Spacecraft Trajectory Analysis and Mission Planning Simulation (STAMPS) Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Puckett, Nancy; Pettinger, Kris; Hallstrom,John; Brownfield, Dana; Blinn, Eric; Williams, Frank; Wiuff, Kelli; McCarty, Steve; Ramirez, Daniel; Lamotte, Nicole;

Airlift Operation Modeling Using Discrete Event Simulation (DES)

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-12-01

Java ......................................................................................................20 2. Simkit...JRE Java Runtime Environment JVM Java Virtual Machine lbs Pounds LAM Load Allocation Mode LRM Landing Spot Reassignment Mode LEGO Listener Event...SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT The following are the software tools and development environment used for constructing the models. 1. Java Java

The TAVERNS emulator: An Ada simulation of the space station data communications network and software development environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howes, Norman R.

1986-01-01

The Space Station DMS (Data Management System) is the onboard component of the Space Station Information System (SSIS) that includes the computers, networks and software that support the various core and payload subsystems of the Space Station. TAVERNS (Test And Validation Environment for Remote Networked Systems) is a distributed approach for development and validation of application software for Space Station. The TAVERNS concept assumes that the different subsystems will be developed by different contractors who may be geographically separated. The TAVERNS Emulator is an Ada simulation of a TAVERNS on the ASD VAX. The software services described in the DMS Test Bed User's Manual are being emulated on the VAX together with simulations of some of the core subsystems and a simulation of the DCN. The TAVERNS Emulator will be accessible remotely from any VAX that can communicate with the ASD VAX.

D-VASim: an interactive virtual laboratory environment for the simulation and analysis of genetic circuits.

PubMed

Baig, Hasan; Madsen, Jan

2017-01-15

Simulation and behavioral analysis of genetic circuits is a standard approach of functional verification prior to their physical implementation. Many software tools have been developed to perform in silico analysis for this purpose, but none of them allow users to interact with the model during runtime. The runtime interaction gives the user a feeling of being in the lab performing a real world experiment. In this work, we present a user-friendly software tool named D-VASim (Dynamic Virtual Analyzer and Simulator), which provides a virtual laboratory environment to simulate and analyze the behavior of genetic logic circuit models represented in an SBML (Systems Biology Markup Language). Hence, SBML models developed in other software environments can be analyzed and simulated in D-VASim. D-VASim offers deterministic as well as stochastic simulation; and differs from other software tools by being able to extract and validate the Boolean logic from the SBML model. D-VASim is also capable of analyzing the threshold value and propagation delay of a genetic circuit model. D-VASim is available for Windows and Mac OS and can be downloaded from bda.compute.dtu.dk/downloads/. haba@dtu.dk, jama@dtu.dk. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

[Low Fidelity Simulation of a Zero-Y Robot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sweet, Adam

2001-01-01

The item to be cleared is a low-fidelity software simulation model of a hypothetical freeflying robot designed for use in zero gravity environments. This simulation model works with the HCC simulation system that was developed by Xerox PARC and NASA Ames Research Center. HCC has been previously cleared for distribution. When used with the HCC software, the model computes the location and orientation of the simulated robot over time. Failures (such as a broken motor) can be injected into the simulation to produce simulated behavior corresponding to the failure. Release of this simulation will allow researchers to test their software diagnosis systems by attempting to diagnose the simulated failure from the simulated behavior. This model does not contain any encryption software nor can it perform any control tasks that might be export controlled.

Simulation verification techniques study. Subsystem simulation validation techniques

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Duncan, L. M.; Reddell, J. P.; Schoonmaker, P. B.

1974-01-01

Techniques for validation of software modules which simulate spacecraft onboard systems are discussed. An overview of the simulation software hierarchy for a shuttle mission simulator is provided. A set of guidelines for the identification of subsystem/module performance parameters and critical performance parameters are presented. Various sources of reference data to serve as standards of performance for simulation validation are identified. Environment, crew station, vehicle configuration, and vehicle dynamics simulation software are briefly discussed from the point of view of their interfaces with subsystem simulation modules. A detailed presentation of results in the area of vehicle subsystems simulation modules is included. A list of references, conclusions and recommendations are also given.

Simulating Humans as Integral Parts of Spacecraft Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bruins, Anthony C.; Rice, Robert; Nguyen, Lac; Nguyen, Heidi; Saito, Tim; Russell, Elaine

2006-01-01

The Collaborative-Virtual Environment Simulation Tool (C-VEST) software was developed for use in a NASA project entitled "3-D Interactive Digital Virtual Human." The project is oriented toward the use of a comprehensive suite of advanced software tools in computational simulations for the purposes of human-centered design of spacecraft missions and of the spacecraft, space suits, and other equipment to be used on the missions. The C-VEST software affords an unprecedented suite of capabilities for three-dimensional virtual-environment simulations with plug-in interfaces for physiological data, haptic interfaces, plug-and-play software, realtime control, and/or playback control. Mathematical models of the mechanics of the human body and of the aforementioned equipment are implemented in software and integrated to simulate forces exerted on and by astronauts as they work. The computational results can then support the iterative processes of design, building, and testing in applied systems engineering and integration. The results of the simulations provide guidance for devising measures to counteract effects of microgravity on the human body and for the rapid development of virtual (that is, simulated) prototypes of advanced space suits, cockpits, and robots to enhance the productivity, comfort, and safety of astronauts. The unique ability to implement human-in-the-loop immersion also makes the C-VEST software potentially valuable for use in commercial and academic settings beyond the original space-mission setting.

A PICKSC Science Gateway for enabling the common plasma physicist to run kinetic software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Q.; Winjum, B. J.; Zonca, A.; Youn, C.; Tsung, F. S.; Mori, W. B.

2017-10-01

Computer simulations offer tremendous opportunities for studying plasmas, ranging from simulations for students that illuminate fundamental educational concepts to research-level simulations that advance scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, there is a significant hurdle to using simulation tools. Users must navigate codes and software libraries, determine how to wrangle output into meaningful plots, and oftentimes confront a significant cyberinfrastructure with powerful computational resources. Science gateways offer a Web-based environment to run simulations without needing to learn or manage the underlying software and computing cyberinfrastructure. We discuss our progress on creating a Science Gateway for the Particle-in-Cell and Kinetic Simulation Software Center that enables users to easily run and analyze kinetic simulations with our software. We envision that this technology could benefit a wide range of plasma physicists, both in the use of our simulation tools as well as in its adaptation for running other plasma simulation software. Supported by NSF under Grant ACI-1339893 and by the UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education.

Validation and Verification of LADEE Models and Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gundy-Burlet, Karen

2013-01-01

The Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission will orbit the moon in order to measure the density, composition and time variability of the lunar dust environment. The ground-side and onboard flight software for the mission is being developed using a Model-Based Software methodology. In this technique, models of the spacecraft and flight software are developed in a graphical dynamics modeling package. Flight Software requirements are prototyped and refined using the simulated models. After the model is shown to work as desired in this simulation framework, C-code software is automatically generated from the models. The generated software is then tested in real time Processor-in-the-Loop and Hardware-in-the-Loop test beds. Travelling Road Show test beds were used for early integration tests with payloads and other subsystems. Traditional techniques for verifying computational sciences models are used to characterize the spacecraft simulation. A lightweight set of formal methods analysis, static analysis, formal inspection and code coverage analyses are utilized to further reduce defects in the onboard flight software artifacts. These techniques are applied early and often in the development process, iteratively increasing the capabilities of the software and the fidelity of the vehicle models and test beds.

The Safety Analysis of Shipborne Ammunition in Fire Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ren, Junpeng; Wang, Xudong; Yue, Pengfei

2017-12-01

The safety of Ammunition has always been the focus of national military science and technology issues. And fire is one of the major safety threats to the ship’s ammunition storage environment, In this paper, Mk-82 shipborne aviation bomb has been taken as the study object, simulated the whole process of fire by using the FDS (Fire Detection System) software. According to the simulation results of FDS, ANSYS software was used to simulate the temperature field of Mk-82 carrier-based aviation bomb under fire environment, and the safety of aviation bomb in fire environment was analyzed. The result shows that the aviation bombs under the fire environment can occur the combustion or explosion after 70s constant cook-off, and it was a huge threat to the ship security.

Software as a service approach to sensor simulation software deployment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Webster, Steven; Miller, Gordon; Mayott, Gregory

2012-05-01

Traditionally, military simulation has been problem domain specific. Executing an exercise currently requires multiple simulation software providers to specialize, deploy, and configure their respective implementations, integrate the collection of software to achieve a specific system behavior, and then execute for the purpose at hand. This approach leads to rigid system integrations which require simulation expertise for each deployment due to changes in location, hardware, and software. Our alternative is Software as a Service (SaaS) predicated on the virtualization of Night Vision Electronic Sensors (NVESD) sensor simulations as an exemplary case. Management middleware elements layer self provisioning, configuration, and integration services onto the virtualized sensors to present a system of services at run time. Given an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment, enabled and managed system of simulations yields a durable SaaS delivery without requiring user simulation expertise. Persistent SaaS simulations would provide on demand availability to connected users, decrease integration costs and timelines, and benefit the domain community from immediate deployment of lessons learned.

The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Turner, John A., E-mail: turnerja@ornl.gov; Clarno, Kevin; Sieger, Matt

VERA, the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications, is the system of physics capabilities being developed and deployed by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL). CASL was established for the modeling and simulation of commercial nuclear reactors. VERA consists of integrating and interfacing software together with a suite of physics components adapted and/or refactored to simulate relevant physical phenomena in a coupled manner. VERA also includes the software development environment and computational infrastructure needed for these components to be effectively used. We describe the architecture of VERA from both software and numerical perspectives, along with the goalsmore » and constraints that drove major design decisions, and their implications. We explain why VERA is an environment rather than a framework or toolkit, why these distinctions are relevant (particularly for coupled physics applications), and provide an overview of results that demonstrate the use of VERA tools for a variety of challenging applications within the nuclear industry.« less

AIDA: An Integrated Authoring Environment for Educational Software.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mendes, Antonio Jose; Mendes, Teresa

1996-01-01

Describes an integrated authoring environment, AIDA ("Ambiente Integrado de Desenvolvimento de Aplicacoes educacionais"), that was developed at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) for educational software. Highlights include the design module, a prototyping tool that allows for multimedia, simulations, and modularity; execution module;…

Software Smarts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1998-01-01

Under an SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) contract with Johnson Space Center, Knowledge Based Systems Inc. (KBSI) developed an intelligent software environment for modeling and analyzing mission planning activities, simulating behavior, and, using a unique constraint propagation mechanism, updating plans with each change in mission planning activities. KBSI developed this technology into a commercial product, PROJECTLINK, a two-way bridge between PROSIm, KBSI's process modeling and simulation software and leading project management software like Microsoft Project and Primavera's SureTrak Project Manager.

Experiences in integrating auto-translated state-chart designs for model checking

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pingree, P. J.; Benowitz, E. G.

2003-01-01

In the complex environment of JPL's flight missions with increasing dependency on advanced software designs, traditional software validation methods of simulation and testing are being stretched to adequately cover the needs of software development.

NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites: Tools for Software Based Validation and Verification of Small Satellites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grubb, Matt

2016-01-01

The NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3) is a suite of tools to aid in areas such as software development, integration test (IT), mission operations training, verification and validation (VV), and software systems check-out. NOS3 provides a software development environment, a multi-target build system, an operator interface-ground station, dynamics and environment simulations, and software-based hardware models. NOS3 enables the development of flight software (FSW) early in the project life cycle, when access to hardware is typically not available. For small satellites there are extensive lead times on many of the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components as well as limited funding for engineering test units (ETU). Considering the difficulty of providing a hardware test-bed to each developer tester, hardware models are modeled based upon characteristic data or manufacturers data sheets for each individual component. The fidelity of each hardware models is such that FSW executes unaware that physical hardware is not present. This allows binaries to be compiled for both the simulation environment, and the flight computer, without changing the FSW source code. For hardware models that provide data dependent on the environment, such as a GPS receiver or magnetometer, an open-source tool from NASA GSFC (42 Spacecraft Simulation) is used to provide the necessary data. The underlying infrastructure used to transfer messages between FSW and the hardware models can also be used to monitor, intercept, and inject messages, which has proven to be beneficial for VV of larger missions such as James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). As hardware is procured, drivers can be added to the environment to enable hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing. When strict time synchronization is not vital, any number of combinations of hardware components and software-based models can be tested. The open-source operator interface used in NOS3 is COSMOS from Ball Aerospace. For testing, plug-ins are implemented in COSMOS to control the NOS3 simulations, while the command and telemetry tools available in COSMOS are used to communicate with FSW. NOS3 is actively being used for FSW development and component testing of the Simulation-to-Flight 1 (STF-1) CubeSat. As NOS3 matures, hardware models have been added for common CubeSat components such as Novatel GPS receivers, ClydeSpace electrical power systems and batteries, ISISpace antenna systems, etc. In the future, NASA IVV plans to distribute NOS3 to other CubeSat developers and release the suite to the open-source community.

X-ray system simulation software tools for radiology and radiography education.

PubMed

Kengyelics, Stephen M; Treadgold, Laura A; Davies, Andrew G

2018-02-01

To develop x-ray simulation software tools to support delivery of radiological science education for a range of learning environments and audiences including individual study, lectures, and tutorials. Two software tools were developed; one simulated x-ray production for a simple two dimensional radiographic system geometry comprising an x-ray source, beam filter, test object and detector. The other simulated the acquisition and display of two dimensional radiographic images of complex three dimensional objects using a ray casting algorithm through three dimensional mesh objects. Both tools were intended to be simple to use, produce results accurate enough to be useful for educational purposes, and have an acceptable simulation time on modest computer hardware. The radiographic factors and acquisition geometry could be altered in both tools via their graphical user interfaces. A comparison of radiographic contrast measurements of the simulators to a real system was performed. The contrast output of the simulators had excellent agreement with measured results. The software simulators were deployed to 120 computers on campus. The software tools developed are easy-to-use, clearly demonstrate important x-ray physics and imaging principles, are accessible within a standard University setting and could be used to enhance the teaching of x-ray physics to undergraduate students. Current approaches to teaching x-ray physics in radiological science lack immediacy when linking theory with practice. This method of delivery allows students to engage with the subject in an experiential learning environment. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Implementing a modeling software for animated protein-complex interactions using a physics simulation library.

PubMed

Ueno, Yutaka; Ito, Shuntaro; Konagaya, Akihiko

2014-12-01

To better understand the behaviors and structural dynamics of proteins within a cell, novel software tools are being developed that can create molecular animations based on the findings of structural biology. This study proposes our method developed based on our prototypes to detect collisions and examine the soft-body dynamics of molecular models. The code was implemented with a software development toolkit for rigid-body dynamics simulation and a three-dimensional graphics library. The essential functions of the target software system included the basic molecular modeling environment, collision detection in the molecular models, and physical simulations of the movement of the model. Taking advantage of recent software technologies such as physics simulation modules and interpreted scripting language, the functions required for accurate and meaningful molecular animation were implemented efficiently.

Design and development of Building energy simulation Software for prefabricated cabin type of industrial building (PCES)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jun; Li, Ri Yi

2018-06-01

Building energy simulation is an important supporting tool for green building design and building energy consumption assessment, At present, Building energy simulation software can't meet the needs of energy consumption analysis and cabinet level micro environment control design of prefabricated building. thermal physical model of prefabricated building is proposed in this paper, based on the physical model, the energy consumption calculation software of prefabricated cabin building(PCES) is developed. we can achieve building parameter setting, energy consumption simulation and building thermal process and energy consumption analysis by PCES.

Simulation and Optimization Methods for Assessing the Impact of Aviation Operations on the Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sridhar, Banavar; Chen, Neil; Ng, Hok K.

2010-01-01

There is increased awareness of anthropogenic factors affecting climate change and urgency to slow the negative impact. Greenhouse gases, oxides of Nitrogen and contrails resulting from aviation affect the climate in different and uncertain ways. This paper develops a flexible simulation and optimization software architecture to study the trade-offs involved in reducing emissions. The software environment is used to conduct analysis of two approaches for avoiding contrails using the concepts of contrail frequency index and optimal avoidance trajectories.

Specification and simulation of behavior of the Continuous Infusion Insulin Pump system.

PubMed

Babamir, Seyed Morteza; Dehkordi, Mehdi Borhani

2014-01-01

Continuous Infusion Insulin Pump (CIIP) system is responsible for monitoring diabetic blood sugar. In this paper, we aim to specify and simulate the CIIP software behavior. To this end, we first: (1) presented a model consisting of the CIIP system behavior in response to its environment (diabetic) behavior and (2) we formally defined the safety requirements of the system environment (diabetic) in the Z formal modeling language. Such requirements should be satisfied by the CIIP software. Finally, we programmed the model and requirements.

The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Turner, John A.; Clarno, Kevin; Sieger, Matt

VERA, the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications, is the system of physics capabilities being developed and deployed by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL), the first DOE Hub, which was established in July 2010 for the modeling and simulation of commercial nuclear reactors. VERA consists of integrating and interfacing software together with a suite of physics components adapted and/or refactored to simulate relevant physical phenomena in a coupled manner. VERA also includes the software development environment and computational infrastructure needed for these components to be effectively used. We describe the architecture of VERA from both amore » software and a numerical perspective, along with the goals and constraints that drove the major design decisions and their implications. As a result, we explain why VERA is an environment rather than a framework or toolkit, why these distinctions are relevant (particularly for coupled physics applications), and provide an overview of results that demonstrate the application of VERA tools for a variety of challenging problems within the nuclear industry.« less

The Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA): Design and architecture

DOE PAGES

Turner, John A.; Clarno, Kevin; Sieger, Matt; ...

2016-09-08

VERA, the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications, is the system of physics capabilities being developed and deployed by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL), the first DOE Hub, which was established in July 2010 for the modeling and simulation of commercial nuclear reactors. VERA consists of integrating and interfacing software together with a suite of physics components adapted and/or refactored to simulate relevant physical phenomena in a coupled manner. VERA also includes the software development environment and computational infrastructure needed for these components to be effectively used. We describe the architecture of VERA from both amore » software and a numerical perspective, along with the goals and constraints that drove the major design decisions and their implications. As a result, we explain why VERA is an environment rather than a framework or toolkit, why these distinctions are relevant (particularly for coupled physics applications), and provide an overview of results that demonstrate the application of VERA tools for a variety of challenging problems within the nuclear industry.« less

An Internet Protocol-Based Software System for Real-Time, Closed-Loop, Multi-Spacecraft Mission Simulation Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Davis, George; Cary, Everett; Higinbotham, John; Burns, Richard; Hogie, Keith; Hallahan, Francis

2003-01-01

The paper will provide an overview of the web-based distributed simulation software system developed for end-to-end, multi-spacecraft mission design, analysis, and test at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This software system was developed for an internal research and development (IR&D) activity at GSFC called the Distributed Space Systems (DSS) Distributed Synthesis Environment (DSE). The long-term goal of the DSS-DSE is to integrate existing GSFC stand-alone test beds, models, and simulation systems to create a "hands on", end-to-end simulation environment for mission design, trade studies and simulations. The short-term goal of the DSE was therefore to develop the system architecture, and then to prototype the core software simulation capability based on a distributed computing approach, with demonstrations of some key capabilities by the end of Fiscal Year 2002 (FY02). To achieve the DSS-DSE IR&D objective, the team adopted a reference model and mission upon which FY02 capabilities were developed. The software was prototyped according to the reference model, and demonstrations were conducted for the reference mission to validate interfaces, concepts, etc. The reference model, illustrated in Fig. 1, included both space and ground elements, with functional capabilities such as spacecraft dynamics and control, science data collection, space-to-space and space-to-ground communications, mission operations, science operations, and data processing, archival and distribution addressed.

A Distributed Simulation Software System for Multi-Spacecraft Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Burns, Richard; Davis, George; Cary, Everett

2003-01-01

The paper will provide an overview of the web-based distributed simulation software system developed for end-to-end, multi-spacecraft mission design, analysis, and test at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This software system was developed for an internal research and development (IR&D) activity at GSFC called the Distributed Space Systems (DSS) Distributed Synthesis Environment (DSE). The long-term goal of the DSS-DSE is to integrate existing GSFC stand-alone test beds, models, and simulation systems to create a "hands on", end-to-end simulation environment for mission design, trade studies and simulations. The short-term goal of the DSE was therefore to develop the system architecture, and then to prototype the core software simulation capability based on a distributed computing approach, with demonstrations of some key capabilities by the end of Fiscal Year 2002 (FY02). To achieve the DSS-DSE IR&D objective, the team adopted a reference model and mission upon which FY02 capabilities were developed. The software was prototyped according to the reference model, and demonstrations were conducted for the reference mission to validate interfaces, concepts, etc. The reference model, illustrated in Fig. 1, included both space and ground elements, with functional capabilities such as spacecraft dynamics and control, science data collection, space-to-space and space-to-ground communications, mission operations, science operations, and data processing, archival and distribution addressed.

ISS Material Science Research Rack HWIL Interface Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Philip J.; Ballard, Gary H.; Crumbley, Robert T. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

In this paper, the first Material Science Research Rack (MSRR-1) hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) interface simulation is described. Dynamic Concepts developed this HWIL simulation system with funding and management provided by the Flight Software group (ED14) of NASA-MSFC's Avionics Department. The HWIL system has been used both as a flight software development environment and as a software qualification tool. To fulfill these roles, the HWIL simulator accurately models the system dynamics of many MSRR-1 subsystems and emulates most of the internal interface signals. The modeled subsystems include the Experiment Modules, the Thermal Environment Control System, the Vacuum Access System, the Solid State Power Controller Module, and the Active Rack Isolation Systems. The emulated signals reside on three separate MIL-STD-1553B digital communication buses, the ISS Medium Rate Data Link, and several analog controller and sensor signals. To enhance the range of testing, it was necessary to simulate several off-nominal conditions that may occur in the interfacing subsystems.

APRON: A Cellular Processor Array Simulation and Hardware Design Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barr, David R. W.; Dudek, Piotr

2009-12-01

We present a software environment for the efficient simulation of cellular processor arrays (CPAs). This software (APRON) is used to explore algorithms that are designed for massively parallel fine-grained processor arrays, topographic multilayer neural networks, vision chips with SIMD processor arrays, and related architectures. The software uses a highly optimised core combined with a flexible compiler to provide the user with tools for the design of new processor array hardware architectures and the emulation of existing devices. We present performance benchmarks for the software processor array implemented on standard commodity microprocessors. APRON can be configured to use additional processing hardware if necessary and can be used as a complete graphical user interface and development environment for new or existing CPA systems, allowing more users to develop algorithms for CPA systems.

Visual NNet: An Educational ANN's Simulation Environment Reusing Matlab Neural Networks Toolbox

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garcia-Roselló, Emilio; González-Dacosta, Jacinto; Lado, Maria J.; Méndez, Arturo J.; Garcia Pérez-Schofield, Baltasar; Ferrer, Fátima

2011-01-01

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN's) are nowadays a common subject in different curricula of graduate and postgraduate studies. Due to the complex algorithms involved and the dynamic nature of ANN's, simulation software has been commonly used to teach this subject. This software has usually been developed specifically for learning purposes, because…

Flight simulation software at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Norlin, Ken A.

1995-01-01

The NASA Dryden Flight Research Center has developed a versatile simulation software package that is applicable to a broad range of fixed-wing aircraft. This package has evolved in support of a variety of flight research programs. The structure is designed to be flexible enough for use in batch-mode, real-time pilot-in-the-loop, and flight hardware-in-the-loop simulation. Current simulations operate on UNIX-based platforms and are coded with a FORTRAN shell and C support routines. This paper discusses the features of the simulation software design and some basic model development techniques. The key capabilities that have been included in the simulation are described. The NASA Dryden simulation software is in use at other NASA centers, within industry, and at several universities. The straightforward but flexible design of this well-validated package makes it especially useful in an engineering environment.

Stability analysis using SDSA tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goetzendorf-Grabowski, Tomasz; Mieszalski, Dawid; Marcinkiewicz, Ewa

2011-11-01

The SDSA (Simulation and Dynamic Stability Analysis) application is presented as a tool for analysing the dynamic characteristics of the aircraft just in the conceptual design stage. SDSA is part of the CEASIOM (Computerized Environment for Aircraft Synthesis and Integrated Optimization Methods) software environment which was developed within the SimSAC (Simulating Aircraft Stability And Control Characteristics for Use in Conceptual Design) project, funded by the European Commission 6th Framework Program. SDSA can also be used as stand alone software, and integrated with other design and optimisation systems using software wrappers. This paper focuses on the main functionalities of SDSA and presents both computational and free flight experimental results to compare and validate the presented software. Two aircraft are considered, the EADS Ranger 2000 and the Warsaw University designed PW-6 glider. For the two cases considered here the SDSA software is shown to be an excellent tool for predicting dynamic characteristics of an aircraft.

skelesim: an extensible, general framework for population genetic simulation in R.

PubMed

Parobek, Christian M; Archer, Frederick I; DePrenger-Levin, Michelle E; Hoban, Sean M; Liggins, Libby; Strand, Allan E

2017-01-01

Simulations are a key tool in molecular ecology for inference and forecasting, as well as for evaluating new methods. Due to growing computational power and a diversity of software with different capabilities, simulations are becoming increasingly powerful and useful. However, the widespread use of simulations by geneticists and ecologists is hindered by difficulties in understanding these softwares' complex capabilities, composing code and input files, a daunting bioinformatics barrier and a steep conceptual learning curve. skelesim (an R package) guides users in choosing appropriate simulations, setting parameters, calculating genetic summary statistics and organizing data output, in a reproducible pipeline within the R environment. skelesim is designed to be an extensible framework that can 'wrap' around any simulation software (inside or outside the R environment) and be extended to calculate and graph any genetic summary statistics. Currently, skelesim implements coalescent and forward-time models available in the fastsimcoal2 and rmetasim simulation engines to produce null distributions for multiple population genetic statistics and marker types, under a variety of demographic conditions. skelesim is intended to make simulations easier while still allowing full model complexity to ensure that simulations play a fundamental role in molecular ecology investigations. skelesim can also serve as a teaching tool: demonstrating the outcomes of stochastic population genetic processes; teaching general concepts of simulations; and providing an introduction to the R environment with a user-friendly graphical user interface (using shiny). © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An Investigation of the Potential of Interactive Simulations for Developing System Thinking Skills in Elementary School: A Case Study with Fifth-Graders and Sixth-Graders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evagorou, Maria; Korfiatis, Kostas; Nicolaou, Christiana; Constantinou, Costas

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a simulation-based learning environment on elementary school students' (11-12 years old) development of system thinking skills. The learning environment included interactive simulations using the Stagecast Creator software to simulate the ecosystem of a marsh. Simulations are an important…

3D Simulation: Microgravity Environments and Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hunter, Steve L.; Dischinger, Charles; Estes, Samantha; Parker, Nelson C. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Most, if not all, 3-D and Virtual Reality (VR) software programs are designed for one-G gravity applications. Space environments simulations require gravity effects of one one-thousandth to one one-million of that of the Earth's surface (10(exp -3) - 10(exp -6) G), thus one must be able to generate simulations that replicate those microgravity effects upon simulated astronauts. Unfortunately, the software programs utilized by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration does not have the ability to readily neutralize the one-G gravity effect. This pre-programmed situation causes the engineer or analysis difficulty during micro-gravity simulations. Therefore, microgravity simulations require special techniques or additional code in order to apply the power of 3D graphic simulation to space related applications. This paper discusses the problem and possible solutions to allow microgravity 3-D/VR simulations to be completed successfully without program code modifications.

Porting and refurbishment of the WSS TNG control software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caproni, Alessandro; Zacchei, Andrea; Vuerli, Claudio; Pucillo, Mauro

2004-09-01

The Workstation Software Sytem (WSS) is the high level control software of the Italian Galileo Galilei Telescope settled in La Palma Canary Island developed at the beginning of '90 for HP-UX workstations. WSS may be seen as a middle layer software system that manages the communications between the real time systems (VME), different workstations and high level applications providing a uniform distributed environment. The project to port the control software from the HP workstation to Linux environment started at the end of 2001. It is aimed to refurbish the control software introducing some of the new software technologies and languages, available for free in the Linux operating system. The project was realized by gradually substituting each HP workstation with a Linux PC with the goal to avoid main changes in the original software running under HP-UX. Three main phases characterized the project: creation of a simulated control room with several Linux PCs running WSS (to check all the functionality); insertion in the simulated control room of some HPs (to check the mixed environment); substitution of HP workstation in the real control room. From a software point of view, the project introduces some new technologies, like multi-threading, and the possibility to develop high level WSS applications with almost every programming language that implements the Berkley sockets. A library to develop java applications has also been created and tested.

Enhancing Computer Science Education with a Wireless Intelligent Simulation Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cook, Diane J.; Huber, Manfred; Yerraballi, Ramesh; Holder, Lawrence B.

2004-01-01

The goal of this project is to develop a unique simulation environment that can be used to increase students' interest and expertise in Computer Science curriculum. Hands-on experience with physical or simulated equipment is an essential ingredient for learning, but many approaches to training develop a separate piece of equipment or software for…

PT-SAFE: a software tool for development and annunciation of medical audible alarms.

PubMed

Bennett, Christopher L; McNeer, Richard R

2012-03-01

Recent reports by The Joint Commission as well as the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation have indicated that medical audible alarm effectiveness needs to be improved. Several recent studies have explored various approaches to improving the audible alarms, motivating the authors to develop real-time software capable of comparing such alarms. We sought to devise software that would allow for the development of a variety of audible alarm designs that could also integrate into existing operating room equipment configurations. The software is meant to be used as a tool for alarm researchers to quickly evaluate novel alarm designs. A software tool was developed for the purpose of creating and annunciating audible alarms. The alarms consisted of annunciators that were mapped to vital sign data received from a patient monitor. An object-oriented approach to software design was used to create a tool that is flexible and modular at run-time, can annunciate wave-files from disk, and can be programmed with MATLAB by the user to create custom alarm algorithms. The software was tested in a simulated operating room to measure technical performance and to validate the time-to-annunciation against existing equipment alarms. The software tool showed efficacy in a simulated operating room environment by providing alarm annunciation in response to physiologic and ventilator signals generated by a human patient simulator, on average 6.2 seconds faster than existing equipment alarms. Performance analysis showed that the software was capable of supporting up to 15 audible alarms on a mid-grade laptop computer before audio dropouts occurred. These results suggest that this software tool provides a foundation for rapidly staging multiple audible alarm sets from the laboratory to a simulation environment for the purpose of evaluating novel alarm designs, thus producing valuable findings for medical audible alarm standardization.

The design of real time infrared image generation software based on Creator and Vega

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Rui-feng; Wu, Wei-dong; Huo, Jun-xiu

2013-09-01

Considering the requirement of high reality and real-time quality dynamic infrared image of an infrared image simulation, a method to design real-time infrared image simulation application on the platform of VC++ is proposed. This is based on visual simulation software Creator and Vega. The functions of Creator are introduced simply, and the main features of Vega developing environment are analyzed. The methods of infrared modeling and background are offered, the designing flow chart of the developing process of IR image real-time generation software and the functions of TMM Tool and MAT Tool and sensor module are explained, at the same time, the real-time of software is designed.

A Testbed for Evaluating Lunar Habitat Autonomy Architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lawler, Dennis G.

2008-01-01

A lunar outpost will involve a habitat with an integrated set of hardware and software that will maintain a safe environment for human activities. There is a desire for a paradigm shift whereby crew will be the primary mission operators, not ground controllers. There will also be significant periods when the outpost is uncrewed. This will require that significant automation software be resident in the habitat to maintain all system functions and respond to faults. JSC is developing a testbed to allow for early testing and evaluation of different autonomy architectures. This will allow evaluation of different software configurations in order to: 1) understand different operational concepts; 2) assess the impact of failures and perturbations on the system; and 3) mitigate software and hardware integration risks. The testbed will provide an environment in which habitat hardware simulations can interact with autonomous control software. Faults can be injected into the simulations and different mission scenarios can be scripted. The testbed allows for logging, replaying and re-initializing mission scenarios. An initial testbed configuration has been developed by combining an existing life support simulation and an existing simulation of the space station power distribution system. Results from this initial configuration will be presented along with suggested requirements and designs for the incremental development of a more sophisticated lunar habitat testbed.

A program code generator for multiphysics biological simulation using markup languages.

PubMed

Amano, Akira; Kawabata, Masanari; Yamashita, Yoshiharu; Rusty Punzalan, Florencio; Shimayoshi, Takao; Kuwabara, Hiroaki; Kunieda, Yoshitoshi

2012-01-01

To cope with the complexity of the biological function simulation models, model representation with description language is becoming popular. However, simulation software itself becomes complex in these environment, thus, it is difficult to modify the simulation conditions, target computation resources or calculation methods. In the complex biological function simulation software, there are 1) model equations, 2) boundary conditions and 3) calculation schemes. Use of description model file is useful for first point and partly second point, however, third point is difficult to handle for various calculation schemes which is required for simulation models constructed from two or more elementary models. We introduce a simulation software generation system which use description language based description of coupling calculation scheme together with cell model description file. By using this software, we can easily generate biological simulation code with variety of coupling calculation schemes. To show the efficiency of our system, example of coupling calculation scheme with three elementary models are shown.

Simulation verification techniques study. Task report 4: Simulation module performance parameters and performance standards

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1974-01-01

Shuttle simulation software modules in the environment, crew station, vehicle configuration and vehicle dynamics categories are discussed. For each software module covered, a description of the module functions and operational modes, its interfaces with other modules, its stored data, inputs, performance parameters and critical performance parameters is given. Reference data sources which provide standards of performance are identified for each module. Performance verification methods are also discussed briefly.

Three Dimensional Transient Turbulent Simulations of Scramjet Fuel Injection and Combustion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bahbaz, Marwane

2011-11-01

Scramjet is a propulsion system that is more effective for hypersonic flights (M >5). The main objective of the simulation is to understand both the mixing and combustion process of air flow using hydrogen fuel in high speed environment s. The understanding of this phenomenon is used to determine the number of fuel injectors required to increase combustion efficiency and energy transfer. Due to the complexity of this simulation, multiple software tools are used to achieve this objective. First, Solid works is used to draw a scramjet combustor with accurate measurements. Second software tool used is Gambit; It is used to make several types of meshes for the scramjet combustor. Finally, Open Foam and CFD++ are software used to process and post process the scramjet combustor. At this stage, the simulation is divided into two categories. The cold flow category is a series of simulations that include subsonic and supersonic turbulent air flow across the combustor channel with fuel interaction from one or more injectors'. The second category is the combustion simulations which involve fluid flow and fuel mixing with ignition. The simulation and modeling of scramjet combustor will assist to investigate and understand the combustion process and energy transfer in hypersonic environment.

Software systems for modeling articulated figures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Phillips, Cary B.

1989-01-01

Research in computer animation and simulation of human task performance requires sophisticated geometric modeling and user interface tools. The software for a research environment should present the programmer with a powerful but flexible substrate of facilities for displaying and manipulating geometric objects, yet insure that future tools have a consistent and friendly user interface. Jack is a system which provides a flexible and extensible programmer and user interface for displaying and manipulating complex geometric figures, particularly human figures in a 3D working environment. It is a basic software framework for high-performance Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations for modeling and manipulating geometric objects in a general but powerful way. It provides a consistent and user-friendly interface across various applications in computer animation and simulation of human task performance. Currently, Jack provides input and control for applications including lighting specification and image rendering, anthropometric modeling, figure positioning, inverse kinematics, dynamic simulation, and keyframe animation.

Networking Labs in the Online Environment: Indicators for Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lahoud, Hilmi A.; Krichen, Jack P.

2010-01-01

Several techniques have been used to provide hands-on educational experiences to online learners, including remote labs, simulation software, and virtual labs, which offer a more structured environment, including simulations and scheduled asynchronous access to physical resources. This exploratory study investigated how these methods can be used…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sierra Thermal /Fluid Team

The SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego along with the SIERRA Participating Media Radiation Module: Syrinx, henceforth referred to as Fuego and Syrinx, respectively, are the key elements of the ASCI fire environment simulation project. The fire environment simulation project is directed at characterizing both open large-scale pool fires and building enclosure fires. Fuego represents the turbulent, buoyantly-driven incompressible flow, heat transfer, mass transfer, combustion, soot, and absorption coefficient model portion of the simulation software. Syrinx represents the participating-media thermal radiation mechanics. This project is an integral part of the SIERRA multi-mechanics software development project. Fuego depends heavily upon the coremore » architecture developments provided by SIERRA for massively parallel computing, solution adaptivity, and mechanics coupling on unstructured grids.« less

An approach to integrating and creating flexible software environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bellman, Kirstie L.

1992-01-01

Engineers and scientists are attempting to represent, analyze, and reason about increasingly complex systems. Many researchers have been developing new ways of creating increasingly open environments. In this research on VEHICLES, a conceptual design environment for space systems, an approach was developed, called 'wrapping', to flexibility and integration based on the collection and then processing of explicit qualitative descriptions of all the software resources in the environment. Currently, a simulation is available, VSIM, used to study both the types of wrapping descriptions and the processes necessary to use the metaknowledge to combine, select, adapt, and explain some of the software resources used in VEHICLES. What was learned about the types of knowledge necessary for the wrapping approach is described along with the implications of wrapping for several key software engineering issues.

Virtual Collaborative Simulation Environment for Integrated Product and Process Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gulli, Michael A.

1997-01-01

Deneb Robotics is a leader in the development of commercially available, leading edge three- dimensional simulation software tools for virtual prototyping,, simulation-based design, manufacturing process simulation, and factory floor simulation and training applications. Deneb has developed and commercially released a preliminary Virtual Collaborative Engineering (VCE) capability for Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD). This capability allows distributed, real-time visualization and evaluation of design concepts, manufacturing processes, and total factory and enterprises in one seamless simulation environment.

Architecture of a platform for hardware-in-the-loop simulation of flying vehicle control systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belokon', S. A.; Zolotukhin, Yu. N.; Filippov, M. N.

2017-07-01

A hardware-software platform is presented, which is designed for the development and hardware-in-the-loop simulation of flying vehicle control systems. This platform ensures the construction of the mathematical model of the plant, development of algorithms and software for onboard radioelectronic equipment and ground control station, and visualization of the three-dimensional model of the vehicle and external environment of the cockpit in the simulator training mode.

A software bus for thread objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Callahan, John R.; Li, Dehuai

1995-01-01

The authors have implemented a software bus for lightweight threads in an object-oriented programming environment that allows for rapid reconfiguration and reuse of thread objects in discrete-event simulation experiments. While previous research in object-oriented, parallel programming environments has focused on direct communication between threads, our lightweight software bus, called the MiniBus, provides a means to isolate threads from their contexts of execution by restricting communications between threads to message-passing via their local ports only. The software bus maintains a topology of connections between these ports. It routes, queues, and delivers messages according to this topology. This approach allows for rapid reconfiguration and reuse of thread objects in other systems without making changes to the specifications or source code. A layered approach that provides the needed transparency to developers is presented. Examples of using the MiniBus are given, and the value of bus architectures in building and conducting simulations of discrete-event systems is discussed.

Software architecture of biomimetic underwater vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Praczyk, Tomasz; Szymak, Piotr

2016-05-01

Autonomous underwater vehicles are vehicles that are entirely or partly independent of human decisions. In order to obtain operational independence, the vehicles have to be equipped with a specialized software. The main task of the software is to move the vehicle along a trajectory with collision avoidance. Moreover, the software has also to manage different devices installed on the vehicle board, e.g. to start and stop cameras, sonars etc. In addition to the software embedded on the vehicle board, the software responsible for managing the vehicle by the operator is also necessary. Its task is to define mission of the vehicle, to start, to stop the mission, to send emergency commands, to monitor vehicle parameters, and to control the vehicle in remotely operated mode. An important objective of the software is also to support development and tests of other software components. To this end, a simulation environment is necessary, i.e. simulation model of the vehicle and all its key devices, the model of the sea environment, and the software to visualize behavior of the vehicle. The paper presents architecture of the software designed for biomimetic autonomous underwater vehicle (BAUV) that is being constructed within the framework of the scientific project financed by Polish National Center of Research and Development.

The AAO fiber instrument data simulator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodwin, Michael; Farrell, Tony; Smedley, Scott; Heald, Ron; Heijmans, Jeroen; De Silva, Gayandhi; Carollo, Daniela

2012-09-01

The fiber instrument data simulator is an in-house software tool that simulates detector images of fiber-fed spectrographs developed by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). In addition to helping validate the instrument designs, the resulting simulated images are used to develop the required data reduction software. Example applications that have benefited from the tool usage are the HERMES and SAMI instrumental projects for the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). Given the sophistication of these projects an end-to-end data simulator that accurately models the predicted detector images is required. The data simulator encompasses all aspects of the transmission and optical aberrations of the light path: from the science object, through the atmosphere, telescope, fibers, spectrograph and finally the camera detectors. The simulator runs under a Linux environment that uses pre-calculated information derived from ZEMAX models and processed data from MATLAB. In this paper, we discuss the aspects of the model, software, example simulations and verification.

From Presentation to Programming: Doing Something Different, Not the Same Thing Differently.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galas, Cathleen

1998-01-01

Discusses the use of multimedia software and the need to apply constructivist theories so students become more involved with the software, progressing from simply watching presentations to creating simulations. A project-based learning environment that uses MicroWorlds software is described that focuses on marine biology and oceanography. (LRW)

MESA: An Interactive Modeling and Simulation Environment for Intelligent Systems Automation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Charest, Leonard

1994-01-01

This report describes MESA, a software environment for creating applications that automate NASA mission opterations. MESA enables intelligent automation by utilizing model-based reasoning techniques developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Model-based reasoning techniques are realized in Mesa through native support of causal modeling and discrete event simulation.

A Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulator for Software Development for a Mars Airplane

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Slagowski, Stefan E.; Vican, Justin E.; Kenney, P. Sean

2007-01-01

Draper Laboratory recently developed a Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulator (HILSIM) to provide a simulation of the Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) airplane executing a mission in the Martian environment. The HILSIM was used to support risk mitigation activities under the Planetary Airplane Risk Reduction (PARR) program. PARR supported NASA Langley Research Center's (LaRC) ARES proposal efforts for the Mars Scout 2011 opportunity. The HILSIM software was a successful integration of two simulation frameworks, Draper's CSIM and NASA LaRC's Langley Standard Real-Time Simulation in C++ (LaSRS++).

Using Open Source Software in Visual Simulation Development

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-09-01

increased the use of the technology in training activities. Using open source/free software tools in the process can expand these possibilities...resulting in even greater cost reduction and allowing the flexibility needed in a training environment. This thesis presents a configuration and architecture...to be used when developing training visual simulations using both personal computers and open source tools. Aspects of the requirements needed in a

FAST: A multi-processed environment for visualization of computational fluid dynamics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bancroft, Gordon V.; Merritt, Fergus J.; Plessel, Todd C.; Kelaita, Paul G.; Mccabe, R. Kevin

1991-01-01

Three-dimensional, unsteady, multi-zoned fluid dynamics simulations over full scale aircraft are typical of the problems being investigated at NASA Ames' Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) facility on CRAY2 and CRAY-YMP supercomputers. With multiple processor workstations available in the 10-30 Mflop range, we feel that these new developments in scientific computing warrant a new approach to the design and implementation of analysis tools. These larger, more complex problems create a need for new visualization techniques not possible with the existing software or systems available as of this writing. The visualization techniques will change as the supercomputing environment, and hence the scientific methods employed, evolves even further. The Flow Analysis Software Toolkit (FAST), an implementation of a software system for fluid mechanics analysis, is discussed.

Automatic programming of simulation models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schroer, Bernard J.; Tseng, Fan T.; Zhang, Shou X.; Dwan, Wen S.

1990-01-01

The concepts of software engineering were used to improve the simulation modeling environment. Emphasis was placed on the application of an element of rapid prototyping, or automatic programming, to assist the modeler define the problem specification. Then, once the problem specification has been defined, an automatic code generator is used to write the simulation code. The following two domains were selected for evaluating the concepts of software engineering for discrete event simulation: manufacturing domain and a spacecraft countdown network sequence. The specific tasks were to: (1) define the software requirements for a graphical user interface to the Automatic Manufacturing Programming System (AMPS) system; (2) develop a graphical user interface for AMPS; and (3) compare the AMPS graphical interface with the AMPS interactive user interface.

Concurrent Flow Lanes - Phase II

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2009-04-17

This report provides the findings from a research effort designed to ascertain whether or not a chosen simulation software platform, the VISSIM micro-simulation platform, provides a suitable environment for modeling and analyzing traffic operations, ...

Benchmarking of dynamic simulation predictions in two software platforms using an upper limb musculoskeletal model

PubMed Central

Saul, Katherine R.; Hu, Xiao; Goehler, Craig M.; Vidt, Meghan E.; Daly, Melissa; Velisar, Anca; Murray, Wendy M.

2014-01-01

Several opensource or commercially available software platforms are widely used to develop dynamic simulations of movement. While computational approaches are conceptually similar across platforms, technical differences in implementation may influence output. We present a new upper limb dynamic model as a tool to evaluate potential differences in predictive behavior between platforms. We evaluated to what extent differences in technical implementations in popular simulation software environments result in differences in kinematic predictions for single and multijoint movements using EMG- and optimization-based approaches for deriving control signals. We illustrate the benchmarking comparison using SIMM-Dynamics Pipeline-SD/Fast and OpenSim platforms. The most substantial divergence results from differences in muscle model and actuator paths. This model is a valuable resource and is available for download by other researchers. The model, data, and simulation results presented here can be used by future researchers to benchmark other software platforms and software upgrades for these two platforms. PMID:24995410

Benchmarking of dynamic simulation predictions in two software platforms using an upper limb musculoskeletal model.

PubMed

Saul, Katherine R; Hu, Xiao; Goehler, Craig M; Vidt, Meghan E; Daly, Melissa; Velisar, Anca; Murray, Wendy M

2015-01-01

Several opensource or commercially available software platforms are widely used to develop dynamic simulations of movement. While computational approaches are conceptually similar across platforms, technical differences in implementation may influence output. We present a new upper limb dynamic model as a tool to evaluate potential differences in predictive behavior between platforms. We evaluated to what extent differences in technical implementations in popular simulation software environments result in differences in kinematic predictions for single and multijoint movements using EMG- and optimization-based approaches for deriving control signals. We illustrate the benchmarking comparison using SIMM-Dynamics Pipeline-SD/Fast and OpenSim platforms. The most substantial divergence results from differences in muscle model and actuator paths. This model is a valuable resource and is available for download by other researchers. The model, data, and simulation results presented here can be used by future researchers to benchmark other software platforms and software upgrades for these two platforms.

A Facility and Architecture for Autonomy Research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pisanich, Greg; Clancy, Daniel (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Autonomy is a key enabling factor in the advancement of the remote robotic exploration. There is currently a large gap between autonomy software at the research level and software that is ready for insertion into near-term space missions. The Mission Simulation Facility (MST) will bridge this gap by providing a simulation framework and suite of simulation tools to support research in autonomy for remote exploration. This system will allow developers of autonomy software to test their models in a high-fidelity simulation and evaluate their system's performance against a set of integrated, standardized simulations. The Mission Simulation ToolKit (MST) uses a distributed architecture with a communication layer that is built on top of the standardized High Level Architecture (HLA). This architecture enables the use of existing high fidelity models, allows mixing simulation components from various computing platforms and enforces the use of a standardized high-level interface among components. The components needed to achieve a realistic simulation can be grouped into four categories: environment generation (terrain, environmental features), robotic platform behavior (robot dynamics), instrument models (camera/spectrometer/etc.), and data analysis. The MST will provide basic components in these areas but allows users to plug-in easily any refined model by means of a communication protocol. Finally, a description file defines the robot and environment parameters for easy configuration and ensures that all the simulation models share the same information.

Requirements for a multifunctional code architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tiihonen, O.; Juslin, K.

1997-07-01

The present paper studies a set of requirements for a multifunctional simulation software architecture in the light of experiences gained in developing and using the APROS simulation environment. The huge steps taken in the development of computer hardware and software during the last ten years are changing the status of the traditional nuclear safety analysis software. The affordable computing power on the safety analysts table by far exceeds the possibilities offered to him/her ten years ago. At the same time the features of everyday office software tend to set standards to the way the input data and calculational results aremore » managed.« less

Space station dynamics, attitude control and momentum management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sunkel, John W.; Singh, Ramen P.; Vengopal, Ravi

1989-01-01

The Space Station Attitude Control System software test-bed provides a rigorous environment for the design, development and functional verification of GN and C algorithms and software. The approach taken for the simulation of the vehicle dynamics and environmental models using a computationally efficient algorithm is discussed. The simulation includes capabilities for docking/berthing dynamics, prescribed motion dynamics associated with the Mobile Remote Manipulator System (MRMS) and microgravity disturbances. The vehicle dynamics module interfaces with the test-bed through the central Communicator facility which is in turn driven by the Station Control Simulator (SCS) Executive. The Communicator addresses issues such as the interface between the discrete flight software and the continuous vehicle dynamics, and multi-programming aspects such as the complex flow of control in real-time programs. Combined with the flight software and redundancy management modules, the facility provides a flexible, user-oriented simulation platform.

Basic Techniques in Environmental Simulation.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-07-01

the devel- ’I or oper is liable for all necessary changes in the model or its supporting computer software . After the 90-day warranty expires, the user...processing unit, that part of a computer which accom- plishes arithmetic and logical operations DCFLOS Dynamic cloud -free line-of-sight, a simulation... Software Development ......... 12 1.7.7 Operational Environment, Interfaces, and Constraints. . 12 1.7.8 Effectiveness Evaluation, Value Analysis, and

Validation of the mean radiant temperature simulated by the RayMan software in urban environments.

PubMed

Lee, Hyunjung; Mayer, Helmut

2016-11-01

The RayMan software is worldwide applied in investigations on different issues in human-biometeorology. However, only the simulated mean radiant temperature (T mrt ) has been validated so far in a few case studies. They are based on T mrt values, which were experimentally determined in urban environments by use of a globe thermometer or applying the six-directional method. This study analyses previous T mrt validations in a comparative manner. Their results are extended by a recent validation of T mrt in an urban micro-environment in Freiburg (southwest Germany), which can be regarded as relatively heterogeneous due to different shading intensities by tree crowns. In addition, a validation of the physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) simulated by RayMan is conducted for the first time. The validations are based on experimentally determined T mrt and PET values, which were calculated from measured meteorological variables in the daytime of a clear-sky summer day. In total, the validation results show that RayMan is capable of simulating T mrt satisfactorily under relatively homogeneous site conditions. However, the inaccuracy of simulated T mrt is increasing with lower sun elevation and growing heterogeneity of the simulation site. As T mrt represents the meteorological variable that mostly governs PET in the daytime of clear-sky summer days, the accuracy of simulated T mrt is mainly responsible for the accuracy of simulated PET. The T mrt validations result in some recommendations, which concern an update of physical principles applied in the RayMan software to simulate the short- and long-wave radiant flux densities, especially from vertical building walls and tree crowns.

Uranus: a rapid prototyping tool for FPGA embedded computer vision

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosales-Hernández, Victor; Castillo-Jimenez, Liz; Viveros-Velez, Gilberto; Zuñiga-Grajeda, Virgilio; Treviño Torres, Abel; Arias-Estrada, M.

2007-01-01

The starting point for all successful system development is the simulation. Performing high level simulation of a system can help to identify, insolate and fix design problems. This work presents Uranus, a software tool for simulation and evaluation of image processing algorithms with support to migrate them to an FPGA environment for algorithm acceleration and embedded processes purposes. The tool includes an integrated library of previous coded operators in software and provides the necessary support to read and display image sequences as well as video files. The user can use the previous compiled soft-operators in a high level process chain, and code his own operators. Additional to the prototyping tool, Uranus offers FPGA-based hardware architecture with the same organization as the software prototyping part. The hardware architecture contains a library of FPGA IP cores for image processing that are connected with a PowerPC based system. The Uranus environment is intended for rapid prototyping of machine vision and the migration to FPGA accelerator platform, and it is distributed for academic purposes.

The Evolution of Constructivist Learning Environments: Immersion in Distributed, Virtual Worlds.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dede, Chris

1995-01-01

Discusses the evolution of constructivist learning environments and examines the collaboration of simulated software models, virtual environments, and evolving mental models via immersion in artificial realities. A sidebar gives a realistic example of a student navigating through cyberspace. (JMV)

USE OF COMPUTER-AIDED PROCESS ENGINEERING TOOL IN POLLUTION PREVENTION

EPA Science Inventory

Computer-Aided Process Engineering has become established in industry as a design tool. With the establishment of the CAPE-OPEN software specifications for process simulation environments. CAPE-OPEN provides a set of "middleware" standards that enable software developers to acces...

RELAP-7 Software Verification and Validation Plan

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smith, Curtis L.; Choi, Yong-Joon; Zou, Ling

This INL plan comprehensively describes the software for RELAP-7 and documents the software, interface, and software design requirements for the application. The plan also describes the testing-based software verification and validation (SV&V) process—a set of specially designed software models used to test RELAP-7. The RELAP-7 (Reactor Excursion and Leak Analysis Program) code is a nuclear reactor system safety analysis code being developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The code is based on the INL’s modern scientific software development framework – MOOSE (Multi-Physics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment). The overall design goal of RELAP-7 is to take advantage of the previous thirty yearsmore » of advancements in computer architecture, software design, numerical integration methods, and physical models. The end result will be a reactor systems analysis capability that retains and improves upon RELAP5’s capability and extends the analysis capability for all reactor system simulation scenarios.« less

The Role of Crop Systems Simulation in Agriculture and Environment

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Over the past 30 to 40 years, simulation of crop systems has advanced from a neophyte science with inadequate computing power into a robust and increasingly accepted science supported by improved software, languages, development tools, and computer capabilities. Crop system simulators contain mathe...

Methodology to evaluate the performance of simulation models for alternative compiler and operating system configurations

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Simulation modelers increasingly require greater flexibility for model implementation on diverse operating systems, and they demand high computational speed for efficient iterative simulations. Additionally, model users may differ in preference for proprietary versus open-source software environment...

User modeling techniques for enhanced usability of OPSMODEL operations simulation software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Davis, William T.

1991-01-01

The PC based OPSMODEL operations software for modeling and simulation of space station crew activities supports engineering and cost analyses and operations planning. Using top-down modeling, the level of detail required in the data base can be limited to being commensurate with the results required of any particular analysis. To perform a simulation, a resource environment consisting of locations, crew definition, equipment, and consumables is first defined. Activities to be simulated are then defined as operations and scheduled as desired. These operations are defined within a 1000 level priority structure. The simulation on OPSMODEL, then, consists of the following: user defined, user scheduled operations executing within an environment of user defined resource and priority constraints. Techniques for prioritizing operations to realistically model a representative daily scenario of on-orbit space station crew activities are discussed. The large number of priority levels allows priorities to be assigned commensurate with the detail necessary for a given simulation. Several techniques for realistic modeling of day-to-day work carryover are also addressed.

A new Scheme for ATLAS Trigger Simulation using Legacy Code

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Galster, Gorm; Stelzer, Joerg; Wiedenmann, Werner

2014-06-01

Analyses at the LHC which search for rare physics processes or determine with high precision Standard Model parameters require accurate simulations of the detector response and the event selection processes. The accurate determination of the trigger response is crucial for the determination of overall selection efficiencies and signal sensitivities. For the generation and the reconstruction of simulated event data, the most recent software releases are usually used to ensure the best agreement between simulated data and real data. For the simulation of the trigger selection process, however, ideally the same software release that was deployed when the real data were taken should be used. This potentially requires running software dating many years back. Having a strategy for running old software in a modern environment thus becomes essential when data simulated for past years start to present a sizable fraction of the total. We examined the requirements and possibilities for such a simulation scheme within the ATLAS software framework and successfully implemented a proof-of-concept simulation chain. One of the greatest challenges was the choice of a data format which promises long term compatibility with old and new software releases. Over the time periods envisaged, data format incompatibilities are also likely to emerge in databases and other external support services. Software availability may become an issue, when e.g. the support for the underlying operating system might stop. In this paper we present the encountered problems and developed solutions, and discuss proposals for future development. Some ideas reach beyond the retrospective trigger simulation scheme in ATLAS as they also touch more generally aspects of data preservation.

The Development of Design Tools for Fault Tolerant Quantum Dot Cellular Automata Based Logic

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Armstrong, Curtis D.; Humphreys, William M.

2003-01-01

We are developing software to explore the fault tolerance of quantum dot cellular automata gate architectures in the presence of manufacturing variations and device defects. The Topology Optimization Methodology using Applied Statistics (TOMAS) framework extends the capabilities of the A Quantum Interconnected Network Array Simulator (AQUINAS) by adding front-end and back-end software and creating an environment that integrates all of these components. The front-end tools establish all simulation parameters, configure the simulation system, automate the Monte Carlo generation of simulation files, and execute the simulation of these files. The back-end tools perform automated data parsing, statistical analysis and report generation.

MADNESS: A Multiresolution, Adaptive Numerical Environment for Scientific Simulation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harrison, Robert J.; Beylkin, Gregory; Bischoff, Florian A.

2016-01-01

MADNESS (multiresolution adaptive numerical environment for scientific simulation) is a high-level software environment for solving integral and differential equations in many dimensions that uses adaptive and fast harmonic analysis methods with guaranteed precision based on multiresolution analysis and separated representations. Underpinning the numerical capabilities is a powerful petascale parallel programming environment that aims to increase both programmer productivity and code scalability. This paper describes the features and capabilities of MADNESS and briefly discusses some current applications in chemistry and several areas of physics.

SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego User Manual Version 4.46.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sierra Thermal/Fluid Team

2017-09-01

The SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego along with the SIERRA Participating Media Radiation Module: Syrinx, henceforth referred to as Fuego and Syrinx, respectively, are the key elements of the ASCI fire environment simulation project. The fire environment simulation project is directed at characterizing both open large-scale pool fires and building enclosure fires. Fuego represents the turbulent, buoyantly-driven incompressible flow, heat transfer, mass transfer, combustion, soot, and absorption coefficient model portion of the simulation software. Syrinx represents the participating-media thermal radiation mechanics. This project is an integral part of the SIERRA multi-mechanics software development project. Fuego depends heavily upon the coremore » architecture developments provided by SIERRA for massively parallel computing, solution adaptivity, and mechanics coupling on unstructured grids.« less

SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego Theory Manual Version 4.44

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sierra Thermal /Fluid Team

2017-04-01

The SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego along with the SIERRA Participating Media Radiation Module: Syrinx, henceforth referred to as Fuego and Syrinx, respectively, are the key elements of the ASCI fire environment simulation project. The fire environment simulation project is directed at characterizing both open large-scale pool fires and building enclosure fires. Fuego represents the turbulent, buoyantly-driven incompressible flow, heat transfer, mass transfer, combustion, soot, and absorption coefficient model portion of the simulation software. Syrinx represents the participating-media thermal radiation mechanics. This project is an integral part of the SIERRA multi-mechanics software development project. Fuego depends heavily upon the coremore » architecture developments provided by SIERRA for massively parallel computing, solution adaptivity, and mechanics coupling on unstructured grids.« less

SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego Theory Manual Version 4.46.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sierra Thermal/Fluid Team

The SIERRA Low Mach Module: Fuego along with the SIERRA Participating Media Radiation Module: Syrinx, henceforth referred to as Fuego and Syrinx, respectively, are the key elements of the ASCI fire environment simulation project. The fire environment simulation project is directed at characterizing both open large-scale pool fires and building enclosure fires. Fuego represents the turbulent, buoyantly-driven incompressible flow, heat transfer, mass transfer, combustion, soot, and absorption coefficient model portion of the simulation software. Syrinx represents the participating-media thermal radiation mechanics. This project is an integral part of the SIERRA multi-mechanics software development project. Fuego depends heavily upon the coremore » architecture developments provided by SIERRA for massively parallel computing, solution adaptivity, and mechanics coupling on unstructured grids.« less

OASYS (OrAnge SYnchrotron Suite): an open-source graphical environment for x-ray virtual experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rebuffi, Luca; Sanchez del Rio, Manuel

2017-08-01

The evolution of the hardware platforms, the modernization of the software tools, the access to the codes of a large number of young people and the popularization of the open source software for scientific applications drove us to design OASYS (ORange SYnchrotron Suite), a completely new graphical environment for modelling X-ray experiments. The implemented software architecture allows to obtain not only an intuitive and very-easy-to-use graphical interface, but also provides high flexibility and rapidity for interactive simulations, making configuration changes to quickly compare multiple beamline configurations. Its purpose is to integrate in a synergetic way the most powerful calculation engines available. OASYS integrates different simulation strategies via the implementation of adequate simulation tools for X-ray Optics (e.g. ray tracing and wave optics packages). It provides a language to make them to communicate by sending and receiving encapsulated data. Python has been chosen as main programming language, because of its universality and popularity in scientific computing. The software Orange, developed at the University of Ljubljana (SLO), is the high level workflow engine that provides the interaction with the user and communication mechanisms.

An Interactive Teaching System for Bond Graph Modeling and Simulation in Bioengineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roman, Monica; Popescu, Dorin; Selisteanu, Dan

2013-01-01

The objective of the present work was to implement a teaching system useful in modeling and simulation of biotechnological processes. The interactive system is based on applications developed using 20-sim modeling and simulation software environment. A procedure for the simulation of bioprocesses modeled by bond graphs is proposed and simulators…

An IP-Based Software System for Real-time, Closed Loop, Multi-Spacecraft Mission Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cary, Everett; Davis, George; Higinbotham, John; Burns, Richard; Hogie, Keith; Hallahan, Francis

2003-01-01

This viewgraph presentation provides information on the architecture of a computerized testbest for simulating Distributed Space Systems (DSS) for controlling spacecraft flying in formation. The presentation also discusses and diagrams the Distributed Synthesis Environment (DSE) for simulating and planning DSS missions.

Prototype software model for designing intruder detection systems with simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Jeffrey S.; Peters, Brett A.; Curry, James C.; Gupta, Dinesh

1998-08-01

This article explores using discrete-event simulation for the design and control of defence oriented fixed-sensor- based detection system in a facility housing items of significant interest to enemy forces. The key issues discussed include software development, simulation-based optimization within a modeling framework, and the expansion of the framework to create real-time control tools and training simulations. The software discussed in this article is a flexible simulation environment where the data for the simulation are stored in an external database and the simulation logic is being implemented using a commercial simulation package. The simulation assesses the overall security level of a building against various intruder scenarios. A series of simulation runs with different inputs can determine the change in security level with changes in the sensor configuration, building layout, and intruder/guard strategies. In addition, the simulation model developed for the design stage of the project can be modified to produce a control tool for the testing, training, and real-time control of systems with humans and sensor hardware in the loop.

Simulation of Physical Experiments in Immersive Virtual Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Noor, Ahmed K.; Wasfy, Tamer M.

2001-01-01

An object-oriented event-driven immersive Virtual environment is described for the creation of virtual labs (VLs) for simulating physical experiments. Discussion focuses on a number of aspects of the VLs, including interface devices, software objects, and various applications. The VLs interface with output devices, including immersive stereoscopic screed(s) and stereo speakers; and a variety of input devices, including body tracking (head and hands), haptic gloves, wand, joystick, mouse, microphone, and keyboard. The VL incorporates the following types of primitive software objects: interface objects, support objects, geometric entities, and finite elements. Each object encapsulates a set of properties, methods, and events that define its behavior, appearance, and functions. A container object allows grouping of several objects. Applications of the VLs include viewing the results of the physical experiment, viewing a computer simulation of the physical experiment, simulation of the experiments procedure, computational steering, and remote control of the physical experiment. In addition, the VL can be used as a risk-free (safe) environment for training. The implementation of virtual structures testing machines, virtual wind tunnels, and a virtual acoustic testing facility is described.

Simulation of Attacks for Security in Wireless Sensor Network.

PubMed

Diaz, Alvaro; Sanchez, Pablo

2016-11-18

The increasing complexity and low-power constraints of current Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) require efficient methodologies for network simulation and embedded software performance analysis of nodes. In addition, security is also a very important feature that has to be addressed in most WSNs, since they may work with sensitive data and operate in hostile unattended environments. In this paper, a methodology for security analysis of Wireless Sensor Networks is presented. The methodology allows designing attack-aware embedded software/firmware or attack countermeasures to provide security in WSNs. The proposed methodology includes attacker modeling and attack simulation with performance analysis (node's software execution time and power consumption estimation). After an analysis of different WSN attack types, an attacker model is proposed. This model defines three different types of attackers that can emulate most WSN attacks. In addition, this paper presents a virtual platform that is able to model the node hardware, embedded software and basic wireless channel features. This virtual simulation analyzes the embedded software behavior and node power consumption while it takes into account the network deployment and topology. Additionally, this simulator integrates the previously mentioned attacker model. Thus, the impact of attacks on power consumption and software behavior/execution-time can be analyzed. This provides developers with essential information about the effects that one or multiple attacks could have on the network, helping them to develop more secure WSN systems. This WSN attack simulator is an essential element of the attack-aware embedded software development methodology that is also introduced in this work.

Simulation-Based Verification of Autonomous Controllers via Livingstone PathFinder

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lindsey, A. E.; Pecheur, Charles

2004-01-01

AI software is often used as a means for providing greater autonomy to automated systems, capable of coping with harsh and unpredictable environments. Due in part to the enormous space of possible situations that they aim to addrs, autonomous systems pose a serious challenge to traditional test-based verification approaches. Efficient verification approaches need to be perfected before these systems can reliably control critical applications. This publication describes Livingstone PathFinder (LPF), a verification tool for autonomous control software. LPF applies state space exploration algorithms to an instrumented testbed, consisting of the controller embedded in a simulated operating environment. Although LPF has focused on NASA s Livingstone model-based diagnosis system applications, the architecture is modular and adaptable to other systems. This article presents different facets of LPF and experimental results from applying the software to a Livingstone model of the main propulsion feed subsystem for a prototype space vehicle.

Implementing Simulation Design of Experiments and Remote Execution on a High Performance Computing Cluster

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-09-01

example, an application developed in Sun’s Netbeans [2007] integrated development environment (IDE) uses Swing class object for graphical user... Netbeans Version 5.5.1 [Computer Software]. Santa Clara, CA: Sun Microsystems. Process Modeler Version 7.0 [Computer Software]. Santa Clara, Ca

CHEMFLO-2000: INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE FOR SIMULATING WATER AND CHEMICAL MOVEMENT IN UNSATURATED SOILS

EPA Science Inventory

The movement of water and chemicals into and through soils has a large impact upon our environment and the entire ecosystem. Understanding these processes is of great importance in managing, utilizing, and protecting our natural resources. This software was written to enhance our...

Generalized Operations Simulation Environment for Aircraft Maintenance Training

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-04-01

Operations Simulation Environment ( GOSE ) project is a collaborative effort between AETC and AFRL to develop common, cost-effective, generalized VR training...maintenance training domain since it provided an opportunity to build on the VEST architecture. Development of GOSE involves re-engineering VEST as a scalable...modular, immersive VR training system comprised of PC-based hardware and software. GOSE initiatives include: (a) formalize training needs across

Virtual Environment User Interfaces to Support RLV and Space Station Simulations in the ANVIL Virtual Reality Lab

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dumas, Joseph D., II

1998-01-01

Several virtual reality I/O peripherals were successfully configured and integrated as part of the author's 1997 Summer Faculty Fellowship work. These devices, which were not supported by the developers of VR software packages, use new software drivers and configuration files developed by the author to allow them to be used with simulations developed using those software packages. The successful integration of these devices has added significant capability to the ANVIL lab at MSFC. In addition, the author was able to complete the integration of a networked virtual reality simulation of the Space Shuttle Remote Manipulator System docking Space Station modules which was begun as part of his 1996 Fellowship. The successful integration of this simulation demonstrates the feasibility of using VR technology for ground-based training as well as on-orbit operations.

Digital evaluation of sitting posture comfort in human-vehicle system under Industry 4.0 framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tao, Qing; Kang, Jinsheng; Sun, Wenlei; Li, Zhaobo; Huo, Xiao

2016-09-01

Most of the previous studies on the vibration ride comfort of the human-vehicle system were focused only on one or two aspects of the investigation. A hybrid approach which integrates all kinds of investigation methods in real environment and virtual environment is described. The real experimental environment includes the WBV(whole body vibration) test, questionnaires for human subjective sensation and motion capture. The virtual experimental environment includes the theoretical calculation on simplified 5-DOF human body vibration model, the vibration simulation and analysis within ADAMS/VibrationTM module, and the digital human biomechanics and occupational health analysis in Jack software. While the real experimental environment provides realistic and accurate test results, it also serves as core and validation for the virtual experimental environment. The virtual experimental environment takes full advantages of current available vibration simulation and digital human modelling software, and makes it possible to evaluate the sitting posture comfort in a human-vehicle system with various human anthropometric parameters. How this digital evaluation system for car seat comfort design is fitted in the Industry 4.0 framework is also proposed.

Software Framework for Advanced Power Plant Simulations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

John Widmann; Sorin Munteanu; Aseem Jain

2010-08-01

This report summarizes the work accomplished during the Phase II development effort of the Advanced Process Engineering Co-Simulator (APECS). The objective of the project is to develop the tools to efficiently combine high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models with process modeling software. During the course of the project, a robust integration controller was developed that can be used in any CAPE-OPEN compliant process modeling environment. The controller mediates the exchange of information between the process modeling software and the CFD software. Several approaches to reducing the time disparity between CFD simulations and process modeling have been investigated and implemented. Thesemore » include enabling the CFD models to be run on a remote cluster and enabling multiple CFD models to be run simultaneously. Furthermore, computationally fast reduced-order models (ROMs) have been developed that can be 'trained' using the results from CFD simulations and then used directly within flowsheets. Unit operation models (both CFD and ROMs) can be uploaded to a model database and shared between multiple users.« less

Excavator Design Validation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pholsiri, Chalongrath; English, James; Seberino, Charles; Lim, Yi-Je

2010-01-01

The Excavator Design Validation tool verifies excavator designs by automatically generating control systems and modeling their performance in an accurate simulation of their expected environment. Part of this software design includes interfacing with human operations that can be included in simulation-based studies and validation. This is essential for assessing productivity, versatility, and reliability. This software combines automatic control system generation from CAD (computer-aided design) models, rapid validation of complex mechanism designs, and detailed models of the environment including soil, dust, temperature, remote supervision, and communication latency to create a system of high value. Unique algorithms have been created for controlling and simulating complex robotic mechanisms automatically from just a CAD description. These algorithms are implemented as a commercial cross-platform C++ software toolkit that is configurable using the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The algorithms work with virtually any mobile robotic mechanisms using module descriptions that adhere to the XML standard. In addition, high-fidelity, real-time physics-based simulation algorithms have also been developed that include models of internal forces and the forces produced when a mechanism interacts with the outside world. This capability is combined with an innovative organization for simulation algorithms, new regolith simulation methods, and a unique control and study architecture to make powerful tools with the potential to transform the way NASA verifies and compares excavator designs. Energid's Actin software has been leveraged for this design validation. The architecture includes parametric and Monte Carlo studies tailored for validation of excavator designs and their control by remote human operators. It also includes the ability to interface with third-party software and human-input devices. Two types of simulation models have been adapted: high-fidelity discrete element models and fast analytical models. By using the first to establish parameters for the second, a system has been created that can be executed in real time, or faster than real time, on a desktop PC. This allows Monte Carlo simulations to be performed on a computer platform available to all researchers, and it allows human interaction to be included in a real-time simulation process. Metrics on excavator performance are established that work with the simulation architecture. Both static and dynamic metrics are included.

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Noor, Ahmed K.; Lobeck, William E.

2002-01-01

Four research activities related to Intelligent Synthesis Environment (ISE) have been performed under this grant. The four activities are: 1) non-deterministic approaches that incorporate technologies such as intelligent software agents, visual simulations and other ISE technologies; 2) virtual labs that leverage modeling, simulation and information technologies to create an immersive, highly interactive virtual environment tailored to the needs of researchers and learners; 3) advanced learning modules that incorporate advanced instructional, user interface and intelligent agent technologies; and 4) assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments.

MADNESS: A Multiresolution, Adaptive Numerical Environment for Scientific Simulation

DOE PAGES

Harrison, Robert J.; Beylkin, Gregory; Bischoff, Florian A.; ...

2016-01-01

We present MADNESS (multiresolution adaptive numerical environment for scientific simulation) that is a high-level software environment for solving integral and differential equations in many dimensions that uses adaptive and fast harmonic analysis methods with guaranteed precision that are based on multiresolution analysis and separated representations. Underpinning the numerical capabilities is a powerful petascale parallel programming environment that aims to increase both programmer productivity and code scalability. This paper describes the features and capabilities of MADNESS and briefly discusses some current applications in chemistry and several areas of physics.

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Noor, Ahmed K.; Loftin, R. Bowen

2002-12-01

Four research activities related to Intelligent Synthesis Environment (ISE) have been performed under this grant. The four activities are: 1) non-deterministic approaches that incorporate technologies such as intelligent software agents, visual simulations and other ISE technologies; 2) virtual labs that leverage modeling, simulation and information technologies to create an immersive, highly interactive virtual environment tailored to the needs of researchers and learners; 3) advanced learning modules that incorporate advanced instructional, user interface and intelligent agent technologies; and 4) assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments.

Human Motion Tracking and Glove-Based User Interfaces for Virtual Environments in ANVIL

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dumas, Joseph D., II

2002-01-01

The Army/NASA Virtual Innovations Laboratory (ANVIL) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) provides an environment where engineers and other personnel can investigate novel applications of computer simulation and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. Among the many hardware and software resources in ANVIL are several high-performance Silicon Graphics computer systems and a number of commercial software packages, such as Division MockUp by Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) and Jack by Unigraphics Solutions, Inc. These hardware and software platforms are used in conjunction with various VR peripheral I/O (input / output) devices, CAD (computer aided design) models, etc. to support the objectives of the MSFC Engineering Systems Department/Systems Engineering Support Group (ED42) by studying engineering designs, chiefly from the standpoint of human factors and ergonomics. One of the more time-consuming tasks facing ANVIL personnel involves the testing and evaluation of peripheral I/O devices and the integration of new devices with existing hardware and software platforms. Another important challenge is the development of innovative user interfaces to allow efficient, intuitive interaction between simulation users and the virtual environments they are investigating. As part of his Summer Faculty Fellowship, the author was tasked with verifying the operation of some recently acquired peripheral interface devices and developing new, easy-to-use interfaces that could be used with existing VR hardware and software to better support ANVIL projects.

Simulation Platform: a cloud-based online simulation environment.

PubMed

Yamazaki, Tadashi; Ikeno, Hidetoshi; Okumura, Yoshihiro; Satoh, Shunji; Kamiyama, Yoshimi; Hirata, Yutaka; Inagaki, Keiichiro; Ishihara, Akito; Kannon, Takayuki; Usui, Shiro

2011-09-01

For multi-scale and multi-modal neural modeling, it is needed to handle multiple neural models described at different levels seamlessly. Database technology will become more important for these studies, specifically for downloading and handling the neural models seamlessly and effortlessly. To date, conventional neuroinformatics databases have solely been designed to archive model files, but the databases should provide a chance for users to validate the models before downloading them. In this paper, we report our on-going project to develop a cloud-based web service for online simulation called "Simulation Platform". Simulation Platform is a cloud of virtual machines running GNU/Linux. On a virtual machine, various software including developer tools such as compilers and libraries, popular neural simulators such as GENESIS, NEURON and NEST, and scientific software such as Gnuplot, R and Octave, are pre-installed. When a user posts a request, a virtual machine is assigned to the user, and the simulation starts on that machine. The user remotely accesses to the machine through a web browser and carries out the simulation, without the need to install any software but a web browser on the user's own computer. Therefore, Simulation Platform is expected to eliminate impediments to handle multiple neural models that require multiple software. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reprint of: Simulation Platform: a cloud-based online simulation environment.

PubMed

Yamazaki, Tadashi; Ikeno, Hidetoshi; Okumura, Yoshihiro; Satoh, Shunji; Kamiyama, Yoshimi; Hirata, Yutaka; Inagaki, Keiichiro; Ishihara, Akito; Kannon, Takayuki; Usui, Shiro

2011-11-01

For multi-scale and multi-modal neural modeling, it is needed to handle multiple neural models described at different levels seamlessly. Database technology will become more important for these studies, specifically for downloading and handling the neural models seamlessly and effortlessly. To date, conventional neuroinformatics databases have solely been designed to archive model files, but the databases should provide a chance for users to validate the models before downloading them. In this paper, we report our on-going project to develop a cloud-based web service for online simulation called "Simulation Platform". Simulation Platform is a cloud of virtual machines running GNU/Linux. On a virtual machine, various software including developer tools such as compilers and libraries, popular neural simulators such as GENESIS, NEURON and NEST, and scientific software such as Gnuplot, R and Octave, are pre-installed. When a user posts a request, a virtual machine is assigned to the user, and the simulation starts on that machine. The user remotely accesses to the machine through a web browser and carries out the simulation, without the need to install any software but a web browser on the user's own computer. Therefore, Simulation Platform is expected to eliminate impediments to handle multiple neural models that require multiple software. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Visual Basic simulation software tool for performance analysis of a membrane-based advanced water treatment plant.

PubMed

Pal, P; Kumar, R; Srivastava, N; Chaudhuri, J

2014-02-01

A Visual Basic simulation software (WATTPPA) has been developed to analyse the performance of an advanced wastewater treatment plant. This user-friendly and menu-driven software is based on the dynamic mathematical model for an industrial wastewater treatment scheme that integrates chemical, biological and membrane-based unit operations. The software-predicted results corroborate very well with the experimental findings as indicated in the overall correlation coefficient of the order of 0.99. The software permits pre-analysis and manipulation of input data, helps in optimization and exhibits performance of an integrated plant visually on a graphical platform. It allows quick performance analysis of the whole system as well as the individual units. The software first of its kind in its domain and in the well-known Microsoft Excel environment is likely to be very useful in successful design, optimization and operation of an advanced hybrid treatment plant for hazardous wastewater.

Training software using virtual-reality technology and pre-calculated effective dose data.

PubMed

Ding, Aiping; Zhang, Di; Xu, X George

2009-05-01

This paper describes the development of a software package, called VR Dose Simulator, which aims to provide interactive radiation safety and ALARA training to radiation workers using virtual-reality (VR) simulations. Combined with a pre-calculated effective dose equivalent (EDE) database, a virtual radiation environment was constructed in VR authoring software, EON Studio, using 3-D models of a real nuclear power plant building. Models of avatars representing two workers were adopted with arms and legs of the avatar being controlled in the software to simulate walking and other postures. Collision detection algorithms were developed for various parts of the 3-D power plant building and avatars to confine the avatars to certain regions of the virtual environment. Ten different camera viewpoints were assigned to conveniently cover the entire virtual scenery in different viewing angles. A user can control the avatar to carry out radiological engineering tasks using two modes of avatar navigation. A user can also specify two types of radiation source: Cs and Co. The location of the avatar inside the virtual environment during the course of the avatar's movement is linked to the EDE database. The accumulative dose is calculated and displayed on the screen in real-time. Based on the final accumulated dose and the completion status of all virtual tasks, a score is given to evaluate the performance of the user. The paper concludes that VR-based simulation technologies are interactive and engaging, thus potentially useful in improving the quality of radiation safety training. The paper also summarizes several challenges: more streamlined data conversion, realistic avatar movement and posture, more intuitive implementation of the data communication between EON Studio and VB.NET, and more versatile utilization of EDE data such as a source near the body, etc., all of which needs to be addressed in future efforts to develop this type of software.

Using PC Software To Enhance the Student's Ability To Learn the Exporting Process.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buckles, Tom A.; Lange, Irene

This paper describes the advantages of using computer simulations in the classroom or managerial environment and the major premise and principal components of Export to Win!, a computer simulation used in international marketing seminars. A rationale for using computer simulations argues that they improve the quality of teaching by building…

USING THE ECLPSS SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT TO BUILD A SPATIALLY EXPLICIT COMPONENT-BASED MODEL OF OZONE EFFECTS ON FOREST ECOSYSTEMS. (R827958)

EPA Science Inventory

We have developed a modeling framework to support grid-based simulation of ecosystems at multiple spatial scales, the Ecological Component Library for Parallel Spatial Simulation (ECLPSS). ECLPSS helps ecologists to build robust spatially explicit simulations of ...

Onyx-Advanced Aeropropulsion Simulation Framework Created

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.

2001-01-01

The Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) project at the NASA Glenn Research Center is developing a new software environment for analyzing and designing aircraft engines and, eventually, space transportation systems. Its purpose is to dramatically reduce the time, effort, and expense necessary to design and test jet engines by creating sophisticated computer simulations of an aerospace object or system (refs. 1 and 2). Through a university grant as part of that effort, researchers at the University of Toledo have developed Onyx, an extensible Java-based (Sun Micro-systems, Inc.), objectoriented simulation framework, to investigate how advanced software design techniques can be successfully applied to aeropropulsion system simulation (refs. 3 and 4). The design of Onyx's architecture enables users to customize and extend the framework to add new functionality or adapt simulation behavior as required. It exploits object-oriented technologies, such as design patterns, domain frameworks, and software components, to develop a modular system in which users can dynamically replace components with others having different functionality.

skeleSim: an extensible, general framework for population genetic simulation in R

PubMed Central

Parobek, Christian M.; Archer, Frederick I.; DePrenger-Levin, Michelle E.; Hoban, Sean M.; Liggins, Libby; Strand, Allan E.

2016-01-01

Simulations are a key tool in molecular ecology for inference and forecasting, as well as for evaluating new methods. Due to growing computational power and a diversity of software with different capabilities, simulations are becoming increasingly powerful and useful. However, the widespread use of simulations by geneticists and ecologists is hindered by difficulties in understanding these softwares’ complex capabilities, composing code and input files, a daunting bioinformatics barrier, and a steep conceptual learning curve. skeleSim (an R package) guides users in choosing appropriate simulations, setting parameters, calculating genetic summary statistics, and organizing data output, in a reproducible pipeline within the R environment. skeleSim is designed to be an extensible framework that can ‘wrap’ around any simulation software (inside or outside the R environment) and be extended to calculate and graph any genetic summary statistics. Currently, skeleSim implements coalescent and forward-time models available in the fastsimcoal2 and rmetasim simulation engines to produce null distributions for multiple population genetic statistics and marker types, under a variety of demographic conditions. skeleSim is intended to make simulations easier while still allowing full model complexity to ensure that simulations play a fundamental role in molecular ecology investigations. skeleSim can also serve as a teaching tool: demonstrating the outcomes of stochastic population genetic processes; teaching general concepts of simulations; and providing an introduction to the R environment with a user-friendly graphical user interface (using shiny). PMID:27736016

Army-NASA aircrew/aircraft integration program: Phase 4 A(3)I Man-Machine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) software detailed design document

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Banda, Carolyn; Bushnell, David; Chen, Scott; Chiu, Alex; Constantine, Betsy; Murray, Jerry; Neukom, Christian; Prevost, Michael; Shankar, Renuka; Staveland, Lowell

1991-01-01

The Man-Machine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) is an integrated suite of software components that constitutes a prototype workstation to aid designers in applying human factors principles to the design of complex human-machine systems. MIDAS is intended to be used at the very early stages of conceptual design to provide an environment wherein designers can use computational representations of the crew station and operator, instead of hardware simulators and man-in-the-loop studies, to discover problems and ask 'what if' questions regarding the projected mission, equipment, and environment. This document is the Software Product Specification for MIDAS. Introductory descriptions of the processing requirements, hardware/software environment, structure, I/O, and control are given in the main body of the document for the overall MIDAS system, with detailed discussion of the individual modules included in Annexes A-J.

Distributed Engine Control Empirical/Analytical Verification Tools

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

DeCastro, Jonathan; Hettler, Eric; Yedavalli, Rama; Mitra, Sayan

2013-01-01

NASA's vision for an intelligent engine will be realized with the development of a truly distributed control system featuring highly reliable, modular, and dependable components capable of both surviving the harsh engine operating environment and decentralized functionality. A set of control system verification tools was developed and applied to a C-MAPSS40K engine model, and metrics were established to assess the stability and performance of these control systems on the same platform. A software tool was developed that allows designers to assemble easily a distributed control system in software and immediately assess the overall impacts of the system on the target (simulated) platform, allowing control system designers to converge rapidly on acceptable architectures with consideration to all required hardware elements. The software developed in this program will be installed on a distributed hardware-in-the-loop (DHIL) simulation tool to assist NASA and the Distributed Engine Control Working Group (DECWG) in integrating DCS (distributed engine control systems) components onto existing and next-generation engines.The distributed engine control simulator blockset for MATLAB/Simulink and hardware simulator provides the capability to simulate virtual subcomponents, as well as swap actual subcomponents for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) analysis. Subcomponents can be the communication network, smart sensor or actuator nodes, or a centralized control system. The distributed engine control blockset for MATLAB/Simulink is a software development tool. The software includes an engine simulation, a communication network simulation, control algorithms, and analysis algorithms set up in a modular environment for rapid simulation of different network architectures; the hardware consists of an embedded device running parts of the CMAPSS engine simulator and controlled through Simulink. The distributed engine control simulation, evaluation, and analysis technology provides unique capabilities to study the effects of a given change to the control system in the context of the distributed paradigm. The simulation tool can support treatment of all components within the control system, both virtual and real; these include communication data network, smart sensor and actuator nodes, centralized control system (FADEC full authority digital engine control), and the aircraft engine itself. The DECsim tool can allow simulation-based prototyping of control laws, control architectures, and decentralization strategies before hardware is integrated into the system. With the configuration specified, the simulator allows a variety of key factors to be systematically assessed. Such factors include control system performance, reliability, weight, and bandwidth utilization.

An evaluation of software tools for the design and development of cockpit displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ellis, Thomas D., Jr.

1993-01-01

The use of all-glass cockpits at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) simulation facility has changed the means of design, development, and maintenance of instrument displays. The human-machine interface has evolved from a physical hardware device to a software-generated electronic display system. This has subsequently caused an increased workload at the facility. As computer processing power increases and the glass cockpit becomes predominant in facilities, software tools used in the design and development of cockpit displays are becoming both feasible and necessary for a more productive simulation environment. This paper defines LaRC requirements of a display software development tool and compares two available applications against these requirements. As a part of the software engineering process, these tools reduce development time, provide a common platform for display development, and produce exceptional real-time results.

Tool Integration and Environment Architectures

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-05-01

include the Interactive Development Environment (IDE) Software Through Pictures (STP), Sabre-C and FrameMaker coalition, and the Verdix Ada Development...System (VADS) APSE, which includes the VADS compiler and choices of CADRE Teamwork or STP and FrameMaker or Interleaf. The key characteristic of...remote procedure execution to achieve a simulation of a homoge- neous repository (i.e., a simulation that the data in a FrameMaker document resides in one

About Distributed Simulation-based Optimization of Forming Processes using a Grid Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grauer, Manfred; Barth, Thomas

2004-06-01

Permanently increasing complexity of products and their manufacturing processes combined with a shorter "time-to-market" leads to more and more use of simulation and optimization software systems for product design. Finding a "good" design of a product implies the solution of computationally expensive optimization problems based on the results of simulation. Due to the computational load caused by the solution of these problems, the requirements on the Information&Telecommunication (IT) infrastructure of an enterprise or research facility are shifting from stand-alone resources towards the integration of software and hardware resources in a distributed environment for high-performance computing. Resources can either comprise software systems, hardware systems, or communication networks. An appropriate IT-infrastructure must provide the means to integrate all these resources and enable their use even across a network to cope with requirements from geographically distributed scenarios, e.g. in computational engineering and/or collaborative engineering. Integrating expert's knowledge into the optimization process is inevitable in order to reduce the complexity caused by the number of design variables and the high dimensionality of the design space. Hence, utilization of knowledge-based systems must be supported by providing data management facilities as a basis for knowledge extraction from product data. In this paper, the focus is put on a distributed problem solving environment (PSE) capable of providing access to a variety of necessary resources and services. A distributed approach integrating simulation and optimization on a network of workstations and cluster systems is presented. For geometry generation the CAD-system CATIA is used which is coupled with the FEM-simulation system INDEED for simulation of sheet-metal forming processes and the problem solving environment OpTiX for distributed optimization.

Challenges of the Cassini Test Bed Simulating the Saturnian Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hernandez, Juan C.; Badaruddin, Kareem S.

2007-01-01

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) mission to collect scientific data of the Saturnian system and is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). After having arrived in Saturn orbit and releasing the ESA's Huygens probe for a highly successful descent and landing mission on Saturn's moon Titan, the Cassini orbiter continues on its tour of Saturn, its satellites, and the Saturnian environment. JPL's Cassini Integrated Test laboratory (ITL) is a dedicated high fidelity test bed that verifies and validates command sequences and flight software before upload to the Cassini spacecraft. The ITL provides artificial stimuli that allow a highly accurate hardware-in-the-loop test bed model that tests the operation of the Cassini spacecraft on the ground. This enables accurate prediction and recreation of mission events and flight software and hardware behavior. As we discovered more about the Saturnian environment, a combination of creative test methods and simulation changes were necessary to simulate the harmful effect that the optical and physical environment has on the pointing performance of Cassini. This paper presents the challenges experienced and overcome in that endeavor to simulate and test the post Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) and Probe Relay tour phase of the Cassini mission.

Virtual environments simulation in research reactor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muhamad, Shalina Bt. Sheik; Bahrin, Muhammad Hannan Bin

2017-01-01

Virtual reality based simulations are interactive and engaging. It has the useful potential in improving safety training. Virtual reality technology can be used to train workers who are unfamiliar with the physical layout of an area. In this study, a simulation program based on the virtual environment at research reactor was developed. The platform used for virtual simulation is 3DVia software for which it's rendering capabilities, physics for movement and collision and interactive navigation features have been taken advantage of. A real research reactor was virtually modelled and simulated with the model of avatars adopted to simulate walking. Collision detection algorithms were developed for various parts of the 3D building and avatars to restrain the avatars to certain regions of the virtual environment. A user can control the avatar to move around inside the virtual environment. Thus, this work can assist in the training of personnel, as in evaluating the radiological safety of the research reactor facility.

Panthere V2: Multipurpose Simulation Software for 3D Dose Rate Calculations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Penessot, Gaël; Bavoil, Éléonore; Wertz, Laurent; Malouch, Fadhel; Visonneau, Thierry; Dubost, Julien

2017-09-01

PANTHERE is a multipurpose radiation protection software developed by EDF to calculate gamma dose rates in complex 3D environments. PANTHERE takes a key role in the EDF ALARA process, enabling to predict dose rates and to organize and optimize operations in high radiation environments. PANTHERE is also used for nuclear waste characterization, transport of nuclear materials, etc. It is used in most of the EDF engineering units and their design service providers and industrial partners.

The Life Cycle Application of Intelligent Software Modeling for the First Materials Science Research Rack

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rice, Amanda; Parris, Frank; Nerren, Philip

2000-01-01

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has been funding development of intelligent software models to benefit payload ground operations for nearly a decade. Experience gained from simulator development and real-time monitoring and control is being applied to engineering design, testing, and operation of the First Material Science Research Rack (MSRR-1). MSRR-1 is the first rack in a suite of three racks comprising the Materials Science Research Facility (MSRF) which will operate on the International Space Station (ISS). The MSRF will accommodate advanced microgravity investigations in areas such as the fields of solidification of metals and alloys, thermo-physical properties of polymers, crystal growth studies of semiconductor materials, and research in ceramics and glasses. The MSRR-1 is a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to study the behavior of different materials during high temperature processing in a low gravity environment. The planned MSRR-1 mission duration is five (5) years on-orbit and the total design life is ten (IO) years. The MSRR-1 launch is scheduled on the third Utilization Flight (UF-3) to ISS, currently in February of 2003). The objective of MSRR-1 is to provide an early capability on the ISS to conduct material science, materials technology, and space product research investigations in microgravity. It will provide a modular, multi-user facility for microgravity research in materials crystal growth and solidification. An intelligent software model of MSRR-1 is under development and will serve multiple purposes to support the engineering analysis, testing, training, and operational phases of the MSRR-1 life cycle development. The G2 real-time expert system software environment developed by Gensym Corporation was selected as the intelligent system shell for this development work based on past experience gained and the effectiveness of the programming environment. Our approach of multi- uses of the simulation model and its intuitive graphics capabilities is providing a concurrent engineering environment for rapid prototyping and development. Operational schematics of the MSRR-1 electrical, thermal control, vacuum access, and gas supply systems, and furnace inserts are represented graphically in the environment. Logic to represent first order engineering calculations is coded into the knowledge base to simulate the operational behavior of the MSRR-1 systems. An example of engineering data provided includes electrical currents, voltages, operational power, temperatures, thermal fluid flow rates. pressures, and component status indications. These type of data are calculated and displayed at appropriate instrumentation points, and the schematics are animated to reflect the simulated operational status of the MSRR-1. The software control functions are also simulated to represent appropriate operational behavior based on automated control and response to commands received by the crew or ground controllers. The first benefit of this simulation environment is being realized in the high fidelity engineering analysis results from the electrical power system G2 model. Secondly, the MSRR-1 simulation model will be embedded with a hardware mock-up of the MSRR-1 to provide crew training on MSRR-1 integrated payload operations. G2 gateway code will output the simulated instrumentation values, termed as telemetry, in a flight-like data stream so that the crew has realistic and accurate simulated MSRR-1 data on the flight displays which will be designed for crew use. The simulation will also respond appropriately to crew or ground initiated commands, which will be part of normal facility operations. A third use of the G2 model is being planned; the MSRR-1 simulation will be integrated with additional software code as part of the test configuration of the primary onboard computer, or Master Controller, for MSRR-1. We will take advantage of the G2 capability to simulate the flight like data stream to test flight software responses and behavior. A fourth use of the G2 model will be to train the Ground Support Personnel that will monitor the MSRR-1 systems and payloads while they are operating aboard the ISS. The intuitive, schematic based environment will provide an excellent foundation for personnel to understand the integrated configuration and operation of the MSRR-1, and the anticipated telemetry feedback based on operational modes of the equipment. Expert monitoring features will be enhanced to provide a smart monitoring environment for the operators. These features include: (1) Animated, intuitive schematic-based displays which reflect telemetry values, (1) Real-time plotting of simulated or incoming sensor values, (3) High/Low exception monitoring for analog data, (4) Expected state monitoring for discrete data, (5) Data trending, (6) Automated malfunction procedure execution to diagnose problems, (7) Look ahead capability to planned MSRR-1 activities in the onboard timeline. And finally, the logic to calculate telemetry values will be deactivated, and the same environment will interface to the incoming data for the real-time telemetry stream to schematically represent the onboard hardware configuration. G2 will be the foundation for the real-time monitoring and control environment. In summary, our MSRR-1 simulation model spans many elements of the life cycle development of this project: Engineering Analysis, Test and Checkout, Training of Crew and Ground Personnel, and Real-time monitoring and control. By utilizing the unique features afforded by an expert system development environment, we have been able to synergize a powerful tool capable of addressing our project needs at every phase of project development.

Wireless Network Simulation in Aircraft Cabins

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beggs, John H.; Youssef, Mennatoallah; Vahala, Linda

2004-01-01

An electromagnetic propagation prediction tool was used to predict electromagnetic field strength inside airplane cabins. A commercial software package, Wireless Insite, was used to predict power levels inside aircraft cabins and the data was compared with previously collected experimental data. It was concluded that the software could qualitatively predict electromagnetic propagation inside the aircraft cabin environment.

Recent Developments in Hardware-in-the-Loop Formation Navigation and Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mitchell, Jason W.; Luquette, Richard J.

2005-01-01

The Formation Flying Test-Bed (FFTB) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) provides a hardware-in-the-loop test environment for formation navigation and control. The facility is evolving as a modular, hybrid, dynamic simulation facility for end-tc-end guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) design and analysis of formation flying spacecraft. The core capabilities of the FFTB, as a platform for testing critical hardware and software algorithms in-the-loop, are reviewed with a focus on many recent improvements. Two significant upgrades to the FFTB are a message-oriented middleware (MOM) architecture, and a software crosslink for inter-spacecraft ranging. The MOM architecture provides a common messaging bus for software agents, easing integration, arid supporting the GSFC Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) architecture via software bridge. Additionally, the FFTB s hardware capabilities are expanding. Recently, two Low-Power Transceivers (LPTs) with ranging capability have been introduced into the FFTB. The LPT crosslinks will be connected to a modified Crosslink Channel Simulator (CCS), which applies realistic space-environment effects to the Radio Frequency (RF) signals produced by the LPTs.

WinTRAX: A raytracing software package for the design of multipole focusing systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grime, G. W.

2013-07-01

The software package TRAX was a simulation tool for modelling the path of charged particles through linear cylindrical multipole fields described by analytical expressions and was a development of the earlier OXRAY program (Grime and Watt, 1983; Grime et al., 1982) [1,2]. In a 2005 comparison of raytracing software packages (Incerti et al., 2005) [3], TRAX/OXRAY was compared with Geant4 and Zgoubi and was found to give close agreement with the more modern codes. TRAX was a text-based program which was only available for operation in a now rare VMS workstation environment, so a new program, WinTRAX, has been developed for the Windows operating system. This implements the same basic computing strategy as TRAX, and key sections of the code are direct translations from FORTRAN to C++, but the Windows environment is exploited to make an intuitive graphical user interface which simplifies and enhances many operations including system definition and storage, optimisation, beam simulation (including with misaligned elements) and aberration coefficient determination. This paper describes the program and presents comparisons with other software and real installations.

ATK-ForceField: a new generation molecular dynamics software package

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schneider, Julian; Hamaekers, Jan; Chill, Samuel T.; Smidstrup, Søren; Bulin, Johannes; Thesen, Ralph; Blom, Anders; Stokbro, Kurt

2017-12-01

ATK-ForceField is a software package for atomistic simulations using classical interatomic potentials. It is implemented as a part of the Atomistix ToolKit (ATK), which is a Python programming environment that makes it easy to create and analyze both standard and highly customized simulations. This paper will focus on the atomic interaction potentials, molecular dynamics, and geometry optimization features of the software, however, many more advanced modeling features are available. The implementation details of these algorithms and their computational performance will be shown. We present three illustrative examples of the types of calculations that are possible with ATK-ForceField: modeling thermal transport properties in a silicon germanium crystal, vapor deposition of selenium molecules on a selenium surface, and a simulation of creep in a copper polycrystal.

Data flow modeling techniques

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kavi, K. M.

1984-01-01

There have been a number of simulation packages developed for the purpose of designing, testing and validating computer systems, digital systems and software systems. Complex analytical tools based on Markov and semi-Markov processes have been designed to estimate the reliability and performance of simulated systems. Petri nets have received wide acceptance for modeling complex and highly parallel computers. In this research data flow models for computer systems are investigated. Data flow models can be used to simulate both software and hardware in a uniform manner. Data flow simulation techniques provide the computer systems designer with a CAD environment which enables highly parallel complex systems to be defined, evaluated at all levels and finally implemented in either hardware or software. Inherent in data flow concept is the hierarchical handling of complex systems. In this paper we will describe how data flow can be used to model computer system.

Crystal MD: The massively parallel molecular dynamics software for metal with BCC structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Changjun; Bai, He; He, Xinfu; Zhang, Boyao; Nie, Ningming; Wang, Xianmeng; Ren, Yingwen

2017-02-01

Material irradiation effect is one of the most important keys to use nuclear power. However, the lack of high-throughput irradiation facility and knowledge of evolution process, lead to little understanding of the addressed issues. With the help of high-performance computing, we could make a further understanding of micro-level-material. In this paper, a new data structure is proposed for the massively parallel simulation of the evolution of metal materials under irradiation environment. Based on the proposed data structure, we developed the new molecular dynamics software named Crystal MD. The simulation with Crystal MD achieved over 90% parallel efficiency in test cases, and it takes more than 25% less memory on multi-core clusters than LAMMPS and IMD, which are two popular molecular dynamics simulation software. Using Crystal MD, a two trillion particles simulation has been performed on Tianhe-2 cluster.

Simulation of Attacks for Security in Wireless Sensor Network

PubMed Central

Diaz, Alvaro; Sanchez, Pablo

2016-01-01

The increasing complexity and low-power constraints of current Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) require efficient methodologies for network simulation and embedded software performance analysis of nodes. In addition, security is also a very important feature that has to be addressed in most WSNs, since they may work with sensitive data and operate in hostile unattended environments. In this paper, a methodology for security analysis of Wireless Sensor Networks is presented. The methodology allows designing attack-aware embedded software/firmware or attack countermeasures to provide security in WSNs. The proposed methodology includes attacker modeling and attack simulation with performance analysis (node’s software execution time and power consumption estimation). After an analysis of different WSN attack types, an attacker model is proposed. This model defines three different types of attackers that can emulate most WSN attacks. In addition, this paper presents a virtual platform that is able to model the node hardware, embedded software and basic wireless channel features. This virtual simulation analyzes the embedded software behavior and node power consumption while it takes into account the network deployment and topology. Additionally, this simulator integrates the previously mentioned attacker model. Thus, the impact of attacks on power consumption and software behavior/execution-time can be analyzed. This provides developers with essential information about the effects that one or multiple attacks could have on the network, helping them to develop more secure WSN systems. This WSN attack simulator is an essential element of the attack-aware embedded software development methodology that is also introduced in this work. PMID:27869710

Open-source framework for documentation of scientific software written on MATLAB-compatible programming languages

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Konnik, Mikhail V.; Welsh, James

2012-09-01

Numerical simulators for adaptive optics systems have become an essential tool for the research and development of the future advanced astronomical instruments. However, growing software code of the numerical simulator makes it difficult to continue to support the code itself. The problem of adequate documentation of the astronomical software for adaptive optics simulators may complicate the development since the documentation must contain up-to-date schemes and mathematical descriptions implemented in the software code. Although most modern programming environments like MATLAB or Octave have in-built documentation abilities, they are often insufficient for the description of a typical adaptive optics simulator code. This paper describes a general cross-platform framework for the documentation of scientific software using open-source tools such as LATEX, mercurial, Doxygen, and Perl. Using the Perl script that translates M-files MATLAB comments into C-like, one can use Doxygen to generate and update the documentation for the scientific source code. The documentation generated by this framework contains the current code description with mathematical formulas, images, and bibliographical references. A detailed description of the framework components is presented as well as the guidelines for the framework deployment. Examples of the code documentation for the scripts and functions of a MATLAB-based adaptive optics simulator are provided.

Discrete event simulation and the resultant data storage system response in the operational mission environment of Jupiter-Saturn /Voyager/ spacecraft

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mukhopadhyay, A. K.

1978-01-01

The Data Storage Subsystem Simulator (DSSSIM) simulating (by ground software) occurrence of discrete events in the Voyager mission is described. Functional requirements for Data Storage Subsystems (DSS) simulation are discussed, and discrete event simulation/DSSSIM processing is covered. Four types of outputs associated with a typical DSSSIM run are presented, and DSSSIM limitations and constraints are outlined.

Evolution of Software-Only-Simulation at NASA IV and V

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McCarty, Justin; Morris, Justin; Zemerick, Scott

2014-01-01

Software-Only-Simulations have been an emerging but quickly developing field of study throughout NASA. The NASA Independent Verification Validation (IVV) Independent Test Capability (ITC) team has been rapidly building a collection of simulators for a wide range of NASA missions. ITC specializes in full end-to-end simulations that enable developers, VV personnel, and operators to test-as-you-fly. In four years, the team has delivered a wide variety of spacecraft simulations that have ranged from low complexity science missions such as the Global Precipitation Management (GPM) satellite and the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), to the extremely complex missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Space Launch System (SLS).This paper describes the evolution of ITCs technologies and processes that have been utilized to design, implement, and deploy end-to-end simulation environments for various NASA missions. A comparison of mission simulators are discussed with focus on technology and lessons learned in complexity, hardware modeling, and continuous integration. The paper also describes the methods for executing the missions unmodified flight software binaries (not cross-compiled) for verification and validation activities.

Freud: a software suite for high-throughput simulation analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harper, Eric; Spellings, Matthew; Anderson, Joshua; Glotzer, Sharon

Computer simulation is an indispensable tool for the study of a wide variety of systems. As simulations scale to fill petascale and exascale supercomputing clusters, so too does the size of the data produced, as well as the difficulty in analyzing these data. We present Freud, an analysis software suite for efficient analysis of simulation data. Freud makes no assumptions about the system being analyzed, allowing for general analysis methods to be applied to nearly any type of simulation. Freud includes standard analysis methods such as the radial distribution function, as well as new methods including the potential of mean force and torque and local crystal environment analysis. Freud combines a Python interface with fast, parallel C + + analysis routines to run efficiently on laptops, workstations, and supercomputing clusters. Data analysis on clusters reduces data transfer requirements, a prohibitive cost for petascale computing. Used in conjunction with simulation software, Freud allows for smart simulations that adapt to the current state of the system, enabling the study of phenomena such as nucleation and growth, intelligent investigation of phases and phase transitions, and determination of effective pair potentials.

Landsat-7 Simulation and Testing Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holmes, E.; Ha, K.; Hawkins, K.; Lombardo, J.; Ram, M.; Sabelhaus, P.; Scott, S.; Phillips, R.

1999-01-01

A spacecraft Attitude Control and Determination Subsystem (ACDS) is heavily dependent upon simulation throughout its entire development, implementation and ground test cycle. Engineering simulation tools are typically developed to design and analyze control systems to validate the design and software simulation tools are required to qualify the flight software. However, the need for simulation does not end here. Operating the ACDS of a spacecraft on the ground requires the simulation of spacecraft dynamics, disturbance modeling and celestial body motion. Sensor data must also be simulated and substituted for actual sensor data on the ground so that the spacecraft will respond by sending commands to the actuators as they will on orbit. And finally, the simulators is the primary training tool and test-bed for the Flight Operations Team. In this paper various ACDS simulation, developed for or used by the Landsat 7 project will be described. The paper will include a description of each tool, its unique attributes, and its role in the overall development and testing of the ACDS. Finally, a section is included which discusses how the coordinated use of these simulation tools can maximize the probability of uncovering software, hardware and operations errors during the ground test process.

A Java-Enabled Interactive Graphical Gas Turbine Propulsion System Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

1997-01-01

This paper describes a gas turbine simulation system which utilizes the newly developed Java language environment software system. The system provides an interactive graphical environment which allows the quick and efficient construction and analysis of arbitrary gas turbine propulsion systems. The simulation system couples a graphical user interface, developed using the Java Abstract Window Toolkit, and a transient, space- averaged, aero-thermodynamic gas turbine analysis method, both entirely coded in the Java language. The combined package provides analytical, graphical and data management tools which allow the user to construct and control engine simulations by manipulating graphical objects on the computer display screen. Distributed simulations, including parallel processing and distributed database access across the Internet and World-Wide Web (WWW), are made possible through services provided by the Java environment.

Model-Based GN and C Simulation and Flight Software Development for Orion Missions beyond LEO

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Odegard, Ryan; Milenkovic, Zoran; Henry, Joel; Buttacoli, Michael

2014-01-01

For Orion missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) system is being developed using a model-based approach for simulation and flight software. Lessons learned from the development of GN&C algorithms and flight software for the Orion Exploration Flight Test One (EFT-1) vehicle have been applied to the development of further capabilities for Orion GN&C beyond EFT-1. Continuing the use of a Model-Based Development (MBD) approach with the Matlab®/Simulink® tool suite, the process for GN&C development and analysis has been largely improved. Furthermore, a model-based simulation environment in Simulink, rather than an external C-based simulation, greatly eases the process for development of flight algorithms. The benefits seen by employing lessons learned from EFT-1 are described, as well as the approach for implementing additional MBD techniques. Also detailed are the key enablers for improvements to the MBD process, including enhanced configuration management techniques for model-based software systems, automated code and artifact generation, and automated testing and integration.

Verifying Diagnostic Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lindsey, Tony; Pecheur, Charles

2004-01-01

Livingstone PathFinder (LPF) is a simulation-based computer program for verifying autonomous diagnostic software. LPF is designed especially to be applied to NASA s Livingstone computer program, which implements a qualitative-model-based algorithm that diagnoses faults in a complex automated system (e.g., an exploratory robot, spacecraft, or aircraft). LPF forms a software test bed containing a Livingstone diagnosis engine, embedded in a simulated operating environment consisting of a simulator of the system to be diagnosed by Livingstone and a driver program that issues commands and faults according to a nondeterministic scenario provided by the user. LPF runs the test bed through all executions allowed by the scenario, checking for various selectable error conditions after each step. All components of the test bed are instrumented, so that execution can be single-stepped both backward and forward. The architecture of LPF is modular and includes generic interfaces to facilitate substitution of alternative versions of its different parts. Altogether, LPF provides a flexible, extensible framework for simulation-based analysis of diagnostic software; these characteristics also render it amenable to application to diagnostic programs other than Livingstone.

It's Not How Multi the Media, It's How the Media Is Used.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feifer, R.; Allender, L.

Multimedia educational software is often a glitzy version of old technology. Some educational software has become better as developers began to ask, "In what ways can the computer facilitate learning, that were not possible before?" One answer to this question is: provide a simulated environment for the learner to interact with. For multimedia to…

Image Understanding Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-09-01

architecture to support real-time, knowledge -based image understanding , and develop the software support environment that will be needed to utilize...NUMBER OF PAGES Image Understanding Architecture, Knowledge -Based Vision, AI Real-Time Computer Vision, Software Simulator, Parallel Processor IL PRICE... information . In addition to sensory and knowledge -based processing it is useful to introduce a level of symbolic processing. Thus, vision researchers

Portable Health Algorithms Test System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Melcher, Kevin J.; Wong, Edmond; Fulton, Christopher E.; Sowers, Thomas S.; Maul, William A.

2010-01-01

A document discusses the Portable Health Algorithms Test (PHALT) System, which has been designed as a means for evolving the maturity and credibility of algorithms developed to assess the health of aerospace systems. Comprising an integrated hardware-software environment, the PHALT system allows systems health management algorithms to be developed in a graphical programming environment, to be tested and refined using system simulation or test data playback, and to be evaluated in a real-time hardware-in-the-loop mode with a live test article. The integrated hardware and software development environment provides a seamless transition from algorithm development to real-time implementation. The portability of the hardware makes it quick and easy to transport between test facilities. This hard ware/software architecture is flexible enough to support a variety of diagnostic applications and test hardware, and the GUI-based rapid prototyping capability is sufficient to support development execution, and testing of custom diagnostic algorithms. The PHALT operating system supports execution of diagnostic algorithms under real-time constraints. PHALT can perform real-time capture and playback of test rig data with the ability to augment/ modify the data stream (e.g. inject simulated faults). It performs algorithm testing using a variety of data input sources, including real-time data acquisition, test data playback, and system simulations, and also provides system feedback to evaluate closed-loop diagnostic response and mitigation control.

Secure Encapsulation and Publication of Biological Services in the Cloud Computing Environment

PubMed Central

Zhang, Weizhe; Wang, Xuehui; Lu, Bo; Kim, Tai-hoon

2013-01-01

Secure encapsulation and publication for bioinformatics software products based on web service are presented, and the basic function of biological information is realized in the cloud computing environment. In the encapsulation phase, the workflow and function of bioinformatics software are conducted, the encapsulation interfaces are designed, and the runtime interaction between users and computers is simulated. In the publication phase, the execution and management mechanisms and principles of the GRAM components are analyzed. The functions such as remote user job submission and job status query are implemented by using the GRAM components. The services of bioinformatics software are published to remote users. Finally the basic prototype system of the biological cloud is achieved. PMID:24078906

Secure encapsulation and publication of biological services in the cloud computing environment.

PubMed

Zhang, Weizhe; Wang, Xuehui; Lu, Bo; Kim, Tai-hoon

2013-01-01

Secure encapsulation and publication for bioinformatics software products based on web service are presented, and the basic function of biological information is realized in the cloud computing environment. In the encapsulation phase, the workflow and function of bioinformatics software are conducted, the encapsulation interfaces are designed, and the runtime interaction between users and computers is simulated. In the publication phase, the execution and management mechanisms and principles of the GRAM components are analyzed. The functions such as remote user job submission and job status query are implemented by using the GRAM components. The services of bioinformatics software are published to remote users. Finally the basic prototype system of the biological cloud is achieved.

Comparison of cyclic correlation algorithm implemented in matlab and python

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carr, Richard; Whitney, James

Simulation is a necessary step for all engineering projects. Simulation gives the engineers an approximation of how their devices will perform under different circumstances, without hav-ing to build, or before building a physical prototype. This is especially true for space bound devices, i.e., space communication systems, where the impact of system malfunction or failure is several orders of magnitude over that of terrestrial applications. Therefore having a reliable simulation tool is key in developing these devices and systems. Math Works Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) is a matrix based software used by scientists and engineers to solve problems and perform complex simulations. MATLAB has a number of applications in a wide variety of fields which include communications, signal processing, image processing, mathematics, eco-nomics and physics. Because of its many uses MATLAB has become the preferred software for many engineers; it is also very expensive, especially for students and startups. One alternative to MATLAB is Python. The Python is a powerful, easy to use, open source programming environment that can be used to perform many of the same functions as MATLAB. Python programming environment has been steadily gaining popularity in niche programming circles. While there are not as many function included in the software as MATLAB, there are many open source functions that have been developed that are available to be downloaded for free. This paper illustrates how Python can implement the cyclic correlation algorithm and com-pares the results to the cyclic correlation algorithm implemented in the MATLAB environment. Some of the characteristics to be compared are the accuracy and precision of the results, and the length of the programs. The paper will demonstrate that Python is capable of performing simulations of complex algorithms such cyclic correlation.

Modular, Autonomous Command and Data Handling Software with Built-In Simulation and Test

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cuseo, John

2012-01-01

The spacecraft system that plays the greatest role throughout the program lifecycle is the Command and Data Handling System (C&DH), along with the associated algorithms and software. The C&DH takes on this role as cost driver because it is the brains of the spacecraft and is the element of the system that is primarily responsible for the integration and interoperability of all spacecraft subsystems. During design and development, many activities associated with mission design, system engineering, and subsystem development result in products that are directly supported by the C&DH, such as interfaces, algorithms, flight software (FSW), and parameter sets. A modular system architecture has been developed that provides a means for rapid spacecraft assembly, test, and integration. This modular C&DH software architecture, which can be targeted and adapted to a wide variety of spacecraft architectures, payloads, and mission requirements, eliminates the current practice of rewriting the spacecraft software and test environment for every mission. This software allows missionspecific software and algorithms to be rapidly integrated and tested, significantly decreasing time involved in the software development cycle. Additionally, the FSW includes an Onboard Dynamic Simulation System (ODySSy) that allows the C&DH software to support rapid integration and test. With this solution, the C&DH software capabilities will encompass all phases of the spacecraft lifecycle. ODySSy is an on-board simulation capability built directly into the FSW that provides dynamic built-in test capabilities as soon as the FSW image is loaded onto the processor. It includes a six-degrees- of-freedom, high-fidelity simulation that allows complete closed-loop and hardware-in-the-loop testing of a spacecraft in a ground processing environment without any additional external stimuli. ODySSy can intercept and modify sensor inputs using mathematical sensor models, and can intercept and respond to actuator commands. ODySSy integration is unique in that it allows testing of actual mission sequences on the flight vehicle while the spacecraft is in various stages of assembly, test, and launch operations all without any external support equipment or simulators. The ODySSy component of the FSW significantly decreases the time required for integration and test by providing an automated, standardized, and modular approach to integrated avionics and component interface and functional verification. ODySSy further provides the capability for on-orbit support in the form of autonomous mission planning and fault protection.

Virtual Environment Computer Simulations to Support Human Factors Engineering and Operations Analysis for the RLV Program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lunsford, Myrtis Leigh

1998-01-01

The Army-NASA Virtual Innovations Laboratory (ANVIL) was recently created to provide virtual reality tools for performing Human Engineering and operations analysis for both NASA and the Army. The author's summer research project consisted of developing and refining these tools for NASA's Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) program. Several general simulations were developed for use by the ANVIL for the evaluation of the X34 Engine Changeout procedure. These simulations were developed with the software tool dVISE 4.0.0 produced by Division Inc. All software was run on an SGI Indigo2 High Impact. This paper describes the simulations, various problems encountered with the simulations, other summer activities, and possible work for the future. We first begin with a brief description of virtual reality systems.

A Model-Driven Co-Design Framework for Fusing Control and Scheduling Viewpoints.

PubMed

Sundharam, Sakthivel Manikandan; Navet, Nicolas; Altmeyer, Sebastian; Havet, Lionel

2018-02-20

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is widely applied in the industry to develop new software functions and integrate them into the existing run-time environment of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). The design of a software component involves designers from various viewpoints such as control theory, software engineering, safety, etc. In practice, while a designer from one discipline focuses on the core aspects of his field (for instance, a control engineer concentrates on designing a stable controller), he neglects or considers less importantly the other engineering aspects (for instance, real-time software engineering or energy efficiency). This may cause some of the functional and non-functional requirements not to be met satisfactorily. In this work, we present a co-design framework based on timing tolerance contract to address such design gaps between control and real-time software engineering. The framework consists of three steps: controller design, verified by jitter margin analysis along with co-simulation, software design verified by a novel schedulability analysis, and the run-time verification by monitoring the execution of the models on target. This framework builds on CPAL (Cyber-Physical Action Language), an MDE design environment based on model-interpretation, which enforces a timing-realistic behavior in simulation through timing and scheduling annotations. The application of our framework is exemplified in the design of an automotive cruise control system.

A Model-Driven Co-Design Framework for Fusing Control and Scheduling Viewpoints

PubMed Central

Navet, Nicolas; Havet, Lionel

2018-01-01

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is widely applied in the industry to develop new software functions and integrate them into the existing run-time environment of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). The design of a software component involves designers from various viewpoints such as control theory, software engineering, safety, etc. In practice, while a designer from one discipline focuses on the core aspects of his field (for instance, a control engineer concentrates on designing a stable controller), he neglects or considers less importantly the other engineering aspects (for instance, real-time software engineering or energy efficiency). This may cause some of the functional and non-functional requirements not to be met satisfactorily. In this work, we present a co-design framework based on timing tolerance contract to address such design gaps between control and real-time software engineering. The framework consists of three steps: controller design, verified by jitter margin analysis along with co-simulation, software design verified by a novel schedulability analysis, and the run-time verification by monitoring the execution of the models on target. This framework builds on CPAL (Cyber-Physical Action Language), an MDE design environment based on model-interpretation, which enforces a timing-realistic behavior in simulation through timing and scheduling annotations. The application of our framework is exemplified in the design of an automotive cruise control system. PMID:29461489

Integration of Modelling and Graphics to Create an Infrared Signal Processing Test Bed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sethi, H. R.; Ralph, John E.

1989-03-01

The work reported in this paper was carried out as part of a contract with MoD (PE) UK. It considers the problems associated with realistic modelling of a passive infrared system in an operational environment. Ideally all aspects of the system and environment should be integrated into a complete end-to-end simulation but in the past limited computing power has prevented this. Recent developments in workstation technology and the increasing availability of parallel processing techniques makes the end-to-end simulation possible. However the complexity and speed of such simulations means difficulties for the operator in controlling the software and understanding the results. These difficulties can be greatly reduced by providing an extremely user friendly interface and a very flexible, high power, high resolution colour graphics capability. Most system modelling is based on separate software simulation of the individual components of the system itself and its environment. These component models may have their own characteristic inbuilt assumptions and approximations, may be written in the language favoured by the originator and may have a wide variety of input and output conventions and requirements. The models and their limitations need to be matched to the range of conditions appropriate to the operational scenerio. A comprehensive set of data bases needs to be generated by the component models and these data bases must be made readily available to the investigator. Performance measures need to be defined and displayed in some convenient graphics form. Some options are presented for combining available hardware and software to create an environment within which the models can be integrated, and which provide the required man-machine interface, graphics and computing power. The impact of massively parallel processing and artificial intelligence will be discussed. Parallel processing will make real time end-to-end simulation possible and will greatly improve the graphical visualisation of the model output data. Artificial intelligence should help to enhance the man-machine interface.

SimGraph: A Flight Simulation Data Visualization Workstation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kaplan, Joseph A.; Kenney, Patrick S.

1997-01-01

Today's modern flight simulation research produces vast amounts of time sensitive data, making a qualitative analysis of the data difficult while it remains in a numerical representation. Therefore, a method of merging related data together and presenting it to the user in a more comprehensible format is necessary. Simulation Graphics (SimGraph) is an object-oriented data visualization software package that presents simulation data in animated graphical displays for easy interpretation. Data produced from a flight simulation is presented by SimGraph in several different formats, including: 3-Dimensional Views, Cockpit Control Views, Heads-Up Displays, Strip Charts, and Status Indicators. SimGraph can accommodate the addition of new graphical displays to allow the software to be customized to each user s particular environment. A new display can be developed and added to SimGraph without having to design a new application, allowing the graphics programmer to focus on the development of the graphical display. The SimGraph framework can be reused for a wide variety of visualization tasks. Although it was created for the flight simulation facilities at NASA Langley Research Center, SimGraph can be reconfigured to almost any data visualization environment. This paper describes the capabilities and operations of SimGraph.

Development of the functional simulator for the Galileo attitude and articulation control system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Namiri, M. K.

1983-01-01

A simulation program for verifying and checking the performance of the Galileo Spacecraft's Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem's (AACS) flight software is discussed. The program, which is called Functional Simulator (FUNSIM), provides a simple method of interfacing user-supplied mathematical models coded in FORTRAN which describes spacecraft dynamics, sensors, and actuators; this is done with the AACS flight software, coded in HAL/S (High-level Advanced Language/Shuttle). It is thus able to simulate the AACS flight software accurately to the HAL/S statement level in the environment of a mainframe computer system. FUNSIM also has a command and data subsystem (CDS) simulator. It is noted that the input/output data and timing are simulated with the same precision as the flight microprocessor. FUNSIM uses a variable stepsize numerical integration algorithm complete with individual error bound control on the state variable to solve the equations of motion. The program has been designed to provide both line printer and matrix dot plotting of the variables requested in the run section and to provide error diagnostics.

DEPEND - A design environment for prediction and evaluation of system dependability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Goswami, Kumar K.; Iyer, Ravishankar K.

1990-01-01

The development of DEPEND, an integrated simulation environment for the design and dependability analysis of fault-tolerant systems, is described. DEPEND models both hardware and software components at a functional level, and allows automatic failure injection to assess system performance and reliability. It relieves the user of the work needed to inject failures, maintain statistics, and output reports. The automatic failure injection scheme is geared toward evaluating a system under high stress (workload) conditions. The failures that are injected can affect both hardware and software components. To illustrate the capability of the simulator, a distributed system which employs a prediction-based, dynamic load-balancing heuristic is evaluated. Experiments were conducted to determine the impact of failures on system performance and to identify the failures to which the system is especially susceptible.

Simulating optoelectronic systems for remote sensing with SENSOR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boerner, Anko

2003-04-01

The consistent end-to-end simulation of airborne and spaceborne remote sensing systems is an important task and sometimes the only way for the adaptation and optimization of a sensor and its observation conditions, the choice and test of algorithms for data processing, error estimation and the evaluation of the capabilities of the whole sensor system. The presented software simulator SENSOR (Software ENvironment for the Simulation of Optical Remote sensing systems) includes a full model of the sensor hardware, the observed scene, and the atmosphere in between. It allows the simulation of a wide range of optoelectronic systems for remote sensing. The simulator consists of three parts. The first part describes the geometrical relations between scene, sun, and the remote sensing system using a ray tracing algorithm. The second part of the simulation environment considers the radiometry. It calculates the at-sensor radiance using a pre-calculated multidimensional lookup-table taking the atmospheric influence on the radiation into account. Part three consists of an optical and an electronic sensor model for the generation of digital images. Using SENSOR for an optimization requires the additional application of task-specific data processing algorithms. The principle of the end-to-end-simulation approach is explained, all relevant concepts of SENSOR are discussed, and examples of its use are given. The verification of SENSOR is demonstrated.

Automated Test Environment for a Real-Time Control System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hall, Ronald O.

1994-01-01

An automated environment with hardware-in-the-loop has been developed by Rocketdyne Huntsville for test of a real-time control system. The target system of application is the man-rated real-time system which controls the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). The primary use of the environment is software verification and validation, but it is also useful for evaluation and analysis of SSME avionics hardware and mathematical engine models. It provides a test bed for the integration of software and hardware. The principles and skills upon which it operates may be applied to other target systems, such as those requiring hardware-in-the-loop simulation and control system development. Potential applications are in problem domains demanding highly reliable software systems requiring testing to formal requirements and verifying successful transition to/from off-nominal system states.

Framework for Development of Object-Oriented Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Perez-Poveda, Gus; Ciavarella, Tony; Nieten, Dan

2004-01-01

The Real-Time Control (RTC) Application Framework is a high-level software framework written in C++ that supports the rapid design and implementation of object-oriented application programs. This framework provides built-in functionality that solves common software development problems within distributed client-server, multi-threaded, and embedded programming environments. When using the RTC Framework to develop software for a specific domain, designers and implementers can focus entirely on the details of the domain-specific software rather than on creating custom solutions, utilities, and frameworks for the complexities of the programming environment. The RTC Framework was originally developed as part of a Space Shuttle Launch Processing System (LPS) replacement project called Checkout and Launch Control System (CLCS). As a result of the framework s development, CLCS software development time was reduced by 66 percent. The framework is generic enough for developing applications outside of the launch-processing system domain. Other applicable high-level domains include command and control systems and simulation/ training systems.

Ames Lab 101: osgBullet

ScienceCinema

McCorkle, Doug

2017-12-27

Ames Laboratory scientist Doug McCorkle explains osgBullet, a 3-D virtual simulation software, and how it helps engineers design complex products and systems in a realistic, real-time virtual environment.

The SCEC Broadband Platform: A Collaborative Open-Source Software Package for Strong Ground Motion Simulation and Validation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silva, F.; Maechling, P. J.; Goulet, C. A.; Somerville, P.; Jordan, T. H.

2014-12-01

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) Broadband Platform is a collaborative software development project involving geoscientists, earthquake engineers, graduate students, and the SCEC Community Modeling Environment. The SCEC Broadband Platform (BBP) is open-source scientific software that can generate broadband (0-100Hz) ground motions for earthquakes, integrating complex scientific modules that implement rupture generation, low and high-frequency seismogram synthesis, non-linear site effects calculation, and visualization into a software system that supports easy on-demand computation of seismograms. The Broadband Platform operates in two primary modes: validation simulations and scenario simulations. In validation mode, the Platform runs earthquake rupture and wave propagation modeling software to calculate seismograms for a well-observed historical earthquake. Then, the BBP calculates a number of goodness of fit measurements that quantify how well the model-based broadband seismograms match the observed seismograms for a certain event. Based on these results, the Platform can be used to tune and validate different numerical modeling techniques. In scenario mode, the Broadband Platform can run simulations for hypothetical (scenario) earthquakes. In this mode, users input an earthquake description, a list of station names and locations, and a 1D velocity model for their region of interest, and the Broadband Platform software then calculates ground motions for the specified stations. Working in close collaboration with scientists and research engineers, the SCEC software development group continues to add new capabilities to the Broadband Platform and to release new versions as open-source scientific software distributions that can be compiled and run on many Linux computer systems. Our latest release includes 5 simulation methods, 7 simulation regions covering California, Japan, and Eastern North America, the ability to compare simulation results against GMPEs, and several new data products, such as map and distance-based goodness of fit plots. As the number and complexity of scenarios simulated using the Broadband Platform increases, we have added batching utilities to substantially improve support for running large-scale simulations on computing clusters.

Selection of a Data Acquisition and Controls System Communications and Software Architecture for Johnson Space Center's Space Environment Simulation Laboratory Thermal and Vacuum Test Facilities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jordan, Eric A.

2004-01-01

Upgrade of data acquisition and controls systems software at Johnson Space Center's Space Environment Simulation Laboratory (SESL) involved the definition, evaluation and selection of a system communication architecture and software components. A brief discussion of the background of the SESL and its data acquisition and controls systems provides a context for discussion of the requirements for each selection. Further framework is provided as upgrades to these systems accomplished in the 1990s and in 2003 are compared to demonstrate the role that technological advances have had in their improvement. Both of the selections were similar in their three phases; 1) definition of requirements, 2) identification of candidate products and their evaluation and testing and 3) selection by comparison of requirement fulfillment. The candidates for the communication architecture selection embraced several different methodologies which are explained and contrasted. Requirements for this selection are presented and the selection process is described. Several candidates for the software component of the data acquisition and controls system are identified, requirements for evaluation and selection are presented, and the evaluation process is described.

Adaption of G-TAG Software for Validating Touch and Go Asteroid Sample Return Design Methodology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blackmore, Lars James C.; Acikmese, Behcet; Mandic, Milan

2012-01-01

A software tool is used to demonstrate the feasibility of Touch and Go (TAG) sampling for Asteroid Sample Return missions. TAG is a concept whereby a spacecraft is in contact with the surface of a small body, such as a comet or asteroid, for a few seconds or less before ascending to a safe location away from the small body. Previous work at JPL developed the G-TAG simulation tool, which provides a software environment for fast, multi-body simulations of the TAG event. G-TAG is described in Multibody Simulation Software Testbed for Small-Body Exploration and Sampling, (NPO-47196) NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 35, No. 11 (November 2011), p.54. This current innovation adapts this tool to a mission that intends to return a sample from the surface of an asteroid. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the TAG concept, the new software tool was used to generate extensive simulations that demonstrate the designed spacecraft meets key requirements. These requirements state that contact force and duration must be sufficient to ensure that enough material from the surface is collected in the brushwheel sampler (BWS), and that the spacecraft must survive the contact and must be able to recover and ascend to a safe position, and maintain velocity and orientation after the contact.

Conception et mises a l'essai d'un environnement d'apprentissage integrant l'experimentation assistee par ordinateur et la simulation assistee par ordinateur

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riopel, Martin

To make science laboratory sessions more instructive, we have developed a learning environment that will allow students enrolled in a mechanics course at college or university level to engage in a scientific modelization process by combining computer-simulated experimentation and microcomputer-based laboratories. The main goal is to assist and facilitate both inductive and deductive reasoning. Within this computer application, each action can also be automatically recorded and identified while the student is using the software. The most original part of the environment is to let the student compare the simulated animation with the real video by superposing the images. We used the software with students and observed that they effectively engaged in a modelization process that included both inductive and deductive reasoning. We also observed that the students were able to use the software to produce adequate answers to questions concerning both previously taught and new theoretical concepts in physics. The students completed the experiment about twice as fast as usual and considered that using the software resulted in a better understanding of the phenomenon. We conclude that this use of the computer in science education can broaden the range of possibilities for learning and for teaching and can provide new avenues for researchers who can use it to record and study students' path of reasoning. We also believe that it would be interesting to investigate more some of the benefits associated with this environment, particularly the acceleration effect, the improvement of students' reasoning and the equilibrium between induction and deduction that we observed within this research.

FPGA Based Reconfigurable ATM Switch Test Bed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chu, Pong P.; Jones, Robert E.

1998-01-01

Various issues associated with "FPGA Based Reconfigurable ATM Switch Test Bed" are presented in viewgraph form. Specific topics include: 1) Network performance evaluation; 2) traditional approaches; 3) software simulation; 4) hardware emulation; 5) test bed highlights; 6) design environment; 7) test bed architecture; 8) abstract sheared-memory switch; 9) detailed switch diagram; 10) traffic generator; 11) data collection circuit and user interface; 12) initial results; and 13) the following conclusions: Advances in FPGA make hardware emulation feasible for performance evaluation, hardware emulation can provide several orders of magnitude speed-up over software simulation; due to the complexity of hardware synthesis process, development in emulation is much more difficult than simulation and requires knowledge in both networks and digital design.

Developing Interactive Educational Engineering Software for the World Wide Web with Java.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reed, John A.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

1998-01-01

Illustrates the design and implementation of a Java applet for use in educational propulsion engineering curricula. The Java Gas Turbine Simulator applet provides an interactive graphical environment which allows the rapid, efficient construction and analysis of arbitrary gas turbine systems. The simulator can be easily accessed from the World…

Real-Time Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Coryphaeus Software, founded in 1989 by former NASA electronic engineer Steve Lakowske, creates real-time 3D software. Designer's Workbench, the company flagship product, is a modeling and simulation tool for the development of both static and dynamic 3D databases. Other products soon followed. Activation, specifically designed for game developers, allows developers to play and test the 3D games before they commit to a target platform. Game publishers can shorten development time and prove the "playability" of the title, maximizing their chances of introducing a smash hit. Another product, EasyT, lets users create massive, realistic representation of Earth terrains that can be viewed and traversed in real time. Finally, EasyScene software control the actions among interactive objects within a virtual world. Coryphaeus products are used on Silican Graphics workstation and supercomputers to simulate real-world performance in synthetic environments. Customers include aerospace, aviation, architectural and engineering firms, game developers, and the entertainment industry.

Molecular modeling, simulation and virtual screening of MurD ligase protein from Salmonella typhimurium LT2.

PubMed

Samal, Himanshu Bhusan; Das, Jugal Kishore; Mahapatra, Rajani Kanta; Suar, Mrutyunjay

2015-01-01

The Mur enzymes of the peptidoglycan biosynthesis pathway constitute ideal targets for the design of new classes of antimicrobial inhibitors in Gram-negative bacteria. We built a homology model of MurD of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 using MODELLER (9v12) software. 'The homology model was subjected to energy minimization by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation study with GROMACS software for a simulation time of 20 ns in water environment. The model was subjected for virtual screening study from the Zinc Database using Dockblaster software. Inhibition assay for the best inhibitor, 3-(amino methyl)-n-(4-methoxyphenyl) aniline, by flow cytometric analysis revealed the effective inhibition of peptidoglycan biosynthesis. Results from this study provide new insights for the molecular understanding and development of new antibacterial drugs against the pathogen. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtual reality simulation of fuzzy-logic control during underwater dynamic positioning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thekkedan, Midhin Das; Chin, Cheng Siong; Woo, Wai Lok

2015-03-01

In this paper, graphical-user-interface (GUI) software for simulation and fuzzy-logic control of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) using MATLAB™ GUI Designing Environment is proposed. The proposed ROV's GUI platform allows the controller such as fuzzy-logic control systems design to be compared with other controllers such as proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and sliding-mode controller (SMC) systematically and interactively. External disturbance such as sea current can be added to improve the modelling in actual underwater environment. The simulated results showed the position responses of the fuzzy-logic control exhibit reasonable performance under the sea current disturbance.

Application of integration algorithms in a parallel processing environment for the simulation of jet engines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Krosel, S. M.; Milner, E. J.

1982-01-01

The application of Predictor corrector integration algorithms developed for the digital parallel processing environment are investigated. The algorithms are implemented and evaluated through the use of a software simulator which provides an approximate representation of the parallel processing hardware. Test cases which focus on the use of the algorithms are presented and a specific application using a linear model of a turbofan engine is considered. Results are presented showing the effects of integration step size and the number of processors on simulation accuracy. Real time performance, interprocessor communication, and algorithm startup are also discussed.

Simulation system architecture design for generic communications link

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tsang, Chit-Sang; Ratliff, Jim

1986-01-01

This paper addresses a computer simulation system architecture design for generic digital communications systems. It addresses the issues of an overall system architecture in order to achieve a user-friendly, efficient, and yet easily implementable simulation system. The system block diagram and its individual functional components are described in detail. Software implementation is discussed with the VAX/VMS operating system used as a target environment.

Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference Partnerships for Learning in the New Millennium Abstracts

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-01-01

for flight test data, and both generic and specialized tools of data filtering , data calibration, modeling , system identification, and simulation...GRAMMATICAL MODEL AND PARSER FOR AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER’S COMMANDS 11 A SPEECH-CONTROLLED INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT FOR SHIP FAMILIARIZATION 12... MODELING AND SIMULATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY 23 NEW COTS HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REDUCE THE COST AND EFFORT IN REPLACING AGING FLIGHT SIMULATORS SUBSYSTEMS

Simulation Environment for Orion Launch Abort System Control Design Studies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McMinn, J. Dana; Jackson, E. Bruce; Christhilf, David M.

2007-01-01

The development and use of an interactive environment to perform control system design and analysis of the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle Launch Abort System is described. The environment, built using a commercial dynamic systems design package, includes use of an open-source configuration control software tool and a collaborative wiki to coordinate between the simulation developers, control law developers and users. A method for switching between multiple candidate control laws and vehicle configurations is described. Aerodynamic models, especially in a development program, change rapidly, so a means for automating the implementation of new aerodynamic models is described.

A Virtual Environment for Process Management. A Step by Step Implementation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, Sergio Valenzuela

2003-01-01

In this paper it is presented a virtual organizational environment, conceived with the integration of three computer programs: a manufacturing simulation package, an automation of businesses processes (workflows), and business intelligence (Balanced Scorecard) software. It was created as a supporting tool for teaching IE, its purpose is to give…

Simscape Modeling Verification in the Simulink Development Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Volle, Christopher E. E.

2014-01-01

The purpose of the Simulation Product Group of the Control and Data Systems division of the NASA Engineering branch at Kennedy Space Center is to provide a realtime model and simulation of the Ground Subsystems participating in vehicle launching activities. The simulation software is part of the Spaceport Command and Control System (SCCS) and is designed to support integrated launch operation software verification, and console operator training. Using Mathworks Simulink tools, modeling engineers currently build models from the custom-built blocks to accurately represent ground hardware. This is time consuming and costly due to required rigorous testing and peer reviews to be conducted for each custom-built block. Using Mathworks Simscape tools, modeling time can be reduced since there would be no custom-code developed. After careful research, the group came to the conclusion it is feasible to use Simscape's blocks in MatLab's Simulink. My project this fall was to verify the accuracy of the Crew Access Arm model developed using Simscape tools running in the Simulink development environment.

Using a Low Cost Flight Simulation Environment for Interdisciplinary Education

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Khan, M. Javed; Rossi, Marcia; ALi, Syed F.

2004-01-01

A multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary education is increasingly being emphasized for engineering undergraduates. However, often the focus is on interaction between engineering disciplines. This paper discusses the experience at Tuskegee University in providing interdisciplinary research experiences for undergraduate students in both Aerospace Engineering and Psychology through the utilization of a low cost flight simulation environment. The environment, which is pc-based, runs a low-cost of-the-shelf software and is configured for multiple out-of-the-window views and a synthetic heads down display with joystick, rudder and throttle controls. While the environment is being utilized to investigate and evaluate various strategies for training novice pilots, students were involved to provide them with experience in conducting such interdisciplinary research. On the global inter-disciplinary level these experiences included developing experimental designs and research protocols, consideration of human participant ethical issues, and planning and executing the research studies. During the planning phase students were apprised of the limitations of the software in its basic form and the enhancements desired to investigate human factors issues. A number of enhancements to the flight environment were then undertaken, from creating Excel macros for determining the performance of the 'pilots', to interacting with the software to provide various audio/video cues based on the experimental protocol. These enhancements involved understanding the flight model and performance, stability & control issues. Throughout this process, discussions of data analysis included a focus from a human factors perspective as well as an engineering point of view.

Monte Carlo Methodology Serves Up a Software Success

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

Widely used for the modeling of gas flows through the computation of the motion and collisions of representative molecules, the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method has become the gold standard for producing research and engineering predictions in the field of rarefied gas dynamics. Direct Simulation Monte Carlo was first introduced in the early 1960s by Dr. Graeme Bird, a professor at the University of Sydney, Australia. It has since proved to be a valuable tool to the aerospace and defense industries in providing design and operational support data, as well as flight data analysis. In 2002, NASA brought to the forefront a software product that maintains the same basic physics formulation of Dr. Bird's method, but provides effective modeling of complex, three-dimensional, real vehicle simulations and parallel processing capabilities to handle additional computational requirements, especially in areas where computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is not applicable. NASA's Direct Simulation Monte Carlo Analysis Code (DAC) software package is now considered the Agency s premier high-fidelity simulation tool for predicting vehicle aerodynamics and aerothermodynamic environments in rarified, or low-density, gas flows.

Test Methods for Robot Agility in Manufacturing.

PubMed

Downs, Anthony; Harrison, William; Schlenoff, Craig

2016-01-01

The paper aims to define and describe test methods and metrics to assess industrial robot system agility in both simulation and in reality. The paper describes test methods and associated quantitative and qualitative metrics for assessing robot system efficiency and effectiveness which can then be used for the assessment of system agility. The paper describes how the test methods were implemented in a simulation environment and real world environment. It also shows how the metrics are measured and assessed as they would be in a future competition. The test methods described in this paper will push forward the state of the art in software agility for manufacturing robots, allowing small and medium manufacturers to better utilize robotic systems. The paper fulfills the identified need for standard test methods to measure and allow for improvement in software agility for manufacturing robots.

Feasibility analysis on integration of luminous environment measuring and design based on exposure curve calibration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zou, Yuan; Shen, Tianxing

2013-03-01

Besides illumination calculating during architecture and luminous environment design, to provide more varieties of photometric data, the paper presents combining relation between luminous environment design and SM light environment measuring system, which contains a set of experiment devices including light information collecting and processing modules, and can offer us various types of photometric data. During the research process, we introduced a simulation method for calibration, which mainly includes rebuilding experiment scenes in 3ds Max Design, calibrating this computer aid design software in simulated environment under conditions of various typical light sources, and fitting the exposure curves of rendered images. As analytical research went on, the operation sequence and points for attention during the simulated calibration were concluded, connections between Mental Ray renderer and SM light environment measuring system were established as well. From the paper, valuable reference conception for coordination between luminous environment design and SM light environment measuring system was pointed out.

Developing Simulated Cyber Attack Scenarios Against Virtualized Adversary Networks

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-03-01

MAST is a custom software framework originally designed to facilitate the training of network administrators on live networks using SimWare. The MAST...or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington headquarters Services ...scenario development and testing in a virtual test environment. Commercial and custom software tools that provide the ability to conduct network

Total Cost of Ownership, System Acceptance and Perceived Success of Enterprise Resource Planning Software: Simulating a Dynamic Feedback Perspective of ERP in the Higher Education Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fryling, Meg

2010-01-01

Enterprise Research Planning (ERP) software is advertised as the product that will "run the enterprise", improving data access and accuracy as well as enhancing business process efficiency. Unfortunately, organizations often make implementation decisions with little consideration for the maintenance phase of an ERP, resulting in significant…

The combination of simulation and response methodology and its application in an aggregate production plan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Zhiming; Feng, Yuncheng

1988-08-01

This paper describes an algorithmic structure for combining simulation and optimization techniques both in theory and practice. Response surface methodology is used to optimize the decision variables in the simulation environment. A simulation-optimization software has been developed and successfully implemented, and its application to an aggregate production planning simulation-optimization model is reported. The model's objective is to minimize the production cost and to generate an optimal production plan and inventory control strategy for an aircraft factory.

Computer simulation of on-orbit manned maneuvering unit operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stuart, G. M.; Garcia, K. D.

1986-01-01

Simulation of spacecraft on-orbit operations is discussed in reference to Martin Marietta's Space Operations Simulation laboratory's use of computer software models to drive a six-degree-of-freedom moving base carriage and two target gimbal systems. In particular, key simulation issues and related computer software models associated with providing real-time, man-in-the-loop simulations of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) are addressed with special attention given to how effectively these models and motion systems simulate the MMU's actual on-orbit operations. The weightless effects of the space environment require the development of entirely new devices for locomotion. Since the access to space is very limited, it is necessary to design, build, and test these new devices within the physical constraints of earth using simulators. The simulation method that is discussed here is the technique of using computer software models to drive a Moving Base Carriage (MBC) that is capable of providing simultaneous six-degree-of-freedom motions. This method, utilized at Martin Marietta's Space Operations Simulation (SOS) laboratory, provides the ability to simulate the operation of manned spacecraft, provides the pilot with proper three-dimensional visual cues, and allows training of on-orbit operations. The purpose here is to discuss significant MMU simulation issues, the related models that were developed in response to these issues and how effectively these models simulate the MMU's actual on-orbiter operations.

Enabling Co-Design of Multi-Layer Exascale Storage Architectures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carothers, Christopher

Growing demands for computing power in applications such as energy production, climate analysis, computational chemistry, and bioinformatics have propelled computing systems toward the exascale: systems with 10 18 floating-point operations per second. These systems, to be designed and constructed over the next decade, will create unprecedented challenges in component counts, power consumption, resource limitations, and system complexity. Data storage and access are an increasingly important and complex component in extreme-scale computing systems, and significant design work is needed to develop successful storage hardware and software architectures at exascale. Co-design of these systems will be necessary to find the best possiblemore » design points for exascale systems. The goal of this work has been to enable the exploration and co-design of exascale storage systems by providing a detailed, accurate, and highly parallel simulation of exascale storage and the surrounding environment. Specifically, this simulation has (1) portrayed realistic application checkpointing and analysis workloads, (2) captured the complexity, scale, and multilayer nature of exascale storage hardware and software, and (3) executed in a timeframe that enables “what if'” exploration of design concepts. We developed models of the major hardware and software components in an exascale storage system, as well as the application I/O workloads that drive them. We used our simulation system to investigate critical questions in reliability and concurrency at exascale, helping guide the design of future exascale hardware and software architectures. Additionally, we provided this system to interested vendors and researchers so that others can explore the design space. We validated the capabilities of our simulation environment by configuring the simulation to represent the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility Blue Gene/Q system and comparing simulation results for application I/O patterns to the results of executions of these I/O kernels on the actual system.« less

Applications of AN OO Methodology and Case to a Daq System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bee, C. P.; Eshghi, S.; Jones, R.; Kolos, S.; Magherini, C.; Maidantchik, C.; Mapelli, L.; Mornacchi, G.; Niculescu, M.; Patel, A.; Prigent, D.; Spiwoks, R.; Soloviev, I.; Caprini, M.; Duval, P. Y.; Etienne, F.; Ferrato, D.; Le van Suu, A.; Qian, Z.; Gaponenko, I.; Merzliakov, Y.; Ambrosini, G.; Ferrari, R.; Fumagalli, G.; Polesello, G.

The RD13 project has evaluated the use of the Object Oriented Information Engineering (OOIE) method during the development of several software components connected to the DAQ system. The method is supported by a sophisticated commercial CASE tool (Object Management Workbench) and programming environment (Kappa) which covers the full life-cycle of the software including model simulation, code generation and application deployment. This paper gives an overview of the method, CASE tool, DAQ components which have been developed and we relate our experiences with the method and tool, its integration into our development environment and the spiral lifecycle it supports.

Encapsulating model complexity and landscape-scale analyses of state-and-transition simulation models: an application of ecoinformatics and juniper encroachment in sagebrush steppe ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

O'Donnell, Michael

2015-01-01

State-and-transition simulation modeling relies on knowledge of vegetation composition and structure (states) that describe community conditions, mechanistic feedbacks such as fire that can affect vegetation establishment, and ecological processes that drive community conditions as well as the transitions between these states. However, as the need for modeling larger and more complex landscapes increase, a more advanced awareness of computing resources becomes essential. The objectives of this study include identifying challenges of executing state-and-transition simulation models, identifying common bottlenecks of computing resources, developing a workflow and software that enable parallel processing of Monte Carlo simulations, and identifying the advantages and disadvantages of different computing resources. To address these objectives, this study used the ApexRMS® SyncroSim software and embarrassingly parallel tasks of Monte Carlo simulations on a single multicore computer and on distributed computing systems. The results demonstrated that state-and-transition simulation models scale best in distributed computing environments, such as high-throughput and high-performance computing, because these environments disseminate the workloads across many compute nodes, thereby supporting analysis of larger landscapes, higher spatial resolution vegetation products, and more complex models. Using a case study and five different computing environments, the top result (high-throughput computing versus serial computations) indicated an approximate 96.6% decrease of computing time. With a single, multicore compute node (bottom result), the computing time indicated an 81.8% decrease relative to using serial computations. These results provide insight into the tradeoffs of using different computing resources when research necessitates advanced integration of ecoinformatics incorporating large and complicated data inputs and models. - See more at: http://aimspress.com/aimses/ch/reader/view_abstract.aspx?file_no=Environ2015030&flag=1#sthash.p1XKDtF8.dpuf

Multiple wavelength spectral system simulating background light noise environment in satellite laser communications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Wei; Sun, Jianfeng; Hou, Peipei; Xu, Qian; Xi, Yueli; Zhou, Yu; Zhu, Funan; Liu, Liren

2017-08-01

Performance of satellite laser communications between GEO and LEO satellites can be influenced by background light noise appeared in the field of view due to sunlight or planets and some comets. Such influences should be studied on the ground testing platform before the space application. In this paper, we introduce a simulator that can simulate the real case of background light noise in space environment during the data talking via laser beam between two lonely satellites. This simulator can not only simulate the effect of multi-wavelength spectrum, but also the effects of adjustable angles of field-of-view, large range of adjustable optical power and adjustable deflection speeds of light noise in space environment. We integrate these functions into a device with small and compact size for easily mobile use. Software control function is also achieved via personal computer to adjust these functions arbitrarily. Keywords:

Thermo-electrochemical analysis of lithium ion batteries for space applications using Thermal Desktop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walker, W.; Ardebili, H.

2014-12-01

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are replacing the Nickel-Hydrogen batteries used on the International Space Station (ISS). Knowing that LIB efficiency and survivability are greatly influenced by temperature, this study focuses on the thermo-electrochemical analysis of LIBs in space orbit. Current finite element modeling software allows for advanced simulation of the thermo-electrochemical processes; however the heat transfer simulation capabilities of said software suites do not allow for the extreme complexities of orbital-space environments like those experienced by the ISS. In this study, we have coupled the existing thermo-electrochemical models representing heat generation in LIBs during discharge cycles with specialized orbital-thermal software, Thermal Desktop (TD). Our model's parameters were obtained from a previous thermo-electrochemical model of a 185 Amp-Hour (Ah) LIB with 1-3 C (C) discharge cycles for both forced and natural convection environments at 300 K. Our TD model successfully simulates the temperature vs. depth-of-discharge (DOD) profiles and temperature ranges for all discharge and convection variations with minimal deviation through the programming of FORTRAN logic representing each variable as a function of relationship to DOD. Multiple parametrics were considered in a second and third set of cases whose results display vital data in advancing our understanding of accurate thermal modeling of LIBs.

A system to simulate and reproduce audio-visual environments for spatial hearing research.

PubMed

Seeber, Bernhard U; Kerber, Stefan; Hafter, Ervin R

2010-02-01

The article reports the experience gained from two implementations of the "Simulated Open-Field Environment" (SOFE), a setup that allows sounds to be played at calibrated levels over a wide frequency range from multiple loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber. Playing sounds from loudspeakers in the free-field has the advantage that each participant listens with their own ears, and individual characteristics of the ears are captured in the sound they hear. This makes an easy and accurate comparison between various listeners with and without hearing devices possible. The SOFE uses custom calibration software to assure individual equalization of each loudspeaker. Room simulation software creates the spatio-temporal reflection pattern of sound sources in rooms which is played via the SOFE loudspeakers. The sound playback system is complemented by a video projection facility which can be used to collect or give feedback or to study auditory-visual interaction. The article discusses acoustical and technical requirements for accurate sound playback against the specific needs in hearing research. An introduction to software concepts is given which allow easy, high-level control of the setup and thus fast experimental development, turning the SOFE into a "Swiss army knife" tool for auditory, spatial hearing and audio-visual research. Crown Copyright 2009. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Solar Sail Spaceflight Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lisano, Michael; Evans, James; Ellis, Jordan; Schimmels, John; Roberts, Timothy; Rios-Reyes, Leonel; Scheeres, Daniel; Bladt, Jeff; Lawrence, Dale; Piggott, Scott

2007-01-01

The Solar Sail Spaceflight Simulation Software (S5) toolkit provides solar-sail designers with an integrated environment for designing optimal solar-sail trajectories, and then studying the attitude dynamics/control, navigation, and trajectory control/correction of sails during realistic mission simulations. Unique features include a high-fidelity solar radiation pressure model suitable for arbitrarily-shaped solar sails, a solar-sail trajectory optimizer, capability to develop solar-sail navigation filter simulations, solar-sail attitude control models, and solar-sail high-fidelity force models.

Boat, wake, and wave real-time simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Świerkowski, Leszek; Gouthas, Efthimios; Christie, Chad L.; Williams, Owen M.

2009-05-01

We describe the extension of our real-time scene generation software VIRSuite to include the dynamic simulation of small boats and their wakes within an ocean environment. Extensive use has been made of the programmabilty available in the current generation of GPUs. We have demonstrated that real-time simulation is feasible, even including such complexities as dynamical calculation of the boat motion, wake generation and calculation of an FFTgenerated sea state.

User's Guide for the Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation (C-MAPSS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frederick, Dean K.; DeCastro, Jonathan A.; Litt, Jonathan S.

2007-01-01

This report is a Users Guide for the NASA-developed Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation (C-MAPSS) software, which is a transient simulation of a large commercial turbofan engine (up to 90,000-lb thrust) with a realistic engine control system. The software supports easy access to health, control, and engine parameters through a graphical user interface (GUI). C-MAPSS provides the user with a graphical turbofan engine simulation environment in which advanced algorithms can be implemented and tested. C-MAPSS can run user-specified transient simulations, and it can generate state-space linear models of the nonlinear engine model at an operating point. The code has a number of GUI screens that allow point-and-click operation, and have editable fields for user-specified input. The software includes an atmospheric model which allows simulation of engine operation at altitudes from sea level to 40,000 ft, Mach numbers from 0 to 0.90, and ambient temperatures from -60 to 103 F. The package also includes a power-management system that allows the engine to be operated over a wide range of thrust levels throughout the full range of flight conditions.

Craniux: A LabVIEW-Based Modular Software Framework for Brain-Machine Interface Research

PubMed Central

Degenhart, Alan D.; Kelly, John W.; Ashmore, Robin C.; Collinger, Jennifer L.; Tyler-Kabara, Elizabeth C.; Weber, Douglas J.; Wang, Wei

2011-01-01

This paper presents “Craniux,” an open-access, open-source software framework for brain-machine interface (BMI) research. Developed in LabVIEW, a high-level graphical programming environment, Craniux offers both out-of-the-box functionality and a modular BMI software framework that is easily extendable. Specifically, it allows researchers to take advantage of multiple features inherent to the LabVIEW environment for on-the-fly data visualization, parallel processing, multithreading, and data saving. This paper introduces the basic features and system architecture of Craniux and describes the validation of the system under real-time BMI operation using simulated and real electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals. Our results indicate that Craniux is able to operate consistently in real time, enabling a seamless work flow to achieve brain control of cursor movement. The Craniux software framework is made available to the scientific research community to provide a LabVIEW-based BMI software platform for future BMI research and development. PMID:21687575

Craniux: a LabVIEW-based modular software framework for brain-machine interface research.

PubMed

Degenhart, Alan D; Kelly, John W; Ashmore, Robin C; Collinger, Jennifer L; Tyler-Kabara, Elizabeth C; Weber, Douglas J; Wang, Wei

2011-01-01

This paper presents "Craniux," an open-access, open-source software framework for brain-machine interface (BMI) research. Developed in LabVIEW, a high-level graphical programming environment, Craniux offers both out-of-the-box functionality and a modular BMI software framework that is easily extendable. Specifically, it allows researchers to take advantage of multiple features inherent to the LabVIEW environment for on-the-fly data visualization, parallel processing, multithreading, and data saving. This paper introduces the basic features and system architecture of Craniux and describes the validation of the system under real-time BMI operation using simulated and real electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals. Our results indicate that Craniux is able to operate consistently in real time, enabling a seamless work flow to achieve brain control of cursor movement. The Craniux software framework is made available to the scientific research community to provide a LabVIEW-based BMI software platform for future BMI research and development.

User News. Volume 17, Number 1 -- Spring 1996

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

This is a newsletter for users of the DOE-2, PowerDOE, SPARK, and BLAST building energy simulation programs. The topics for the Spring 1996 issue include the SPARK simulation environment, DOE-2 validation, listing of free fenestration software from LBNL, Web sites for building energy efficiency, the heat balance method of calculating building heating and cooling loads.

Overview Presentation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lytle, John

2001-01-01

This report provides an overview presentation of the 2000 NPSS (Numerical Propulsion System Simulation) Review and Planning Meeting. Topics include: 1) a background of the program; 2) 1999 Industry Feedback; 3) FY00 Status, including resource distribution and major accomplishments; 4) FY01 Major Milestones; and 5) Future direction for the program. Specifically, simulation environment/production software and NPSS CORBA Security Development are discussed.

The Use of a Real Life Simulated Problem Based Learning Activity in a Corporate Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laurent, Mark A.

2013-01-01

This narrative study examines using a real life simulated problem base learning activity during education of clinical staff, which is expected to design and develop clinically correct electronic charting systems. Expertise in healthcare does not readily transcend to the realm of manipulating software to collect patient data that is pertinent to…

Virtual Environment Training on Mobile Devices

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-01

NONFUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS .............................................. 41 G. PRODUCT FEATURES...52 E. SOFTWARE PRODUCTION .............................................................. 52 F. LIMITATIONS...on Android and iOS tablets. G. PRODUCT FEATURES 1. The final product shall include interactive 3D graphics with simulated representation of actual

MONALISA for stochastic simulations of Petri net models of biochemical systems.

PubMed

Balazki, Pavel; Lindauer, Klaus; Einloft, Jens; Ackermann, Jörg; Koch, Ina

2015-07-10

The concept of Petri nets (PN) is widely used in systems biology and allows modeling of complex biochemical systems like metabolic systems, signal transduction pathways, and gene expression networks. In particular, PN allows the topological analysis based on structural properties, which is important and useful when quantitative (kinetic) data are incomplete or unknown. Knowing the kinetic parameters, the simulation of time evolution of such models can help to study the dynamic behavior of the underlying system. If the number of involved entities (molecules) is low, a stochastic simulation should be preferred against the classical deterministic approach of solving ordinary differential equations. The Stochastic Simulation Algorithm (SSA) is a common method for such simulations. The combination of the qualitative and semi-quantitative PN modeling and stochastic analysis techniques provides a valuable approach in the field of systems biology. Here, we describe the implementation of stochastic analysis in a PN environment. We extended MONALISA - an open-source software for creation, visualization and analysis of PN - by several stochastic simulation methods. The simulation module offers four simulation modes, among them the stochastic mode with constant firing rates and Gillespie's algorithm as exact and approximate versions. The simulator is operated by a user-friendly graphical interface and accepts input data such as concentrations and reaction rate constants that are common parameters in the biological context. The key features of the simulation module are visualization of simulation, interactive plotting, export of results into a text file, mathematical expressions for describing simulation parameters, and up to 500 parallel simulations of the same parameter sets. To illustrate the method we discuss a model for insulin receptor recycling as case study. We present a software that combines the modeling power of Petri nets with stochastic simulation of dynamic processes in a user-friendly environment supported by an intuitive graphical interface. The program offers a valuable alternative to modeling, using ordinary differential equations, especially when simulating single-cell experiments with low molecule counts. The ability to use mathematical expressions provides an additional flexibility in describing the simulation parameters. The open-source distribution allows further extensions by third-party developers. The software is cross-platform and is licensed under the Artistic License 2.0.

Simulation of Triple Oxidation Ditch Wastewater Treatment Process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Yue; Zhang, Jinsong; Liu, Lixiang; Hu, Yongfeng; Xu, Ziming

2010-11-01

This paper presented the modeling mechanism and method of a sewage treatment system. A triple oxidation ditch process of a WWTP was simulated based on activated sludge model ASM2D with GPS-X software. In order to identify the adequate model structure to be implemented into the GPS-X environment, the oxidation ditch was divided into several completely stirred tank reactors depended on the distribution of aeration devices and dissolved oxygen concentration. The removal efficiency of COD, ammonia nitrogen, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and SS were simulated by GPS-X software with influent quality data of this WWTP from June to August 2009, to investigate the differences between the simulated results and the actual results. The results showed that, the simulated values could well reflect the actual condition of the triple oxidation ditch process. Mathematical modeling method was appropriate in effluent quality predicting and process optimizing.

Assessment Environment for Complex Systems Software Guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2013-01-01

This Software Guide (SG) describes the software developed to test the Assessment Environment for Complex Systems (AECS) by the West Virginia High Technology Consortium (WVHTC) Foundation's Mission Systems Group (MSG) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD). This software is referred to as the AECS Test Project throughout the remainder of this document. AECS provides a framework for developing, simulating, testing, and analyzing modern avionics systems within an Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) architecture. The purpose of the AECS Test Project is twofold. First, it provides a means to test the AECS hardware and system developed by MSG. Second, it provides an example project upon which future AECS research may be based. This Software Guide fully describes building, installing, and executing the AECS Test Project as well as its architecture and design. The design of the AECS hardware is described in the AECS Hardware Guide. Instructions on how to configure, build and use the AECS are described in the User's Guide. Sample AECS software, developed by the WVHTC Foundation, is presented in the AECS Software Guide. The AECS Hardware Guide, AECS User's Guide, and AECS Software Guide are authored by MSG. The requirements set forth for AECS are presented in the Statement of Work for the Assessment Environment for Complex Systems authored by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC). The intended audience for this document includes software engineers, hardware engineers, project managers, and quality assurance personnel from WVHTC Foundation (the suppliers of the software), NASA (the customer), and future researchers (users of the software). Readers are assumed to have general knowledge in the field of real-time, embedded computer software development.

Patch Transporter: Incentivized, Decentralized Software Patch System for WSN and IoT Environments

PubMed Central

Lee, JongHyup

2018-01-01

In the complicated settings of WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and IoT (Internet of Things) environments, keeping a number of heterogeneous devices updated is a challenging job, especially with respect to effectively discovering target devices and rapidly delivering the software updates. In this paper, we convert the traditional software update process to a distributed service. We set an incentive system for faithfully transporting the patches to the recipient devices. The incentive system motivates independent, self-interested transporters for helping the devices to be updated. To ensure the system correctly operates, we employ the blockchain system that enforces the commitment in a decentralized manner. We also present a detailed specification for the proposed protocol and validate it by model checking and simulations for correctness. PMID:29438337

Patch Transporter: Incentivized, Decentralized Software Patch System for WSN and IoT Environments.

PubMed

Lee, JongHyup

2018-02-13

[-12]In the complicated settings of WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and IoT (Internet of Things) environments, keeping a number of heterogeneous devices updated is a challenging job, especially with respect to effectively discovering target devices and rapidly delivering the software updates. In this paper, we convert the traditional software update process to a distributed service. We set an incentive system for faithfully transporting the patches to the recipient devices. The incentive system motivates independent, self-interested transporters for helping the devices to be updated. To ensure the system correctly operates, we employ the blockchain system that enforces the commitment in a decentralized manner. We also present a detailed specification for the proposed protocol and validate it by model checking and simulations for correctness.

Integrated Software Health Management for Aircraft GN and C

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schumann, Johann; Mengshoel, Ole

2011-01-01

Modern aircraft rely heavily on dependable operation of many safety-critical software components. Despite careful design, verification and validation (V&V), on-board software can fail with disastrous consequences if it encounters problematic software/hardware interaction or must operate in an unexpected environment. We are using a Bayesian approach to monitor the software and its behavior during operation and provide up-to-date information about the health of the software and its components. The powerful reasoning mechanism provided by our model-based Bayesian approach makes reliable diagnosis of the root causes possible and minimizes the number of false alarms. Compilation of the Bayesian model into compact arithmetic circuits makes SWHM feasible even on platforms with limited CPU power. We show initial results of SWHM on a small simulator of an embedded aircraft software system, where software and sensor faults can be injected.

Test Methods for Robot Agility in Manufacturing

PubMed Central

Downs, Anthony; Harrison, William; Schlenoff, Craig

2017-01-01

Purpose The paper aims to define and describe test methods and metrics to assess industrial robot system agility in both simulation and in reality. Design/methodology/approach The paper describes test methods and associated quantitative and qualitative metrics for assessing robot system efficiency and effectiveness which can then be used for the assessment of system agility. Findings The paper describes how the test methods were implemented in a simulation environment and real world environment. It also shows how the metrics are measured and assessed as they would be in a future competition. Practical Implications The test methods described in this paper will push forward the state of the art in software agility for manufacturing robots, allowing small and medium manufacturers to better utilize robotic systems. Originality / value The paper fulfills the identified need for standard test methods to measure and allow for improvement in software agility for manufacturing robots. PMID:28203034

Recoding low-level simulator data into a record of meaningful task performance: the integrated task modeling environment (ITME).

PubMed

King, Robert; Parker, Simon; Mouzakis, Kon; Fletcher, Winston; Fitzgerald, Patrick

2007-11-01

The Integrated Task Modeling Environment (ITME) is a user-friendly software tool that has been developed to automatically recode low-level data into an empirical record of meaningful task performance. The present research investigated and validated the performance of the ITME software package by conducting complex simulation missions and comparing the task analyses produced by ITME with taskanalyses produced by experienced video analysts. A very high interrater reliability (> or = .94) existed between experienced video analysts and the ITME for the task analyses produced for each mission. The mean session time:analysis time ratio was 1:24 using video analysis techniques and 1:5 using the ITME. It was concluded that the ITME produced task analyses that were as reliable as those produced by experienced video analysts, and significantly reduced the time cost associated with these analyses.

Telehealth innovations in health education and training.

PubMed

Conde, José G; De, Suvranu; Hall, Richard W; Johansen, Edward; Meglan, Dwight; Peng, Grace C Y

2010-01-01

Telehealth applications are increasingly important in many areas of health education and training. In addition, they will play a vital role in biomedical research and research training by facilitating remote collaborations and providing access to expensive/remote instrumentation. In order to fulfill their true potential to leverage education, training, and research activities, innovations in telehealth applications should be fostered across a range of technology fronts, including online, on-demand computational models for simulation; simplified interfaces for software and hardware; software frameworks for simulations; portable telepresence systems; artificial intelligence applications to be applied when simulated human patients are not options; and the development of more simulator applications. This article presents the results of discussion on potential areas of future development, barries to overcome, and suggestions to translate the promise of telehealth applications into a transformed environment of training, education, and research in the health sciences.

Monte Carlo Simulation Tool Installation and Operation Guide

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aguayo Navarrete, Estanislao; Ankney, Austin S.; Berguson, Timothy J.

2013-09-02

This document provides information on software and procedures for Monte Carlo simulations based on the Geant4 toolkit, the ROOT data analysis software and the CRY cosmic ray library. These tools have been chosen for its application to shield design and activation studies as part of the simulation task for the Majorana Collaboration. This document includes instructions for installation, operation and modification of the simulation code in a high cyber-security computing environment, such as the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory network. It is intended as a living document, and will be periodically updated. It is a starting point for information collection bymore » an experimenter, and is not the definitive source. Users should consult with one of the authors for guidance on how to find the most current information for their needs.« less

ReaDDy - A Software for Particle-Based Reaction-Diffusion Dynamics in Crowded Cellular Environments

PubMed Central

Schöneberg, Johannes; Noé, Frank

2013-01-01

We introduce the software package ReaDDy for simulation of detailed spatiotemporal mechanisms of dynamical processes in the cell, based on reaction-diffusion dynamics with particle resolution. In contrast to other particle-based reaction kinetics programs, ReaDDy supports particle interaction potentials. This permits effects such as space exclusion, molecular crowding and aggregation to be modeled. The biomolecules simulated can be represented as a sphere, or as a more complex geometry such as a domain structure or polymer chain. ReaDDy bridges the gap between small-scale but highly detailed molecular dynamics or Brownian dynamics simulations and large-scale but little-detailed reaction kinetics simulations. ReaDDy has a modular design that enables the exchange of the computing core by efficient platform-specific implementations or dynamical models that are different from Brownian dynamics. PMID:24040218

Development and use of mathematical models and software frameworks for integrated analysis of agricultural systems and associated water use impacts

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fowler, K. R.; Jenkins, E.W.; Parno, M.; Chrispell, J.C.; Colón, A. I.; Hanson, Randall T.

2016-01-01

The development of appropriate water management strategies requires, in part, a methodology for quantifying and evaluating the impact of water policy decisions on regional stakeholders. In this work, we describe the framework we are developing to enhance the body of resources available to policy makers, farmers, and other community members in their e orts to understand, quantify, and assess the often competing objectives water consumers have with respect to usage. The foundation for the framework is the construction of a simulation-based optimization software tool using two existing software packages. In particular, we couple a robust optimization software suite (DAKOTA) with the USGS MF-OWHM water management simulation tool to provide a flexible software environment that will enable the evaluation of one or multiple (possibly competing) user-defined (or stakeholder) objectives. We introduce the individual software components and outline the communication strategy we defined for the coupled development. We present numerical results for case studies related to crop portfolio management with several defined objectives. The objectives are not optimally satisfied for any single user class, demonstrating the capability of the software tool to aid in the evaluation of a variety of competing interests.

Automatic temperature computation for realistic IR simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Le Goff, Alain; Kersaudy, Philippe; Latger, Jean; Cathala, Thierry; Stolte, Nilo; Barillot, Philippe

2000-07-01

Polygon temperature computation in 3D virtual scenes is fundamental for IR image simulation. This article describes in detail the temperature calculation software and its current extensions, briefly presented in [1]. This software, called MURET, is used by the simulation workshop CHORALE of the French DGA. MURET is a one-dimensional thermal software, which accurately takes into account the material thermal attributes of three-dimensional scene and the variation of the environment characteristics (atmosphere) as a function of the time. Concerning the environment, absorbed incident fluxes are computed wavelength by wavelength, for each half an hour, druing 24 hours before the time of the simulation. For each polygon, incident fluxes are compsed of: direct solar fluxes, sky illumination (including diffuse solar fluxes). Concerning the materials, classical thermal attributes are associated to several layers, such as conductivity, absorption, spectral emissivity, density, specific heat, thickness and convection coefficients are taken into account. In the future, MURET will be able to simulate permeable natural materials (water influence) and vegetation natural materials (woods). This model of thermal attributes induces a very accurate polygon temperature computation for the complex 3D databases often found in CHORALE simulations. The kernel of MUET consists of an efficient ray tracer allowing to compute the history (over 24 hours) of the shadowed parts of the 3D scene and a library, responsible for the thermal computations. The great originality concerns the way the heating fluxes are computed. Using ray tracing, the flux received in each 3D point of the scene accurately takes into account the masking (hidden surfaces) between objects. By the way, this library supplies other thermal modules such as a thermal shows computation tool.

SENSOR: a tool for the simulation of hyperspectral remote sensing systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Börner, Anko; Wiest, Lorenz; Keller, Peter; Reulke, Ralf; Richter, Rolf; Schaepman, Michael; Schläpfer, Daniel

The consistent end-to-end simulation of airborne and spaceborne earth remote sensing systems is an important task, and sometimes the only way for the adaptation and optimisation of a sensor and its observation conditions, the choice and test of algorithms for data processing, error estimation and the evaluation of the capabilities of the whole sensor system. The presented software simulator SENSOR (Software Environment for the Simulation of Optical Remote sensing systems) includes a full model of the sensor hardware, the observed scene, and the atmosphere in between. The simulator consists of three parts. The first part describes the geometrical relations between scene, sun, and the remote sensing system using a ray-tracing algorithm. The second part of the simulation environment considers the radiometry. It calculates the at-sensor radiance using a pre-calculated multidimensional lookup-table taking the atmospheric influence on the radiation into account. The third part consists of an optical and an electronic sensor model for the generation of digital images. Using SENSOR for an optimisation requires the additional application of task-specific data processing algorithms. The principle of the end-to-end-simulation approach is explained, all relevant concepts of SENSOR are discussed, and first examples of its use are given. The verification of SENSOR is demonstrated. This work is closely related to the Airborne PRISM Experiment (APEX), an airborne imaging spectrometer funded by the European Space Agency.

Intelligent Launch and Range Operations Virtual Test Bed (ILRO-VTB)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bardina, Jorge; Rajkumar, T.

2003-01-01

Intelligent Launch and Range Operations Virtual Test Bed (ILRO-VTB) is a real-time web-based command and control, communication, and intelligent simulation environment of ground-vehicle, launch and range operation activities. ILRO-VTB consists of a variety of simulation models combined with commercial and indigenous software developments (NASA Ames). It creates a hybrid software/hardware environment suitable for testing various integrated control system components of launch and range. The dynamic interactions of the integrated simulated control systems are not well understood. Insight into such systems can only be achieved through simulation/emulation. For that reason, NASA has established a VTB where we can learn the actual control and dynamics of designs for future space programs, including testing and performance evaluation. The current implementation of the VTB simulates the operations of a sub-orbital vehicle of mission, control, ground-vehicle engineering, launch and range operations. The present development of the test bed simulates the operations of Space Shuttle Vehicle (SSV) at NASA Kennedy Space Center. The test bed supports a wide variety of shuttle missions with ancillary modeling capabilities like weather forecasting, lightning tracker, toxic gas dispersion model, debris dispersion model, telemetry, trajectory modeling, ground operations, payload models and etc. To achieve the simulations, all models are linked using Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). The test bed provides opportunities for government, universities, researchers and industries to do a real time of shuttle launch in cyber space.

Intelligent launch and range operations virtual testbed (ILRO-VTB)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bardina, Jorge; Rajkumar, Thirumalainambi

2003-09-01

Intelligent Launch and Range Operations Virtual Test Bed (ILRO-VTB) is a real-time web-based command and control, communication, and intelligent simulation environment of ground-vehicle, launch and range operation activities. ILRO-VTB consists of a variety of simulation models combined with commercial and indigenous software developments (NASA Ames). It creates a hybrid software/hardware environment suitable for testing various integrated control system components of launch and range. The dynamic interactions of the integrated simulated control systems are not well understood. Insight into such systems can only be achieved through simulation/emulation. For that reason, NASA has established a VTB where we can learn the actual control and dynamics of designs for future space programs, including testing and performance evaluation. The current implementation of the VTB simulates the operations of a sub-orbital vehicle of mission, control, ground-vehicle engineering, launch and range operations. The present development of the test bed simulates the operations of Space Shuttle Vehicle (SSV) at NASA Kennedy Space Center. The test bed supports a wide variety of shuttle missions with ancillary modeling capabilities like weather forecasting, lightning tracker, toxic gas dispersion model, debris dispersion model, telemetry, trajectory modeling, ground operations, payload models and etc. To achieve the simulations, all models are linked using Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). The test bed provides opportunities for government, universities, researchers and industries to do a real time of shuttle launch in cyber space.

Hardware and Software Integration to Support Real-Time Space Link Emulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Murawski, Robert; Bhasin, Kul; Bittner, David; Sweet, Aaron; Coulter, Rachel; Schwab, Devin

2012-01-01

Prior to operational use, communications hardware and software must be thoroughly tested and verified. In space-link communications, field testing equipment can be prohibitively expensive and cannot test to non-ideal situations. In this paper, we show how software and hardware emulation tools can be used to accurately model the characteristics of a satellite communication channel in a lab environment. We describe some of the challenges associated with developing an emulation lab and present results to demonstrate the channel modeling. We then show how network emulation software can be used to extend a hardware emulation model without requiring additional network and channel simulation hardware.

Hardware and Software Integration to Support Real-Time Space-Link Emulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Murawski, Robert; Bhasin, Kul; Bittner, David

2012-01-01

Prior to operational use, communications hardware and software must be thoroughly tested and verified. In space-link communications, field testing equipment can be prohibitively expensive and cannot test to non-ideal situations. In this paper, we show how software and hardware emulation tools can be used to accurately model the characteristics of a satellite communication channel in a lab environment. We describe some of the challenges associated with developing an emulation lab and present results to demonstrate the channel modeling. We then show how network emulation software can be used to extend a hardware emulation model without requiring additional network and channel simulation hardware.

Feasibility study for a numerical aerodynamic simulation facility. Volume 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lincoln, N. R.; Bergman, R. O.; Bonstrom, D. B.; Brinkman, T. W.; Chiu, S. H. J.; Green, S. S.; Hansen, S. D.; Klein, D. L.; Krohn, H. E.; Prow, R. P.

1979-01-01

A Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility (NASF) was designed for the simulation of fluid flow around three-dimensional bodies, both in wind tunnel environments and in free space. The application of numerical simulation to this field of endeavor promised to yield economies in aerodynamic and aircraft body designs. A model for a NASF/FMP (Flow Model Processor) ensemble using a possible approach to meeting NASF goals is presented. The computer hardware and software are presented, along with the entire design and performance analysis and evaluation.

Structural mechanics simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Biffle, Johnny H.

1992-01-01

Sandia National Laboratory has a very broad structural capability. Work has been performed in support of reentry vehicles, nuclear reactor safety, weapons systems and components, nuclear waste transport, strategic petroleum reserve, nuclear waste storage, wind and solar energy, drilling technology, and submarine programs. The analysis environment contains both commercial and internally developed software. Included are mesh generation capabilities, structural simulation codes, and visual codes for examining simulation results. To effectively simulate a wide variety of physical phenomena, a large number of constitutive models have been developed.

RELAP-7 Level 2 Milestone Report: Demonstration of a Steady State Single Phase PWR Simulation with RELAP-7

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

David Andrs; Ray Berry; Derek Gaston

The document contains the simulation results of a steady state model PWR problem with the RELAP-7 code. The RELAP-7 code is the next generation nuclear reactor system safety analysis code being developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The code is based on INL's modern scientific software development framework - MOOSE (Multi-Physics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment). This report summarizes the initial results of simulating a model steady-state single phase PWR problem using the current version of the RELAP-7 code. The major purpose of this demonstration simulation is to show that RELAP-7 code can be rapidly developed to simulate single-phase reactor problems. RELAP-7more » is a new project started on October 1st, 2011. It will become the main reactor systems simulation toolkit for RISMC (Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization) and the next generation tool in the RELAP reactor safety/systems analysis application series (the replacement for RELAP5). The key to the success of RELAP-7 is the simultaneous advancement of physical models, numerical methods, and software design while maintaining a solid user perspective. Physical models include both PDEs (Partial Differential Equations) and ODEs (Ordinary Differential Equations) and experimental based closure models. RELAP-7 will eventually utilize well posed governing equations for multiphase flow, which can be strictly verified. Closure models used in RELAP5 and newly developed models will be reviewed and selected to reflect the progress made during the past three decades. RELAP-7 uses modern numerical methods, which allow implicit time integration, higher order schemes in both time and space, and strongly coupled multi-physics simulations. RELAP-7 is written with object oriented programming language C++. Its development follows modern software design paradigms. The code is easy to read, develop, maintain, and couple with other codes. Most importantly, the modern software design allows the RELAP-7 code to evolve with time. RELAP-7 is a MOOSE-based application. MOOSE (Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment) is a framework for solving computational engineering problems in a well-planned, managed, and coordinated way. By leveraging millions of lines of open source software packages, such as PETSC (a nonlinear solver developed at Argonne National Laboratory) and LibMesh (a Finite Element Analysis package developed at University of Texas), MOOSE significantly reduces the expense and time required to develop new applications. Numerical integration methods and mesh management for parallel computation are provided by MOOSE. Therefore RELAP-7 code developers only need to focus on physics and user experiences. By using the MOOSE development environment, RELAP-7 code is developed by following the same modern software design paradigms used for other MOOSE development efforts. There are currently over 20 different MOOSE based applications ranging from 3-D transient neutron transport, detailed 3-D transient fuel performance analysis, to long-term material aging. Multi-physics and multiple dimensional analyses capabilities can be obtained by coupling RELAP-7 and other MOOSE based applications and by leveraging with capabilities developed by other DOE programs. This allows restricting the focus of RELAP-7 to systems analysis-type simulations and gives priority to retain and significantly extend RELAP5's capabilities.« less

Physical and digital simulations for IVA robotics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hinman, Elaine; Workman, Gary L.

1992-01-01

Space based materials processing experiments can be enhanced through the use of IVA robotic systems. A program to determine requirements for the implementation of robotic systems in a microgravity environment and to develop some preliminary concepts for acceleration control of small, lightweight arms has been initiated with the development of physical and digital simulation capabilities. The physical simulation facilities incorporate a robotic workcell containing a Zymark Zymate II robot instrumented for acceleration measurements, which is able to perform materials transfer functions while flying on NASA's KC-135 aircraft during parabolic manuevers to simulate reduced gravity. Measurements of accelerations occurring during the reduced gravity periods will be used to characterize impacts of robotic accelerations in a microgravity environment in space. Digital simulations are being performed with TREETOPS, a NASA developed software package which is used for the dynamic analysis of systems with a tree topology. Extensive use of both simulation tools will enable the design of robotic systems with enhanced acceleration control for use in the space manufacturing environment.

Condor-COPASI: high-throughput computing for biochemical networks

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Mathematical modelling has become a standard technique to improve our understanding of complex biological systems. As models become larger and more complex, simulations and analyses require increasing amounts of computational power. Clusters of computers in a high-throughput computing environment can help to provide the resources required for computationally expensive model analysis. However, exploiting such a system can be difficult for users without the necessary expertise. Results We present Condor-COPASI, a server-based software tool that integrates COPASI, a biological pathway simulation tool, with Condor, a high-throughput computing environment. Condor-COPASI provides a web-based interface, which makes it extremely easy for a user to run a number of model simulation and analysis tasks in parallel. Tasks are transparently split into smaller parts, and submitted for execution on a Condor pool. Result output is presented to the user in a number of formats, including tables and interactive graphical displays. Conclusions Condor-COPASI can effectively use a Condor high-throughput computing environment to provide significant gains in performance for a number of model simulation and analysis tasks. Condor-COPASI is free, open source software, released under the Artistic License 2.0, and is suitable for use by any institution with access to a Condor pool. Source code is freely available for download at http://code.google.com/p/condor-copasi/, along with full instructions on deployment and usage. PMID:22834945

Mock Data Challenge for the MPD/NICA Experiment on the HybriLIT Cluster

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gertsenberger, Konstantin; Rogachevsky, Oleg

2018-02-01

Simulation of data processing before receiving first experimental data is an important issue in high-energy physics experiments. This article presents the current Event Data Model and the Mock Data Challenge for the MPD experiment at the NICA accelerator complex which uses ongoing simulation studies to exercise in a stress-testing the distributed computing infrastructure and experiment software in the full production environment from simulated data through the physical analysis.

Simulation Assessment Validation Environment (SAVE). Software User’s Manual

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-09-01

requirements and decisions are made. The integration is leveraging work from other DoD organizations so that high -end results are attainable much faster than...planning through the modeling and simulation data capture and visualization process. The planners can complete the manufacturing process plan with a high ...technologies. This tool is also used to perform “ high level” factory process simulation prior to full CAD model development and help define feasible

The simulation library of the Belle II software system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, D. Y.; Ritter, M.; Bilka, T.; Bobrov, A.; Casarosa, G.; Chilikin, K.; Ferber, T.; Godang, R.; Jaegle, I.; Kandra, J.; Kodys, P.; Kuhr, T.; Kvasnicka, P.; Nakayama, H.; Piilonen, L.; Pulvermacher, C.; Santelj, L.; Schwenker, B.; Sibidanov, A.; Soloviev, Y.; Starič, M.; Uglov, T.

2017-10-01

SuperKEKB, the next generation B factory, has been constructed in Japan as an upgrade of KEKB. This brand new e+ e- collider is expected to deliver a very large data set for the Belle II experiment, which will be 50 times larger than the previous Belle sample. Both the triggered physics event rate and the background event rate will be increased by at least 10 times than the previous ones, and will create a challenging data taking environment for the Belle II detector. The software system of the Belle II experiment is designed to execute this ambitious plan. A full detector simulation library, which is a part of the Belle II software system, is created based on Geant4 and has been tested thoroughly. Recently the library has been upgraded with Geant4 version 10.1. The library is behaving as expected and it is utilized actively in producing Monte Carlo data sets for various studies. In this paper, we will explain the structure of the simulation library and the various interfaces to other packages including geometry and beam background simulation.

The Oceanographic Multipurpose Software Environment (OMUSE v1.0)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pelupessy, Inti; van Werkhoven, Ben; van Elteren, Arjen; Viebahn, Jan; Candy, Adam; Portegies Zwart, Simon; Dijkstra, Henk

2017-08-01

In this paper we present the Oceanographic Multipurpose Software Environment (OMUSE). OMUSE aims to provide a homogeneous environment for existing or newly developed numerical ocean simulation codes, simplifying their use and deployment. In this way, numerical experiments that combine ocean models representing different physics or spanning different ranges of physical scales can be easily designed. Rapid development of simulation models is made possible through the creation of simple high-level scripts. The low-level core of the abstraction in OMUSE is designed to deploy these simulations efficiently on heterogeneous high-performance computing resources. Cross-verification of simulation models with different codes and numerical methods is facilitated by the unified interface that OMUSE provides. Reproducibility in numerical experiments is fostered by allowing complex numerical experiments to be expressed in portable scripts that conform to a common OMUSE interface. Here, we present the design of OMUSE as well as the modules and model components currently included, which range from a simple conceptual quasi-geostrophic solver to the global circulation model POP (Parallel Ocean Program). The uniform access to the codes' simulation state and the extensive automation of data transfer and conversion operations aids the implementation of model couplings. We discuss the types of couplings that can be implemented using OMUSE. We also present example applications that demonstrate the straightforward model initialization and the concurrent use of data analysis tools on a running model. We give examples of multiscale and multiphysics simulations by embedding a regional ocean model into a global ocean model and by coupling a surface wave propagation model with a coastal circulation model.

ELISA, a demonstrator environment for information systems architecture design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Panem, Chantal

1994-01-01

This paper describes an approach of reusability of software engineering technology in the area of ground space system design. System engineers have lots of needs similar to software developers: sharing of a common data base, capitalization of knowledge, definition of a common design process, communication between different technical domains. Moreover system designers need to simulate dynamically their system as early as possible. Software development environments, methods and tools now become operational and widely used. Their architecture is based on a unique object base, a set of common management services and they host a family of tools for each life cycle activity. In late '92, CNES decided to develop a demonstrative software environment supporting some system activities. The design of ground space data processing systems was chosen as the application domain. ELISA (Integrated Software Environment for Architectures Specification) was specified as a 'demonstrator', i.e. a sufficient basis for demonstrations, evaluation and future operational enhancements. A process with three phases was implemented: system requirements definition, design of system architectures models, and selection of physical architectures. Each phase is composed of several activities that can be performed in parallel, with the provision of Commercial Off the Shelves Tools. ELISA has been delivered to CNES in January 94, currently used for demonstrations and evaluations on real projects (e.g. SPOT4 Satellite Control Center). It is on the way of new evolutions.

Helicopter Maritime Environment Trainer: Software Test Document

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-01

Toronto was requested by CF to investigate the potential use of low cost, virtual reality technologies for this purpose, following a successful...demonstration of these technologies for training ship handling skills and reductions of sea time. 2 DRDC Toronto TM 2011-048 Landing on...Simulator Preliminary Specification (Updated) b. DRDC Toronto Report Helicopter Deck Landing Simulator: Technology Demonstrator by F.A

The atomic simulation environment-a Python library for working with atoms.

PubMed

Hjorth Larsen, Ask; Jørgen Mortensen, Jens; Blomqvist, Jakob; Castelli, Ivano E; Christensen, Rune; Dułak, Marcin; Friis, Jesper; Groves, Michael N; Hammer, Bjørk; Hargus, Cory; Hermes, Eric D; Jennings, Paul C; Bjerre Jensen, Peter; Kermode, James; Kitchin, John R; Leonhard Kolsbjerg, Esben; Kubal, Joseph; Kaasbjerg, Kristen; Lysgaard, Steen; Bergmann Maronsson, Jón; Maxson, Tristan; Olsen, Thomas; Pastewka, Lars; Peterson, Andrew; Rostgaard, Carsten; Schiøtz, Jakob; Schütt, Ole; Strange, Mikkel; Thygesen, Kristian S; Vegge, Tejs; Vilhelmsen, Lasse; Walter, Michael; Zeng, Zhenhua; Jacobsen, Karsten W

2017-07-12

The atomic simulation environment (ASE) is a software package written in the Python programming language with the aim of setting up, steering, and analyzing atomistic simulations. In ASE, tasks are fully scripted in Python. The powerful syntax of Python combined with the NumPy array library make it possible to perform very complex simulation tasks. For example, a sequence of calculations may be performed with the use of a simple 'for-loop' construction. Calculations of energy, forces, stresses and other quantities are performed through interfaces to many external electronic structure codes or force fields using a uniform interface. On top of this calculator interface, ASE provides modules for performing many standard simulation tasks such as structure optimization, molecular dynamics, handling of constraints and performing nudged elastic band calculations.

Design, Fabrication, and Testing of a Hopper Spacecraft Simulator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mucasey, Evan Phillip Krell

A robust test bed is needed to facilitate future development of guidance, navigation, and control software for future vehicles capable of vertical takeoff and landings. Specifically, this work aims to develop both a hardware and software simulator that can be used for future flight software development for extra-planetary vehicles. To achieve the program requirements of a high thrust to weight ratio with large payload capability, the vehicle is designed to have a novel combination of electric motors and a micro jet engine is used to act as the propulsion elements. The spacecraft simulator underwent several iterations of hardware development using different materials and fabrication methods. The final design used a combination of carbon fiber and fiberglass that was cured under vacuum to serve as the frame of the vehicle which provided a strong, lightweight platform for all flight components and future payloads. The vehicle also uses an open source software development platform, Arduino, to serve as the initial flight computer and has onboard accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers to sense the vehicles attitude. To prevent instability due to noise, a polynomial kalman filter was designed and this fed the sensed angles and rates into a robust attitude controller which autonomously control the vehicle' s yaw, pitch, and roll angles. In addition to the hardware development of the vehicle itself, both a software simulation and a real time data acquisition interface was written in MATLAB/SIMULINK so that real flight data could be taken and then correlated to the simulation to prove the accuracy of the analytical model. In result, the full scale vehicle was designed and own outside of the lab environment and data showed that the software model accurately predicted the flight dynamics of the vehicle.

Virtual- and real-world operation of mobile robotic manipulators: integrated simulation, visualization, and control environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, ChuXin; Trivedi, Mohan M.

1992-03-01

This research is focused on enhancing the overall productivity of an integrated human-robot system. A simulation, animation, visualization, and interactive control (SAVIC) environment has been developed for the design and operation of an integrated robotic manipulator system. This unique system possesses the abilities for multisensor simulation, kinematics and locomotion animation, dynamic motion and manipulation animation, transformation between real and virtual modes within the same graphics system, ease in exchanging software modules and hardware devices between real and virtual world operations, and interfacing with a real robotic system. This paper describes a working system and illustrates the concepts by presenting the simulation, animation, and control methodologies for a unique mobile robot with articulated tracks, a manipulator, and sensory modules.

Simulation-To-Flight (STF-1): A Mission to Enable CubeSat Software-Based Validation and Verification

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morris, Justin; Zemerick, Scott; Grubb, Matt; Lucas, John; Jaridi, Majid; Gross, Jason N.; Ohi, Nicholas; Christian, John A.; Vassiliadis, Dimitris; Kadiyala, Anand;

Simulation of three-phase induction motor drives using indirect field oriented control in PSIM environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aziri, Hasif; Patakor, Fizatul Aini; Sulaiman, Marizan; Salleh, Zulhisyam

2017-09-01

This paper presents the simulation of three-phase induction motor drives using Indirect Field Oriented Control (IFOC) in PSIM environment. The asynchronous machine is well known about natural limitations fact of highly nonlinearity and complexity of motor model. In order to resolve these problems, the IFOC is applied to control the instantaneous electrical quantities such as torque and flux component. As FOC is controlling the stator current that represented by a vector, the torque component is aligned with d coordinate while the flux component is aligned with q coordinate. There are five levels of the incremental system are gradually built up to verify and testing the software module in the system. Indeed, all of system build levels are verified and successfully tested in PSIM environment. Moreover, the corresponding system of five build levels are simulated in PSIM environment which is user-friendly for simulation studies in order to explore the performance of speed responses based on IFOC algorithm for three-phase induction motor drives.

Simulating Technology Processes to Foster Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krumholtz, Nira

1998-01-01

Based on a spiral model of technology evolution, elementary students used LOGO computer software to become both developers and users of technology. The computerized environment enabled 87% to reach intuitive understanding of physical concepts; 24% expressed more formal scientific understanding. (SK)

Low Resolution Picture Transmission (LRPT) Demonstration System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fong, Wai; Yeh, Pen-Shu; Sank, Victor; Nyugen, Xuan; Xia, Wei; Duran, Steve; Day, John H. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Low-Resolution Picture Transmission (LRPT) is a proposed standard for direct broadcast transmission of satellite weather images. This standard is a joint effort by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As a digital transmission scheme, its purpose is to replace the current analog Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) system for use in the Meteorological Operational (METOP) satellites. Goddard Space Flight Center has been tasked to build an LRPT Demonstration System (LDS). It's main objective is to develop or demonstrate the feasibility of a low-cost receiver utilizing a Personal Computer (PC) as the primary processing component and determine the performance of the protocol in the simulated Radio Frequency (RF) environment. The approach would consist of two phases. In the phase 1, a Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) Modulator-Demodulator (MODEM) board that would perform RF demodulation would be purchased allowing the Central Processing Unit (CPU) to perform the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) protocol processing. Also since the weather images are compressed the PC would perform the decompression. Phase 1 was successfully demonstrated on December 1997. Phase 2 consists of developing a high-fidelity receiver, transmitter and environment simulator. Its goal is to find out how the METOP Specification performs in a simulated noise environment in a cost-effective receiver. The approach would be to produce a receiver using as much software as possible to perform front-end processing to take advantage of the latest high-speed PCs. Thus the COTS MODEM used in Phase 1 is performing RF demodulation along with data acquisition providing data to the receiving software. Also, environment simulator is produced using the noise patterns generated by Institute for Telecommunications Sciences (ITS) from their noise environment study.

Balloon Ascent: 3-D Simulation Tool for the Ascent and Float of High-Altitude Balloons

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Farley, Rodger E.

2005-01-01

The BalloonAscent balloon flight simulation code represents a from-scratch development using Visual Basic 5 as the software platform. The simulation code is a transient analysis of balloon flight, predicting the skin and gas temperatures along with the 3-D position and velocity in a time and spatially varying environment. There are manual and automated controls for gas valving and the dropping of ballast. Also, there are many handy calculators, such as appropriate free lift, and steady-state thermal solutions with temperature gradients. The strength of this simulation model over others in the past is that the infrared environment is deterministic rather than guessed at. The ground temperature is specified along with the emissivity, which creates a ground level IR environment that is then partially absorbed as it travels upward through the atmosphere to the altitude of the balloon.

Fluctuating Finite Element Analysis (FFEA): A continuum mechanics software tool for mesoscale simulation of biomolecules.

PubMed

Solernou, Albert; Hanson, Benjamin S; Richardson, Robin A; Welch, Robert; Read, Daniel J; Harlen, Oliver G; Harris, Sarah A

2018-03-01

Fluctuating Finite Element Analysis (FFEA) is a software package designed to perform continuum mechanics simulations of proteins and other globular macromolecules. It combines conventional finite element methods with stochastic thermal noise, and is appropriate for simulations of large proteins and protein complexes at the mesoscale (length-scales in the range of 5 nm to 1 μm), where there is currently a paucity of modelling tools. It requires 3D volumetric information as input, which can be low resolution structural information such as cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) maps or much higher resolution atomistic co-ordinates from which volumetric information can be extracted. In this article we introduce our open source software package for performing FFEA simulations which we have released under a GPLv3 license. The software package includes a C ++ implementation of FFEA, together with tools to assist the user to set up the system from Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) or Protein Data Bank (PDB) data files. We also provide a PyMOL plugin to perform basic visualisation and additional Python tools for the analysis of FFEA simulation trajectories. This manuscript provides a basic background to the FFEA method, describing the implementation of the core mechanical model and how intermolecular interactions and the solvent environment are included within this framework. We provide prospective FFEA users with a practical overview of how to set up an FFEA simulation with reference to our publicly available online tutorials and manuals that accompany this first release of the package.

Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

The Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) software library developed at Idaho National Laboratory is a tool. MOOSE, like other tools, doesn't actually complete a task. Instead, MOOSE seeks to reduce the effort required to create engineering simulation applications. MOOSE itself is a software library: a blank canvas upon which you write equations and then MOOSE can help you solve them. MOOSE is comparable to a spreadsheet application. A spreadsheet, by itself, doesn't do anything. Only once equations are entered into it will a spreadsheet application compute anything. Such is the same for MOOSE. An engineer or scientist can utilizemore » the equation solvers within MOOSE to solve equations related to their area of study. For instance, a geomechanical scientist can input equations related to water flow in underground reservoirs and MOOSE can solve those equations to give the scientist an idea of how water could move over time. An engineer might input equations related to the forces in steel beams in order to understand the load bearing capacity of a bridge. Because MOOSE is a blank canvas it can be useful in many scientific and engineering pursuits.« less

Systematic analysis of signaling pathways using an integrative environment.

PubMed

Visvanathan, Mahesh; Breit, Marc; Pfeifer, Bernhard; Baumgartner, Christian; Modre-Osprian, Robert; Tilg, Bernhard

2007-01-01

Understanding the biological processes of signaling pathways as a whole system requires an integrative software environment that has comprehensive capabilities. The environment should include tools for pathway design, visualization, simulation and a knowledge base concerning signaling pathways as one. In this paper we introduce a new integrative environment for the systematic analysis of signaling pathways. This system includes environments for pathway design, visualization, simulation and a knowledge base that combines biological and modeling information concerning signaling pathways that provides the basic understanding of the biological system, its structure and functioning. The system is designed with a client-server architecture. It contains a pathway designing environment and a simulation environment as upper layers with a relational knowledge base as the underlying layer. The TNFa-mediated NF-kB signal trans-duction pathway model was designed and tested using our integrative framework. It was also useful to define the structure of the knowledge base. Sensitivity analysis of this specific pathway was performed providing simulation data. Then the model was extended showing promising initial results. The proposed system offers a holistic view of pathways containing biological and modeling data. It will help us to perform biological interpretation of the simulation results and thus contribute to a better understanding of the biological system for drug identification.

Massively Parallel Processing for Fast and Accurate Stamping Simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gress, Jeffrey J.; Xu, Siguang; Joshi, Ramesh; Wang, Chuan-tao; Paul, Sabu

2005-08-01

The competitive automotive market drives automotive manufacturers to speed up the vehicle development cycles and reduce the lead-time. Fast tooling development is one of the key areas to support fast and short vehicle development programs (VDP). In the past ten years, the stamping simulation has become the most effective validation tool in predicting and resolving all potential formability and quality problems before the dies are physically made. The stamping simulation and formability analysis has become an critical business segment in GM math-based die engineering process. As the simulation becomes as one of the major production tools in engineering factory, the simulation speed and accuracy are the two of the most important measures for stamping simulation technology. The speed and time-in-system of forming analysis becomes an even more critical to support the fast VDP and tooling readiness. Since 1997, General Motors Die Center has been working jointly with our software vendor to develop and implement a parallel version of simulation software for mass production analysis applications. By 2001, this technology was matured in the form of distributed memory processing (DMP) of draw die simulations in a networked distributed memory computing environment. In 2004, this technology was refined to massively parallel processing (MPP) and extended to line die forming analysis (draw, trim, flange, and associated spring-back) running on a dedicated computing environment. The evolution of this technology and the insight gained through the implementation of DM0P/MPP technology as well as performance benchmarks are discussed in this publication.

Model-based engineering for laser weapons systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panthaki, Malcolm; Coy, Steve

2011-10-01

The Comet Performance Engineering Workspace is an environment that enables integrated, multidisciplinary modeling and design/simulation process automation. One of the many multi-disciplinary applications of the Comet Workspace is for the integrated Structural, Thermal, Optical Performance (STOP) analysis of complex, multi-disciplinary space systems containing Electro-Optical (EO) sensors such as those which are designed and developed by and for NASA and the Department of Defense. The CometTM software is currently able to integrate performance simulation data and processes from a wide range of 3-D CAD and analysis software programs including CODE VTM from Optical Research Associates and SigFitTM from Sigmadyne Inc. which are used to simulate the optics performance of EO sensor systems in space-borne applications. Over the past year, Comet Solutions has been working with MZA Associates of Albuquerque, NM, under a contract with the Air Force Research Laboratories. This funded effort is a "risk reduction effort", to help determine whether the combination of Comet and WaveTrainTM, a wave optics systems engineering analysis environment developed and maintained by MZA Associates and used by the Air Force Research Laboratory, will result in an effective Model-Based Engineering (MBE) environment for the analysis and design of laser weapons systems. This paper will review the results of this effort and future steps.

URDME: a modular framework for stochastic simulation of reaction-transport processes in complex geometries.

PubMed

Drawert, Brian; Engblom, Stefan; Hellander, Andreas

2012-06-22

Experiments in silico using stochastic reaction-diffusion models have emerged as an important tool in molecular systems biology. Designing computational software for such applications poses several challenges. Firstly, realistic lattice-based modeling for biological applications requires a consistent way of handling complex geometries, including curved inner- and outer boundaries. Secondly, spatiotemporal stochastic simulations are computationally expensive due to the fast time scales of individual reaction- and diffusion events when compared to the biological phenomena of actual interest. We therefore argue that simulation software needs to be both computationally efficient, employing sophisticated algorithms, yet in the same time flexible in order to meet present and future needs of increasingly complex biological modeling. We have developed URDME, a flexible software framework for general stochastic reaction-transport modeling and simulation. URDME uses Unstructured triangular and tetrahedral meshes to resolve general geometries, and relies on the Reaction-Diffusion Master Equation formalism to model the processes under study. An interface to a mature geometry and mesh handling external software (Comsol Multiphysics) provides for a stable and interactive environment for model construction. The core simulation routines are logically separated from the model building interface and written in a low-level language for computational efficiency. The connection to the geometry handling software is realized via a Matlab interface which facilitates script computing, data management, and post-processing. For practitioners, the software therefore behaves much as an interactive Matlab toolbox. At the same time, it is possible to modify and extend URDME with newly developed simulation routines. Since the overall design effectively hides the complexity of managing the geometry and meshes, this means that newly developed methods may be tested in a realistic setting already at an early stage of development. In this paper we demonstrate, in a series of examples with high relevance to the molecular systems biology community, that the proposed software framework is a useful tool for both practitioners and developers of spatial stochastic simulation algorithms. Through the combined efforts of algorithm development and improved modeling accuracy, increasingly complex biological models become feasible to study through computational methods. URDME is freely available at http://www.urdme.org.

Simulation of Optical Resonators for Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (vcsel)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mansour, Mohy S.; Hassen, Mahmoud F. M.; El-Nozahey, Adel M.; Hafez, Alaa S.; Metry, Samer F.

2010-04-01

Simulation and modeling of the reflectivity and transmissivity of the multilayer DBR of VCSEL, as well as inside the active region quantum well are analyzed using the characteristic matrix method. The electric field intensity distributions inside such vertical-cavity structure are calculated. A software program under MATLAB environment is constructed for the simulation. This study was performed for two specific Bragg wavelengths 980 nm and 370 nm for achieving a resonant periodic gain (RPG)

Virtual VMASC: A 3D Game Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Manepalli, Suchitra; Shen, Yuzhong; Garcia, Hector M.; Lawsure, Kaleen

2010-01-01

The advantages of creating interactive 3D simulations that allow viewing, exploring, and interacting with land improvements, such as buildings, in digital form are manifold and range from allowing individuals from anywhere in the world to explore those virtual land improvements online, to training military personnel in dealing with war-time environments, and to making those land improvements available in virtual worlds such as Second Life. While we haven't fully explored the true potential of such simulations, we have identified a requirement within our organization to use simulations like those to replace our front-desk personnel and allow visitors to query, naVigate, and communicate virtually with various entities within the building. We implemented the Virtual VMASC 3D simulation of the Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) office building to not only meet our front-desk requirement but also to evaluate the effort required in designing such a simulation and, thereby, leverage the experience we gained in future projects of this kind. This paper describes the goals we set for our implementation, the software approach taken, the modeling contribution made, and the technologies used such as XNA Game Studio, .NET framework, Autodesk software packages, and, finally, the applicability of our implementation on a variety of architectures including Xbox 360 and PC. This paper also summarizes the result of our evaluation and the lessons learned from our effort.

MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF TOXICS (MEND-TOX): PART II, SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION AND CASE STUDIES

EPA Science Inventory

An integrated hybrid spatial-compartmental simulator is presented for analyzing the dynamic distribution of chemicals in the multimedia environment. Information obtained from such analysis, which includes temporal chemical concentration profiles in various media, mass distribu...

Telehealth Innovations in Health Education and Training

PubMed Central

De, Suvranu; Hall, Richard W.; Johansen, Edward; Meglan, Dwight; Peng, Grace C.Y.

2010-01-01

Abstract Telehealth applications are increasingly important in many areas of health education and training. In addition, they will play a vital role in biomedical research and research training by facilitating remote collaborations and providing access to expensive/remote instrumentation. In order to fulfill their true potential to leverage education, training, and research activities, innovations in telehealth applications should be fostered across a range of technology fronts, including online, on-demand computational models for simulation; simplified interfaces for software and hardware; software frameworks for simulations; portable telepresence systems; artificial intelligence applications to be applied when simulated human patients are not options; and the development of more simulator applications. This article presents the results of discussion on potential areas of future development, barries to overcome, and suggestions to translate the promise of telehealth applications into a transformed environment of training, education, and research in the health sciences. PMID:20155874

Highly efficient simulation environment for HDTV video decoder in VLSI design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mao, Xun; Wang, Wei; Gong, Huimin; He, Yan L.; Lou, Jian; Yu, Lu; Yao, Qingdong; Pirsch, Peter

2002-01-01

With the increase of the complex of VLSI such as the SoC (System on Chip) of MPEG-2 Video decoder with HDTV scalability especially, simulation and verification of the full design, even as high as the behavior level in HDL, often proves to be very slow, costly and it is difficult to perform full verification until late in the design process. Therefore, they become bottleneck of the procedure of HDTV video decoder design, and influence it's time-to-market mostly. In this paper, the architecture of Hardware/Software Interface of HDTV video decoder is studied, and a Hardware-Software Mixed Simulation (HSMS) platform is proposed to check and correct error in the early design stage, based on the algorithm of MPEG-2 video decoding. The application of HSMS to target system could be achieved by employing several introduced approaches. Those approaches speed up the simulation and verification task without decreasing performance.

Novel graphical environment for virtual and real-world operations of tracked mobile manipulators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, ChuXin; Trivedi, Mohan M.; Azam, Mir; Lassiter, Nils T.

1993-08-01

A simulation, animation, visualization and interactive control (SAVIC) environment has been developed for the design and operation of an integrated mobile manipulator system. This unique system possesses the abilities for (1) multi-sensor simulation, (2) kinematics and locomotion animation, (3) dynamic motion and manipulation animation, (4) transformation between real and virtual modes within the same graphics system, (5) ease in exchanging software modules and hardware devices between real and virtual world operations, and (6) interfacing with a real robotic system. This paper describes a working system and illustrates the concepts by presenting the simulation, animation and control methodologies for a unique mobile robot with articulated tracks, a manipulator, and sensory modules.

Architecting a Simulation Framework for Model Rehosting

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Madden, Michael M.

2004-01-01

The utility of vehicle math models extends beyond human-in-the-loop simulation. It is desirable to deploy a given model across a multitude of applications that target design, analysis, and research. However, the vehicle model alone represents an incomplete simulation. One must also replicate the environment models (e.g., atmosphere, gravity, terrain) to achieve identical vehicle behavior across all applications. Environment models are increasing in complexity and represent a substantial investment to re-engineer for a new application. A software component that can be rehosted in each application is one solution to the deployment problem. The component must encapsulate both the vehicle and environment models. The component must have a well-defined interface that abstracts the bulk of the logic to operate the models. This paper examines the characteristics of a rehostable modeling component from the perspective of a human-in-the-loop simulation framework. The Langley Standard Real-Time Simulation in C++ (LaSRS++) is used as an example. LaSRS++ was recently redesigned to transform its modeling package into a rehostable component.

Strategic Implications of Cloud Computing for Modeling and Simulation (Briefing)

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-04-01

of Promises with Cloud • Cost efficiency • Unlimited storage • Backup and recovery • Automatic software integration • Easy access to information...activities that wrap the actual exercise itself (e.g., travel for exercise support, data collection, integration , etc.). Cloud -based simulation would...requiring quick delivery rather than fewer large messages requiring high bandwidth. Cloud environments tend to be better at providing high-bandwidth

A validation study of the simulation software gprMax by varying antenna stand-off height

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilkinson, Josh; Davidson, Nigel

2018-04-01

The design and subsequent testing of suitable antennas and of complete ground-penetrating radar (GPR) systems can be both time consuming and expensive, with the need to understand the performance of a system in realistic environments of great importance to the end user. Through the use of suitably validated simulations, these costs could be significantly reduced, allowing an economical capability to be built which can accurately predict the performance of novel GPR antennas and existing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems in a user defined environment. This paper focuses on a preliminary validation of the open source software gprMax1 which features the ability to custom define antennas, targets, clutter objects and realistic heterogeneous soils. As an initial step in the assessment of the software, a comparison of the modelled response of targets buried in sand to experimental data has been undertaken, with the variation in response with antenna stand-off height investigated. This was conducted for both a simple bespoke bow-tie antenna design as well as for a Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc. (GSSI) commercial system,2 building upon previous work3 which explored the fidelity of gprMax in reproducing the S11 of simple antenna designs.

Minimizing communication cost among distributed controllers in software defined networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arlimatti, Shivaleela; Elbreiki, Walid; Hassan, Suhaidi; Habbal, Adib; Elshaikh, Mohamed

2016-08-01

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new paradigm to increase the flexibility of today's network by promising for a programmable network. The fundamental idea behind this new architecture is to simplify network complexity by decoupling control plane and data plane of the network devices, and by making the control plane centralized. Recently controllers have distributed to solve the problem of single point of failure, and to increase scalability and flexibility during workload distribution. Even though, controllers are flexible and scalable to accommodate more number of network switches, yet the problem of intercommunication cost between distributed controllers is still challenging issue in the Software Defined Network environment. This paper, aims to fill the gap by proposing a new mechanism, which minimizes intercommunication cost with graph partitioning algorithm, an NP hard problem. The methodology proposed in this paper is, swapping of network elements between controller domains to minimize communication cost by calculating communication gain. The swapping of elements minimizes inter and intra communication cost among network domains. We validate our work with the OMNeT++ simulation environment tool. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism minimizes the inter domain communication cost among controllers compared to traditional distributed controllers.

Optimization of an Advanced Multi-Junction Solar-Cell Design for Space Environments (AM0) Using Nearly Orthogonal Latin Hypercubes

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-01

AN ADVANCED MULTI-JUNCTION SOLAR -CELL DESIGN FOR SPACE ENVIRONMENTS (AM0) USING NEARLY ORTHOGONAL LATIN HYPERCUBES by Silvio Pueschel June...ADVANCED MULTI-JUNCTION SOLAR -CELL DESIGN FOR SPACE ENVIRONMENTS (AM0) USING NEARLY ORTHOGONAL LATIN HYPERCUBES 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6. AUTHOR(S) Silvio...multi-junction solar cells with Silvaco Atlas simulation software. It introduces the nearly orthogonal Latin hypercube (NOLH) design of experiments (DoE

Taking advantage of ground data systems attributes to achieve quality results in testing software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sigman, Clayton B.; Koslosky, John T.; Hageman, Barbara H.

1994-01-01

During the software development life cycle process, basic testing starts with the development team. At the end of the development process, an acceptance test is performed for the user to ensure that the deliverable is acceptable. Ideally, the delivery is an operational product with zero defects. However, the goal of zero defects is normally not achieved but is successful to various degrees. With the emphasis on building low cost ground support systems while maintaining a quality product, a key element in the test process is simulator capability. This paper reviews the Transportable Payload Operations Control Center (TPOCC) Advanced Spacecraft Simulator (TASS) test tool that is used in the acceptance test process for unmanned satellite operations control centers. The TASS is designed to support the development, test and operational environments of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) operations control centers. The TASS uses the same basic architecture as the operations control center. This architecture is characterized by its use of distributed processing, industry standards, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software components, and reusable software. The TASS uses much of the same TPOCC architecture and reusable software that the operations control center developer uses. The TASS also makes use of reusable simulator software in the mission specific versions of the TASS. Very little new software needs to be developed, mainly mission specific telemetry communication and command processing software. By taking advantage of the ground data system attributes, successful software reuse for operational systems provides the opportunity to extend the reuse concept into the test area. Consistency in test approach is a major step in achieving quality results.

Dakota Graphical User Interface v. 1.0

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Friedman-Hill, Ernest; Glickman, Matthew; Gibson, Marcus

Graphical analysis environment for Sandia’s Dakota software for optimization and uncertainty quantification. The Dakota GUI is an interactive graphical analysis environment for creating, running, and interpreting Dakota optimization and uncertainty quantification studies. It includes problem (Dakota study) set-up, option specification, simulation interfacing, analysis execution, and results visualization. Through the use of wizards, templates, and views, Dakota GUI helps uses navigate Dakota’s complex capability landscape.

Molecular Optical Simulation Environment (MOSE): A Platform for the Simulation of Light Propagation in Turbid Media

PubMed Central

Ren, Shenghan; Chen, Xueli; Wang, Hailong; Qu, Xiaochao; Wang, Ge; Liang, Jimin; Tian, Jie

2013-01-01

The study of light propagation in turbid media has attracted extensive attention in the field of biomedical optical molecular imaging. In this paper, we present a software platform for the simulation of light propagation in turbid media named the “Molecular Optical Simulation Environment (MOSE)”. Based on the gold standard of the Monte Carlo method, MOSE simulates light propagation both in tissues with complicated structures and through free-space. In particular, MOSE synthesizes realistic data for bioluminescence tomography (BLT), fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT), and diffuse optical tomography (DOT). The user-friendly interface and powerful visualization tools facilitate data analysis and system evaluation. As a major measure for resource sharing and reproducible research, MOSE aims to provide freeware for research and educational institutions, which can be downloaded at http://www.mosetm.net. PMID:23577215

Real-Time Simulation of Ares I Launch Vehicle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tobbe, Patrick; Matras, Alex; Wilson, Heath; Alday, Nathan; Walker, David; Betts, Kevin; Hughes, Ryan; Turbe, Michael

2009-01-01

The Ares Real-Time Environment for Modeling, Integration, and Simulation (ARTEMIS) has been developed for use by the Ares I launch vehicle System Integration Laboratory (SIL) at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The primary purpose of the Ares SIL is to test the vehicle avionics hardware and software in a hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) environment to certify that the integrated system is prepared for flight. ARTEMIS has been designed to be the real-time software backbone to stimulate all required Ares components through high-fidelity simulation. ARTEMIS has been designed to take full advantage of the advances in underlying computational power now available to support HWIL testing. A modular real-time design relying on a fully distributed computing architecture has been achieved. Two fundamental requirements drove ARTEMIS to pursue the use of high-fidelity simulation models in a real-time environment. First, ARTEMIS must be used to test a man-rated integrated avionics hardware and software system, thus requiring a wide variety of nominal and off-nominal simulation capabilities to certify system robustness. The second driving requirement - derived from a nationwide review of current state-of-the-art HWIL facilities - was that preserving digital model fidelity significantly reduced overall vehicle lifecycle cost by reducing testing time for certification runs and increasing flight tempo through an expanded operational envelope. These two driving requirements necessitated the use of high-fidelity models throughout the ARTEMIS simulation. The nature of the Ares mission profile imposed a variety of additional requirements on the ARTEMIS simulation. The Ares I vehicle is composed of multiple elements, including the First Stage Solid Rocket Booster (SRB), the Upper Stage powered by the J- 2X engine, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) which houses the crew, the Launch Abort System (LAS), and various secondary elements that separate from the vehicle. At launch, the integrated vehicle stack is composed of these stages, and throughout the mission, various elements separate from the integrated stack and tumble back towards the earth. ARTEMIS must be capable of simulating the integrated stack through the flight as well as propagating each individual element after separation. In addition, abort sequences can lead to other unique configurations of the integrated stack as the timing and sequence of the stage separations are altered.

Using parallel computing for the display and simulation of the space debris environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Möckel, M.; Wiedemann, C.; Flegel, S.; Gelhaus, J.; Vörsmann, P.; Klinkrad, H.; Krag, H.

2011-07-01

Parallelism is becoming the leading paradigm in today's computer architectures. In order to take full advantage of this development, new algorithms have to be specifically designed for parallel execution while many old ones have to be upgraded accordingly. One field in which parallel computing has been firmly established for many years is computer graphics. Calculating and displaying three-dimensional computer generated imagery in real time requires complex numerical operations to be performed at high speed on a large number of objects. Since most of these objects can be processed independently, parallel computing is applicable in this field. Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) have become capable of performing millions of matrix and vector operations per second on multiple objects simultaneously. As a side project, a software tool is currently being developed at the Institute of Aerospace Systems that provides an animated, three-dimensional visualization of both actual and simulated space debris objects. Due to the nature of these objects it is possible to process them individually and independently from each other. Therefore, an analytical orbit propagation algorithm has been implemented to run on a GPU. By taking advantage of all its processing power a huge performance increase, compared to its CPU-based counterpart, could be achieved. For several years efforts have been made to harness this computing power for applications other than computer graphics. Software tools for the simulation of space debris are among those that could profit from embracing parallelism. With recently emerged software development tools such as OpenCL it is possible to transfer the new algorithms used in the visualization outside the field of computer graphics and implement them, for example, into the space debris simulation environment. This way they can make use of parallel hardware such as GPUs and Multi-Core-CPUs for faster computation. In this paper the visualization software will be introduced, including a comparison between the serial and the parallel method of orbit propagation. Ways of how to use the benefits of the latter method for space debris simulation will be discussed. An introduction to OpenCL will be given as well as an exemplary algorithm from the field of space debris simulation.

Using parallel computing for the display and simulation of the space debris environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moeckel, Marek; Wiedemann, Carsten; Flegel, Sven Kevin; Gelhaus, Johannes; Klinkrad, Heiner; Krag, Holger; Voersmann, Peter

Parallelism is becoming the leading paradigm in today's computer architectures. In order to take full advantage of this development, new algorithms have to be specifically designed for parallel execution while many old ones have to be upgraded accordingly. One field in which parallel computing has been firmly established for many years is computer graphics. Calculating and displaying three-dimensional computer generated imagery in real time requires complex numerical operations to be performed at high speed on a large number of objects. Since most of these objects can be processed independently, parallel computing is applicable in this field. Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) have become capable of performing millions of matrix and vector operations per second on multiple objects simultaneously. As a side project, a software tool is currently being developed at the Institute of Aerospace Systems that provides an animated, three-dimensional visualization of both actual and simulated space debris objects. Due to the nature of these objects it is possible to process them individually and independently from each other. Therefore, an analytical orbit propagation algorithm has been implemented to run on a GPU. By taking advantage of all its processing power a huge performance increase, compared to its CPU-based counterpart, could be achieved. For several years efforts have been made to harness this computing power for applications other than computer graphics. Software tools for the simulation of space debris are among those that could profit from embracing parallelism. With recently emerged software development tools such as OpenCL it is possible to transfer the new algorithms used in the visualization outside the field of computer graphics and implement them, for example, into the space debris simulation environment. This way they can make use of parallel hardware such as GPUs and Multi-Core-CPUs for faster computation. In this paper the visualization software will be introduced, including a comparison between the serial and the parallel method of orbit propagation. Ways of how to use the benefits of the latter method for space debris simulation will be discussed. An introduction of OpenCL will be given as well as an exemplary algorithm from the field of space debris simulation.

Human Engineering Modeling and Performance Lab Study Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Oliva-Buisson, Yvette J.

2014-01-01

The HEMAP (Human Engineering Modeling and Performance) Lab is a joint effort between the Industrial and Human Engineering group and the KAVE (Kennedy Advanced Visualiations Environment) group. The lab consists of sixteen camera system that is used to capture human motions and operational tasks, through te use of a Velcro suit equipped with sensors, and then simulate these tasks in an ergonomic software package know as Jac, The Jack software is able to identify the potential risk hazards.

Hypersonic Navier Stokes Comparisons to Orbiter Flight Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, Charles H.; Nompelis, Ioannis; Candler, Graham; Barnhart, Michael; Yoon, Seokkwan

2009-01-01

Hypersonic chemical nonequilibrium simulations of low earth orbit entry flow fields are becoming increasingly commonplace as software and computational capabilities become more capable. However, development of robust and accurate software to model these environments will always encounter a significant barrier in developing a suite of high quality calibration cases. The US3D hypersonic nonequilibrium Navier Stokes analysis capability has been favorably compared to a number of wind tunnel test cases. Extension of the calibration basis for this software to Orbiter flight conditions will provide an incremental increase in confidence. As part of the Orbiter Boundary Layer Transition Flight Experiment and the Hypersonic Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements project, NASA is performing entry flight testing on the Orbiter to provide valuable aerothermodynamic heating data. An increase in interest related to orbiter entry environments is resulting from this activity. With the advent of this new data, comparisons of the US3D software to the new flight testing data is warranted. This paper will provide information regarding the framework of analyses that will be applied with the US3D analysis tool. In addition, comparisons will be made to entry flight testing data provided by the Orbiter BLT Flight Experiment and HYTHIRM projects. If data from digital scans of the Orbiter windward surface become available, simulations will also be performed to characterize the difference in surface heating between the CAD reference OML and the digitized surface provided by the surface scans.

A distributed analysis and visualization system for model and observational data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilhelmson, Robert B.

1994-01-01

Software was developed with NASA support to aid in the analysis and display of the massive amounts of data generated from satellites, observational field programs, and from model simulations. This software was developed in the context of the PATHFINDER (Probing ATmospHeric Flows in an Interactive and Distributed EnviRonment) Project. The overall aim of this project is to create a flexible, modular, and distributed environment for data handling, modeling simulations, data analysis, and visualization of atmospheric and fluid flows. Software completed with NASA support includes GEMPAK analysis, data handling, and display modules for which collaborators at NASA had primary responsibility, and prototype software modules for three-dimensional interactive and distributed control and display as well as data handling, for which NSCA was responsible. Overall process control was handled through a scientific and visualization application builder from Silicon Graphics known as the Iris Explorer. In addition, the GEMPAK related work (GEMVIS) was also ported to the Advanced Visualization System (AVS) application builder. Many modules were developed to enhance those already available in Iris Explorer including HDF file support, improved visualization and display, simple lattice math, and the handling of metadata through development of a new grid datatype. Complete source and runtime binaries along with on-line documentation is available via the World Wide Web at: http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ PATHFINDER/pathre12/top/top.html.

Stochastic Simulation Service: Bridging the Gap between the Computational Expert and the Biologist

PubMed Central

Banerjee, Debjani; Bellesia, Giovanni; Daigle, Bernie J.; Douglas, Geoffrey; Gu, Mengyuan; Gupta, Anand; Hellander, Stefan; Horuk, Chris; Nath, Dibyendu; Takkar, Aviral; Lötstedt, Per; Petzold, Linda R.

2016-01-01

We present StochSS: Stochastic Simulation as a Service, an integrated development environment for modeling and simulation of both deterministic and discrete stochastic biochemical systems in up to three dimensions. An easy to use graphical user interface enables researchers to quickly develop and simulate a biological model on a desktop or laptop, which can then be expanded to incorporate increasing levels of complexity. StochSS features state-of-the-art simulation engines. As the demand for computational power increases, StochSS can seamlessly scale computing resources in the cloud. In addition, StochSS can be deployed as a multi-user software environment where collaborators share computational resources and exchange models via a public model repository. We demonstrate the capabilities and ease of use of StochSS with an example of model development and simulation at increasing levels of complexity. PMID:27930676

Stochastic Simulation Service: Bridging the Gap between the Computational Expert and the Biologist

DOE PAGES

Drawert, Brian; Hellander, Andreas; Bales, Ben; ...

2016-12-08

We present StochSS: Stochastic Simulation as a Service, an integrated development environment for modeling and simulation of both deterministic and discrete stochastic biochemical systems in up to three dimensions. An easy to use graphical user interface enables researchers to quickly develop and simulate a biological model on a desktop or laptop, which can then be expanded to incorporate increasing levels of complexity. StochSS features state-of-the-art simulation engines. As the demand for computational power increases, StochSS can seamlessly scale computing resources in the cloud. In addition, StochSS can be deployed as a multi-user software environment where collaborators share computational resources andmore » exchange models via a public model repository. We also demonstrate the capabilities and ease of use of StochSS with an example of model development and simulation at increasing levels of complexity.« less

Build and Execute Environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Guan, Qiang

At exascale, the challenge becomes to develop applications that run at scale and use exascale platforms reliably, efficiently, and flexibly. Workflows become much more complex because they must seamlessly integrate simulation and data analytics. They must include down-sampling, post-processing, feature extraction, and visualization. Power and data transfer limitations require these analysis tasks to be run in-situ or in-transit. We expect successful workflows will comprise multiple linked simulations along with tens of analysis routines. Users will have limited development time at scale and, therefore, must have rich tools to develop, debug, test, and deploy applications. At this scale, successful workflows willmore » compose linked computations from an assortment of reliable, well-defined computation elements, ones that can come and go as required, based on the needs of the workflow over time. We propose a novel framework that utilizes both virtual machines (VMs) and software containers to create a workflow system that establishes a uniform build and execution environment (BEE) beyond the capabilities of current systems. In this environment, applications will run reliably and repeatably across heterogeneous hardware and software. Containers, both commercial (Docker and Rocket) and open-source (LXC and LXD), define a runtime that isolates all software dependencies from the machine operating system. Workflows may contain multiple containers that run different operating systems, different software, and even different versions of the same software. We will run containers in open-source virtual machines (KVM) and emulators (QEMU) so that workflows run on any machine entirely in user-space. On this platform of containers and virtual machines, we will deliver workflow software that provides services, including repeatable execution, provenance, checkpointing, and future proofing. We will capture provenance about how containers were launched and how they interact to annotate workflows for repeatable and partial re-execution. We will coordinate the physical snapshots of virtual machines with parallel programming constructs, such as barriers, to automate checkpoint and restart. We will also integrate with HPC-specific container runtimes to gain access to accelerators and other specialized hardware to preserve native performance. Containers will link development to continuous integration. When application developers check code in, it will automatically be tested on a suite of different software and hardware architectures.« less

Mission Simulation Toolkit

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pisaich, Gregory; Flueckiger, Lorenzo; Neukom, Christian; Wagner, Mike; Buchanan, Eric; Plice, Laura

2007-01-01

The Mission Simulation Toolkit (MST) is a flexible software system for autonomy research. It was developed as part of the Mission Simulation Facility (MSF) project that was started in 2001 to facilitate the development of autonomous planetary robotic missions. Autonomy is a key enabling factor for robotic exploration. There has been a large gap between autonomy software (at the research level), and software that is ready for insertion into near-term space missions. The MST bridges this gap by providing a simulation framework and a suite of tools for supporting research and maturation of autonomy. MST uses a distributed framework based on the High Level Architecture (HLA) standard. A key feature of the MST framework is the ability to plug in new models to replace existing ones with the same services. This enables significant simulation flexibility, particularly the mixing and control of fidelity level. In addition, the MST provides automatic code generation from robot interfaces defined with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), methods for maintaining synchronization across distributed simulation systems, XML-based robot description, and an environment server. Finally, the MSF supports a number of third-party products including dynamic models and terrain databases. Although the communication objects and some of the simulation components that are provided with this toolkit are specifically designed for terrestrial surface rovers, the MST can be applied to any other domain, such as aerial, aquatic, or space.

Sample Analysis at Mars Instrument Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Benna, Mehdi; Nolan, Tom

2013-01-01

The Sample Analysis at Mars Instrument Simulator (SAMSIM) is a numerical model dedicated to plan and validate operations of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument on the surface of Mars. The SAM instrument suite, currently operating on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), is an analytical laboratory designed to investigate the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere and volatiles extracted from solid samples. SAMSIM was developed using Matlab and Simulink libraries of MathWorks Inc. to provide MSL mission planners with accurate predictions of the instrument electrical, thermal, mechanical, and fluid responses to scripted commands. This tool is a first example of a multi-purpose, full-scale numerical modeling of a flight instrument with the purpose of supplementing or even eliminating entirely the need for a hardware engineer model during instrument development and operation. SAMSIM simulates the complex interactions that occur between the instrument Command and Data Handling unit (C&DH) and all subsystems during the execution of experiment sequences. A typical SAM experiment takes many hours to complete and involves hundreds of components. During the simulation, the electrical, mechanical, thermal, and gas dynamics states of each hardware component are accurately modeled and propagated within the simulation environment at faster than real time. This allows the simulation, in just a few minutes, of experiment sequences that takes many hours to execute on the real instrument. The SAMSIM model is divided into five distinct but interacting modules: software, mechanical, thermal, gas flow, and electrical modules. The software module simulates the instrument C&DH by executing a customized version of the instrument flight software in a Matlab environment. The inputs and outputs to this synthetic C&DH are mapped to virtual sensors and command lines that mimic in their structure and connectivity the layout of the instrument harnesses. This module executes, and thus validates, complex command scripts prior to their up-linking to the SAM instrument. As an output, this module generates synthetic data and message logs at a rate that is similar to the actual instrument.

Adaptation of G-TAG Software for Validating Touch-and-Go Comet Surface Sampling Design Methodology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mandic, Milan; Acikmese, Behcet; Blackmore, Lars

2011-01-01

The G-TAG software tool was developed under the R&TD on Integrated Autonomous Guidance, Navigation, and Control for Comet Sample Return, and represents a novel, multi-body dynamics simulation software tool for studying TAG sampling. The G-TAG multi-body simulation tool provides a simulation environment in which a Touch-and-Go (TAG) sampling event can be extensively tested. TAG sampling requires the spacecraft to descend to the surface, contact the surface with a sampling collection device, and then to ascend to a safe altitude. The TAG event lasts only a few seconds but is mission-critical with potentially high risk. Consequently, there is a need for the TAG event to be well characterized and studied by simulation and analysis in order for the proposal teams to converge on a reliable spacecraft design. This adaptation of the G-TAG tool was developed to support the Comet Odyssey proposal effort, and is specifically focused to address comet sample return missions. In this application, the spacecraft descends to and samples from the surface of a comet. Performance of the spacecraft during TAG is assessed based on survivability and sample collection performance. For the adaptation of the G-TAG simulation tool to comet scenarios, models are developed that accurately describe the properties of the spacecraft, approach trajectories, and descent velocities, as well as the models of the external forces and torques acting on the spacecraft. The adapted models of the spacecraft, descent profiles, and external sampling forces/torques were more sophisticated and customized for comets than those available in the basic G-TAG simulation tool. Scenarios implemented include the study of variations in requirements, spacecraft design (size, locations, etc. of the spacecraft components), and the environment (surface properties, slope, disturbances, etc.). The simulations, along with their visual representations using G-View, contributed to the Comet Odyssey New Frontiers proposal effort by indicating problems and/or benefits of different approaches and designs.

BIOCHLOR: NATURAL ATTENUATION DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM, USER'S MANUAL, VERSION 1.0

EPA Science Inventory

BIOCHLOR is an easy-to-use screening model that simulates remediation by natural attenuation (RNA) of dissolved solvents at chlorinated solvent release sites. The software, programmed in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet environment and based on the Domenico analytical solute tran...

BIOSCREEN: NATURAL ATTENTUATION DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM - USER'S MANUAL, VERSION 1.3

EPA Science Inventory

BIOSCREEN is an easy-to-use screening model which simulates remediation through natural attenuation (RNA) of dissolved hydrocarbons at petroleum fuel release sites. The software, programmed in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet environment and based on the Domenico analytical solu...

Sci—Fri PM: Topics — 05: Experience with linac simulation software in a teaching environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carlone, Marco; Harnett, Nicole; Jaffray, David

Medical linear accelerator education is usually restricted to use of academic textbooks and supervised access to accelerators. To facilitate the learning process, simulation software was developed to reproduce the effect of medical linear accelerator beam adjustments on resulting clinical photon beams. The purpose of this report is to briefly describe the method of operation of the software as well as the initial experience with it in a teaching environment. To first and higher orders, all components of medical linear accelerators can be described by analytical solutions. When appropriate calibrations are applied, these analytical solutions can accurately simulate the performance ofmore » all linear accelerator sub-components. Grouped together, an overall medical linear accelerator model can be constructed. Fifteen expressions in total were coded using MATLAB v 7.14. The program was called SIMAC. The SIMAC program was used in an accelerator technology course offered at our institution; 14 delegates attended the course. The professional breakdown of the participants was: 5 physics residents, 3 accelerator technologists, 4 regulators and 1 physics associate. The course consisted of didactic lectures supported by labs using SIMAC. At the conclusion of the course, eight of thirteen delegates were able to successfully perform advanced beam adjustments after two days of theory and use of the linac simulator program. We suggest that this demonstrates good proficiency in understanding of the accelerator physics, which we hope will translate to a better ability to understand real world beam adjustments on a functioning medical linear accelerator.« less

Towards the Integration of APECS with VE-Suite to Create a Comprehensive Virtual Engineering Environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McCorkle, D.; Yang, C.; Jordan, T.

2007-06-01

Modeling and simulation tools are becoming pervasive in the process engineering practice of designing advanced power generation facilities. These tools enable engineers to explore many what-if scenarios before cutting metal or constructing a pilot scale facility. While such tools enable investigation of crucial plant design aspects, typical commercial process simulation tools such as Aspen Plus®, gPROMS®, and HYSYS® still do not explore some plant design information, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for complex thermal and fluid flow phenomena, economics models for policy decisions, operational data after the plant is constructed, and as-built information for use in as-designed models. Softwaremore » tools must be created that allow disparate sources of information to be integrated if environments are to be constructed where process simulation information can be accessed. At the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), the Advanced Process Engineering Co-Simulator (APECS) has been developed as an integrated software suite that combines process simulation (e.g., Aspen Plus) and high-fidelity equipment simulation (e.g., Fluent® CFD), together with advanced analysis capabilities including case studies, sensitivity analysis, stochastic simulation for risk/uncertainty analysis, and multi-objective optimization. In this paper, we discuss the initial phases of integrating APECS with the immersive and interactive virtual engineering software, VE-Suite, developed at Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory. VE-Suite utilizes the ActiveX (OLE Automation) controls in Aspen Plus wrapped by the CASI library developed by Reaction Engineering International to run the process simulation and query for unit operation results. This integration permits any application that uses the VE-Open interface to integrate with APECS co-simulations, enabling construction of the comprehensive virtual engineering environment needed for the rapid engineering of advanced power generation facilities.« less

Use of Human Modeling Simulation Software in the Task Analysis of the Environmental Control and Life Support System Component Installation Procedures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Estes, Samantha; Parker, Nelson C. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Virtual reality and simulation applications are becoming widespread in human task analysis. These programs have many benefits for the Human Factors Engineering field. Not only do creating and using virtual environments for human engineering analyses save money and time, this approach also promotes user experimentation and provides increased quality of analyses. This paper explains the human engineering task analysis performed on the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) space station rack and its Distillation Assembly (DA) subsystem using EAI's human modeling simulation software, Jack. When installed on the International Space Station (ISS), ECLSS will provide the life and environment support needed to adequately sustain crew life. The DA is an Orbital Replaceable Unit (ORU) that provides means of wastewater (primarily urine from flight crew and experimental animals) reclamation. Jack was used to create a model of the weightless environment of the ISS Node 3, where the ECLSS is housed. Computer aided drawings of the ECLSS rack and DA system were also brought into the environment. Anthropometric models of a 95th percentile male and 5th percentile female were used to examine the human interfaces encountered during various ECLSS and DA tasks. The results of the task analyses were used in suggesting modifications to hardware and crew task procedures to improve accessibility, conserve crew time, and add convenience for the crew. This paper will address some of those suggested modifications and the method of presenting final analyses for requirements verification.

Thermal dynamic simulation of wall for building energy efficiency under varied climate environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xuejin; Zhang, Yujin; Hong, Jing

2017-08-01

Aiming at different kind of walls in five cities of different zoning for thermal design, using thermal instantaneous response factors method, the author develops software to calculation air conditioning cooling load temperature, thermal response factors, and periodic response factors. On the basis of the data, the author gives the net work analysis about the influence of dynamic thermal of wall on air-conditioning load and thermal environment in building of different zoning for thermal design regional, and put forward the strategy how to design thermal insulation and heat preservation wall base on dynamic thermal characteristic of wall under different zoning for thermal design regional. And then provide the theory basis and the technical references for the further study on the heat preservation with the insulation are in the service of energy saving wall design. All-year thermal dynamic load simulating and energy consumption analysis for new energy-saving building is very important in building environment. This software will provide the referable scientific foundation for all-year new thermal dynamic load simulation, energy consumption analysis, building environment systems control, carrying through farther research on thermal particularity and general particularity evaluation for new energy -saving walls building. Based on which, we will not only expediently design system of building energy, but also analyze building energy consumption and carry through scientific energy management. The study will provide the referable scientific foundation for carrying through farther research on thermal particularity and general particularity evaluation for new energy saving walls building.

Experimental analysis of computer system dependability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Iyer, Ravishankar, K.; Tang, Dong

1993-01-01

This paper reviews an area which has evolved over the past 15 years: experimental analysis of computer system dependability. Methodologies and advances are discussed for three basic approaches used in the area: simulated fault injection, physical fault injection, and measurement-based analysis. The three approaches are suited, respectively, to dependability evaluation in the three phases of a system's life: design phase, prototype phase, and operational phase. Before the discussion of these phases, several statistical techniques used in the area are introduced. For each phase, a classification of research methods or study topics is outlined, followed by discussion of these methods or topics as well as representative studies. The statistical techniques introduced include the estimation of parameters and confidence intervals, probability distribution characterization, and several multivariate analysis methods. Importance sampling, a statistical technique used to accelerate Monte Carlo simulation, is also introduced. The discussion of simulated fault injection covers electrical-level, logic-level, and function-level fault injection methods as well as representative simulation environments such as FOCUS and DEPEND. The discussion of physical fault injection covers hardware, software, and radiation fault injection methods as well as several software and hybrid tools including FIAT, FERARI, HYBRID, and FINE. The discussion of measurement-based analysis covers measurement and data processing techniques, basic error characterization, dependency analysis, Markov reward modeling, software-dependability, and fault diagnosis. The discussion involves several important issues studies in the area, including fault models, fast simulation techniques, workload/failure dependency, correlated failures, and software fault tolerance.

Cross-platform validation and analysis environment for particle physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chekanov, S. V.; Pogrebnyak, I.; Wilbern, D.

2017-11-01

A multi-platform validation and analysis framework for public Monte Carlo simulation for high-energy particle collisions is discussed. The front-end of this framework uses the Python programming language, while the back-end is written in Java, which provides a multi-platform environment that can be run from a web browser and can easily be deployed at the grid sites. The analysis package includes all major software tools used in high-energy physics, such as Lorentz vectors, jet algorithms, histogram packages, graphic canvases, and tools for providing data access. This multi-platform software suite, designed to minimize OS-specific maintenance and deployment time, is used for online validation of Monte Carlo event samples through a web interface.

A multiarchitecture parallel-processing development environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Townsend, Scott; Blech, Richard; Cole, Gary

1993-01-01

A description is given of the hardware and software of a multiprocessor test bed - the second generation Hypercluster system. The Hypercluster architecture consists of a standard hypercube distributed-memory topology, with multiprocessor shared-memory nodes. By using standard, off-the-shelf hardware, the system can be upgraded to use rapidly improving computer technology. The Hypercluster's multiarchitecture nature makes it suitable for researching parallel algorithms in computational field simulation applications (e.g., computational fluid dynamics). The dedicated test-bed environment of the Hypercluster and its custom-built software allows experiments with various parallel-processing concepts such as message passing algorithms, debugging tools, and computational 'steering'. Such research would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve on shared, commercial systems.

QERx- A Faster than Real-Time Emulator for Space Processors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carvalho, B.; Pidgeon, A.; Robinson, P.

2012-08-01

Developing software for space systems is challenging. Especially because, in order to be sure it can cope with the harshness of the environment and the imperative requirements and constrains imposed by the platform were it will run, it needs to be tested exhaustively. Software Validation Facilities (SVF) are known to the industry and developers, and provide the means to run the On-Board Software (OBSW) in a realistic environment, allowing the development team to debug and test the software.But the challenge is to be able to keep up with the performance of the new processors (LEON2 and LEON3), which need to be emulated within the SVF. Such processor emulators are also used in Operational Simulators, used to support mission preparation and train mission operators. These simulators mimic the satellite and its behaviour, as realistically as possible. For test/operational efficiency reasons and because they will need to interact with external systems, both these uses cases require the processor emulators to provide real-time, or faster, performance.It is known to the industry that the performance of previously available emulators is not enough to cope with the performance of the new processors available in the market. SciSys approached this problem with dynamic translation technology trying to keep costs down by avoiding a hardware solution and keeping the integration flexibility of full software emulation.SciSys presented “QERx: A High Performance Emulator for Software Validation and Simulations” [1], in a previous DASIA event. Since then that idea has evolved and QERx has been successfully validated. SciSys is now presenting QERx as a product that can be tailored to fit different emulation needs. This paper will present QERx latest developments and current status.

Paleo-environment Simulation using GIS based on Shell Mounds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uchiyama, T.; Asanuma, I.; Harada, E.

2016-02-01

Paleo-coastlines are simulated using the geographic information system (GIS) based on the shell mounds as the paleo-environment in the Tsubaki-no-umi, Ocean of Camellia in Japanese, the paleo-ocean, in Japan. The shell mounds, which are introduced in the paleo-study in the class history in junior and senior high, are used to estimate the paleo-coastlines. The paleo-coastlines are simulated as the function of sea levels relative to the current sea level for 6000 to 3000 BP on the digital elevation map of the GIS. The polygon of the simulated sea level height of 10 m extracted the shell mounds during 6000 to 5500 BP as the result of the spatial operation, and exhibited the consistency with the previous studies. The simulated sea level height of 5.5 m showed the paleo-coastline during 3600 to 3220 BP, while the Tsubaki-no-Umiturned into the brackish water lake, partly isolated from the ocean. The simulation of sea levels with GIS could be implemented to the class in the junior and senior high school with minimum efforts of teachers with the available computer and software environments.

Fluctuating Finite Element Analysis (FFEA): A continuum mechanics software tool for mesoscale simulation of biomolecules

PubMed Central

Solernou, Albert

2018-01-01

Fluctuating Finite Element Analysis (FFEA) is a software package designed to perform continuum mechanics simulations of proteins and other globular macromolecules. It combines conventional finite element methods with stochastic thermal noise, and is appropriate for simulations of large proteins and protein complexes at the mesoscale (length-scales in the range of 5 nm to 1 μm), where there is currently a paucity of modelling tools. It requires 3D volumetric information as input, which can be low resolution structural information such as cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) maps or much higher resolution atomistic co-ordinates from which volumetric information can be extracted. In this article we introduce our open source software package for performing FFEA simulations which we have released under a GPLv3 license. The software package includes a C ++ implementation of FFEA, together with tools to assist the user to set up the system from Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) or Protein Data Bank (PDB) data files. We also provide a PyMOL plugin to perform basic visualisation and additional Python tools for the analysis of FFEA simulation trajectories. This manuscript provides a basic background to the FFEA method, describing the implementation of the core mechanical model and how intermolecular interactions and the solvent environment are included within this framework. We provide prospective FFEA users with a practical overview of how to set up an FFEA simulation with reference to our publicly available online tutorials and manuals that accompany this first release of the package. PMID:29570700

Cloud-enabled large-scale land surface model simulations with the NASA Land Information System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duffy, D.; Vaughan, G.; Clark, M. P.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Nijssen, B.; Nearing, G. S.; Rheingrover, S.; Kumar, S.; Geiger, J. V.

2017-12-01

Developed by the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Land Information System (LIS) is a high-performance software framework for terrestrial hydrology modeling and data assimilation. LIS provides the ability to integrate satellite and ground-based observational products and advanced modeling algorithms to extract land surface states and fluxes. Through a partnership with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Washington, the LIS model is currently being extended to include the Structure for Unifying Multiple Modeling Alternatives (SUMMA). With the addition of SUMMA in LIS, meaningful simulations containing a large multi-model ensemble will be enabled and can provide advanced probabilistic continental-domain modeling capabilities at spatial scales relevant for water managers. The resulting LIS/SUMMA application framework is difficult for non-experts to install due to the large amount of dependencies on specific versions of operating systems, libraries, and compilers. This has created a significant barrier to entry for domain scientists that are interested in using the software on their own systems or in the cloud. In addition, the requirement to support multiple run time environments across the LIS community has created a significant burden on the NASA team. To overcome these challenges, LIS/SUMMA has been deployed using Linux containers, which allows for an entire software package along with all dependences to be installed within a working runtime environment, and Kubernetes, which orchestrates the deployment of a cluster of containers. Within a cloud environment, users can now easily create a cluster of virtual machines and run large-scale LIS/SUMMA simulations. Installations that have taken weeks and months can now be performed in minutes of time. This presentation will discuss the steps required to create a cloud-enabled large-scale simulation, present examples of its use, and describe the potential deployment of this information technology with other NASA applications.

Real-Time and High-Fidelity Simulation Environment for Autonomous Ground Vehicle Dynamics

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-08-01

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM (GVSETS), SET FOR AUG. 21-22, 2013 14. ABSTRACT briefing charts 15. SUBJECT TERMS 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17...EDL & Aero-Flight DSENDS Airships Planetary & Terrain models SimScape Simulation framework Dshell Flex & Multibody dynamics DARTS 3D...7 DARTS Rigid/Flexible Real-Time Multibody Dynamics Engine Recipient of the NASA Software of the Year Award. Abhinandan Jain, "Robot and

Using Modern Design Tools for Digital Avionics Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hyde, David W.; Lakin, David R., II; Asquith, Thomas E.

2000-01-01

Using Modem Design Tools for Digital Avionics Development Shrinking development time and increased complexity of new avionics forces the designer to use modem tools and methods during hardware development. Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center have successfully upgraded their design flow and used it to develop a Mongoose V based radiation tolerant processor board for the International Space Station's Water Recovery System. The design flow, based on hardware description languages, simulation, synthesis, hardware models, and full functional software model libraries, allowed designers to fully simulate the processor board from reset, through initialization before any boards were built. The fidelity of a digital simulation is limited to the accuracy of the models used and how realistically the designer drives the circuit's inputs during simulation. By using the actual silicon during simulation, device modeling errors are reduced. Numerous design flaws were discovered early in the design phase when they could be easily fixed. The use of hardware models and actual MIPS software loaded into full functional memory models also provided checkout of the software development environment. This paper will describe the design flow used to develop the processor board and give examples of errors that were found using the tools. An overview of the processor board firmware will also be covered.

Arsenic removal from contaminated groundwater by membrane-integrated hybrid plant: optimization and control using Visual Basic platform.

PubMed

Chakrabortty, S; Sen, M; Pal, P

2014-03-01

A simulation software (ARRPA) has been developed in Microsoft Visual Basic platform for optimization and control of a novel membrane-integrated arsenic separation plant in the backdrop of absence of such software. The user-friendly, menu-driven software is based on a dynamic linearized mathematical model, developed for the hybrid treatment scheme. The model captures the chemical kinetics in the pre-treating chemical reactor and the separation and transport phenomena involved in nanofiltration. The software has been validated through extensive experimental investigations. The agreement between the outputs from computer simulation program and the experimental findings are excellent and consistent under varying operating conditions reflecting high degree of accuracy and reliability of the software. High values of the overall correlation coefficient (R (2) = 0.989) and Willmott d-index (0.989) are indicators of the capability of the software in analyzing performance of the plant. The software permits pre-analysis, manipulation of input data, helps in optimization and exhibits performance of an integrated plant visually on a graphical platform. Performance analysis of the whole system as well as the individual units is possible using the tool. The software first of its kind in its domain and in the well-known Microsoft Excel environment is likely to be very useful in successful design, optimization and operation of an advanced hybrid treatment plant for removal of arsenic from contaminated groundwater.

An Experiment With RTEMS

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-02-01

instructions on how to build and use RTEMS in two different operating environments. 15. SUBJECT TERMS RTEMS, SPARC simulator, Raspberry Pi . 16. SECURITY...system .............................................. 15 3. Hardware requirements for the Raspberry Pi console ................................ 16 4...requirements for the Raspberry Pi console ................................... 16 8. Software requirements for the Windows system

SimBox: a simulation-based scalable architecture for distributed command and control of spaceport and service constellations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prasad, Guru; Jayaram, Sanjay; Ward, Jami; Gupta, Pankaj

2004-09-01

In this paper, Aximetric proposes a decentralized Command and Control (C2) architecture for a distributed control of a cluster of on-board health monitoring and software enabled control systems called SimBOX that will use some of the real-time infrastructure (RTI) functionality from the current military real-time simulation architecture. The uniqueness of the approach is to provide a "plug and play environment" for various system components that run at various data rates (Hz) and the ability to replicate or transfer C2 operations to various subsystems in a scalable manner. This is possible by providing a communication bus called "Distributed Shared Data Bus" and a distributed computing environment used to scale the control needs by providing a self-contained computing, data logging and control function module that can be rapidly reconfigured to perform different functions. This kind of software-enabled control is very much needed to meet the needs of future aerospace command and control functions.

Implementation of Wireless Input Methods (Game Controllers and Accelerometers) for Simulated Weapon Trigger Fire in the Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN)

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-08-22

software. Using this weapon, two ways of sending trigger fire response to the D-Flow software were proposed. One was to integrate a wireless game...Logitech International, S.A., Romanel-sur- Morges, Switzerland) and the Xbox 360 wireless controller for Windows (Microsoft, Redmond, WA). The circuit board...power on and off the game controller so that the batteries do not drain (though these devices will time out after approximately 10 minutes of

Software for occupational health and safety risk analysis based on a fuzzy model.

PubMed

Stefanovic, Miladin; Tadic, Danijela; Djapan, Marko; Macuzic, Ivan

2012-01-01

Risk and safety management are very important issues in healthcare systems. Those are complex systems with many entities, hazards and uncertainties. In such an environment, it is very hard to introduce a system for evaluating and simulating significant hazards. In this paper, we analyzed different types of hazards in healthcare systems and we introduced a new fuzzy model for evaluating and ranking hazards. Finally, we presented a developed software solution, based on the suggested fuzzy model for evaluating and monitoring risk.

Decentralized control experiments on the JPL flexible spacecraft

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ozguner, U.; Ossman, K.; Donne, J.; Boesch, M.; Ahmed, A.

1990-01-01

Decentralized control experiments were successfully demonstrated for the JPL/AFAL Flexible Structure. A simulation package using MATRIXx showed strong correlation between the simulations and experimental result, while providing a means for test and debug of the various control strategies. Implementation was simplified by a modular software design that was easily transported from the simulation environment to the experimental environment. Control designs worked well for suppression of the dominant modes of the structure. Static decentralized output feedback dampened the excited modes of the structure, but sometimes excited higher order modes upon startup of the controller. A second-order frequency shaping controller helped to eliminate excitation of the higher order modes by attenuating high frequencies in the control effort. However, it also resulted in slightly longer settling times.

Computer modeling with randomized-controlled trial data informs the development of person-centered aged care homes.

PubMed

Chenoweth, Lynn; Vickland, Victor; Stein-Parbury, Jane; Jeon, Yun-Hee; Kenny, Patricia; Brodaty, Henry

2015-10-01

To answer questions on the essential components (services, operations and resources) of a person-centered aged care home (iHome) using computer simulation. iHome was developed with AnyLogic software using extant study data obtained from 60 Australian aged care homes, 900+ clients and 700+ aged care staff. Bayesian analysis of simulated trial data will determine the influence of different iHome characteristics on care service quality and client outcomes. Interim results: A person-centered aged care home (socio-cultural context) and care/lifestyle services (interactional environment) can produce positive outcomes for aged care clients (subjective experiences) in the simulated environment. Further testing will define essential characteristics of a person-centered care home.

The QCDOC Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boyle, P.; Chen, D.; Christ, N.; Clark, M.; Cohen, S.; Cristian, C.; Dong, Z.; Gara, A.; Joo, B.; Jung, C.; Kim, C.; Levkova, L.; Liao, X.; Liu, G.; Li, S.; Lin, H.; Mawhinney, R.; Ohta, S.; Petrov, K.; Wettig, T.; Yamaguchi, A.

2005-03-01

The QCDOC project has developed a supercomputer optimised for the needs of Lattice QCD simulations. It provides a very competitive price to sustained performance ratio of around $1 USD per sustained Megaflop/s in combination with outstanding scalability. Thus very large systems delivering over 5 TFlop/s of performance on the evolution of a single lattice is possible. Large prototypes have been built and are functioning correctly. The software environment raises the state of the art in such custom supercomputers. It is based on a lean custom node operating system that eliminates many unnecessary overheads that plague other systems. Despite the custom nature, the operating system implements a standards compliant UNIX-like programming environment easing the porting of software from other systems. The SciDAC QMP interface adds internode communication in a fashion that provides a uniform cross-platform programming environment.

Virtual environment display for a 3D audio room simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chapin, William L.; Foster, Scott H.

1992-01-01

The development of a virtual environment simulation system integrating a 3D acoustic audio model with an immersive 3D visual scene is discussed. The system complements the acoustic model and is specified to: allow the listener to freely move about the space, a room of manipulable size, shape, and audio character, while interactively relocating the sound sources; reinforce the listener's feeling of telepresence in the acoustical environment with visual and proprioceptive sensations; enhance the audio with the graphic and interactive components, rather than overwhelm or reduce it; and serve as a research testbed and technology transfer demonstration. The hardware/software design of two demonstration systems, one installed and one portable, are discussed through the development of four iterative configurations.

Interoperability and complementarity of simulation tools for beamline design in the OASYS environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rebuffi, Luca; Sanchez del Rio, Manuel

2017-08-01

In the next years most of the major synchrotron radiation facilities around the world will upgrade to 4th-generation Diffraction Limited Storage Rings using multi-bend-achromat technology. Moreover, several Free Electron Lasers are ready-to-go or in phase of completion. These events represent a huge challenge for the optics physicists responsible of designing and calculating optical systems capable to exploit the revolutionary characteristics of the new photon beams. Reliable and robust beamline design is nowadays based on sophisticated computer simulations only possible by lumping together different simulation tools. The OASYS (OrAnge SYnchrotron Suite) suite drives several simulation tools providing new mechanisms of interoperability and communication within the same software environment. OASYS has been successfully used during the conceptual design of many beamline and optical designs for the ESRF and Elettra- Sincrotrone Trieste upgrades. Some examples are presented showing comparisons and benchmarking of simulations against calculated and experimental data.

Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation of Ares I Launch Vehicle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tobbe, Patrick; Matras, Alex; Walker, David; Wilson, Heath; Fulton, Chris; Alday, Nathan; Betts, Kevin; Hughes, Ryan; Turbe, Michael

2009-01-01

The Ares Real-Time Environment for Modeling, Integration, and Simulation (ARTEMIS) has been developed for use by the Ares I launch vehicle System Integration Laboratory at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The primary purpose of the Ares System Integration Laboratory is to test the vehicle avionics hardware and software in a hardware - in-the-loop environment to certify that the integrated system is prepared for flight. ARTEMIS has been designed to be the real-time simulation backbone to stimulate all required Ares components for verification testing. ARTE_VIIS provides high -fidelity dynamics, actuator, and sensor models to simulate an accurate flight trajectory in order to ensure realistic test conditions. ARTEMIS has been designed to take advantage of the advances in underlying computational power now available to support hardware-in-the-loop testing to achieve real-time simulation with unprecedented model fidelity. A modular realtime design relying on a fully distributed computing architecture has been implemented.

Distributed dynamic simulations of networked control and building performance applications.

PubMed

Yahiaoui, Azzedine

2018-02-01

The use of computer-based automation and control systems for smart sustainable buildings, often so-called Automated Buildings (ABs), has become an effective way to automatically control, optimize, and supervise a wide range of building performance applications over a network while achieving the minimum energy consumption possible, and in doing so generally refers to Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS) architecture. Instead of costly and time-consuming experiments, this paper focuses on using distributed dynamic simulations to analyze the real-time performance of network-based building control systems in ABs and improve the functions of the BACS technology. The paper also presents the development and design of a distributed dynamic simulation environment with the capability of representing the BACS architecture in simulation by run-time coupling two or more different software tools over a network. The application and capability of this new dynamic simulation environment are demonstrated by an experimental design in this paper.

Distributed dynamic simulations of networked control and building performance applications

PubMed Central

Yahiaoui, Azzedine

2017-01-01

The use of computer-based automation and control systems for smart sustainable buildings, often so-called Automated Buildings (ABs), has become an effective way to automatically control, optimize, and supervise a wide range of building performance applications over a network while achieving the minimum energy consumption possible, and in doing so generally refers to Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS) architecture. Instead of costly and time-consuming experiments, this paper focuses on using distributed dynamic simulations to analyze the real-time performance of network-based building control systems in ABs and improve the functions of the BACS technology. The paper also presents the development and design of a distributed dynamic simulation environment with the capability of representing the BACS architecture in simulation by run-time coupling two or more different software tools over a network. The application and capability of this new dynamic simulation environment are demonstrated by an experimental design in this paper. PMID:29568135

Volumetric neuroimage analysis extensions for the MIPAV software package.

PubMed

Bazin, Pierre-Louis; Cuzzocreo, Jennifer L; Yassa, Michael A; Gandler, William; McAuliffe, Matthew J; Bassett, Susan S; Pham, Dzung L

2007-09-15

We describe a new collection of publicly available software tools for performing quantitative neuroimage analysis. The tools perform semi-automatic brain extraction, tissue classification, Talairach alignment, and atlas-based measurements within a user-friendly graphical environment. They are implemented as plug-ins for MIPAV, a freely available medical image processing software package from the National Institutes of Health. Because the plug-ins and MIPAV are implemented in Java, both can be utilized on nearly any operating system platform. In addition to the software plug-ins, we have also released a digital version of the Talairach atlas that can be used to perform regional volumetric analyses. Several studies are conducted applying the new tools to simulated and real neuroimaging data sets.

Modeling and simulation of biological systems using SPICE language

PubMed Central

Lallement, Christophe; Haiech, Jacques

2017-01-01

The article deals with BB-SPICE (SPICE for Biochemical and Biological Systems), an extension of the famous Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE). BB-SPICE environment is composed of three modules: a new textual and compact description formalism for biological systems, a converter that handles this description and generates the SPICE netlist of the equivalent electronic circuit and NGSPICE which is an open-source SPICE simulator. In addition, the environment provides back and forth interfaces with SBML (System Biology Markup Language), a very common description language used in systems biology. BB-SPICE has been developed in order to bridge the gap between the simulation of biological systems on the one hand and electronics circuits on the other hand. Thus, it is suitable for applications at the interface between both domains, such as development of design tools for synthetic biology and for the virtual prototyping of biosensors and lab-on-chip. Simulation results obtained with BB-SPICE and COPASI (an open-source software used for the simulation of biochemical systems) have been compared on a benchmark of models commonly used in systems biology. Results are in accordance from a quantitative viewpoint but BB-SPICE outclasses COPASI by 1 to 3 orders of magnitude regarding the computation time. Moreover, as our software is based on NGSPICE, it could take profit of incoming updates such as the GPU implementation, of the coupling with powerful analysis and verification tools or of the integration in design automation tools (synthetic biology). PMID:28787027

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rudkevich, Aleksandr; Goldis, Evgeniy

This research conducted by the Newton Energy Group, LLC (NEG) is dedicated to the development of pCloud: a Cloud-based Power Market Simulation Environment. pCloud is offering power industry stakeholders the capability to model electricity markets and is organized around the Software as a Service (SaaS) concept -- a software application delivery model in which software is centrally hosted and provided to many users via the internet. During the Phase I of this project NEG developed a prototype design for pCloud as a SaaS-based commercial service offering, system architecture supporting that design, ensured feasibility of key architecture's elements, formed technological partnershipsmore » and negotiated commercial agreements with partners, conducted market research and other related activities and secured funding for continue development of pCloud between the end of Phase I and beginning of Phase II, if awarded. Based on the results of Phase I activities, NEG has established that the development of a cloud-based power market simulation environment within the Windows Azure platform is technologically feasible, can be accomplished within the budget and timeframe available through the Phase II SBIR award with additional external funding. NEG believes that pCloud has the potential to become a game-changing technology for the modeling and analysis of electricity markets. This potential is due to the following critical advantages of pCloud over its competition: - Standardized access to advanced and proven power market simulators offered by third parties. - Automated parallelization of simulations and dynamic provisioning of computing resources on the cloud. This combination of automation and scalability dramatically reduces turn-around time while offering the capability to increase the number of analyzed scenarios by a factor of 10, 100 or even 1000. - Access to ready-to-use data and to cloud-based resources leading to a reduction in software, hardware, and IT costs. - Competitive pricing structure, which will make high-volume usage of simulation services affordable. - Availability and affordability of high quality power simulators, which presently only large corporate clients can afford, will level the playing field in developing regional energy policies, determining prudent cost recovery mechanisms and assuring just and reasonable rates to consumers. - Users that presently do not have the resources to internally maintain modeling capabilities will now be able to run simulations. This will invite more players into the industry, ultimately leading to more transparent and liquid power markets.« less

Technically Speaking: Why Should You Use Virtual Grower?

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Virtual Grower is a free, easy-to-use software program that every grower who heats their greenhouse should install on their computer. The program enables growers to simulate their own greenhouse and predict how changes or investments could impact the growing environment, heating costs, and crop res...

GPAW - massively parallel electronic structure calculations with Python-based software.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Enkovaara, J.; Romero, N.; Shende, S.

2011-01-01

Electronic structure calculations are a widely used tool in materials science and large consumer of supercomputing resources. Traditionally, the software packages for these kind of simulations have been implemented in compiled languages, where Fortran in its different versions has been the most popular choice. While dynamic, interpreted languages, such as Python, can increase the effciency of programmer, they cannot compete directly with the raw performance of compiled languages. However, by using an interpreted language together with a compiled language, it is possible to have most of the productivity enhancing features together with a good numerical performance. We have used thismore » approach in implementing an electronic structure simulation software GPAW using the combination of Python and C programming languages. While the chosen approach works well in standard workstations and Unix environments, massively parallel supercomputing systems can present some challenges in porting, debugging and profiling the software. In this paper we describe some details of the implementation and discuss the advantages and challenges of the combined Python/C approach. We show that despite the challenges it is possible to obtain good numerical performance and good parallel scalability with Python based software.« less

Influence of plasma shock wave on the morphology of laser drilling in different environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhai, Zhaoyang; Wang, Wenjun; Mei, Xuesong; Wang, Kedian; Yang, Huizhu

2017-05-01

Nanosecond pulse laser was used to study nickel-based alloy drilling and compare processing results of microholes in air environment and water environment. Through analysis and comparison, it's found that environmental medium had obvious influence on morphology of laser drilling. High-speed camera was used to shoot plasma morphology during laser drilling process, theoretical formula was used to calculate boundary dimension of plasma and shock wave velocity, and finally parameters were substituted into computational fluid dynamics simulation software to obtain solutions. Obtained analysis results could intuitively explain different morphological features and forming reasons between laser drilling in air environment and water environment in the experiment from angle of plasma shock waves. By comparing simulation results and experimental results, it could help to get an understanding of formation mechanism of microhole morphology, thus providing basis for further improving process optimization of laser drilling quality.

The optical design and simulation of the collimated solar simulator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jun; Ma, Tao

2018-01-01

The solar simulator is a lighting device that can simulate the solar radiation. It has been widely used in the testing of solar cells, satellite space environment simulation and ground experiment, test and calibration precision of solar sensor. The solar simulator mainly consisted of short—arc xenon lamp, ellipsoidal reflectors, a group of optical integrator, field stop, aspheric folding mirror and collimating reflector. In this paper, the solar simulator's optical system basic size are given by calculation. Then the system is optically modeled with the Lighttools software, and the simulation analysis on solar simulator using the Monte Carlo ray -tracing technique is conducted. Finally, the simulation results are given quantitatively by diagrammatic form. The rationality of the design is verified on the basis of theory.

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Haley, D. C.; Almand, B. J.; Thomas, M. M.; Krauze, L. D.; Gremban, K. D.; Sanborn, J. C.; Kelly, J. H.; Depkovich, T. M.

1984-01-01

A generic computer simulation for manipulator systems (ROBSIM) was implemented and the specific technologies necessary to increase the role of automation in various missions were developed. The specific items developed are: (1) capability for definition of a manipulator system consisting of multiple arms, load objects, and an environment; (2) capability for kinematic analysis, requirements analysis, and response simulation of manipulator motion; (3) postprocessing options such as graphic replay of simulated motion and manipulator parameter plotting; (4) investigation and simulation of various control methods including manual force/torque and active compliances control; (5) evaluation and implementation of three obstacle avoidance methods; (6) video simulation and edge detection; and (7) software simulation validation.

Large Scale Geologic Controls on Hydraulic Stimulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McLennan, J. D.; Bhide, R.

2014-12-01

When simulating a hydraulic fracturing, the analyst has historically prescribed a single planar fracture. Originally (in the 1950s through the 1970s) this was necessitated by computational restrictions. In the latter part of the twentieth century, hydraulic fracture simulation evolved to incorporate vertical propagation controlled by modulus, fluid loss, and the minimum principal stress. With improvements in software, computational capacity, and recognition that in-situ discontinuities are relevant, fully three-dimensional hydraulic simulation is now becoming possible. Advances in simulation capabilities enable coupling structural geologic data (three-dimensional representation of stresses, natural fractures, and stratigraphy) with decision making processes for stimulation - volumes, rates, fluid types, completion zones. Without this interaction between simulation capabilities and geological information, low permeability formation exploitation may linger on the fringes of real economic viability. Comparative simulations have been undertaken in varying structural environments where the stress contrast and the frequency of natural discontinuities causes varying patterns of multiple, hydraulically generated or reactivated flow paths. Stress conditions and nature of the discontinuities are selected as variables and are used to simulate how fracturing can vary in different structural regimes. The basis of the simulations is commercial distinct element software (Itasca Corporation's 3DEC).

Three-Dimensional Numerical Simulation to Mud Turbine for LWD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yao, Xiaojiang; Dong, Jingxin; Shang, Jie; Zhang, Guanqi

Hydraulic performance analysis was discussed for a type of turbine on generator used for LWD. The simulation models were built by CFD analysis software FINE/Turbo, and full three-dimensional numerical simulation was carried out for impeller group. The hydraulic parameter such as power, speed and pressure drop, were calculated in two kinds of medium water and mud. Experiment was built in water environment. The error of numerical simulation was less than 6%, verified by experiment. Based on this rationalization proposals would be given to choice appropriate impellers, and the rationalization of methods would be explored.

Prediction of car cabin environment by means of 1D and 3D cabin model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fišer, J.; Pokorný, J.; Jícha, M.

2012-04-01

Thermal comfort and also reduction of energy requirements of air-conditioning system in vehicle cabins are currently very intensively investigated and up-to-date issues. The article deals with two approaches of modelling of car cabin environment; the first model was created in simulation language Modelica (typical 1D approach without cabin geometry) and the second one was created in specialized software Theseus-FE (3D approach with cabin geometry). Performance and capabilities of this tools are demonstrated on the example of the car cabin and the results from simulations are compared with the results from the real car cabin climate chamber measurements.

Dynamical mechanical characteristic simulation and analysis of the low voltage switch under vibration and shock conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miao, Xiaodan; Han, Feng

2017-04-01

The low voltage switch has widely application especially in the hostile environment such as large vibration and shock conditions. In order to ensure the validity of the switch in the hostile environment, it is necessary to predict its mechanical characteristic. In traditional method, the complex and expensive testing system is build up to verify its validity. This paper presented a method based on finite element analysis to predict the dynamic mechanical characteristic of the switch by using ANSYS software. This simulation could provide the basis for the design and optimization of the switch to shorten the design process to improve the product efficiency.

VERAView

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lee, Ronald W.; Collins, Benjamin S.; Godfrey, Andrew T.

2016-12-09

In order to support engineering analysis of Virtual Environment for Reactor Analysis (VERA) model results, the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) needs a tool that provides visualizations of HDF5 files that adhere to the VERAOUT specification. VERAView provides an interactive graphical interface for the visualization and engineering analyses of output data from VERA. The Python-based software provides instantaneous 2D and 3D images, 1D plots, and alphanumeric data from VERA multi-physics simulations.

Generation of large scale urban environments to support advanced sensor and seeker simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giuliani, Joseph; Hershey, Daniel; McKeown, David, Jr.; Willis, Carla; Van, Tan

2009-05-01

One of the key aspects for the design of a next generation weapon system is the need to operate in cluttered and complex urban environments. Simulation systems rely on accurate representation of these environments and require automated software tools to construct the underlying 3D geometry and associated spectral and material properties that are then formatted for various objective seeker simulation systems. Under an Air Force Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract, we have developed an automated process to generate 3D urban environments with user defined properties. These environments can be composed from a wide variety of source materials, including vector source data, pre-existing 3D models, and digital elevation models, and rapidly organized into a geo-specific visual simulation database. This intermediate representation can be easily inspected in the visible spectrum for content and organization and interactively queried for accuracy. Once the database contains the required contents, it can then be exported into specific synthetic scene generation runtime formats, preserving the relationship between geometry and material properties. To date an exporter for the Irma simulation system developed and maintained by AFRL/Eglin has been created and a second exporter to Real Time Composite Hardbody and Missile Plume (CHAMP) simulation system for real-time use is currently being developed. This process supports significantly more complex target environments than previous approaches to database generation. In this paper we describe the capabilities for content creation for advanced seeker processing algorithms simulation and sensor stimulation, including the overall database compilation process and sample databases produced and exported for the Irma runtime system. We also discuss the addition of object dynamics and viewer dynamics within the visual simulation into the Irma runtime environment.

Scientific Assistant Virtual Laboratory (SAVL)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alaghband, Gita; Fardi, Hamid; Gnabasik, David

2007-03-01

The Scientific Assistant Virtual Laboratory (SAVL) is a scientific discovery environment, an interactive simulated virtual laboratory, for learning physics and mathematics. The purpose of this computer-assisted intervention is to improve middle and high school student interest, insight and scores in physics and mathematics. SAVL develops scientific and mathematical imagination in a visual, symbolic, and experimental simulation environment. It directly addresses the issues of scientific and technological competency by providing critical thinking training through integrated modules. This on-going research provides a virtual laboratory environment in which the student directs the building of the experiment rather than observing a packaged simulation. SAVL: * Engages the persistent interest of young minds in physics and math by visually linking simulation objects and events with mathematical relations. * Teaches integrated concepts by the hands-on exploration and focused visualization of classic physics experiments within software. * Systematically and uniformly assesses and scores students by their ability to answer their own questions within the context of a Master Question Network. We will demonstrate how the Master Question Network uses polymorphic interfaces and C# lambda expressions to manage simulation objects.

Modeling survival of juvenile salmon during downriver migration in the Columbia River on a microcomputer

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Peloquin, R.A.; McKenzie, D.H.

1994-10-01

A compartmental model has been implemented on a microcomputer as an aid in the analysis of alternative solutions to a problem. The model, entitled Smolt Survival Simulator, simulates the survival of juvenile salmon during their downstream migration and passage of hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River. The model is designed to function in a workshop environment where resource managers and fisheries biologists can study alternative measures that may potentially increase juvenile anadromous fish survival during downriver migration. The potential application of the model has placed several requirements on the implementing software. It must be available for use in workshop settings.more » The software must be easily to use with minimal computer knowledge. Scenarios must be created and executed quickly and efficiently. Results must be immediately available. Software design emphasis vas placed on the user interface because of these requirements. The discussion focuses on methods used in the development of the SSS software user interface. These methods should reduce user stress and alloy thorough and easy parameter modification.« less

A Decision Tool that Combines Discrete Event Software Process Models with System Dynamics Pieces for Software Development Cost Estimation and Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mizell, Carolyn Barrett; Malone, Linda

2007-01-01

The development process for a large software development project is very complex and dependent on many variables that are dynamic and interrelated. Factors such as size, productivity and defect injection rates will have substantial impact on the project in terms of cost and schedule. These factors can be affected by the intricacies of the process itself as well as human behavior because the process is very labor intensive. The complex nature of the development process can be investigated with software development process models that utilize discrete event simulation to analyze the effects of process changes. The organizational environment and its effects on the workforce can be analyzed with system dynamics that utilizes continuous simulation. Each has unique strengths and the benefits of both types can be exploited by combining a system dynamics model and a discrete event process model. This paper will demonstrate how the two types of models can be combined to investigate the impacts of human resource interactions on productivity and ultimately on cost and schedule.

Cyberwar XXI: quantifying the unquantifiable: adaptive AI for next-generation conflict simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miranda, Joseph; von Kleinsmid, Peter; Zalewski, Tony

2004-08-01

The era of the "Revolution in Military Affairs," "4th Generation Warfare" and "Asymmetric War" requires novel approaches to modeling warfare at the operational and strategic level of modern conflict. For example, "What if, in response to our planned actions, the adversary reacts in such-and-such a manner? What will our response be? What are the possible unintended consequences?" Next generation conflict simulation tools are required to help create and test novel courses of action (COA's) in support of real-world operations. Conflict simulations allow non-lethal and cost-effective exploration of the "what-if" of COA development. The challenge has been to develop an automated decision-support software tool which allows competing COA"s to be compared in simulated dynamic environments. Principal Investigator Joseph Miranda's research is based on modeling an integrated military, economic, social, infrastructure and information (PMESII) environment. The main effort was to develop an adaptive AI engine which models agents operating within an operational-strategic conflict environment. This was implemented in Cyberwar XXI - a simulation which models COA selection in a PMESII environment. Within this framework, agents simulate decision-making processes and provide predictive capability of the potential behavior of Command Entities. The 2003 Iraq is the first scenario ready for V&V testing.

Improving the Aircraft Design Process Using Web-Based Modeling and Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Follen, Gregory J.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.; Follen, Gregory J. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Designing and developing new aircraft systems is time-consuming and expensive. Computational simulation is a promising means for reducing design cycle times, but requires a flexible software environment capable of integrating advanced multidisciplinary and multifidelity analysis methods, dynamically managing data across heterogeneous computing platforms, and distributing computationally complex tasks. Web-based simulation, with its emphasis on collaborative composition of simulation models, distributed heterogeneous execution, and dynamic multimedia documentation, has the potential to meet these requirements. This paper outlines the current aircraft design process, highlighting its problems and complexities, and presents our vision of an aircraft design process using Web-based modeling and simulation.

Improving the Aircraft Design Process Using Web-based Modeling and Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Follen, Gregory J.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

2003-01-01

Designing and developing new aircraft systems is time-consuming and expensive. Computational simulation is a promising means for reducing design cycle times, but requires a flexible software environment capable of integrating advanced multidisciplinary and muitifidelity analysis methods, dynamically managing data across heterogeneous computing platforms, and distributing computationally complex tasks. Web-based simulation, with its emphasis on collaborative composition of simulation models, distributed heterogeneous execution, and dynamic multimedia documentation, has the potential to meet these requirements. This paper outlines the current aircraft design process, highlighting its problems and complexities, and presents our vision of an aircraft design process using Web-based modeling and simulation.

Software Tools For Building Decision-support Models For Flood Emergency Situations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garrote, L.; Molina, M.; Ruiz, J. M.; Mosquera, J. C.

The SAIDA decision-support system was developed by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment to provide assistance to decision-makers during flood situations. SAIDA has been tentatively implemented in two test basins: Jucar and Guadalhorce, and the Ministry is currently planning to have it implemented in all major Spanish basins in a few years' time. During the development cycle of SAIDA, the need for providing as- sistance to end-users in model definition and calibration was clearly identified. System developers usually emphasise abstraction and generality with the goal of providing a versatile software environment. End users, on the other hand, require concretion and specificity to adapt the general model to their local basins. As decision-support models become more complex, the gap between model developers and users gets wider: Who takes care of model definition, calibration and validation?. Initially, model developers perform these tasks, but the scope is usually limited to a few small test basins. Before the model enters operational stage, end users must get involved in model construction and calibration, in order to gain confidence in the model recommendations. However, getting the users involved in these activities is a difficult task. The goal of this re- search is to develop representation techniques for simulation and management models in order to define, develop and validate a mechanism, supported by a software envi- ronment, oriented to provide assistance to the end-user in building decision models for the prediction and management of river floods in real time. The system is based on three main building blocks: A library of simulators of the physical system, an editor to assist the user in building simulation models, and a machine learning method to calibrate decision models based on the simulation models provided by the user.

Cross-platform validation and analysis environment for particle physics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chekanov, S. V.; Pogrebnyak, I.; Wilbern, D.

A multi-platform validation and analysis framework for public Monte Carlo simulation for high-energy particle collisions is discussed. The front-end of this framework uses the Python programming language, while the back-end is written in Java, which provides a multi-platform environment that can be run from a web browser and can easily be deployed at the grid sites. The analysis package includes all major software tools used in high-energy physics, such as Lorentz vectors, jet algorithms, histogram packages, graphic canvases, and tools for providing data access. This multi-platform software suite, designed to minimize OS-specific maintenance and deployment time, is used for onlinemore » validation of Monte Carlo event samples through a web interface.« less

MiRTE: Mixed Reality Triage and Evacuation game for Mass Casualty information systems design, testing and training.

PubMed

Yu, Xunyi; Ganz, Aura

2011-01-01

In this paper we introduce a Mixed Reality Triage and Evacuation game, MiRTE, that is used in the development, testing and training of Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) information systems for first responders. Using the Source game engine from Valve software, MiRTE creates immersive virtual environments to simulate various incident scenarios, and enables interactions between multiple players/first responders. What distinguishes it from a pure computer simulation game is that it can interface with external mass casualty incident management systems, such as DIORAMA. The game will enable system developers to specify technical requirements of underlying technology, and test different alternatives of design. After the information system hardware and software are completed, the game can simulate various algorithms such as localization technologies, and interface with an actual user interface on PCs and Smartphones. We implemented and tested the game with the DIORAMA system.

A precision device needs precise simulation: Software description of the CBM Silicon Tracking System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malygina, Hanna; Friese, Volker; CBM Collaboration

2017-10-01

Precise modelling of detectors in simulations is the key to the understanding of their performance, which, in turn, is a prerequisite for the proper design choice and, later, for the achievement of valid physics results. In this report, we describe the implementation of the Silicon Tracking System (STS), the main tracking device of the CBM experiment, in the CBM software environment. The STS makes uses of double-sided silicon micro-strip sensors with double metal layers. We present a description of transport and detector response simulation, including all relevant physical effects like charge creation and drift, charge collection, cross-talk and digitization. Of particular importance and novelty is the description of the time behaviour of the detector, since its readout will not be externally triggered but continuous. We also cover some aspects of local reconstruction, which in the CBM case has to be performed in real-time and thus requires high-speed algorithms.

Implementation of Motion Simulation Software and Visual-Auditory Electronics for Use in a Low Gravity Robotic Testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Martin, William Campbell

2011-01-01

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is developing the All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE) to assist in manned space missions. One of the proposed targets for this robotic vehicle is a near-Earth asteroid (NEA), which typically exhibit a surface gravity of only a few micro-g. In order to properly test ATHLETE in such an environment, the development team has constructed an inverted Stewart platform testbed that acts as a robotic motion simulator. This project focused on creating physical simulation software that is able to predict how ATHLETE will function on and around a NEA. The corresponding platform configurations are calculated and then passed to the testbed to control ATHLETE's motion. In addition, imitation attitude, imitation attitude control thrusters were designed and fabricated for use on ATHLETE. These utilize a combination of high power LEDs and audio amplifiers to provide visual and auditory cues that correspond to the physics simulation.

Development and Implementation of Software for Visualizing and Editing Multidimensional Flight Simulation Input Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Whelan, Todd Michael

1996-01-01

In a real-time or batch mode simulation that is designed to model aircraft dynamics over a wide range of flight conditions, a table look- up scheme is implemented to determine the forces and moments on the vehicle based upon the values of parameters such as angle of attack, altitude, Mach number, and control surface deflections. Simulation Aerodynamic Variable Interface (SAVI) is a graphical user interface to the flight simulation input data, designed to operate on workstations that support X Windows. The purpose of the application is to provide two and three dimensional visualization of the data, to allow an intuitive sense of the data set. SAVI also allows the user to manipulate the data, either to conduct an interactive study of the influence of changes on the vehicle dynamics, or to make revisions to data set based on new information such as flight test. This paper discusses the reasons for developing the application, provides an overview of its capabilities, and outlines the software architecture and operating environment.

Testing FSO WDM communication system in simulation software optiwave OptiSystem in different atmospheric environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanderka, Ales; Hajek, Lukas; Bednarek, Lukas; Latal, Jan; Vitasek, Jan; Hejduk, Stanislav; Vasinek, Vladimir

2016-09-01

In this article the author's team deals with using Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) for Free Space Optical (FSO) Communications. In FSO communication occurs due to the influence of atmospheric effect (attenuation, and fluctuation of the received power signal, influence turbulence) and the WDM channel suffers from interchannel crosstalk. There is considered only the one direction. The behavior FSO link was tested for one or eight channels. Here we will be dealing with modulation schemes OOK (On-Off keying), QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) and Subcarrier Intensity Modulation (SIM) based on a BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying). Simulation software OptiSystem 14 was used for tasting. For simulation some parameters were set according to real FSO link such as the datarate 1.25 Gbps, link range 1.4 km. Simulated FSO link used wavelength of 1550 nm with 0.8 nm spacing. There is obtained the influence of crosstalk and modulation format for the BER, depending on the amount of turbulence in the propagation medium.

Analytical modeling of helium turbomachinery using FORTRAN 77

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balaji, Purushotham

Advanced Generation IV modular reactors, including Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTRs), utilize helium as the working fluid, with a potential for high efficiency power production utilizing helium turbomachinery. Helium is chemically inert and nonradioactive which makes the gas ideal for a nuclear power-plant environment where radioactive leaks are a high concern. These properties of helium gas helps to increase the safety features as well as to decrease the aging process of plant components. The lack of sufficient helium turbomachinery data has made it difficult to study the vital role played by the gas turbine components of these VHTR powered cycles. Therefore, this research work focuses on predicting the performance of helium compressors. A FORTRAN77 program is developed to simulate helium compressor operation, including surge line prediction. The resulting design point and off design performance data can be used to develop compressor map files readable by Numerical Propulsion Simulation Software (NPSS). This multi-physics simulation software that was developed for propulsion system analysis has found applications in simulating power-plant cycles.

CAPS Simulation Environment Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Murphy, Douglas G.; Hoffman, James A.

2005-01-01

The final design for an effective Comet/Asteroid Protection System (CAPS) will likely come after a number of competing designs have been simulated and evaluated. Because of the large number of design parameters involved in a system capable of detecting an object, accurately determining its orbit, and diverting the impact threat, a comprehensive simulation environment will be an extremely valuable tool for the CAPS designers. A successful simulation/design tool will aid the user in identifying the critical parameters in the system and eventually allow for automatic optimization of the design once the relationships of the key parameters are understood. A CAPS configuration will consist of space-based detectors whose purpose is to scan the celestial sphere in search of objects likely to make a close approach to Earth and to determine with the greatest possible accuracy the orbits of those objects. Other components of a CAPS configuration may include systems for modifying the orbits of approaching objects, either for the purpose of preventing a collision or for positioning the object into an orbit where it can be studied or used as a mineral resource. The Synergistic Engineering Environment (SEE) is a space-systems design, evaluation, and visualization software tool being leveraged to simulate these aspects of the CAPS study. The long-term goal of the SEE is to provide capabilities to allow the user to build and compare various CAPS designs by running end-to-end simulations that encompass the scanning phase, the orbit determination phase, and the orbit modification phase of a given scenario. Herein, a brief description of the expected simulation phases is provided, the current status and available features of the SEE software system is reported, and examples are shown of how the system is used to build and evaluate a CAPS detection design. Conclusions and the roadmap for future development of the SEE are also presented.

Flight Experiment Demonstration System (FEDS) analysis report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shank, D. E.

1986-01-01

The purpose of the Flight Experiment Demonstration System (FEDS) was to show, in a simulated spacecraft environment, the feasibility of using a microprocessor to automate the onboard orbit determination functions. The software and hardware configuration used to support FEDS during the demonstration and the results of the demonstration are discussed.

DEVELOPING A CAPE-OPEN COMPLIANT METAL FINISHING FACILITY POLLUTION PREVENTION TOOL (CO-MFFP2T)

EPA Science Inventory

The USEPA is developing a Computer Aided Process Engineering (CAPE) software tool for the metal finishing industry that helps users design efficient metal finishing processes that are less polluting to the environment. Metal finishing process lines can be simulated and evaluated...

IMPLEMENTATION OF A CAPE-OPEN COMPLIANT PROCESS SIMULATOR USING MICROSOFT'S VISUAL STUDIO.NET AND THE .NET FRAMEWORK

EPA Science Inventory

The United States Environmental Protection Agency is developing a Computer
Aided Process Engineering (CAPE) software tool for the metal finishing
industry that helps users design efficient metal finishing processes that
are less polluting to the environment. Metal finish...

Efficacy of a Virtual Teaching Assistant in an Open Laboratory Environment for Electric Circuits

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saleheen, Firdous; Wang, Zicong; Picone, Joseph; Butz, Brian P.; Won, Chang-Hee

2018-01-01

In order to provide an on-demand, open electrical engineering laboratory, we developed an innovative software-based Virtual Open Laboratory Teaching Assistant (VOLTA). This web-based virtual assistant provides laboratory instructions, equipment usage videos, circuit simulation assistance, and hardware implementation diagnostics. VOLTA allows…

The Role of Web-Based Simulations in Technology Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Page, Tom

2009-01-01

This paper discusses the theoretical underpinning and main aspects of the development and application of the web-orientation agent (WOA) and presents preliminary results concerning its use in university studies. The web-orientation agent (WOA) is a software based tool which produces an interactive learning environment offering support and guidance…

Analysis of simulated image sequences from sensors for restricted-visibility operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kasturi, Rangachar

1991-01-01

A real time model of the visible output from a 94 GHz sensor, based on a radiometric simulation of the sensor, was developed. A sequence of images as seen from an aircraft as it approaches for landing was simulated using this model. Thirty frames from this sequence of 200 x 200 pixel images were analyzed to identify and track objects in the image using the Cantata image processing package within the visual programming environment provided by the Khoros software system. The image analysis operations are described.

Enhanced job control language procedures for the SIMSYS2D two-dimensional water-quality simulation system

USGS Publications Warehouse

Karavitis, G.A.

1984-01-01

The SIMSYS2D two-dimensional water-quality simulation system is a large-scale digital modeling software system used to simulate flow and transport of solutes in freshwater and estuarine environments. Due to the size, processing requirements, and complexity of the system, there is a need to easily move the system and its associated files between computer sites when required. A series of job control language (JCL) procedures was written to allow transferability between IBM and IBM-compatible computers. (USGS)

Simulation: A Complementary Method for Teaching Health Services Strategic Management

PubMed Central

Reddick, W. T.

1990-01-01

Rapid change in the health care environment mandates a more comprehensive approach to the education of future health administrators. The area of consideration in this study is that of health care strategic management. A comprehensive literature review suggests microcomputer-based simulation as an appropriate vehicle for addressing the needs of both educators and students. Seven strategic management software packages are reviewed and rated with an instrument adapted from the Infoworld review format. The author concludes that a primary concern is the paucity of health care specific strategic management simulations.

NPSS Overview to TAFW Multidisciplinary Simulation Capabilities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Owen, Karl

2002-01-01

The Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) is a concerted effort by NASA Glenn Research Center, the aerospace industry, and academia to develop an advanced engineering environment or integrated collection of software programs for the analysis and design of aircraft engines and, eventually, space transportation components. NPSS is now being applied by GE ground power to ground power generation with the view of expanding the capability to nontraditional power plant applications (example: fuel cells) and NPSS has an interest in in-space power and will be developing those simulation capabilities.

The SCEC Broadband Platform: A Collaborative Open-Source Software Package for Strong Ground Motion Simulation and Validation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silva, F.; Maechling, P. J.; Goulet, C.; Somerville, P.; Jordan, T. H.

2013-12-01

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) Broadband Platform is a collaborative software development project involving SCEC researchers, graduate students, and the SCEC Community Modeling Environment. The SCEC Broadband Platform is open-source scientific software that can generate broadband (0-100Hz) ground motions for earthquakes, integrating complex scientific modules that implement rupture generation, low and high-frequency seismogram synthesis, non-linear site effects calculation, and visualization into a software system that supports easy on-demand computation of seismograms. The Broadband Platform operates in two primary modes: validation simulations and scenario simulations. In validation mode, the Broadband Platform runs earthquake rupture and wave propagation modeling software to calculate seismograms of a historical earthquake for which observed strong ground motion data is available. Also in validation mode, the Broadband Platform calculates a number of goodness of fit measurements that quantify how well the model-based broadband seismograms match the observed seismograms for a certain event. Based on these results, the Platform can be used to tune and validate different numerical modeling techniques. During the past year, we have modified the software to enable the addition of a large number of historical events, and we are now adding validation simulation inputs and observational data for 23 historical events covering the Eastern and Western United States, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, and Italy. In scenario mode, the Broadband Platform can run simulations for hypothetical (scenario) earthquakes. In this mode, users input an earthquake description, a list of station names and locations, and a 1D velocity model for their region of interest, and the Broadband Platform software then calculates ground motions for the specified stations. By establishing an interface between scientific modules with a common set of input and output files, the Broadband Platform facilitates the addition of new scientific methods, which are written by earth scientists in a number of languages such as C, C++, Fortran, and Python. The Broadband Platform's modular design also supports the reuse of existing software modules as building blocks to create new scientific methods. Additionally, the Platform implements a wrapper around each scientific module, converting input and output files to and from the specific formats required (or produced) by individual scientific codes. Working in close collaboration with scientists and research engineers, the SCEC software development group continues to add new capabilities to the Broadband Platform and to release new versions as open-source scientific software distributions that can be compiled and run on many Linux computer systems. Our latest release includes the addition of 3 new simulation methods and several new data products, such as map and distance-based goodness of fit plots. Finally, as the number and complexity of scenarios simulated using the Broadband Platform increase, we have added batching utilities to substantially improve support for running large-scale simulations on computing clusters.

PCSIM: A Parallel Simulation Environment for Neural Circuits Fully Integrated with Python

PubMed Central

Pecevski, Dejan; Natschläger, Thomas; Schuch, Klaus

2008-01-01

The Parallel Circuit SIMulator (PCSIM) is a software package for simulation of neural circuits. It is primarily designed for distributed simulation of large scale networks of spiking point neurons. Although its computational core is written in C++, PCSIM's primary interface is implemented in the Python programming language, which is a powerful programming environment and allows the user to easily integrate the neural circuit simulator with data analysis and visualization tools to manage the full neural modeling life cycle. The main focus of this paper is to describe PCSIM's full integration into Python and the benefits thereof. In particular we will investigate how the automatically generated bidirectional interface and PCSIM's object-oriented modular framework enable the user to adopt a hybrid modeling approach: using and extending PCSIM's functionality either employing pure Python or C++ and thus combining the advantages of both worlds. Furthermore, we describe several supplementary PCSIM packages written in pure Python and tailored towards setting up and analyzing neural simulations. PMID:19543450

Robust Nonlinear Feedback Control of Aircraft Propulsion Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Garrard, William L.; Balas, Gary J.; Litt, Jonathan (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

This is the final report on the research performed under NASA Glen grant NASA/NAG-3-1975 concerning feedback control of the Pratt & Whitney (PW) STF 952, a twin spool, mixed flow, after burning turbofan engine. The research focussed on the design of linear and gain-scheduled, multivariable inner-loop controllers for the PW turbofan engine using H-infinity and linear, parameter-varying (LPV) control techniques. The nonlinear turbofan engine simulation was provided by PW within the NASA Rocket Engine Transient Simulator (ROCETS) simulation software environment. ROCETS was used to generate linearized models of the turbofan engine for control design and analysis as well as the simulation environment to evaluate the performance and robustness of the controllers. Comparison between the H-infinity, and LPV controllers are made with the baseline multivariable controller and developed by Pratt & Whitney engineers included in the ROCETS simulation. Simulation results indicate that H-infinity and LPV techniques effectively achieve desired response characteristics with minimal cross coupling between commanded values and are very robust to unmodeled dynamics and sensor noise.

A New Simulation Framework for Autonomy in Robotic Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Flueckiger, Lorenzo; Neukom, Christian

2003-01-01

Autonomy is a key factor in remote robotic exploration and there is significant activity addressing the application of autonomy to remote robots. It has become increasingly important to have simulation tools available to test the autonomy algorithms. While indus1;rial robotics benefits from a variety of high quality simulation tools, researchers developing autonomous software are still dependent primarily on block-world simulations. The Mission Simulation Facility I(MSF) project addresses this shortcoming with a simulation toolkit that will enable developers of autonomous control systems to test their system s performance against a set of integrated, standardized simulations of NASA mission scenarios. MSF provides a distributed architecture that connects the autonomous system to a set of simulated components replacing the robot hardware and its environment.

VEDA: a web-based virtual environment for dynamic atomic force microscopy.

PubMed

Melcher, John; Hu, Shuiqing; Raman, Arvind

2008-06-01

We describe here the theory and applications of virtual environment dynamic atomic force microscopy (VEDA), a suite of state-of-the-art simulation tools deployed on nanoHUB (www.nanohub.org) for the accurate simulation of tip motion in dynamic atomic force microscopy (dAFM) over organic and inorganic samples. VEDA takes advantage of nanoHUB's cyberinfrastructure to run high-fidelity dAFM tip dynamics computations on local clusters and the teragrid. Consequently, these tools are freely accessible and the dAFM simulations are run using standard web-based browsers without requiring additional software. A wide range of issues in dAFM ranging from optimal probe choice, probe stability, and tip-sample interaction forces, power dissipation, to material property extraction and scanning dynamics over hetereogeneous samples can be addressed.

Invited Article: VEDA: A web-based virtual environment for dynamic atomic force microscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Melcher, John; Hu, Shuiqing; Raman, Arvind

2008-06-01

We describe here the theory and applications of virtual environment dynamic atomic force microscopy (VEDA), a suite of state-of-the-art simulation tools deployed on nanoHUB (www.nanohub.org) for the accurate simulation of tip motion in dynamic atomic force microscopy (dAFM) over organic and inorganic samples. VEDA takes advantage of nanoHUB's cyberinfrastructure to run high-fidelity dAFM tip dynamics computations on local clusters and the teragrid. Consequently, these tools are freely accessible and the dAFM simulations are run using standard web-based browsers without requiring additional software. A wide range of issues in dAFM ranging from optimal probe choice, probe stability, and tip-sample interaction forces, power dissipation, to material property extraction and scanning dynamics over hetereogeneous samples can be addressed.

LISP as an Environment for Software Design: Powerful and Perspicuous

PubMed Central

Blum, Robert L.; Walker, Michael G.

1986-01-01

The LISP language provides a useful set of features for prototyping knowledge-intensive, clinical applications software that is not found In most other programing environments. Medical computer programs that need large medical knowledge bases, such as programs for diagnosis, therapeutic consultation, education, simulation, and peer review, are hard to design, evolve continually, and often require major revisions. They necessitate an efficient and flexible program development environment. The LISP language and programming environments bullt around it are well suited for program prototyping. The lingua franca of artifical intelligence researchers, LISP facllitates bullding complex systems because it is simple yet powerful. Because of its simplicity, LISP programs can read, execute, modify and even compose other LISP programs at run time. Hence, it has been easy for system developers to create programming tools that greatly speed the program development process, and that may be easily extended by users. This has resulted in the creation of many useful graphical interfaces, editors, and debuggers, which facllitate the development of knowledge-intensive medical applications.

Simulation of a tethered microgravity robot pair and validation on a planar air bearing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mantellato, R.; Lorenzini, E. C.; Sternberg, D.; Roascio, D.; Saenz-Otero, A.; Zachrau, H. J.

2017-09-01

A software model has been developed to simulate the on-orbit dynamics of a dual-mass tethered system where one or both of the tethered spacecraft are able to produce propulsive thrust. The software simulates translations and rotations of both spacecraft, with the visco-elastic tether being simulated as a lumped-mass model. Thanks to this last feature, tether longitudinal and lateral modes of vibration and tether tension can be accurately assessed. Also, the way the spacecraft motion responds to sudden tether tension spikes can be studied in detail. The code enables the simulation of different scenarios, including space tug missions for deorbit maneuvers in a debris mitigation context and general-purpose tethered formation flight missions. This study aims to validate the software through a representative test campaign performed with the MIT Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) planar air bearing system. Results obtained with the numerical simulator are compared with data from direct measurements in different testing setups. The studied cases take into account different initial conditions of the spacecraft velocities and relative attitudes, and thrust forces. Data analysis is presented comparing the results of the simulations with direct measurements of acceleration and Azimuth rate of the two bodies in the planar air bearing test facility using a Nylon tether. Plans for conducting a microgravity test campaign using the SPHERES satellites aboard the International Space Station are also being scheduled in the near future in order to further validate the simulation using data from the relevant operational environment of extended microgravity with full six degree of freedom (per body) motion.

Simplifying the interaction between cognitive models and task environments with the JSON Network Interface.

PubMed

Hope, Ryan M; Schoelles, Michael J; Gray, Wayne D

2014-12-01

Process models of cognition, written in architectures such as ACT-R and EPIC, should be able to interact with the same software with which human subjects interact. By eliminating the need to simulate the experiment, this approach would simplify the modeler's effort, while ensuring that all steps required of the human are also required by the model. In practice, the difficulties of allowing one software system to interact with another present a significant barrier to any modeler who is not also skilled at this type of programming. The barrier increases if the programming language used by the modeling software differs from that used by the experimental software. The JSON Network Interface simplifies this problem for ACT-R modelers, and potentially, modelers using other systems.

The ALICE Software Release Validation cluster

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berzano, D.; Krzewicki, M.

2015-12-01

One of the most important steps of software lifecycle is Quality Assurance: this process comprehends both automatic tests and manual reviews, and all of them must pass successfully before the software is approved for production. Some tests, such as source code static analysis, are executed on a single dedicated service: in High Energy Physics, a full simulation and reconstruction chain on a distributed computing environment, backed with a sample “golden” dataset, is also necessary for the quality sign off. The ALICE experiment uses dedicated and virtualized computing infrastructures for the Release Validation in order not to taint the production environment (i.e. CVMFS and the Grid) with non-validated software and validation jobs: the ALICE Release Validation cluster is a disposable virtual cluster appliance based on CernVM and the Virtual Analysis Facility, capable of deploying on demand, and with a single command, a dedicated virtual HTCondor cluster with an automatically scalable number of virtual workers on any cloud supporting the standard EC2 interface. Input and output data are externally stored on EOS, and a dedicated CVMFS service is used to provide the software to be validated. We will show how the Release Validation Cluster deployment and disposal are completely transparent for the Release Manager, who simply triggers the validation from the ALICE build system's web interface. CernVM 3, based entirely on CVMFS, permits to boot any snapshot of the operating system in time: we will show how this allows us to certify each ALICE software release for an exact CernVM snapshot, addressing the problem of Long Term Data Preservation by ensuring a consistent environment for software execution and data reprocessing in the future.

Tool Support for Parametric Analysis of Large Software Simulation Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schumann, Johann; Gundy-Burlet, Karen; Pasareanu, Corina; Menzies, Tim; Barrett, Tony

2008-01-01

The analysis of large and complex parameterized software systems, e.g., systems simulation in aerospace, is very complicated and time-consuming due to the large parameter space, and the complex, highly coupled nonlinear nature of the different system components. Thus, such systems are generally validated only in regions local to anticipated operating points rather than through characterization of the entire feasible operational envelope of the system. We have addressed the factors deterring such an analysis with a tool to support envelope assessment: we utilize a combination of advanced Monte Carlo generation with n-factor combinatorial parameter variations to limit the number of cases, but still explore important interactions in the parameter space in a systematic fashion. Additional test-cases, automatically generated from models (e.g., UML, Simulink, Stateflow) improve the coverage. The distributed test runs of the software system produce vast amounts of data, making manual analysis impossible. Our tool automatically analyzes the generated data through a combination of unsupervised Bayesian clustering techniques (AutoBayes) and supervised learning of critical parameter ranges using the treatment learner TAR3. The tool has been developed around the Trick simulation environment, which is widely used within NASA. We will present this tool with a GN&C (Guidance, Navigation and Control) simulation of a small satellite system.

Simulator of Space Communication Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clare, Loren; Jennings, Esther; Gao, Jay; Segui, John; Kwong, Winston

2005-01-01

Multimission Advanced Communications Hybrid Environment for Test and Evaluation (MACHETE) is a suite of software tools that simulates the behaviors of communication networks to be used in space exploration, and predict the performance of established and emerging space communication protocols and services. MACHETE consists of four general software systems: (1) a system for kinematic modeling of planetary and spacecraft motions; (2) a system for characterizing the engineering impact on the bandwidth and reliability of deep-space and in-situ communication links; (3) a system for generating traffic loads and modeling of protocol behaviors and state machines; and (4) a system of user-interface for performance metric visualizations. The kinematic-modeling system makes it possible to characterize space link connectivity effects, including occultations and signal losses arising from dynamic slant-range changes and antenna radiation patterns. The link-engineering system also accounts for antenna radiation patterns and other phenomena, including modulations, data rates, coding, noise, and multipath fading. The protocol system utilizes information from the kinematic-modeling and link-engineering systems to simulate operational scenarios of space missions and evaluate overall network performance. In addition, a Communications Effect Server (CES) interface for MACHETE has been developed to facilitate hybrid simulation of space communication networks with actual flight/ground software/hardware embedded in the overall system.

Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology: A Methodology for Quantitative Technology Assessment and Prototyping of Unmanned Vehicles

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-01-30

Sensors: LIDAR , Camera, SONAR) is qualitatively or quantitatively ranked against the other options in such categories as weight and power consumption...Mapping ( SLAM ) and A*. The second software change in progress is upgrading from Unreal 2004 to is a bridge between an external program that defines a...current simulation setup, a simulated quad-copter with an Inertial Navigation System (INS) and ranging LIDAR sensor spawns within an environment and

CASE_ATTI: An Algorithm-Level Testbed for Multi-Sensor Data Fusion

DTIC Science & Technology

1995-05-01

Illumination Radar (STIR) control console, the SPS- 49 long-range radar, the Sea Giraffe medium-range radar and their associated CCS software modules. The...The current A WW sensor suite of the CPF comprises the SPS-49 long range 2-D radar, the Sea Giraffe medium range 2-D radar, the CANEWS ESM and the...and Sea Giraffe . . This represents an original novelty of our simulation environment. Conventional radar simulations such as CARPET are not fully

Biocellion: accelerating computer simulation of multicellular biological system models

PubMed Central

Kang, Seunghwa; Kahan, Simon; McDermott, Jason; Flann, Nicholas; Shmulevich, Ilya

2014-01-01

Motivation: Biological system behaviors are often the outcome of complex interactions among a large number of cells and their biotic and abiotic environment. Computational biologists attempt to understand, predict and manipulate biological system behavior through mathematical modeling and computer simulation. Discrete agent-based modeling (in combination with high-resolution grids to model the extracellular environment) is a popular approach for building biological system models. However, the computational complexity of this approach forces computational biologists to resort to coarser resolution approaches to simulate large biological systems. High-performance parallel computers have the potential to address the computing challenge, but writing efficient software for parallel computers is difficult and time-consuming. Results: We have developed Biocellion, a high-performance software framework, to solve this computing challenge using parallel computers. To support a wide range of multicellular biological system models, Biocellion asks users to provide their model specifics by filling the function body of pre-defined model routines. Using Biocellion, modelers without parallel computing expertise can efficiently exploit parallel computers with less effort than writing sequential programs from scratch. We simulate cell sorting, microbial patterning and a bacterial system in soil aggregate as case studies. Availability and implementation: Biocellion runs on x86 compatible systems with the 64 bit Linux operating system and is freely available for academic use. Visit http://biocellion.com for additional information. Contact: seunghwa.kang@pnnl.gov PMID:25064572

Software technology testbed softpanel prototype

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

The following subject areas are covered: analysis of using Ada for the development of real-time control systems for the Space Station; analysis of the functionality of the Application Generator; analysis of the User Support Environment criteria; analysis of the SSE tools and procedures which are to be used for the development of ground/flight software for the Space Station; analysis if the CBATS tutorial (an Ada tutorial package); analysis of Interleaf; analysis of the Integration, Test and Verification process of the Space Station; analysis of the DMS on-orbit flight architecture; analysis of the simulation architecture.

Modeling, Simulation, and Control of a Solar Electric Propulsion Vehicle in Near-Earth Vicinity Including Solar Array Degradation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Witzberger, Kevin (Inventor); Hojnicki, Jeffery (Inventor); Manzella, David (Inventor)

2016-01-01

Modeling and control software that integrates the complexities of solar array models, a space environment, and an electric propulsion system into a rigid body vehicle simulation and control model is provided. A rigid body vehicle simulation of a solar electric propulsion (SEP) vehicle may be created using at least one solar array model, at least one model of a space environment, and at least one model of a SEP propulsion system. Power availability and thrust profiles may be determined based on the rigid body vehicle simulation as the SEP vehicle transitions from a low Earth orbit (LEO) to a higher orbit or trajectory. The power availability and thrust profiles may be displayed such that a user can use the displayed power availability and thrust profiles to determine design parameters for an SEP vehicle mission.

MO-DE-BRA-02: SIMAC: A Simulation Tool for Teaching Linear Accelerator Physics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carlone, M; Harnett, N; Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario

Purpose: The first goal of this work is to develop software that can simulate the physics of linear accelerators (linac). The second goal is to show that this simulation tool is effective in teaching linac physics to medical physicists and linac service engineers. Methods: Linacs were modeled using analytical expressions that can correctly describe the physical response of a linac to parameter changes in real time. These expressions were programmed with a graphical user interface in order to produce an environment similar to that of linac service mode. The software, “SIMAC”, has been used as a learning aid in amore » professional development course 3 times (2014 – 2016) as well as in a physics graduate program. Exercises were developed to supplement the didactic components of the courses consisting of activites designed to reinforce the concepts of beam loading; the effect of steering coil currents on beam symmetry; and the relationship between beam energy and flatness. Results: SIMAC was used to teach 35 professionals (medical physicists; regulators; service engineers; 1 week course) as well as 20 graduate students (1 month project). In the student evaluations, 85% of the students rated the effectiveness of SIMAC as very good or outstanding, and 70% rated the software as the most effective part of the courses. Exercise results were collected showing that 100% of the students were able to use the software correctly. In exercises involving gross changes to linac operating points (i.e. energy changes) the majority of students were able to correctly perform these beam adjustments. Conclusion: Software simulation(SIMAC), can be used to effectively teach linac physics. In short courses, students were able to correctly make gross parameter adjustments that typically require much longer training times using conventional training methods.« less

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lehe, Remi

Many simulation software produce data in the form of a set of field values or of a set of particle positions. (one such example is that of particle-in-cell codes, which produce data on the electromagnetic fields that they simulate.) However, each particular software uses its own particular format and layout, for the output data. This makes it difficult to compare the results of different simulation software, or to have a common visualization tool for these results. However, a standardized layout for fields and particles has recently been developed: the openPMD format ( HYPERLINK "http://www.openpmd.org/"www.openpmd.org) This format is open- source, andmore » specifies a standard way in which field data and particle data should be written. The openPMD format is already implemented in the particle-in-cell code Warp (developed at LBL) and in PIConGPU (developed at HZDR, Germany). In this context, the proposed software (openPMD-viewer) is a Python package, which allows to access and visualize any data which has been formatted according to the openPMD standard. This package contains two main components: - a Python API, which allows to read and extract the data from a openPMD file, so as to be able to work with it within the Python environment. (e.g. plot the data and reprocess it with particular Python functions) - a graphical interface, which works with the ipython notebook, and allows to quickly visualize the data and browse through a set of openPMD files. The proposed software will be typically used when analyzing the results of numerical simulations. It will be useful to quickly extract scientific meaning from a set of numerical data.« less

User's Guide for the Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation (C-MAPSS): Version 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Yuan; Frederick, Dean K.; DeCastro, Jonathan A.; Litt, Jonathan S.; Chan, William W.

2012-01-01

This report is a Users Guide for version 2 of the NASA-developed Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation (C-MAPSS) software, which is a transient simulation of a large commercial turbofan engine (up to 90,000-lb thrust) with a realistic engine control system. The software supports easy access to health, control, and engine parameters through a graphical user interface (GUI). C-MAPSS v.2 has some enhancements over the original, including three actuators rather than one, the addition of actuator and sensor dynamics, and an improved controller, while retaining or improving on the convenience and user-friendliness of the original. C-MAPSS v.2 provides the user with a graphical turbofan engine simulation environment in which advanced algorithms can be implemented and tested. C-MAPSS can run user-specified transient simulations, and it can generate state-space linear models of the nonlinear engine model at an operating point. The code has a number of GUI screens that allow point-and-click operation, and have editable fields for user-specified input. The software includes an atmospheric model which allows simulation of engine operation at altitudes from sea level to 40,000 ft, Mach numbers from 0 to 0.90, and ambient temperatures from -60 to 103 F. The package also includes a power-management system that allows the engine to be operated over a wide range of thrust levels throughout the full range of flight conditions.

Simulation of Attitude and Trajectory Dynamics and Control of Multiple Spacecraft

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stoneking, Eric T.

2009-01-01

Agora software is a simulation of spacecraft attitude and orbit dynamics. It supports spacecraft models composed of multiple rigid bodies or flexible structural models. Agora simulates multiple spacecraft simultaneously, supporting rendezvous, proximity operations, and precision formation flying studies. The Agora environment includes ephemerides for all planets and major moons in the solar system, supporting design studies for deep space as well as geocentric missions. The environment also contains standard models for gravity, atmospheric density, and magnetic fields. Disturbance force and torque models include aerodynamic, gravity-gradient, solar radiation pressure, and third-body gravitation. In addition to the dynamic and environmental models, Agora supports geometrical visualization through an OpenGL interface. Prototype models are provided for common sensors, actuators, and control laws. A clean interface accommodates linking in actual flight code in place of the prototype control laws. The same simulation may be used for rapid feasibility studies, and then used for flight software validation as the design matures. Agora is open-source and portable across computing platforms, making it customizable and extensible. It is written to support the entire GNC (guidance, navigation, and control) design cycle, from rapid prototyping and design analysis, to high-fidelity flight code verification. As a top-down design, Agora is intended to accommodate a large range of missions, anywhere in the solar system. Both two-body and three-body flight regimes are supported, as well as seamless transition between them. Multiple spacecraft may be simultaneously simulated, enabling simulation of rendezvous scenarios, as well as formation flying. Built-in reference frames and orbit perturbation dynamics provide accurate modeling of precision formation control.

Test and Evaluation of WiMAX Performance Using Open-Source Modeling and Simulation Software Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-12-01

specific needs. For instance, one may seek to maximize the system throughput while maximizing the number of trans- mitted data packets with hard...seeking to maximize the throughput of the system (Yu 2008; Pishdad and Rabiee 2008; Piro et al. 2010; Wongthavarawat and Ganz 2003; Mohammadi, Akl, and...testing environment provides tools to allow for setting up and running test environments over multiple systems (buildbot) and provides classes to

OpenSatKit Enables Quick Startup for CubeSat Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McComas, David; Melton, Ryan

2017-01-01

The software required to develop, integrate, and operate a spacecraft is substantial regardless of whether its a large or small satellite. Even getting started can be a monumental task. To solve this problem, NASAs Core Flight System (cFS), NASA's 42 spacecraft dynamics simulator, and Ball Aerospaces COSMOS ground system have been integrated together into a kit called OpenSatKit that provides a complete and open source software solution for starting a new satellite mission. Users can have a working system with flight software, dynamics simulation, and a ground command and control system up and running within hours.Every satellite mission requires three primary categories of software to function. The first is Flight Software (FSW) which provides the onboard control of the satellites and its payload(s). NASA's cFS provides a great platform for developing this software. Second, while developing a satellite on earth, it is necessary to simulate the satellites orbit, attitude, and actuators, to ensure that the systems that control these aspects will work correctly in the real environment. NASAs 42 simulator provides these functionalities. Finally, the ground has to be able to communicate with the satellite, monitor its performance and health, and display its data. Additionally, test scripts have to be written to verify the system on the ground. Ball Aerospace's COSMOS command and control system provides this functionality. Once the OpenSatKit is up and running, the next step is to customize the platform and get it running on the end target. Starting from a fully working system makes porting the cFS from Linux to a users platform much easier. An example Raspberry Pi target is included in the kit so users can gain experience working with a low cost hardware target. All users can benefit from OpenSatKit but the greatest impact and benefits will be to SmallSat missions with constrained budgets and small software teams. This paper describes OpenSatKits system design, the steps necessary to run the system to target the Raspberry Pi, and future plans. OpenSatKit is a free fully functional spacecraft software system that we hope will greatly benefit the SmallSat community.

Towards photorealistic and immersive virtual-reality environments for simulated prosthetic vision: integrating recent breakthroughs in consumer hardware and software.

PubMed

Zapf, Marc P; Matteucci, Paul B; Lovell, Nigel H; Zheng, Steven; Suaning, Gregg J

2014-01-01

Simulated prosthetic vision (SPV) in normally sighted subjects is an established way of investigating the prospective efficacy of visual prosthesis designs in visually guided tasks such as mobility. To perform meaningful SPV mobility studies in computer-based environments, a credible representation of both the virtual scene to navigate and the experienced artificial vision has to be established. It is therefore prudent to make optimal use of existing hardware and software solutions when establishing a testing framework. The authors aimed at improving the realism and immersion of SPV by integrating state-of-the-art yet low-cost consumer technology. The feasibility of body motion tracking to control movement in photo-realistic virtual environments was evaluated in a pilot study. Five subjects were recruited and performed an obstacle avoidance and wayfinding task using either keyboard and mouse, gamepad or Kinect motion tracking. Walking speed and collisions were analyzed as basic measures for task performance. Kinect motion tracking resulted in lower performance as compared to classical input methods, yet results were more uniform across vision conditions. The chosen framework was successfully applied in a basic virtual task and is suited to realistically simulate real-world scenes under SPV in mobility research. Classical input peripherals remain a feasible and effective way of controlling the virtual movement. Motion tracking, despite its limitations and early state of implementation, is intuitive and can eliminate between-subject differences due to familiarity to established input methods.

Multiphysics Simulations: Challenges and Opportunities

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Keyes, David; McInnes, Lois C.; Woodward, Carol

2013-02-12

We consider multiphysics applications from algorithmic and architectural perspectives, where ‘‘algorithmic’’ includes both mathematical analysis and computational complexity, and ‘‘architectural’’ includes both software and hardware environments. Many diverse multiphysics applications can be reduced, en route to their computational simulation, to a common algebraic coupling paradigm. Mathematical analysis of multiphysics coupling in this form is not always practical for realistic applications, but model problems representative of applications discussed herein can provide insight. A variety of software frameworks for multiphysics applications have been constructed and refined within disciplinary communities and executed on leading-edge computer systems. We examine several of these, expose somemore » commonalities among them, and attempt to extrapolate best practices to future systems. From our study, we summarize challenges and forecast opportunities.« less

Using Automation to Improve the Flight Software Testing Process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

ODonnell, James R., Jr.; Andrews, Stephen F.; Morgenstern, Wendy M.; Bartholomew, Maureen O.; McComas, David C.; Bauer, Frank H. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

One of the critical phases in the development of a spacecraft attitude control system (ACS) is the testing of its flight software. The testing (and test verification) of ACS flight software requires a mix of skills involving software, attitude control, data manipulation, and analysis. The process of analyzing and verifying flight software test results often creates a bottleneck which dictates the speed at which flight software verification can be conducted. In the development of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft ACS subsystem, an integrated design environment was used that included a MAP high fidelity (HiFi) simulation, a central database of spacecraft parameters, a script language for numeric and string processing, and plotting capability. In this integrated environment, it was possible to automate many of the steps involved in flight software testing, making the entire process more efficient and thorough than on previous missions. In this paper, we will compare the testing process used on MAP to that used on previous missions. The software tools that were developed to automate testing and test verification will be discussed, including the ability to import and process test data, synchronize test data and automatically generate HiFi script files used for test verification, and an automated capability for generating comparison plots. A summary of the perceived benefits of applying these test methods on MAP will be given. Finally, the paper will conclude with a discussion of re-use of the tools and techniques presented, and the ongoing effort to apply them to flight software testing of the Triana spacecraft ACS subsystem.

Using Automation to Improve the Flight Software Testing Process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

ODonnell, James R., Jr.; Morgenstern, Wendy M.; Bartholomew, Maureen O.

2001-01-01

One of the critical phases in the development of a spacecraft attitude control system (ACS) is the testing of its flight software. The testing (and test verification) of ACS flight software requires a mix of skills involving software, knowledge of attitude control, and attitude control hardware, data manipulation, and analysis. The process of analyzing and verifying flight software test results often creates a bottleneck which dictates the speed at which flight software verification can be conducted. In the development of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft ACS subsystem, an integrated design environment was used that included a MAP high fidelity (HiFi) simulation, a central database of spacecraft parameters, a script language for numeric and string processing, and plotting capability. In this integrated environment, it was possible to automate many of the steps involved in flight software testing, making the entire process more efficient and thorough than on previous missions. In this paper, we will compare the testing process used on MAP to that used on other missions. The software tools that were developed to automate testing and test verification will be discussed, including the ability to import and process test data, synchronize test data and automatically generate HiFi script files used for test verification, and an automated capability for generating comparison plots. A summary of the benefits of applying these test methods on MAP will be given. Finally, the paper will conclude with a discussion of re-use of the tools and techniques presented, and the ongoing effort to apply them to flight software testing of the Triana spacecraft ACS subsystem.

ISS Propulsion Module Crew Systems Interface Analysis in the Intelligent Synthesis Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chen, Di-Wen

1999-01-01

ERGO, a human modeling software for ergonomic assessment and task analysis, was used for the crew systems interface analysis of the International Space Station (ISS) Propulsion Module (PM). The objective of analysis was to alleviate passageway size concerns. Three basic passageway configuration concepts: (1) 45" clear passageway without centerline offset (2) 50" clear passageway, 12" centerline offset, (3) 50" clear passageway, no centerline offset, and were reviewed. 95 percentile male and female models which were provided by the software performed crew system analysis from an anthropometric point of view. Four scenarios in which the crew floats in microgravity through a 50" no-offset passageway as they carry a 16" x 20" x 30" avionics box were simulated in the 10-weeks of intensive study. From the results of the analysis, concept (3) was the preferred option. A full scale, three-dimensional virtual model of the ISS Propulsion Module was created to experience the sense of the Intelligent Synthesis Environment and to evaluate the usability and applicability of the software.

A MD simulation and analysis for aggregation behaviors of nanoscale zero-valent iron particles in water via MS.

PubMed

Zhao, Ying; Liu, Dongmei; Tang, Huan; Lu, Jing; Cui, Fuyi

2014-01-01

With the development of nanotechnology, more nanomaterials will enter into water environment system. Studying the existing form of nanomaterials in water environment will help people benefit from the correct use of them and to reduce the harm to human caused by them for some nanomaterials can bring polluting effect. Aggregation is a main behavior for nanoparticle in water environment. NZVI are used widely in many fields resulting in more NZVI in water environment. Molecular dynamics simulations and Materials Studio software are used to investigate the microaggregation behaviors of NZVI particles. Two scenes are involved: (1) particle size of NZVI in each simulation system is the same, but initial distance of two NZVI particles is different; (2) initial distance of two NZVI particles in each simulation system is the same, but particle size of NZVI is different. Atomistic trajectory, NP activity, total energy, and adsorption of H2O are analyzed with MS. The method provides new quantitative insight into the structure, energy, and dynamics of the aggregation behaviors of NZVI particles in water. It is necessary to understand microchange of NPs in water because it can provide theoretical research that is used to reduce polluting effect of NPs on water environment.

A MD Simulation and Analysis for Aggregation Behaviors of Nanoscale Zero-Valent Iron Particles in Water via MS

PubMed Central

Liu, Dongmei; Tang, Huan; Lu, Jing; Cui, Fuyi

2014-01-01

With the development of nanotechnology, more nanomaterials will enter into water environment system. Studying the existing form of nanomaterials in water environment will help people benefit from the correct use of them and to reduce the harm to human caused by them for some nanomaterials can bring polluting effect. Aggregation is a main behavior for nanoparticle in water environment. NZVI are used widely in many fields resulting in more NZVI in water environment. Molecular dynamics simulations and Materials Studio software are used to investigate the microaggregation behaviors of NZVI particles. Two scenes are involved: (1) particle size of NZVI in each simulation system is the same, but initial distance of two NZVI particles is different; (2) initial distance of two NZVI particles in each simulation system is the same, but particle size of NZVI is different. Atomistic trajectory, NP activity, total energy, and adsorption of H2O are analyzed with MS. The method provides new quantitative insight into the structure, energy, and dynamics of the aggregation behaviors of NZVI particles in water. It is necessary to understand microchange of NPs in water because it can provide theoretical research that is used to reduce polluting effect of NPs on water environment. PMID:25250388

Pilot interaction with automated airborne decision making systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rouse, W. B.; Hammer, J. M.; Morris, N. M.; Brown, E. N.; Yoon, W. C.

1983-01-01

The use of advanced software engineering methods (e.g., from artificial intelligence) to aid aircraft crews in procedure selection and execution is investigated. Human problem solving in dynamic environments as effected by the human's level of knowledge of system operations is examined. Progress on the development of full scale simulation facilities is also discussed.

A Teamwork-Oriented Air Traffic Control Simulator

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-06-01

the software development methodology of this work , this chapter is viewed as the acquisition phase of this model. The end of the ...Maintenance phase Changed Verification Retirement Development Maintenance 37 because the different controllers working in these phases usually...traditional operation such as scaling the airport and personalizing the working environment. 4. Pilot Specification The

Health Information System Simulation. Curriculum Improvement Project. Region II.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Beth H.; Lacobie, Kevin

This volume is one of three in a self-paced computer literacy course that gives allied health students a firm base of knowledge concerning computer usage in the hospital environment. It also develops skill in several applications software packages. This volume contains five self-paced modules that allow students to interact with a health…

Beam Dynamics Simulation Platform and Studies of Beam Breakup in Dielectric Wakefield Structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schoessow, P.; Kanareykin, A.; Jing, C.; Kustov, A.; Altmark, A.; Gai, W.

2010-11-01

A particle-Green's function beam dynamics code (BBU-3000) to study beam breakup effects is incorporated into a parallel computing framework based on the Boinc software environment, and supports both task farming on a heterogeneous cluster and local grid computing. User access to the platform is through a web browser.

Methodology and application of high performance electrostatic field simulation in the KATRIN experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Corona, Thomas

The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment is a tritium beta decay experiment designed to make a direct, model independent measurement of the electron neutrino mass. The experimental apparatus employs strong ( O[T]) magnetostatic and (O[10 5 V/m]) electrostatic fields in regions of ultra high (O[10-11 mbar]) vacuum in order to obtain precise measurements of the electron energy spectrum near the endpoint of tritium beta-decay. The electrostatic fields in KATRIN are formed by multiscale electrode geometries, necessitating the development of high performance field simulation software. To this end, we present a Boundary Element Method (BEM) with analytic boundary integral terms in conjunction with the Robin Hood linear algebraic solver, a nonstationary successive subspace correction (SSC) method. We describe an implementation of these techniques for high performance computing environments in the software KEMField, along with the geometry modeling and discretization software KGeoBag. We detail the application of KEMField and KGeoBag to KATRIN's spectrometer and detector sections, and demonstrate its use in furthering several of KATRIN's scientific goals. Finally, we present the results of a measurement designed to probe the electrostatic profile of KATRIN's main spectrometer in comparison to simulated results.

Development and Application of a Portable Health Algorithms Test System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Melcher, Kevin J.; Fulton, Christopher E.; Maul, William A.; Sowers, T. Shane

2007-01-01

This paper describes the development and initial demonstration of a Portable Health Algorithms Test (PHALT) System that is being developed by researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). The PHALT System was conceived as a means of evolving the maturity and credibility of algorithms developed to assess the health of aerospace systems. Comprising an integrated hardware-software environment, the PHALT System allows systems health management algorithms to be developed in a graphical programming environment; to be tested and refined using system simulation or test data playback; and finally, to be evaluated in a real-time hardware-in-the-loop mode with a live test article. In this paper, PHALT System development is described through the presentation of a functional architecture, followed by the selection and integration of hardware and software. Also described is an initial real-time hardware-in-the-loop demonstration that used sensor data qualification algorithms to diagnose and isolate simulated sensor failures in a prototype Power Distribution Unit test-bed. Success of the initial demonstration is highlighted by the correct detection of all sensor failures and the absence of any real-time constraint violations.

An Open Simulation System Model for Scientific Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Anthony D.

1995-01-01

A model for a generic and open environment for running multi-code or multi-application simulations - called the open Simulation System Model (OSSM) - is proposed and defined. This model attempts to meet the requirements of complex systems like the Numerical Propulsion Simulator System (NPSS). OSSM places no restrictions on the types of applications that can be integrated at any state of its evolution. This includes applications of different disciplines, fidelities, etc. An implementation strategy is proposed that starts with a basic prototype, and evolves over time to accommodate an increasing number of applications. Potential (standard) software is also identified which may aid in the design and implementation of the system.

A Spatial Analysis and Modeling System (SAMS) for environment management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stetina, Fran; Hill, John; Chan, Paul; Jaske, Robert; Rochon, Gilbert

1993-01-01

This is a proposal to develop a uniform global environmental data gathering and distribution system to support the calibration and validation of remotely sensed data. SAMS is based on an enhanced version of FEMA's Integrated Emergency Management Information Systems and the Department of Defense's Air land Battlefield Environment Software Systems. This system consists of state-of-the-art graphics and visualization techniques, simulation models, database management and expert systems for conducting environmental and disaster preparedness studies. This software package will be integrated into various Landsat and UNEP-GRID stations which are planned to become direct readout stations during the EOS (Earth Observing System) timeframe. This system would be implemented as a pilot program to support the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). This will be a joint NASA-FEMA-University-Industry project.

A Spatial Analysis and Modeling System (SAMS) for environment management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vermillion, Charles H.; Stetina, Fran; Hill, John; Chan, Paul; Jaske, Robert; Rochon, Gilbert

1992-01-01

This is a proposal to develop a uniform global environmental data gathering and distribution system to support the calibration and validation of remotely sensed data. SAMS is based on an enhanced version of FE MA's Integrated Emergency Management Information Systems and the Department of Defense's Air Land Battlefield Environment Software Systems. This system consists of state-of-the-art graphics and visualization techniques, simulation models, database management and expert systems for conducting environmental and disaster preparedness studies. This software package will be integrated into various Landsat and UNEP-GRID stations which are planned to become direct readout stations during the EOS timeframe. This system would be implemented as a pilot program to support the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). This will be a joint NASA-FEMA-University-Industry project.

Enhanced Electric Power Transmission by Hybrid Compensation Technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Palanichamy, C.; Kiu, G. Q.

2015-04-01

In today's competitive environment, new power system engineers are likely to contribute immediately to the task, without years of seasoning via on-the-job training, mentoring, and rotation assignments. At the same time it is becoming obligatory to train power system engineering graduates for an increasingly quality-minded corporate environment. In order to achieve this, there is a need to make available better-quality tools for educating and training power system engineering students and in-service system engineers too. As a result of the swift advances in computer hardware and software, many windows-based computer software packages were developed for the purpose of educating and training. In line with those packages, a simulation package called Hybrid Series-Shunt Compensators (HSSC) has been developed and presented in this paper for educational purposes.

Using CLIPS to represent knowledge in a VR simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Engelberg, Mark L.

1994-01-01

Virtual reality (VR) is an exciting use of advanced hardware and software technologies to achieve an immersive simulation. Until recently, the majority of virtual environments were merely 'fly-throughs' in which a user could freely explore a 3-dimensional world or a visualized dataset. Now that the underlying technologies are reaching a level of maturity, programmers are seeking ways to increase the complexity and interactivity of immersive simulations. In most cases, interactivity in a virtual environment can be specified in the form 'whenever such-and-such happens to object X, it reacts in the following manner.' CLIPS and COOL provide a simple and elegant framework for representing this knowledge-base in an efficient manner that can be extended incrementally. The complexity of a detailed simulation becomes more manageable when the control flow is governed by CLIPS' rule-based inference engine as opposed to by traditional procedural mechanisms. Examples in this paper will illustrate an effective way to represent VR information in CLIPS, and to tie this knowledge base to the input and output C routines of a typical virtual environment.

The ALMA common software: dispatch from the trenches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwarz, J.; Sommer, H.; Jeram, B.; Sekoranja, M.; Chiozzi, G.; Grimstrup, A.; Caproni, A.; Paredes, C.; Allaert, E.; Harrington, S.; Turolla, S.; Cirami, R.

2008-07-01

The ALMA Common Software (ACS) provides both an application framework and CORBA-based middleware for the distributed software system of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. Building upon open-source tools such as the JacORB, TAO and OmniORB ORBs, ACS supports the development of component-based software in any of three languages: Java, C++ and Python. Now in its seventh major release, ACS has matured, both in its feature set as well as in its reliability and performance. However, it is only recently that the ALMA observatory's hardware and application software has reached a level at which it can exploit and challenge the infrastructure that ACS provides. In particular, the availability of an Antenna Test Facility(ATF) at the site of the Very Large Array in New Mexico has enabled us to exercise and test the still evolving end-to-end ALMA software under realistic conditions. The major focus of ACS, consequently, has shifted from the development of new features to consideration of how best to use those that already exist. Configuration details which could be neglected for the purpose of running unit tests or skeletal end-to-end simulations have turned out to be sensitive levers for achieving satisfactory performance in a real-world environment. Surprising behavior in some open-source tools has required us to choose between patching code that we did not write or addressing its deficiencies by implementing workarounds in our own software. We will discuss these and other aspects of our recent experience at the ATF and in simulation.

Collaborative environments for capability-based planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McQuay, William K.

2005-05-01

Distributed collaboration is an emerging technology for the 21st century that will significantly change how business is conducted in the defense and commercial sectors. Collaboration involves two or more geographically dispersed entities working together to create a "product" by sharing and exchanging data, information, and knowledge. A product is defined broadly to include, for example, writing a report, creating software, designing hardware, or implementing robust systems engineering and capability planning processes in an organization. Collaborative environments provide the framework and integrate models, simulations, domain specific tools, and virtual test beds to facilitate collaboration between the multiple disciplines needed in the enterprise. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is conducting a leading edge program in developing distributed collaborative technologies targeted to the Air Force's implementation of systems engineering for a simulation-aided acquisition and capability-based planning. The research is focusing on the open systems agent-based framework, product and process modeling, structural architecture, and the integration technologies - the glue to integrate the software components. In past four years, two live assessment events have been conducted to demonstrate the technology in support of research for the Air Force Agile Acquisition initiatives. The AFRL Collaborative Environment concept will foster a major cultural change in how the acquisition, training, and operational communities conduct business.

An Interactive, Physics-Based Unmanned Ground Vehicle Simulator Leveraging Open Source Gaming Technology: Progress in the Development and Application of the Virtual Autonomous Navigation Environment (VANE) Desktop

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-01-01

interface, mechatronics, video games 1. INTRODUCTION Engineering methods have substantially and continuously evolved over the past 40 years. In the past...1970s, video games have pioneered interactive simulation and laid the groundwork for inexpensive computing that individuals, corporations, and...purposes. This has not gone unnoticed, and software technology and techniques evolved for video games are beginning to have extraordinary impact in

BioNetFit: a fitting tool compatible with BioNetGen, NFsim and distributed computing environments

DOE PAGES

Thomas, Brandon R.; Chylek, Lily A.; Colvin, Joshua; ...

2015-11-09

Rule-based models are analyzed with specialized simulators, such as those provided by the BioNetGen and NFsim open-source software packages. Here in this paper, we present BioNetFit, a general-purpose fitting tool that is compatible with BioNetGen and NFsim. BioNetFit is designed to take advantage of distributed computing resources. This feature facilitates fitting (i.e. optimization of parameter values for consistency with data) when simulations are computationally expensive.

STSE: Spatio-Temporal Simulation Environment Dedicated to Biology.

PubMed

Stoma, Szymon; Fröhlich, Martina; Gerber, Susanne; Klipp, Edda

2011-04-28

Recently, the availability of high-resolution microscopy together with the advancements in the development of biomarkers as reporters of biomolecular interactions increased the importance of imaging methods in molecular cell biology. These techniques enable the investigation of cellular characteristics like volume, size and geometry as well as volume and geometry of intracellular compartments, and the amount of existing proteins in a spatially resolved manner. Such detailed investigations opened up many new areas of research in the study of spatial, complex and dynamic cellular systems. One of the crucial challenges for the study of such systems is the design of a well stuctured and optimized workflow to provide a systematic and efficient hypothesis verification. Computer Science can efficiently address this task by providing software that facilitates handling, analysis, and evaluation of biological data to the benefit of experimenters and modelers. The Spatio-Temporal Simulation Environment (STSE) is a set of open-source tools provided to conduct spatio-temporal simulations in discrete structures based on microscopy images. The framework contains modules to digitize, represent, analyze, and mathematically model spatial distributions of biochemical species. Graphical user interface (GUI) tools provided with the software enable meshing of the simulation space based on the Voronoi concept. In addition, it supports to automatically acquire spatial information to the mesh from the images based on pixel luminosity (e.g. corresponding to molecular levels from microscopy images). STSE is freely available either as a stand-alone version or included in the linux live distribution Systems Biology Operational Software (SB.OS) and can be downloaded from http://www.stse-software.org/. The Python source code as well as a comprehensive user manual and video tutorials are also offered to the research community. We discuss main concepts of the STSE design and workflow. We demonstrate it's usefulness using the example of a signaling cascade leading to formation of a morphological gradient of Fus3 within the cytoplasm of the mating yeast cell Saccharomyces cerevisiae. STSE is an efficient and powerful novel platform, designed for computational handling and evaluation of microscopic images. It allows for an uninterrupted workflow including digitization, representation, analysis, and mathematical modeling. By providing the means to relate the simulation to the image data it allows for systematic, image driven model validation or rejection. STSE can be scripted and extended using the Python language. STSE should be considered rather as an API together with workflow guidelines and a collection of GUI tools than a stand alone application. The priority of the project is to provide an easy and intuitive way of extending and customizing software using the Python language.

Real-time 3D radiation risk assessment supporting simulation of work in nuclear environments.

PubMed

Szőke, I; Louka, M N; Bryntesen, T R; Bratteli, J; Edvardsen, S T; RøEitrheim, K K; Bodor, K

2014-06-01

This paper describes the latest developments at the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) in Norway, in the field of real-time 3D (three-dimensional) radiation risk assessment for the support of work simulation in nuclear environments. 3D computer simulation can greatly facilitate efficient work planning, briefing, and training of workers. It can also support communication within and between work teams, and with advisors, regulators, the media and public, at all the stages of a nuclear installation's lifecycle. Furthermore, it is also a beneficial tool for reviewing current work practices in order to identify possible gaps in procedures, as well as to support the updating of international recommendations, dissemination of experience, and education of the current and future generation of workers.IFE has been involved in research and development into the application of 3D computer simulation and virtual reality (VR) technology to support work in radiological environments in the nuclear sector since the mid 1990s. During this process, two significant software tools have been developed, the VRdose system and the Halden Planner, and a number of publications have been produced to contribute to improving the safety culture in the nuclear industry.This paper describes the radiation risk assessment techniques applied in earlier versions of the VRdose system and the Halden Planner, for visualising radiation fields and calculating dose, and presents new developments towards implementing a flexible and up-to-date dosimetric package in these 3D software tools, based on new developments in the field of radiation protection. The latest versions of these 3D tools are capable of more accurate risk estimation, permit more flexibility via a range of user choices, and are applicable to a wider range of irradiation situations than their predecessors.

Development of a Flight Simulation Data Visualization Workstation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kaplan, Joseph A.; Chen, Ronnie; Kenney, Patrick S.; Koval, Christopher M.; Hutchinson, Brian K.

1996-01-01

Today's moderm flight simulation research produces vast amounts of time sensitive data. The meaning of this data can be difficult to assess while in its raw format . Therefore, a method of breaking the data down and presenting it to the user in a graphical format is necessary. Simulation Graphics (SimGraph) is intended as a data visualization software package that will incorporate simulation data into a variety of animated graphical displays for easy interpretation by the simulation researcher. Although it was created for the flight simulation facilities at NASA Langley Research Center, SimGraph can be reconfigured to almost any data visualization environment. This paper traces the design, development and implementation of the SimGraph program, and is intended to be a programmer's reference guide.

Remote detection of carbon monoxide by FTIR for simulating field detection in industrial process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Qiankun; Liu, Wenqing; Zhang, Yujun; Gao, Mingguang; Xu, Liang; Li, Xiangxian; Jin, Ling

2016-10-01

In order to monitor carbon monoxide in industrial production, we developed a passive gas radiation measurement system based on Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and carried out infrared radiation measurement experiment of carbon monoxide detection in simulated industrial production environment by this system. The principle, condition, device and data processing method of the experiment are introduced in this paper. In order to solve the problem of light path jitter in the actual industrial field, we simulated the noise in the industrial environment. We combine the advantages of MATHEMATICA software in the aspects of graph processing and symbolic computation to data processing to improve the signal noise ratio and noise suppression. Based on the HITRAN database, the nonlinear least square fitting method was used to calculate the concentration of the CO spectra before and after the data processing. By comparing the calculated concentration, the data processed by MATHEMATICA is reliable and necessary in the industrial production environment.

Numerical Relativity Simulations of Compact Binary Populations in Dense Stellar Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glennon, Derek Ray; Huerta, Eliu; Allen, Gabrielle; Haas, Roland; Seidel, Edward; NCSA Gravity Group

2018-01-01

We present a catalog of numerical relativity simulations that describe binary black hole mergers on eccentric orbits. These simulations have been obtained with the open source, Einstein Toolkit numerical relativity software, using the Blue Waters supercomputer. We use this catalog to quantify observables, such as the mass and spin of black holes formed by binary black hole mergers, as a function of eccentricity. This study is the first of its kind in the literature to quantify these astrophysical observables for binary black hole mergers with mass-ratios q<6, and eccentricities e<0.2. This study is an important step in understanding the properties of eccentric binary black hole mergers, and informs the use of gravitational wave observations to confirm or rule out the existence of compact binary populations in dense stellar environments.

Oak Ridge Institutional Cluster Autotune Test Drive Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jibonananda, Sanyal; New, Joshua Ryan

2014-02-01

The Oak Ridge Institutional Cluster (OIC) provides general purpose computational resources for the ORNL staff to run computation heavy jobs that are larger than desktop applications but do not quite require the scale and power of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). This report details the efforts made and conclusions derived in performing a short test drive of the cluster resources on Phase 5 of the OIC. EnergyPlus was used in the analysis as a candidate user program and the overall software environment was evaluated against anticipated challenges experienced with resources such as the shared memory-Nautilus (JICS) and Titanmore » (OLCF). The OIC performed within reason and was found to be acceptable in the context of running EnergyPlus simulations. The number of cores per node and the availability of scratch space per node allow non-traditional desktop focused applications to leverage parallel ensemble execution. Although only individual runs of EnergyPlus were executed, the software environment on the OIC appeared suitable to run ensemble simulations with some modifications to the Autotune workflow. From a standpoint of general usability, the system supports common Linux libraries, compilers, standard job scheduling software (Torque/Moab), and the OpenMPI library (the only MPI library) for MPI communications. The file system is a Panasas file system which literature indicates to be an efficient file system.« less

Report of experiments and evidence for ASC L2 milestone 4467 : demonstration of a legacy application's path to exascale.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Curry, Matthew L.; Ferreira, Kurt Brian; Pedretti, Kevin Thomas Tauke

2012-03-01

This report documents thirteen of Sandia's contributions to the Computational Systems and Software Environment (CSSE) within the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program between fiscal years 2009 and 2012. It describes their impact on ASC applications. Most contributions are implemented in lower software levels allowing for application improvement without source code changes. Improvements are identified in such areas as reduced run time, characterizing power usage, and Input/Output (I/O). Other experiments are more forward looking, demonstrating potential bottlenecks using mini-application versions of the legacy codes and simulating their network activity on Exascale-class hardware. The purpose of this report is to provemore » that the team has completed milestone 4467-Demonstration of a Legacy Application's Path to Exascale. Cielo is expected to be the last capability system on which existing ASC codes can run without significant modifications. This assertion will be tested to determine where the breaking point is for an existing highly scalable application. The goal is to stretch the performance boundaries of the application by applying recent CSSE RD in areas such as resilience, power, I/O, visualization services, SMARTMAP, lightweight LWKs, virtualization, simulation, and feedback loops. Dedicated system time reservations and/or CCC allocations will be used to quantify the impact of system-level changes to extend the life and performance of the ASC code base. Finally, a simulation of anticipated exascale-class hardware will be performed using SST to supplement the calculations. Determine where the breaking point is for an existing highly scalable application: Chapter 15 presented the CSSE work that sought to identify the breaking point in two ASC legacy applications-Charon and CTH. Their mini-app versions were also employed to complete the task. There is no single breaking point as more than one issue was found with the two codes. The results were that applications can expect to encounter performance issues related to the computing environment, system software, and algorithms. Careful profiling of runtime performance will be needed to identify the source of an issue, in strong combination with knowledge of system software and application source code.« less

A virtual environment for medical radiation collaborative learning.

PubMed

Bridge, Pete; Trapp, Jamie V; Kastanis, Lazaros; Pack, Darren; Parker, Jacqui C

2015-06-01

A software-based environment was developed to provide practical training in medical radiation principles and safety. The Virtual Radiation Laboratory application allowed students to conduct virtual experiments using simulated diagnostic and radiotherapy X-ray generators. The experiments were designed to teach students about the inverse square law, half value layer and radiation protection measures and utilised genuine clinical and experimental data. Evaluation of the application was conducted in order to ascertain the impact of the software on students' understanding, satisfaction and collaborative learning skills and also to determine potential further improvements to the software and guidelines for its continued use. Feedback was gathered via an anonymous online survey consisting of a mixture of Likert-style questions and short answer open questions. Student feedback was highly positive with 80 % of students reporting increased understanding of radiation protection principles. Furthermore 72 % enjoyed using the software and 87 % of students felt that the project facilitated collaboration within small groups. The main themes arising in the qualitative feedback comments related to efficiency and effectiveness of teaching, safety of environment, collaboration and realism. Staff and students both report gains in efficiency and effectiveness associated with the virtual experiments. In addition students particularly value the visualisation of "invisible" physical principles and increased opportunity for experimentation and collaborative problem-based learning. Similar ventures will benefit from adopting an approach that allows for individual experimentation while visualizing challenging concepts.

Virtual Systems Pharmacology (ViSP) software for simulation from mechanistic systems-level models.

PubMed

Ermakov, Sergey; Forster, Peter; Pagidala, Jyotsna; Miladinov, Marko; Wang, Albert; Baillie, Rebecca; Bartlett, Derek; Reed, Mike; Leil, Tarek A

2014-01-01

Multiple software programs are available for designing and running large scale system-level pharmacology models used in the drug development process. Depending on the problem, scientists may be forced to use several modeling tools that could increase model development time, IT costs and so on. Therefore, it is desirable to have a single platform that allows setting up and running large-scale simulations for the models that have been developed with different modeling tools. We developed a workflow and a software platform in which a model file is compiled into a self-contained executable that is no longer dependent on the software that was used to create the model. At the same time the full model specifics is preserved by presenting all model parameters as input parameters for the executable. This platform was implemented as a model agnostic, therapeutic area agnostic and web-based application with a database back-end that can be used to configure, manage and execute large-scale simulations for multiple models by multiple users. The user interface is designed to be easily configurable to reflect the specifics of the model and the user's particular needs and the back-end database has been implemented to store and manage all aspects of the systems, such as Models, Virtual Patients, User Interface Settings, and Results. The platform can be adapted and deployed on an existing cluster or cloud computing environment. Its use was demonstrated with a metabolic disease systems pharmacology model that simulates the effects of two antidiabetic drugs, metformin and fasiglifam, in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.

Virtual Systems Pharmacology (ViSP) software for simulation from mechanistic systems-level models

PubMed Central

Ermakov, Sergey; Forster, Peter; Pagidala, Jyotsna; Miladinov, Marko; Wang, Albert; Baillie, Rebecca; Bartlett, Derek; Reed, Mike; Leil, Tarek A.

2014-01-01

Multiple software programs are available for designing and running large scale system-level pharmacology models used in the drug development process. Depending on the problem, scientists may be forced to use several modeling tools that could increase model development time, IT costs and so on. Therefore, it is desirable to have a single platform that allows setting up and running large-scale simulations for the models that have been developed with different modeling tools. We developed a workflow and a software platform in which a model file is compiled into a self-contained executable that is no longer dependent on the software that was used to create the model. At the same time the full model specifics is preserved by presenting all model parameters as input parameters for the executable. This platform was implemented as a model agnostic, therapeutic area agnostic and web-based application with a database back-end that can be used to configure, manage and execute large-scale simulations for multiple models by multiple users. The user interface is designed to be easily configurable to reflect the specifics of the model and the user's particular needs and the back-end database has been implemented to store and manage all aspects of the systems, such as Models, Virtual Patients, User Interface Settings, and Results. The platform can be adapted and deployed on an existing cluster or cloud computing environment. Its use was demonstrated with a metabolic disease systems pharmacology model that simulates the effects of two antidiabetic drugs, metformin and fasiglifam, in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. PMID:25374542

Telearch - Integrated visual simulation environment for collaborative virtual archaeology.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kurillo, Gregorij; Forte, Maurizio

Archaeologists collect vast amounts of digital data around the world; however, they lack tools for integration and collaborative interaction to support reconstruction and interpretation process. TeleArch software is aimed to integrate different data sources and provide real-time interaction tools for remote collaboration of geographically distributed scholars inside a shared virtual environment. The framework also includes audio, 2D and 3D video streaming technology to facilitate remote presence of users. In this paper, we present several experimental case studies to demonstrate the integration and interaction with 3D models and geographical information system (GIS) data in this collaborative environment.

AF-GEOSPACE Version 2.1

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hilmer, R. V.; Ginet, G. P.; Hall, T.; Holeman, E.; Madden, D.; Tautz, M.; Roth, C.

2004-05-01

AF-GEOSpace is a graphics-intensive software program with space environment models and applications developed and distributed by the Space Weather Center of Excellence at AFRL. A review of current (Version 2.0) and planned (Version 2.1) AF-GEOSpace capabilities will be given. A wide range of physical domains is represented enabling the software to address such things as solar disturbance propagation, radiation belt configuration, and ionospheric auroral particle precipitation and scintillation. The software is currently being used to aid with the design, operation, and simulation of a wide variety of communications, navigation, and surveillance systems. Building on the success of previous releases, AF-GEOSpace has become a platform for the rapid prototyping of automated operational and simulation space weather visualization products and helps with a variety of tasks, including: orbit specification for radiation hazard avoidance; satellite design assessment and post-event anomaly analysis; solar disturbance effects forecasting; frequency and antenna management for radar and HF communications; determination of link outage regions for active ionospheric conditions; scientific model validation and comparison, physics research, and education. Version 2.0 provided a simplified graphical user interface, improved science and application modules, and significantly enhanced graphical performance. Common input data archive sets, application modules, and 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D visualization tools are provided to all models. Dynamic capabilities permit multiple environments to be generated at user-specified time intervals while animation tools enable displays such as satellite orbits and environment data together as a function of time. Building on the existing Version 2.0 software architecture, AF-GEOSpace Version 2.1 is currently under development and will include a host of new modules to provide, for example, geosynchronous charged particle fluxes, neutral atmosphere densities, cosmic ray cutoff maps, low-altitude trapped proton belt specification, and meteor shower/storm fluxes with spacecraft impact probabilities. AF-GEOSpace Version 2.1 is being developed for Windows NT/2000/XP and Linux systems.

A prospective development study of software-guided radio-frequency ablation of primary and secondary liver tumors: Clinical intervention modelling, planning and proof for ablation cancer treatment (ClinicIMPPACT).

PubMed

Reinhardt, Martin; Brandmaier, Philipp; Seider, Daniel; Kolesnik, Marina; Jenniskens, Sjoerd; Sequeiros, Roberto Blanco; Eibisberger, Martin; Voglreiter, Philip; Flanagan, Ronan; Mariappan, Panchatcharam; Busse, Harald; Moche, Michael

2017-12-01

Radio-frequency ablation (RFA) is a promising minimal-invasive treatment option for early liver cancer, however monitoring or predicting the size of the resulting tissue necrosis during the RFA-procedure is a challenging task, potentially resulting in a significant rate of under- or over treatments. Currently there is no reliable lesion size prediction method commercially available. ClinicIMPPACT is designed as multicenter-, prospective-, non-randomized clinical trial to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of innovative planning and simulation software. 60 patients with early liver cancer will be included at four European clinical institutions and treated with the same RFA system. The preinterventional imaging datasets will be used for computational planning of the RFA treatment. All ablations will be simulated simultaneously to the actual RFA procedure, using the software environment developed in this project. The primary outcome measure is the comparison of the simulated ablation zones with the true lesions shown in follow-up imaging after one month, to assess accuracy of the lesion prediction. This unique multicenter clinical trial aims at the clinical integration of a dedicated software solution to accurately predict lesion size and shape after radiofrequency ablation of liver tumors. Accelerated and optimized workflow integration, and real-time intraoperative image processing, as well as inclusion of patient specific information, e.g. organ perfusion and registration of the real RFA needle position might make the introduced software a powerful tool for interventional radiologists to optimize patient outcomes.

Telescience - Concepts And Contributions To The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer Mission

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marchant, Will; Dobson, Carl; Chakrabarti, Supriya; Malina, Roger F.

1987-10-01

A goal of the telescience concept is to allow scientists to use remotely located instruments as they would in their laboratory. Another goal is to increase reliability and scientific return of these instruments. In this paper we discuss the role of transparent software tools in development, integration, and postlaunch environments to achieve hands on access to the instrument. The use of transparent tools helps to reduce the parallel development of capability and to assure that valuable pre-launch experience is not lost in the operations phase. We also discuss the use of simulation as a rapid prototyping technique. Rapid prototyping provides a cost-effective means of using an iterative approach to instrument design. By allowing inexpensive produc-tion of testbeds, scientists can quickly tune the instrument to produce the desired scientific data. Using portions of the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) system, we examine some of the results of preliminary tests in the use of simulation and tran-sparent tools. Additionally, we discuss our efforts to upgrade our software "EUVE electronics" simulator to emulate a full instrument, and give the pros and cons of the simulation facilities we have developed.

THE VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT: SUPPORT FOR GRID-ENABLED MCELL SIMULATIONS

PubMed Central

Casanova, Henri; Berman, Francine; Bartol, Thomas; Gokcay, Erhan; Sejnowski, Terry; Birnbaum, Adam; Dongarra, Jack; Miller, Michelle; Ellisman, Mark; Faerman, Marcio; Obertelli, Graziano; Wolski, Rich; Pomerantz, Stuart; Stiles, Joel

2010-01-01

Ensembles of widely distributed, heterogeneous resources, or Grids, have emerged as popular platforms for large-scale scientific applications. In this paper we present the Virtual Instrument project, which provides an integrated application execution environment that enables end-users to run and interact with running scientific simulations on Grids. This work is performed in the specific context of MCell, a computational biology application. While MCell provides the basis for running simulations, its capabilities are currently limited in terms of scale, ease-of-use, and interactivity. These limitations preclude usage scenarios that are critical for scientific advances. Our goal is to create a scientific “Virtual Instrument” from MCell by allowing its users to transparently access Grid resources while being able to steer running simulations. In this paper, we motivate the Virtual Instrument project and discuss a number of relevant issues and accomplishments in the area of Grid software development and application scheduling. We then describe our software design and report on the current implementation. We verify and evaluate our design via experiments with MCell on a real-world Grid testbed. PMID:20689618

Status of the Space Radiation Monte Carlos Simulation Based on FLUKA and ROOT

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Andersen, Victor; Carminati, Federico; Empl, Anton; Ferrari, Alfredo; Pinsky, Lawrence; Sala, Paola; Wilson, Thomas L.

2002-01-01

The NASA-funded project reported on at the first IWSSRR in Arona to develop a Monte-Carlo simulation program for use in simulating the space radiation environment based on the FLUKA and ROOT codes is well into its second year of development, and considerable progress has been made. The general tasks required to achieve the final goals include the addition of heavy-ion interactions into the FLUKA code and the provision of a ROOT-based interface to FLUKA. The most significant progress to date includes the incorporation of the DPMJET event generator code within FLUKA to handle heavy-ion interactions for incident projectile energies greater than 3GeV/A. The ongoing effort intends to extend the treatment of these interactions down to 10 MeV, and at present two alternative approaches are being explored. The ROOT interface is being pursued in conjunction with the CERN LHC ALICE software team through an adaptation of their existing AliROOT software. As a check on the validity of the code, a simulation of the recent data taken by the ATIC experiment is underway.

Adjustable Autonomy Testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Malin, Jane T.; Schrenkenghost, Debra K.

2001-01-01

The Adjustable Autonomy Testbed (AAT) is a simulation-based testbed located in the Intelligent Systems Laboratory in the Automation, Robotics and Simulation Division at NASA Johnson Space Center. The purpose of the testbed is to support evaluation and validation of prototypes of adjustable autonomous agent software for control and fault management for complex systems. The AA T project has developed prototype adjustable autonomous agent software and human interfaces for cooperative fault management. This software builds on current autonomous agent technology by altering the architecture, components and interfaces for effective teamwork between autonomous systems and human experts. Autonomous agents include a planner, flexible executive, low level control and deductive model-based fault isolation. Adjustable autonomy is intended to increase the flexibility and effectiveness of fault management with an autonomous system. The test domain for this work is control of advanced life support systems for habitats for planetary exploration. The CONFIG hybrid discrete event simulation environment provides flexible and dynamically reconfigurable models of the behavior of components and fluids in the life support systems. Both discrete event and continuous (discrete time) simulation are supported, and flows and pressures are computed globally. This provides fast dynamic simulations of interacting hardware systems in closed loops that can be reconfigured during operations scenarios, producing complex cascading effects of operations and failures. Current object-oriented model libraries support modeling of fluid systems, and models have been developed of physico-chemical and biological subsystems for processing advanced life support gases. In FY01, water recovery system models will be developed.

Managing Technical and Cost Uncertainties During Product Development in a Simulation-Based Design Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Karandikar, Harsh M.

1997-01-01

An approach for objective and quantitative technical and cost risk analysis during product development, which is applicable from the earliest stages, is discussed. The approach is supported by a software tool called the Analytical System for Uncertainty and Risk Estimation (ASURE). Details of ASURE, the underlying concepts and its application history, are provided.

YaQ: an architecture for real-time navigation and rendering of varied crowds.

PubMed

Maïm, Jonathan; Yersin, Barbara; Thalmann, Daniel

2009-01-01

The YaQ software platform is a complete system dedicated to real-time crowd simulation and rendering. Fitting multiple application domains, such as video games and VR, YaQ aims to provide efficient algorithms to generate crowds comprising up to thousands of varied virtual humans navigating in large-scale, global environments.

NeuroMatic: An Integrated Open-Source Software Toolkit for Acquisition, Analysis and Simulation of Electrophysiological Data

PubMed Central

Rothman, Jason S.; Silver, R. Angus

2018-01-01

Acquisition, analysis and simulation of electrophysiological properties of the nervous system require multiple software packages. This makes it difficult to conserve experimental metadata and track the analysis performed. It also complicates certain experimental approaches such as online analysis. To address this, we developed NeuroMatic, an open-source software toolkit that performs data acquisition (episodic, continuous and triggered recordings), data analysis (spike rasters, spontaneous event detection, curve fitting, stationarity) and simulations (stochastic synaptic transmission, synaptic short-term plasticity, integrate-and-fire and Hodgkin-Huxley-like single-compartment models). The merging of a wide range of tools into a single package facilitates a more integrated style of research, from the development of online analysis functions during data acquisition, to the simulation of synaptic conductance trains during dynamic-clamp experiments. Moreover, NeuroMatic has the advantage of working within Igor Pro, a platform-independent environment that includes an extensive library of built-in functions, a history window for reviewing the user's workflow and the ability to produce publication-quality graphics. Since its original release, NeuroMatic has been used in a wide range of scientific studies and its user base has grown considerably. NeuroMatic version 3.0 can be found at http://www.neuromatic.thinkrandom.com and https://github.com/SilverLabUCL/NeuroMatic. PMID:29670519

Developing a Hydrologic Assessment Tool for Designing Bioretention in a watershed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baek, Sangsoo; Ligaray, Mayzonee; Park, Jeong-Pyo; Kwon, Yongsung; Cho, Kyung Hwa

2017-04-01

Continuous urbanization has negatively impacted the ecological and hydrological environments at the global, regional, and local scales. This issue was addressed by developing Low Impact Development (LID) practices to deliver better hydrologic function and improve the environmental, economic, social and cultural outcomes. This study developed a modeling software to simulate and optimize bioretentions among LID in a given watershed. The model calculated a detailed soil infiltration process in bioretention with hydrological conditions and hydraulic facilities (e.g. riser and underdrain) and also generated an optimized plan using Flow Duration Curve (FDC). The optimization result from the simulation demonstrated that the location and size of bioretention, as well as the soil texture, are important elements for an efficient bioretention. We hope that the developed software in this study could be useful for establishing an appropriate scheme of LID installment

DigR: a generic model and its open source simulation software to mimic three-dimensional root-system architecture diversity.

PubMed

Barczi, Jean-François; Rey, Hervé; Griffon, Sébastien; Jourdan, Christophe

2018-04-18

Many studies exist in the literature dealing with mathematical representations of root systems, categorized, for example, as pure structure description, partial derivative equations or functional-structural plant models. However, in these studies, root architecture modelling has seldom been carried out at the organ level with the inclusion of environmental influences that can be integrated into a whole plant characterization. We have conducted a multidisciplinary study on root systems including field observations, architectural analysis, and formal and mathematical modelling. This integrative and coherent approach leads to a generic model (DigR) and its software simulator. Architecture analysis applied to root systems helps at root type classification and architectural unit design for each species. Roots belonging to a particular type share dynamic and morphological characteristics which consist of topological and geometric features. The DigR simulator is integrated into the Xplo environment, with a user interface to input parameter values and make output ready for dynamic 3-D visualization, statistical analysis and saving to standard formats. DigR is simulated in a quasi-parallel computing algorithm and may be used either as a standalone tool or integrated into other simulation platforms. The software is open-source and free to download at http://amapstudio.cirad.fr/soft/xplo/download. DigR is based on three key points: (1) a root-system architectural analysis, (2) root type classification and modelling and (3) a restricted set of 23 root type parameters with flexible values indexed in terms of root position. Genericity and botanical accuracy of the model is demonstrated for growth, branching, mortality and reiteration processes, and for different root architectures. Plugin examples demonstrate the model's versatility at simulating plastic responses to environmental constraints. Outputs of the model include diverse root system structures such as tap-root, fasciculate, tuberous, nodulated and clustered root systems. DigR is based on plant architecture analysis which leads to specific root type classification and organization that are directly linked to field measurements. The open source simulator of the model has been included within a friendly user environment. DigR accuracy and versatility are demonstrated for growth simulations of complex root systems for both annual and perennial plants.

Software for Secondary-School Learning About Robotics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shelton, Robert O.; Smith, Stephanie L.; Truong, Dat; Hodgson, Terry R.

2005-01-01

The ROVer Ranch is an interactive computer program designed to help secondary-school students learn about space-program robotics and related basic scientific concepts by involving the students in simplified design and programming tasks that exercise skills in mathematics and science. The tasks involve building simulated robots and then observing how they behave. The program furnishes (1) programming tools that a student can use to assemble and program a simulated robot and (2) a virtual three-dimensional mission simulator for testing the robot. First, the ROVer Ranch presents fundamental information about robotics, mission goals, and facts about the mission environment. On the basis of this information, and using the aforementioned tools, the student assembles a robot by selecting parts from such subsystems as propulsion, navigation, and scientific tools, the student builds a simulated robot to accomplish its mission. Once the robot is built, it is programmed and then placed in a three-dimensional simulated environment. Success or failure in the simulation depends on the planning and design of the robot. Data and results of the mission are available in a summary log once the mission is concluded.

Biocellion: accelerating computer simulation of multicellular biological system models.

PubMed

Kang, Seunghwa; Kahan, Simon; McDermott, Jason; Flann, Nicholas; Shmulevich, Ilya

2014-11-01

Biological system behaviors are often the outcome of complex interactions among a large number of cells and their biotic and abiotic environment. Computational biologists attempt to understand, predict and manipulate biological system behavior through mathematical modeling and computer simulation. Discrete agent-based modeling (in combination with high-resolution grids to model the extracellular environment) is a popular approach for building biological system models. However, the computational complexity of this approach forces computational biologists to resort to coarser resolution approaches to simulate large biological systems. High-performance parallel computers have the potential to address the computing challenge, but writing efficient software for parallel computers is difficult and time-consuming. We have developed Biocellion, a high-performance software framework, to solve this computing challenge using parallel computers. To support a wide range of multicellular biological system models, Biocellion asks users to provide their model specifics by filling the function body of pre-defined model routines. Using Biocellion, modelers without parallel computing expertise can efficiently exploit parallel computers with less effort than writing sequential programs from scratch. We simulate cell sorting, microbial patterning and a bacterial system in soil aggregate as case studies. Biocellion runs on x86 compatible systems with the 64 bit Linux operating system and is freely available for academic use. Visit http://biocellion.com for additional information. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Interface for Physics Simulation Engines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Damer, Bruce

2007-01-01

DSS-Prototyper is an open-source, realtime 3D virtual environment software that supports design simulation for the new Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). This is a simulation of NASA's proposed Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, second mission (RLEP2). It simulates the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), which is designed to carry up to four astronauts to the lunar surface for durations of a week or longer. This simulation shows the virtual vehicle making approaches and landings on a variety of lunar terrains. The physics of the descent engine thrust vector, production of dust, and the dynamics of the suspension are all modeled in this set of simulations. The RLEP2 simulations are drivable (by keyboard or joystick) virtual rovers with controls for speed and motor torque, and can be articulated into higher or lower centers of gravity (depending on driving hazards) to enable drill placement. Gravity also can be set to lunar, terrestrial, or zero-g. This software has been used to support NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in simulations of proposed vehicles for robotically exploring the lunar surface for water ice, and could be used to model all other aspects of the VSE from the Ares launch vehicles and Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to the International Space Station (ISS). This simulator may be installed and operated on any Windows PC with an installed 3D graphics card.

Arcus end-to-end simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilms, Joern; Guenther, H. Moritz; Dauser, Thomas; Huenemoerder, David P.; Ptak, Andrew; Smith, Randall; Arcus Team

2018-01-01

We present an overview of the end-to-end simulation environment that we are implementing as part of the Arcus phase A Study. With the rcus simulator, we aim to to model the imaging, detection, and event reconstruction properties of the spectrometer. The simulator uses a Monte Carlo ray-trace approach, projecting photons onto the Arcus focal plane from the silicon pore optic mirrors and critical-angle transmission gratings. We simulate the detection and read-out of the photons in the focal plane CCDs with software originally written for the eROSITA and Athena-WFI detectors; we include all relevant detector physics, such as charge splitting, and effects of the detector read-out, such as out of time events. The output of the simulation chain is an event list that closely resembles the data expected during flight. This event list is processed using a prototype event reconstruction chain for the order separation, wavelength calibration, and effective area calibration. The output is compatible with standard X-ray astronomical analysis software.During phase A, the end-to-end simulation approach is used to demonstrate the overall performance of the mission, including a full simulation of the calibration effort. Continued development during later phases of the mission will ensure that the simulator remains a faithful representation of the true mission capabilities, and will ultimately be used as the Arcus calibration model.

Optics simulations: a Python workshop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ghalila, H.; Ammar, A.; Varadharajan, S.; Majdi, Y.; Zghal, M.; Lahmar, S.; Lakshminarayanan, V.

2017-08-01

Numerical simulations allow teachers and students to indirectly perform sophisticated experiments that cannot be realizable otherwise due to cost and other constraints. During the past few decades there has been an explosion in the development of numerical tools concurrently with open source environments such as Python software. This availability of open source software offers an incredible opportunity for advancing teaching methodologies as well as in research. More specifically it is possible to correlate theoretical knowledge with experimental measurements using "virtual" experiments. We have been working on the development of numerical simulation tools using the Python program package and we have concentrated on geometric and physical optics simulations. The advantage of doing hands-on numerical experiments is that it allows the student learner to be an active participant in the pedagogical/learning process rather than playing a passive role as in the traditional lecture format. Even in laboratory classes because of constraints of space, lack of equipment and often-large numbers of students, many students play a passive role since they work in groups of 3 or more students. Furthermore these new tools help students get a handle on numerical methods as well simulations and impart a "feel" for the physics under investigation.

NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zemerick, Scott

2015-01-01

The Simulation-to-Flight 1 (STF-1) CubeSat mission aims to demonstrate how legacy simulation technologies may be adapted for flexible and effective use on missions using the CubeSat platform. These technologies, named NASA Operational Simulator (NOS), have demonstrated significant value on several missions such as James Webb Space Telescope, Global Precipitation Measurement, Juno, and Deep Space Climate Observatory in the areas of software development, mission operationstraining, verification and validation (VV), test procedure development and software systems check-out. STF-1 will demonstrate a highly portable simulation and test platform that allows seamless transition of mission development artifacts to flight products. This environment will decrease development time of future CubeSat missions by lessening the dependency on hardware resources. In addition, through a partnership between NASA GSFC, the West Virginia Space Grant Consortium and West Virginia University, the STF-1 CubeSat will hosts payloads for three secondary objectives that aim to advance engineering and physical-science research in the areas of navigation systems of small satellites, provide useful data for understanding magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling and space weather, and verify the performance and durability of III-V Nitride-based materials.

Advances in Discrete-Event Simulation for MSL Command Validation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Patrikalakis, Alexander; O'Reilly, Taifun

2013-01-01

In the last five years, the discrete event simulator, SEQuence GENerator (SEQGEN), developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to plan deep-space missions, has greatly increased uplink operations capacity to deal with increasingly complicated missions. In this paper, we describe how the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project makes full use of an interpreted environment to simulate change in more than fifty thousand flight software parameters and conditional command sequences to predict the result of executing a conditional branch in a command sequence, and enable the ability to warn users whenever one or more simulated spacecraft states change in an unexpected manner. Using these new SEQGEN features, operators plan more activities in one sol than ever before.

Rapidly Re-Configurable Flight Simulator Tools for Crew Vehicle Integration Research and Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schutte, Paul C.; Trujillo, Anna; Pritchett, Amy R.

2000-01-01

While simulation is a valuable research and design tool, the time and difficulty required to create new simulations (or re-use existing simulations) often limits their application. This report describes the design of the software architecture for the Reconfigurable Flight Simulator (RFS), which provides a robust simulation framework that allows the simulator to fulfill multiple research and development goals. The core of the architecture provides the interface standards for simulation components, registers and initializes components, and handles the communication between simulation components. The simulation components are each a pre-compiled library 'plug-in' module. This modularity allows independent development and sharing of individual simulation components. Additional interfaces can be provided through the use of Object Data/Method Extensions (OD/ME). RFS provides a programmable run-time environment for real-time access and manipulation, and has networking capabilities using the High Level Architecture (HLA).

Rapidly Re-Configurable Flight Simulator Tools for Crew Vehicle Integration Research and Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pritchett, Amy R.

2002-01-01

While simulation is a valuable research and design tool, the time and difficulty required to create new simulations (or re-use existing simulations) often limits their application. This report describes the design of the software architecture for the Reconfigurable Flight Simulator (RFS), which provides a robust simulation framework that allows the simulator to fulfill multiple research and development goals. The core of the architecture provides the interface standards for simulation components, registers and initializes components, and handles the communication between simulation components. The simulation components are each a pre-compiled library 'plugin' module. This modularity allows independent development and sharing of individual simulation components. Additional interfaces can be provided through the use of Object Data/Method Extensions (OD/ME). RFS provides a programmable run-time environment for real-time access and manipulation, and has networking capabilities using the High Level Architecture (HLA).

Development of a Multi-Disciplinary Computing Environment (MDICE)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kingsley, Gerry; Siegel, John M., Jr.; Harrand, Vincent J.; Lawrence, Charles; Luker, Joel J.

1999-01-01

The growing need for and importance of multi-component and multi-disciplinary engineering analysis has been understood for many years. For many applications, loose (or semi-implicit) coupling is optimal, and allows the use of various legacy codes without requiring major modifications. For this purpose, CFDRC and NASA LeRC have developed a computational environment to enable coupling between various flow analysis codes at several levels of fidelity. This has been referred to as the Visual Computing Environment (VCE), and is being successfully applied to the analysis of several aircraft engine components. Recently, CFDRC and AFRL/VAAC (WL) have extended the framework and scope of VCE to enable complex multi-disciplinary simulations. The chosen initial focus is on aeroelastic aircraft applications. The developed software is referred to as MDICE-AE, an extensible system suitable for integration of several engineering analysis disciplines. This paper describes the methodology, basic architecture, chosen software technologies, salient library modules, and the current status of and plans for MDICE. A fluid-structure interaction application is described in a separate companion paper.

ImTK: an open source multi-center information management toolkit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alaoui, Adil; Ingeholm, Mary Lou; Padh, Shilpa; Dorobantu, Mihai; Desai, Mihir; Cleary, Kevin; Mun, Seong K.

2008-03-01

The Information Management Toolkit (ImTK) Consortium is an open source initiative to develop robust, freely available tools related to the information management needs of basic, clinical, and translational research. An open source framework and agile programming methodology can enable distributed software development while an open architecture will encourage interoperability across different environments. The ISIS Center has conceptualized a prototype data sharing network that simulates a multi-center environment based on a federated data access model. This model includes the development of software tools to enable efficient exchange, sharing, management, and analysis of multimedia medical information such as clinical information, images, and bioinformatics data from multiple data sources. The envisioned ImTK data environment will include an open architecture and data model implementation that complies with existing standards such as Digital Imaging and Communications (DICOM), Health Level 7 (HL7), and the technical framework and workflow defined by the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) Information Technology Infrastructure initiative, mainly the Cross Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) specifications.

Development of a Prototype Automation Simulation Scenario Generator for Air Traffic Management Software Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Khambatta, Cyrus F.

2007-01-01

A technique for automated development of scenarios for use in the Multi-Center Traffic Management Advisor (McTMA) software simulations is described. The resulting software is designed and implemented to automate the generation of simulation scenarios with the intent of reducing the time it currently takes using an observational approach. The software program is effective in achieving this goal. The scenarios created for use in the McTMA simulations are based on data taken from data files from the McTMA system, and were manually edited before incorporation into the simulations to ensure accuracy. Despite the software s overall favorable performance, several key software issues are identified. Proposed solutions to these issues are discussed. Future enhancements to the scenario generator software may address the limitations identified in this paper.

ARENA - A Collaborative Immersive Environment for Virtual Fieldwork

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kwasnitschka, T.

2012-12-01

Whenever a geoscientific study area is not readily accessible, as is the case on the deep seafloor, it is difficult to apply traditional but effective methods of fieldwork, which often require physical presence of the observer. The Artificial Research Environment for Networked Analysis (ARENA), developed at GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel within the Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean", provides a backend solution to robotic research on the seafloor by means of an immersive simulation environment for marine research: A hemispherical screen of 6m diameter covering the entire lower hemisphere surrounds a group of up to four researchers at once. A variety of open source (e.g. Microsoft Research World Wide Telescope) and commercial software platforms allow the interaction with e.g. in-situ recorded video, vector maps, terrain, textured geometry, point cloud and volumetric data in four dimensions. Data can be put into a holistic, georeferenced context and viewed on scales stretching from centimeters to global. Several input devices from joysticks to gestures and vocalized commands allow interaction with the simulation, depending on individual preference. Annotations added to the dataset during the simulation session catalyze the following quantitative evaluation. Both the special simulator design, making data perception a group experience, and the ability to connect remote instances or scaled down versions of ARENA over the Internet are significant advantages over established immersive simulation environments.

Novel 3D/VR interactive environment for MD simulations, visualization and analysis.

PubMed

Doblack, Benjamin N; Allis, Tim; Dávila, Lilian P

2014-12-18

The increasing development of computing (hardware and software) in the last decades has impacted scientific research in many fields including materials science, biology, chemistry and physics among many others. A new computational system for the accurate and fast simulation and 3D/VR visualization of nanostructures is presented here, using the open-source molecular dynamics (MD) computer program LAMMPS. This alternative computational method uses modern graphics processors, NVIDIA CUDA technology and specialized scientific codes to overcome processing speed barriers common to traditional computing methods. In conjunction with a virtual reality system used to model materials, this enhancement allows the addition of accelerated MD simulation capability. The motivation is to provide a novel research environment which simultaneously allows visualization, simulation, modeling and analysis. The research goal is to investigate the structure and properties of inorganic nanostructures (e.g., silica glass nanosprings) under different conditions using this innovative computational system. The work presented outlines a description of the 3D/VR Visualization System and basic components, an overview of important considerations such as the physical environment, details on the setup and use of the novel system, a general procedure for the accelerated MD enhancement, technical information, and relevant remarks. The impact of this work is the creation of a unique computational system combining nanoscale materials simulation, visualization and interactivity in a virtual environment, which is both a research and teaching instrument at UC Merced.

Novel 3D/VR Interactive Environment for MD Simulations, Visualization and Analysis

PubMed Central

Doblack, Benjamin N.; Allis, Tim; Dávila, Lilian P.

2014-01-01

The increasing development of computing (hardware and software) in the last decades has impacted scientific research in many fields including materials science, biology, chemistry and physics among many others. A new computational system for the accurate and fast simulation and 3D/VR visualization of nanostructures is presented here, using the open-source molecular dynamics (MD) computer program LAMMPS. This alternative computational method uses modern graphics processors, NVIDIA CUDA technology and specialized scientific codes to overcome processing speed barriers common to traditional computing methods. In conjunction with a virtual reality system used to model materials, this enhancement allows the addition of accelerated MD simulation capability. The motivation is to provide a novel research environment which simultaneously allows visualization, simulation, modeling and analysis. The research goal is to investigate the structure and properties of inorganic nanostructures (e.g., silica glass nanosprings) under different conditions using this innovative computational system. The work presented outlines a description of the 3D/VR Visualization System and basic components, an overview of important considerations such as the physical environment, details on the setup and use of the novel system, a general procedure for the accelerated MD enhancement, technical information, and relevant remarks. The impact of this work is the creation of a unique computational system combining nanoscale materials simulation, visualization and interactivity in a virtual environment, which is both a research and teaching instrument at UC Merced. PMID:25549300

Using numeric simulation in an online e-learning environment to teach functional physiological contexts.

PubMed

Christ, Andreas; Thews, Oliver

2016-04-01

Mathematical models are suitable to simulate complex biological processes by a set of non-linear differential equations. These simulation models can be used as an e-learning tool in medical education. However, in many cases these mathematical systems have to be treated numerically which is computationally intensive. The aim of the study was to develop a system for numerical simulation to be used in an online e-learning environment. In the software system the simulation is located on the server as a CGI application. The user (student) selects the boundary conditions for the simulation (e.g., properties of a simulated patient) on the browser. With these parameters the simulation on the server is started and the simulation result is re-transferred to the browser. With this system two examples of e-learning units were realized. The first one uses a multi-compartment model of the glucose-insulin control loop for the simulation of the plasma glucose level after a simulated meal or during diabetes (including treatment by subcutaneous insulin application). The second one simulates the ion transport leading to the resting and action potential in nerves. The student can vary parameters systematically to explore the biological behavior of the system. The described system is able to simulate complex biological processes and offers the possibility to use these models in an online e-learning environment. As far as the underlying principles can be described mathematically, this type of system can be applied to a broad spectrum of biomedical or natural scientific topics. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cosimulation of embedded system using RTOS software simulator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shihao; Duan, Zhigang; Liu, Mingye

2003-09-01

Embedded system design often employs co-simulation to verify system's function; one efficient verification tool of software is Instruction Set Simulator (ISS). As a full functional model of target CPU, ISS interprets instruction of embedded software step by step, which usually is time-consuming since it simulates at low-level. Hence ISS often becomes the bottleneck of co-simulation in a complicated system. In this paper, a new software verification tools, the RTOS software simulator (RSS) was presented. The mechanism of its operation was described in a full details. In RSS method, RTOS API is extended and hardware simulator driver is adopted to deal with data-exchange and synchronism between the two simulators.

Software evolution. What kind of evolution?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Torres-Carbonell, J. J.; Parets-Llorca, J.

2001-06-01

Most Software Systems capable of adapting to the environment or of performing some kind of adaptive activity (such as pattern learning, behavior simulations and the like) use concepts and models from Biology. Nevertheless, such approaches are based on the Modern Synthesis, i.e., Darwinism plus Mendelism, and this implies preadaptive mutations in, and subsequent selection of the better adapted individuals. These pre-adaptive changes usually do not produce the desired effect, are virtually useless and require some kind of backtracking for the system to obtain profit from adaptation. It is our contention that an evolutionary approach in Software Systems development cannot be based on pre-adaptive mutations, but rather on post-adaptive ones, that is, anticipatory mutations and modifications (Lamarkism). A novel way of understanding evolution in Software Systems based on applied Lamarkism is presented and a framework that allows the incorporation of modifications according to the necessities of the system and the will of the modeller is proposed.

Web-HLA and Service-Enabled RTI in the Simulation Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Jijie; Li, Bo Hu; Chai, Xudong; Zhang, Lin

HLA-based simulations in a grid environment have now become a main research hotspot in the M&S community, but there are many shortcomings of the current HLA running in a grid environment. This paper analyzes the analogies between HLA and OGSA from the software architecture point of view, and points out the service-oriented method should be introduced into the three components of HLA to overcome its shortcomings. This paper proposes an expanded running architecture that can integrate the HLA with OGSA and realizes a service-enabled RTI (SE-RTI). In addition, in order to handle the bottleneck problem that is how to efficiently realize the HLA time management mechanism, this paper proposes a centralized way by which the CRC of the SE-RTI takes charge of the time management and the dispatching of TSO events of each federate. Benchmark experiments indicate that the running velocity of simulations in Internet or WAN is properly improved.

Physically Based Virtual Surgery Planning and Simulation Tools for Personal Health Care Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dogan, Firat; Atilgan, Yasemin

The virtual surgery planning and simulation tools have gained a great deal of importance in the last decade in a consequence of increasing capacities at the information technology level. The modern hardware architectures, large scale database systems, grid based computer networks, agile development processes, better 3D visualization and all the other strong aspects of the information technology brings necessary instruments into almost every desk. The last decade’s special software and sophisticated super computer environments are now serving to individual needs inside “tiny smart boxes” for reasonable prices. However, resistance to learning new computerized environments, insufficient training and all the other old habits prevents effective utilization of IT resources by the specialists of the health sector. In this paper, all the aspects of the former and current developments in surgery planning and simulation related tools are presented, future directions and expectations are investigated for better electronic health care systems.

Modeling structural change in spatial system dynamics: A Daisyworld example.

PubMed

Neuwirth, C; Peck, A; Simonović, S P

2015-03-01

System dynamics (SD) is an effective approach for helping reveal the temporal behavior of complex systems. Although there have been recent developments in expanding SD to include systems' spatial dependencies, most applications have been restricted to the simulation of diffusion processes; this is especially true for models on structural change (e.g. LULC modeling). To address this shortcoming, a Python program is proposed to tightly couple SD software to a Geographic Information System (GIS). The approach provides the required capacities for handling bidirectional and synchronized interactions of operations between SD and GIS. In order to illustrate the concept and the techniques proposed for simulating structural changes, a fictitious environment called Daisyworld has been recreated in a spatial system dynamics (SSD) environment. The comparison of spatial and non-spatial simulations emphasizes the importance of considering spatio-temporal feedbacks. Finally, practical applications of structural change models in agriculture and disaster management are proposed.

Circuit design tool. User's manual, revision 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miyake, Keith M.; Smith, Donald E.

1992-01-01

The CAM chip design was produced in a UNIX software environment using a design tool that supports definition of digital electronic modules, composition of these modules into higher level circuits, and event-driven simulation of these circuits. Our design tool provides an interface whose goals include straightforward but flexible primitive module definition and circuit composition, efficient simulation, and a debugging environment that facilitates design verification and alteration. The tool provides a set of primitive modules which can be composed into higher level circuits. Each module is a C-language subroutine that uses a set of interface protocols understood by the design tool. Primitives can be altered simply by recoding their C-code image; in addition new primitives can be added allowing higher level circuits to be described in C-code rather than as a composition of primitive modules--this feature can greatly enhance the speed of simulation.

Object oriented studies into artificial space debris

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Adamson, J. M.; Marshall, G.

1988-01-01

A prototype simulation is being developed under contract to the Royal Aerospace Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, England, to assist in the discrimination of artificial space objects/debris. The methodology undertaken has been to link Object Oriented programming, intelligent knowledge based system (IKBS) techniques and advanced computer technology with numeric analysis to provide a graphical, symbolic simulation. The objective is to provide an additional layer of understanding on top of conventional classification methods. Use is being made of object and rule based knowledge representation, multiple reasoning, truth maintenance and uncertainty. Software tools being used include Knowledge Engineering Environment (KEE) and SymTactics for knowledge representation. Hooks are being developed within the SymTactics framework to incorporate mathematical models describing orbital motion and fragmentation. Penetration and structural analysis can also be incorporated. SymTactics is an Object Oriented discrete event simulation tool built as a domain specific extension to the KEE environment. The tool provides facilities for building, debugging and monitoring dynamic (military) simulations.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Keyes, D.; McInnes, L. C.; Woodward, C.

This report is an outcome of the workshop Multiphysics Simulations: Challenges and Opportunities, sponsored by the Institute of Computing in Science (ICiS). Additional information about the workshop, including relevant reading and presentations on multiphysics issues in applications, algorithms, and software, is available via https://sites.google.com/site/icismultiphysics2011/. We consider multiphysics applications from algorithmic and architectural perspectives, where 'algorithmic' includes both mathematical analysis and computational complexity and 'architectural' includes both software and hardware environments. Many diverse multiphysics applications can be reduced, en route to their computational simulation, to a common algebraic coupling paradigm. Mathematical analysis of multiphysics coupling in this form is not alwaysmore » practical for realistic applications, but model problems representative of applications discussed herein can provide insight. A variety of software frameworks for multiphysics applications have been constructed and refined within disciplinary communities and executed on leading-edge computer systems. We examine several of these, expose some commonalities among them, and attempt to extrapolate best practices to future systems. From our study, we summarize challenges and forecast opportunities. We also initiate a modest suite of test problems encompassing features present in many applications.« less

A System to Simulate and Reproduce Audio-Visual Environments for Spatial Hearing Research

PubMed Central

Seeber, Bernhard U.; Kerber, Stefan; Hafter, Ervin R.

2009-01-01

The article reports the experience gained from two implementations of the “Simulated Open-Field Environment” (SOFE), a setup that allows sounds to be played at calibrated levels over a wide frequency range from multiple loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber. Playing sounds from loudspeakers in the free-field has the advantage that each participant listens with their own ears, and individual characteristics of the ears are captured in the sound they hear. This makes an easy and accurate comparison between various listeners with and without hearing devices possible. The SOFE uses custom calibration software to assure individual equalization of each loudspeaker. Room simulation software creates the spatio-temporal reflection pattern of sound sources in rooms which is played via the SOFE loudspeakers. The sound playback system is complemented by a video projection facility which can be used to collect or give feedback or to study auditory-visual interaction. The article discusses acoustical and technical requirements for accurate sound playback against the specific needs in hearing research. An introduction to software concepts is given which allow easy, high-level control of the setup and thus fast experimental development, turning the SOFE into a “Swiss army knife” tool for auditory, spatial hearing and audio-visual research. PMID:19909802

SEXTANT X-Ray Pulsar Navigation Demonstration: Flight System and Test Results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Winternitz, Luke; Mitchell, Jason W.; Hassouneh, Munther A.; Valdez, Jennifer E.; Price, Samuel R.; Semper, Sean R.; Yu, Wayne H.; Ray, Paul S.; Wood, Kent S.; Arzoumanian, Zaven;

SEXTANT X-Ray Pulsar Navigation Demonstration: Flight System and Test Results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Winternitz, Luke M. B.; Mitchell, Jason W.; Hassouneh, Munther A.; Valdez, Jennifer E.; Price, Samuel R.; Semper, Sean R.; Yu, Wayne H.; Ray, Paul S.; Wood, Kent S.; Arzoumanian, Zaven;

SUNREL Energy Simulation Software | Buildings | NREL

Science.gov Websites

SUNREL Energy Simulation Software SUNREL Energy Simulation Software SUNREL® is a hourly building energy simulation program that aids in the design of small energy-efficient buildings where the loads are

SPICE Module for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Coggi, John; Carnright, Robert; Hildebrand, Claude

2008-01-01

A SPICE module for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP) precisely represents complex motion and maneuvers in an interactive, 3D animated environment with support for user-defined quantitative outputs. (SPICE stands for Spacecraft, Planet, Instrument, Camera-matrix, and Events). This module enables the SOAP software to exploit NASA mission ephemeris represented in the JPL Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) SPICE formats. Ephemeris types supported include position, velocity, and orientation for spacecraft and planetary bodies including the Sun, planets, natural satellites, comets, and asteroids. Entire missions can now be imported into SOAP for 3D visualization, playback, and analysis. The SOAP analysis and display features can now leverage detailed mission files to offer the analyst both a numerically correct and aesthetically pleasing combination of results that can be varied to study many hypothetical scenarios. The software provides a modeling and simulation environment that can encompass a broad variety of problems using orbital prediction. For example, ground coverage analysis, communications analysis, power and thermal analysis, and 3D visualization that provide the user with insight into complex geometric relations are included. The SOAP SPICE module allows distributed science and engineering teams to share common mission models of known pedigree, which greatly reduces duplication of effort and the potential for error. The use of the software spans all phases of the space system lifecycle, from the study of future concepts to operations and anomaly analysis. It allows SOAP software to correctly position and orient all of the principal bodies of the Solar System within a single simulation session along with multiple spacecraft trajectories and the orientation of mission payloads. In addition to the 3D visualization, the user can define numeric variables and x-y plots to quantitatively assess metrics of interest.

Scalable and massively parallel Monte Carlo photon transport simulations for heterogeneous computing platforms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, Leiming; Nina-Paravecino, Fanny; Kaeli, David; Fang, Qianqian

2018-01-01

We present a highly scalable Monte Carlo (MC) three-dimensional photon transport simulation platform designed for heterogeneous computing systems. Through the development of a massively parallel MC algorithm using the Open Computing Language framework, this research extends our existing graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated MC technique to a highly scalable vendor-independent heterogeneous computing environment, achieving significantly improved performance and software portability. A number of parallel computing techniques are investigated to achieve portable performance over a wide range of computing hardware. Furthermore, multiple thread-level and device-level load-balancing strategies are developed to obtain efficient simulations using multiple central processing units and GPUs.

Practical aspects in surface biopotential electrode placement for smart clothing: A simulation study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mulyadi, Indra H.; Haueisen, Jens; Supriyanto, Eko

2017-02-01

In addition to physiological aspects, placement of surface biopotential electrodes for smart clothing should consider practical aspects due to their dynamic application environment. This study is aimed at finding the best places to put the electrode on areas where the measurement is practically reliable. Calculation was performed by using three practical aspects: 1) skin-shirt gap; 2) shirt movement, and 4) regional sweat rate. We employed 3DS Max software to simulate shirt behavior. The simulation result showed that generally practical satisfaction degrees are higher in the posterior. The quantitative approach may help smart clothing designers to choose the locations to place electrodes.

EQS Goes R: Simulations for SEM Using the Package REQS

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mair, Patrick; Wu, Eric; Bentler, Peter M.

2010-01-01

The REQS package is an interface between the R environment of statistical computing and the EQS software for structural equation modeling. The package consists of 3 main functions that read EQS script files and import the results into R, call EQS script files from R, and run EQS script files from R and import the results after EQS computations.…

The StarLite Project Prototyping Real-Time Software

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-10-01

multiversion data objects using the prototyping environment. Section 5 concludes the paper. 2. Message-Based Simulation When prototyping distributed...phase locking and priority-based synchronization algorithms, and between a multiversion database and its corresponding single-version database, through...its deadline, since the transaction is only aborted in the validation phase. 4.5. A Multiversion Database System To illustrate the effctivcness of the

Virtual to Reality: Teaching Mathematics and Aerospace Concepts to Undergraduates Using Unmanned Aerial Systems and Flight Simulation Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aji, Chadia Affane; Khan, M. Javed

2015-01-01

Student engagement is an essential element for learning. Active learning has been consistently shown to increase student engagement and hence learning. Hands-on activities are one of the many active learning approaches. These activities vary from structured laboratory experiments on one end of the spectrum to virtual gaming environments and to for…

The Virtual Climate Data Server (vCDS): An iRODS-Based Data Management Software Appliance Supporting Climate Data Services and Virtualization-as-a-Service in the NASA Center for Climate Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schnase, John L.; Tamkin, Glenn S.; Ripley, W. David III; Stong, Savannah; Gill, Roger; Duffy, Daniel Q.

2012-01-01

Scientific data services are becoming an important part of the NASA Center for Climate Simulation's mission. Our technological response to this expanding role is built around the concept of a Virtual Climate Data Server (vCDS), repetitive provisioning, image-based deployment and distribution, and virtualization-as-a-service. The vCDS is an iRODS-based data server specialized to the needs of a particular data-centric application. We use RPM scripts to build vCDS images in our local computing environment, our local Virtual Machine Environment, NASA s Nebula Cloud Services, and Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Once provisioned into one or more of these virtualized resource classes, vCDSs can use iRODS s federation capabilities to create an integrated ecosystem of managed collections that is scalable and adaptable to changing resource requirements. This approach enables platform- or software-asa- service deployment of vCDS and allows the NCCS to offer virtualization-as-a-service: a capacity to respond in an agile way to new customer requests for data services.

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation, appendix A

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Haley, D. C.; Almand, B. J.; Thomas, M. M.; Krauze, L. D.; Gremban, K. D.; Sanborn, J. C.; Kelly, J. H.; Depkovich, T. M.

1984-01-01

A generic computer simulation for manipulator systems (ROBSIM) was implemented and the specific technologies necessary to increase the role of automation in various missions were developed. The specific items developed were: (1) Capability for definition of a manipulator system consisting of multiple arms, load objects, and an environment; (2) Capability for kinematic analysis, requirements analysis, and response simulation of manipulator motion; (3) Postprocessing options such as graphic replay of simulated motion and manipulator parameter plotting; (4) Investigation and simulation of various control methods including manual force/torque and active compliance control; (5) Evaluation and implementation of three obstacle avoidance methods; (6) Video simulation and edge detection; and (7) Software simulation validation. This appendix is the user's guide and includes examples of program runs and outputs as well as instructions for program use.

AnimatLab: a 3D graphics environment for neuromechanical simulations.

PubMed

Cofer, David; Cymbalyuk, Gennady; Reid, James; Zhu, Ying; Heitler, William J; Edwards, Donald H

2010-03-30

The nervous systems of animals evolved to exert dynamic control of behavior in response to the needs of the animal and changing signals from the environment. To understand the mechanisms of dynamic control requires a means of predicting how individual neural and body elements will interact to produce the performance of the entire system. AnimatLab is a software tool that provides an approach to this problem through computer simulation. AnimatLab enables a computational model of an animal's body to be constructed from simple building blocks, situated in a virtual 3D world subject to the laws of physics, and controlled by the activity of a multicellular, multicompartment neural circuit. Sensor receptors on the body surface and inside the body respond to external and internal signals and then excite central neurons, while motor neurons activate Hill muscle models that span the joints and generate movement. AnimatLab provides a common neuromechanical simulation environment in which to construct and test models of any skeletal animal, vertebrate or invertebrate. The use of AnimatLab is demonstrated in a neuromechanical simulation of human arm flexion and the myotactic and contact-withdrawal reflexes. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A methodological, task-based approach to Procedure-Specific Simulations training.

PubMed

Setty, Yaki; Salzman, Oren

2016-12-01

Procedure-Specific Simulations (PSS) are 3D realistic simulations that provide a platform to practice complete surgical procedures in a virtual-reality environment. While PSS have the potential to improve surgeons' proficiency, there are no existing standards or guidelines for PSS development in a structured manner. We employ a unique platform inspired by game design to develop virtual reality simulations in three dimensions of urethrovesical anastomosis during radical prostatectomy. 3D visualization is supported by a stereo vision, providing a fully realistic view of the simulation. The software can be executed for any robotic surgery platform. Specifically, we tested the simulation under windows environment on the RobotiX Mentor. Using urethrovesical anastomosis during radical prostatectomy simulation as a representative example, we present a task-based methodological approach to PSS training. The methodology provides tasks in increasing levels of difficulty from a novice level of basic anatomy identification, to an expert level that permits testing new surgical approaches. The modular methodology presented here can be easily extended to support more complex tasks. We foresee this methodology as a tool used to integrate PSS as a complementary training process for surgical procedures.

Digitally-bypassed transducers: interfacing digital mockups to real-time medical equipment.

PubMed

Sirowy, Scott; Givargis, Tony; Vahid, Frank

2009-01-01

Medical device software is sometimes initially developed by using a PC simulation environment that executes models of both the device and a physiological system, and then later by connecting the actual medical device to a physical mockup of the physiological system. An alternative is to connect the medical device to a digital mockup of the physiological system, such that the device believes it is interacting with a physiological system, but in fact all interaction is entirely digital. Developing medical device software by interfacing with a digital mockup enables development without costly or dangerous physical mockups, and enables execution that is faster or slower than real time. We introduce digitally-bypassed transducers, which involve a small amount of hardware and software additions, and which enable interfacing with digital mockups.

Achieving sustainable ground-water management by using GIS-integrated simulation tools: the EU H2020 FREEWAT platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rossetto, Rudy; De Filippis, Giovanna; Borsi, Iacopo; Foglia, Laura; Toegl, Anja; Cannata, Massimiliano; Neumann, Jakob; Vazquez-Sune, Enric; Criollo, Rotman

2017-04-01

In order to achieve sustainable and participated ground-water management, innovative software built on the integration of numerical models within GIS software is a perfect candidate to provide a full characterization of quantitative and qualitative aspects of ground- and surface-water resources maintaining the time and spatial dimension. The EU H2020 FREEWAT project (FREE and open source software tools for WATer resource management; Rossetto et al., 2015) aims at simplifying the application of EU water-related Directives through an open-source and public-domain, GIS-integrated simulation platform for planning and management of ground- and surface-water resources. The FREEWAT platform allows to simulate the whole hydrological cycle, coupling the power of GIS geo-processing and post-processing tools in spatial data analysis with that of process-based simulation models. This results in a modeling environment where large spatial datasets can be stored, managed and visualized and where several simulation codes (mainly belonging to the USGS MODFLOW family) are integrated to simulate multiple hydrological, hydrochemical or economic processes. So far, the FREEWAT platform is a large plugin for the QGIS GIS desktop software and it integrates the following capabilities: • the AkvaGIS module allows to produce plots and statistics for the analysis and interpretation of hydrochemical and hydrogeological data; • the Observation Analysis Tool, to facilitate the import, analysis and visualization of time-series data and the use of these data to support model construction and calibration; • groundwater flow simulation in the saturated and unsaturated zones may be simulated using MODFLOW-2005 (Harbaugh, 2005); • multi-species advective-dispersive transport in the saturated zone can be simulated using MT3DMS (Zheng & Wang, 1999); the possibility to simulate viscosity- and density-dependent flows is further accomplished through SEAWAT (Langevin et al., 2007); • sustainable management of combined use of ground- and surface-water resources in rural environments is accomplished by the Farm Process module embedded in MODFLOW-OWHM (Hanson et al., 2014), which allows to dynamically integrate crop water demand and supply from ground- and surface-water; • UCODE_2014 (Poeter et al., 2014) is implemented to perform sensitivity analysis and parameter estimation to improve the model fit through an inverse, regression method based on the evaluation of an objective function. Through creating a common environment among water research/professionals, policy makers and implementers, FREEWAT aims at enhancing science and participatory approach and evidence-based decision making in water resource management, hence producing relevant outcomes for policy implementation. Acknowledgements This paper is presented within the framework of the project FREEWAT, which has received funding from the European Union's HORIZON 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement n. 642224. References Hanson, R.T., Boyce, S.E., Schmid, W., Hughes, J.D., Mehl, S.M., Leake, S.A., Maddock, T., Niswonger, R.G. One-Water Hydrologic Flow Model (MODFLOW-OWHM), U.S. Geological Survey, Techniques and Methods 6-A51, 2014 134 p. Harbaugh A.W. (2005) - MODFLOW-2005, The U.S. Geological Survey Modular Ground-Water Model - the Ground-Water Flow Process. U.S. Geological Survey, Techniques and Methods 6-A16, 253 p. Langevin C.D., Thorne D.T. Jr., Dausman A.M., Sukop M.C. & Guo Weixing (2007) - SEAWAT Version 4: A Computer Program for Simulation of Multi-Species Solute and Heat Transport. U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 6-A22, 39 pp. Poeter E.P., Hill M.C., Lu D., Tiedeman C.R. & Mehl S. (2014) - UCODE_2014, with new capabilities to define parameters unique to predictions, calculate weights using simulated values, estimate parameters with SVD, evaluate uncertainty with MCMC, and more. Integrated Groundwater Modeling Center Report Number GWMI 2014-02. Rossetto, R., Borsi, I. & Foglia, L. FREEWAT: FREE and open source software tools for WATer resource management, Rendiconti Online Società Geologica Italiana, 2015, 35, 252-255. Zheng C. & Wang P.P. (1999) - MT3DMS, A modular three-dimensional multi-species transport model for simulation of advection, dispersion and chemical reactions of contaminants in groundwater systems. U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Contract Report SERDP-99-1, Vicksburg, MS, 202 pp.

Using Modern Methodologies with Maintenance Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Streiffert, Barbara A.; Francis, Laurie K.; Smith, Benjamin D.

2014-01-01

Jet Propulsion Laboratory uses multi-mission software produced by the Mission Planning and Sequencing (MPS) team to process, simulate, translate, and package the commands that are sent to a spacecraft. MPS works under the auspices of the Multi-Mission Ground Systems and Services (MGSS). This software consists of nineteen applications that are in maintenance. The MPS software is classified as either class B (mission critical) or class C (mission important). The scheduling of tasks is difficult because mission needs must be addressed prior to performing any other tasks and those needs often spring up unexpectedly. Keeping track of the tasks that everyone is working on is also difficult because each person is working on a different software component. Recently the group adopted the Scrum methodology for planning and scheduling tasks. Scrum is one of the newer methodologies typically used in agile development. In the Scrum development environment, teams pick their tasks that are to be completed within a sprint based on priority. The team specifies the sprint length usually a month or less. Scrum is typically used for new development of one application. In the Scrum methodology there is a scrum master who is a facilitator who tries to make sure that everything moves smoothly, a product owner who represents the user(s) of the software and the team. MPS is not the traditional environment for the Scrum methodology. MPS has many software applications in maintenance, team members who are working on disparate applications, many users, and is interruptible based on mission needs, issues and requirements. In order to use scrum, the methodology needed adaptation to MPS. Scrum was chosen because it is adaptable. This paper is about the development of the process for using scrum, a new development methodology, with a team that works on disparate interruptible tasks on multiple software applications.

Pulse Sequence Programming in a Dynamic Visual Environment: SequenceTree

PubMed Central

Magland, Jeremy F.; Li, Cheng; Langham, Michael C.; Wehrli, Felix W.

2015-01-01

Purpose To describe SequenceTree (ST), an open source. integrated software environment for implementing MRI pulse sequences, and ideally exported them to actual MRI scanners. The software is a user-friendly alternative to vendor-supplied pulse sequence design and editing tools and is suited for non-programmers and programmers alike. Methods The integrated user interface was programmed using the Qt4/C++ toolkit. As parameters and code are modified, the pulse sequence diagram is automatically updated within the user interface. Several aspects of pulse programming are handled automatically allowing users to focus on higher-level aspects of sequence design. Sequences can be simulated using a built-in Bloch equation solver and then exported for use on a Siemens MRI scanner. Ideally other types of scanners will be supported in the future. Results The software has been used for eight years in the authors’ laboratory and elsewhere and has been utilized in more than fifty peer-reviewed publications in areas such as cardiovascular imaging, solid state and non-proton NMR, MR elastography, and high resolution structural imaging. Conclusion ST is an innovative, open source, visual pulse sequence environment for MRI combining simplicity with flexibility and is ideal for both advanced users and those with limited programming experience. PMID:25754837

Cooperative GN&C development in a rapid prototyping environment. [flight software design for space vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bordano, Aldo; Uhde-Lacovara, JO; Devall, Ray; Partin, Charles; Sugano, Jeff; Doane, Kent; Compton, Jim

1993-01-01

The Navigation, Control and Aeronautics Division (NCAD) at NASA-JSC is exploring ways of producing Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) flight software faster, better, and cheaper. To achieve these goals NCAD established two hardware/software facilities that take an avionics design project from initial inception through high fidelity real-time hardware-in-the-loop testing. Commercially available software products are used to develop the GN&C algorithms in block diagram form and then automatically generate source code from these diagrams. A high fidelity real-time hardware-in-the-loop laboratory provides users with the capability to analyze mass memory usage within the targeted flight computer, verify hardware interfaces, conduct system level verification, performance, acceptance testing, as well as mission verification using reconfigurable and mission unique data. To evaluate these concepts and tools, NCAD embarked on a project to build a real-time 6 DOF simulation of the Soyuz Assured Crew Return Vehicle flight software. To date, a productivity increase of 185 percent has been seen over traditional NASA methods for developing flight software.

LAMPS software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Perkey, D. J.; Kreitzberg, C. W.

1984-01-01

The dynamic prediction model along with its macro-processor capability and data flow system from the Drexel Limited-Area and Mesoscale Prediction System (LAMPS) were converted and recorded for the Perkin-Elmer 3220. The previous version of this model was written for Control Data Corporation 7600 and CRAY-1a computer environment which existed until recently at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The purpose of this conversion was to prepare LAMPS for porting to computer environments other than that encountered at NCAR. The emphasis was shifted from programming tasks to model simulation and evaluation tests.

Parallelized computation for computer simulation of electrocardiograms using personal computers with multi-core CPU and general-purpose GPU.

PubMed

Shen, Wenfeng; Wei, Daming; Xu, Weimin; Zhu, Xin; Yuan, Shizhong

2010-10-01

Biological computations like electrocardiological modelling and simulation usually require high-performance computing environments. This paper introduces an implementation of parallel computation for computer simulation of electrocardiograms (ECGs) in a personal computer environment with an Intel CPU of Core (TM) 2 Quad Q6600 and a GPU of Geforce 8800GT, with software support by OpenMP and CUDA. It was tested in three parallelization device setups: (a) a four-core CPU without a general-purpose GPU, (b) a general-purpose GPU plus 1 core of CPU, and (c) a four-core CPU plus a general-purpose GPU. To effectively take advantage of a multi-core CPU and a general-purpose GPU, an algorithm based on load-prediction dynamic scheduling was developed and applied to setting (c). In the simulation with 1600 time steps, the speedup of the parallel computation as compared to the serial computation was 3.9 in setting (a), 16.8 in setting (b), and 20.0 in setting (c). This study demonstrates that a current PC with a multi-core CPU and a general-purpose GPU provides a good environment for parallel computations in biological modelling and simulation studies. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Adaptive Tunable Laser Spectrometer for Space Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Flesch, Gregory; Keymeulen, Didier

2010-01-01

An architecture and process for the rapid prototyping and subsequent development of an adaptive tunable laser absorption spectrometer (TLS) are described. Our digital hardware/firmware/software platform is both reconfigurable at design time as well as autonomously adaptive in real-time for both post-integration and post-launch situations. The design expands the range of viable target environments and enhances tunable laser spectrometer performance in extreme and even unpredictable environments. Through rapid prototyping with a commercial RTOS/FPGA platform, we have implemented a fully operational tunable laser spectrometer (using a highly sensitive second harmonic technique). With this prototype, we have demonstrated autonomous real-time adaptivity in the lab with simulated extreme environments.

Building A Simulation Model For The Prediction Of Temperature Distribution In Pulsed Laser Spot Welding Of Dissimilar Low Carbon Steel 1020 To Aluminum Alloy 6061

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yousef, Adel K. M.; Taha, Ziad. A.; Shehab, Abeer A.

2011-01-01

This paper describes the development of a computer model used to analyze the heat flow during pulsed Nd: YAG laser spot welding of dissimilar metal; low carbon steel (1020) to aluminum alloy (6061). The model is built using ANSYS FLUENT 3.6 software where almost all the environments simulated to be similar to the experimental environments. A simulation analysis was implemented based on conduction heat transfer out of the key hole where no melting occurs. The effect of laser power and pulse duration was studied. Three peak powers 1, 1.66 and 2.5 kW were varied during pulsed laser spot welding (keeping the energy constant), also the effect of two pulse durations 4 and 8 ms (with constant peak power), on the transient temperature distribution and weld pool dimension were predicated using the present simulation. It was found that the present simulation model can give an indication for choosing the suitable laser parameters (i.e. pulse durations, peak power and interaction time required) during pulsed laser spot welding of dissimilar metals.

BeatBox-HPC simulation environment for biophysically and anatomically realistic cardiac electrophysiology.

PubMed

Antonioletti, Mario; Biktashev, Vadim N; Jackson, Adrian; Kharche, Sanjay R; Stary, Tomas; Biktasheva, Irina V

2017-01-01

The BeatBox simulation environment combines flexible script language user interface with the robust computational tools, in order to setup cardiac electrophysiology in-silico experiments without re-coding at low-level, so that cell excitation, tissue/anatomy models, stimulation protocols may be included into a BeatBox script, and simulation run either sequentially or in parallel (MPI) without re-compilation. BeatBox is a free software written in C language to be run on a Unix-based platform. It provides the whole spectrum of multi scale tissue modelling from 0-dimensional individual cell simulation, 1-dimensional fibre, 2-dimensional sheet and 3-dimensional slab of tissue, up to anatomically realistic whole heart simulations, with run time measurements including cardiac re-entry tip/filament tracing, ECG, local/global samples of any variables, etc. BeatBox solvers, cell, and tissue/anatomy models repositories are extended via robust and flexible interfaces, thus providing an open framework for new developments in the field. In this paper we give an overview of the BeatBox current state, together with a description of the main computational methods and MPI parallelisation approaches.

Shuttle mission simulator software conceptual design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Burke, J. F.

1973-01-01

Software conceptual designs (SCD) are presented for meeting the simulator requirements for the shuttle missions. The major areas of the SCD discussed include: malfunction insertion, flight software, applications software, systems software, and computer complex.

Statistical modeling of software reliability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miller, Douglas R.

1992-01-01

This working paper discusses the statistical simulation part of a controlled software development experiment being conducted under the direction of the System Validation Methods Branch, Information Systems Division, NASA Langley Research Center. The experiment uses guidance and control software (GCS) aboard a fictitious planetary landing spacecraft: real-time control software operating on a transient mission. Software execution is simulated to study the statistical aspects of reliability and other failure characteristics of the software during development, testing, and random usage. Quantification of software reliability is a major goal. Various reliability concepts are discussed. Experiments are described for performing simulations and collecting appropriate simulated software performance and failure data. This data is then used to make statistical inferences about the quality of the software development and verification processes as well as inferences about the reliability of software versions and reliability growth under random testing and debugging.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Potiron, A.; Gerometta, C.; Plun, J.M.

Simulation of casting processes is now industrially available with different softwares proposed to foundrymen. Yet, it is always difficult to provide the boundary conditions as correct as possible to represent accurately the environment of the mould. The knowledge of heat transfer coefficient used to modelize the cooling devices in permanent moulds is very important, as well as the acquisition of accurate data regarding die coatings or physical properties. After having conducted a sample survey with French foundries, the experiment conditions have been defined. Two main types of cooling device have been studied: water running in a pipe and air flowingmore » in a special shape to provide localized cooling. Some of the heat transfer coefficients have been simply calculated using Colburn`s law, others have been determined using a 1D or 2D inverse method. Auto-validation results obtained on the experimental device simulated with SIMULOR, a 3D finite volume software, are encouraging.« less

Dynamic Modeling and Simulation of an Underactuated System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Libardo Duarte Madrid, Juan; Ospina Henao, P. A.; González Querubín, E.

2017-06-01

In this paper, is used the Lagrangian classical mechanics for modeling the dynamics of an underactuated system, specifically a rotary inverted pendulum that will have two equations of motion. A basic design of the system is proposed in SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software, which based on the material and dimensions of the model provides some physical variables necessary for modeling. In order to verify the results obtained, a comparison the CAD model simulated in the environment SimMechanics of MATLAB software with the mathematical model who was consisting of Euler-Lagrange’s equations implemented in Simulink MATLAB, solved with the ODE23tb method, included in the MATLAB libraries for the solution of systems of equations of the type and order obtained. This article also has a topological analysis of pendulum trajectories through a phase space diagram, which allows the identification of stable and unstable regions of the system.

PSAMM: A Portable System for the Analysis of Metabolic Models

PubMed Central

Steffensen, Jon Lund; Dufault-Thompson, Keith; Zhang, Ying

2016-01-01

The genome-scale models of metabolic networks have been broadly applied in phenotype prediction, evolutionary reconstruction, community functional analysis, and metabolic engineering. Despite the development of tools that support individual steps along the modeling procedure, it is still difficult to associate mathematical simulation results with the annotation and biological interpretation of metabolic models. In order to solve this problem, here we developed a Portable System for the Analysis of Metabolic Models (PSAMM), a new open-source software package that supports the integration of heterogeneous metadata in model annotations and provides a user-friendly interface for the analysis of metabolic models. PSAMM is independent of paid software environments like MATLAB, and all its dependencies are freely available for academic users. Compared to existing tools, PSAMM significantly reduced the running time of constraint-based analysis and enabled flexible settings of simulation parameters using simple one-line commands. The integration of heterogeneous, model-specific annotation information in PSAMM is achieved with a novel format of YAML-based model representation, which has several advantages, such as providing a modular organization of model components and simulation settings, enabling model version tracking, and permitting the integration of multiple simulation problems. PSAMM also includes a number of quality checking procedures to examine stoichiometric balance and to identify blocked reactions. Applying PSAMM to 57 models collected from current literature, we demonstrated how the software can be used for managing and simulating metabolic models. We identified a number of common inconsistencies in existing models and constructed an updated model repository to document the resolution of these inconsistencies. PMID:26828591

Simulation of dental collisions and occlusal dynamics in the virtual environment.

PubMed

Stavness, I K; Hannam, A G; Tobias, D L; Zhang, X

2016-04-01

Semi-adjustable articulators have often been used to simulate occlusal dynamics, but advances in intra-oral scanning and computer software now enable dynamics to be modelled mathematically. Computer simulation of occlusal dynamics requires accurate virtual casts, records to register them and methods to handle mesh collisions during movement. Here, physical casts in a semi-adjustable articulator were scanned with a conventional clinical intra-oral scanner. A coordinate measuring machine was used to index their positions in intercuspation, protrusion, right and left laterotrusion, and to model features of the articulator. Penetrations between the indexed meshes were identified and resolved using restitution forces, and the final registrations were verified by distance measurements between dental landmarks at multiple sites. These sites were confirmed as closely approximating via measurements made from homologous transilluminated vinylpolysiloxane interocclusal impressions in the mounted casts. Movements between the indexed positions were simulated with two models in a custom biomechanical software platform. In model DENTAL, 6 degree-of-freedom movements were made to minimise deviation from a straight line path and also shaped by dynamic mesh collisions detected and resolved mathematically. In model ARTIC, the paths were further constrained by surfaces matching the control settings of the articulator. Despite these differences, the lower mid-incisor point paths were very similar in both models. The study suggests that mathematical simulation utilising interocclusal 'bite' registrations can closely replicate the primary movements of casts mounted in a semi-adjustable articulator. Additional indexing positions and appropriate software could, in some situations, replace the need for mechanical semi-adjustable articulation and/or its virtual representation. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

SpikingLab: modelling agents controlled by Spiking Neural Networks in Netlogo.

PubMed

Jimenez-Romero, Cristian; Johnson, Jeffrey

2017-01-01

The scientific interest attracted by Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) has lead to the development of tools for the simulation and study of neuronal dynamics ranging from phenomenological models to the more sophisticated and biologically accurate Hodgkin-and-Huxley-based and multi-compartmental models. However, despite the multiple features offered by neural modelling tools, their integration with environments for the simulation of robots and agents can be challenging and time consuming. The implementation of artificial neural circuits to control robots generally involves the following tasks: (1) understanding the simulation tools, (2) creating the neural circuit in the neural simulator, (3) linking the simulated neural circuit with the environment of the agent and (4) programming the appropriate interface in the robot or agent to use the neural controller. The accomplishment of the above-mentioned tasks can be challenging, especially for undergraduate students or novice researchers. This paper presents an alternative tool which facilitates the simulation of simple SNN circuits using the multi-agent simulation and the programming environment Netlogo (educational software that simplifies the study and experimentation of complex systems). The engine proposed and implemented in Netlogo for the simulation of a functional model of SNN is a simplification of integrate and fire (I&F) models. The characteristics of the engine (including neuronal dynamics, STDP learning and synaptic delay) are demonstrated through the implementation of an agent representing an artificial insect controlled by a simple neural circuit. The setup of the experiment and its outcomes are described in this work.

Dr.LiTHO: a development and research lithography simulator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fühner, Tim; Schnattinger, Thomas; Ardelean, Gheorghe; Erdmann, Andreas

2007-03-01

This paper introduces Dr.LiTHO, a research and development oriented lithography simulation environment developed at Fraunhofer IISB to flexibly integrate our simulation models into one coherent platform. We propose a light-weight approach to a lithography simulation environment: The use of a scripting (batch) language as an integration platform. Out of the great variety of different scripting languages, Python proved superior in many ways: It exhibits a good-natured learning-curve, it is efficient, available on virtually any platform, and provides sophisticated integration mechanisms for existing programs. In this paper, we will describe the steps, required to provide Python bindings for existing programs and to finally generate an integrated simulation environment. In addition, we will give a short introduction into selected software design demands associated with the development of such a framework. We will especially focus on testing and (both technical and user-oriented) documentation issues. Dr.LiTHO Python files contain not only all simulation parameter settings but also the simulation flow, providing maximum flexibility. In addition to relatively simple batch jobs, repetitive tasks can be pooled in libraries. And as Python is a full-blown programming language, users can add virtually any functionality, which is especially useful in the scope of simulation studies or optimization tasks, that often require masses of evaluations. Furthermore, we will give a short overview of the numerous existing Python packages. Several examples demonstrate the feasibility and productiveness of integrating Python packages into custom Dr.LiTHO scripts.

CFD simulation research on residential indoor air quality.

PubMed

Yang, Li; Ye, Miao; He, Bao-Jie

2014-02-15

Nowadays people are excessively depending on air conditioning to create a comfortable indoor environment, but it could cause some health problems in a long run. In this paper, wind velocity field, temperature field and air age field in a bedroom with wall-hanging air conditioning running in summer are analyzed by CFD numerical simulation technology. The results show that wall-hanging air conditioning system can undertake indoor heat load and conduct good indoor thermal comfort. In terms of wind velocity, air speed in activity area where people sit and stand is moderate, most of which cannot feel wind flow and meet the summer indoor wind comfort requirement. However, for air quality, there are local areas without ventilation and toxic gases not discharged in time. Therefore it is necessary to take effective measures to improve air quality. Compared with the traditional measurement method, CFD software has many advantages in simulating indoor environment, so it is hopeful for humans to create a more comfortable, healthy living environment by CFD in the future. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An intelligent robot for helping astronauts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Erickson, J. D.; Grimm, K. A.; Pendleton, T. W.

1994-01-01

This paper describes the development status of a prototype supervised intelligent robot for space application for purposes of (1) helping the crew of a spacecraft such as the Space Station with various tasks, such as holding objects and retrieving/replacing tools and other objects from/into storage, and (2) for purposes of retrieving detached objects, such as equipment or crew, that have become separated from their spacecraft. In addition to this set of tasks in this low-Earth-orbiting spacecraft environment, it is argued that certain aspects of the technology can be viewed as generic in approach, thereby offering insight into intelligent robots for other tasks and environments. Candidate software architectures and their key technical issues which enable real work in real environments to be accomplished safely and robustly are addressed. Results of computer simulations of grasping floating objects are presented. Also described are characterization results on the usable reduced gravity environment in an aircraft flying parabola (to simulate weightlessness) and results on hardware performance there. These results show it is feasible to use that environment for evaluative testing of dexterous grasping based on real-time vision of freely rotating and translating objects.

Real-time simulation of thermal shadows with EMIT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klein, Andreas; Oberhofer, Stefan; Schätz, Peter; Nischwitz, Alfred; Obermeier, Paul

2016-05-01

Modern missile systems use infrared imaging for tracking or target detection algorithms. The development and validation processes of these missile systems need high fidelity simulations capable of stimulating the sensors in real-time with infrared image sequences from a synthetic 3D environment. The Extensible Multispectral Image Generation Toolset (EMIT) is a modular software library developed at MBDA Germany for the generation of physics-based infrared images in real-time. EMIT is able to render radiance images in full 32-bit floating point precision using state of the art computer graphics cards and advanced shader programs. An important functionality of an infrared image generation toolset is the simulation of thermal shadows as these may cause matching errors in tracking algorithms. However, for real-time simulations, such as hardware in the loop simulations (HWIL) of infrared seekers, thermal shadows are often neglected or precomputed as they require a thermal balance calculation in four-dimensions (3D geometry in one-dimensional time up to several hours in the past). In this paper we will show the novel real-time thermal simulation of EMIT. Our thermal simulation is capable of simulating thermal effects in real-time environments, such as thermal shadows resulting from the occlusion of direct and indirect irradiance. We conclude our paper with the practical use of EMIT in a missile HWIL simulation.

Numerical Simulation of Blast Action on Civil Structures in Urban Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valger, Svetlana A.; Fedorova, Natalya N.; Fedorov, Alexander V.

2017-10-01

Nowadays, a lot of industrial accidents accompanied by explosions are happening throughout the world. Also, increase in the number of terrorist acts committed by means of explosions is observed. For improving safety of buildings and structures it is necessary to raise their resistance to explosive effects, as well as to be able to predict degree of potential damage upon explosive loads of various intensities. One of the principal goals in designing the structure resistant to explosive effects is to determine the dynamic response of structures to the impact of the blast wave. To this end, the transient pressure loads on the walls of the civil engineering structures are to be determined. The simulation of explosion is highly complicated, involving an explosion causing the shock wave propagation in air and then interaction with a structure. The engineering-level techniques permit one to estimate an explosive shock impact only for isolated buildings. The complexity of the building, the presence of nearby structures and the surrounding environment cannot be taken into account. Advanced computer aid engineering (CAE) software techniques combined with the latest methods of discrete three-dimensional city modelling permits one to simulate and analyse the effects of explosions in urban areas with a precision which previously was not possible. In the paper, the simulation results are presented of shock wave forming due to a spherical explosive charge and its propagation in the vicinity of geometrical configuration imitating an urban environment. The numerical simulation of a flow in the vicinity of prisms of different cross-sections and heights located on a flat plate was performed. The calculations are carried out in a three-dimensional non-viscous formulation using ANSYS software. On a basis of simulation results, a complex wave structures were analysed, and all the peculiarities of flows and pressure history records on building walls were described and explained. The possibility of a correct description of the non-stationary wave flow in the vicinity of the complex of obstacles is demonstrated. The results are compared with the experimental data on the pressure distribution in gauges located on the prism walls. The estimation of shock wave exposure intensity was performed to different objects.

Software-Engineering Process Simulation (SEPS) model

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lin, C. Y.; Abdel-Hamid, T.; Sherif, J. S.

1992-01-01

The Software Engineering Process Simulation (SEPS) model is described which was developed at JPL. SEPS is a dynamic simulation model of the software project development process. It uses the feedback principles of system dynamics to simulate the dynamic interactions among various software life cycle development activities and management decision making processes. The model is designed to be a planning tool to examine tradeoffs of cost, schedule, and functionality, and to test the implications of different managerial policies on a project's outcome. Furthermore, SEPS will enable software managers to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of software project development and perform postmodern assessments.

The atomic simulation environment—a Python library for working with atoms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hjorth Larsen, Ask; Jørgen Mortensen, Jens; Blomqvist, Jakob; Castelli, Ivano E.; Christensen, Rune; Dułak, Marcin; Friis, Jesper; Groves, Michael N.; Hammer, Bjørk; Hargus, Cory; Hermes, Eric D.; Jennings, Paul C.; Bjerre Jensen, Peter; Kermode, James; Kitchin, John R.; Leonhard Kolsbjerg, Esben; Kubal, Joseph; Kaasbjerg, Kristen; Lysgaard, Steen; Bergmann Maronsson, Jón; Maxson, Tristan; Olsen, Thomas; Pastewka, Lars; Peterson, Andrew; Rostgaard, Carsten; Schiøtz, Jakob; Schütt, Ole; Strange, Mikkel; Thygesen, Kristian S.; Vegge, Tejs; Vilhelmsen, Lasse; Walter, Michael; Zeng, Zhenhua; Jacobsen, Karsten W.

2017-07-01

The atomic simulation environment (ASE) is a software package written in the Python programming language with the aim of setting up, steering, and analyzing atomistic simulations. In ASE, tasks are fully scripted in Python. The powerful syntax of Python combined with the NumPy array library make it possible to perform very complex simulation tasks. For example, a sequence of calculations may be performed with the use of a simple ‘for-loop’ construction. Calculations of energy, forces, stresses and other quantities are performed through interfaces to many external electronic structure codes or force fields using a uniform interface. On top of this calculator interface, ASE provides modules for performing many standard simulation tasks such as structure optimization, molecular dynamics, handling of constraints and performing nudged elastic band calculations.

Ground Systems Development Environment (GSDE) interface requirements analysis: Operations scenarios

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Church, Victor E.; Phillips, John

1991-01-01

This report is a preliminary assessment of the functional and data interface requirements to the link between the GSDE GS/SPF (Amdahl) and the Space Station Control Center (SSCC) and Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) Integration, Verification, and Test Environments (IVTE's). These interfaces will be involved in ground software development of both the control center and the simulation and training systems. Our understanding of the configuration management (CM) interface and the expected functional characteristics of the Amdahl-IVTE interface is described. A set of assumptions and questions that need to be considered and resolved in order to complete the interface functional and data requirements definitions are presented. A listing of information items defined to describe software configuration items in the GSDE CM system is included. It also includes listings of standard reports of CM information and of CM-related tools in the GSDE.

A user's guide for the signal processing software for image and speech compression developed in the Communications and Signal Processing Laboratory (CSPL), version 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kumar, P.; Lin, F. Y.; Vaishampayan, V.; Farvardin, N.

1986-01-01

A complete documentation of the software developed in the Communication and Signal Processing Laboratory (CSPL) during the period of July 1985 to March 1986 is provided. Utility programs and subroutines that were developed for a user-friendly image and speech processing environment are described. Additional programs for data compression of image and speech type signals are included. Also, programs for the zero-memory and block transform quantization in the presence of channel noise are described. Finally, several routines for simulating the perfromance of image compression algorithms are included.

Kinematic analysis of the finger exoskeleton using MATLAB/Simulink.

PubMed

Nasiłowski, Krzysztof; Awrejcewicz, Jan; Lewandowski, Donat

2014-01-01

A paralyzed and not fully functional part of human body can be supported by the properly designed exoskeleton system with motoric abilities. It can help in rehabilitation, or movement of a disabled/paralyzed limb. Both suitably selected geometry and specialized software are studied applying the MATLAB environment. A finger exoskeleton was the base for MATLAB/Simulink model. Specialized software, such as MATLAB/Simulink give us an opportunity to optimize calculation reaching precise results, which help in next steps of design process. The calculations carried out yield information regarding movement relation between three functionally connected actuators and showed distance and velocity changes during the whole simulation time.

Hazard Detection Software for Lunar Landing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huertas, Andres; Johnson, Andrew E.; Werner, Robert A.; Montgomery, James F.

2011-01-01

The Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) Project is developing a system for safe and precise manned lunar landing that involves novel sensors, but also specific algorithms. ALHAT has selected imaging LIDAR (light detection and ranging) as the sensing modality for onboard hazard detection because imaging LIDARs can rapidly generate direct measurements of the lunar surface elevation from high altitude. Then, starting with the LIDAR-based Hazard Detection and Avoidance (HDA) algorithm developed for Mars Landing, JPL has developed a mature set of HDA software for the manned lunar landing problem. Landing hazards exist everywhere on the Moon, and many of the more desirable landing sites are near the most hazardous terrain, so HDA is needed to autonomously and safely land payloads over much of the lunar surface. The HDA requirements used in the ALHAT project are to detect hazards that are 0.3 m tall or higher and slopes that are 5 or greater. Steep slopes, rocks, cliffs, and gullies are all hazards for landing and, by computing the local slope and roughness in an elevation map, all of these hazards can be detected. The algorithm in this innovation is used to measure slope and roughness hazards. In addition to detecting these hazards, the HDA capability also is able to find a safe landing site free of these hazards for a lunar lander with diameter .15 m over most of the lunar surface. This software includes an implementation of the HDA algorithm, software for generating simulated lunar terrain maps for testing, hazard detection performance analysis tools, and associated documentation. The HDA software has been deployed to Langley Research Center and integrated into the POST II Monte Carlo simulation environment. The high-fidelity Monte Carlo simulations determine the required ground spacing between LIDAR samples (ground sample distances) and the noise on the LIDAR range measurement. This simulation has also been used to determine the effect of viewing on hazard detection performance. The software has also been deployed to Johnson Space Center and integrated into the ALHAT real-time Hardware-in-the-Loop testbed.

Economical graphics display system for flight simulation avionics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1990-01-01

During the past academic year the focal point of this project has been to enhance the economical flight simulator system by incorporating it into the aero engineering educational environment. To accomplish this goal it was necessary to develop appropriate software modules that provide a foundation for student interaction with the system. In addition experiments had to be developed and tested to determine if they were appropriate for incorporation into the beginning flight simulation course, AERO-41B. For the most part these goals were accomplished. Experiments were developed and evaluated by graduate students. More work needs to be done in this area. The complexity and length of the experiments must be refined to match the programming experience of the target students. It was determined that few undergraduate students are ready to absorb the full extent and complexity of a real-time flight simulation. For this reason the experiments developed are designed to introduce basic computer architectures suitable for simulation, the programming environment and languages, the concept of math modules, evaluation of acquired data, and an introduction to the meaning of real-time. An overview is included of the system environment as it pertains to the students, an example of a flight simulation experiment performed by the students, and a summary of the executive programming modules created by the students to achieve a user-friendly multi-processor system suitable to an aero engineering educational program.

Implementation of Shifted Periodic Boundary Conditions in the Large-Scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) Software

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-01

Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator ( LAMMPS ) Software by N Scott Weingarten and James P Larentzos Approved for...Massively Parallel Simulator ( LAMMPS ) Software by N Scott Weingarten Weapons and Materials Research Directorate, ARL James P Larentzos Engility...Shifted Periodic Boundary Conditions in the Large-Scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator ( LAMMPS ) Software 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b

Detecting a Protein in its Natural Environment with a MOSFET Transistor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perez, Benjamin; Balijepalli, Arvind

2015-03-01

Our group's goal is to make a MOSFET transistor that has a nanopore through it. We want to have proteins flow through this device and examine their structure based on the modulation they cause on the current. This process does not harm the protein and allows the protein to be studied in its natural environment. The electric field and electric potential of a point charge were computed within a nano-transistor. The simulations were used to see if the point charge had enough influence on the current to cause a modulation. The point charge did cause a rise in the current making the modulation concept a viable one for medical applications. COMSOL metaphysics software was used to perform all simulations. The Society of Physics Students internship program and NIST.

Simulation of APEX data: the SENSOR approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boerner, Anko; Schaepman, Michael E.; Schlaepfer, Daniel; Wiest, Lorenz; Reulke, Ralf

1999-10-01

The consistent simulation of airborne and spaceborne hyperspectral data is an important task and sometimes the only way for the adaptation and optimization of a sensor and its observing conditions, the choice and test of algorithms for data processing, error estimations and the evaluation of the capabilities of the whole sensor system. The integration of three approaches is suggested for the data simulation of APEX (Airborne Prism Experiment): (1) a spectrally consistent approach (e.g. using AVIRIS data), (2) a geometrically consistent approach (e.g. using CASI data), and (3) an end-to- end simulation of the sensor system. In this paper, the last approach is discussed in detail. Such a technique should be used if there is no simple deterministic relation between input and output parameters. The simulation environment SENSOR (Software Environment for the Simulation of Optical Remote Sensing Systems) presented here includes a full model of the sensor system, the observed object and the atmosphere. The simulator consists of three parts. The first part describes the geometrical relations between object, sun, and sensor using a ray tracing algorithm. The second part of the simulation environment considers the radiometry. It calculates the at-sensor-radiance using a pre-calculated multidimensional lookup-table for the atmospheric boundary conditions and bi- directional reflectances. Part three consists of an optical and an electronic sensor model for the generation of digital images. Application-specific algorithms for data processing must be considered additionally. The benefit of using an end- to-end simulation approach is demonstrated, an example of a simulated APEX data cube is given, and preliminary steps of evaluation of SENSOR are carried out.

Virtual environment display for a 3D audio room simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chapin, William L.; Foster, Scott

1992-06-01

Recent developments in virtual 3D audio and synthetic aural environments have produced a complex acoustical room simulation. The acoustical simulation models a room with walls, ceiling, and floor of selected sound reflecting/absorbing characteristics and unlimited independent localizable sound sources. This non-visual acoustic simulation, implemented with 4 audio ConvolvotronsTM by Crystal River Engineering and coupled to the listener with a Poihemus IsotrakTM, tracking the listener's head position and orientation, and stereo headphones returning binaural sound, is quite compelling to most listeners with eyes closed. This immersive effect should be reinforced when properly integrated into a full, multi-sensory virtual environment presentation. This paper discusses the design of an interactive, visual virtual environment, complementing the acoustic model and specified to: 1) allow the listener to freely move about the space, a room of manipulable size, shape, and audio character, while interactively relocating the sound sources; 2) reinforce the listener's feeling of telepresence into the acoustical environment with visual and proprioceptive sensations; 3) enhance the audio with the graphic and interactive components, rather than overwhelm or reduce it; and 4) serve as a research testbed and technology transfer demonstration. The hardware/software design of two demonstration systems, one installed and one portable, are discussed through the development of four iterative configurations. The installed system implements a head-coupled, wide-angle, stereo-optic tracker/viewer and multi-computer simulation control. The portable demonstration system implements a head-mounted wide-angle, stereo-optic display, separate head and pointer electro-magnetic position trackers, a heterogeneous parallel graphics processing system, and object oriented C++ program code.

Physically Based Rendering in the Nightshade NG Visualization Platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berglund, Karrie; Larey-Williams, Trystan; Spearman, Rob; Bogard, Arthur

2015-01-01

This poster describes our work on creating a physically based rendering model in Nightshade NG planetarium simulation and visualization software (project website: NightshadeSoftware.org). We discuss techniques used for rendering realistic scenes in the universe and dealing with astronomical distances in real time on consumer hardware. We also discuss some of the challenges of rewriting the software from scratch, a project which began in 2011.Nightshade NG can be a powerful tool for sharing data and visualizations. The desktop version of the software is free for anyone to download, use, and modify; it runs on Windows and Linux (and eventually Mac). If you are looking to disseminate your data or models, please stop by to discuss how we can work together.Nightshade software is used in literally hundreds of digital planetarium systems worldwide. Countless teachers and astronomy education groups run the software on flat screens. This wide use makes Nightshade an effective tool for dissemination to educators and the public.Nightshade NG is an especially powerful visualization tool when projected on a dome. We invite everyone to enter our inflatable dome in the exhibit hall to see this software in a 3D environment.

Simulation in a dynamic prototyping environment: Petri nets or rules?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moore, Loretta A.; Price, Shannon W.; Hale, Joseph P.

1994-01-01

An evaluation of a prototyped user interface is best supported by a simulation of the system. A simulation allows for dynamic evaluation of the interface rather than just a static evaluation of the screen's appearance. This allows potential users to evaluate both the look (in terms of the screen layout, color, objects, etc.) and feel (in terms of operations and actions which need to be performed) of a system's interface. Because of the need to provide dynamic evaluation of an interface, there must be support for producing active simulations. The high-fidelity training simulators are normally delivered too late to be effectively used in prototyping the displays. Therefore, it is important to build a low fidelity simulator, so that the iterative cycle of refining the human computer interface based upon a user's interactions can proceed early in software development.

Simulation in a dynamic prototyping environment: Petri nets or rules?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moore, Loretta A.; Price, Shannon; Hale, Joseph P.

1994-01-01

An evaluation of a prototyped user interface is best supported by a simulation of the system. A simulation allows for dynamic evaluation of the interface rather than just a static evaluation of the screen's appearance. This allows potential users to evaluate both the look (in terms of the screen layout, color, objects, etc.) and feel (in terms of operations and actions which need to be performed) of a system's interface. Because of the need to provide dynamic evaluation of an interface, there must be support for producing active simulations. The high-fidelity training simulators are delivered too late to be effectively used in prototyping the displays. Therefore, it is important to build a low fidelity simulator, so that the iterative cycle of refining the human computer interface based upon a user's interactions can proceed early in software development.

A smart grid simulation testbed using Matlab/Simulink

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mallapuram, Sriharsha; Moulema, Paul; Yu, Wei

2014-06-01

The smart grid is the integration of computing and communication technologies into a power grid with a goal of enabling real time control, and a reliable, secure, and efficient energy system [1]. With the increased interest of the research community and stakeholders towards the smart grid, a number of solutions and algorithms have been developed and proposed to address issues related to smart grid operations and functions. Those technologies and solutions need to be tested and validated before implementation using software simulators. In this paper, we developed a general smart grid simulation model in the MATLAB/Simulink environment, which integrates renewable energy resources, energy storage technology, load monitoring and control capability. To demonstrate and validate the effectiveness of our simulation model, we created simulation scenarios and performed simulations using a real-world data set provided by the Pecan Street Research Institute.

The SCEC Broadband Platform: Open-Source Software for Strong Ground Motion Simulation and Validation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goulet, C.; Silva, F.; Maechling, P. J.; Callaghan, S.; Jordan, T. H.

2015-12-01

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) Broadband Platform (BBP) is a carefully integrated collection of open-source scientific software programs that can simulate broadband (0-100Hz) ground motions for earthquakes at regional scales. The BBP scientific software modules implement kinematic rupture generation, low and high-frequency seismogram synthesis using wave propagation through 1D layered velocity structures, seismogram ground motion amplitude calculations, and goodness of fit measurements. These modules are integrated into a software system that provides user-defined, repeatable, calculation of ground motion seismograms, using multiple alternative ground motion simulation methods, and software utilities that can generate plots, charts, and maps. The BBP has been developed over the last five years in a collaborative scientific, engineering, and software development project involving geoscientists, earthquake engineers, graduate students, and SCEC scientific software developers. The BBP can run earthquake rupture and wave propagation modeling software to simulate ground motions for well-observed historical earthquakes and to quantify how well the simulated broadband seismograms match the observed seismograms. The BBP can also run simulations for hypothetical earthquakes. In this case, users input an earthquake location and magnitude description, a list of station locations, and a 1D velocity model for the region of interest, and the BBP software then calculates ground motions for the specified stations. The SCEC BBP software released in 2015 can be compiled and run on recent Linux systems with GNU compilers. It includes 5 simulation methods, 7 simulation regions covering California, Japan, and Eastern North America, the ability to compare simulation results against GMPEs, updated ground motion simulation methods, and a simplified command line user interface.

Rule-based modeling with Virtual Cell

PubMed Central

Schaff, James C.; Vasilescu, Dan; Moraru, Ion I.; Loew, Leslie M.; Blinov, Michael L.

2016-01-01

Summary: Rule-based modeling is invaluable when the number of possible species and reactions in a model become too large to allow convenient manual specification. The popular rule-based software tools BioNetGen and NFSim provide powerful modeling and simulation capabilities at the cost of learning a complex scripting language which is used to specify these models. Here, we introduce a modeling tool that combines new graphical rule-based model specification with existing simulation engines in a seamless way within the familiar Virtual Cell (VCell) modeling environment. A mathematical model can be built integrating explicit reaction networks with reaction rules. In addition to offering a large choice of ODE and stochastic solvers, a model can be simulated using a network free approach through the NFSim simulation engine. Availability and implementation: Available as VCell (versions 6.0 and later) at the Virtual Cell web site (http://vcell.org/). The application installs and runs on all major platforms and does not require registration for use on the user’s computer. Tutorials are available at the Virtual Cell website and Help is provided within the software. Source code is available at Sourceforge. Contact: vcell_support@uchc.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:27497444

Investigating the Impact of Using a CAD Simulation Tool on Students' Learning of Design Thinking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taleyarkhan, Manaz; Dasgupta, Chandan; Garcia, John Mendoza; Magana, Alejandra J.

2018-02-01

Engineering design thinking is hard to teach and still harder to learn by novices primarily due to the undetermined nature of engineering problems that often results in multiple solutions. In this paper, we investigate the effect of teaching engineering design thinking to freshmen students by using a computer-aided Design (CAD) simulation software. We present a framework for characterizing different levels of engineering design thinking displayed by students who interacted with the CAD simulation software in the context of a collaborative assignment. This framework describes the presence of four levels of engineering design thinking—beginning designer, adept beginning designer, informed designer, adept informed designer. We present the characteristics associated with each of these four levels as they pertain to four engineering design strategies that students pursued in this study—understanding the design challenge, building knowledge, weighing options and making tradeoffs, and reflecting on the process. Students demonstrated significant improvements in two strategies—understanding the design challenge and building knowledge. We discuss the affordances of the CAD simulation tool along with the learning environment that potentially helped students move towards Adept informed designers while pursuing these design strategies.

Modeling Nitrogen Dynamics in a Waste Stabilization Pond System Using Flexible Modeling Environment with MCMC.

PubMed

Mukhtar, Hussnain; Lin, Yu-Pin; Shipin, Oleg V; Petway, Joy R

2017-07-12

This study presents an approach for obtaining realization sets of parameters for nitrogen removal in a pilot-scale waste stabilization pond (WSP) system. The proposed approach was designed for optimal parameterization, local sensitivity analysis, and global uncertainty analysis of a dynamic simulation model for the WSP by using the R software package Flexible Modeling Environment (R-FME) with the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. Additionally, generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) was integrated into the FME to evaluate the major parameters that affect the simulation outputs in the study WSP. Comprehensive modeling analysis was used to simulate and assess nine parameters and concentrations of ON-N, NH₃-N and NO₃-N. Results indicate that the integrated FME-GLUE-based model, with good Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients (0.53-0.69) and correlation coefficients (0.76-0.83), successfully simulates the concentrations of ON-N, NH₃-N and NO₃-N. Moreover, the Arrhenius constant was the only parameter sensitive to model performances of ON-N and NH₃-N simulations. However, Nitrosomonas growth rate, the denitrification constant, and the maximum growth rate at 20 °C were sensitive to ON-N and NO₃-N simulation, which was measured using global sensitivity.

TEMPUS: Simulating personnel and tasks in a 3-D environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Badler, N. I.; Korein, J. D.

1985-01-01

The latest TEMPUS installation occurred in March, 1985. Another update is slated for early June, 1985. An updated User's Manual is in preparation and will be delivered approximately mid-June, 1985. NASA JSC has full source code listings and internal documentation for installed software. NASA JSC staff has received instruction in the use of TEMPUS. Telephone consultations have augmented on-site instruction.

LISA: a java API for performing simulations of trajectories for all types of balloons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Conessa, Huguette

2016-07-01

LISA (LIbrarie de Simulation pour les Aerostats) is a java API for performing simulations of trajectories for all types of balloons (Zero Pressure Balloons, Pressurized Balloons, Infrared Montgolfier), and for all phases of flight (ascent, ceiling, descent). This library has for goals to establish a reliable repository of Balloons flight physics models, to capitalize developments and control models used in different tools. It is already used for flight physics study software in CNES, to understand and reproduce the behavior of balloons, observed during real flights. It will be used operationally for the ground segment of the STRATEOLE2 mission. It was developed with quality rules of "critical software." It is based on fundamental generic concepts, linking the simulation state variables to interchangeable calculation models. Each LISA model defines how to calculate a consistent set of state variables combining validity checks. To perform a simulation for a type of balloon and a phase of flight, it is necessary to select or create a macro-model that is to say, a consistent set of models to choose from among those offered by LISA, defining the behavior of the environment and the balloon. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce the main concepts of LISA, and the new perspectives offered by this library.

Simulating star clusters with the AMUSE software framework. I. Dependence of cluster lifetimes on model assumptions and cluster dissolution modes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Whitehead, Alfred J.; McMillan, Stephen L. W.; Vesperini, Enrico

2013-12-01

We perform a series of simulations of evolving star clusters using the Astrophysical Multipurpose Software Environment (AMUSE), a new community-based multi-physics simulation package, and compare our results to existing work. These simulations model a star cluster beginning with a King model distribution and a selection of power-law initial mass functions and contain a tidal cutoff. They are evolved using collisional stellar dynamics and include mass loss due to stellar evolution. After studying and understanding that the differences between AMUSE results and results from previous studies are understood, we explored the variation in cluster lifetimes due to the random realization noisemore » introduced by transforming a King model to specific initial conditions. This random realization noise can affect the lifetime of a simulated star cluster by up to 30%. Two modes of star cluster dissolution were identified: a mass evolution curve that contains a runaway cluster dissolution with a sudden loss of mass, and a dissolution mode that does not contain this feature. We refer to these dissolution modes as 'dynamical' and 'relaxation' dominated, respectively. For Salpeter-like initial mass functions, we determined the boundary between these two modes in terms of the dynamical and relaxation timescales.« less

A Functional Comparison of Lunar Regoliths and Their Simulants

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rickman, D.; Edmunson, J.; McLemore, C.

2012-01-01

Lunar regolith simulants are essential to the development of technology for human exploration of the Moon. Any equipment that will interact with the surface environment must be tested with simulant to mitigate risk. To reduce the greatest amount of risk, the simulant must replicate the lunar surface as well as possible. To quantify the similarities and differences between simulants, the Figures of Merit were developed. The Figures of Merit software compares the simulants and regolith by particle size, particle shape, density, and bulk chemistry and mineralogy; these four properties dictate the majority of the remaining characteristics of a geologic material. There are limitations to both the current Figures of Merit approach and simulants in general. The effect of particle textures is lacking in the Figures of Merit software, and research into this topic has only recently begun with applications to simulants. In addition, not all of the properties for lunar regolith are defined sufficiently for simulant reproduction or comparison; for example, the size distribution of particles greater than 1 centimeter and the makeup of particles less than 10 micrometers is not well known. For simulants, contamination by terrestrial weathering products or undesired trace phases in feedstock material is a major issue. Vapor deposited rims have not yet been created for simulants. Fortunately, previous limitations such as the lack of agglutinates in simulants have been addressed and commercial companies are now making agglutinate material for simulants. Despite some limitations, the Figures of Merit sufficiently quantify the comparison between simulants and regolith for useful application in lunar surface technology. Over time, the compilation and analysis of simulant user data will add an advantageous predictive capability to the Figures of Merit, accurately relating Figures of Merit characteristics to simulant user parameters.

Simulation on the internal structure of three-dimensional proximal tibia under different mechanical environments.

PubMed

Fang, Juan; Gong, He; Kong, Lingyan; Zhu, Dong

2013-12-20

Bone can adjust its morphological structure to adapt to the changes of mechanical environment, i.e. the bone structure change is related to mechanical loading. This implies that osteoarthritis may be closely associated with knee joint deformity. The purposes of this paper were to simulate the internal bone mineral density (BMD) change in three-dimensional (3D) proximal tibia under different mechanical environments, as well as to explore the relationship between mechanical environment and bone morphological abnormity. The right proximal tibia was scanned with CT to reconstruct a 3D proximal tibia model in MIMICS, then it was imported to finite element software ANSYS to establish 3D finite element model. The internal structure of 3D proximal tibia of young normal people was simulated using quantitative bone remodeling theory in combination with finite element method, then based on the changing pattern of joint contact force on the tibial plateau in valgus knees, the mechanical loading was changed, and the simulated normal tibia structure was used as initial structure to simulate the internal structure of 3D proximal tibia for old people with 6° valgus deformity. Four regions of interest (ROIs) were selected in the proximal tibia to quantitatively analyze BMD and compare with the clinical measurements. The simulation results showed that the BMD distribution in 3D proximal tibia was consistent with clinical measurements in normal knees and that in valgus knees was consistent with the measurement of patients with osteoarthritis in clinics. It is shown that the change of mechanical environment is the main cause for the change of subchondral bone structure, and being under abnormal mechanical environment for a long time may lead to osteoarthritis. Besides, the simulation method adopted in this paper can more accurately simulate the internal structure of 3D proximal tibia under different mechanical environments. It helps to better understand the mechanism of osteoarthritis and provides theoretical basis and computational method for the prevention and treatment of osteoarthritis. It can also serve as basis for further study on periprosthetic BMD changes after total knee arthroplasty, and provide a theoretical basis for optimization design of prosthesis.

Simulation on the internal structure of three-dimensional proximal tibia under different mechanical environments

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Bone can adjust its morphological structure to adapt to the changes of mechanical environment, i.e. the bone structure change is related to mechanical loading. This implies that osteoarthritis may be closely associated with knee joint deformity. The purposes of this paper were to simulate the internal bone mineral density (BMD) change in three-dimensional (3D) proximal tibia under different mechanical environments, as well as to explore the relationship between mechanical environment and bone morphological abnormity. Methods The right proximal tibia was scanned with CT to reconstruct a 3D proximal tibia model in MIMICS, then it was imported to finite element software ANSYS to establish 3D finite element model. The internal structure of 3D proximal tibia of young normal people was simulated using quantitative bone remodeling theory in combination with finite element method, then based on the changing pattern of joint contact force on the tibial plateau in valgus knees, the mechanical loading was changed, and the simulated normal tibia structure was used as initial structure to simulate the internal structure of 3D proximal tibia for old people with 6° valgus deformity. Four regions of interest (ROIs) were selected in the proximal tibia to quantitatively analyze BMD and compare with the clinical measurements. Results The simulation results showed that the BMD distribution in 3D proximal tibia was consistent with clinical measurements in normal knees and that in valgus knees was consistent with the measurement of patients with osteoarthritis in clinics. Conclusions It is shown that the change of mechanical environment is the main cause for the change of subchondral bone structure, and being under abnormal mechanical environment for a long time may lead to osteoarthritis. Besides, the simulation method adopted in this paper can more accurately simulate the internal structure of 3D proximal tibia under different mechanical environments. It helps to better understand the mechanism of osteoarthritis and provides theoretical basis and computational method for the prevention and treatment of osteoarthritis. It can also serve as basis for further study on periprosthetic BMD changes after total knee arthroplasty, and provide a theoretical basis for optimization design of prosthesis. PMID:24359345

Computational Tools and Facilities for the Next-Generation Analysis and Design Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Noor, Ahmed K. (Compiler); Malone, John B. (Compiler)

1997-01-01

This document contains presentations from the joint UVA/NASA Workshop on Computational Tools and Facilities for the Next-Generation Analysis and Design Environment held at the Virginia Consortium of Engineering and Science Universities in Hampton, Virginia on September 17-18, 1996. The presentations focused on the computational tools and facilities for analysis and design of engineering systems, including, real-time simulations, immersive systems, collaborative engineering environment, Web-based tools and interactive media for technical training. Workshop attendees represented NASA, commercial software developers, the aerospace industry, government labs, and academia. The workshop objectives were to assess the level of maturity of a number of computational tools and facilities and their potential for application to the next-generation integrated design environment.

Simulation of Lunar Surface Communications Network Exploration Scenarios

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Linsky, Thomas W.; Bhasin, Kul B.; White, Alex; Palangala, Srihari

2006-01-01

Simulations and modeling of surface-based communications networks provides a rapid and cost effective means of requirement analysis, protocol assessments, and tradeoff studies. Robust testing in especially important for exploration systems, where the cost of deployment is high and systems cannot be easily replaced or repaired. However, simulation of the envisioned exploration networks cannot be achieved using commercial off the shelf network simulation software. Models for the nonstandard, non-COTS protocols used aboard space systems are not readily available. This paper will address the simulation of realistic scenarios representative of the activities which will take place on the surface of the Moon, including selection of candidate network architectures, and the development of an integrated simulation tool using OPNET modeler capable of faithfully modeling those communications scenarios in the variable delay, dynamic surface environments. Scenarios for exploration missions, OPNET development, limitations, and simulations results will be provided and discussed.

An interface for simulating radiative transfer in and around volcanic plumes with the Monte Carlo radiative transfer model McArtim

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kern, Christoph

2016-03-23

This report describes two software tools that, when used as front ends for the three-dimensional backward Monte Carlo atmospheric-radiative-transfer model (RTM) McArtim, facilitate the generation of lookup tables of volcanic-plume optical-transmittance characteristics in the ultraviolet/visible-spectral region. In particular, the differential optical depth and derivatives thereof (that is, weighting functions), with regard to a change in SO2 column density or aerosol optical thickness, can be simulated for a specific measurement geometry and a representative range of plume conditions. These tables are required for the retrieval of SO2 column density in volcanic plumes, using the simulated radiative-transfer/differential optical-absorption spectroscopic (SRT-DOAS) approach outlined by Kern and others (2012). This report, together with the software tools published online, is intended to make this sophisticated SRT-DOAS technique available to volcanologists and gas geochemists in an operational environment, without the need for an indepth treatment of the underlying principles or the low-level interface of the RTM McArtim.

Study on Noise Prediction Model and Control Schemes for Substation

PubMed Central

Gao, Yang; Liu, Songtao

2014-01-01

With the government's emphasis on environmental issues of power transmission and transformation project, noise pollution has become a prominent problem now. The noise from the working transformer, reactor, and other electrical equipment in the substation will bring negative effect to the ambient environment. This paper focuses on using acoustic software for the simulation and calculation method to control substation noise. According to the characteristics of the substation noise and the techniques of noise reduction, a substation's acoustic field model was established with the SoundPLAN software to predict the scope of substation noise. On this basis, 4 reasonable noise control schemes were advanced to provide some helpful references for noise control during the new substation's design and construction process. And the feasibility and application effect of these control schemes can be verified by using the method of simulation modeling. The simulation results show that the substation always has the problem of excessive noise at boundary under the conventional measures. The excess noise can be efficiently reduced by taking the corresponding noise reduction methods. PMID:24672356

Army-NASA aircrew/aircraft integration program (A3I) software detailed design document, phase 3

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Banda, Carolyn; Chiu, Alex; Helms, Gretchen; Hsieh, Tehming; Lui, Andrew; Murray, Jerry; Shankar, Renuka

1990-01-01

The capabilities and design approach of the MIDAS (Man-machine Integration Design and Analysis System) computer-aided engineering (CAE) workstation under development by the Army-NASA Aircrew/Aircraft Integration Program is detailed. This workstation uses graphic, symbolic, and numeric prototyping tools and human performance models as part of an integrated design/analysis environment for crewstation human engineering. Developed incrementally, the requirements and design for Phase 3 (Dec. 1987 to Jun. 1989) are described. Software tools/models developed or significantly modified during this phase included: an interactive 3-D graphic cockpit design editor; multiple-perspective graphic views to observe simulation scenarios; symbolic methods to model the mission decomposition, equipment functions, pilot tasking and loading, as well as control the simulation; a 3-D dynamic anthropometric model; an intermachine communications package; and a training assessment component. These components were successfully used during Phase 3 to demonstrate the complex interactions and human engineering findings involved with a proposed cockpit communications design change in a simulated AH-64A Apache helicopter/mission that maps to empirical data from a similar study and AH-1 Cobra flight test.

The Trouble with Thinking like Arena: Learning to Use Simulation Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodgers, Diane M.; Moraga, Reinaldo J.

2011-01-01

Simulation software used for modeling has become as ubiquitous as computers themselves. Despite growing reliance on simulation in educational and workplace settings, users encounter frustration in using simulation software programs. The authors conducted a study with 26 engineering students and interviewed them about their experience learning the…

A SIMULINK environment for flight dynamics and control analysis: Application to the DHC-2 Beaver. Part 1: Implementation of a model library in SIMULINK. Part 2: Nonlinear analysis of the Beaver autopilot

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rauw, Marc O.

1993-01-01

The design of advanced Automatic Aircraft Control Systems (AACS's) can be improved upon considerably if the designer can access all models and tools required for control system design and analysis through a graphical user interface, from within one software environment. This MSc-thesis presents the first step in the development of such an environment, which is currently being done at the Section for Stability and Control of Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. The environment is implemented within the commercially available software package MATLAB/SIMULINK. The report consists of two parts. Part 1 gives a detailed description of the AACS design environment. The heart of this environment is formed by the SIMULINK implementation of a nonlinear aircraft model in block-diagram format. The model has been worked out for the old laboratory aircraft of the Faculty, the DeHavilland DHC-2 'Beaver', but due to its modular structure, it can easily be adapted for other aircraft. Part 1 also describes MATLAB programs which can be applied for finding steady-state trimmed-flight conditions and for linearization of the aircraft model, and it shows how the built-in simulation routines of SIMULINK have been used for open-loop analysis of the aircraft dynamics. Apart from the implementation of the models and tools, a thorough treatment of the theoretical backgrounds is presented. Part 2 of this report presents a part of an autopilot design process for the 'Beaver' aircraft, which clearly demonstrates the power and flexibility of the AACS design environment from part 1. Evaluations of all longitudinal and lateral control laws by means of nonlinear simulations are treated in detail. A floppy disk containing all relevant MATLAB programs and SIMULINK models is provided as a supplement.

CONFIG: Integrated engineering of systems and their operation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Malin, Jane T.; Ryan, Dan; Fleming, Land

1994-01-01

This article discusses CONFIG 3, a prototype software tool that supports integrated conceptual design evaluation from early in the product life cycle, by supporting isolated or integrated modeling, simulation, and analysis of the function, structure, behavior, failures and operations of system designs. Integration and reuse of models is supported in an object-oriented environment providing capabilities for graph analysis and discrete event simulation. CONFIG supports integration among diverse modeling approaches (component view, configuration or flow path view, and procedure view) and diverse simulation and analysis approaches. CONFIG is designed to support integrated engineering in diverse design domains, including mechanical and electro-mechanical systems, distributed computer systems, and chemical processing and transport systems.

Brownian dynamics simulation of rigid particles of arbitrary shape in external fields.

PubMed

Fernandes, Miguel X; de la Torre, José García

2002-12-01

We have developed a Brownian dynamics simulation algorithm to generate Brownian trajectories of an isolated, rigid particle of arbitrary shape in the presence of electric fields or any other external agents. Starting from the generalized diffusion tensor, which can be calculated with the existing HYDRO software, the new program BROWNRIG (including a case-specific subprogram for the external agent) carries out a simulation that is analyzed later to extract the observable dynamic properties. We provide a variety of examples of utilization of this method, which serve as tests of its performance, and also illustrate its applicability. Examples include free diffusion, transport in an electric field, and diffusion in a restricting environment.

Development of an audio-based virtual gaming environment to assist with navigation skills in the blind.

PubMed

Connors, Erin C; Yazzolino, Lindsay A; Sánchez, Jaime; Merabet, Lotfi B

2013-03-27

Audio-based Environment Simulator (AbES) is virtual environment software designed to improve real world navigation skills in the blind. Using only audio based cues and set within the context of a video game metaphor, users gather relevant spatial information regarding a building's layout. This allows the user to develop an accurate spatial cognitive map of a large-scale three-dimensional space that can be manipulated for the purposes of a real indoor navigation task. After game play, participants are then assessed on their ability to navigate within the target physical building represented in the game. Preliminary results suggest that early blind users were able to acquire relevant information regarding the spatial layout of a previously unfamiliar building as indexed by their performance on a series of navigation tasks. These tasks included path finding through the virtual and physical building, as well as a series of drop off tasks. We find that the immersive and highly interactive nature of the AbES software appears to greatly engage the blind user to actively explore the virtual environment. Applications of this approach may extend to larger populations of visually impaired individuals.