Student R&D Opportunities

The SUMIT data analysis is underway and needs assistance with simple data entry. This data entry position is specifically to format and enter the questionnaire data collected from the pilot’s questionnaire data (both numerical and text) into excel spreadsheets so that it can be formatted into SPSS and work with the mentor on doing the analysis. SPSS is a statistical analysis software (link).

• Candidate should possess extremely high attention to detail for example, interpreting the pilot's handwriting and entering that data accurately and correctly
• Familiarity with SPSS and data analysis techniques such as ANOVA, ANCOVA, T-tests
• Good math and statistics background
• Candidate should be available to start mid-January 2020

This project is to develop a nominal prototype of an “Autonomous Entity Global Intelligence System” or AEGIS, by incorporating cutting edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies to enable a distributed supervisory control framework for Urban Air Mobility (UAM). In this project, the student will apply cutting-edge AI/ML technology to make real-world aviation and coordination among autonomous air vehicles efficient and safe. The intern will deliver working data synthesis, simulation, and visualization modules in the form of software codes.

This position will consist the following tasks:

• Create representative sets of operation scenarios, by synthesizing existing aeronautics and aviation data
• Develop a machine learning model for analyzing and inferring the synthesized data
• Setup a simulation testbed to ingest, engineer, infer the data, and visualize the simulation results
• Implement and evaluate multiple operational modes in different unconstrained and constrained scenarios

Category A

• Desired skills: D3.js, MATLAB, C/C++
• Additional preferred skills: Visual Studio, Unity, Adobe Illustrator
• Experience level: 0-5 years

Category B

• Desired skills: Python, MATLAB, Tensor Flow, CUDA
• Additional preferred skills: KERAS, Open CV, Unity
• Experience level: 0-5 years

Additional general expectations include:

The Air Traffic Management Exploration (ATM-X) project will develop and demonstrate a new service-based air traffic system paradigm. NASA researchers are exploring an initial concept development of Urban Air Transport Disruption Management platform (UATDM). UATDM aims at enabling highly automated commercial services provided by Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Urban Air Mobility in low-altitude airspaces. The selected interns will have the opportunities to perform researches and develop algorithms for UATDM.

Research, poster presentation, numerical models or algorithms, report or conferences/journal publications

• Mobile App development knowledge or experiences in Matlab/C/C++/Java/Optimal controls/machine learning

This work supports the UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS) integration project. The goal is to characterize detect and avoid (DAA) system behavior and identify / extract scenarios of interest in order to further the project's research objectives.

To accomplish this, the work will focus on visualization and analysis of DAA encounters between UAS and manned traffic operating under visual flight rules.

The UTM (Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM)) research platform enables the testing of various capabilities ranging from visual line-of-sight operations in rural areas to beyond visual line-of-sight (expanded) operations in urban areas. This platform is comprised of a set of web services that are accessible from a remote server by clients that have been implemented according to the published interface control document (ICD). The ICD defines the communication between the UTM research platform and an operator. It provides the information necessary to develop clients and software applications that interface with the UTM research platform.

The UTM research team has developed a number of clients and applications that displays UTM information and enables interaction with the UTM research platform. The goal is to distribute this client software to as many universities as possible and assist them in communicating with the UTM server at NASA Ames to help enhance the UTM concept development and provide a wider base for research within the academia in this field.

USRA's R&D Student Program supports projects at NASA Ames as part of the NASA Academic Mission Services (NAMS). The goal of these internships is to help advance the milestones of the project and to help complete the student's thesis.

The internships range in technical areas of:

• Aeronautics
• Earth Science
• Data Science
• Machine Learning
• Robotics
• Synthetic Biology
• Biosciences
• Environmental Analytics