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At least 1,693 records · Page 94
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

Intelligent Welding Controller

Control system adapts to changing design requirements and operating conditions. Proposed control system for gas/tungsten arc welding requires only that operator specifies such direct parameters of welds as widths and depths of penetration. In control system for robotic welder, components and functions intimately connected with welding process assigned to controller domain. More general functions assigned to supervisor domain. Initial estimate of indirect parameters of welding process applied to system only at beginning of weld (t=0); after start of welding, outputs from multivariable controller takes place of estimate.

Cook, George E.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Artificial Intelligence Controls Tape-Recording Sequence

Developmental expert-system computer program intended to schedule recording of large amounts of data on limited amount of magnetic tape. Schedules recording using two sets of rules. First set incorporates knowledge of locations for recording of new data. Second set incorporates knowledge about issuing commands to recorder. Designed primarily for use on Voyager Spacecraft, also applicable to planning and sequencing in industry.

Schwuttke, Ursula M.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Languages for artificial intelligence: Implementing a scheduler in LISP and in Ada

A prototype scheduler for space experiments originally programmed in a dialect of LISP using some of the more traditional techniques of that language, was recast using an object-oriented LISP, Common LISP with Flavors on the Symbolics. This object-structured version was in turn partially implemented in Ada. The Flavors version showed a decided improvement in both speed of execution and readability of code. The recasting into Ada involved various practical problems of implementation as well as certain challenges of reconceptualization in going from one language to the other. Advantages were realized, however, in greater clarity of the code, especially where more standard flow of control was used. This exercise raised issues about the influence of programming language on the design of flexible and sensitive programs such as schedule planners, and called attention to the importance of factors external to the languages themselves such as system embeddedness, hardware context, and programmer practice.

Hays, Dan↗
NASA NTRS1988

PI-in-a-box: Intelligent onboard assistance for spaceborne experiments in vestibular physiology

In construction is a knowledge-based system that will aid astronauts in the performance of vestibular experiments in two ways: it will provide real-time monitoring and control of signals and it will optimize the quality of the data obtained, by helping the mission specialists and payload specialists make decisions that are normally the province of a principal investigator, hence the name PI-in-a-box. An important and desirable side-effect of this tool will be to make the astronauts more productive and better integrated members of the scientific team. The vestibular experiments are planned by Prof. Larry Young of MIT, whose team has already performed similar experiments in Spacelab missions SL-1 and D-1, and has experiments planned for SLS-1 and SLS-2. The knowledge-based system development work, performed in collaboration with MIT, Stanford University, and the NASA-Ames Research Center, addresses six major related functions: (1) signal quality monitoring; (2) fault diagnosis; (3) signal analysis; (4) interesting-case detection; (5) experiment replanning; and (6) integration of all of these functions within a real-time data acquisition environment. Initial prototyping work has been done in functions (1) through (4).

Colombano, Silvano↗
NASA NTRS1988

Using hypermedia to develop an intelligent tutorial/diagnostic system for the Space Shuttle Main Engine Controller Lab

This is a tutorial/diagnostic system for training personnel in the use of the Space Shuttle Main Engine Controller (SSMEC) Simulation Lab. It also provides a diagnostic capable of isolating lab failures at least to the major lab component. The system was implemented using Hypercard, which is an program of hypermedia running on Apple Macintosh computers. Hypercard proved to be a viable platform for the development and use of sophisticated tutorial systems and moderately capable diagnostic systems. This tutorial/diagnostic system uses the basic Hypercard tools to provide the tutorial. The diagnostic part of the system uses a simple interpreter written in the Hypercard language (Hypertalk) to implement the backward chaining rule based logic commonly found in diagnostic systems using Prolog. Some of the advantages of Hypercard in developing this type of system include sophisticated graphics, animation, sound and voice capabilities, its ability as a hypermedia tool, and its ability to include digitized pictures. The major disadvantage is the slow execution time for evaluation of rules (due to the interpretive processing of the language). Other disadvantages include the limitation on the size of the cards, that color is not supported, that it does not support grey scale graphics, and its lack of selectable fonts for text fields.

Oreilly, Daniel↗
NASA NTRS1988

Optical fiber sensors and signal processing for intelligent structure monitoring

The analytic and experimental performance of optical fiber sensors for the control of vibration of large aerospace and other structures are investigated. In particular, model domain optical fiber sensor systems, are being studied due to their apparent potential as distributed, low mass sensors of vibration over appropriate ranges of both low frequency and low amplitude displacements. Progress during the past three months is outlined. Progress since September is divided into work in the areas of experimental hardware development, analytical analysis, control design and sensor development. During the next six months, tests of a prototype closed-loop control system for a beam are planned which will demonstrate the solution of several optical fiber instrumentation device problems, the performance of the control system theory which incorporates the model of the modal domain sensor, and the potential for distributed control which this sensor approach offers.

Rogowski, Robert↗
NASA NTRS1989

TRUSS: An intelligent design system for aircraft wings

Competitive leadership in the international marketplace, superiority in national defense, excellence in productivity, and safety of both private and public systems are all national defense goals which are dependent on superior engineering design. In recent years, it has become more evident that early design decisions are critical, and when only based on performance often result in products which are too expensive, hard to manufacture, or unsupportable. Better use of computer-aided design tools and information-based technologies is required to produce better quality United States products. A program is outlined here to explore the use of knowledge based expert systems coupled with numerical optimization, database management techniques, and designer interface methods in a networked design environment to improve and assess design changes due to changing emphasis or requirements. The initial structural design of a tiltrotor aircraft wing is used as a representative example to demonstrate the approach being followed.

Bates, Preston R.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Design of an auto change mechanism and intelligent gripper for the space station

Robot gripping of objects in space is inherently demanding and dangerous and nowhere is this more clearly reflected than in the design of the robot gripper. An object which escapes the gripper in a micro g environment is launched not dropped. To prevent this, the gripper must have sensors and signal processing to determine that the object is properly grasped, e.g., grip points and gripping forces and, if not, to provide information to the robot to enable closed loop corrections to be made. The sensors and sensor strategies employed in the NASA/GSFC Split-Rail Parallel Gripper are described. Objectives and requirements are given followed by the design of the sensor suite, sensor fusion techniques and supporting algorithms.

Dehoff, Paul H.↗
NASA NTRS1988

The RIACS Intelligent Auditing and Categorizing System

The organization of the RIACS auditing package is described along with how to installation instructions and how to interpret the output. How to set up both local and remote file system auditing is given. Logging is done on a time driven basis, and auditing in a passive mode.

Bishop, Matt↗
NASA NTRS1989

Optical fiber sensors and signal processing for intelligent structure monitoring

Few mode optical fibers have been shown to produce predictable interference patterns when placed under strain. The use is described of a modal domain sensor in a vibration control experiment. An optical fiber is bonded along the length of a flexible beam. Output from the modal domain sensor is used to suppress vibrations induced in the beam. A distributed effect model for the modal domain sensor is developed. This model is combined with the beam and actuator dynamics to produce a system suitable for control design. Computer simulations predict open and closed loop dynamic responses. An experimental apparatus is described and experimental results are presented.

Thomas, Daniel↗
NASA NTRS1987

Task allocation among multiple intelligent robots

Researchers describe the design of a decentralized mechanism for allocating assembly tasks in a multiple robot assembly workstation. Currently, the approach focuses on distributed allocation to explore its feasibility and its potential for adaptability to changing circumstances, rather than for optimizing throughput. Individual greedy robots make their own local allocation decisions using both dynamic allocation policies which propagate through a network of allocation goals, and local static and dynamic constraints describing which robots are elibible for which assembly tasks. Global coherence is achieved by proper weighting of allocation pressures propagating through the assembly plan. Deadlock avoidance and synchronization is achieved using periodic reassessments of local allocation decisions, ageing of allocation goals, and short-term allocation locks on goals.

Gasser, L.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Hierarchical control of intelligent machines applied to space station telerobots

A hierarchical architecture is described which supports space station telerobots in a variety of modes. The system is divided into three hierarchies: task decomposition, world model, and sensory processing. Goals at each level of the task decomposition hierarchy are divided both spatially and temporally into simpler commands for the next lower level. This decomposition is repeated until, at the lowest level, the drive signals to the robot actuators are generated. To accomplish its goals, task decomposition modules must often use information stored in the world model. The purpose of the sensory system is to update the world model as rapidly as possible to keep the model in registration with the physical world. The architecture of the entire control system hierarchy and how it can be applied to space telerobot applications are discussed.

Albus, J. S.↗
NASA NTRS1989

An intelligent user interface for browsing satellite data catalogs

A large scale domain-independent spatial data management expert system that serves as a front-end to databases containing spatial data is described. This system is unique for two reasons. First, it uses spatial search techniques to generate a list of all the primary keys that fall within a user's spatial constraints prior to invoking the database management system, thus substantially decreasing the amount of time required to answer a user's query. Second, a domain-independent query expert system uses a domain-specific rule base to preprocess the user's English query, effectively mapping a broad class of queries into a smaller subset that can be handled by a commercial natural language processing system. The methods used by the spatial search module and the query expert system are explained, and the system architecture for the spatial data management expert system is described. The system is applied to data from the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite, and results are given.

Cromp, Robert F.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Advanced feature extraction in remote sensing using artificial intelligence and geographic information systems

Traditional computer-assisted image-analysis techniques in remote sensing lag well behind human abilities in terms of both speed and accuracy. A fundamental limitation of computer-assisted techniques is their inability to assimilate a variety of different data types leading to an interpretation in a manner similar to human image interpretation. Expert systems and computer-vision techniques are proposed as a potential solution to these limitations. Some aspects of human expertise in image analysis may be codified into expert systems. Image understanding and symbolic reasoning provide a means of assimilating spatial information and spatial reasoning into the analysis procedure. Knowledge-based image-analysis systems incorporate many of these concepts and have been implemented for some well defined problem domains. Geographic information systems represent an excellent environment for this type of analysis, providing both analytic tools and contextual information to the analysis procedure.

Estes, John E.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Toward intelligent robot systems in aerospace

The incorporation of progressively more autonomous capabilities in spacecraft has been made possible by advancements in electronics technologies for sensors, communication, and computing equipment; as a result, space missions have been able to cope with ever-increasing complexity and data throughputs, as demonstrated by the six-order-of-magnitude increase in planetary mission data rates. In order to continue this pace of development into the Space Station era, NASA has accelerated its R&D in automation and robotics, with emphasis on autonomous, knowledge-based and expert system-employing technologies and AI.

Heer, Ewald↗
NASA NTRS1988

Treatment of uncertainty in artificial intelligence

The present assessment of the development status of research efforts concerned with AI reasoning under conditions of uncertainty emphasizes the importance of appropriateness in the approach selected for both the epistemic and the computational levels. At the former level, attention is given to the form of uncertainty-representation and the fidelity of its reflection of actual problems' uncertainties; at the latter level, such issues as the availability of the requisite information and the complexity of the reasoning process must be considered. The tradeoff between these levels must always be the focus of AI system-developers' attention.

Berenji, Hamid R.↗