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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2010

NASA Tech Briefs, April 2010

Topics covered include: Active and Passive Hybrid Sensor; Quick-Response Thermal Actuator for Use as a Heat Switch; System for Hydrogen Sensing; Method for Detecting Perlite Compaction in Large Cryogenic Tanks; Using Thin-Film Thermometers as Heaters in Thermal Control Applications; Directional Spherical Cherenkov Detector; AlGaN Ultraviolet Detectors for Dual-Band UV Detection; K-Band Traveling-Wave Tube Amplifier; Simplified Load-Following Control for a Fuel Cell System; Modified Phase-meter for a Heterodyne Laser Interferometer; Loosely Coupled GPS-Aided Inertial Navigation System for Range Safety; Sideband-Separating, Millimeter-Wave Heterodyne Receiver; Coaxial Propellant Injectors With Faceplate Annulus Control; Adaptable Diffraction Gratings With Wavefront Transformation; Optimizing a Laser Process for Making Carbon Nanotubes; Thermogravimetric Analysis of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes; Robotic Arm Comprising Two Bending Segments; Magnetostrictive Brake; Low-Friction, Low-Profile, High-Moment Two-Axis Joint; Foil Gas Thrust Bearings for High-Speed Turbomachinery; Miniature Multi-Axis Mechanism for Hand Controllers; Digitally Enhanced Heterodyne Interferometry; Focusing Light Beams To Improve Atomic-Vapor Optical Buffers; Landmark Detection in Orbital Images Using Salience Histograms; Efficient Bit-to-Symbol Likelihood Mappings; Capacity Maximizing Constellations; Natural-Language Parser for PBEM; Policy Process Editor for P(sup 3)BM Software; A Quality System Database; Trajectory Optimization: OTIS 4; and Computer Software Configuration Item-Specific Flight Software Image Transfer Script Generator.

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NASA NTRS2010

Statistical and Probabilistic Extensions to Ground Operations' Discrete Event Simulation Modeling

NASA's human exploration initiatives will invest in technologies, public/private partnerships, and infrastructure, paving the way for the expansion of human civilization into the solar system and beyond. As it is has been for the past half century, the Kennedy Space Center will be the embarkation point for humankind's journey into the cosmos. Functioning as a next generation space launch complex, Kennedy's launch pads, integration facilities, processing areas, launch and recovery ranges will bustle with the activities of the world's space transportation providers. In developing this complex, KSC teams work through the potential operational scenarios: conducting trade studies, planning and budgeting for expensive and limited resources, and simulating alternative operational schemes. Numerous tools, among them discrete event simulation (DES), were matured during the Constellation Program to conduct such analyses with the purpose of optimizing the launch complex for maximum efficiency, safety, and flexibility while minimizing life cycle costs. Discrete event simulation is a computer-based modeling technique for complex and dynamic systems where the state of the system changes at discrete points in time and whose inputs may include random variables. DES is used to assess timelines and throughput, and to support operability studies and contingency analyses. It is applicable to any space launch campaign and informs decision-makers of the effects of varying numbers of expensive resources and the impact of off nominal scenarios on measures of performance. In order to develop representative DES models, methods were adopted, exploited, or created to extend traditional uses of DES. The Delphi method was adopted and utilized for task duration estimation. DES software was exploited for probabilistic event variation. A roll-up process was used, which was developed to reuse models and model elements in other less - detailed models. The DES team continues to innovate and expand DES capabilities to address KSC's planning needs.

Trocine, Linda↗
NASA NTRS2010

Modeling Flight: The Role of Dynamically Scaled Free-Flight Models in Support of NASA's Aerospace Programs

The state of the art in aeronautical engineering has been continually accelerated by the development of advanced analysis and design tools. Used in the early design stages for aircraft and spacecraft, these methods have provided a fundamental understanding of physical phenomena and enabled designers to predict and analyze critical characteristics of new vehicles, including the capability to control or modify unsatisfactory behavior. For example, the relatively recent emergence and routine use of extremely powerful digital computer hardware and software has had a major impact on design capabilities and procedures. Sophisticated new airflow measurement and visualization systems permit the analyst to conduct micro- and macro-studies of properties within flow fields on and off the surfaces of models in advanced wind tunnels. Trade studies of the most efficient geometrical shapes for aircraft can be conducted with blazing speed within a broad scope of integrated technical disciplines, and the use of sophisticated piloted simulators in the vehicle development process permits the most important segment of operations the human pilot to make early assessments of the acceptability of the vehicle for its intended mission. Knowledgeable applications of these tools of the trade dramatically reduce risk and redesign, and increase the marketability and safety of new aerospace vehicles. Arguably, one of the more viable and valuable design tools since the advent of flight has been testing of subscale models. As used herein, the term "model" refers to a physical article used in experimental analyses of a larger full-scale vehicle. The reader is probably aware that many other forms of mathematical and computer-based models are also used in aerospace design; however, such topics are beyond the intended scope of this document. Model aircraft have always been a source of fascination, inspiration, and recreation for humans since the earliest days of flight. Within the scientific community, Leonardo da Vinci, George Cayley, and the Wright brothers are examples of early aviation pioneers who frequently used models during their scientific efforts to understand and develop flying machines. Progress in the technology associated with model testing in worldwide applications has firmly established model aircraft as a key element in new aerospace research and development programs. Models are now routinely used in many applications and roles, including aerodynamic data gathering in wind tunnel investigations for the analysis of full-scale aircraft designs, proof-of-concept demonstrators for radical aeronautical concepts, and problem-solving exercises for vehicles already in production. The most critical contributions of aerospace models are to provide confidence and risk reduction for new designs and to enhance the safety and efficiency of existing configurations.

Chambers, Joseph↗
NASA NTRS2013

Spinoff 2012

Topics covered include: Water Treatment Technologies Inspire Healthy Beverages; Dietary Formulas Fortify Antioxidant Supplements; Rovers Pave the Way for Hospital Robots; Dry Electrodes Facilitate Remote Health Monitoring; Telescope Innovations Improve Speed, Accuracy of Eye Surgery; Superconductors Enable Lower Cost MRI Systems; Anti-Icing Formulas Prevent Train Delays; Shuttle Repair Tools Automate Vehicle Maintenance; Pressure-Sensitive Paints Advance Rotorcraft Design Testing; Speech Recognition Interfaces Improve Flight Safety; Polymers Advance Heat Management Materials for Vehicles; Wireless Sensors Pinpoint Rotorcraft Troubles; Ultrasonic Detectors Safely Identify Dangerous, Costly Leaks; Detectors Ensure Function, Safety of Aircraft Wiring; Emergency Systems Save Tens of Thousands of Lives; Oxygen Assessments Ensure Safer Medical Devices; Collaborative Platforms Aid Emergency Decision Making; Space-Inspired Trailers Encourage Exploration on Earth; Ultra-Thin Coatings Beautify Art; Spacesuit Materials Add Comfort to Undergarments; Gigapixel Images Connect Sports Teams with Fans; Satellite Maps Deliver More Realistic Gaming; Elemental Scanning Devices Authenticate Works of Art; Microradiometers Reveal Ocean Health, Climate Change; Sensors Enable Plants to Text Message Farmers; Efficient Cells Cut the Cost of Solar Power; Shuttle Topography Data Inform Solar Power Analysis; Photocatalytic Solutions Create Self-Cleaning Surfaces; Concentrators Enhance Solar Power Systems; Innovative Coatings Potentially Lower Facility Maintenance Costs; Simulation Packages Expand Aircraft Design Options; Web Solutions Inspire Cloud Computing Software; Behavior Prediction Tools Strengthen Nanoelectronics; Power Converters Secure Electronics in Harsh Environments; Diagnostics Tools Identify Faults Prior to Failure; Archiving Innovations Preserve Essential Historical Records; Meter Designs Reduce Operation Costs for Industry; Commercial Platforms Allow Affordable Space Research; Fiber Optics Deliver Real-Time Structural Monitoring; Camera Systems Rapidly Scan Large Structures; Terahertz Lasers Reveal Information for 3D Images; Thin Films Protect Electronics from Heat and Radiation; Interferometers Sharpen Measurements for Better Telescopes; and Vision Systems Illuminate Industrial Processes.

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DOE OSTI2022

GDSA Framework Development and Process Model Integration FY2022

The Spent Fuel and Waste Science and Technology (SFWST) Campaign of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Office of Spent Fuel & Waste Disposition (SFWD) is conducting research and development (R&D) on geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level nuclear waste (HLW). A high priority for SFWST disposal R&D is disposal system modeling (Sassani et al. 2021). The SFWST Geologic Disposal Safety Assessment (GDSA) work package is charged with developing a disposal system modeling and analysis capability for evaluating generic disposal system performance for nuclear waste in geologic media. This report describes fiscal year (FY) 2022 advances of the Geologic Disposal Safety Assessment (GDSA) performance assessment (PA) development groups of the SFWST Campaign. The common mission of these groups is to develop a geologic disposal system modeling capability for nuclear waste that can be used to assess probabilistically the performance of generic disposal options and generic sites. The modeling capability under development is called GDSA Framework (pa.sandia.gov). GDSA Framework is a coordinated set of codes and databases designed for probabilistically simulating the release and transport of disposed radionuclides from a repository to the biosphere for post-closure performance assessment. Primary components of GDSA Framework include PFLOTRAN to simulate the major features, events, and processes (FEPs) over time, Dakota to propagate uncertainty and analyze sensitivities, meshing codes to define the domain, and various other software for rendering properties, processing data, and visualizing results.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
NASA NTRS1995

Formal verification of an avionics microprocessor

Formal specification combined with mechanical verification is a promising approach for achieving the extremely high levels of assurance required of safety-critical digital systems. However, many questions remain regarding their use in practice: Can these techniques scale up to industrial systems, where are they likely to be useful, and how should industry go about incorporating them into practice? This report discusses a project undertaken to answer some of these questions, the formal verification of the AAMPS microprocessor. This project consisted of formally specifying in the PVS language a rockwell proprietary microprocessor at both the instruction-set and register-transfer levels and using the PVS theorem prover to show that the microcode correctly implemented the instruction-level specification for a representative subset of instructions. Notable aspects of this project include the use of a formal specification language by practicing hardware and software engineers, the integration of traditional inspections with formal specifications, and the use of a mechanical theorem prover to verify a portion of a commercial, pipelined microprocessor that was not explicitly designed for formal verification.

Srivas, Mandayam, K.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Structural Analysis Using Computer Based Methods

The stiffness of a flex hose that will be used in the umbilical arms of the Space Launch Systems mobile launcher needed to be determined in order to properly qualify ground umbilical plate behavior during vehicle separation post T-0. This data is also necessary to properly size and design the motors used to retract the umbilical arms. Therefore an experiment was created to determine the stiffness of the hose. Before the test apparatus for the experiment could be built, the structure had to be analyzed to ensure it would not fail under given loading conditions. The design model was imported into the analysis software and optimized to decrease runtime while still providing accurate rest~lts and allow for seamless meshing. Areas exceeding the allowable stresses in the structure were located and modified before submitting the design for fabrication. In addition, a mock up of a deep space habitat and the support frame was designed and needed to be analyzed for structural integrity under different loading conditions. The load cases were provided by the customer and were applied to the structure after optimizing the geometry. Once again, weak points in the structure were located and recommended design changes were made to the customer and the process was repeated until the load conditions were met without exceeding the allowable stresses. After the stresses met the required factors of safety the designs were released for fabrication.

Dietz, Matthew R.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Development of high-availability ATCA/PCIe data acquisition instrumentation

Latest Fusion energy experiments envision a quasi-continuous operation regime. In consequence, the largest experimental devices, currently in development, specify high-availability (HA) requirements for the whole plant infrastructure. HA features enable the whole facility to perform seamlessly in the case of failure of any of its components, coping with the increasing duration of plasma discharges (steady-state) and assuring safety of equipment, people, environment and investment. IPFN developed a control and data acquisition system, aiming for fast control of advanced Fusion devices, which is thus required to provide such HA features. The system is based on in-house developed Advanced Telecommunication Computing Architecture (ATCA) instrumentation modules - IO blades and data switch blades, establishing a PCIe network on the ATCA shelf's back-plane. The data switch communicates to an external host computer through a PCIe data network. At the hardware management level, the system architecture takes advantage of ATCA native redundancy and hot swap specifications to implement fail-over substitution of IO or data switch blades. A redundant host scheme is also supported by the ATCA/PCIe platform. At the software level, PCIe provides implementation of hot plug services, which translate the hardware changes to the corresponding software/operating system devices. The paper presents how the ATCA and PCIe based system can be setup to perform with the desired degree of HA, thus being suitable for advanced Fusion control and data acquisition systems. (authors)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Inspecta Technical Report

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is in the process of creating Inspecta (International Nuclear Safeguards Personal Examination and Containment Tracking Assistant), an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered smart digital assistant (SDA) with robotic capabilities, aimed at enhancing the effectiveness, efficiency, and safety of international nuclear safeguards inspections. This innovative tool is designed to assist inspectors on-site by supporting or automating tasks that are typically mundane, hazardous, or susceptible to errors. In 2021, the development team established the specifications for Inspecta by analyzing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) documents and consulting with former IAEA inspectors and subject matter experts. This process involved aligning in-field inspection tasks with existing commercial or open-source technologies to outline a roadmap for the initial prototype of Inspecta, while also identifying areas needing further research and development. From 2022 – 2024, the focus has shifted to integrating a critical inspection activity, the examination of seals, into an early version of Inspecta. This has involved developing both the software and hardware capabilities necessary for this task. This report outlines the ongoing advancements in Inspecta's functionalities, specifically those supporting the seal examination process.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Inspecta Technical Report

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has developed Inspecta (International Nuclear Safeguards Personal Examination and Containment Tracking Assistant), an AI-powered smart digital assistant (SDA) equipped with robotic capabilities. This innovative tool aims to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and safety of international nuclear safeguards inspections. Inspecta is designed to assist inspectors on-site by supporting or automating tasks that are often mundane, hazardous, or prone to errors. In 2021, the development team established the specifications for Inspecta by thoroughly analyzing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) documents and consulting with former IAEA inspectors and subject matter experts. This process involved aligning in-field inspection tasks with existing commercial and open-source technologies, thereby creating a roadmap for the initial prototype of Inspecta and identifying areas requiring further research and development. From 2022 to 2025, the focus shifted to integrating a critical inspection activity—the examination of seals—into an early version of Inspecta. This phase has involved the development of both software and hardware capabilities essential for this task. This report outlines the advancements in Inspecta’s functionalities, particularly those that support the seal examination process.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
NASA NTRS2003

Hydrogen Fuel Capability Added to Combustor Flametube Rig

Facility capabilities have been expanded at Test Cell 23, Research Combustor Lab (RCL23) at the NASA Glenn Research Center, with a new gaseous hydrogen fuel system. The purpose of this facility is to test a variety of fuel nozzle and flameholder hardware configurations for use in aircraft combustors. Previously, this facility only had jet fuel available to perform these various combustor flametube tests. The new hydrogen fuel system will support the testing and development of aircraft combustors with zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Research information generated from this test rig includes combustor emissions and performance data via gas sampling probes and emissions measuring equipment. The new gaseous hydrogen system is being supplied from a 70 000-standard-ft3 tube trailer at flow rates up to 0.05 lb/s (maximum). The hydrogen supply pressure is regulated, and the flow is controlled with a -in. remotely operated globe valve. Both a calibrated subsonic venturi and a coriolis mass flowmeter are used to measure flow. Safety concerns required the placement of all hydrogen connections within purge boxes, each of which contains a small nitrogen flow that is vented past a hydrogen detector. If any hydrogen leaks occur, the hydrogen detectors alert the operators and automatically safe the facility. Facility upgrades and modifications were also performed on other fluids systems, including the nitrogen gas, cooling water, and air systems. RCL23 can provide nonvitiated heated air to the research combustor, up to 350 psig at 1200 F and 3.0 lb/s. Significant modernization of the facility control systems and the data acquisition systems was completed. A flexible control architecture was installed that allows quick changes of research configurations. The labor-intensive hardware interface has been removed and changed to a software-based system. In addition, the operation of this facility has been greatly enhanced with new software programming and graphic operator interface stations. Glenn s RCL23 facility systems were successfully checked out in the spring of 2002, and hydrogen combustor research testing began in the summer of 2002.

Frankenfield, Bruce J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Optical Modem Enabling Broadband Datacom Links for Crewed Cis-Lunar Missions

We report on the design, development, and testing of our high-power broadband optical modem supporting NASA’s crewed Artemis-2 mission. The O2O modem will be mounted in the crewed Orion module and provide a broadband 505,000 km bi-directional optical link back to earth while en route to the moon. The full-duplex modem consists of a high-power optical transmitter and receiver optimized for serially-concatenated pulse-position modulation (SCPPM). The transmitter is a master-oscillator power-amplifier optical architecture using efficient cladding-pumped amplification in erbium-ytterbium co-doped fiber. The transmitter outputs up to 1 W at ≈1550 nm (limited for eye safety) and supports 6 different user-rates ranging from 20.39 Mb/s to 260.95 Mb/s using PPM16 and PPM32 modulation formats. The optical receiver supports two user-rates: 10.19 Mb/s and 20.39 Mb/s with both rates employing PPM32. The narrowband receiver filtering is optimized to simultaneously accept four separate wavelength channels to mitigate atmospherics through spatial diversity. A configurable interleaver provides additional protection against atmospherics-based signal fading and a powerful soft-decision error correction scheme enables highly sensitive detection. The measured sensitivities at the two bit-rates are -73.8 and -71.8dBm, respectively. The architecture was designed for reliable operation in space, featuring automatic hardware interlocks, pump sparing for the amplifiers, and autonomous operation of all internal hardware and software control loops. The protoflight unit (PFU) was put through rigorous environmental testing which included pyroshock, vibration, electromagnetic interference/compatibility, and thermal-vacuum testing. The modem successfully passed all the environmental screening and has been declared at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6.

space communications↗
DOE OSTI2020

GPR Robotic Assisted Non-Destructive Evaluation of Concrete Structures - 20196

Reinforced concrete structures are always under exposure of internal or external deteriorations due to many factors such as environmental, nuclear radiation or even construction deficiencies. The use of nondestructive test is one of the reliable methods to inspect structural members. In this case, GPR has a good capability to detect inside deteriorations of concrete structures. However, in many cases it is hard to inspect structural members by hand due to safety issues or inaccessibility. Thus, an alternative way to reduce such risks is to employ robot to carry nondestructive equipment. In this research, twelve reinforced concrete RC beams (8 x 16 x 96, width, height and length) are cast in the lab. Three RC beams have no defect and nine others various defects such as corrosion, de-bonded bars, void, delamination and honeycombing. The one-point load is applied at the center of the RC beam. The loading level is carried out at three levels: 50%, 75% and 100% of maximum load and total load-displacement diagram are performed. The load is held at each level and the robotic GPR is used to scan the side of RC beams. Then, RADAN software is employed to find out any defects at different loading conditions and visualize the crack propagation. The RADAN results show that the pattern of crack propagation for corrosion and debonding are same. Also, the load-displacement results present that inside defect cause reduction of load-capacity of RC beam. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

PSA 2025 DPRA for Cyber Optimization

Cyberattacks can have many different attack paths, durations, and goals. There are also many different mitigation options involving hardware, software, and/or humans. Evaluating defense options should include quantitative evaluation of overall effectiveness to make cost and risk-informed decisions. Typical cyberattack modeling methods only provide a qualitative evaluation and have difficulty with time dependent scenarios. The main areas of cybersecurity are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. For companies with cyber-physical systems such as advanced nuclear reactors, cyber-related integrity is a requirement set by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But companies are also concerned about availability or reliability as a business case. As cyber threats are evolving to a business-for-hire structure, more attacks focus on disrupting business success and reliability, causing financial and economic stability risk. Companies want reliability analysis while optimizing cost, which requires more than safety modeling methods. Dynamic-state-based and Markov-based modeling provides a method for better cyber scenario modeling with timing and conditional features not found in other numerical evaluation methods. EMRALD (Event Modeling Risk Assessment using Lined Diagrams) is a dynamic risk analysis modeling and simulation tool and has features that reduce modeling issues such as state-base explosion found in Markov-based tools. It has been used to model different time-dependent events including plant behavior and operator procedures. As a general modeling tool, EMRALD can also be used to model cyberattack scenarios with varying mitigation options and quantify effectiveness, producing numerical data for risk-informed decisions. This paper uses EMRALD to demonstrate that dynamic risk analysis can be used for cyber threat modeling to provide insights for design decision-making and optimize defense strategies.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

IER 498: Godiva-IV CAAS benchmark [Slides]

This presentation discusses the benchmark of the IER 498: Godiva-IV criticality accident alarm system (CAAS). It details the goal of the project which is to create a CAAS benchmark capability for Godiva-IV in order to create a shielding benchmark for NCSP software and data, to add geometrically diverse benchmark/benchmarks to the ICSBEP Handbook, to enable more precise measurements at NCERC, and to help assure CAAS performance is as-stated. It also states that work was completed on CED-1 in 2019 and that future work includes the completion of CED-2 in 2020.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

VDiSC: An Open Source Framework for Distributed Smart City Vision and Biometric Surveillance Networks

Recent global growth in the interest of smart cities has led to trillions of dollars of investment toward research and development. These connected cities have the potential to create a symbiosis of technology and society and revolutionize the cost of living, safety, ecological sustainability, and quality of life of societies on a world-wide scale. Some key components of the smart city construct are connected smart grids, self-driving cars, federated learning systems, smart utilities, large-scale public transit, and proactive surveillance systems. While exciting in prospect, these technologies and their subsequent integration cannot be attempted without addressing the potential societal impacts of such a high degree of automation and data sharing. Additionally, the feasibility of coordinating so many disparate tasks will require a fast, extensible, unifying framework. To that end, we propose the Distributed Smart City framework for Vision, or VDiSC. VDiSC serves as a unified biometric API harness that allows for seamless evaluation, deployment, and simple pipeline creation for heterogeneous biometric software. VDiSC additionally provides a fully declarative capability for defining and coordinating custom machine learning and sensor pipelines, allowing the distribution of processes across otherwise incompatible hardware and networks. VDiSC ultimately provides a way to quickly configure, hot-swap, and expand large coordinated or federated systems online without interruptions for maintenance. Because much of the data collected in a smart city contains Personally Identifying Information (PII), VDiSC also provides built-in tools and layers to ensure secure and encrypted streaming, storage, and access of PII data across distributed systems.

Brogan, Joel↗
DOE OSTI2024

An Integrated Framework for Risk Assessment of Safety-related Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems in Nuclear Power Plants: Methodology Advancement and Application

This report documents activities performed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) during fiscal year (FY) 2024 for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, Risk Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway, Digital Instrumentation and Control (DI&C) Risk Assessment project. The goal of the RISA Pathway is to optimize safety margins and minimize uncertainties to achieve economic efficiencies while maintaining high levels of safety. This is accomplished by providing scientific basis to better represent safety margins and factors that contribute to cost and safety, and by developing new technologies that reduce operating costs. The research efforts for FY 2024 encompass methodology refinement and exploration. The efforts include: (1) The implementation of a natural language processing tool to expedite key aspects of the reliability analysis methods developed by INL; (2) advances to support intersystem CCF analysis by providing guidance for and identification of coupling mechanisms that may contribute to CCF; (3) the investigation of how generative artificial intelligence tools can aid in hazard analysis and diversity and defense in depth (i.e., D3) assessments; (4) Industry collaboration, allowing the demonstration of and INL's risk assessment tools to support risk assessment of DI&C systems at early and late stages of development; (4) a roadmap for the development of a software for each of INL's risk assessment tools; (5) The development of a theory and methodology manual for a risk quantification methodology; (6) the development of a reliability analysis for machine learning (ML)-integrated control systems.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS2000

Performance Monitoring of Distributed Data Processing Systems

Test and checkout systems are essential components in ensuring safety and reliability of aircraft and related systems for space missions. A variety of systems, developed over several years, are in use at the NASA/KSC. Many of these systems are configured as distributed data processing systems with the functionality spread over several multiprocessor nodes interconnected through networks. To be cost-effective, a system should take the least amount of resource and perform a given testing task in the least amount of time. There are two aspects of performance evaluation: monitoring and benchmarking. While monitoring is valuable to system administrators in operating and maintaining, benchmarking is important in designing and upgrading computer-based systems. These two aspects of performance evaluation are the foci of this project. This paper first discusses various issues related to software, hardware, and hybrid performance monitoring as applicable to distributed systems, and specifically to the TCMS (Test Control and Monitoring System). Next, a comparison of several probing instructions are made to show that the hybrid monitoring technique developed by the NIST (National Institutes for Standards and Technology) is the least intrusive and takes only one-fourth of the time taken by software monitoring probes. In the rest of the paper, issues related to benchmarking a distributed system have been discussed and finally a prescription for developing a micro-benchmark for the TCMS has been provided.

Ojha, Anand K.↗