This is NASA

The organization, operations, functions, and objectives of NASA are outlined. Data include manned space flights, satellite weather observations, orbiting radio relays, and new views of the earth and beyond the earth as observed by satellites. Details of NASA's work in international programs, educational training programs, and adopting space technology to earth uses are also given

Bridge Inspection: Human Performance, Unmanned Aerial Systems and Automation

Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) have become of considerable private and commercial interest for a variety of jobs and entertainment in the past 10 years. This paper is a literature review of the state of practice for the United States bridge inspection programs and outlines how automated and unmanned bridge inspections can be made suitable for present and future needs. At its best, current technology limits UAS use to an assistive tool for the inspector to perform a bridge inspection faster, safer, and without traffic closure. The major challenges for UASs are satisfying restrictive Federal Aviation Administration regulations, control issues in a GPS-denied environment, pilot expenses and availability, time and cost allocated to tuning, maintenance, post-processing time, and acceptance of the collected data by bridge owners. Using UASs with self-navigation abilities and improving image-processing algorithms to provide results near real-time could revolutionize the bridge inspection industry by providing accurate, multi-use, autonomous three-dimensional models and damage identification

Autonomous Vehicle Coordination with Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

A coordinated team of mobile wireless sensor and actuator nodes can bring numerous benefits for various applications in the field of cooperative surveillance, mapping unknown areas, disaster management, automated highway and space exploration. This article explores the idea of mobile nodes using vehicles on wheels, augmented with wireless, sensing, and control capabilities. One of the vehicles acts as a leader, being remotely driven by the user, the others represent the followers. Each vehicle has a low-power wireless sensor node attached, featuring a 3D accelerometer and a magnetic compass. Speed and orientation are computed in real time using inertial navigation techniques. The leader periodically transmits these measures to the followers, which implement a lightweight fuzzy logic controller for imitating the leader's movement pattern. We report in detail on all development phases, covering design, simulation, controller tuning, inertial sensor evaluation, calibration, scheduling, fixed-point computation, debugging, benchmarking, field experiments, and lessons learned

Routing Unmanned Vehicles in GPS-Denied Environments

Most of the routing algorithms for unmanned vehicles, that arise in data gathering and monitoring applications in the literature, rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) information for localization. However, disruption of GPS signals either intentionally or unintentionally could potentially render these algorithms not applicable. In this article, we present a novel method to address this difficulty by combining methods from cooperative localization and routing. In particular, the article formulates a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem to plan routes for an unmanned vehicle in a GPS-restricted environment while enabling localization for the vehicle. We also develop algorithms to compute optimal paths for the vehicle using the proposed formulation. Extensive simulation results are also presented to corroborate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed formulation and algorithms.Comment: Publised in International Conference on Umanned Aerial System

The Comparison of Current Development, Technology and Governments’ Attitudes of Driverless Car at Home and Abroad

Driverless car, as a direction for future automobile development, greatly improves the efficiency and safety of the traffic system. It’s one of the most popular technical fields. In recent years, driverless car has developed rapidly. The related development is concerned by governments, businesses, consumers and stakeholders widely, and most of countries have been actively studying this technology. This paper first introduces the current development of driverless car at home and abroad. Besides, the basic technologies of driverless car are briefly analyzed. In addition, the author compares the American government’s attitudes with Chinese government’s attitudes towards driverless car. Specifically, the article makes an analysis of contents of literature and periodicals at home and abroad and policies and documents which have already been published. The analysis shows that there is no great difference between the attitudes of Chinese and American governments. Both of two governments actively support the development of driverless car. Finally, this paper expounds the development direction of the driverless car field in future by dividing into two categories through road conditions: automatic driving on expressways and automatic driving in cities

Information flow and cooperative control of vehicle formations

We consider the problem of cooperation among a collection of vehicles performing a shared task using intervehicle communication to coordinate their actions. Tools from algebraic graph theory prove useful in modeling the communication network and relating its topology to formation stability. We prove a Nyquist criterion that uses the eigenvalues of the graph Laplacian matrix to determine the effect of the communication topology on formation stability. We also propose a method for decentralized information exchange between vehicles. This approach realizes a dynamical system that supplies each vehicle with a common reference to be used for cooperative motion. We prove a separation principle that decomposes formation stability into two components: Stability of this is achieved information flow for the given graph and stability of an individual vehicle for the given controller. The information flow can thus be rendered highly robust to changes in the graph, enabling tight formation control despite limitations in intervehicle communication capability

In-vehicle technology for self-driving cars: Advantages and challenges for aging drivers

The development of self-driving cars or autonomous vehicles has progressed at an unanticipated pace. Ironically, the driver or the driver-vehicle interaction is a largely neglected factor in the development of enabling technologies for autonomous vehicles. Therefore, this paper discusses the advantages and challenges faced by aging drivers with reference to in-vehicle technology for self-driving cars, on the basis of findings of recent studies. We summarize age-related characteristics of sensory, motor, and cognitive functions on the basis of extensive age-related research, which can provide a familiar to better aging drivers. Furthermore, we discuss some key aspects that need to be considered, such as familar to learnability, acceptance, and net effectiveness of new in-vehicle technology, as addressed in relevant studies. In addition, we present research-based examples on aging drivers and advanced technology, including a holistic approach that is being developed by MIT AgeLab, advanced navigation systems, and health monitoring systems. This paper anticipates many questions that may arise owing to the interaction of autonomous technologies with an older driver population. We expect the results of our study to be a foundation for further developments toward the consideration of needs of aging drivers while designing self-driving vehicles.Korea (South). Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (Technology Innovation Program 1004761)Kookmin University. Faculty Research ProgramNew England University Transportation CenterSantos Family Foundatio