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At least 1,693 records · Page 94
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NASA NTRS1992

Spacecraft navigation at Mars using earth-based and in situ radio tracking techniques

A survey of earth-based and in situ radiometric data types and results from a number of studies investigating potential radio navigation performance for spacecraft approaching/orbiting Mars and for landed spacecraft and rovers on the surface of Mars are presented. The performance of Doppler, ranging and interferometry earth-based data types involving single or multiple spacecraft is addressed. This evaluation is conducted with that of in situ data types, such as Doppler and ranging measurements between two spacecraft near Mars, or between a spacecraft and one or more surface radio beacons.

Thurman, S. W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Analysis of image-based navigation system for rotorcraft low-altitude flight

Some of the issues in the location of objects using a sequence of images from a passive sensor are examined. Image-object differential equations for a rotorcraft executing an arbitrary maneuver are developed. Assuming an onboard inertial navigation system for rotorcraft, state estimation, this study considers how object location is affected by the choice of Kalman filter estimation technique, the rotorcraft, and the object. Simulation results are presented.

Sridhar, Banavar↗
NASA NTRS1993

Differential Interferometry For Spacecraft Navigation

Report proposes use of differential very-long-baseline interferometry to measure accurately angular separation, viewed from Earth, of two spacecraft near another planet. One spacecraft would be in orbit around planet on trajectory already determined accurately, relative to planet, by conventional Doppler tracking. Other spacecraft would be approaching planet. Use of differential very-long-baseline interferometry "tie" between two spacecraft and previously determined "tie" between orbiter and planet increases accuracy of navigation of approaching spacecraft relative to planet.

Edwards, Charles D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Precision X-band radio Doppler and ranging navigation: Mars Observer interplanetary cruise scenario

This article describes an error covariance analysis based on a Mars Observer mission scenario; the study was performed to establish the navigation performance that can potentially be achieved in a demonstration of precision two-way X-band (8.4-GHz) Doppler and ranging with the Mars Observer spacecraft planned for next year, and to evaluate the sensitivity of the predicted performance to variations in ground system error modeling assumptions. Orbit determination error statistics computed for a 182-day Doppler and ranging data arc predicted Mars approach orbit determination accuracies of about 0.45 micro-rad in an angular sense, using a conservative ground system error model as a baseline. When less-conservative error model assumptions were employed, it was found that orbit determination accuracies of 0.19 to 0.30 micro-rad could be obtained; the level of accuracy of the assumed Mars ephemeris is about 0.11 micro-rad. In comparison, Doppler-only performance with the baseline error model was predicted to be about 1.30 to 1.51 micro-rad, although it was found that when improved station location accuracies and Global Positioning System-based tropospheric calibration accuracies were assumed, accuracies of 0.44 to 0.52 micro-rad were predicted. In the Doppler plus ranging cases, the results were relatively insensitive to variations in ranging system and station delay calibration uncertainties of a few meters and tropospheric zenith delay calibration uncertainties of a few centimeters.

Estefan, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Application of high-precision two-way ranging to Galileo Earth-1 encounter navigation

The application of precision two-way ranging to orbit determination with relatively short data arcs is investigated for the Galileo spacecraft's approach to its first Earth encounter (December 8, 1990). Analysis of previous S-band (2.3-GHz) ranging data acquired from Galileo indicated that under good signal conditions submeter precision and 10-m ranging accuracy were achieved. It is shown that ranging data of sufficient accuracy, when acquired from multiple stations, can sense the geocentric angular position of a distant spacecraft. A range data filtering technique, in which explicit modeling of range measurement bias parameters for each station pass is utilized, is shown to largely remove the systematic ground system calibration errors and transmission media effects from the Galileo range measurements, which would otherwise corrupt the angle-finding capabilities of the data. The accuracy of the Galileo orbit solutions obtained with S-band Doppler and precision ranging were found to be consistent with simple theoretical calculations, which predicted that angular accuracies of 0.26-0.34 microrad were achievable. In addition, the navigation accuracy achieved with precision ranging was marginally better than that obtained using delta-differenced one-way range (delta DOR), the principal data type that was previously used to obtain spacecraft angular position measurements operationally.

Pollmeier, V. M.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Calibration, navigation, and registration of MAMS data for FIFE

The International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) was conducted to study the interaction of the atmosphere with the land surface and the research problems associated with the interpretation of satellite data over the Earth's land surface. The experimental objectives of the First ISLSCP Field Experiment (FIFE) were the simultaneous acquisition of satellite, atmospheric, and surface data and to use these data to understand the processes controlling energy/mass exchange at the surface. The experiment site is a 15 x 15 km area southeast of Manhattan, Kansas, intersected by Interstate 70 and Kansas highway 177. The Konza Prairie portion is 5 x 5 km and is a controlled experiment site consisting primarily of native tall grass prairie vegetation. The remainder of the site is grazing and farm land with trees along creek beds that are scattered over the area. Airborne multispectral imagery from the Multispectral Atmospheric Mapping Sensor (MAMS) was collected over this region on two days during Intensive Field Campaign-1 (1FC-1) to study the time and space variability of remotely-sensed geophysical parameters. These datasets consist of multiple overflights covering about a 60-min period during late morning on June 4, 1987 and shortly after dark on the following day. Image data from each overpass were calibrated and Earth located with respect to each other using aircraft inertial navigation system parameters and ground control points. These were the first MAMS flights made with 10-bit thermal data.

Jedlovec, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Differential GPS/inertial navigation approach/landing flight test results

In November of 1990 a joint Honeywell/NASA-Langley differential GPS/inertial flight test was conducted at Wallops Island, Virginia. The test objective was to acquire a system performance database and demonstrate automatic landing using an integrated differential GPS/INS (Global Positioning System/inertial navigation system) with barometric and radar altimeters. The flight test effort exceeded program objectives with over 120 landings, 36 of which were fully automatic differential GPS/inertial landings. Flight test results obtained from post-flight data analysis are discussed. These results include characteristics of differential GPS/inertial error, using the Wallops Island Laser Tracker as a reference. Data on the magnitude of the differential corrections and vertical channel performance with and without radar altimeter augmentation are provided.

Snyder, Scott↗
NASA NTRS1992

Differenced Doppler tracking in interplanetary navigation - The Magellan cruise reconstruction

The Magellan mission was the first in which Doppler and differenced Doppler tracking data were acquired at X-band uplink/downlink frequencies from the Deep Space Network (DSN). This paper describes a reconstruction of the Venus approach-phase navigation investigating the capabilities of these data types, which are up to an order of magnitude more precise than similar data acquired at S-band frequencies in previous missions. Comparisons of orbit solutions obtained with Doppler, Doppler plus differenced Doppler, and Doppler plus delta-differential one-way Range (DeltaDOR) data indicate that both differenced Doppler and DeltaDOR yield improvements of factors of 3 to 5 over the accuracy of the Doppler-only solutions obtained during Venus approach operations, in which the Doppler data were deweighted from their inherent accuracy due to mismodeling problems.

Ryne, Mark S.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Autonomous guidance, navigation and control bridging program plan

A four-center NASA team has undertaken to develop and demonstrate mature technologies applicable to autonomous guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) systems for application to the National Space Transportation System in full cognizance of its operational, safety, and performance requirements, as well as its cost constraints. Attention is to be given to GNC launch/landing weather assessment, ascent guidance, ascent load relief, and system failure during ascent. Preliminary results indicate that a ground-computed atmospheric steering profile can achieve near-optimum performance as well as high cost effectiveness.

Mcswain, G. G.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Microgravity monitoring instrument development and application to vernier guidance, navigation, and vehicle control

The fact that a spacecraft traveling through the 'vacuum' of space conforms to the classical Keplerian ellipse has recently been disproven. It is now well known that such a vehicle is acted on by many external forces such as drag in the rarefied particle atmosphere, solar wind and particle impact. This paper discusses the development of sensors and sensor systems to measure these minute forces of acceleration/deceleration. Four systems will be discussed: a 10 exp -4 g system, a 10 exp -6 g system, a 10 exp -(6-8) g system and a 10 exp -9 g system. The design of each system will be explained along with the advantages/disadvantages of each. Various applications unique to each system will be discussed. Configurations, design schemes, test plans and calibration procedures, both in the ground laboratory and inflight, will be presented. The current design/development/operational status of each system will be examined and future plans discussed. Application to aerodynamic studies and vernier guidance, navigation, and vehicle control will also be examined.

Howell, Joseph J.↗
NASA NTRS1922

Aerial navigation : on the problem of guiding aircraft in a fog or by night when there is no visibility

The use of magnetic fields and wire to navigate aircraft in conditions of poor visibility is presented. This field may be considered to be derived from a double lemniscate, considered in the particular case where the origin is a double point formed from the magnetic field of the slack wire, from the field produced by the return currents and from the field due to the currents induced in the conducting mass. These fields are dephased in two ways, one in the direction of the wire, the other in a direction perpendicular to it.

Loth, William↗
NASA NTRS1990

Evolutionary Space Station Guidance Navigation and Control (GN/C) study

The guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) techniques and equipment to support evolutionary space station concepts were analyzed. Simulations of the evolutionary space station configurations and operational concepts were conducted to analyze the attitude control, reboost, and traffic management accommodation requirements. A summary of the mission concepts, space station configurations, simulation results, and the impact on the baseline GN&C systems are presented.

Kennedy, Jerry↗
NASA NTRS1993

Miniature wide field-of-view star trackers for spacecraft attitude sensing and navigation

Introducing a family of miniature, wide field-of-view star trackers for low cost, high performance spacecraft attitude determination and navigation applications. These devices, derivative of the WFOV Star Tracker Camera developed cooperatively by OCA Applied Optics and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the Brilliant Pebbles program, offer a suite of options addressing a wide range of spacecraft attitude measurement and control requirements. These sensors employ much wider fields than are customary (ranging between 20 and 60 degrees) to assure enough bright stars for quick and accurate attitude determinations without long integration intervals. The key benefit of this approach are light weight, low power, reduced data processing loads and high information carrier rates for wide ACS bandwidths. Devices described range from the proven OCA/LLNL WFOV Star Tracker Camera (a low-cost, space-qualified star-field imager utilizing the spacecraft's own computer and centroiding and position-finding), to a new autonomous subsystem design featuring dual-redundant cameras and completely self-contained star-field data processing with output quaternion solutions accurate to 100 micro-rad, 3 sigma, for stand-alone applications.

Mccarty, William↗
NASA NTRS1994

A genetic technique for planning a control sequence to navigate the state space with a quasi-minimum-cost output trajectory for a non-linear multi-dimnensional system

There are many multi-stage optimization problems that are not easily solved through any known direct method when the stages are coupled. For instance, we have investigated the problem of planning a vehicle's control sequence to negotiate obstacles and reach a goal in minimum time. The vehicle has a known mass, and the controlling forces have finite limits. We have developed a technique that finds admissible control trajectories which tend to minimize the vehicle's transit time through the obstacle field. The immediate applications is that of a space robot which must rapidly traverse around 2-or-3 dimensional structures via application of a rotating thruster or non-rotating on-off for such vehicles is located at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama. However, it appears that the development method is applicable to a general set of optimization problems in which the cost function and the multi-dimensional multi-state system can be any nonlinear functions, which are continuous in the operating regions. Other applications included the planning of optimal navigation pathways through a transversability graph; the planning of control input for under-water maneuvering vehicles which have complex control state-space relationships; the planning of control sequences for milling and manufacturing robots; the planning of control and trajectories for automated delivery vehicles; and the optimization and athletic training in slalom sports.

Hein, C.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Advanced information processing system: Hosting of advanced guidance, navigation and control algorithms on AIPS using ASTER

This program demonstrated the integration of a number of technologies that can increase the availability and reliability of launch vehicles while lowering costs. Availability is increased with an advanced guidance algorithm that adapts trajectories in real-time. Reliability is increased with fault-tolerant computers and communication protocols. Costs are reduced by automatically generating code and documentation. This program was realized through the cooperative efforts of academia, industry, and government. The NASA-LaRC coordinated the effort, while Draper performed the integration. Georgia Institute of Technology supplied a weak Hamiltonian finite element method for optimal control problems. Martin Marietta used MATLAB to apply this method to a launch vehicle (FENOC). Draper supplied the fault-tolerant computing and software automation technology. The fault-tolerant technology includes sequential and parallel fault-tolerant processors (FTP & FTPP) and authentication protocols (AP) for communication. Fault-tolerant technology was incrementally incorporated. Development culminated with a heterogeneous network of workstations and fault-tolerant computers using AP. Draper's software automation system, ASTER, was used to specify a static guidance system based on FENOC, navigation, flight control (GN&C), models, and the interface to a user interface for mission control. ASTER generated Ada code for GN&C and C code for models. An algebraic transform engine (ATE) was developed to automatically translate MATLAB scripts into ASTER.

Brenner, Richard↗
NASA NTRS1994

Design and flight evaluation of an integrated navigation and near-terrain helicopter guidance system for night-time and adverse weather operations

NASA and the U.S. Army have designed, developed, and flight evaluated a Computer Aiding for Low Altitude Helicopter Flight (CALAHF) guidance system. This system provides guidance to the pilot for near terrain covert helicopter operations. It automates the processing of precision navigation information, helicopter mission requirements, and terrain flight guidance. The automation is presented to the pilot through symbology on a helmet-mounted display. The symbology is a 'pilot-centered' design which preserves pilot flexibility and authority over the CALAHF system's automation. An extensive flight evaluation of the system has been conducted using the U.S. Army's NUH-60 STAR (Systems Testbed for Avionics Research) research helicopter. The evaluations were flown over a multiwaypoint helicopter mission in rugged mountainous terrain, at terrain clearance altitudes from 300 to 125 ft and airspeeds from 40 to 110 knots. The results of these evaluations showed that the pilots could precisely follow the automation symbology while maintaining a high degree of situational awareness.

Swenson, Harry N.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Fusion of laser and image sensory data for 3-D modeling of the free navigation space

A fusion technique which combines two different types of sensory data for 3-D modeling of a navigation space is presented. The sensory data is generated by a vision camera and a laser scanner. The problem of different resolutions for these sensory data was solved by reduced image resolution, fusion of different data, and use of a fuzzy image segmentation technique.

Mass, M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Deictic primitives for general purpose navigation

A visually-based deictic primative used as an elementary command set for general purpose navigation was investigated. It was shown that a simple 'follow your eyes' scenario is sufficient for tracking a moving target. Limitations of velocity, acceleration, and modeling of the response of the mechanical systems were enforced. Realistic paths of the robots were produced during the simulation. Scientists could remotely command a planetary rover to go to a particular rock formation that may be interesting. Similarly an expert at plant maintenance could obtain diagnostic information remotely by using deictic primitives on a mobile are used in the deictic primitives, we could imagine that the exact same control software could be used for all of these applications.

Crismann, Jill D.↗