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Connected vehicles have the potential to transform the way we commute and travel in a multitude of ways. Vehicles will cooperate and coordinate with each other to solve problems appropriate for the environment in which they are operating. In this paper, we focus on the development of test equipment that includes the infrastructure and vehicles to measure and record all of the information necessary to quantify the performance of cooperative driving algorithms in realistic scenarios. The system allows tests to include real vehicles on the track and virtual vehicles in a digital twin. Real and virtual vehicles interact through the road-side units and test facility network, allowing each test vehicle to receive messages from virtual vehicles as well as the infrastructure. Messages transmitted from the test vehicles are received in the digital twin, allowing the real vehicle to interact with virtual vehicles.

Dynamic single range analyzers are designed to cover the wide range of concentrations that once required multiple ranges. The use of single range analyzers is attractive because they can significantly reduce installation costs, gas cylinder charges, and facility storage space. The new technology relies on expansion of the digital dynamic range of the analyzer combined with the availability of a high accuracy gas divider with a 500 to one dilution ratio and a large number of cut points. A series of four MEXA 7000 series bag bench analyzers manufactured by Horiba Instruments, Inc., were evaluated to compare multiple range operation with single range operation. This report describes the operation of these analyzers and summarizes the evaluation methods and results. The evaluation verified the ability of the analyzers to operate in single range mode.

A European Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) System is being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of its Hermes Programme, with the primary objective of providing a manned intervention capability for external servicing of the Columbus Free Flying Laboratory. The development phase started in 1988. A major design driver for the EVA system is the required level of failure tolerance, to ensure the achievement of sortie objectives and crew safety. The failure tolerance requirements placed on the EVA system may be summarised as follows: no single failure should result in sortie abort, and a safe return to the Hermes “safe-haven” should be possible following a second failure. This paper presents possible design solutions to this requirement, in particular for life support and associated functions. The failure tolerance characteristics of existing American and Russian EVA systems are also examined for comparison.