Development of seamlessly integrated flight control and guidance systems for short-range missiles capable of high angle-of-attack maneuvers is proposed. Modern nonlinear dynamic systems methods such as bifurcation analysis will be used to study the missile dynamic behavior at high angles of attack.… More

An innovative application of the pattern recognition technology for the development of a rotorcraft limit avoidance system is proposed. The system is based on a feature extraction algorithm and an artificial neural network. Feature extraction and pattern classification systems are designed using… More

Development of an integrated missile flight control system incorporating fuzzy actuator blending logic and a fuzzy guidance system is proposed. Phase I research will be based on a nonlinear dynamic model of the missile incorporating multiple non-collocated actuators. The dynamics of the missile… More

Synthesis of radically new feedback guidance and control laws for high performance aircraft using genetic programming is proposed. Starting from an initial population of computer programs implementing familiar flight control laws, the proposed methodology employs the processes of natural selection… More

Development and application of robust nonlinear control techniques for synthesizing high-agility missile interceptor flight control systems is proposed. Proposed design methods will be capable of handling strong nonlinearities and coupling effects that can arise during high angle of attack flight,… More

Advanced concepts such as model based control are expected to yield significant improvements in engine thrust to weight ratios by operating closer to the temperature/stall margins, accurately tracking the pilot commands, and generating more accurate prediction of preventive maintenance schedules. … More

Recent threat assessments by the Navy have indicated the need for improving the accuracy of ship defense missiles. This objective can only be achieved by enhancing the performance of the missile subsystems. Traditional approach for missile guidance and control systems has been to design these… More

Development of an embedded hardware/software. system for on-line estimation of the parameters of servo systems at Kwajalein Missile Range is proposed. Using state-of-the-art parameter estimation schemes and data required from the servos, the proposed system will determine the parameters of interest… More

Improvements in homing guidance laws and high performance autopilots are expected to enable the interception of fast, maneuvering, stealthy targets. However, the full potential of these systems can only be realized if the target states can be accurately estimated. Traditional methods for target… More

The Earth Science Enterprise (ESE), formerly known as Mission to Planet Earth, is a NASA-initiated concept that uses space-, ground-, and aircraft-based measurement systems to gather scientific knowledge for understanding the Earth's climate system and its variations. The space-based components of… More

Computational approaches for estimating the relative stability and robustness of distributed air-traffic-management (ATM) systems are proposed. These methodologies combine the notions of Lyapunov stability and dissipativity in nonlinear dynamic system theory with the concepts of connective stability… More

Weapon systems relying on integrated GPS/INS navigation technology are susceptible to jamming from external sources. Anti-jam GPS navigation system can be realized by using spatially separated GPS antennas together with adaptive signal processingtechnology. The central element of such an anti-jam… More

To address efficiency and safety issues associated with the ever-increasing air traffic, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have engaged in advanced technology development for air traffic management (ATM). The demand for access and use of national airspace is further compounded by… More

To address efficiency and safety issues associated with the ever-increasing air traffic, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have engaged in advanced technology development for air traffic management (ATM). The demand for access and use of national airspace is further compounded by… More

The concept of moving internal masses to control kinetic energy kill vehicles has been proposed in the recent literature. These actuators effect changes in the location of the vehicle center of mass to create aerodynamic control moments while the vehicleis in the atmosphere, and the main motor… More

The Phase I research and analyses have confirmed the potential of wavefront sensing in providing the necessary information to accurately control interferometers. The concept involves data processing on the interferometer output signals to determine the adjustments required to achieve the desired… More

Computational approaches for estimating the relative stability and robustness of distributed air-traffic-management (ATM) systems are proposed. These methodologies combine the notions of Lyapunov stability and dissipativity in nonlinear dynamic system theory with the concepts of connective stability… More

The Phase I research and analyses have confirmed the potential of wavefront sensing in providing the necessary information to accurately control interferometers. The concept involves data processing on the interferometer output signals to determine the adjustments required to achieve the desired… More

Computational approaches for estimating the relative stability and robustness of distributed air-traffic-management (ATM) systems are proposed. These methodologies combine the notions of Lyapunov stability and dissipativity in nonlinear dynamic system theory with the concepts of connective stability… More

Methods for integrated design of guidance and control systems of kinetic warheads utilizing moving-mass actuators are proposed. Moving mass actuation can be used in any speed range, both in the atmosphere as well as outside it, as long as there is a force,either aerodynamic or propulsive, acting on… More

The benefits of periodic cruise operation of flight vehicles have been known for three decades. Although a number of papers and doctoral dissertations have studied the periodic cruise phenomenon, they have not been systematically evaluated in any flight test program. The objective of the present… More

Development of integrated flight control systems for kinetic kill vehicles incorporating novel internal actuators is proposed. The benefits of the new internal actuators are that they are contained entirely within the airframe and do not require mass expulsion. The actuator technology can be used in… More

Faced with ever-increasing projections of air traffic, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been developing advanced technologies to increase traffic-handling capacity at existing airports. Efforts to increase airport capacity approach the problem on two fronts: the first is to… More

Research on next-generation air traffic control systems are being conducted at several laboratories. Most of this work is being carried out using custom software. In order to provide a more uniform research platform, NASA Ames Research Center has recently developed a software package called FACET… More

Since the Vietnam War, military forces of the United States have had to contend with a highly effective and lethal weapon - rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) - the most popular form of which was originally developed by the Russians as a shoulder-mounted weapon designated the RPG-7. The current weapon… More

New internal actuation technologies and integrated design of guidance-control systems for kinetic kill vehicles are proposed. These actuation technologies can be used for KKV trajectory and attitude control in any speed range, both within and outside the atmosphere. Since the actuators are contained… More

Research on next-generation air traffic management systems is being conducted at several laboratories using custom software. In order to provide a more uniform research platform for en route air traffic management research, NASA has recently developed the FACET software package. While FACET… More

The proposal addresses the problem of adaptive modulation/demodulation scheme in the presence of interference for wireless communication systems. The objective is to develop a new class of communication system that is impervious to natural and man-made interferences. Here, motivated by the concept… More

Traditional design methods for aircraft turbine engine control systems have relied on the use of linearized models and linear control theory. While these controllers can provide satisfactory performance, they do not exploit all the available knowledge about the nonlinear engine dynamics. Recent… More

A data mining and knowledge discovery (DMKD) methodology based on Genetic Programming is proposed for stores separation trajectory analysis. The proposed technique constructs symbolic relationships between a defined set of input variables and analysis variables using the trajectory data. These… More

Faced with ever-increasing projections of air traffic, airport expansion plans, changes in operational requirements and introduction of advanced technologies are all being considered to increase airport capacity. These enhancements serve to improve throughputs at the airports, but the resulting… More

The development of an Eulerian model based en route traffic flow management agent for the ACES software is proposed. The proposed research will use a recently-developed automatic modeling technique, together with a predictive air traffic flow control approach. Performance of the traffic flow… More

This proposal addresses the feasibility research on utilizing the speech recognition technology for carrier air traffic control. The speech recognition capability enables seamless integration of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) with the aircraft carrier operations. To realize the… More

There is a need within the military for a light aircraft that is capable of medical re-supply and evacuation in order to fully exploit the Army's Life Support for Trauma and Transport litter. In light of recent advances in technology, it is now plausible to consider the use of an Unmanned (or… More

This proposal addresses the feasibility of developing a generic system framework for automatically recognizing handwritten text for non-Arabic languages using Arabic-style script such as Urdu or Pashto. Despite recent progress in automatic handwritten Arabic recognition, little attention has been… More

Next generation air traffic management systems will be based to a greater degree on predicted trajectories of aircraft. Due to the iterative nature of future air traffic management computations, the success of these systems will depend strongly on the ability to rapidly generate trajectory… More

Development of a data mining and knowledge discovery software package for store separation trajectory analysis is proposed. Multiple tools will be included in the software to allow a spectrum of investigations such as visual data mining, uncertainty analysis, worst-case analysis and variation… More

This proposal discusses the development of a noise-robust speech recognition system to be deployed for carrier air traffic control with the goal that the speech recognition capability enables seamless integration of the Navy Unmanned Combat Air Systems (N-UCAS) with the aircraft carrier operations. … More

Estimation of aerodynamic models for the control of damaged aircraft using an innovative differential vortex lattice method tightly coupled with an extended Kalman filter is proposed. The approach exploits prior knowledge about the undamaged aircraft to reduce the order of the estimation problem.… More

Guidance and control system design for hypersonic vehicles is more challenging than their subsonic and supersonic counterparts. Some of these challenges are (i) coupling between the aerodynamic, structural and propulsion sub-systems (ii) uncertainty involved in modeling these couplings and (iii)… More

Next generation air traffic management systems will be based to a greater degree on predicted trajectories of aircraft. Due to the iterative nature of future air traffic management algorithms, the success of these systems will depend strongly on the ability to rapidly generate trajectory… More

Development of a generic system framework for automatically recognizing handwritten text for non-Arabic languages using Arabic-style script such as Urdu or Pashto is addressed. The goal of the Phase II work is to develop a prototype of the generic handwritten Arabic-style script recognition system… More

Trajectory-based operations constitute a key mechanism considered by the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) for managing traffic in high-density or high-complexity airspace in the Next-Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). With this concept applied to surface operations at major… More

The problem of estimating the aerodynamic models for flight control of damaged aircraft using an innovative differential vortex lattice method tightly coupled with an extended Kalman filter was investigated during the Phase I research. The approach exploited prior knowledge about the undamaged… More

Development of a robust nonlinear guidance law for planning and executing the flare-touchdown maneuver for impaired aircraft under adverse wind conditions is proposed. The approach employs estimated operational envelope of the damaged aircraft and ambient winds to plan flap deployment schedule and… More

Ballistic target interception requires extremely high accuracy with a sub-meter level miss distance due to the need to achieve kinetic kill. Since the task is even more challenging when the target performs unpredictable maneuvers, highly accurate state estimators are indispensable for successful… More

Next generation air traffic management systems are expected use multiple software tools and quantitative methods for managing traffic flow in the National Airspace. NASA and other aerospace research centers are involved in developing advanced numerical algorithms for strategic traffic flow… More

NASA has been involved in extensive research efforts to develop advanced concepts, technologies, and procedures for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). The research focus area Airspace Super-Density Operations (ASDO) pertains to highly efficient operations at the busiest… More

This proposal addresses the feasibility of developing adaptive waveform modulation schemes for missile defense radars via the orthogonal communication concept. With the increasing prevalence of electronic countermeasures, innovative waveforms and advanced signal processing techniques are needed for… More

Trajectory-based operations constitute a key mechanism considered by the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) for managing traffic in high-density or high-complexity airspace in the Next-Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). With this concept applied to surface operations at major… More

The problem of Trajectory Reconstruction is referred to in estimation literature as the Smoothing Problem. It involves determination of the time history of the states using entire history of measurements from on board sensors such as the IMU and GPS, and ground based Radar tracking stations.… More

Hit-to-kill interception of ballistic missile targets is a challenging task requiring the use of highly accurate state estimators for mission success. Estimators based on conventional filtering technologies have now reached a certain level of sophistication, beyond which little additional… More

NASA has been involved in extensive research efforts to develop advanced concepts and technologies, for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) under different Research Focus Areas (RFAs). The Airspace Super Density Operations (ASDO) RFA seeks to develop efficient terminal area… More

The feasibility of developing a statistical decision support system for traffic flow management in the terminal area and runway load balancing was demonstrated in the Phase I research. The methodology employed an advanced estimation algorithm based on a queuing network model of the runway and the… More

NASA has been involved in developing advanced automation systems for improving the efficiency of air-traffic operations, reducing controller workload and enhancing the safety in the national airspace system. In the past decade there has been emphasis on designing environmentally friendly operations… More

NASA is developing algorithms and methodologies for efficient air-traffic management (ATM). Several researchers have adopted an optimization framework for solving problems such as flight scheduling, route assignment, flight rerouting, nationwide traffic flow management and dynamic airspace… More

NASA is developing algorithms and methodologies for efficient air-traffic management. Several researchers have adopted an optimization framework for solving problems such as flight scheduling, route assignment, flight rerouting, nationwide traffic flow management (TFM) and dynamic airspace… More

Volcanic ash and other atmospheric hazards impact air transportation by introducing uncertainty in the National Airspace System (NAS) capacity. Deterministic traffic flow management (TFM) algorithms are often unable to perform efficiently in these conditions, motivating the development of… More

NASA has been involved in developing advanced automation systems for improving the efficiency of air-traffic operations, reducing controller workload and enhancing the safety in the national airspace system. The recent accident at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York involving an A380… More

As concepts and technologies being developed for the Next-Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) mature, the natural progression is to study their integration and evaluation in the operational environment. Before they can be integrated into the National Airspace System (NAS) for evaluation… More

Development of an automatic recognition system of handwritten Pashto documents is addressed. The goal of the Phase II work is to develop a prototype of the automatic recognition system useable for screening handwritten Pashto documents such as personal letters. The proposed work builds on a… More