Applying artificial intelligence to the control of space telescopes (extended abstract)

The field of astronomy has recently benefited from the availability of space telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), for instance, despite its problems, provides a unique and valuable view of the universe. However, unlike HST, a telescope need not be in low Earth orbit to escape our thickening atmosphere: it is currently technologically feasible to put a telescope on the moon, and there are excellent reasons for doing this. Either in low Earth orbit or on the moon, a space telescope represents an expensive and sought-after resource. Thus, the planning, scheduling, and control of these telescopes is an important problem that must be seriously studied

The APT/ERE planning and scheduling manifesto

The Entropy Reduction Engine, ERE project, is focusing on the construction of integrated planning and scheduling systems. Specifically, the project is studying the problem of integrating planning and scheduling in the context of the closed loop plan use. The results of this research are particularly relevant when there is some element of dynamism in the environment, and thus some chance that a previously formed plan will fail. After a preliminary study of the APT management and control problem, it was felt that it presents an excellent opportunity to show some of the ERE Project's technical results. Of course, the alignment between technology and problem is not perfect, so planning and scheduling for APTs presents some new and difficult challenges as well

A computer module used to calculate the horizontal control surface size of a conceptual aircraft design

The creation of a computer module used to calculate the size of the horizontal control surfaces of a conceptual aircraft design is discussed. The control surface size is determined by first calculating the size needed to rotate the aircraft during takeoff, and, second, by determining if the calculated size is large enough to maintain stability of the aircraft throughout any specified mission. The tail size needed to rotate during takeoff is calculated from a summation of forces about the main landing gear of the aircraft. The stability of the aircraft is determined from a summation of forces about the center of gravity during different phases of the aircraft's flight. Included in the horizontal control surface analysis are: downwash effects on an aft tail, upwash effects on a forward canard, and effects due to flight in close proximity to the ground. Comparisons of production aircraft with numerical models show good accuracy for control surface sizing. A modified canard design verified the accuracy of the module for canard configurations. Added to this stability and control module is a subroutine that determines one of the three design variables, for a stable vectored thrust aircraft. These include forward thrust nozzle position, aft thrust nozzle angle, and forward thrust split

Simple pressure gauge for uranium hexafluoride

A sensitive detector and pressure gauge for uranium hexafluoride in high‐vacuum systems is described. Negative surface ionization of UF_6 occurs on ribbon filaments operated at temperatures too low for electron emission to be significant. The ion current measured on a cylindrical collector surrounding the filament assembly varies regularly with UF_6 pressure below 10^(−3) Torr. Different filament materials are considered, including rhenium, thoriated tungsten, and platinum. Rhenium is found to be the most satisfactory material for operation of diode emitters as a pressure gauge. Gauge constants (in A Torr^(−1)) are derived from comparing negative surface ionization currents with the response of a capacitance manometer and are shown to be independent of temperature within a reasonable operating range. The effects of exposing the rhenium filament to various gases is considered, and it is shown that brief exposure to acetylene substantially improves the operating characteristics of the gauge

\u3ci\u3eAnthidium Oblongatum\u3c/i\u3e (Apoidea: Megachilidae) Confirmed as a Michigan Resident, with Notes on Other Michigan \u3ci\u3eAnthidium\u3c/i\u3e Species

The Palearctic wool-carder bee, Anthidium oblongatum (Illiger) is newly documented in Michigan, with vouchers from Kent, Washtenaw, and Wayne Counties. Additional Michigan records are provided for Anthidium manicatum (L.) and the native Anthidium psoraleae Robertson

Planning, scheduling, and control for automatic telescopes

This paper presents an argument for the appropriateness of Entropy Reduction Engine (ERE) technology to the planning, scheduling, and control components of Automatic Photoelectric Telescope (APT) management. The paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we give a brief summary of the planning and scheduling requirements for APTs. Following this, in section 3, we give an ERE project precis, couched primarily in terms of project objectives. Section 4 gives a sketch of the match-up between problem and technology, and section 5 outlines where we want to go with this work

Multi-parameter optimization tool for low-cost commercial fuselage crown designs

The work in progress for developing a methodology and software tool to aid in the optimal design of composite structures is discussed. The methodology is being developed to take advantage of the ability to tailor the composite material in conjunction with the design of the structure. The composites optimization design software UWCODA was found to be very successful in preliminary testing and early experience. UWCODA is a composites design code that uses a number of plies and fiber angles as design variables, employs maximum strain failure criteria for objective function and additional constraints, includes Boeing design tools for stiffened panels, and includes stiffener geometry in the design variables

Evaluating epistemic uncertainty under incomplete assessments

The thesis of this study is to propose an extended methodology for laboratory based Information Retrieval evaluation under incomplete relevance assessments. This new methodology aims to identify potential uncertainty during system comparison that may result from incompleteness. The adoption of this methodology is advantageous, because the detection of epistemic uncertainty - the amount of knowledge (or ignorance) we have about the estimate of a system's performance - during the evaluation process can guide and direct researchers when evaluating new systems over existing and future test collections. Across a series of experiments we demonstrate how this methodology can lead towards a finer grained analysis of systems. In particular, we show through experimentation how the current practice in Information Retrieval evaluation of using a measurement depth larger than the pooling depth increases uncertainty during system comparison