2,442 research outputs found
NASA guidelines on report literature
NASA seeks for inclusion in its Scientific and Technical Information System research reports, conference proceedings, meeting papers, monographs, and doctoral and post graduate theses which relate to the NASA mission and objectives. Topics of interest to NASA are presented
NASA aerospace database subject scope: An overview
Outlined here is the subject scope of the NASA Aerospace Database, a publicly available subset of the NASA Scientific and Technical (STI) Database. Topics of interest to NASA are outlined and placed within the framework of the following broad aerospace subject categories: aeronautics, astronautics, chemistry and materials, engineering, geosciences, life sciences, mathematical and computer sciences, physics, social sciences, space sciences, and general. A brief discussion of the subject scope is given for each broad area, followed by a similar explanation of each of the narrower subject fields that follow. The subject category code is listed for each entry
Bioinspired engineering of exploration systems for NASA and DoD
A new approach called bioinspired engineering of exploration systems (BEES) and its value for solving pressing NASA and DoD needs are described. Insects (for example honeybees and dragonflies) cope remarkably well with their world, despite possessing a brain containing less than 0.01% as many neurons as the human brain. Although most insects have immobile eyes with fixed focus optics and lack stereo vision, they use a number of ingenious, computationally simple strategies for perceiving their world in three dimensions and navigating successfully within it. We are distilling selected insect-inspired strategies to obtain novel solutions for navigation, hazard avoidance, altitude hold, stable flight, terrain following, and gentle deployment of payload. Such functionality provides potential solutions for future autonomous robotic space and planetary explorers. A BEES approach to developing lightweight low-power autonomous flight systems should be useful for flight control of such biomorphic flyers for both NASA and DoD needs. Recent biological studies of mammalian retinas confirm that representations of multiple features of the visual world are systematically parsed and processed in parallel. Features are mapped to a stack of cellular strata within the retina. Each of these representations can be efficiently modeled in semiconductor cellular nonlinear network (CNN) chips. We describe recent breakthroughs in exploring the feasibility of the unique blending of insect strategies of navigation with mammalian visual search, pattern recognition, and image understanding into hybrid biomorphic flyers for future planetary and terrestrial applications. We describe a few future mission scenarios for Mars exploration, uniquely enabled by these newly developed biomorphic flyers
LeggedWalking on Inclined Surfaces
The main contribution of this MS Thesis is centered around taking steps
towards successful multi-modal demonstrations using Northeastern's
legged-aerial robot, Husky Carbon. This work discusses the challenges involved
in achieving multi-modal locomotion such as trotting-hovering and
thruster-assisted incline walking and reports progress made towards overcoming
these challenges. Animals like birds use a combination of legged and aerial
mobility, as seen in Chukars' wing-assisted incline running (WAIR), to achieve
multi-modal locomotion. Chukars use forces generated by their flapping wings to
manipulate ground contact forces and traverse steep slopes and overhangs.
Husky's design takes inspiration from birds such as Chukars. This MS thesis
presentation outlines the mechanical and electrical details of Husky's legged
and aerial units. The thesis presents simulated incline walking using a
high-fidelity model of the Husky Carbon over steep slopes of up to 45 degrees.Comment: Masters thesi
Optimal low-thrust trajectories to asteroids through an algorithm based on differential dynamic programming
In this paper an optimisation algorithm based on Differential Dynamic Programming is applied to the design of rendezvous and fly-by trajectories to near Earth objects. Differential dynamic programming is a successive approximation technique that computes a feedback control law in correspondence of a fixed number of decision times. In this way the high dimensional problem characteristic of low-thrust optimisation is reduced into a series of small dimensional problems. The proposed method exploits the stage-wise approach to incorporate an adaptive refinement of the discretisation mesh within the optimisation process. A particular interpolation technique was used to preserve the feedback nature of the control law, thus improving robustness against some approximation errors introduced during the adaptation process. The algorithm implements global variations of the control law, which ensure a further increase in robustness. The results presented show how the proposed approach is capable of fully exploiting the multi-body dynamics of the problem; in fact, in one of the study cases, a fly-by of the Earth is scheduled, which was not included in the first guess solution
Parallel algorithms for computation of the manipulator inertia matrix
The development of an O(log2N) parallel algorithm for the manipulator inertia matrix is presented. It is based on the most efficient serial algorithm which uses the composite rigid body method. Recursive doubling is used to reformulate the linear recurrence equations which are required to compute the diagonal elements of the matrix. It results in O(log2N) levels of computation. Computation of the off-diagonal elements involves N linear recurrences of varying-size and a new method, which avoids redundant computation of position and orientation transforms for the manipulator, is developed. The O(log2N) algorithm is presented in both equation and graphic forms which clearly show the parallelism inherent in the algorithm
Entropic Lattice Boltzmann Method for Moving and Deforming Geometries in Three Dimensions
Entropic lattice Boltzmann methods have been developed to alleviate intrinsic
stability issues of lattice Boltzmann models for under-resolved simulations.
Its reliability in combination with moving objects was established for various
laminar benchmark flows in two dimensions in our previous work Dorschner et al.
[11] as well as for three dimensional one-way coupled simulations of
engine-type geometries in Dorschner et al. [12] for flat moving walls. The
present contribution aims to fully exploit the advantages of entropic lattice
Boltzmann models in terms of stability and accuracy and extends the methodology
to three-dimensional cases including two-way coupling between fluid and
structure, turbulence and deformable meshes. To cover this wide range of
applications, the classical benchmark of a sedimenting sphere is chosen first
to validate the general two-way coupling algorithm. Increasing the complexity,
we subsequently consider the simulation of a plunging SD7003 airfoil at a
Reynolds number of Re = 40000 and finally, to access the model's performance
for deforming meshes, we conduct a two-way coupled simulation of a
self-propelled anguilliform swimmer. These simulations confirm the viability of
the new fluid-structure interaction lattice Boltzmann algorithm to simulate
flows of engineering relevance.Comment: submitted to Journal of Computational Physic
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