A complete demonstration breadboard unit for advanced development as a high-TRL (technology readiness level) system has been constructed and characterized. Infusion of several new component technologies, such as ceramic:YAG material and high-power laser diode arrays (LDAs),...

The Twin Head Efficient Oscillator (THEO) concept uses a pair of smaller, identical laser pump modules, oriented to remove asymmetrical thermo-optical effects typical in single-slab lasers such as HOMER (High Output Maximum Efficiency Resonator), MLA (Mercury...

Aerosols in planetary atmospheres have a significant impact on the energy balance of the planets, yet are often poorly characterized. An in situ instrument was developed that would provide more diagnostic information on the nature of aerosols it encountered if deployed on a planetary descent probe. Previous probe...

Monolithic ridge-waveguide GaSbbased diode lasers were fabricated with a second-order, laterally etched Bragg grating to generate single-mode emission from InGaAsSb/AlGaAsSb multiquantum- well structures. In this design, the monolithic Type-I GaSb-based diode lasers use grating...

The purpose of this innovation is to be able to deliver, individually or simultaneously, multiple microwave high-frequency bands including, but not limited to, L (1.5 GHz), C (7 GHz), X (8.4 GHz), Ku (14.5 GHz), Ka (32 GHz), and Q (38 GHz) frequencies at high data rates and with...

A document describes a fiber/solid-state hybrid seeded regenerative amplifier capable of achieving high output energy with tunable pulse widths for satellite laser ranging (SLR) applications. The diode-pumped solid-state...

Clinical and industrial instruments, clothing, gloves, and work surfaces may contain or acquire microorganisms, which flourish or grow as a function of the environment in which they are located. Such growth may lead to the proliferation of toxin- or allergen-producing pathogenic organisms. Using nucleic...

Polymeric and non-polymeric additives must release dirt from stucco, decks, and other coated architectural surfaces. A client seeks hydrophobic surfaces that are hard rather than tacky, and offer low surface tension and high contact angle. Preferably, a homeowner could spray these enhanced coatings with water...

A client seeks a simple, small, and cost-effective diagnostic cholesterol test kit. The technology must be used directly by a consumer, possibly as an in-home test kit. Results should be visible immediately and show different levels, including normal, moderately elevated, or high cholesterol. Solutions could be...

A characterization software suite was developed to facilitate NASA’s in-flight characterization of commercial remote sensing systems. Characterization of aerial and satellite systems requires knowledge of ground characteristics, or ground truth. This information is...

This innovation is a system that augments human vision through a technique called “Sensing Super-position” using a Visual Instrument Sensory Organ Replacement (VISOR) device. The VISOR device translates visual and other sensors (i.e., thermal) into sounds to enable very difficult sensing tasks.

A dual-polarized, wide-bandwidth (200 MHz for one polarization, 100 MHz for the orthogonal polarization) antenna array at P-band was designed to be driven by NASA’s EcoSAR digital beam former. EcoSAR requires two wide P-band antenna arrays mounted on the wings of an aircraft,...

The Orion CEV Northstar ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) project required a DDR (double data rate) memory bus driver/receiver (DDR PHY block) to interface with external DDR memory. The DDR interface (JESD79C) is based on a source synchronous strobe (DQS\) that is sent along with...

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are becoming increasingly important for military surveillance and mine detection. Most AUVs are battery powered and have limited lifetimes of a few days to a few weeks. This greatly limits the distance that AUVs can travel underwater. Using a series of submerged AUV charging...

This work involved placing a commercial Ethernet PHY on its own power boundary, with limited current supply, and providing detection methods to determine when the device is not operating and when it needs either a reset or power-cycle. The device must be radiation- tested and free of...

Based on previously reported procedures for permeabilizing vegetative bacterial cells, and numerous trial-and-error attempts with bacterial endospores, a protocol was developed for effectively permeabilizing bacterial spores, which facilitated the...

RNA isolation is a ubiquitous need, driven by current emphasis on micro-arrays and miniaturization. With commercial systems requiring 100,000 to 1,000,000 cells for successful isolation, there is a growing need for a small-footprint, easy-to-use device that can...

The microbead packing is the critical element required in the success of onchip microfabrication of critical microfluidic components for in-situ analysis and detection of chiral amino acids. In order for microliquid chromatography to occur, there must be a stationary phase...

The millimeter and the submillimeter wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum hold a wealth of information about the evolution of the universe. In particular, cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and its polarization carry the oldest information in...

STAMPS simulates either three- or six-degree-of-freedom cases for all spacecraft flight phases using translated HAL flight software or generic GN&C models. Single or multiple trajectories can be simulated for use in optimization and dispersion analysis. It includes...

Within the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), there is an effort to standardize data transfer between ground stations and control centers. CCSDS plans to publish a collection of transfer services that will each address the transfer of a particular type of data (e.g.,...

Mars lander spacecraft, beginning with Mars Pathfinder (MPF), have been designed to tolerate flight computer resets during the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) phase despite having only a single flight computer. This capability was enabled by a predictable, nondynamic EDL architecture. The Mars...

Sculptor® is a commercially available software tool, based on an Arbitrary Shape Design (ASD), which allows the user to perform shape optimization for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) design. The developed software tool provides important advances in the state-of-the-art of automatic CFD shape...

This program was developed to fill a need within the Wallops Flight Facility workflow for automation of the development of vertical plan limit lines used by flight safety officers during the conduct of expendable launch vehicle missions.

Hyperspectral imaging systems onboard aircraft or spacecraft can acquire large amounts of data, putting a strain on limited downlink and storage resources. Onboard data compression can mitigate this problem but may require a system capable of a high throughput. In order to achieve a high throughput...

For planning of Mars surface missions, to be operated on a sol-by-sol basis by a team on Earth (where a “sol” is a Martian day), activities are described in terms of “sol types” that are strung together to build a surface mission scenario. Some sol types require ground...

Simple and effective learning functions and adaptive elements can be placed into small hardware systems to include instruments for space, bioimplantable devices, and stochastic observers.

Optical ranging is a problem of estimating the round-trip flight time of a phase- or amplitude-modulated optical beam that reflects off of a target. Frequency-modulated, continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging systems obtain this estimate by performing an interferometric...

A method has been developed to create an airfoil robust enough to operate satisfactorily in different environments. This method determines a robust, optimal, subsonic airfoil shape, beginning with an arbitrary initial airfoil shape, and imposes the necessary constraints on the design. Also, this method is...

The water-vapor continuum absorption plays an important role in the radiative balance in the Earth’s atmosphere. It has been experimentally shown that for ambient atmospheric conditions, the continuum absorption scales quadratically with the H2O number...

Ka-band ranging provides the phase center (PC) to phase center range, which needs to be converted to the center of mass (CM) to center of mass range. Nominally, both PC and CM lie on the line connecting the spacecraft GRAIL A and GRAIL B. In this case, the conversion should be done simply by...

A family of schemes has been devised for organizing the output of an algorithm for predictive data compression of hyperspectral imagery so as to allow efficient parallelization in both the compressor and decompressor. In these schemes, the compressor performs...

Theoretical analysis has long indicated that feedback improves the error exponent but not the capacity of point-to-point memoryless channels. The analytic and empirical results indicate that at short blocklength regime, practical rate-compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) codes achieve low latency with the...

With antennas made from conventional materials like copper, communication between low-power nano-machines would be virtually impossible. By taking advantage of the unique electronic properties of graphene, however, researchers now believe they’re on track to connect devices powered by small amounts...

The completion of the 30-day Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration, or LLCD, mission has revealed that the possibility of expanding broadband capabilities in space using laser communications is as bright as expected.Hosted aboard the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer known as LADEE, for its...

Bulky radar domes (known as “radomes”) like those seen on military ships keep ice and freezing rain from forming directly on antennas. The domes themselves, however, must also be kept clear of ice that could damage them or make them unstable.Ribbons of ultrathin graphene, combined with polyurethane paint...

Rice University researchers have developed a noninvasive technology that accurately detects low levels of malaria infection through the skin in seconds with a laser scanner. The “vapor nanobubble” technology requires no dyes or diagnostic chemicals, and there is no need to draw blood. The new...

Teams from Stanford and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have collaborated to make thin, transparent semiconductors that could become the foundation for cheap, high-performance displays.The researchers used their new process to make organic thin-film transistors with electronic characteristics...

A new system developed by researchers at five institutions, including MIT, could eliminate many the limitations on infrared light detectors. Infrared detectors could form imaging arrays for security systems, or solar cells that harness a broader range of sunlight’s energy. The new...

In December of 2013, IBM predicted that cloud-based cognitive technology would personalize education for students within five years. IBM is already testing out the idea in a Georgia public school district serving 170,000 students. Known as Personalized Education Through Analytics on Learning...

A UT Arlington research associate and electrical engineering professor have designed a micro-windmill that generates wind energy. The technology may improve cell phone batteries constantly in need of recharging and home energy generation where large windmills are not preferred.Smitha Rao and J.-C. Chiao designed...

A ‘belt’ technology offers cheap and quick repair of earthquake-damaged buildings.Metal straps are wrapped around each floor of the building, and the straps are then tensioned either by hand or using compressed air tools. The technology is designed for use on reinforced concrete frame buildings –...

Using arm sensors that can “read” a person’s muscle movements, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have created a control system that makes robots more intelligent. The sensors send information to the robot, allowing it to anticipate a human’s movements and correct its own. The system is intended...

A new development by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, could lead to curtains and other materials that move in response to light, no batteries needed.A team led by Ali Javey, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, layered carbon nanotubes –...

In December of 2013, IBM predicted that "in five years, each of us could be protected with our own digital guardian that will become trained to focus on the people and items it is entrusted with, offering a new level of identity theft protection." A program, for example, can learn your online habits to...

Engineers developed the first tiny, synthetic machines that can swim by themselves, powered by beating heart cells.The bio-bots are modeled after single-celled creatures with long tails called flagella – for example, sperm. The researchers begin by creating the body of the bio-bot from a flexible polymer. Then they...

Carbon nanotube (CNT) sponges, uniquely doped with sulphur, demonstrated a high capacity to absorb both wastewater and oil, potentially opening up the possibility of using the material in industrial accidents and oil spill clean-ups.CNTs are hollow cylindrical structures composed of a single sheet of...

Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created tactile sensors from composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles similar to the highly sensitive whiskers of cats and rats. The new e-whiskers respond to pressure as slight as a single Pascal, about...

Soil scientists at Abertay University are using 3D printing technology to find out, for the very first time, exactly what is going on in the world beneath our feet.The detailed plastic cubes are replicas of the structure of the soil, and are being used by the scientists as experimental systems in the lab.By...

A new type of electrical generator uses bacterial spores to harness the untapped power of evaporating water, according to research conducted at the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Its developers foresee electrical generators driven by changes in...

Major car companies have showcased their latest prototypes at this month's International Consumer Electronics Show. BMW and Audi, for example, unveiled their driverless car technology and conducted demonstrations. Researchers and makers of driverless cars say the technology will be far safer than people-driven vehicles...

A photon-counting technique will allow NASA researchers to track the melt or growth of Earth’s frozen regions. CESat-2 is tasked with measuring elevation across Earth's entire surface, including vegetation and oceans, but with a focus on change in the frozen areas of the planet, where scientists...

New smart sensors produce large and clear output voltage signals, which are 2,000 times higher than the traditional current sensors.Measuring about 1 mm in thickness, the chip can be placed on any sensing point of interest such as electrical cables, conductors, junctions, and bus bars...