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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1988

Transport delay compensation for computer-generated imagery systems

In the problem of pure transport delay in a low-pass system, a trade-off exists with respect to performance within and beyond a frequency bandwidth. When activity beyond the band is attenuated because of other considerations, this trade-off may be used to improve the performance within the band. Specifically, transport delay in computer-generated imagery systems is reduced to a manageable problem by recognizing frequency limits in vehicle activity and manual-control capacity. Based on these limits, a compensation algorithm has been developed for use in aircraft simulation at NASA Ames Research Center. For direct measurement of transport delays, a beam-splitter experiment is presented that accounts for the complete flight simulation environment. Values determined by this experiment are appropriate for use in the compensation algorithm. The algorithm extends the bandwidth of high-frequency flight simulation to well beyond that of normal pilot inputs. Within this bandwidth, the visual scene presentation manifests negligible gain distortion and phase lag. After a year of utilization, two minor exceptions to universal simulation applicability have been identified and subsequently resolved.

Mcfarland, Richard E.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Photoelectrons in the upper atmosphere - A formulation incorporating effects of transport

A technique for solving the problem of photoelectron spatial transport and spectral degradation is presented. The developed model, which allows for a relatively complete description of the relevant transport and collisional physics, can be applied to study processes at either low or high altitude, and may be used to investigate interhemispheric transport. The technique involves dividing the spatial dimension into a set of discrete ordinates and calculating the photoelectron intensity for a specific energy at each point in space and at a set of angle points. The selected range of the energy spectrum was covered completely by a set of energy bins, and the photoelectron intensity in the highest energy bin was calculated first by assuming that the only source term was derived from photoionization. The method is similar to a method used in radiative transfer theory. Spatial and angular redistribution of electrons play a dominant role at heights above 400 km.

Prather, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS1971

Estimation in nonlinear systems with transport delay.

The problem of estimation of state in nonlinear dynamical systems containing time delays is studied. The plant is specified by a set of nonlinear differential-difference equations. Observations are a nonlinear function of current and/or delayed states. Both contain additive disturbances. The criterion used for the optimal estimates is the integral of the weighted squared error. Using the theory of the calculus of variations, equations are developed for the estimation. They are first expressed in the form of a split boundary value problem, which is then converted to an initial value problem for on-line estimation. The result yields a sequential estimation scheme in which filtered and smoothed estimates are computed in a sequential manner. The applicability of the procedure is demonstrated by a practical example.

Stoller, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Numerical solution of the radiation transport equation in disk geometry

An efficient numerical method for solving the problem of radiation transport in a dusty medium with two dimensional (2-D) disk geometry is described. It is a generalization of the one-dimensional quasi-diffusion method in which the transport equation is cast in diffusion form and then solved as a boundary value problem. The method should be applicable to a variety of astronomical sources, the dynamics of which are angular-momentum dominated and hence not accurately treated by spherical geometry, e.g., protoplanetary nebulae, circumstellar disks, interstellar molecular clouds, accretion disks, and disk galaxies. The computational procedure and practical considerations for implementing the method are described in detail. To illustrate the effects of 2-D radiation transport, some model results (dust temperature distributions and IR flux spectra) for externally heated, interstellar dust clouds with spherically symmetric and disk geometry are compared.

Spagna, George F., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Transportation node space station conceptual design

A number of recent studies have addressed the problem of a transportation node space station. How things would change or what addition facilities would be needed to support a major lunar or Mars initiative is a much often asked question. The support of a lunar base, requiring stacks on the order of 200 metric tons each to land 25 m tons on the lunar surface with reusable vehicles is addressed. The problem of maintaining and reusing large single stage Orbit Transfer Vehicles (OTVs) and single stage lander/launchers in space are examined. The required people and equipment needed, to maintain these vehicles are only vaguely known at present. The people and equipment needed depend on how well the OTV and lander/launcher can be designed for easy reuse. Since the OTV and lander/launcher are only conceptually defined at present, the real maintenance and refurbishment requirements are unobtainable. An estimate of what is needed, based on previous studies and obvious requirements was therefore made. An attempt was made to err on the conservative side.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1959

Flight Studies of Problems Pertinent to Low-Speed Operation of Jet Transports

Flight studies have been made of the low-speed operational regime of jet transports in order to assess potential operating problems. The study was performed utilizing a large multiengine jet airplane having geometric characteristics fairly representative of the jet transports; however, to insure general applicability of the results, the aerodynamic characteristics of the test airplane were varied to simulate a variety of jet-transport airplanes. The specific areas investigated include those of the take-off and landing, and the relation of these maneuvers to the 1 g stall speed and stalling characteristics. The take-off studies included evaluation of the factors affecting the take-off speed and attitude, including the effects of premature rotation and of over-rotation on ground run required. The approach and landing studies pertained to such factors as: desirable lateral-directional damping characteristics; lateral-control requirements; space-positioning limitations during approach under VFR or IFR conditions and requirements for glide-path controls; and evaluation of factors affecting the pilot's choice of landing speeds. Specific recommendations and some indication of desirable characteristics for the jet transports are advanced to alleviate possible operational difficulties or to improve operational performance in the low-speed range.

Fischel. Jack↗
NASA NTRS2007

Advanced Control Algorithms for Compensating the Phase Distortion Due to Transport Delay in Human-Machine Systems

The desire to create more complex visual scenes in modern flight simulators outpaces recent increases in processor speed. As a result, simulation transport delay remains a problem. New approaches for compensating the transport delay in a flight simulator have been developed and are presented in this report. The lead/lag filter, the McFarland compensator and the Sobiski/Cardullo state space filter are three prominent compensators. The lead/lag filter provides some phase lead, while introducing significant gain distortion in the same frequency interval. The McFarland predictor can compensate for much longer delay and cause smaller gain error in low frequencies than the lead/lag filter, but the gain distortion beyond the design frequency interval is still significant, and it also causes large spikes in prediction. Though, theoretically, the Sobiski/Cardullo predictor, a state space filter, can compensate the longest delay with the least gain distortion among the three, it has remained in laboratory use due to several limitations. The first novel compensator is an adaptive predictor that makes use of the Kalman filter algorithm in a unique manner. In this manner the predictor can accurately provide the desired amount of prediction, while significantly reducing the large spikes caused by the McFarland predictor. Among several simplified online adaptive predictors, this report illustrates mathematically why the stochastic approximation algorithm achieves the best compensation results. A second novel approach employed a reference aircraft dynamics model to implement a state space predictor on a flight simulator. The practical implementation formed the filter state vector from the operator s control input and the aircraft states. The relationship between the reference model and the compensator performance was investigated in great detail, and the best performing reference model was selected for implementation in the final tests. Theoretical analyses of data from offline simulations with time delay compensation show that both novel predictors effectively suppress the large spikes caused by the McFarland compensator. The phase errors of the three predictors are not significant. The adaptive predictor yields greater gain errors than the McFarland predictor for short delays (96 and 138 ms), but shows smaller errors for long delays (186 and 282 ms). The advantage of the adaptive predictor becomes more obvious for a longer time delay. Conversely, the state space predictor results in substantially smaller gain error than the other two predictors for all four delay cases.

Guo, Liwen↗
NASA NTRS1991

Lanczos eigensolution method for high-performance computers

The theory, computational analysis, and applications are presented of a Lanczos algorithm on high performance computers. The computationally intensive steps of the algorithm are identified as: the matrix factorization, the forward/backward equation solution, and the matrix vector multiples. These computational steps are optimized to exploit the vector and parallel capabilities of high performance computers. The savings in computational time from applying optimization techniques such as: variable band and sparse data storage and access, loop unrolling, use of local memory, and compiler directives are presented. Two large scale structural analysis applications are described: the buckling of a composite blade stiffened panel with a cutout, and the vibration analysis of a high speed civil transport. The sequential computational time for the panel problem executed on a CONVEX computer of 181.6 seconds was decreased to 14.1 seconds with the optimized vector algorithm. The best computational time of 23 seconds for the transport problem with 17,000 degs of freedom was on the the Cray-YMP using an average of 3.63 processors.

Bostic, Susan W.↗
NASA NTRS1965

Effects of the Air Traffic Control System on the Supersonic Transport

A study of the problems anticipated with the introduction of the supersonic transport into the air traffic control system indicated that supersonic transport design allowances for time and fuel for maneuvering during climbouts may not be sufficient, that there is a greater communications-navigation work- load for the supersonic transport than for the subsonic jet transport during descent, and that use of a flight director to command pitch control guidance for the pilot would be helpful.

Norman S. Silsby↗
NASA NTRS1936

The transport of vorticity through fluids in turbulent motion : in the light of the Prandtl and Taylor theories

The report studies the problem of the transport of vorticity or of momentum in light of the Taylor and Prandtl theories which are briefly reviewed. It also show how the formulas of Prandtl could be brought into agreement with experimental results in those cases where they agree with the principle of statistic similitude of Karman, and particularly in the problem of the distribution of velocity and temperature in the wake of a heated cylindrical obstacle.

Ferrari, C↗
NASA NTRS1991

Constraint-based scheduling

The GERRY scheduling system developed by NASA Ames with assistance from the Lockheed Space Operations Company, and the Lockheed Artificial Intelligence Center, uses a method called constraint-based iterative repair. Using this technique, one encodes both hard rules and preference criteria into data structures called constraints. GERRY repeatedly attempts to improve schedules by seeking repairs for violated constraints. The system provides a general scheduling framework which is being tested on two NASA applications. The larger of the two is the Space Shuttle Ground Processing problem which entails the scheduling of all the inspection, repair, and maintenance tasks required to prepare the orbiter for flight. The other application involves power allocation for the NASA Ames wind tunnels. Here the system will be used to schedule wind tunnel tests with the goal of minimizing power costs. In this paper, we describe the GERRY system and its application to the Space Shuttle problem. We also speculate as to how the system would be used for manufacturing, transportation, and military problems.

Zweben, Monte↗
NASA NTRS1991

Constraint-based scheduling

The GERRY scheduling system developed by NASA Ames with assistance from the Lockheed Space Operations Company, and the Lockheed Artificial Intelligence Center, uses a method called constraint based iterative repair. Using this technique, one encodes both hard rules and preference criteria into data structures called constraints. GERRY repeatedly attempts to improve schedules by seeking repairs for violated constraints. The system provides a general scheduling framework which is being tested on two NASA applications. The larger of the two is the Space Shuttle Ground Processing problem which entails the scheduling of all inspection, repair, and maintenance tasks required to prepare the orbiter for flight. The other application involves power allocations for the NASA Ames wind tunnels. Here the system will be used to schedule wind tunnel tests with the goal of minimizing power costs. In this paper, we describe the GERRY system and its applications to the Space Shuttle problem. We also speculate as to how the system would be used for manufacturing, transportation, and military problems.

Zweben, Monte↗
NASA NTRS1993

Constraint-based scheduling

The GERRY scheduling system developed by NASA Ames with assistance from the Lockheed Space Operations Company, and the Lockheed Artificial Intelligence Center, uses a method called constraint-based iterative repair. Using this technique, one encodes both hard rules and preference criteria into data structures called constraints. GERRY repeatedly attempts to improve schedules by seeking repairs for violated constraints. The system provides a general scheduling framework which is being tested on two NASA applications. The larger of the two is the Space Shuttle Ground Processing problem which entails the scheduling of all the inspection, repair, and maintenance tasks required to prepare the orbiter for flight. The other application involves power allocation for the NASA Ames wind tunnels. Here the system will be used to schedule wind tunnel tests with the goal of minimizing power costs. In this paper, we describe the GERRY system and its application to the Space Shuttle problem. We also speculate as to how the system would be used for manufacturing, transportation, and military problems.

Zweben, Monte↗
NASA NTRS1976

Some early perspectives on ground requirements of liquid hydrogen air transports

The paper examines the problem of liquid-hydrogen (LH2) subsonic long-range air transport from the perspectives of airplane manufacturers, the airline operator, the air terminal authority and the LH2 supplier. Emphasis is placed on identifying common problems and interfaces that are likely to occur in preparing for commercial airline operations of LH2 subsonic air transport in the 1990-1995 period. General considerations are discussed relative to sources and cost of gaseous hydrogen, hydrogen liquefaction, and LH2 availability. The fact that hydrogen sustains combustion at altitudes substantially higher than hydrocarbon fuels suggests that air transport can be designed to operate at higher enroute air traffic flight levels. This can be an advantage if only to relieve traffic congestion on heavily traveled routes. Pertinent interfaces in planning for the use of LH2 in air transportation are identified, including productivity and profitability, passenger-fuel compatibility, and lightning and electrical discharges.

Korycinski, P. F.↗
NASA NTRS1983

A study of altitude and flight path angle dynamics for a singularly perturbed fuel optimization problem

This short paper will demonstrate that the separation of altitude and flight path angle dynamics using singular perturbation techniques for a transport fuel optimization problem results in an unacceptable oscillation in altitude. A technique for damping this oscillation by adding a penalty term to the cost function for the optimization problem will be discussed. This technique will be compared with a different approach that linearizes the altitude and flight path angle boundary layers.

Price, D. B.↗