Autonomous Assessment and Predictive Capabilities for Low-Altitude Urban Flight Operations

The integration of unmanned aerial vehicles in the national airspace will introduce new vehicle types, technologies, and operational paradigms for which safety must be maintained and hazards mitigated. One approach is to attempt to design for possible hazards and unsafe incidents that can occur at different phases of flight (pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight) and during ground operations. Another is to mitigate safety incidents by implementing changes to policies, procedures, regulations, and design to cover personnel, equipment, and aircraft during operations. These and other techniques, not described herein, are typically conservative or adhoc in that they reduce the likelihood of risk after safety incidents have occurred. In this work, the goal is to develop a more predictive capability to monitor and mitigate risk and hazards to safety in-time enough for decisions to be made. In line with NASAs Aeronautics Mission Directorate Strategic Thrust 5 [1] (In-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance), the System-Wide Safety (SWS) project under which this work falls, is developing and demonstrating innovative and safety-oriented solutions that enable modernization and aviation transformation. To that effect, this work will detail data-driven efforts on the SWS project to develop a number of safety-critical services for in-time monitoring and mitigation of hazards to low-altitude flight operations. First, hazards to these operations are identified based on previous work by NASA [2,3] and others in the aerospace industry. These hazards include (i) unsafe proximity to other vehicles, property, and people on the ground, (ii) critical system failures such as communication signal/GPS loss, unexpected propulsion system degradation, engine/power failure, and (iii) operational/environmental issues such as severe weather and gusty winds. For these hazards, safety metrics, which can be quantified and assessed are defined, models to monitor and predict them are developed, and flight test data is generated to develop, validate, and test these models, considering the complex interplay of the different hazards that define them [4-6]. In addition, the uncertainty in the non-deterministic effects that cannot be modeled nor predicted and unknown unknowns that arise after design/testing and during operations must be handled in rigorous manner. As a result, for each of the developed safety metrics, their dependencies on one another are characterized and a framework for handling the uncertainties inherent in the modeling, algorithms, and measurements required for prediction is also developed [7]. To that effect, this presentation will describe the safety metrics and services already developed and underway under the System-Wide Safety project that utilize data-driven techniques for the identification of anomalies, precursors, and trends (APTs) to monitor and mitigate hazards to safety, in-time, for urban flight operations in low-altitude airspace

Transformation of independent variables in polynomial regression models

In representing a relationship between a response and a number of independent variables, it is preferable when possible to work with a simple functional form in transformed variables rather than with a more complicated form in the original variables. In this paper, it is shown that linear transformations applied to independent variables in polynomial regression models affect the t ratio and hence the statistical significance for certain parameters of the polynomial regression models

Transformation of independent variables in polynominal regression models

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Where Should it Fly?

The proposed research will determine the optimum relative locations for any pair of aircraft to fly in an extended formation and achieve fuel savings of up to 10%, saving the U.S. airline industry billions of dollars in aviation fuel costs

Bubble CPAP in Nigerian tertiary hospitals; Patented and improvised

Introduction: Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is simple and effective new-born respiratory support. Early use reduces neonatal mortality. Given the high cost of the patented CPAP machines improvised CPAP devices are being used in resource poor settings.Objectives: To ascertain the availability of CPAP devises, its use, and the types used in Nigerian tertiary hospitals.Materials and methods: Ethical clearance and informed consent of respondents were obtained. The questionnaire surveyed the availability of the CPAP, training on provision of respiratory support and device and was administered to consenting participants at the 2015 Paediatric Association of Nigeria conference.Results: 237 questionnaires were returned by respondents representing 54 health facilities from six geopolitical regions of Nigeria. CPAP devise was used in 72% of the evaluated facilities. These were mostly public (87%) tertiary hospitals (76%). Supplemental oxygen (37.6%) was the commonest mode of respiratory support followed distantly by CPAP (3.4%). Improvised CPAP training had been undertaken by 51% but the device was used by 47.7% of the respondents. Only 25.3% of the respondents had patented machines located in 33% of the facilities.Conclusion: The use of patented and improvised CPAP services is high among respondents at the public tertiary health facilities. CPAP services should urgently be taken to lower levels of health care so as to reduce neonatal deaths.Keywords: Bubble CPAP; Nigerian tertiary; Patented; Improvise

Effect of acute hyperglycemia on clotting time and relative plasma viscosity (RPV) during menstruation

Menstruating females seem to bleed more when they ingest sugar or sugar containing substances. This study was carried out to determine the effect of acute hyperglycemia on clotting time and relative plasma viscosity during menstruation. Forty menstruating females from the St. Philomena School of Midwifery, Benin, Nigeria volunteered for the study. following ethical approval from St. Philomena Catholic Hospital, blood samples were collected from the ante cubital vein; pre-ingestion, one hour and two hours post ingestion of glucose concentrations (39 g/200ml, 78 g/200ml). Fasting blood samples and post glucose ingestion blood samples were analyzed for Sugar, Clotting time and Relative Plasma Viscosity (RPV) using Standard laboratory methods. Results were analyzed with paired t-test and values of p<0.05 were considered statistically significant. The result showed a statistically significant increase (p<0.05) in clotting time and a decrease in relative plasma viscosity (p<0.05) one hour after the intake of both glucose concentrations. Two hours after glucose intake, there was a decrease in clotting time towards the baseline and an increase in RPV towards the baseline. This study thus suggests that acute hyperglycemia increases clotting time and reduced RPV in menstruating girls. This may be the reason for the perceived sense of increased menstrual flow.© 2015 International Formulae Group. All rights reserved.Keywords: Clotting time, Relative Plasma Viscosity (RPV), menstruation, blood suga

Pterodactyl: Development and Evaluation of Control Designs for a Mechanically Deployed Entry Vehicle

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Pterodactyl: Control System Demonstrator Development for Integrated Control Design of a Mechanically Deployed Entry Vehicle

The NASA-funded Pterodactyl project is a design, test, and build capability to (i) advance the current state of the art for Deployable Entry Vehicle (DEV) guidance and control (G&C), and (ii) determine the feasibility of control system integration for various entry vehicle types including those without aeroshells. This capability is currently being used to develop control systems for one such unconventional entry vehicle, the Lifting Nano-ADEPT (LNA) vehicle. ADEPT offers the possibility of integrating control systems directly onto the mechanically deployed structure and building hardware demonstrators will help assess integration and design challenges. Control systems based on aerodynamic control surfaces, mass movement, and reaction control systems (RCS) are currently being investigated for a down-select to the most suitable control architecture for the LNA.To that effect, in this submission, we detail the efforts of the Pterodactyl project to develop a series of hardware demonstrators for the different LNA control systems. Rapid prototypes, for a set of quarter- model or eighth-model vehicle segments, will be developed for all three architectures to validate mechanical design assumptions, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIWL) control approaches. A ground test control system demonstrator will be designed and built after the trade study is complete. The industrial-grade demonstrator will be designed so that it can be incorporated into a HWIL simulation to further validate the findings of the initial trade study. The HWIL simulation will leverage the iPAS environment developed at NASA's Johnson Space Center which facilitates integration testing to support technology maturation and risk reduction, necessary elements for the hardware demonstration development detailed in this paper

“Let there be No Quarrel among Us” (Genesis 13:8-9): Using Abraham’s Model for Restructuring in Nigeria

Nigeria is blessed with so many natural resources which are the principal sources of income through which she is sustained. Disparity in the income so generated has been posing a serious challenge to almost every Nigerian administration on the ratio for its sharing, hence  becoming a major problem and challenge affecting federal practice in Nigeria. The problem of resource control and restructuring so noticed has been as a result of disagreement within the three tiers of government of which no one seems to accept to sacrifice some pleasures in order to ensure that peace is attained. It will be germane to posit that for there to be a restructuring in Nigeria that will be effectively sustained and generally satisfactory, the Abraham’s model must be adopted who gave Lot his nephew the opportunity to choose from the best part of the vast arable land so that there may be no quarrel among them. In this regard therefore, Abraham is seen as a leader who is endowed with virtues of love, peace, selflessness and sacrifice and must be emulated by Nigeria leaders if restructuring will be achieved. This work adopts a sociological method and will be theoretically framed with relative deprivation theory. The paper observes that there has been tussle within the tiers of government on the sharing formula which has not been generally accepted. Secondly, it discovers that there has been agitations by the host states on resource control and restructuring which is not workable for the federal government, it goes on to observe that Abraham’s model could help to solve the problem if the federal government assumes the role of Abraham by allowing producing states to determine the percentage of the allocation. It finally observes that there has been lack of a leader who has the vision and willingness to handle the problem once and for all which has made the problems to continue lingering. The paper therefore recommends that the tiers of government should be willing to make sacrifices in order to ensure a harmonious and peaceful co-existence. The work also recommends the need for visionary and selfless leaders who will sincerely tackle and implement true and acceptable federalism for the good of the common man

Pterodactyl: Control Architectures Development for Integrated Control Design of a Mechanically Deployed Entry Vehicle

The need to return high mass payloads is driving the development of a new class of vehicles, Deployable Entry Vehicles (DEV) for which feasible and optimized control architectures have not been developed. The Pterodactyl project, seeks to advance the current state-of-the-art for entry vehicles by developing a design, test, and build capability for DEVs that can be applied to various entry vehicle configurations. This paper details the efforts on the NASA-funded Pterodactyl project to investigate multiple control techniques for the Lifting Nano-ADEPT (LNA) DEV. We design and implement multiple control architectures on the LNA and evaluate their performance in achieving varying guidance commands during entry.First we present an overview of DEVs and the Lifting Nano-ADEPT (LNA), along with the physical LNA configuration that influences the different control designs. Existing state-of-the-art for entry vehicle control is primarily propulsive as reaction control systems (RCS) are widely employed. In this work, we analyze the feasibility of using both propulsive control systems such as RCS to generate moments, and non-propulsive control systems such as aerodynamic control surfaces and internal moving mass actuations to shift the LNA center of gravity and generate moments. For these diverse control systems, we design different multi-input multi-output (MIMO) state-feedback integral controllers based on linear quadratic regulator (LQR) optimal control methods. The control variables calculated by the controllers vary, depending on the control system being utilized and the outputs to track for the controller are either the (i) bank angle or the (ii) angle of attack and sideslip angle as determined by the desired guidance trajectory. The LQR control design technique allows the relative allocation of the control variables through the choice of the weighting matrices in the cost index. Thus, it is easy to (i) specify which and how much of a control variable to use, and (ii) utilize one control design for different control architectures by simply modifying the choice of the weighting matrices.By providing a comparative analysis of multiple control systems, configurations, and performance, this paper and the Pterodactyl project as a whole will help entry vehicle system designers and control systems engineers determine suitable control architectures for integration with DEVs and other entry vehicle types