Vehicles and Performance

Turbulence

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Briefs: Data Acquisition
Researchers have achieved data rates as high as 424Gbit/s across a 53-km turbulent free-space optical link using plasmonic modulators — devices that uses special light waves called surface plasmon polaritons to control and change optical signals. The new research lays the groundwork for high-speed optical communication links that transmit data over open air or space. Read on to learn more.
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Q&A: AR/AI
Professor Animashree (Anima) Anandkumar and her team at The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a control strategy for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that uses reinforcement learning to adaptively learn how turbulent wind can change over time and then uses that knowledge to control the UAV based on what it is experiencing.
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Briefs: Communications
Researchers have outlined a new optical communication protocol that exploits spatial patterns of light for multi-dimensional encoding in a manner that does not require the patterns to be recognized, thus overcoming the prior limitation of modal distortion in noisy channels.
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Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Unprecedented and unrelenting market turbulence has shown that the old ways of supply chain planning and manufacturing production are outdated and vulnerable to disruption.
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NASA Spinoff: Data Acquisition
A NASA microphone that detects unseen air turbulence is lofted to high heights aboard a stratospheric glider.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The system uses infrasonic acoustics for weather monitoring and for drone or UAV activity.
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Briefs: Data Acquisition
This model can be used to design better aircraft without having to wait months for supercomputer calculations.
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Briefs: Energy
Taking a cue from birds and insects, the wing design helps drones fly more efficiently and makes them more robust to atmospheric turbulence.
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Briefs: Motion Control
Neural Lander Uses AI to Land Drones Smoothly
Landing multi-rotor drones smoothly is difficult. Complex turbulence is created by the airflow from each rotor bouncing off the ground during a descent. This turbulence is not well understood nor is it easy to compensate for, particularly for autonomous drones. That is why takeoff and landing are often...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
NASA Langley Research Center scientists have developed a microphone that detects infrasound, i.e., acoustic waves ranging from 20-Hz frequencies down to DC. Infrasound is emitted in a number of hazardous...
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Briefs: Software
Exhaust Plume Analyzer
Exhaust plumes emanating from smoke stacks at power plants or other industrial facilities can have adverse impacts on local aviation during periods of calm winds. Adverse impacts can be exacerbated if the temperature is low or the atmosphere is unstable. While low oxygen concentrations and elevated temperatures inside the...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
For more than 100 years, X-rays have been used in crystallography to determine the structure of molecules. At the heart of the method are the principles of diffraction and superposition, to...
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Briefs: Aerospace
Synthesis and Development of Polyurethane Coatings Containing Fluorine Groups for Adhesive Applications
Accumulation of insect strikes on the leading edge of airplane wings is a more serious problem than one might realize. Depending on the magnitude, such accumulation changes the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing, causing a change from...
Briefs: Aerospace
It's common to see line-shaped clouds in the sky, known as contrails, trailing behind the engines of a jet airplane. What's not always visible is a vortex coming off of the tip of each wing — like two...
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Briefs: Energy
Bi-Directional Energy Cascades and the Origin of Kinetic Turbulence in the Solar Wind
The kinetic turbulence of solar wind originates in the solar corona. The solar wind carries the fluctuations and escapes from the corona along the open magnetic field lines, and enters into the interplanetary space. The energy exchange among waves and particles...
Briefs: Aerospace
NWRA AVOSS Wake Vortex Prediction Algorithm Version 3.1.1
The Northwest Research Associates (NWRA) Aircraft Vortex Spacing System (AVOSS) Prediction Algorithm computes trailing vortex trajectories and circulation decay in a plane perpendicular to the path of the aircraft that has generated the vortices. Underlying the algorithm are the following...
Briefs: Imaging
Stereoscopic Imaging in Hypersonic Boundary Layers Using Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence
Stereoscopic time-resolved visualization of three-dimensional structures in a hypersonic flow was performed for the first time in NASA Langley Research Center’s 31-inch Mach 10 Air Tunnel. Nitric oxide (NO) was seeded into hypersonic boundary layer flows...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Thermal Micro-Extraction Laboratory
Typical extractions in the laboratory require a significant amount of sample material, large-scale equipment, and hands-on participation of a scientist. Such a setup is impractical (or impossible), heavy, and expensive to be carried out on spaceflight instrumentation. While great strides are being made to improve...
News: Imaging
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed an aircraft-based turbulence and vortex detection system. Turbulence and vortices in the front-flight path are very dangerous for airplanes....
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
CUDA Framework for Linear Time-Invariant Control of Adaptive Optics Systems
Current science objectives, such as high-contrast imaging of exoplanets, have led to the development of highorder adaptive optics (AO) systems possessing several thousand deformable mirror (DM) actuators. These systems typically rely on integrator-based control...
Briefs: Software
Study of Formulating Conserved Scalar Equations for Turbulent Reactive Flows with General Species Mass- Diffusion Coefficients for Utilization in Flamelet Models
The modeling of turbulent reactive flows is a subject of contemporary research. Current turbulent-reaction models cannot account for realistic complexities such as distinct species...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
CUDA Framework for Linear Time-Invariant Control of Adaptive Optics Systems
Current science objectives, such as high-contrast imaging of exoplanets, have led to the development of high-order adaptive optics (AO) systems possessing several thousand deformable mirror (DM) actuators. These systems typically rely on integrator-based control...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Stereoscopic Imaging in Hypersonic Boundary Layers Using Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence
Stereoscopic time-resolved visualization of three-dimensional structures in a hypersonic flow was performed for the first time in NASA Langley Research Center’s 31-inch Mach 10 Air Tunnel. Nitric oxide (NO) was seeded into hypersonic boundary layer flows...
Briefs: Aerospace
Improvements to the Functional Beamforming Formula
The purpose of this work is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of acoustic measurements made in a wind tunnel with a microphone phased array. The functional beamforming method is improved to compensate for effects of acoustic propagation through turbulence, and to correct for inaccurate steering...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Eddy-Current-Minimizing Flow Plug for Use in Flow Conditioning and Flow Metering
Innovators at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a suite of prototype fluid plug technologies with an array of capabilities for fluid flow metering, mixing, and conditioning. Each innovation within this suite is based upon a core technology that has...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a system to detect and locate atmospheric clear air turbulence (CAT) by means of a ground-based infrasonic array to serve as an early warning...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Python Turbulence Detection Algorithm (PyTDA)
This software, written in the Python programming language, estimates turbulence from Doppler radar data. It ingests radar data using the Department of Energy’s Py-ART open-source radar software toolkit.
Briefs: Imaging
SCaN Optical Link Assessment Tool Version 2
In response to the requirements of the Space-Based Relay Study (SBRS) undertaken by NASA in 2013, as well as the Integrated Radio and Optical Communications (iROC) project being conducted by NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) beginning in 2012, a calculation procedure was required to rapidly assess the...
Briefs: Communications
SCaN Optical Link Budget Tool
In response to the requirements of the Space-Based Relay Study (SBRS) undertaken by NASA in 2013, as well as the Integrated Radio and Optical Communications (iROC) project being conducted by NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) beginning in 2012, a calculation procedure was required to rapidly assess the operation of...

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