January 2015

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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Magnetic Thermometer for High-Resolution 10-mK Scale Thermometry

A thin-film magnetic thermometer with integrated, superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) readout has been designed for fast, precision temperature measurements in the 10-mK range. The compact magnetic thermometer consists of a miniature DC SQUID susceptometer with a...

Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition

This ultrasonic, pulse-echo probe can sustain as high as 250 °C, and uses a piezoelectric transducer to generate and receive the ultrasonic pulses. The...

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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Low-Weight, Durable, Low-Cost Metal Rubber Sensor System for Ultra-Long-Duration Scientific Balloons

Large axial load forces and extreme temperature ranges are typical for scientific balloon missions. Therefore, a durable, flexible, and thermally stable sensor material is needed. In this innovation, sensors have been designed to be integrated...

Briefs: Test & Measurement
Low-Power Charged Particle Counter for Space Radiation Monitoring

A miniature, low-power, solid-state detector for ionizing radiation was developed for use in more locations, and requiring less space and lower power than current technology. An accepted way of counting high-energy charged particles common in space radiation is to detect the light...

Briefs: Test & Measurement
Ground-to-Space Laser Calibration System

The accuracy of spaceborne sensors measuring reflected solar radiance can be affected by multiple factors. First, instruments with complex optics are sensitive to polarization. The response of such instruments is characterized before launch; however, sensitivity to polarization can change on orbit...

Briefs: Test & Measurement
Process-Hardened, Multi-Analyte Sensor for Characterizing Multiple Rocket Plume Constituents in a Test Environment

Stennis Space Center (SSC) is one of three government-operated rocket engine test facilities in the United States and is the primary center for testing and flight-certifying rocket propulsion systems for future space vehicles....

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
PATTERNS: Panoptic Aspect Time Triggered Ethernet Robust Network Scheduler, Version 1.0

The PATTERNS scheduling tool was created to test the multi-plane concept of a Time Triggered Ethernet (TTE) network. The TTE network interface cards used in the Orion vehicle contain three physical network ports, referred to as planes. Each plane exists to...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Electromagnetic Waves Transformed from a Coherent to a Quasi-Coherent Nature

The transformation of naturally occurring electromagnetic waves called “chorus” from a coherent nature to a quasi-coherent nature when propagating a distance from its source was demonstrated. The aim of the mission was to study the energizing of electrons by the...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An Earth-Observing, Frequency-Agile Radar Receiver for RFI Mitigation

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will have the first L-band radar/radiometer sensor suite dedicated to global measurements of soil moisture. For the radar sensor, the requirements for achieving high backscatter measurement accuracy from low-Earth orbit present a...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Wireless Electrical Devices Using Floating Electrodes

A wireless, connection-free, open circuit technology can be used for developing electrical devices like sensors that need no physical contact with the properties being measured. At the core of the technology is the SansEC (Sans Electrical Connections) circuit that is damage-resilient and...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Web-Enabled and Automatic Ground Processing Infrastructure Servicing the UAVSAR Airborne Missions

The UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) ground data processing infrastructure facilitates a wide range of mission operational processes through a centralized database, Web-enabled interfaces, and background automation. By...

Briefs: Aerospace
Variable-Sweep-Wing Aircraft Configuration

Efficient aircraft designs are increasingly desired in order to support the continued growth of the air transportation industry. Continued expansion of this vital mode of transportation is threatened due to concerns over ever-increasing emissions, noise, and the demand for fuel. Current airport runway,...

Briefs: Aerospace
Automated Table Lookup Solution Algorithm of the Optimal Powered Descent Guidance for Planetary Landing

A novel automated table lookup method is developed to compute the near-fuel-optimal powered descent guidance trajectories, in real-time, for planetary soft landing. The main advantage of this algorithm is that it can be executed autonomously...

Briefs: Aerospace

The Integrated Intelligent Flight Deck (IIFD) project, part of NASA’s Aviation Safety Program (AvSP), comprises a multi-disciplinary research effort to develop flight...

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Briefs: Aerospace
Computation of Wing Deflection and Slope from Measured Strain

A lightweight, robust fiber-optic system is the technology behind a new method to compute wing deflection and slope from measured strain of an aircraft. This state-of-the-art sensor system is small, easy to install, and fast, and offers the first-ever means of obtaining real-time...

Briefs: Communications
Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast System for Traffic Situational Awareness

An integrated communications and control system for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) utilizes automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) technology. The prime objective of this system is to address safety concerns related to UAS sharing airspace with...

Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics

A variety of antenna tuning techniques exist for conventionally constructed antenna structures, such that when an antenna is converted from a design to an actual fabricated structure, slight adjustments can...

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Briefs: Communications
Protograph-Based LDPC Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation

Bandwidth and power-coded modulation schemes are very desirable for many applications in high-data-rate transmission over a given allocated bandwidth. The goal is to design such coded modulation system for a given throughput with the lowest possible signal-to-noise ratio for not only a...

Briefs: Imaging
Flight Imagery Recorder Locator (FIRLo) and High-Temperature Radome

LDSD (Low Density Supersonic Decelerator) is a Mars EDL (entry, descent, and landing) Technology Development Project that launches three test vehicles out of the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai. On the test vehicle, most mission science data can be recorded safely on...

Briefs: Communications

Policy negotiation is the process of determining the “best” communication protocol that satisfies all requirements of all parties involved. The main challenge here is how to reconcile the various (and...

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Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
A Continuous-Flow, Microfluidic, Microwave-Assisted Chemical Reactor

In industrial synthetic chemistry laboratories, reactions are generally carried out using batch-mode methodologies, stepwise reactions, and purifications to generate a final product. Each step has an associated yield of both the reaction itself and of the final purification...

Briefs: Test & Measurement

Data acquisition plays a critical role in improving vehicle component performance and overall system reliability. Measuring engine parameters, including...

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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Guarded Flat Plate Insulation Test Cryostat

The guarded flat plate insulation test cryostat (Cryostat-500) is a boil-off calorimeter comprising a flat-bottom test apparatus for measuring the absolute thermal performance of an insulation test article. Typical dimensions allow accepting test specimens 200 mm in diameter by up to 30 mm thick. The...

Briefs: Materials
High-Performance Polyimide Powder Coatings

Powder coatings are used throughout industry to paint a myriad of metallic objects. This method of coating has gained popularity because of its conservation of materials and elimination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Resins used in powder coatings are traditionally chosen from those that have low...

Briefs: Materials
Selective Functionalization of Carbon Nanotubes

This invention is a process by which carbon nanotubes can be chemically functionalized according to their precise electronic structure. The process involves an exploitation of charge transfer stability at the nanotube sidewall to direct selective reaction of certain electronic structures over...

Briefs: Materials
Predictive Modeling of Corrosion Efficiencies and Toxicities

Atmospheric corrosion is significantly accelerated by the presence of heat, humidity, corrosive salts, and sunlight. At Kennedy Space Center (KSC), all of these accelerants are present, producing an extremely corrosive environment. Toxicity and environmental impacts of some inorganic...

Briefs: Materials
Improving Foreign Object Damage Performance for 2D Woven Ceramic Matrix Composites

As the power density of advanced engines increases, the need for new materials that are capable of high operating temperatures, such as ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), is critical for turbine hot-section static and rotating components. Such advanced materials...

Briefs: Information Technology
Enhanced Project Management Tool

A complex project having many tasks and sub-tasks, many phases, and many workers will often require an evaluation of completion of the tasks and sub-tasks at several times during the project’s duration. Initially and throughout the duration, suitability of the technical and inter-personal characteristics of the...

Briefs: Information Technology
Advanced Navigation Strategies for Asteroid Sample Return Missions

Sample-return missions to primitive solar system bodies (asteroids, comets, and planetary satellites) can provide a wealth of scientific information and insight into the composition and origins of the solar system. Recent interest in primitive body missions has been driven by the...

Briefs: Software
Half-Cycle Crack Growth

Half-Cycle Crack Growth software offers a reliable method for calculating theoretical fatigue crack growths that could lead to catastrophic structural component failures. The program builds upon and integrates Armstrong’s proven half-cycle and closed-form aging theories, and considers every half-cycle of loading spectra...

Briefs: Information Technology
NASA Visualization Explorer

NASA Visualization Explorer (NASA Viz) is an intuitive, interactive iOS application (app) that delivers science stories with multimedia content linking high-quality explorable images, descriptive text, visualizations, videos, and interviews with a fresh look and feel. NASA Viz aims to excite a wide audience about...

Briefs: Information Technology

This hazard avoidance algorithm uses a single flash lidar range image to select a safe landing site for NASA missions. The advantage of flash lidar is that the entire range image is captured...

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Briefs: Software
Fast Classification Method for Multivariate Mixtures of Spectroscopic Responses

In many fields of spectroscopy, classification of the measured multivariate response is not always a straightforward process. Accurate classification is limited by many factors that are highly dependent upon the spectroscopy method being utilized. In all cases,...

Briefs: Information Technology
Feature Database

The primary function of the Feature Database (FDB) is to contain information about all the ground features seen so far in a sequence of aerial images. This information is organized so that features can be efficiently located and tracked into later images. As each new image is processed, the database grows to include more images...

Briefs: Information Technology
DRAT: A Distributed Release Audit Tool

DRAT software overcomes limitations inherent in the Apache Release Audit Tool (RAT), and also brings code auditing and open-source license analysis into the realm of Big Data by using scalable, open-source Apache technologies. Distributed RAT (DRAT) leverages Apache Tika to automatically detect and classify...

Articles: Photonics/Optics

In the past decade, diode lasers have made great strides in both power and reliability. The performance improvements have enabled new applications, particularly in areas where...

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Articles: Photonics/Optics

The SPIE Photonics West 2015 technical conference and exhibition, taking place February 7-12 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco, offers attendees the opportunity to learn about the latest technological...

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Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Two quantities are perennially in short supply on engineering projects: time and money. When it comes to producing custom optical components in less time, for less money, one feasible approach...

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Briefs: Photonics/Optics

A design methodology was developed that optimizes the performance of active mirrors. Patterns of parameterized ellipsoidal actuators are overlaid onto the mirror,...

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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Monolithic Dual Telescope for Compact Biaxial Lidar

A document discusses the Ultra Compact Cloud Physics Lidar, a biaxial lidar with a narrow receiver field of view. It requires tight optical alignment between the transmitter and receiver paths while flying on various aircraft over various temperatures and in the presence of vibration. To...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Passive Aerosol Cloud Suite

The Passive Aerosol Cloud Suite (PACS) is an imaging polarimeter that employs wide field-of-view (FOV) optics to obtain a highly accurate polarimetric signal across an image with hyperangle, multiangle views. PACS is designed to measure the array of parameters necessary to retrieve aerosol and cloud microphysical...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Innovations in Optics, Inc. (Woburn, MA) offers high power LED Light Engines as excitation illuminators for large field-of-view fluorescent imagers used in...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Master Bond EP112LS is a two-part epoxy that is well suited for impregnation, potting, encapsulation, sealing and coating applications, particularly in the aerospace and optoelectronics industries. EP112LS...

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Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

The KAI-08051 charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor from ON Semiconductor (Phoenix, AZ) shares the same advanced 5.5 micron pixel architecture, 8 megapixel resolution, 15 frame per second readout rate, and 4/3 optical...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

FLIR Systems, Inc. (Portland, OR) has announced its latest thermal imaging core, Muon™, which is designed specifically for OEMs capable of integrating uncooled FPAs into their own camera solutions. Muon is based on...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

SCHOTT MORITEX (San Jose, CA) has introduced the ML-M MP5 Series with four lens models for high-precision inspection. The company’s newest lineup of highend closed-circuit television (CCTV) lenses addresses the needs of...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA) is expanding its product portfolio with the LS Series LabSources. These bench top fiber optic laser source modules are specifically designed for the needs of researchers...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Bruker (Santa Barbara, CA) recently announced the launch of the new-generation Innova-IRIS, the first guaranteed Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS) system specifically designed to accelerate the adoption and...

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Products: Imaging

Headwall (Fitchburg, MA) has announced the availability of a new hyperspectral imager targeting very high resolution spectral measurements of 0.1 nm over specific spectral ranges that yield indicators of vegetative...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Coated laser optics are used to optimize the characteristics of the emitted laser beam. However, losses are produced at each glass surface - thus the number of optics should be reduced to a minimum. Laser Components...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

Hexagon Metrology (North Kingstown, RI) has announced the release of a new HP-O non-contact scanning probe for high accuracy measurement and inspection applications. The device exerts no physical impact on a part,...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

BinOptics (Ithaca, NY) has announced the availability of 25G lasers at four wavelengths (1270, 1290, 1310 and 1330nm), allowing 100G solutions for data centers through course wavelength division multiplexing (CDWM). Trends...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

The Andor (Belfast, UK) Neo 5.5 megapixel sCMOS camera is a unique - 40°C vacuum cooled platform designed around a low noise 5.5 megapixel sensor with 6.5 μm pixels and a 22mm diameter to drive lowest possible dark noise....

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Products: Photonics/Optics

The latest AVIA NX series lasers from Coherent, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) are qswitched, diode-pumped, solid-state lasers that offer output powers as high as 40W at 355 nm. These new lasers implement Coherent's patented...

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Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

The highly repeatable and thermally stable feedback sensors used on the AGV-HPO scanner systems from Aerotech (Pittsburgh, PA) can be calibrated down to single-digit, micron-level accuracy over the field of view....

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Products: Photonics/Optics

XIMEA (Munster, Germany) recently announced new Thunderbolt™ technology ready cameras that are equipped with the newest sensors from Sony (IMX174) and CMOSIS (CMV20000). The cameras provide highest speeds and direct...

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Products: Photonics/Optics

New Scale Technologies, Inc. (Victor, NY) recently announced that a new developer’s kit for its M3-FS focus module is available at Digi-Key and Mouser. This miniature all-in-one focus module delivers...

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Podcasts
Susan Draper, Materials Research Engineer, Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH

Susan Draper performs microstructural analysis of metals and determines where fractures have occurred and propagated. Draper is currently characterizing electron-beam-melted, additive-manufactured titanium-6 aluminum-4 vanadium, a titanium alloy. Her team is...

Who's Who: Materials

Susan Draper performs microstructural analysis of metals and determines where fractures have occurred and propagated. Draper is currently characterizing...

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Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial aircraft safety,...

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Articles: Electronics & Computers

Have you attended an electronics or design tradeshow lately? Have you visited a big-box retailer or browsed an online electronics vendor? If so, you’ve probably seen...

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Application Briefs: Software
NX and Teamcenter® software
Siemens PLM Software
Plano, TX
800-498-5351
www.siemens.com/plm

One of ATK Aerospace Group’s current projects...

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Application Briefs: Imaging
micro ScoutCam 1.2 micro camera
Medigus, Ltd.
Omer, Israel
011 972 8646 6880
www.medigus.com

NASA has incorporated the micro ScoutCam 1.2 into its Visual Inspection...

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Articles: Software

Imagine moving an object using only your mind. Software company Unique Logic’s Time on Task exercise makes that possible, at least on a computer screen. The game is one of the...

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Products: Software

SpaceClaim Corp., Concord, MA, released ANSYS® SpaceClaim™ 2015 software for the creation, editing, and repair of 3D data. It provides editing and management of faceted models, improved toolpath...

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Question of the Week
Will we build a floating city above Venus?

This week's Question: NASA recently proposed a mission that one day may send astronauts, via a balloon, toward Venus' upper-atmosphere to research the possibility of a "cloud city community." Although the waterless planet has an unforgiving temperature of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the clouds of Venus...

INSIDER: Materials

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are working on adhesive gripping tools that could grapple objects such as orbital debris or defunct satellites that would...

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INSIDER: Materials

A new coating exploits interference effects in thin films, creating a range of vivid colors.

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Question of the Week
Are you optimistic about artificial intelligence?

This week's Question: In a BBC interview last year, renowned physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Hawking said AI "would take off on its own and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate," passing the limited abilities of humans. A...

INSIDER: Test & Measurement

NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) team designed and built a new cloud and aerosol measurement instrument. The instrument will measure clouds, volcanic ash plumes,...

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INSIDER: Green Design & Manufacturing
Forensic Tracers Identify Contamination in Water

Duke University scientists have developed new forensic tracers to identify coal ash contamination in water and distinguish it from contamination coming from other sources. The tools can be used by regulatory agencies to monitor the environmental effects of coal ash, and determine whether it has or...

INSIDER: Test & Measurement

New optical diagnostic technology developed at Tufts University School of Engineering promises new ways to identify and monitor brain damage resulting from traumatic...

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INSIDER: Nanotechnology

Scientists have developed a novel nanowire coating that can both generate heat and trap the heat from our bodies better than regular clothing.

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INSIDER: Materials

Exploiting mechanics principles similar to those found in children’s ‘pop-up’ books, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a unique process for...

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INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory believe that household robots should take advantage of their mobility and their relatively static environments to...

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Question of the Week: Aerospace
Will we deliver electricity from space?

This Week's Question: Scientists are exploring the possibility of utilizing space solar power for Earth-bound purposes. The United States, China, India and Japan all have projects at various stages of development that would see robots assemble solar arrays that could provide the Earth with clean, renewable...

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

Carolyn Parcheta, a NASA postdoctoral fellow based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and JPL robotics researcher Aaron Parness are developing robots that can explore volcanic...

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INSIDER: Imaging

A new software system developed at the University of Michigan uses video game technology to help solve one of the most daunting hurdles facing self-driving and automated cars: the high cost...

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Question of the Week: Wearables
Will we really wear wearables?

This week's Question: New smartwatches were showcased at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, including devices that run on operating systems and feature pedometers, sleep trackers, and audio players. Research firm Canalys forecasts that worldwide annual smartwatch shipments will grow from 8...

INSIDER: Motion Control

Sandia National Laboratories is developing technology that will dramatically improve the endurance of legged robots, helping them operate for long periods while performing...

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INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

The engine controller unit on the RS-25 – formerly known as the space shuttle main engine – helped propel all of the space shuttle missions to space. It allows communication between the...

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INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

Looking for life on other planets is not straightforward. It usually relies on chemical detection, which might be limited or even completely irrelevant to alien biology. On the other hand,...

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INSIDER: Medical
Implantable Neurostimulator Alleviates Dry Eye

Stanford Biodesign fellows are testing two tiny devices that stimulate natural tear production. The technologies deliver micro-electrical pulses to the lacrimal gland.

INSIDER: Software

At the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) this month, MIT researchers will present algorithms that represent significant steps toward “a better Siri” —...

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INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

On Jan. 22, 2015, robotic flight controllers successfully installed NASA’s Cloud Aerosol Transport System (CATS) aboard the International Space Station through a robotic handoff — the first...

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Videos