Modular Fixturing for Assembly and Welding Applications

Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed new modular fixtures for holding metal in place during the assembly and welding of cylindrical and conical sections...

Networked In-Flight Validation Environment for Air Traffic Management Concepts

Modernization of the National Airspace System (NAS) will involve future air traffic management (ATM) concepts of operation and technology frameworks that rely on...

Handheld Spectral Analyzer for Point-of-Care Diagnostics

A spectral transmission-reflectance-intensity (TRI) analyzer was developed that attaches to a smartphone and analyzes patient blood, urine, or saliva samples as reliably as...

Sequential/Simultaneous Multi-Metallized Nanocomposites (S2M2N)

NASA Langley Research Center has developed a method to create Sequential/Simultaneous Multi-Metallized Nanocomposites (S2M2N) via supercritical fluid (SCF) sequential or...

Low-Cost, Long-Lasting Valve Seal

This technology is designed to protect against leaks in solenoid, check, manual, and relief valves, as well as disconnects and regulators.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has developed a new,...

Non-Collinear Valve Actuation System

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center scientists have invented a novel valve actuator where the primary actuating system and return spring system are arranged non-collinearly. In the past, valve actuators...

Vote for Tech Briefs 23rd Annual Readers' Choice Awards

Flap Edge Noise Reduction Fins

NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed aircraft flap tip modifications that reduce noise produced during approach and landing. The modifications are rigid open lattice (honeycomblike) and fin structures...

Innovators Recognized for "Creating the Future" 2017

The Create the Future Design Contest has helped stimulate and reward engineering innovation over the past 16 years, drawing more than 14,000 product designs from engineers, students, and...

Novel Design of an Orifice Control Element

An orifice element is commonly used in liquid rocket engine test facilities either as a flow metering device, a damper for acoustic resonance, or to provide a large reduction in pressure over a very...

Products of Tomorrow: December 2017

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that...

Forward Voltage Short-Pulse Technique for Measuring High-Power Laser Diode Array Junction Temperature

NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a new technology for measuring the junction temperature of laser diode arrays (LDAs) that...

How Multiphysics Simulation and App Deployment Boost Product Design

As new concepts need to be investigated, and a wide range of operating conditions has to be considered, the design of new products and processes must push the limits of...

Miniature Airborne Particle Mass Monitor

Particulate matter (PM) exposure and health effects have become top U.S. environmental research agenda items over the past decade. Environmental epidemiological studies rely on information from both...

Autonomous Slat-Cove Filler Device

NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a deployable and stowable mechanical design for filling the cavity behind the leading-edge slat (i.e., slat cove) when it is extended upon landing an aircraft....

Lower-Chatter Friction Pull Plug Welding (FPPW)

Friction Pull Plug Welding (FPPW) is the process necessary to plug the hole that is left behind as a friction stir weld (FSW) joint is completed and the pin tool of the welder retracts from the...

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA, has been operated by Battelle and its predecessors since the lab’s inception in 1965. For more than 50...

GPS Correction Technology Lets Tractors Drive Themselves

Spinoff is NASA’s annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the...

Vacuum System Powers Modular Soft Robot

Researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have created the first functional robot powered entirely by vacuum. It is made of soft building blocks that move by having air sucked...

Pick-and-Place System Delivers Improved Productivity and Safety

Deciding between a gantry and a robot for your application isn’t always as clear-cut as it may seem. To automate a simple, yet time-consuming and potentially dangerous task in...

Trends in Hydraulic Filtration

Proper filtration plays an important role in ensuring that hydraulic systems operate trouble-free. High-performance filters maintain the cleanliness of the hydraulic fluid over its entire service life. In...

Miniature Linear Bearings Help Prolong Curiosity’s Mars Mission

The launch, landing, and overall mission of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is arguably one of the most daring — and successful — space exploration endeavors ever...

Soft Robotic Gripper Manipulates Objects Without Training

An engineering team at the University of California San Diego has designed and built a gripper that can pick up and manipulate objects without needing to see them and without being...

Multi-Legged Robot Reconfigures in Real Time

Scientists at Disney Research have developed a modular, reconfigurable legged robot named Snapbot that can move forward, interact with its environment, and perform other tasks based on a number of...

New Products: December 2017 Motion Design

Corrosion-Resistant Valve

GF Piping Systems (Irvine, CA) introduced a corrosion-resistant pneumatic diaphragm valve for highly corrosive dosing and open/close applications. The Type 604/605...

Paper-Folding Techniques Expand Compacted Spacecraft

Origami has once again inspired engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Besides aesthetic beauty, the Japanese tradition of paper-folding addresses a persistent problem...

Webb Telescope Actuators Move with Microscopic Accuracy

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. With a 21-foot diameter, the telescope’s primary mirror is six times larger than the one used by...

LEARNING TO CRAWL: Origami Robot Moves Like an Earthworm

A team of engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign built a new kind of crawler robot. The wheel-less design takes inspiration from two unconventional...

Device-Free Motion Tracing Using WiFi Signals

Fine-grained human motion tracing — the ability to trace the trajectory of a moving human hand or leg, or even the whole body — is a general capability that is useful in a wide variety of...

Rubber Material Enables Scratch-Proof Surfaces

The slippery state caused by water or oil is called superlubricity — where there is basically no friction on a surface. In graphene, this superlubricity state comes from atomic orbitals that...

Ultrathin Semiconductor Materials “Rust” to Insulate Circuitry

Silicon has several qualities that have led it to become the bedrock of electronics. One is that it features a very good “native” insulator — silicon dioxide, or...

Detector System for High-Resolution Imaging

A large-area detector without any dead space capable of handling a large dynamic range does not currently exist. Current large-area detectors have dead zones created by abutting several modules...

BOPPERS: Autonomous Underwater Environmental Monitoring System

A device has been developed that is capable of relatively lengthy unattended operations and high sampling frequency of underwater environmental data anywhere in the world. The...

Method for Tracking Moving Targets

Moving target indication (MTI) methodologies are essential tools to detect, locate, recognize, and track the moving targets of interest in a movie or video sequence. Different MTI methodologies can be...

Tunable, High-Isolation RF/Microwave Circulator

A new high-isolation RF circulator provides enhanced detection ranges (radar) and improved reception (communications) by reducing signal leakage and undesirable internal reflections between...

Method Uses Drones and WiFi to Enable 3D Through-Wall Imaging

WiFi signals are everywhere. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) are expected to become a larger part of everyday life. A new methodology was developed for high-resolution,...

Autonomous Positioning and Navigation Network

Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a machine-to-machine (M2M) network navigation protocol to enable spacecraft to perform autonomous navigation and positioning,...

Strong, Self-Healing Rubber

Self-healing hydrogels rely on water to incorporate reversible bonds that can promote healing. Engineering self-healing properties in dry materials, such as rubber, has proven more challenging because rubber is...

Software Helps Optimize World’s Largest All-Composite Aircraft

Collier Research Corp.
Newport News, VA
HyperSizer.com

When the Stratolaunch aircraft rolled out of the Mojave, CA Air and Space Port hangar this spring in...

Flood Impact Analysis Tool

NASA Langley resides in an area prone to tidal flooding. During events that were expected to lead to flooding, there were requests for maps showing the predicted flood level and what infrastructure may be impacted,...

Paper-Thin Device Acts as a Loudspeaker and Microphone

A paper-thin, flexible device was created that can generate energy from human motion, and can act as a loudspeaker and microphone. The transducer is ultrathin, flexible, scalable, and...

Sensor Assists NASA with Wearable CO2 Monitor

SST Sensing Ltd.Coatbridge,
UK
www.sstsensing.com

Studies show that heightened carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations can have an adverse effect on the human metabolism,...

Expert INSIDER: How Mehdi Khorrami Uses Simulation to Address Aircraft Noise

NASA’s Mehdi Khorrami explains how he uses high-performance computing to handle one of the FAA’s biggest complaints: aircraft noise.

Q&A: Georgia Tech's Dr. Raheem Beyah Develops a Way to Authenticate 3D-Printed Products

Dr. Beyah and a team of researchers from Georgia Tech and Rutgers University have developed a three-layer system to verify that components produced using...

How Model Rockets Launch Tomorrow’s Engineers

If you ask engineers about their early days, many can't avoid talking about a favorite toy: the model rocket.

Product of the Month: December 2017

Boothroyd Dewhurst, Wakefield, RI, announced Design for Manufacturing (DFM) Concurrent Costing Version 3.0.

Lost in Space: Smart Spacesuits Feature 'Home' Button

During a routine spacewalk, astronauts can easily lose their sense of orientation and direction. Creators of a new kind of spacesuit aim to address the challenge — with the push of a...

Tough, Self-Healing Rubber Developed

Imagine a tire that could heal after being punctured or a rubber band that never snapped.

Artificial 'Skin' Gives Robotic Hand A Sense Of Touch

A team of researchers from the University of Houston has reported a breakthrough in stretchable electronics that can serve as an artificial skin, allowing a robotic hand to sense the...

Researchers Report New Way To Make Dissolving Electronics

Researchers from the University of Houston and China have reported a new type of electronic device that can be triggered to dissolve through exposure to water molecules in the...

Breakthrough Device Heals Organs With A Single Touch

Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State's College of Engineering have developed a new technology: Tissue Nanotransfection or TNT. It can generate any...

Sound-Off: The Most ‘Startling’ Discovery in IoT? A Lack of Security

The “Internet of Things” links a variety of devices, from computers and industrial machines to heart monitors and robots. The interconnection also leads to some...

A Giant Leap: Reconstructing NASA’s Moon-Mission Audio

During the historic Apollo 11 mission, the astronauts, mission control specialists, and back-room support staff did plenty of communicating. The University of Texas at Dallas launched a project to make all of the moon-mission audio accessible.

Printing a Better Actuator

One technology uses magnetic fields to generate mechanical work. The other enhances the magnetic properties of 3D-printed materials. Combined, they could lead to efficient, economical production of magnetic...

Taming Vortices – Polymers Ease Fluid Flow

A vortex in the atmosphere can churn with enough power to create a typhoon. But more subtle vortices form constantly in nature. Many of them are too small to be seen with the naked eye....

Sound-Off: What 3D-Printing Method is Best – FDM, SLS, or SLA?

A Tech Briefs reader asks our expert to compare three 3D-printing techniques.

Radar Sees Through Walls – By Seeking Symmetry

Using a narrow band of microwave frequencies, researchers at Duke University found a new way to see on the other side of the wall.

The Top Tech Briefs Stories of 2017

With another year of Tech Briefs almost in the books, it's time to look at our most-read news articles of 2017.

Top stories included a look back at the life of Robert Goddard, and a look forward to...

A Real Engineering Feat: Two Holograms on One Surface

For years many engineers have assumed that you cannot encode more than one holographic image in a single surface — at least without losing resolution. Caltech researchers made the idea a reality.

Will Electric Vehicles Surpass Combustion Engine Vehicles?

Is the future electric? A reader asks an expert from Mercedes-Benz.