Superpixels are homogeneous image regions comprised of several contiguous pixels. They are produced by shattering the image into contiguous, homogeneous regions that each cover between 20 and 100 image pixels. The segmentation aims for a many-to-one mapping from superpixels to image...

Information technology services DB Consulting Group Silver Spring, MD 301-589-4020 www.dbconsultinggroup.com DB Consulting Group provides NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, OH with a variety of professional, administrative, computational, and engineering services. These services are...

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...

Collaboration methods for distributed machine-learning algorithms involve the specification of communication protocols for the learners, which can query other learners and/or broadcast their findings preemptively. Each learner incorporates information from its neighbors into its own training...

An algorithm denoted “Gamma-SLAM” performs further processing, in real time, of preprocessed digitized images acquired by a stereoscopic pair of electronic cameras aboard an off-road robotic ground vehicle to build accurate maps of the terrain and determine the location of the vehicle with respect to the...

A combination of methods is proposed of predicting spacecraft trajectories that possibly include multiple maneuvers and/or perturbing accelerations, with greater speed, accuracy, and repeatability than were heretofore achievable. The combination is denoted the WeavEncke method because it is...

The original G-Guidance algorithm provided an autonomous guidance and control policy for small-body proximity operations that took into account uncertainty and dynamics disturbances. However, there was a lack of robustness in regards to object proximity while in autonomous mode. The modified G-Guidance...

This software innovation is designed to develop a mathematical formulation to estimate the electromagnetic scattering characteristics of complex, inhomogeneous objects using the finite-element-method (FEM) and method-of-moments (MoM) concepts, as well as to develop a FORTRAN...

A research project is underway to produce computer software that can accurately predict ice growth under any meteorological conditions for any aircraft surface. An extensive comparison of the results in a quantifiable manner against the database of ice shapes that have been generated in the...

A method has been created to automatically build an algorithm off-line, using computer-aided design (CAD) models, and to apply this at runtime. The object type is discriminated, and the position and orientation are identified. This system can work with a single image and can provide improved...

More efficient versions of an interpolation method, called kriging, have been introduced in order to reduce its traditionally high computational cost. Written in C++, these approaches were tested on both synthetic and real data.

A variable-order, variable-step Taylor series integration algorithm was implemented in NASA Glenn’s SNAP (Spacecraft N-body Analysis Program) code. SNAP is a high-fidelity trajectory propagation program that can propagate the trajectory of a spacecraft about...

A document describes work on the origin of Coriolis force and estimating Coriolis force and torque applied to the Ares-1 vehicle during its ascent, based on an internal ballistics model for a multi-segmented solid rocket booster (SRB).

Based only on its appearance in imagery, this program uses close-range 3D terrain analysis to produce training data sufficient to estimate the traversability of terrain beyond 3D sensing range. This approach is called learning from stereo (LFS). In effect, the software...

An algorithm was developed to generate crop yield predictions from orbital remote sensing observations, by analyzing thousands of pixels per county and the associated historical crop yield data for those counties. The algorithm determines which pixels...

AEGSE Virtuoso Charting is an application that enables animated, real-time charting of telemetry streams of data from a rover. These automatically scaled charts are completely interactive, and allow users to choose the variables that they want to monitor. The charts can process...

A decomposition algorithm has been developed for global reachability analysis on a space-time grid. By exploiting the upper block-triangular structure, the planning problem is decomposed into smaller subproblems, which is much more scalable than the original approach.

Methods have been developed to quantitatively assess rock hazards at candidate landing sites with the aid of images from the HiRISE camera onboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. HiRISE is able to resolve rocks as small as 1-m in diameter. Some sites of interest do not have...

A spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) system is needed to enable a spacecraft to descend to a surface, take a sample using a touch-and-go (TAG) sampling approach, and then safely ascend. At the time of this reporting, a flyable GN&C system that can accomplish...

A document describes research into the problem of detecting a case breach formation at an early stage of a rocket flight. An inversion algorithm for case breach allocation is proposed and analyzed. It is shown how the case breach can be allocated at an early stage of its development...

Large-scale Web security systems usually involve cooperation between domains with non-identical policies. The network management and Web communication software used by the different organizations presents a stumbling block. Many of the tools used by the various divisions do not have the ability to...

Spacecraft landing on small bodies pass through regions where conventional gravitation formulations using exterior spherical harmonics are inaccurate. An investigation shows that a formulation using interior solid spherical harmonics might be satisfactory. Interior spherical...

There was a bit of a crowd lining up near Boston's Park Plaza this morning, and if it wasn't for all the business-casual attire, you may have thought another Apple Store was opening up down the street. The event was actually PTC's unveiling of its new product suite: Creo. Here's the quick rundown: Creo is a suite...

An emerging methodology of organizing systems-engineering plans is based on a concept of core and off-core processes or activities. This concept has emerged as a result of recognition of a risk in the traditional representation of systems-engineering plans by a Vee model alone, according to which a...

In support of investigations of mishaps like the crash of the space shuttle Columbia, a process based on digital reconstruction from recovered components has been developed. The process is expected to reduce the need for physical reconstruction from recovered parts, reduce the time and cost...

Mathematically sound techniques are used to view a knowledge-based system (KBS) as a set of processes executing in parallel and being enabled in response to specific rules being fired. The set of processes can be manipulated, examined, analyzed, and used in a...

A new approach to signal prediction and prognostic assessment of spacecraft health resolves an inherent difficulty in fusing sensor data with simulated data. This technique builds upon previous work that demonstrated the importance of physics-based transient models to accurate prediction of signal...