Software

The NASA Langley Aeronautics Systems Analysis Branch (ASAB) is heavily involved in research studies to evaluate new and emerging concepts targeted at improving the National Airspace System (NAS). The primary tool used by ASAB to perform these studies is the Airspace Concept Evaluation System (ACES), a medium-fidelity, NAS-wide...

The current flight software approach is monolithic in nature. Every module has tentacles that reach deep within dozens of other software modules. Because of these interdependencies between modules, functionality is difficult to extract and reuse for other missions.

This software conducts preliminary design studies for spacecraft missions. It supports a collaborative work environment that allows multiple engineers to work simultaneously on the same design. When designing a spacecraft or mission, it is important that each engineer has concurrent...

In the context of systems health management, simulations serve many uses. For one, the underlying physical models can be used by model-based health management tools to develop diagnostic and prognostic models. These simulations should incorporate both nominal and faulty behavior with the ability to inject various faults into the system....

Scientists need to be able to quickly develop and run parallel simulations without writing low-level message passing codes using compiled languages such as C/C++/Fortran. Traditionally, high-level languages that support rapid development, such as MATLAB, IDL, Mathematica, and Python,...

AMBER is an automated tool for performing transient loads analysis of structural systems composed of one or more flexible bodies. Each body is initially supplied in Craig-Bampton form. Two basic solution approaches are available: traditional system assembly and multibody. The traditional approach is better...

This technology enables accurate calibration of a large Computer Generated Hologram (CGH) fabricated without great accuracy, such that the CGH still measures an aspheric surface to an excellent accuracy of a couple of nm rms. The goal is the creation of software for...

The Habitat Demonstration Unit Core Avionics Software (HDU-CAS) is designed to provide the required functionality for an engineering prototype of a highly autonomous space habitat element, and to provide an opportunity for new software technologies to be tested in an environment that provides that...

ROCKSTER (Rock Segmentation Through Edge Regrouping) is a rock detection algorithm that analyzes 2D geologic scenes and identifies rocks and other targets of interest. A multicore ROCKSTER enables long-range autonomous rover traverse science to be performed efficiently and to make use of multicore or parallel computing...

Binary protograph codes are state-of-the-art codes over the binary field Galois Field GF(2). These codes were invented by JPL in 2003 and proposed to CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) recently as a channel-coding standard for space communications. It is...

The Dynamically Configurable Pipeline is a concept for the rapid implementation of pipelined computational algorithms in configurable hardware such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The approach, especially in its phase-coherent incarnation, allows a high level of sharing of floating-point resources among...

In communications systems, there must be a method to identify the beginning of a message at the receiving end, to know when the data stream of a specified structure begins. This is conventionally done by inserting attached sync markers (ASMs) between codewords, and looking for these ASMs in the...

Work has been focused on identifying bottlenecks in visualization pipelines that make the visualization and analysis of large datasets in real time difficult to attain. The innovators leveraged ParaView, an open-source visualization application and framework, to provide custom solutions for users of...

Numerical simulations for turbulent flows using the most promising methodology, Large Eddy Simulation (LES), are grid-spacing and discretization-order dependent. This means that the solution is not trustworthy and cannot be...

To validate simulations, one must trust that they are independent of the numerical aspects. A very promising, relatively new methodology for simulating turbulent flows, called Large Eddy Simulation (LES), has some issues in this respect. The...

Mars lander spacecraft, beginning with Mars Pathfinder (MPF), have been designed to tolerate flight computer resets during the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase despite having only a single flight computer. This capability was enabled by a predictable, non-dynamic EDL architecture. The...

InvestigationOrganizer (IO) is a Web-based information system that integrates the generic functionality of a database, a document repository, a semantic hyper-media browser, and a rule-based inference system with specialized modeling and visualization functionality to support mishap investigations. The semantic...

The invention is a TecPlot macro, which is a computer program in the TecPlot programming language that processes CFD (computational fluid dynamics) solutions in TecPlot format. The TecPlot data is in SI units (International System of Units) [same as CFD solutions]. This invention converts the SI...

A complex project having many tasks and sub-tasks, many phases, and many workers will often require an evaluation of completion of the tasks and sub-tasks at several times during the project’s duration. Initially and throughout the duration, suitability of the technical and inter-personal characteristics of the...

Sample-return missions to primitive solar system bodies (asteroids, comets, and planetary satellites) can provide a wealth of scientific information and insight into the composition and origins of the solar system. Recent interest in primitive body missions has been driven by the...

Half-Cycle Crack Growth software offers a reliable method for calculating theoretical fatigue crack growths that could lead to catastrophic structural component failures. The program builds upon and integrates Armstrong’s proven half-cycle and closed-form aging theories, and considers every half-cycle of loading spectra...

NASA Visualization Explorer (NASA Viz) is an intuitive, interactive iOS application (app) that delivers science stories with multimedia content linking high-quality explorable images, descriptive text, visualizations, videos, and interviews with a fresh look and feel. NASA Viz aims to excite a wide audience about...

In many fields of spectroscopy, classification of the measured multivariate response is not always a straightforward process. Accurate classification is limited by many factors that are highly dependent upon the spectroscopy method being utilized. In all cases, however,...

The primary function of the Feature Database (FDB) is to contain information about all the ground features seen so far in a sequence of aerial images. This information is organized so that features can be efficiently located and tracked into later images. As each new image is processed, the database grows to include more images and...

DRAT software overcomes limitations inherent in the Apache Release Audit Tool (RAT), and also brings code auditing and open-source license analysis into the realm of Big Data by using scalable, open-source Apache technologies. Distributed RAT (DRAT) leverages Apache Tika to automatically detect and classify...

Peak-seeking algorithms optimize physical processes in real time and are widely used throughout a variety of industries. However, measuring associated parameters in changing conditions, and responding to them appropriately, is difficult because the measurements are typically distorted by noise. This technology addresses...

An enterprise middleware solution allows disparate information technology (IT) systems to be integrated into one seamless, efficient system. As software and database platforms continue to develop at an accelerated pace, legacy systems can be a drain on resources, requiring complex workarounds and major code...