Network-based telemetry systems have unprecedented amounts of flexibility due to the ability to monitor, control, configure, coordinate, and visualize the operations of the flight test system. As a result of this flexibility, multiple tests can be conducted in a single flight; all it takes is reconfiguration of portions of the system. However, management of such a dynamic system is a complex task. As such, the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) Program is currently developing a System Manager application to provide a model for coordinated management of networked telemetry. The System Manager provides a user application for monitoring, controlling, configuring, coordinating, and visualizing the operations of the Telemetry Network System (TmNS) network. This paper describes the key requirements, capabilities, and development approach of the System Manager.

Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) teamed to create a low-cost sensor to inspect in-service culverts in both wet and dry conditions. This sensor system, called the Ultrasonic Culvert Inspection System (UCIS) is suitable for mapping, monitoring, and diagnosing damage to roadway culverts using sonar mapping and live video. The sensor allows the inspector to evaluate culverts with minimal time, equipment, and cost to the sponsoring agency. Sonar information, collected as the probe travels through the culvert, can be combined with inertial measurement and distance data to produce a three-dimensional representation of the culvert that can be manipulated and viewed from many angles. A specially calibrated sonar scheme allows the sensor to be developed with inexpensive components, making this system appropriate for use in high-risk, flooded inspections. Tests reveal the sonar data have sufficient resolution to allow meaningful evaluation of the status and integrity of culverts. This paper describes the motivation, design, and implementation of the UCIS.

In the course of work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM) program, we developed bounding and accuracy models for various penetration models. Typically the information that is available includes a penetration model or curve fit that nominally matches the average results over a range of impact conditions, some data showing scatter, and then an idea of what the variations and uncertainties are in input properties for the model, which includes material properties, velocity, and geometry. The desire is to then take this data and develop a bounding model that can run as quickly as the nominal model, and (if possible) is as "first principles" as is the original model. A methodology is described for doing so, and we demonstrate the method with three different types of models, the Walker-Anderson penetration model, Walker's fabric perforation model, and a blast model.

Prediction, assessment, and mitigation of surface-affecting natural hazard processes such as landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, and floods call upon geoscientists to rapidly deploy instruments and accurately characterize these earth processes, often with little lead time and under dangerous working conditions. Affected areas may have heavy tree canopies, or high atmospheric dust loads (volcanic eruptions), precluding the use of traditional location techniques like Global Positioning System (GPS). The proliferation of inexpensive radio systems provides a technology that has the potential to redefine the approach to rapid characterization of hazardous earth processes. The research effort described in this paper developed and demonstrated an inexpensive, cooperative radar-like technology for precise distance measurement between intelligent radio nodes.