UARC Research Areas

UARC Receives Safety Award

The UARC is currently engaged in research across five core disciplines: Aerospace Systems, Earth Science, Intelligent Systems, Space Science, and Nanotechnology.

Aerospace Systems

Aerospace systems research encompasses a broad range of focus areas, which include automated aircraft operations management systems, aircraft cockpit systems, hazardous environment detection and avoidance systems, among other technologies. Many research activities are exploring the possible benefits of integrating information technology research with other technologies.

Earth Science UARC Earth Science engineering and research supports NASA’s Earth Science mission by developing remote sensing technologies for use by manned and autonomous aircraft. These technologies include an array of airborne sensors, such as optical and infrared cameras, on-board autonomous data processing, and air-ground communications systems.

Intelligent Systems

Space ScienceThe primary goal of this research mission is to assist the Astrobionics Office (ABO) in the development and insertion of advanced biomedial and biological technologies into NASA’s space exploration programs and missions. These reserach projects are intended to provide a design que from which state-of-the-art prototypes continually emerge.

Nanotechnology Research conducted by the UARC in Nanotechnology seeks to identify radical new approaches to size reductio and speed improvement through materials maniputlation at the atomic scale. Nanodevices have important applications in electronics and sensing, offienrg the potential for small, low-power devices that can greatly enhance the autonomy, safety, and instrumentation of larger spacecraft.

The UARC has received an award from NASA for “Excellence in Safety”. Recently, representa-tives from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) evaluated NASA’s safety and health program for continuing certification as a STAR site in the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP); OSHA sought assurances that contractor employees, such as the UARC, enjoyed a safe work environment. In fact, the UARC played a key role in NASA’s successful recertification as a STAR site as our accident frequency rate was zero lost hours, based on over 1,294,000 worker-hours over the past five years.

Intelligent systems research is focused on developing advanced information science technology in support of NASA’s space exploration and aerospace missions. Areas of research include Autonomy and Diagnostics, Evolvable Hardware, and advanced information management systems for NASA Mission Control.

NASA Ames Deputy Director for Reserach Dr. Steven Zornetzer (left) awards UARC Director of Business Operations Cynthia Sanchez (right) the “Excellence in Safety” award.

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Research Highlights

Across its core research areas, the UARC continues to make strides in developing important technologies not only for NASA missions, but for the benefit of society as well.

coronagraph for extrasolar planet research. This PIAA (Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization) coronagraph will be able to observe Earth-like planets in habitable zones of nearest stars. These planets are assumed to be of about 10^10 times fainter than their parent stars. Currently, a contrast of 5x10^-8 in coherent light at distance comparable with the telescope resolution limit has been reached in lab. Future progress will be provided by using high performance reflective optics that make it possible to reach 10^-9 contrast at separation of about 2 resolution limits of thetelescope in the broadband light.

Trajectory-Based Operations

A simulation evaluation of a near-term concept for Trajectory-Based Operations with air/ground datalink communication was completed last month (October) at Ames. Thirty-one hours of simulation runs were conducted over twelve days. The simulation focused on the utility of ground-based automation to enable wind-favorable routings, minimum-delay conflict resolutions, datalink operations for routine clearances, and trajectory automation for convective weather avoidance. Preliminary data analysis shows that higher proportions of datalink-equipped aircraft reduce controller workload, which allows the controllers to provide more efficient flight plan reroutes and respond to aircraft requests more quickly using the new trajectory automation features. NASA is collaborating with the FAA to determine the feasibility of an operational evaluation of the near-term TBO concept in the next 2-3 years.

Terminal Area Precision Scheduling

Terminal Area Precision Scheduling Project Conducts 4 weeks of Human in the loop simulations: The Terminal Area Precision Scheduling System (TAPSS) research team completed four weeks (mid October) of Human-In-The-Loop simulation evaluating scheduling decision support tools. A goal of this simulation was to evaluate the concept of precision metering with staged delay distribution to account for uncertainty within the system and provide the capability to conduct green procedures in high-density airspace. Initial results using the TAPSS decision support tools showed close to 20% increase in airport throughput with more fuel-efficient aircraft maneuvers at lower controller workload when compared to current airport operations. The simulation was also demonstrated to senior FAA managers, the NASA Advisory Committee and the NASA Administrator.

Feasibility and Benefits Study for Formation Flight- Greg Hornby and Min Xue, UARC

As part of NASA goals in making the aviation industry more green,we are performing a scientific analysis of the potential benefits of having commercial aircraft fly in formations. Through a range of studies, from computational modeling to test flights, previous work has found that aircraft flying in formation can achieve anywhere from 8% to 30% better fuel efficiency. While there has been much research in formation flying at this level, for this efficiency to be realized with commercial aircraft in the National Air Space (NAS) there is a need for investigating how a system of formation flying would work as part of the air traffic system.

For an initial study we have used an idea of having aircraft fly in corridors -- a kind of highway system in the skies -- since formations naturally occur there. Initial studies indicate that an overall fuel savings of approximately 5.4% can be achieved for all aircraft flying in the corridors. In future work we are now looking to expand this to include more aircraft and in a non-corridor based system.

Control Allocation to recover from Pilot Induced Oscillations (CAPIO) - Yildiray Yildiz ,UARC & Ilya Kolmanovsky, Univ. of Michigan

CAPIO has recently passed the preliminary piloted tests conducted at Neuro Engineering Lab (NEL) at NASA Ames Research Center. In February of 2011, CAPIO is scheduled for testing at Vertical Motion Simulator, which is the biggest, six-degree of freedom, real-time piloted flight simulator in the world. Pilot Induced Oscillations (PIO) are undesired aircraft oscillations occurring due to an abnormal coupling between the pilot and the aircraft. Till now, many fatal accidents have occurred due to PIOs and CAPIO technology, which is a novel flight control software, has the potential to help aircraft recover from PIOs before the stability is lost.

One more step toward direct imaging Earth-like exoplanets- Yevgeniy (Eugene) Pluzhnyk, UARC

A team of researchers from NASA Ames Research Center/ UARC UCSC are developing a high performing

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structured as a performance-based support service contract with research as the product, however it is able to take advantage of special relationship clauses with the federal government, particularly sharing information and details about procurement calls.

Efficiency in public service

Since it was established under Federal law in 2003, the UARC has been running efficiently and cost-effectively, bringing together scientific research and education as its primary public service goal, while striving to remain agile and responsive. Currently, it accounts for 7 percent of the NASA Ames budget, using approximately 28 percent of research funding in costs, about 18 percent in overhead, and 4 percent as a profit fee. An additional 3 percent goes into the Aligned Research Program, a special discretionary fund for projects directly aligned with NASA priorities.

The brainchild of former NASA Ames head, Harry McDonald, the University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) represents a unique partnership between NASA Ames and the University of California. The UARC is a performance-based task order research contract between NASA Ames and the University of California that is managed by the Santa Cruz campus. It enables the UC to establish a presence in Silicon Valley with NASA as a major federal agency partner. By efficiently collaborating with organizations that are the best in their fields, the UARC is able to deliver excellence-driven research, while training the scientists of tomorrow.

One of the primary objectives of this contract is to bring together the expertise at UC campuses and state-of-the-art facilities at NASA Ames to maximize their usage while fostering scientific collaboration between UC faculty and students, and NASA Ames scientists. Unlike a classical Department of Defense UARC, this partnership agreement is

This innovative, performance-based research partnership combines the intellectual capital and leading-edge facilities of NASA Ames and the University of California.

SInce its inception, the UARC has engaged in a wide range of research activities, including near-real-time georectification of aerial imagery from UAVs.

The UARC is a 10-year, $330 million contract that to date has supported 98 research tasks, employing 154 employees and 27 contractors.

UARC - Promoting Research Excellence

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collaborators. Its purpose is to expand the research enterprise of the UARC and provide intellectual leadership by supporting, promoting and coordinating research activities aligned with the research priorities of NASA Ames.

Intellectual leadership and strategic execution

The URC helps breakdown information and research silos, and leverages the combined NASA and UC intellectual capital in a cohesive and well-structured manner. It promotes linkages between researchers and academia, advises on the allocation of awards by the UARC, informs on the contribution of research, and helps identify emerging areas of research and communicate funding opportunities to staff and collaborators. A key responsibility is to manage funds from the ARP, providing site, process and affiliation for research proposal submissions. ARP funds support research with multiple grants for amounts between $100K and $300K every year.

Moving forward, the UARC continues to keep pace with the changing needs of research and academia, leveraging and combining UC and NASA’s strengths to form joint research initiatives, improve workflow processes between the organizations and better serve the public need. A key area of focus is on green issues and alternative energies relating to Earth science. As the only contract of its kind between UC and NASA, UARC is uniquely positioned to align these $19B, 10-center entities and launch programs that neither entity can unilaterally execute, regardless of the economic environment.

For more information on how you can take advantage of exciting collaboration opportunities with the UARC, call 1.650.604.0520 or email rgilyanna@uarc.ucsc.edu.

More recently, the UARC received funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, totaling about $38 million a year. This has led to a growth of more than 50 percent since January 2010, supporting more research tasks and jobs.

This innovative research partnership has proven extremely successful in generating productive research and strengthening wider collaboration with industry and higher education. This is in part due to the strategic nature of the UARC, designed to see students through graduation and focus on long term research objectives. These long-term focused research tasks address NASA’s expanding multidisciplinary research mission, and currently cover five primary areas:

Aerospace systems: air traffic management and rotorcraft research Earth sciences: measuring ecological change and its impactInformation technology and computer sciences: autonomous expert systemsSpace sciences: space sciences and fundamental space biology Nano sciences: advanced instrumentation applications

Incubate innovation and enhance education

A key objective of the UARC is to incubate innovative ideas, research and technology and to engage academia, science and industry in developing inventions and publications. As part of the UARC, a Systems Teaching Institute (STI), directed by San Jose State University Foundation, has been formed. The STI enables students from UC, San Jose State University, and Foothill-De Anza Junior College District to work alongside University and Ames researchers; enhancing their educational experience while training them to become 21st Century world class scientist, engineers, and educators.

Another important group within the UARC is the UARC Research Council (URC), established to represent and support the intellectual capital of the UARC and its

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UARC teams provide custom-developed research tools and data-gathering technologies to help scientists better understand environmental impacts.

data on board flights at altitudes up to 65,000 feet in Earth’s upper troposphere and lower stratosphere for more than 31 hours at a time. The data collected helps advance our understanding of Earth as an integrated system, and informs responses to environmental changes around the world.

Operation Ice Bridge

Since the observation satellite, ICESat-I, failed recently and the launch of ICESat-II is not scheduled until 2015, Global Hawk has been commissioned to help fill the data gap in observations of the changes in ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice. In a joint project known as Operation Ice Bridge, the UARC team has been operating several camera systems on the aircraft to characterize the current state of the polar glaciers and ice sheets in sensitive polar regions. “Our work involves deploying experimental snow radars to measure the thickness of the ice, while stereo cameras capture

Powerful research tools, leading edge technology and tight collaboration are just three factors driving the success of the NASA Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial System. To help achieve that success, UARC staff at the Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF) has taken the lead in designing and developing the payload data system, which relays important environmental data back to the ground in support of the mission of the NASA Ames Earth Science Project Office.

Under the auspices of UARC, a multidisciplinary team of researchers, engineers, software programmers and data analysts from institutions around the country, including the University of North Dakota, NOAA, JPL, University of Alaska, University of Kansas and Columbia University, also developed the payload electrical power distribution and the control systems.

The Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial System is used by NASA to gather and process

Keeping All Eyes on the PlanetNASA Globalhawak over the Mojave Desert, Mojave California

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High altitude sensors allow greater coverage

of the coastal ecosystem, enabling vegetation communities in oil-

impacted areas to be covered in the same flight as non-impacted areas of

the same community

this oil spill offers a unique opportunity to study a prolonged disturbance to coastal ecosystems from oil contamination in comparison to disturbance from a single spill event. Combined, all this information is helping scientists understand how knowledge of past distribution of plant types and communities can aid recovery and remediation efforts, and assist them in targeting priority sites for recovery efforts.

Support for Multidisciplinary Science

Global Hawk has many potential applications for the advancement of science, an improved understanding of our planetary systems and the development of advanced autonomous aircraft system technologies. Data obtained from Operation Ice Bridge is also being ingested into global climate models, and the UARC team is also helping with the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment, a NASA Earth science field experiment to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes.

By partnering with UARC, the NASA Ames Earth Science Project Office is taking advantage of valuable research tools and expertise to help drive the success of these missions, and providing important data that can be used to support other important scientific missions.

texture and elevation,” explains Jeff Myers, UARC appointed manager of the ASF. “Initial observations indicate that the ice mass is changing very rapidly, so the goal is to provide scientists with the information they need to quantify the ice stream changes.”

Results so far have contributed to a better understanding of the sea ice mass balance and its relation to the changes in the polar climate, while minimizing disruption to the work of scientists in this critical field. The key areas being observed and measured are coastal Greenland, coastal Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula, interior Antarctica, in particular the sub-glacial lakes and certain fast moving glaciers, the southeast Alaskan glaciers, and the Antarctic and Arctic sea ice thicknesses.

Oil Spill Monitoring In another important data-gathering and monitoring project, UARC-led teams are developing and deploying a suite of instruments, including NASA’s AVIRIS and MASTER infrared sensors, on Global Hawk to identify the biochemical signatures of the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf. Geo-registered data products are being generated daily for use by the responder community, and so scientists can directly detect and quantify the oil disturbance on vegetation in the area.

High altitude sensors allow greater coverage of the coastal ecosystem, enabling vegetation communities in oil-impacted areas to be covered in the same flight as non-impacted areas of the same community. By enabling the detection and characterization of fresh and weathered oil at the edges of coastal marshes and within the marsh vegetation, UARC is helping the responder community develop an effective disaster management strategy.

In addition, data collected from this mission also is providing an evaluation of the impact and efficacy of oil mitigation and land management activities on coastal ecosystems in general. Data collection for

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The Investigator is a publication of the University Affiliated Research Center

UARC Executive Director, Dr. Khalid Al-AliDirector - Business Operations, Cynthia Sanchez Research Administation, Jay Nuez and Jennifer Victoria

NASA Contracting Officer Technical Representative, Maylene Duenas

Layout and Design, Brett Casadonte, The Casadonte Group LLCFeature Stories, Julie Jervis

The University Affiliated Research Center is a collaboration between the NASA Ames Research Center and the University of California. UARC