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Videos: Materials
Aidexpo wrote: The Aid Innovation Challenge is a competition to find inventions that will be beneficial to supplying humanitarian aid around the globe. 2011 winners: Business entry - Leaf Supply with their...
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Videos: Communications
The UCSF 'D'Vice Squad' teams physicians, engineers, and other scientists to develop devices that will improve the health of children.
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Videos: Materials
This video focuses on the Engineering side of Functional Materials Research at the University of Exeter: Functional materials research focuses on the design and fabrication...
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News: Energy
DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has granted Natcore Technology Inc. a patent license agreement to develop new black silicon products. Natcore and NREL also will enter a...
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Articles: Software
In our annual poll of executives in the Design and PLM Software market, we asked our experts about topics ranging from mobile applications and CAD in the cloud, to improving productivity and enhancing the user...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Energy-Based Tetrahedron Sensor for High-Temperature, High-Pressure Environments
An acoustic energy-based probe has been developed that incorporates multiple acoustic sensing elements in order to obtain the acoustic pressure and threedimensional acoustic particle velocity. With these quantities, the user can obtain various energy-based quantities,...
Briefs: Medical
The rHEALTH technology is designed to shrink an entire hospital testing laboratory onto a handheld device. A physician or healthcare provider performs the test by collecting a fingerstick of blood from a...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Fiber Bragg Grating Sensor System for Monitoring Smart Composite Aerospace Structures
Lightweight, electromagnetic interference (EMI) immune, fiber-optic, sensorbased structural health monitoring (SHM) will play an increasing role in aerospace structures ranging from aircraft wings to jet engine vanes. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors for SHM...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Health-Enabled Smart Sensor Fusion Technology
A process was designed to fuse data from multiple sensors in order to make a more accurate estimation of the environment and overall health in an intelligent rocket test facility (IRTF), to provide reliable, high-confidence measurements for a variety of propulsion test articles.
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Pt/(n-doped GaN) Schottky-barrier diodes having active areas as large as 1 cm square have been designed and fabricated as prototypes of photodetectors for the vacuum ultraviolet portion (wavelengths ≈200...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Extended-range passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and related sensor tags are undergoing development. A tag of this type incorporates a retroreflective antenna array, so that it...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Hybrid Collaborative Learning for Classification and Clustering in Sensor Networks
Traditionally, nodes in a sensor network simply collect data and then pass it on to a centralized node that archives, distributes, and possibly analyzes the data. However, analysis at the individual nodes could enable faster detection of anomalies or other...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Self-Healing, Inflatable, Rigidizable Shelter
Any manned missions to extraterrestrial locations will require shelter structures for a variety of purposes ranging from habitat to biomass production. Such shelters need to be constructed in such a way as to minimize stowed volume and payload weight. The structures must also be very durable and have...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Improvements in Cold-Plate Fabrication
Five improvements are reported in cold-plate fabrication. This cold plate is part of a thermal control system designed to serve on space missions.
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Technique for Radiometer and Antenna Array Calibration — TRAAC
detect minute amounts of emitted electromagnetic energy. Calibration of these receivers is vital to the accuracy of the measurements. Traditional calibration techniques depend on calibration reference internal to the receivers as reference for the calibration of the observed...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Real-Time Cognitive Computing Architecture for Data Fusion in a Dynamic Environment
A novel cognitive computing architecture is conceptualized for processing multiple channels of multi-modal sensory data streams simultaneously, and fusing the information in real time to generate intelligent reaction sequences. This unique architecture is capable of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Use of CCSDS Packets Over SpaceWire to Control Hardware
For the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Command and Data Handling subsystem consisted of several electronic hardware assemblies that were connected with SpaceWire serial links. Electronic hardware would be commanded/controlled and telemetry data was obtained using the SpaceWire links. Prior...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Programmable Digital Controller
An existing three-channel analog servo loop controller has been redesigned for piezoelectric-transducer-based (PZTbased) etalon control applications to a digital servo loop controller. This change offers several improvements over the previous analog controller, including software control over...
Articles: Software
Sharing 3D Designs: Compatibility is the “Word” In last year’s roundtable, one of our executives predicted that one day, sharing 3D designs would be as easy as sharing Microsoft Word documents...
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Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
NASA tests robotics for lunar electric rovers (LERs) and space exploration in remote locations, such as the Arizona desert, that closely simulate the terrain of the Moon or planets. The LER tests are...
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Application Briefs: Test & Measurement
Collision avoidance radar Numerica Corporation Loveland, COM 970-561-2000 www.numerica.us The National Airspace System (NAS) is a complex and shared network of people, procedures,...
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Briefs: Software
Key Decision Record Creation and Approval Module
Retaining good key decision records is critical to ensuring the success of a project or operation. Having adequately documented decisions with supporting documents and rationale can greatly reduce the amount of rework or reinvention over a project’s, vehicle’s, or facility’s lifecycle. Stennis...
Briefs: Software
Enhanced Graphics for Extended Scale Range
Enhanced Graphics for Extended Scale Range is a computer program for rendering fly-through views of scene models that include visible objects differing in size by large orders of magnitude. An example would be a scene showing a person in a park at night with the moon, stars, and galaxies in the background...
Briefs: Software
Debris Examination Using Ballistic and Radar Integrated Software
The Debris Examination Using Ballistic and Radar Integrated Software (DEBRIS) program was developed to provide rapid and accurate analysis of debris observed by the NASA Debris Radar (NDR). This software provides a greatly improved analysis capacity over earlier manual processes,...
Briefs: Software
Data Distribution System (DDS) and Solar Dynamic Observatory Ground Station (SDOGS) Integration Manager
The DDS SDOGS Integration Manager (DSIM) provides translation between native control and status formats for systems within DDS and SDOGS, and the ASIST (Advanced Spacecraft Integration and System Test) control environment in the SDO MOC (Solar...
Briefs: Software
Eclipse-Free-Time Assessment Tool for IRIS
can be used to perform an Eclipse-Free-Time (EFT) assessment of IRIS (Infrared Imaging Surveyor) mission orbits. EFT is defined to be those time intervals longer than one day during which the IRIS spacecraft is not in the Earth’s shadow. Program IRIS_EFT implements a special perturbation of orbital...
Briefs: Software
Automated and Manual Rocket Crater Measurement Software An update has
An update has been performed to software designed to do very rapid automated measurements of craters created in sandy substrates by rocket exhaust on liftoff. The previous software was optimized for pristine lab geometry and lighting conditions. This software has been enhanced to...
Briefs: Software
MATLAB Stability and Control Toolbox Trim and Static Stability Module
MATLAB Stability and Control Toolbox (MASCOT) utilizes geometric, aerodynamic, and inertial inputs to calculate air vehicle stability in a variety of critical flight conditions. The code is based on fundamental, non-linear equations of motion and is able to translate results into...
Briefs: Software
Patched Conic Trajectory Code
PatCon code was developed to help mission designers run trade studies on launch and arrival times for any given planet. Initially developed in Fortran, the required inputs included launch date, arrival date, and other orbital parameters of the launch planet and arrival planets at the given dates. These parameters...

Ask the Expert

Ralph Bright on the Power of Power Cords
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Understanding power system components and how to connect them correctly is critical to meeting regulatory requirements and designing successful electrical products for worldwide markets. Interpower’s Ralph Bright defines these requirements and explains how to know which cord to select for your application.

Inside Story

Inside Story: Trends in Packaging and Sterilization
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Eurofins Medical Device Testing (MDT) provides a full scope of testing services. In this interview, Eurofins’ experts, Sunny Modi, PhD, Director of Package Testing; and Elizabeth Sydnor, Director of Microbiology; answer common questions on medical device packaging and sterilization.