NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

This document is a collection of technical reports on research conducted by the participants in the 1996 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This was the twelfth year that a NASA/ASEE program has been conducted at KSC. The 1996 program was administered by the University of Central Florida in cooperation with KSC. The program was operated under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) with sponsorship and funding from the Office of Educational Affairs, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC and KSC. The KSC Program was one of nine such Aeronautics and Space Research Program funded by NASA in 1996. The NASA/ASEE Program is intended to be a two-year program to allow in-depth research by the University faculty member. The editors of this document were responsible for selecting appropriately qualified faculty to address some of the many problems of current interest to NASA/KSC

1997 Research Reports: NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

This document is a collection of technical reports on research conducted by the participants in the 1997 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This was the 13th year that a NASA/ASEE program has been conducted at KSC. The 1997 program was administered by the University of Central Florida in cooperation with KSC. The program was operated under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) with sponsorship and funding from the Education Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., and KSC. The KSC Program was one of nine such Aeronautics and Space Research Programs funded by NASA in 1997. The NASA/ASEE Program is intended to be a two-year program to allow in-depth research by the university faculty member. The editors of this document were responsible for selecting appropriately qualified faculty to address some of the many problems of current interest to NASA/KSC

Space station data system analysis/architecture study. Task 2: Options development DR-5. Volume 1: Technology options

The second task in the Space Station Data System (SSDS) Analysis/Architecture Study is the development of an information base that will support the conduct of trade studies and provide sufficient data to make key design/programmatic decisions. This volume identifies the preferred options in the technology category and characterizes these options with respect to performance attributes, constraints, cost, and risk. The technology category includes advanced materials, processes, and techniques that can be used to enhance the implementation of SSDS design structures. The specific areas discussed are mass storage, including space and round on-line storage and off-line storage; man/machine interface; data processing hardware, including flight computers and advanced/fault tolerant computer architectures; and software, including data compression algorithms, on-board high level languages, and software tools. Also discussed are artificial intelligence applications and hard-wire communications

Third International Symposium on Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems, part 2

Under the theme of 'Opportunities in Ground Data Systems for High Efficiency Operations of Space Missions,' the SpaceOps '94 symposium included presentations of more than 150 technical papers spanning five topic areas: Mission Management, Operations, Data Management, System Development, and Systems Engineering. The symposium papers focus on improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of data acquisition, ground systems, and mission operations. New technology, methods, and human systems are discussed. Accomplishments are also reported in the application of information systems to improve data retrieval, reporting, and archiving; the management of human factors; the use of telescience and teleoperations; and the design and implementation of logistics support for mission operations. This volume covers expert systems, systems development tools and approaches, and systems engineering issues

Space station data system analysis/architecture study. Task 2: Options development, DR-5. Volume 2: Design options

The primary objective of Task 2 is the development of an information base that will support the conduct of trade studies and provide sufficient data to make key design/programmatic decisions. This includes: (1) the establishment of option categories that are most likely to influence Space Station Data System (SSDS) definition; (2) the identification of preferred options in each category; and (3) the characterization of these options with respect to performance attributes, constraints, cost and risk. This volume contains the options development for the design category. This category comprises alternative structures, configurations and techniques that can be used to develop designs that are responsive to the SSDS requirements. The specific areas discussed are software, including data base management and distributed operating systems; system architecture, including fault tolerance and system growth/automation/autonomy and system interfaces; time management; and system security/privacy. Also discussed are space communications and local area networking

A method of active system safety

The concept of Active Safety proposed originally by Prof Schagaev [3][4][5][6] can be applied to provide additional improvement in safety of a system over its operational lifecycle by continuous analysis and assessment of the state of the system in real time of its operation and reacting dynamically to improve its safety. This thesis develops the concept, theory and an implementation for a Method of Active System Safety (MASS) for application in the field of Aviation. The thesis has three parts: Part 1 researches the Aviation domain and current safety practices. General and Civil Aviation flight statistics are analysed to gain and understanding of flight risks, their causes and opportunities to improve safety. Current approaches to safety management are reviewed then the Principle of Active Safety (PASS) is introduced. Part 2 explores how PASS can be used as a basis for improving operational reliability, and so safety; the PASS algorithm is presented. A theoretical reliability model is then developed for the operational lifecycle of an aircraft and then conditional, preventive and PASS assisted maintenance strategies are evaluated. The beneficial effect of introducing PASS is then demonstrated at 2 levels: first during the lifecycle of use of an aircraft showing how apparent reliability can be improved and unnecessary maintenance reduced and second during each flight, using PASS to improve flight reliability. This uses an operational model (flight modes and limits) and a physical aircraft model (elements and fault detection) using dependency and recovery matrices. A means is proposed to provide timely and relevant safety advice based on continuous PASS analysis in real time of flight operations. A prototype implementation is described and a process proposed for characterisation of the system for a particular aircraft. The state of the art in Active Safety is reviewed and suggestions for further research are outlined. Part 3 contains supportive information in the Appendices. The contribution made to the knowledge of Active Safety is a theoretical and practical development of the concept in terms of aircraft classification, flight risk analysis, operational reliability modelling, fault analysis, the application of PASS in aviation and a system design for an Active Safety Monitor which operates in real time of flight

A grid computing framework for commercial simulation packages

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.An increased need for collaborative research among different organizations, together with continuing advances in communication technology and computer hardware, has facilitated the development of distributed systems that can provide users non-trivial access to geographically dispersed computing resources (processors, storage, applications, data, instruments, etc.) that are administered in multiple computer domains. The term grid computing or grids is popularly used to refer to such distributed systems. A broader definition of grid computing includes the use of computing resources within an organization for running organization-specific applications. This research is in the context of using grid computing within an enterprise to maximize the use of available hardware and software resources for processing enterprise applications. Large scale scientific simulations have traditionally been the primary benefactor of grid computing. The application of this technology to simulation in industry has, however, been negligible. This research investigates how grid technology can be effectively exploited by simulation practitioners using Windows-based commercially available simulation packages to model simulations in industry. These packages are commonly referred to as Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Simulation Packages (CSPs). The study identifies several higher level grid services that could be potentially used to support the practise of simulation in industry. It proposes a grid computing framework to investigate these services in the context of CSP-based simulations. This framework is called the CSP-Grid Computing (CSP-GC) Framework. Each identified higher level grid service in this framework is referred to as a CSP-specific service. A total of six case studies are presented to experimentally evaluate how grid computing technologies can be used together with unmodified simulation packages to support some of the CSP-specific services. The contribution of this thesis is the CSP-GC framework that identifies how simulation practise in industry may benefit from the use of grid technology. A further contribution is the recognition of specific grid computing software (grid middleware) that can possibly be used together with existing CSPs to provide grid support. With its focus on end-users and end-user tools, it is intended that this research will encourage wider adoption of grid computing in the workplace and that simulation users will derive benefit from using this technology

Smart Sensor Technologies for IoT

The recent development in wireless networks and devices has led to novel services that will utilize wireless communication on a new level. Much effort and resources have been dedicated to establishing new communication networks that will support machine-to-machine communication and the Internet of Things (IoT). In these systems, various smart and sensory devices are deployed and connected, enabling large amounts of data to be streamed. Smart services represent new trends in mobile services, i.e., a completely new spectrum of context-aware, personalized, and intelligent services and applications. A variety of existing services utilize information about the position of the user or mobile device. The position of mobile devices is often achieved using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chips that are integrated into all modern mobile devices (smartphones). However, GNSS is not always a reliable source of position estimates due to multipath propagation and signal blockage. Moreover, integrating GNSS chips into all devices might have a negative impact on the battery life of future IoT applications. Therefore, alternative solutions to position estimation should be investigated and implemented in IoT applications. This Special Issue, “Smart Sensor Technologies for IoT” aims to report on some of the recent research efforts on this increasingly important topic. The twelve accepted papers in this issue cover various aspects of Smart Sensor Technologies for IoT

One solution for TTEthernet synchronization analysis using genetic algorithm

Bezbjednosno-kritični sistemi poput aviona ili automobila zahtijevaju visoko-pouzdanu razmjenu poruka između uređaja u sistemu, što se postiže primjenom determinističkih mreža. Pravilno uspostavljanje međusobne usklađenosti časovnika, kao i konstantno održavanje vremenske usklađenosti, svrstavaju se među najbitnije aspekte determinističkih mreža među kojima su i TTEthernet mreže. Ukoliko časovnici mrežnih uređaja nisu vremenski usklađeni, deterministička razmjena poruka u mreži nije izvodljiva. S obzirom da se informacije o najkritičnijim funkcijama sistema prenose preko determinističke klase poruka, očigledno je da ovakvi servisi neće biti dostupni sve dok se časovnici ne usklade. Teza se bavi procjenom najgoreg slučaja vremena koje je potrebno da protekne da bi se časovnici mrežnih uređaja međusobno uskladili, u slučaju da u mreži postoji jedan uređaj pod otkazom. Procjene su vršene pomoću OMNeT++ simulacija uz primjenu genetskog algoritma. Simulacije pokazuju da se vrijeme neophodno da se uspostavi usklađenost časovnika u TTEthernet mreži značajno povećava pod uticajem uređaja pod otkazom, a samim tim se produžava i vrijeme nedostupnosti najkritičnijih servisa mreže. Simulacije pokazuju da se za mrežu posmatranu u tezi, za izabrane parametre mreže dobija procijenjena vrijednost medijane jednaka 489579μs za najgori slučaj uspostavljanja vremenske usklađenosti u mreži.Safety-critical systems like airplanes and cars demand high-reliable communication between components within the system, which is achieved by using deterministic networks. Proper establishing and maintenance of synchronization of device clocks in the network components represents one of crucial aspects in deterministic networks where belong TTEthernet as well. If device clocks are not synchronized, deterministic communication is not feasible. Keeping in mind that most critical information has been exchanged between the network components using deterministic traffic class, it is obvious that such services will not be available until the clocks in the network are synchronized. The thesis deals with estimation of worst-case startup time for observed TTEthernet network, in case that one device in the network is under failure. The estimation is performed by OMNeT++ simulations and using genetic algorithm. The simulations show that startup time of the network is extended significantly under impact of faulty component. Also, unavailability of most critical services in the network is extended for the same time. For the network simulated in this thesis, estimated median value equals 489579 μs for worst-case startup time