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These are possible Constellation coding projects for ESA SOCIS 2012.
If you are interested, contact us here!
for Constellation Platform
- [P1] Data Visualization and Animation for Screen Saver (Nasa World Wind Java adaptation)
for Applications
- [A1] Solar System Grand Tour (brand new, NASA Space Apps Challenge)
- [A2] DGSN positioning (Lone Pseudoranger, HGG)
- [A3] Brightes Night (brand new, NASA Space Apps Challenge)
- [A4] Ground Station Cell Site Optimization
- [Ax] hand in your own!
- [Ay] adapt an existing OS-software for distributed computing!
for BOINC
- [B1] P2P-Science-Grid computation mode (brand new, HGG)
The needed skills vary, but basically we leave in the hand of the coder do decide. We will give the basic condition and we will discuss it with the coder how to realize it in the best way.
All project ideas are a good mixture of computer science, physics, aerospace engineering and common sense. So it's more than pure coding.
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[P1] Data Visualization and Animation for Screen Saver
Here is a pre-alpha demonstrator http://youtu.be/08CmGNAhe4w
For existing and future applications running on user PCs connected to the Constellation Platform a data visualization and animation is needed.
This "Screen Saver" should display a nice animation or the real simulation data of the current process. In addition basic data like user-name, the simulation progress bar, account data and other important data from the application.
The screen saver includes to specify an interface syntax to handle data from differen applications.
The implementation can be either done with Nasa World Wind Java, where first very basic tests has been done, but it is also possible to create something completely new.
Help and collaboration can be found in worldwindcentral.com
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[A1] Solar System Grand Tour
Tour of the Solar System
Software
In the 1970's NASA's Planetary Grand Tour was an ambitious plan to the alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto and not recur for 176 years for their Voyager Space Probe programme. This planetary constellation could be used to extend the probe's trajectory to planets further out in the Solar System by means of gravitational slingshots at those planets.
Solar System Grand Tour is a more academic approach to determine if it's possible to visit each planet in our Solar System with a Voyager class probe or with one of the successors (New Horizons) in the next 176 years within a reasonable time span.
The mission includes: * starting in Earth orbit * fly-bys of each planet and including Pluto at least once (as a reminiscent of the Voyager Programme, although Pluto is categorized as a "Dwarf Planet" now) * analyzing time beginning from now and within the next 176 years. * Voyager or New Horizons class of probe dimensions and resources, like masses and propellant. No "Battlestar Galactica" ship with infinite resources.
The challenge includes possible tasks of:
- numerical n-body simulations of space probe and celestial bodies for the trajectory (3D)
- Ephemerides of the celestial bodies
- optimizing and finding strategies for the tour route (brute force combinatorics, ant colony optimizations, etc)
- spacecraft attitude and orbit control for transfer routes and thrust phases
- visualization of the route(s)
Resources:
- in case of high performance computing demands, the Constellation Platform is available and the app needs to include a distributed computing function, so that the workunit can be processed on independent personal computers connected via the internet attached to Constellation
Status:
Had been part of the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2012
Task includes:
- orbital mechanics
- n-body simulation and ephemerides data
- optimization and finding techniques/methods
- visualization
- (cpu/gpu parallel computing)
solarsystemgrandtour von aerospaceresearch.net auf Flickr
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[A2] Distributed Ground Station Network - Positioning
It's the aim is to develop a modular antenna grid for satellite communication. Therefor alot of small ground stations plugged to user PCs and connected via the internet to Constellation's BOINC-server will receive satellite beacon signals. These beacon signals are correlated with the ground stations system time (GPS synchronized) and we need a software.
The Lone Pseudoranger was started for DGSN and we need further positioning and geodetic functions. The task is to expand the functionalities, include geodeteic reference transformation and to have the software for on ground station uses and in near-real time to be able to use 5 ground stations without the internet and linked together for on-field use.
Needes Skills:
- geodeitic background
- software and firmware programming
- (ad-hoc grid communication)
Status:
Part of Constellation and shackspace project hgg.aero
dgsn von aerospaceresearch.net auf Flickr
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[A3] Brightest Night
Electrification lead to an extended use of artificial lightning in houses and on the streets. This causes and ever growing light pollution of the night sky. Brightest Night will provide an intensities map of the worldwide skies with a globally distributed sensor grid formed by webcams and other optical devices. The infrastructure for this grid is provided by the Constellation Platform, a distributed computing network, where home computers of volunteers are used for citizen sciences and where the webcams will be attached to.
The challenge will contain:
- creating the scientific basics for analyzing the sensor data (light intensity, star constellation visibility, etc)
- coding the application for the scientific measurement
- finding open-source or creating adequate drivers for webcams
- establishing ways to calibrate the optical devices * development of weather resistant housings and casings for external/outdoor usage of webcams under any conditions
- visualization of the measurement data on the user's pc (screensaver)
- visualization of the measurement data on a global map.
The grid hardware infrastructure can be expanded for usage to measure quick lightning changes of thunderstrikes, daylight times or sky colors during auroras and their chemical compositions.
Task includes:
- image processing
- calibration strategies and hardware calibration
- building webcam drivers
- hard- and software testing
- visualization
Status:
Had been part of the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2012
lightpollution von aerospaceresearch.net auf Flickr
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[A4] Ground Station Cell Site Optimization
This project is meant to be used to find an optimal cell grid of ground stations and other radio and wireless nodes.
This project will be used by HGG.aero, Freifunk.net (Stuttgart) and others.
Task includes:
- optimization strategies for different modes (best coverage, best visibility, best data-rate,...)
- data base for existing ground station
- data base for optimized cells
- topographic and environment maps
- wave propagation (ray tracing, ...)
- visibility for satellites and re-entry bodies
Status:
brand new, includes Ham, Beacon & Hacks
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[Ax] Create Your Own App!
In case non of the listed tasks are interesting to you, but you have an idea for an aerospace related application that needs massive computation capacity, we would like to help you.
Just send us a small proposal what it is about and why you need 7000+ PCs for it.
It will stay your baby, we will just host it
allthepowerintheworld1 von aerospaceresearch.net auf Flickr
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[Ay] adapt an existing OS-software for distributed computing!
There are already some open source or freeware software solutions that could be converted for a use in distributed computing and boinc. The task is to finde candidates, adapt it to DC and BOINC, create an interface and create testcases
Candidates:
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[B1] P2P-Science-Grid computation mode (brand new, HGG)
BOINC is a nice tool and does support a lot of distributed computing methods. But it is a strict client-server system and it doesn't support clustering, so that several cluster-nodes can work together on ONE bigger workunit. This is required for several aerospace and aviation applications like computational fluid dynamics (CFD), N-Body Simulations, Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics and many more.
To allow the application to finish this in a reasonable amount of time, that isn't possible with BOINC, we would like to create an P2P appliaction as an intermediate and stand alone solution for collaborative parallel processing with nodes in a lose network.
The P2P application should establish connections to other peers, a grouping of several nodes to one working pack and process the workunit. In this working pack several operational positions have to be included.
Quality of Processing to group nodes with similar physical power (system and internet connection rating)
A substitution system for vanishing nodes and that it is possible to replace the node without high pausing time of the complete working pack.
A P2P workunit sharing without the permanent need of a server
An interface protocoll for sending data during iterations to each node. (MPI, etc.).
Validation system
And extension to the computing mode would be a streaming mode. This can be used by the distributed ground station network[A2] to stream received voice radio signals from ISS or other sources to a certain target. This should include a seamless handover of the signal of different ground stations to the target, so that a permanent reception and stream can be obtained.
Task includes:
* p2p
* parallel computation methods
* quality of services techniques
* flexibe use of software (interfaces)
* a small "hello world!" app that computes a splitted/parted parallel task to test the p2p application layer above. Think CFD or other iterative method with splitted workunit.
Status:
brand new!
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