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unit were used in a series of
science missions conducted
with the Altair uninhabited
air vehicle, providing the first
indication that used together,
the two technologies would be
a winning combination. The
mission series also marked
the first UAV collaboration
between Dr yden and the
National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration.
Dryden assisted NOAA
with lease of the Altair
aircraft, owned and built by
General Atomics Aeronautical
Systems Inc. of San Diego,
and provided support for a
series of atmospheric and
oceanic research flights off the
California coastline.
Whether using an actual
UAV or a surrogate like the ER-
2, the next step in development
is being carried out by NASA’s
Earth Science Capabilities
Demonstrations project. The
ESCD targets development of
technologies that will improve
UAV capabilities for use in
Earth observation.
Future Earth science UAVs,
Freudinger said, will essentially
be used as scouts. Just as when
any other scout might be
sent on a mission, productive
use of time is a combination
of decision-making by the
scout and communication
between the scout and others
when some objective is either
met or not met. In addition
to weather phenomena, for
example, these instrumented
UAVs could enable humans
to keep watch on the health
of Emperor penguins in the
Antarctic. The penguins’ role
X-tra is published in the X-Press
for civil servants, contractors
and retirees of the Dryden Flight
Research Center and the Center’s
partners and civilian customers.
Dryden Home Page: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/
when the SBIR program began
Just the facts to deliver for him more than a
decade ago.
Visit the SBIR Web site: In 1992, while trying to solve
http://sbir.nasa.gov an unrelated problem in aero-
nautical flight research, he saw
the possibilities offered by SBIR
Hurricane mission:
grants. He saw the program as
http://tcsp.msfc.nasa.gov a way for researchers to fund
the speculative research work
RBNB information: necessary to remove technology
http://rbnb.creare.com barriers and create new ways of
conducting the business of flight
For more information: research.
NASA Dryden Flight “It’s kind of like going fishing,”
Research Center he said. “You set up a (contract
Public Affairs Office solicitation) subtopic to lure
solutions to your problems and
(661) 276-3449
wait to see what comes in. “You
get all these nibbles, and you
as a relatively small population pick the best.”
near the top of the food chain In this case, the subtopic
in the cold and icy Antarctic was a broadly defined abstract
suggest that their health as a for automated and online data
species could be an indicator of reduction, and the proposal by
global climate change. Creare Inc. was for something
Scouting with UAVs will de- called a “practical real-time
mand one or more forms of com- wavelet signal analyzer.”
munication capable of reacting “Along the way we discovered
to changing circumstances. The that Creare’s software had some
value of the airborne sensor-web unique features we didn’t see any-
concept, says Freudinger, is in where else,” Freudinger recalled.
gaining better and more flexible “Through a subsequent proposal
remote-scouting capabilities the NASA/Creare team worked to
that are adaptable to change. generalize those features to enable
In the future, sensor webs be- data reduction through network
ing flown for weeks or months computing on aircraft such as
aboard long-endurance UAVs an F-18. The result was RBNB
will contact researchers when DataTurbine.”
something interesting is located.
The REVEAL and RBNB tech- SBIR as catalyst
nologies are among the types Getting a revolutionary idea
of tools that will be needed to funded and finding projects on
build this capability. which to test the idea can be a
challenge. In Freudinger’s case, he
Origins knew network computing was the
Earth science was not the ap- technology direction he wanted
plication Freudinger envisioned to pursue but finding the money
Address: P.O. Box 273, Editor: Jay Levine, AS&M
Building 4839
Edwards, Calif. 93523-0273
Phone: (661) 276-3449 Assistant Editor: Sarah Merlin, AS&M
FAX: (661) 276-3566
Managing Editor: Michael Gorn, NASA
just to get started was a real stum- The National
bling block. New test techniques
can take years to mature, and
Aeronautics
and Space
bureaucratic planning processes Administration
“can truncate efforts to engage in
truly visionary work,” he said. An
SBIR grant proved to be a handy
A special publication of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center X-Press, Edwards, California
tool for filling a funding gap for
technologies like Freudinger’s,
considered too premature for
large-scale investment.
Proposals for NASA SBIR
contracts are generally solic-
ited through application area
subtopics. Freudinger took
advantage of the flexibility of-
fered by the SBIR program and
wrote a new SBIR subtopic to
solicit ideas for on-line health
management and automated
data analysis. ������������������������
Researchers who find them- ������������������������
selves in the same situation he
faced with RBNB should “go
talk to SBIR program managers,”
Freudinger said. “They’re eager
to pave the way.”
Because the RBNB DataTur-
bine is useful for managing
continuously changing informa-
tion needed for making rapid
decisions, it has value beyond
its initial focus. Constructed as
a solution for needs in aeronauti-
cal flight-testing, it can be used
in applications ranging from
Homeland Security and disaster
relief efforts to networked secu-
rity cameras, medical monitor-
ing and online gaming.
The hands of innovative re-
searchers struggling today with
NASA Photo by Bill Ingalls
tomorrow’s challenges are sup-
plying the technology pipeline
with solutions and opportuni-
ties. When it comes to solving
problems, NASA’s SBIR pro-
gram is a proven tool.
NASA SBIR contracts are playing key roles in
the creation of versatile research tools to enable
development of a global-reach Earth observa-
ext. 3459 tion system that can even analyze hurricanes.
How can the SBIR program support your ideas?
ext. 2128 NASA Photo by Tom Tschida
 August 2005
By Jay Levine
X-Press Editor
D
ryden ER-2 pilot
David Wright flew
near the wall of the
eye of Hurricane
Emily on July 17 as she moved
across the Caribbean toward
Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. It
was a rough flight and it ap-
peared that it was about to get a
lot rougher.
During the eight-hour flight
Wright collected information
about Emily, a storm that caused
extensive damage in the Yucatan.
Just a week earlier he had flown
the ER-2 in similar experiments
over Hurricane Dennis.
“Hurricane Dennis was much
kinder,” said Wright following the
July 17 flight. “Emily just didn’t
want me around.”
Wright was part of a team
comprised of scientists, engineers
and technicians from Dryden,
four other NASA centers and 10
American universities. Manning
the Tropical Cloud Systems and
Processes mission, personnel were
stationed in San Jose, Costa Rica in
July to study how tropical storms
become hurricanes. Researchers
from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and
the Costa Rican Centro Nacional
de Alta Tecnologia also were part
of the mission team.
Team members conducted
ground and air studies to mea-
sure the buildup and behavior of
tropical storm systems, collecting
detailed weather information
as the storms grew or subsided.
They were aided in their work
by technologies that permitted
collection and delivery of data
from the aircraft to researchers on
the ground in near-real time. Key
technologies used in the mission
got their start from NASA’s Small
Business Innovation Research, or
SBIR program.
For example, a software program
called the Ring Buffer Network Bus
– or RBNB DataTurbine™, its
commercial moniker – made it easier
X-Press X-tra August 2005
Sharpening the cutting edge
REVEAL is a reflection of time
well spent.”
Designed and built in
conformance with open-
source software specifications,
SBIR contracts assist researchers in knocking down complex technology barriers REVEAL was nominated for
NASA’s Software of the Year
a network. The RBNB software award in 2004.
might be thought of as a network The Costa Rica mission also
of TiVo™ boxes – consumer illustrated the potential of using
television hardware that permits the RBNB DataTurbine and the
simultaneous viewing and REVEAL unit in tandem.
recording of programs – for test “The ER-2 was based in Costa
data instead of television shows. Rica,” said Freudinger. “It would
Such a network “enables you to take off and fly around hurricanes
make the best possible use of the and tropical storms down in Cen-
time you have available,” explained tral America. Status information
Larry Freudinger, Dryden’s lead would go automatically from the
researcher for airborne sensor-web airplane through the Iridium sat-
systems. Sensor webs are networks ellite constellation, drop down to
of automated instruments. the planet, in Arizona, and then
“The RBNB software makes it go over the phone lines to our
easy and inexpensive to build the lab (at Dryden). Then the data
time-sensitive information systems would get on the network and
that are required for managing go to New Hampshire, which is
continuously changing data from where our primary RBNB server
multiple sources.” is located. The data packets were
Illustration Courtesy of Creare Inc.
captured and reformatted, mak-
Changing the rules ing them immediately available
The X-tra cover shows Dryden’s ER-2 as it departed San Jose, Costa Rica on a mission to monitor tropical storms DataTurbine technology is NASA Illustration by Jenny Mottar
(on the Web) for analysis and
and the formation of hurricanes. The cover’s inset image shows the path taken by the ER-2 over Hurricane Emily changing the way mission plan-
This artist’s conception shows a future system-of-systems for observation display.”
as scientists on the ground viewed storm data generated in near-real time. The REVEAL instrument, pictured at ners think about how to execute
and exploration of Earth and beyond. Tools like REVEAL hardware and Users could access the Creare
bottom right on the cover, is the hardware that provides the gateway through which researchers kept tabs on the research. In the past, for example,
RBNB software represent pieces of the technology puzzle that will enable Web site or a site at NASA’s
aircraft while interacting with instrumentation. Using RBNB DataTurbine™ software to manage data enabled data gathered during research
this future system to become a reality. NASA’s SBIR grant program provides Marshall Space Flight Center in
researchers to easily integrate several displays and analysis tools with data from a variety of sources, some of which flights was typically recorded for
researchers and small businesses with the seed money necessary to feed the Huntsville, Ala., to obtain maps
are represented in the illustration above. later use or went solely to a lone
pipeline of innovation that helps NASA and industry achieve their goals. and graphs of measurements only
control room during a mission. a second or two old. Automated
for researchers on the ground to SBIR sparks success phases of competition for SBIR Now, that information can be software monitored parameters
capture and process live data streams About a decade ago a NASA funding provide up to $670,000 sent to a network and ultimately toward sensor webs, but we didn’t REVEAL unit on board the for conditions of interest,
coming from the ER-2 aircraft while SBIR project sparked the idea for use in breaching technology fed to partners all over the globe. see any tools for researching hard ER-2 provided, via RBNB, the sending out email alerts to record
making the data available for view- for the network-distributed barriers and developing prototype The ER-2 aircraft’s recent storm- problems associated with networks data needed for near-real time interesting observations.
ing with Internet Web browsers. signal processing that became solutions to address needs de- tracking missions in Costa Rica of data-acquisition systems displays. It also enabled interactive “What we are building is a
The DataTurbine program allowed the RBNB technology. NASA’s scribed in grant solicitations. offered a glimpse of the potential embedded in things like airplanes,” communications between sustainable capability for a global
the mission ground crew to remain research partner was Creare Inc. of In the case of RBNB, researchers for global test-range capabilities, Freudinger said. “So we built one.” researchers and a lightning network of Earth-observation
apprised of aircraft and onboard Hanover, N.H. So innovative was wanted to “disconnect,” or where resources and researchers That tool is called the Research instrument package installed on instruments,” Freudinger said.
instrument status. the idea that the RBNB software separate, live data generated by are distributed across the planet. Environment for Vehicle- ER-2, allowing researchers to “Over time, these instrument
For the flight over Hurricane was nominated for the Agency’s sensor instruments from the Freudinger and his team’s Embedded Analysis on Linux, safely query instrument status networks become increasingly
Emily, the software was used 1999 Software of the Year award. applications that process or display contributions extend beyond the or REVEAL. Conceived five and monitor the storm’s electrical autonomous and productive
to keep Wright and the ER-2 In 2000, it was recognized by R&D the data. This disconnection RBNB DataTurbine. years ago as “an aircraft in a box” characteristics. without the cost of ownership
a safe distance from the wall of magazine, a publication devoted effectively separates the acquisition, Whereas the RBNB software for sensor-web research, the “The value of REVEAL is in and operation getting excessive.”
the hurricane’s eye. Knowing the to technology innovations, as one storage, distribution and processing was built for use in airborne REVEAL unit evolved into a the software,” said Freudinger.
aircraft’s location at all times in of the year’s most significant new of data test and measurement networks, there weren’t any data- programmable gateway between “We spent plenty of time thinking UAV Science missions coup
relation to the storm enabled the developments. (and problems inherent in those acquisition systems yet built the onboard instruments and about problems involved in In May, just prior to the
team on the ground to optimize An SBIR contract enables govern- processes). Researchers then have that were designed to live on a wireless communication paths to managing a reconfigurable data- ER-2 mission, the DataTur-
flight routes for obtaining desired ment researchers to find small busi- greater flexibility in identifying network. and from aircraft. Built with an acquisition system flying on bine software and a REVEAL
data in spite of the storm’s unpre- ness partners with common tech- solutions because components are “We saw the test and internal sensor suite and its own some remote aircraft, and the
dictable nature. nology-development interests. Two distributed and accessible across measurement industry evolving data-acquisition capabilities, a performance and flexibility of See Technology, page 4