQL to Manage Potential Mass Impacts

This paper presents a new application using commercially available software to manage mass properties for spaceflight vehicles. PHP/MySQL(PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor and My Structured Query Language) are a web scripting language and a database language commonly used in concert with each other. They open up new opportunities to develop cutting edge mass properties tools, and in particular, tools for the management of potential mass impacts (threats and opportunities). The paper begins by providing an overview of the functions and capabilities of PHP/MySQL. The focus of this paper is on how PHP/MySQL are being used to develop an advanced "web accessible" database system for identifying and managing mass impacts on NASA's Ares I Upper Stage program, managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center. To fully describe this application, examples of the data, search functions, and views are provided to promote, not only the function, but the security, ease of use, simplicity, and eye-appeal of this new application. This paper concludes with an overview of the other potential mass properties applications and tools that could be developed using PHP/MySQL. The premise behind this paper is that PHP/MySQL are software tools that are easy to use and readily available for the development of cutting edge mass properties applications. These tools are capable of providing "real-time" searching and status of an active database, automated report generation, and other capabilities to streamline and enhance mass properties management application. By using PHP/MySQL, proven existing methods for managing mass properties can be adapted to present-day information technology to accelerate mass properties data gathering, analysis, and reporting, allowing mass property management to keep pace with today's fast-pace design and development processes.

Hager, Benjamin I.↗

NASA NTRS2010

High-resolution, continuous field-of-view (FOV), non-rotating imaging system

A high resolution CMOS imaging system especially suitable for use in a periscope head. The imaging system includes a sensor head for scene acquisition, and a control apparatus inclusive of distributed processors and software for device-control, data handling, and display. The sensor head encloses a combination of wide field-of-view CMOS imagers and narrow field-of-view CMOS imagers. Each bank of imagers is controlled by a dedicated processing module in order to handle information flow and image analysis of the outputs of the camera system. The imaging system also includes automated or manually controlled display system and software for providing an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) that displays a full 360-degree field of view and allows the user or automated ATR system to select regions for higher resolution inspection.

Huntsberger, Terrance L.↗

NASA NTRS2011

SSC Engineering Analysis

A package for the automation of the Engineering Analysis (EA) process at the Stennis Space Center has been customized. It provides the ability to assign and track analysis tasks electronically, and electronically route a task for approval. It now provides a mechanism to keep these analyses under configuration management. It also allows the analysis to be stored and linked to the engineering data that is needed to perform the analysis (drawings, etc.). PTC s (Parametric Technology Corp o ration) Windchill product was customized to allow the EA to be created, routed, and maintained under configuration management. Using Infoengine Tasks, JSP (JavaServer Pages), Javascript, a user interface was created within the Windchill product that allows users to create EAs. Not only does this interface allow users to create and track EAs, but it plugs directly into the out-ofthe- box ability to associate these analyses with other relevant engineering data such as drawings. Also, using the Windchill workflow tool, the Design and Data Management System (DDMS) team created an electronic routing process based on the manual/informal approval process. The team also added the ability for users to notify and track notifications to individuals about the EA. Prior to the Engineering Analysis creation, there was no electronic way of creating and tracking these analyses. There was also a feature that was added that would allow users to track/log e-mail notifications of the EA.

Ryan, Harry↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enhanced Quantification of 3D Woven Composites Via Fourier Analysis and Structure Tensors Applied to CT Scans

NASA's development of advanced 3D woven carbon composites, such as HEEET and 3MDCP, represents a significant leap in materials designed to endure extreme atmospheric entry conditions. However, the internal complexity of these materials introduces a variety of structures and novel defect types. Traditional characterization methods rely on labor-intensive, manual examination of X-ray CT scans, demanding considerable time and expertise. This process, while thorough, is not sustainable for large-scale analysis and defect tracking. Addressing this critical challenge, this presentation introduces an innovative suite of automated tools and analytical techniques, pioneered by the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Earth Entry System (EES) Thermal Protection System (TPS) project. These advancements offer a more efficient and accurate approach for quantifying CT data and characterizing the defects of 3D woven composites.

Magnus Haw↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Quantitative Characterization of 3D Woven Composites Via Fourier Analysis and Structure Tensors Applied to CT Scans

3D Woven↗

NASA NTRS2017

MSRR Rack Materials Science Research Rack

The Materials Science Research Rack (MSRR) is a research facility developed under a cooperative research agreement between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) for materials science investigations on the International Space Station (ISS). The MSRR is managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, AL. The MSRR facility subsystems were manufactured by Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) and integrated with the ESA/EADS-Astrium developed Materials Science Laboratory (MSL) at the MSFC Space Station Integration and Test Facility (SSITF) as part of the Systems Development Operations Support (SDOS) contract. MSRR was launched on STS-128 in August 2009, and is currently installed in the U. S. Destiny Laboratory Module on the ISS. Materials science is an integral part of developing new, safer, stronger, more durable materials for use throughout everyday life. The goal of studying materials processing in space is to develop a better understanding of the chemical and physical mechanisms involved, and how they differ in the microgravity environment of space. To that end, the MSRR accommodates advanced investigations in the microgravity environment of the ISS for basic materials science research in areas such as solidification of metals and alloys. MSRR allows for the study of a variety of materials including metals, ceramics, semiconductor crystals, and glasses. Materials science research benefits from the microgravity environment of space, where the researcher can better isolate chemical and thermal properties of materials from the effects of gravity. With this knowledge, reliable predictions can be made about the conditions required on Earth to achieve improved materials. MSRR is a highly automated facility with a modular design capable of supporting multiple types of investigations. Currently the NASA-provided Rack Support Subsystem provides services (power, thermal control, vacuum access, and command and data handling) to the ESA developed Materials Science Laboratory (MSL) which accommodates interchangeable Furnace Inserts (FI). Two ESA-developed FIs are presently available on the ISS: the Low Gradient Furnace (LGF) and the Solidification and Quenching Furnace (SQF). Sample-Cartridge Assemblies (SCAs), each containing one or more material samples, are installed in the FI by the crew and can be processed at temperatures up to 1400 C. Once an SCA is installed, the experiment can be run by automatic command or science conducted via telemetry commands from the ground. This facility is available to support materials science investigations through programs such as the US National Laboratory, Technology Development, NASA Research Announcements, and others. TBE and MSFC are currently developing NASA Sample Cartridge Assemblies (SCA's) with a planned availability for launch in 2017.

Reagan, Shawn↗

DOE OSTI2023

BinaRena: a dedicated interactive platform for human-guided exploration and binning of metagenomes

Background: Exploring metagenomic contigs and “binning” them into metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) are essential for the delineation of functional and evolutionary guilds within microbial communities. Despite the advances in automated binning algorithms, their capabilities in recovering MAGs with accuracy and biological relevance are so far limited. Researchers often find that human involvement is necessary to achieve representative binning results. This manual process however is expertise demanding and labor intensive, and it deserves to be supported by software infrastructure. Results: We present BinaRena, a comprehensive and versatile graphic interface dedicated to aiding human operators to explore metagenome assemblies via customizable visualization and to associate contigs with bins. Contigs are rendered as an interactive scatter plot based on various data types, including sequence metrics, coverage profiles, taxonomic assignments, and functional annotations. Various contig-level operations are permitted, such as selection, masking, highlighting, focusing, and searching. Binning plans can be conveniently edited, inspected, and compared visually or using metrics including silhouette coefficient and adjusted Rand index. Completeness and contamination of user-selected contigs can be calculated in real time. In demonstration of BinaRena’s usability, we show that it facilitated biological pattern discovery, hypothesis generation, and bin refinement in a complex tropical peatland metagenome. It enabled isolation of pathogenic genomes within closely related populations from the gut microbiota of diarrheal human subjects. It significantly improved overall binning quality after curating results of automated binners using a simulated marine dataset. Conclusions: BinaRena is an installation-free, dependency-free, client-end web application that operates directly in any modern web browser, facilitating ease of deployment and accessibility for researchers of all skill levels. The program is hosted at https://github.com/qiyunlab/binarena, together with documentation, tutorials, example data, and a live demo. It effectively supports human researchers in intuitive interpretation and fine tuning of metagenomic data.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2025

Informing Plant Asset Reliability and Availability Through AI-Driven Analysis of Operator Logs

The availability and reliability of nuclear power plant (NPP) structures, systems, and components (SSCs) are critical parameters for NPP safety. Tracking these parameters is necessary but costly and labor-intensive, requiring the collection and evaluation of SSC event data such as shutdowns, startups, and failures. To show how these events are needed for the parameters an example is given: one measure of reliability is based on the number of equipment failure events and the number of run hours (i.e., the time from a startup event to a shutdown event). Here, this work investigates using artificial intelligence (AI) to mine NPP operator log entry texts for SSC event data. Four AI approaches were explored for identifying these events, including natural language processing (NLP) methods, generative AI, generative AI combined with NLP, and topic modeling. A key challenge addressed with all four approaches is the brevity of operator log entries. Among these four a neural network–based NLP method was shown to be the most promising for this application, achieving F1 scores of 86.0% for shutdowns, 92.2% for startups, and 80.4% for failures on a subject-matter-expert-curated dataset from NPP operator logs, compared to a baseline of 66.6% for a random classifier. This shows that NLP methods can perform better than generative AI. Additionally, the NLP methods combined with generative AI were shown to perform better than generative AI alone. Generative AI was most successful at providing the background information for the NLP methods to use. This work demonstrates the potential to use AI to automate parameter collection from NPP operator log entries and other records.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS2013

NASA Tech Briefs, Februrary 2013

Topics covered include: Measurements of Ultra-Stable Oscillator (USO) Allan Deviations in Space; Gaseous Nitrogen Orifice Mass Flow Calculator; Validation of Proposed Metrics for Two-Body Abrasion Scratch Test Analysis Standards; Rover Low Gain Antenna Qualification for Deep Space Thermal Environments; Automated, Ultra-Sterile Solid Sample Handling and Analysis on a Chip; Measuring and Estimating Normalized Contrast in Infrared Flash Thermography; Spectrally and Radiometrically Stable, Wideband, Onboard Calibration Source; High-Reliability Waveguide Vacuum/Pressure Window; Methods of Fabricating Scintillators With Radioisotopes for Beta Battery Applications; Magnetic Shield for Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerators (ADR); CMOS-Compatible SOI MESFETS for Radiation-Hardened DC-to-DC Converters; Silicon Heat Pipe Array; Adaptive Phase Delay Generator; High-Temperature, Lightweight, Self-Healing Ceramic Composites for Aircraft Engine Applications; Treatment to Control Adhesion of Silicone-Based Elastomers; High-Temperature Adhesives for Thermally Stable Aero-Assist Technologies; Rockballer Sample Acquisition Tool; Rock Gripper for Sampling, Mobility, Anchoring, and Manipulation; Advanced Magnetic Materials Methods and Numerical Models for Fluidization in Microgravity and Hypogravity; Data Transfer for Multiple Sensor Networks Over a Broad Temperature Range; Using Combustion Synthesis to Reinforce Berms and Other Regolith Structures; Visible-Infrared Hyperspectral Image Projector; Three-Axis Attitude Estimation With a High-Bandwidth Angular Rate Sensor Change_Detection.m; AGATE: Adversarial Game Analysis for Tactical Evaluation; Ionospheric Simulation System for Satellite Observations and Global Assimilative; Modeling Experiments (ISOGAME); An Extensible, User- Modifiable Framework for Planning Activities; Mission Operations Center (MOC) - Precipitation Processing System (PPS) Interface Software System (MPISS); Automated 3D Damaged Cavity Model Builder for Lower Surface Acreage Tile on Orbiter; Mixed Linear/Square-Root Encoded Single-Slope Ramp Provides Low-Noise ADC with High Linearity for Focal Plane Arrays; RUSHMAPS: Real-Time Uploadable Spherical Harmonic Moment Analysis for Particle Spectrometers; Powered Descent Guidance with General Thrust-Pointing Constraints; X-Ray Detection and Processing Models for Spacecraft Navigation and Timing; and Extreme Ionizing-Radiation-Resistant Bacterium

Source record↗

DOE OSTI2025

SolarSTARTS: Solar-Assisted State-Aware and ResilienT infrastructure System

This final technical report provides a description and results of the design, development, testing, and validation of the Automated Resilience Management System (ARMS) solution, which integrates different systems to collect, store and process relevant information from the power distribution system to automatically manage the operation of multiple energy assets to enhance the resilience of the power grid against high-impact physical incidents (e.g., hurricanes) and cyber threats. The developed solution comprises a suite of novel AI-based algorithms designed to first detect, locate, and classify anomalies by collecting and analyzing data from multiple monitoring and control devices

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Cladding Profilometry Analysis of Experimental Breeder Reactor-II Metallic Fuel Pins with HT9, D9, and SS316 Cladding

BISON finite element method fuel performance simulations were conducted using an existing automated process that couples the Fuels Irradiation & Physics Database (FIPD) and the Integral Fast Reactor Materials Information System database by writing input files and comparing the BISON output to post-irradiation fuel pin profilometry measurements contained within the databases. The importance of this work is to demonstrate the ability to benchmark fuel performance metallic fuel models within BISON using Experimental Breeder Reactor-II fuel pin data for a number of similar pins, while building off previous modeling efforts. Changes to the generic BISON input file include implementing pin specific axial power and flux profiles, pin specific fluences, frictional contact, and irradiation-induced volumetric swelling models for cladding. A statistical analysis of irradiation-induced volumetric swelling models for HT9, D9, and SS316 was performed for experiments X421/X421A, X441/X441A, and X486. Between these three experiments, there were 174 post-irradiation examination (PIE) profilometries used for validating the swelling models presented using a standard error of the estimate (SEE) method. Implementation of the volumetric swelling models for D9 and SS316 claddings was found to have a significant impact on the BISON profilometry simulated, where HT9 clad pins had an insignificant change due to low fluence values. BISON profilometry simulated for HT9, D9, and SS316 fuel pins agreed with PIE profilometry measurements, with assembly SEE values being 4.4 × 10−3 for X421A, 2.0 × 10−3 for X441A, and 2.8 × 10−3 for X486. D9 clad pins in X421/X421A had the highest SEE values, which is due to the BISON simulated profilometry being shifted axially. While this work accomplished its purpose to demonstrate the modeling of multiple fuel pins from the databases to help validate models, the results suggest that the continued development of metallic fuel models is necessary for qualifying new metallic fuel systems to better capture some physical performance phenomena, such as the hot pressing of U-Pu-Zr and the fuel cladding chemical interaction.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Capturing high‐resolution digital images for use in forensic document examination

Abstract In the past, pattern disciplines within forensic science have periodically faced criticism due to their subjective and qualitative nature and the perceived absence of research evaluating and supporting the foundations of their practices. Recently, however, forensic scientists and researchers in the field of pattern evidence analysis have developed and published approaches that are more quantitative, objective, and data driven. This effort includes automation, algorithms, and measurement sciences, with the end goal of enabling conclusions to be informed by quantitative models. Before employing these tools, forensic evidence must be digitized in a way that adequately balances high‐quality detail and content capture with minimal background noise imparted by the selected technique. While the current work describes the process of optimizing a method to digitize physical documentary evidence for use in semi‐automated trash mark examinations, it could be applied to assist other disciplines where the digitization of physical items of evidence is prevalent. For trash mark examinations specifically, it was found that high‐resolution photography provided optimal digital versions of evidentiary items when compared to high‐resolution scanning.

Riley, Paige↗