Articles: Software
By Ed Getty Research Fellow Procter & Gamble Cincinnati, OH
For almost 165 of Procter & Gamble’s 170-year history, nearly all growth came from innovating within the walls of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A four-port magic-T hybrid waveguide junction serves as the central component of a high-efficiency two-way power combiner circuit for transmitting a high-rate...
Briefs: Information Technology
A framework for high-level specification of data distributions in data-parallel application programs has been conceived. [As used here, "distributions" signifies means to express...
Briefs: Information Technology
The inductive monitoring system (IMS) is a system of computer hardware and software for automated monitoring of the performance, operational condition, physical integrity, and other aspects...
Briefs: Information Technology
A methodology for processing commercially available satellite spectral imagery has been developed to enable identification and mapping of waste tire piles in California. The California Integrated Waste Management Board initiated the project and provided funding for the method's development....
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A circuit and method for transmitting and receiving on-off-keyed (OOK) signals with fractional signal-to-noise ratios uses available high-temperature silicon-on-insulator (SOI) components...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Switched band-pass filters are key components of proposed adaptive, software- defined radio transceivers that would be parts of envisioned digital-data- communication networks that would enable real-time acquisition and monitoring of data from geographically distributed sensors. Examples of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Systems to provide improved tactile feedback to aircraft pilots are being developed to help the pilots maintain harmony between their control actions and the positions of aircraft control surfaces,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A waveguide structure for combining the outputs of four amplifiers operating at 35 GHz (Ka band) is based on a similar prior structure used in the X band. The structure is designed to function with low...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A calibrator, referred to as the "spider" design, can be used to calibrate probes incorporating multiple acoustic sensing elements. The application is an acoustic energy density probe, although the calibrator can be used for other types of acoustic probes. The calibrator relies on the use of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A special-purpose high-voltage power supply can be electronically switched on and off with fast rise and fall times, respectively. The output potential is programmable from 20 to 1,250 V....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Noncoherent data-transition tracking loops (DTTLs) have been proposed for use as symbol synchronizers in digital communication receivers. [Communication- receiver subsystems that can perform their assigned functions in the absence of synchronization with the phases of their carrier signals ("carrier...
Briefs: Energy
A document proposes self-deploying storage tanks, based on the cold elastic hibernated memory (CHEM) concept, to be used on remote planets. The CHEM concept, described in previous NASA Tech Briefs articles, involves the use of open-cell shape-memory-polymer (SMP) foam sandwich structures to make...
Briefs: Materials
Sequestration of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNs) in a suitably chosen polymer is under investigation as a means of promoting the dissolution of the nanotubes into epoxies. The purpose of this investigation is to make it possible to utilize SWCNs as the reinforcing fibers in strong,...
Briefs: Materials
A foam core shield (FCS) system is now being developed to supplant multilayer insulation (MLI) systems heretofore installed on spacecraft for thermal management and protection against meteoroid impacts. A typical FCS system consists of a core sandwiched between a face sheet and a back sheet. The core can consist...
Briefs: Information Technology
The PPC750 Performance Monitor (Perfmon) is a computer program that helps the user to assess the performance characteristics of application programs running under the Wind River VxWorks real-time operating system on a PPC750 computer. Perfmon generates a user-friendly interface and collects performance data by use of...
Briefs: Information Technology
A computer program builds application programming interfaces (APIs) and related software components for installing and uninstalling application programs in any of a variety of computers and operating systems that support the Java programming language in its binary form. This program is partly similar in...
Briefs: Information Technology
A computer program in the guidance system of a mobile robot generates estimates of the position and attitude of the robot, using features of the terrain on which the robot is moving, by processing digitized images acquired by a stereoscopic pair of electronic cameras mounted rigidly on the...
Briefs: Information Technology
The Design and Data Management System (DDMS) was developed to automate the NASA Engineering Order (EO) and Engineering Change Request (ECR) processes at the Propulsion Test Facilities at Stennis Space Center for efficient and effective Configuration Management (CM). Prior to the development of DDMS, the CM system...
Briefs: Information Technology
The Simple, Scalable, Script-based Science Processing (S4P) Archive (S4PA) is a disk-based archival system for remote-sensing data. It is based on the data-driven framework of S4P and is used for data transfer, data preprocessing, metadata generation, data archive, and data distribution. New data are...
Briefs: Information Technology
The Rocket Propulsion Test-Automated Management System provides a central location for managing activities associated with Rocket Propulsion Test Management Board, National Rocket Propulsion Test Alliance, and the Senior Steering Group business management activities. A set of authorized users, both...
Briefs: Information Technology
BasinTools Module 1 processes remotely sensed raster data, including multi- and hyper-spectral data products, via a Web site with no downloads and no plug-ins required. The interface provides standardized algorithms designed so that a user with little or no remote-sensing experience can use the site. This Web-based...
Briefs: Information Technology
The primal-dual interior-point algorithm implemented in G-OPT is a relatively new and efficient way of solving convex optimization problems. Given a prescribed level of accuracy, the convergence to the optimal solution is guaranteed in a predetermined, finite number of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Two suites of software have been developed to handle the input and output of the Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Prediction System (COAMPS), which is a regional atmospheric model developed by the Navy for simulating and predicting weather. Typically, the initial and boundary conditions for COAMPS are provided by a...
Briefs: Information Technology
SmaggIce Version 2.0 is a software toolkit for geometric modeling and grid generation for two-dimensional, singleand multi-element, clean and iced airfoils. A previous version of SmaggIce was described in “Preparing and Analyzing Iced Airfoils,” NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 28, No. 8 (August 2004), page...
Briefs: Information Technology
To better educate the public on the basic design of NASA's current mission rockets, Rocket Science 101 software has been developed as an interactive program designed to retain a user's attention and to teach about basic rocket parts. This program also has helped to expand NASA's presence on the Web...
Briefs: Information Technology
STITCH is a computer program that processes raw nucleotide-sequence data to automatically remove unwanted vector information, perform reverse-complement comparison, stitch shorter sequences together to make longer ones to which the shorter ones presumably belong, and search against the user's choice...
Briefs: Information Technology
PlanetaryBalloon Version 5.0 is a software package for the design of meridionally lobed planetary balloons. It operates in a Windows environment, and programming was done in Visual Basic 6. By including the effects of circular lobes with load tapes, skin mass, hoop and meridional stress, and elasticity in the structural...
Briefs: Information Technology
A computer program has been written for use in maintaining the calibration, with respect to the positions of imaged objects, of a stereoscopic pair of cameras on each of the Mars Explorer Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The program identifies and locates a known object in the images. The object...