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At least 19 records

Using Demanded Power and RDE Aggressiveness Metrics to Analyze the Impact of CACC Aggressiveness on Heavy Duty Platooning Power Consumption

Presently, a main mobility sector objective is to reduce its impact on the global greenhouse gas emissions. While there are many techniques being explored, a promising approach to improve fuel economy is to reduce the required energy by using slipstream effects. This study analyzes the demanded engine power and mechanical energy used by heavy-duty trucks during platooning and non-platooning operation to determine the aerodynamic benefits of the slipstream. A series of platooning tests utilizing class 8 semi-trucks platooning via Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) are performed. Comparing the demanded engine power and mechanical energy used reveals the benefits of platooning on the aerodynamic drag while disregarding any potential negative side effects on the engine. However, energy savings were lower than expected in some cases. It was hypothesized that the CACC may have amplified transient platooning events relative to the individual truck baseline results, hampering the potential energy savings. Therefore, the impact of the controller on the observed driving style was analyzed in detail. In order to quantify the transient operational characteristics of the experimental trials, metrics from the European Real Driving Emissions (RDE) legislation were modified to serve as metrics of aggressiveness during platooning. The metrics (v · apos)95 and Relative Positive Acceleration (RPA) were calculated for platooning and non-platooning runs. These results indicate that the CACC induces small acceleration events during platooning to retain the commanded longitudinal separation between vehicles. These small acceleration events increase following vehicle aggressiveness during platooning and prevent the following vehicles from obtaining maximum energy savings. Moreover, a correlation between the RDE metric (v · apos)95 and energy savings is developed. Hence, this work establishes the ability of RDE metrics to assess CACC impacts on platoon energy savings.

European Real Driving Emissions, RDE, greenhouse g↗

Optimal Dynamic Sub-Threshold Technique for Extreme Low Power Consumption for VLSI

For miniaturization of electronics systems, power consumption plays a key role in the realm of constraints. Considering the very large scale integration (VLSI) design aspect, as transistor feature size is decreased to 50 nm and below, there is sizable increase in the number of transistors as more functional building blocks are embedded in the same chip. However, the consequent increase in power consumption (dynamic and leakage) will serve as a key constraint to inhibit the advantages of transistor feature size reduction. Power consumption can be reduced by minimizing the voltage supply (for dynamic power consumption) and/or increasing threshold voltage (V(sub th), for reducing leakage power). When the feature size of the transistor is reduced, supply voltage (V(sub dd)) and threshold voltage (V(sub th)) are also reduced accordingly; then, the leakage current becomes a bigger factor of the total power consumption. To maintain low power consumption, operation of electronics at sub-threshold levels can be a potentially strong contender; however, there are two obstacles to be faced: more leakage current per transistor will cause more leakage power consumption, and slow response time when the transistor is operated in weak inversion region. To enable low power consumption and yet obtain high performance, the CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) transistor as a basic element is viewed and controlled as a four-terminal device: source, drain, gate, and body, as differentiated from the traditional approach with three terminals: i.e., source and body, drain, and gate. This technique features multiple voltage sources to supply the dynamic control, and uses dynamic control to enable low-threshold voltage when the channel (N or P) is active, for speed response enhancement and high threshold voltage, and when the transistor channel (N or P) is inactive, to reduce the leakage current for low-leakage power consumption.

Duong, Tuan A.↗

The Challenge of Disproportionate Importance of Temporal Features in Predicting HPC Power Consumption

In this work, we demonstrate the challenges in predicting HPC cluster power consumption in the face of significant temporal skew in power consumption behavioral patterns. Predicting large power swings that extend several megawatts has significant operational value for HPC centers, however, prediction is challenging due to the relative rarity of such events and also due to the abrupt or disjoint deviation from the average power consumption levels. To study the impact of this challenge, we have trained a recurrent neural network (RNN) as a reasonably sophisticated model to predict power consumption of the one-year worth of node power consumption data from the Summit supercomputer located in the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. By studying the prediction results, we have found that although simple usage of RNN models can provide good results on average power consumption levels, it would fail at predicting the power swings that have more operational value. With such results, we discuss potential next steps in addressing such issues aiming towards a robust usage of power prediction techniques in HPC operations.

Li, Chengcheng↗

Low power consumption current transducer

A low power consumption current transducer utilizes a saturable core reactor which includes a pair of opposed gate windings and a control winding. The control winding of the saturable reactor is arranged to receive the current to be measured. A square wave generator is connected to the gate winding of the transformer connected across the square wave generator and the secondary connected in series with the gate windings of the reactor. A full wave rectifier is connected to the gate windings and a resistor is connected across the rectifier to provide a DC voltage to cross it representative of the current flow through the control winding. A DC power supply is provided to supply power to the square wave voltage source. A diode is connected between each end of the primary winding of the transformer and one polarity of the DC power supply to commutate the reactive current resulting from the counter emf generated in the reactor back to the DC supply to eliminate potentially damaging reactive voltage spikes which would otherwise appear at the output of the square wave generator and conserve energy.

W T McLyman↗

Progress Toward Accurate Measurements of Power Consumptions of DBD Plasma Actuators

The accurate measurement of power consumption by Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma actuators is a challenge due to the characteristics of the actuator current signal. Micro-discharges generate high-amplitude, high-frequency current spike transients superimposed on a low-amplitude, low-frequency current. We have used a high-speed digital oscilloscope to measure the actuator power consumption using the Shunt Resistor method and the Monitor Capacitor method. The measurements were performed simultaneously and compared to each other in a time-accurate manner. It was found that low signal-to-noise ratios of the oscilloscopes used, in combination with the high dynamic range of the current spikes, make the Shunt Resistor method inaccurate. An innovative, nonlinear signal compression circuit was applied to the actuator current signal and yielded excellent agreement between the two methods. The paper describes the issues and challenges associated with performing accurate power measurements. It provides insights into the two methods including new insight into the Lissajous curve of the Monitor Capacitor method. Extension to a broad range of parameters and further development of the compression hardware will be performed in future work.

Ashpis, David E.↗

System and method for monitoring power consumption to detect malware

A system and method (referred to as the system) detects malware, viruses, and/or malicious activity by generating a direct current source power consumption profile by causing a monitored device to execute a fully automated recurrent software operation. The system receives by an automated detection system, the direct current source power consumption profile generated by an intelligent power sensor and generates by a detection engine, a power security profile that identifies suspicious code by profiling direct current consumed by monitored type devices. The system executes a detection engine remote from the monitored device that identifies an infected device.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Regrowth-Free Mid-Infrared Distributed Feedback Quantum Cascade Lasers with Sub-Watt Power Consumption

We report on room-temperature, continuous-wave operation of single-mode quantum cascade lasers designed for minimal threshold power consumption in the 4 to 10 µm spectral range. Narrow-ridge distributed feedback lasers were developed with plasma-etched sidewall corrugations and infrared-transparent dielectric cladding, enabling fabrication without any epitaxial steps beyond the initial growth of the planar laser wafer. The devices exhibit single-mode emission with stable, mode-hop-free tuning and side-mode suppression greater than 25 dB. We demonstrate packaged single-mode devices with continuous-wave threshold power consumption near 1 W above room temperature.

infrared absorption spectroscopy↗

Gated ring oscillator with constant dynamic power consumption

A pure digital ring oscillator with constant power consumption as oscillation frequency is adjusted. Circuit topology includes a multiplexer implemented in NAND gates and a delay element positioned after a path selection NAND gate of that multiplexer such that delay element transistors may not toggle if the non-delaying signal path is selected. Assuming a delay element oscillation frequency f and a total capacitance C, and also assuming a plurality N of delay gates each characterized by a propagation delay t1 and a capacitance C1 such that C=C1*N, the ring oscillator of the present invention is characterized by a C value that is proportional to N and an f value that is inversely proportional to N. Furthermore, each of the N delay gates as well as the input and output gates of the multiplexer are characterized by a common capacitance-to-propagation delay ratio=C1/t1.

Wu, Jinyuan↗

Gated ring oscillator with constant dynamic power consumption

A pure digital ring oscillator with constant power consumption as oscillation frequency is adjusted. Circuit topology includes a multiplexer implemented in NAND gates and a delay element positioned after a path selection NAND gate of that multiplexer such that delay element transistors may not toggle if the non-delaying signal path is selected. Assuming a delay element oscillation frequency f and a total capacitance C, and also assuming a plurality N of delay gates each characterized by a propagation delay t1 and a capacitance C1 such that C=C1*N, the ring oscillator of the present invention is characterized by a C value that is proportional to N and an f value that is inversely proportional to N. Furthermore, each of the N delay gates as well as the input and output gates of the multiplexer are characterized by a common capacitance-to-propagation delay ratio=C1/t1.

Wu, Jinyuan↗

On the minimization of the prime power consumption of a coupling-modulated gas laser transmitter

The prime power requirements of a coupling-modulated gas laser transmitter are presented. The latter consists of a gas discharge tube and electro-optic modulator inside a laser resonator. In performing the calculations, the laser discharge length and the modulator voltage are simultaneously varied so that the transmitted power remains constant. In this way, tradeoffs can be made between the prime power supplied individually to the discharge tube and to the modulator driver to obtain a transmitter configuration which minimizes the total prime power consumption. An analytical expression is derived which describes the effects of information bandwidth and transmitter output power on the prime power requirements. Specific numerical results are obtained for a CO2 laser transmitter based on presently available experimental data.

Degnan, J. J.↗

Wind Tunnel Testing of Static Aerodynamic and Power Consumption Characteristics of an Octocopter

The introduction of multirotor unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in low-altitude airspace poses significant safety challenges. Further development of advanced aviation systems is needed to realize the full potential of UAS applications, particularly for urban and beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations. The NASA System Wide Safety (SWS) project is developing key technologies to mitigate future airspace safety risks involving autonomous aircraft operation in densely populated areas. An important part of these technologies requires flight dynamics and performance models to assess feasible trajectories, power consumption requirements, and operational envelope limitations. To support these efforts, this research seeks to improve the accuracy of multirotor aerodynamic models and investigate stability characteristics relevant to flight safety. This paper presents a recent study of an octocopter vehicle using the NASA Langley 12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel (LST). Results from isolated-airframe (no propellers) and powered-airframe tests are presented. A one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) approach was used to explore the effect of propeller advance ratio and vehicle angle of attack on vehicle forces, moments, and power consumption. The results show nonlinear aerodynamic behavior and indicate regions where aerodynamic interaction effects may be significant.

George V. Altamirano↗

Minimization of the prime power consumption of a coupling-modulated gas laser transmitter

The present article addresses itself to the prime power requirements of a coupling-modulated gas laser transmitter. The latter consists of a gas discharge tube and electrooptic modulator inside a laser resonator. In performing the calculations, the laser discharge length and the modulator voltage are simultaneously varied so that the transmitted power remains constant. In this way, tradeoffs can be made between the prime power supplied individually to the discharge tube and to the modulator driver to obtain a transmitter configuration that minimizes the total prime power consumption. An analytical expression is derived that describes the effects of information bandwidth and transmitter output power on the prime power requirements. Specific numerical results are obtained for a CO2 laser transmitter based on presently available experimental data.

Degnan, J. J.↗

The MURAVES muon telescope: a low power consumption muon tracker for muon radiography applications

Muon Radiography or muography is based on the measurement of the absorption or scattering of cosmic muons, as they pass through the interior of large scale bodies, In particular, absorption muography has been applied to investigate the presence of hidden cavities inside the pyramids or underground, as well as the interior of volcanoes’ edifices. The MURAVES project has the challenging aim of investigating the density distribution inside the summit of Mt. Vesuvius. The information, together with that coming from gravimetric measurements, is useful as input to models, to predict how an eruption may develop. The MURAVES apparatus is a robust and low power consumption muon telescope consisting of an array of three identical and independent muon trackers, which provide in a modular way a total sensitive area of three square meters. Each tracker consists of four doublets of planes of plastic scintillator bars with orthogonal orientation, optically coupled to Silicon photomultipliers for the readout of the signal. The muon telescope has been installed on the slope of the volcano and has collected a first set of data, which are being analyzed.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Analysis of Handling Qualities and Power Consumption for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) eVTOL Quadrotors with Degraded Heave Disturbance Rejection and Control Response

A piloted handling qualities study of urban air mobility (UAM) electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) quadrotors was performed utilizing the Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS) facility at NASA Ames Research Center. Rotor speed and variable pitch-controlled variants of a six-passenger conceptual design vehicle were assessed with different levels of degradation to control response and disturbance rejection bandwidth (DRB) in the heave axis. In previous work, preliminary trends across several handling quality rating categories reflected the effects of these degradations. Additionally, the impact of using different test standards and turbulence on the ratings were discussed. This paper elaborates on those results, but also provides insight into unexpected trends observed during the study including: a disharmony in attitude response, subpar ratings for the baseline Level 1 performance vehicle, and excessive drift and yaw couplings observed in a lateral reposition maneuver. Moreover, shortcomings of the handling quality scales and comparisons of power consumption among the vehicles in the various test conditions are presented.

Handling Qualities↗