NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

Proceedings of the Caltech Conference on Very Large Scale Integration, held at the California Institute of Technology 22 - 24 January 1979 ; Organized by the Caltech Computer Science Department and the Caltech Industrial Associates Office

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Integrated Circuit Design for Miniaturized, Trackable, Ultrasound Based Biomedical Implants

This thesis focuses on the design of an ultrasonography compatible implantable sensor platform, as a novel approach that implements a miniaturized, battery-less, real-time trackable parallel biosensing system. In addition to the frontend circuit, a sub-nW fully integrated pH sensor is designed in a way that can be easily integrated with the proposed sonography-compatible sensor platform. Combining the two integrated circuits together, the whole system will be able to map in vivo physiological information acquired from a distributed set of sensors on top of the ultrasound movie, leading to the idea envisioned as “augmented ultrasonography”. Implemented in a 0.18 μm technology, an ultrasound power and data frontend circuit is designed to enable medical sensing implants to operate in an ultrasonography compatible way. When placed within the field of view of an imaging transducer, the frontend circuit harvests the power through a piece of piezo crystal from a minimally modified brightness-mode (B-mode) ultrasound imaging process that is commonly adopted in modern medical practices. The implant can also establish bi-directional data communication channels with the imaging transducer, allowing data to be transmitted in a way synchronized to the frame rate of the B-mode film. The design of the circuit is made possible by a combination of ultra-low-power circuit techniques and novel frontend circuit topologies, as imaging ultrasound waves in the form of short pulses with extremely low duty cycle poses challenges that has not previously seen in other implantable sensor systems. The proposed prototype achieves a total area of 0.6mm² for the integrated circuit (IC), as well as 71mm theoretical maximum implantable depth (up to 40 mm is verified experimentally). These two together give opportunities for this design to become the next generation solution for deep-tissue bio-sensing implants. Realized using the same 0.18 μm technology, the fully integrated pH sensor is designed to deliver accurate pH readouts, at a reasonable speed of 1 sample per second, while consuming only 0.72 nW of power. Using an ion-sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET) and reference field effect transistor pair (REFET), the IC requires minimum additional post fabrication to deliver 10-bit resolution pH readouts at an end-to-end sensitivity of 65.8 LSB/pH. When working as a standalone device, this work advances the state-of-the-art of ISFET based pH sensor design. With an addition of 0.46 mm² of area, it is possible to integrate it with the ultrasound sonography compatible implant platform. This potential integration will further advance the vision of the augmented ultrasonography: real-time display of physiological information in a B-mode film, with the help from a distributed bio-sensor system for deep-tissue physiology monitoring

The impact of decentral dispatching strategies on the performance of intralogistics transport systems

This thesis focuses on control strategies for intralogistics transport systems. It evaluates how switching from central to decentral dispatching approaches influences the performance of these systems. Many ideas and prototypes for implementing decentral control have been suggested by the scientific community. But usually only the qualitative advantages of this new paradigm are stated. The impact on the performance is not quantified and analyzed. Additionally, decentral control is often confused with distributed algorithms or uses the aggregation of local to global information. In the case of the latter, the technological limitations due to the communication overhead are not considered. The decentral prototypes usually only focus on routing. This paper takes a step back and provides a generic simulation environment which can be used by other researchers to test and compare control strategies in the future. The test environment is used for developing four truly decentral dispatching strategies which work only based on local information. These strategies are compared to a central approach for controlling transportation systems. Input data from two real-world applications is used for a series of simulation experiments with three different layout complexities. Based on the simulation studies neither the central nor the decentral dispatching strategies show a universally superior performance. The results depend on the combination of input data set and layout scenario. The expected efficiency loss for the decentral approaches can be confirmed for stable input patterns. Regardless of the layout complexity the decentral strategies always need more vehicles to reach the performance level of the central control rule when these input characteristics are present. In the case of varying input data and high throughput the decentral strategies outperform the central approach in simple layouts. They require fewer vehicles and less vehicle movement to achieve the central performance. Layout simplicity makes the central dispatching strategy prone to undesired effects. The simple-minded decentral decision rules can achieve a better performance in this kind of environment. But only complex layouts are a relevant benchmark scenario for transferring decentral ideas to real-world applications. In such a scenario the decentral performance deteriorates while the layout-dependent influences on the central strategy become less relevant. This is true for both analyzed input data sets. Consequently, the decentral strategies require at least 36% to 53% more vehicles and 20% to 42% more vehicle movement to achieve the lowest central performance level. Therefore their usage can currently not be justified based on investment and operating costs. The characteristics of decentral systems limit their own performance. The restriction to local information leads to poor dispatching decisions which in return induce self-enforcing inefficiencies. In addition, the application of decentral strategies requires bigger storage location capacity. In several disturbance scenarios the decentral strategies perform fairly well and show their ability to adapt to changed environmental conditions. However, their performance after the disturbance remains in some cases unpredictable and relates to the properties of self-organizing complex systems. A real-world applicability has to be called into question

The 2004 NASA Faculty Fellowship Program Research Reports

This is the administrative report for the 2004 NASA Faculty Fellowship Program (NFFP) held at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) for the 40th consecutive year. The NFFP offers science and engineering faculty at U.S. colleges and universities hands-on exposure to NASA s research challenges through summer research residencies and extended research opportunities at participating NASA research Centers. During this program, fellows work closely with NASA colleagues on research challenges important to NASA's strategic enterprises that are of mutual interest to the fellow and the Center. The nominal starting and .nishing dates for the 10-week program were June 1 through August 6, 2004. The program was sponsored by NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, and operated under contract by The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Alabama A&M University. In addition, promotion and applications are managed by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and assessment is completed by Universities Space Research Association (USRA). The primary objectives of the NFFP are to: Increase the quality and quantity of research collaborations between NASA and the academic community that contribute to the Agency s space aeronautics and space science mission. Engage faculty from colleges, universities, and community colleges in current NASA research and development. Foster a greater public awareness of NASA science and technology, and therefore facilitate academic and workforce literacy in these areas. Strengthen faculty capabilities to enhance the STEM workforce, advance competition, and infuse mission-related research and technology content into classroom teaching. Increase participation of underrepresented and underserved faculty and institutions in NASA science and technology