Study of robotics systems applications to the space station program

Applications of robotics systems to potential uses of the Space Station as an assembly facility, and secondarily as a servicing facility, are considered. A typical robotics system mission is described along with the pertinent application guidelines and Space Station environmental assumptions utilized in developing the robotic task scenarios. A functional description of a supervised dual-robot space structure construction system is given, and four key areas of robotic technology are defined, described, and assessed. Alternate technologies for implementing the more routine space technology support subsystems that will be required to support the Space Station robotic systems in assembly and servicing tasks are briefly discussed. The environmental conditions impacting on the robotic configuration design and operation are reviewed

Aeronautical Engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 155, December 1982

This bibliography lists 272 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in November 1982

Superconducting wireless power transfer for electric vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) are an important pillar for the transition towards a cleaner and more sustainable future as renewable energy can penetrate into the transportation section and act as energy storage to cope with the intermittent supply of such energy sources. EVs have recently been significantly developed in terms of both performance and drive range. Various models are already commercially available, and the number of EVs on roads increases rapidly. Rather than being limited by physical cable connections, the wireless (inductive) link creates the opportunity of dynamic charging – charging while driving. Once realised, EVs will no longer be limited by their achievable range and the requirement for battery capacity will be greatly reduced. However, wireless charging systems are limited in their transfer distance and power density. Such drawbacks can be alleviated through high-temperature superconductors (HTS) and their increased current carrying capacity, which can substitute conventionally used copper coils in the charging pads. This thesis investigates the effectiveness of wireless power transfer (WPT) systems as a whole and when HTS coils are used as well as HTS performance at operating frequencies commonly used in WPT-systems. Initially, the fundamentals of superconductivity are outlined to give some background on how such conductors can help tackle problems occurring in WPT-systems and how their behaviour can be simulated. Subsequently, key technical components of wireless charging are summarised and compared, such as compensation topologies, coil design and communication. In addition, health and safety concerns regarding wireless charging are addressed, as well as their relevant standards. Economically, the costs of a wide range of wireless charging systems has also been summarised and compared. To explore the benefits of WPT-system for EVs, a force-based vehicle model is coupled with an extended battery model to simulate the impact of wireless charging on the state of charge of the accumulator sub-system. In total, three different scenarios, i.e. urban, highway and combined driving are presented. The trade-off between having a standalone charging option versus combined dynamic (or on-road charging) and quasi-dynamic (stationary charging in a dynamic environment) wireless charging is outlined and minimum system requirements, such as charging power levels and road coverage, for unlimited range are established. Furthermore, the effects of external factors such as ambient temperature, battery age and wireless transfer efficiency are investigated. It is shown that employing combined charging at medium power levels is sufficient to achieve unlimited range compared to high power requirements for standalone charging. HTS coils show great potential to enhance the WPT-system performance with high current-carrying capability and extremely low losses under certain conditions. However, HTS coils exhibit highly nonlinear loss characteristics, especially at high frequencies (above 1 kHz), which negatively influence the overall system performance. To investigate the improvements, copper, HTS and hybrid wireless charging systems in the frequency range of 11-85 kHz are experimentally tested. Results are compared with finite element analysis (FEA) simulations, which have been combined with electrical circuit models for performance analysis. The measurements and modelling results show good agreement for the WPT-system and HTS charging systems have a much higher transfer efficiency than copper at frequencies below 50 kHz. As the operating frequency increases towards 100 kHz, the performance of HTS systems deteriorates and becomes comparable to copper systems. Similar results are obtained from hybrid systems with a mixture of HTS and copper coils, either as transmitting or receiving coils. Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated that HTS significantly improves the transfer efficiency of wireless charging within a certain range of frequencies. The AC losses occurring in HTS coils, particularly transport current loss, magnetisation loss and combined loss, at high frequencies are studied further. A multilayer 2D axisymmetric coil model based on H-formulation is proposed and validated by experimental results as the HTS film layer is inapplicable at such frequencies. Three of the most commonly employed coil configurations, namely: double pancake, solenoid and circular spiral are examined. While spiral coils experience the highest transport current loss, solenoid coils are subject to the highest magnetisation loss due to the overall distribution of the turns. Furthermore, a transition frequency is defined for each coil when losses in the copper layer exceed the HTS losses. It is much lower for coils due to the interactions between the different turns compared to single HTS tapes. At higher frequencies, the range of magnetic field densities, causing a shift where the highest losses occur, decreases until losses in the copper stabilisers always dominate. In addition, case studies investigating the suitability of HTS-WPT are proposed. Lastly, methods to reduce AC losses of HTS coils are investigated with particular focus on flux diverters, which have been used for low frequency superconducting applications but their effectiveness at high frequencies is unexplored. Therefore, the impact of flux diverters on HTS double pancake coils operating at high frequencies up to 85 kHz is researched. Various geometric characteristics of the flux diverter are investigated such as air gap between diverter and coil, width and thickness. An FEA-model was used to examine the coil and diverter losses at such frequencies and different load factors between 0.1 and 0.8. It is demonstrated that flux diverters are a viable option to reduce the coil losses even at high frequencies and the width of the coil has the biggest impact on the loss reduction. In general, flux diverters are more suitable for applications using high load factors. Lastly, the impact of the diverter in terms of magnetic field distribution above the coil and overall loss distribution in the HTS coil was examined

Special oils for halal and safe cosmetics

Three types of non conventional oils were extracted, analyzed and tested for toxicity. Date palm kernel oil (DPKO), mango kernel oil (MKO) and Ramputan seed oil (RSO). Oil content for tow cultivars of dates Deglect Noor and Moshkan was 9.67% and 7.30%, respectively. The three varieties of mango were found to contain about 10% oil in average. The red yellow types of Ramputan were found to have 11 and 14% oil, respectively. The phenolic compounds in DPKO, MKO and RSO were 0.98, 0.88 and 0.78 mg/ml Gallic acid equivalent, respectively. Oils were analyzed for their fatty acid composition and they are rich in oleic acid C18:1 and showed the presence of (dodecanoic acid) lauric acid C12:0, which reported to appear some antimicrobial activities. All extracted oils, DPKO, MKO and RSO showed no toxic effect using prime shrimp bioassay. Since these oils are stable, melt at skin temperature, have good lubricity and are great source of essential fatty acids; they could be used as highly moisturizing, cleansing and nourishing oils because of high oleic acid content. They are ideal for use in such halal cosmetics such as Science, Engineering and Technology 75 skin care and massage, hair-care, soap and shampoo products

NASA Tech Briefs, August 1994

Topics covered include: Computer Hardware; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences; Books and Reports

Seventh Annual Workshop on Space Operations Applications and Research (SOAR 1993), volume 1

This document contains papers presented at the Space Operations, Applications and Research Symposium (SOAR) Symposium hosted by NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC) on August 3-5, 1993, and held at JSC Gilruth Recreation Center. SOAR included NASA and USAF programmatic overview, plenary session, panel discussions, panel sessions, and exhibits. It invited technical papers in support of U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Department of Energy, NASA, and USAF programs in the following areas: robotics and telepresence, automation and intelligent systems, human factors, life support, and space maintenance and servicing. SOAR was concerned with Government-sponsored research and development relevant to aerospace operations. More than 100 technical papers, 17 exhibits, a plenary session, several panel discussions, and several keynote speeches were included in SOAR '93

Advances in Spacecraft Systems and Orbit Determination

"Advances in Spacecraft Systems and Orbit Determinations", discusses the development of new technologies and the limitations of the present technology, used for interplanetary missions. Various experts have contributed to develop the bridge between present limitations and technology growth to overcome the limitations. Key features of this book inform us about the orbit determination techniques based on a smooth research based on astrophysics. The book also provides a detailed overview on Spacecraft Systems including reliability of low-cost AOCS, sliding mode controlling and a new view on attitude controller design based on sliding mode, with thrusters. It also provides a technological roadmap for HVAC optimization. The book also gives an excellent overview of resolving the difficulties for interplanetary missions with the comparison of present technologies and new advancements. Overall, this will be very much interesting book to explore the roadmap of technological growth in spacecraft systems

Acetylcholine esterase as a possible marker for the detection of halal way of slaughtering

Introduction: Different methods of slaughtering are being practiced because of differences in religious guidelines and environmental issues (use of electricity) or convenience of handling etc. Variation in methods of slaughtering results in different conditions namely, release of varying amount of blood and different degree of movement of its body parts prior to death. These issues are related to the release of neurotransmitter (NT) at the neuro-muscular junction (NMJ) eventually is subject to be released from the body through the blood flow. Experimental design: Muscle samples from chicken in small pieces were collected immediately after slaughtering. Slaughtering was carried out using sharp knife. Two different conditions pertaining to the Islamic guidelines of slaughtering were investigated. such as whether the neck was severed (S+) or not (S-) from the body during slaughtering and whether the animal just after slaughtering was released (R+) or not (R-). The level of acetylecholine esterase mRNA involved in the degradation of acetylecholine, a NT at NMJ was investigated by RT-PCR. Results: The level of acetylecholine esterase mRNA was not detected in the sample obtained from the chicken slaughtered following Islamic guidelines i.e., neck should not be severed and body should be released just after the slaughtering (R+S-). Conclusions: Level of acetylcholine or acetylcholine esterase can be used as a biomarker to identify if the slaughtering is performed following Islamic guidelines

Calophyllum canum : antibacterial and anticancer plant

Human have used plants as a source of medicine throughout the world since time immemorial. Today there are at least 120 distinct chemical substances derived from plants that are considered as important drugs currently in use in one or more countries in the world. In particular, 60% drugs currently in clinical use for treatment of cancer were found to be of natural origin. Calophyllum canum is a large tree which grows in South East Asia and which is popular for its timber. This plant belongs to the family Guttiferae; a family that boasts species which are rich in bioactive phytochemicals. Some species are believed to having medicinal values and are used against several diseases including anti-inflammatory, anti infectious, astringent and antipyretic. We have successfully isolated two compounds from the methanol extract of Calophyllum canum stembarks that active inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 29213 and ATCC 25923). The cytotoxic study on the extracts revealed that the n-hexane extract had the strongest antiproliferation activity, followed by the methanol extract. n-hexane strongly inhibited the growth of TE1 and MCF7 cell lines. IC50 for n-hexane and methanol extract activity on the A549 cell line was found to be 27.96 μg/mL and 78.9 μg/mL respectively.The compounds (CE0 - CE5) isolated from ethyl acetate extract of C. canum are active to inhibit cell proliferation of human cervix adenocarcinoma cells

Proceedings of the Second International Mobile Satellite Conference (IMSC 1990)

Presented here are the proceedings of the Second International Mobile Satellite Conference (IMSC), held June 17-20, 1990 in Ottawa, Canada. Topics covered include future mobile satellite communications concepts, aeronautical applications, modulation and coding, propagation and experimental systems, mobile terminal equipment, network architecture and control, regulatory and policy considerations, vehicle antennas, and speech compression