ISS Flight Op - Joint Leak Detection and Localization Based on Fast Bayesian Inference from Network of Ultrasonic Sensors Arrays in Microgravity Environment
ME
University of Maine/NASA Johnson Space Center, Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate
Bridget Ziegelaar, ISS RM, Johnson Space Center
A view of inside the lunar habitat, a 42 ft diameter concentric torus built by NASA JSC and instrumented by wireless sensing laboratory at UMaine examining the sensors and the collected data on a tablet PC. (UMaine graduate students, from left, Casey Clark, Mojtaba Razfar and Lonnie Labonte test wireless sensors in UMaine’s inflatable lunar habitat with Science PI Ali Abedi, an electrical and computer engineering professor who directs the Wireless Sensing Laboratory (WiSe-Net Lab).
Future space travelers could someday be safer as they journey far from home, thanks to an EPSCoR-funded project at the University of Maine campus in Orono. There, inside the school’s Wireless Sensing Laboratory (WiSe-Net Lab), researchers are designing and testing a wireless leak detection system for the International Space Station (ISS) that could lead to increased safety on ISS and other spacecraft, as well as on Earth in the event of gas and oil leaks at industrial plants. Leaks causing air and heat loss are a major safety concern in spacecraft. Finding and fixing a leak quickly could be the difference between life and death for astronauts living and traveling hundreds of miles above the Earth. The flight-ready, wireless sensor system under development uses ultrasonic sensor array signals to quickly detect and localize leaks. The proposed system is fast, accurate and capable of detecting multiple www.nasa.gov/epscor/stimuli
Wireless sensor
leaks and localizing them with a lightweight and low-cost system. Its prototype, developed by UMO researchers as part of a previous NASA EPSCoR project, has been tested on an inflatable lunar habitat at the school. The new EPSCoR funding is allowing researchers to make the system more rugged, robust and revise it for testing at the NASA’s ISS Technology Demonstration Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Two to three years later, it’ll be sent up to the ISS for testing in microgravity. This NASA–EPSCoR is one of five in the nation to receive funding for research and technology development onboard the ISS which consists of higher education institutions and nonprofit research organizations that are actively involved in aerospace-related research and education.
NASA EPSCoR Stimuli 2014-15
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