As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, Tech Briefs is proud to present this Special Report chronicling NASA's Apollo Program. It's filled with historic photos, videos, and audio...
Learn about the latest engineering simulation tools and applications in this compendium of recent articles from the editors of Tech Briefs, Aerospace & Defense Technology, Automotive Engineering, and...
The population is aging and more people need healthcare support, which is having a big impact on the overall cost of medical care. As a result, authorities and health insurance companies are putting...
Accurately measuring semiconductor properties of materials in small volumes helps engineers determine the range of applications for which these materials may be suitable in the...
Whereas hydrogen fuel cells (e.g., proton exchange membrane (PEM) and other fuel cells) generate electricity from the chemical reaction between pure hydrogen and oxygen, direct carbon fuel cells (DCFCs)...
Aydin Aysu, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he helped develop a technique for...
Researchers have developed a biosensor that attaches to a smartphone and uses bacteria to detect unsafe arsenic levels. The device generates easy-to-interpret patterns similar to volume-bars that display the level of contamination.
A system was developed that can remove radioactive cesium contamination from porous structures such as brick and concrete that are hard to clean, as well as contamination from metal...
Researchers have developed a hybrid transformer that has the benefit of a full planar transformer design but uses a wire-wound secondary winding to keep the parasitic winding capacitances lower. Alone, planar transformers...
A continuous-testing device was developed that samples sweat as effectively as blood but in a noninvasive way and over many hours. After examining the use of saliva, tears, and interstitial...
InsacoQuakertown, PAwww.insaco.com
Since 1947, Insaco has been machining, grinding, and polishing ceramics, sapphire, and glass to meet and often exceed client specifications. A large...
Researchers have created highly stretchable supercapacitors for powering wearable electronics that consist of crumpled carbon nanotube (CNT) forests. The supercapacitors demonstrated solid performance and...
Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have developed a new means of avoiding and mitigating icing events for aircraft flying above 14,000 feet, dramatically improving aviation safety...
There is a need for high-volume material testing/qualification but industry and researchers are currently limited by commercially available testing devices. Most wear testers can only handle one sample...
Just 54 years ago, the first photograph of Mars from a passing spacecraft appeared to show a hazy atmosphere. Now, decades of exploration on the planet itself has shown it to be a world...
Spinoff is NASA’s annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and...
Aircraft currently fly based on coarse estimations of environment and aircraft state. Real-time measurements are traditionally restricted to laboratory environments (e.g. wind tunnel) due to the size and weight...
On September 1, 1961, NASA requested appropriations for initial land purchases on Merritt Island on Florida’s east coast to support the Apollo Lunar Landing Program. Designers quickly began developing...
Vaisala Corp. Helsinki, Finlandwww.vaisala.com
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) is delivering pressure and humidity measuring devices based on Vaisala technology for use on NASA’s next robotic mission to Mars — the Mars 2020 rover. The pressure measurement devices were...
For the first time in a generation, NASA is building a human spacecraft for deep-space missions that will usher in a new era of space exploration. A...
A process was developed for 3D printing that can be used to produce transparent and mechanically flexible electronic circuits. The electronics consist of a mesh of silver nanowires that can be printed in suspension and embedded in various flexible and transparent plastics (polymers). This technology can enable new...
Before becoming an astronaut candidate in 1996, Mike Massimino was busy earning degrees — an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and four additional degrees from the...
Self-assembling synthetic materials come together when tiny, uniform building blocks interact and form a structure; however, nature lets materials like proteins of varying size and shape assemble, allowing for complex architectures that can handle multiple tasks.
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before...
In the polymer composites industry, cure cycles are typically developed from trial-and-error or a more effective processing science approach to reduce the...
There are many different types of 3D printing technologies. The most familiar — inkjet — has been around for some 20 years. But until now, it has been difficult to...
For the millions of people every year who have or need medical devices implanted, an advancement in 3D printing technology could enable significantly quicker implantation...
By capping liquids with graphene (an ultrathin sheet of pure carbon), researchers can easily image and analyze liquid interfaces and the surface of nanometer-scale objects...
Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE™) allows creation of wire, bar, and tubular extrusions that show significant improvement in material properties; for example, magnesium extrusions have...
Techniques to prevent frost and ice formation on surfaces rely heavily on heating or on liquid chemicals that need to be repeatedly reapplied because they easily wash away. Even advanced...
Currently, most U.S. medical offices and hospitals use the ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test to determine whether or not a person has a viral infection. It’s a common test but ELISA’s sensitivity is relatively low, so clinicians need a fairly high number of antibodies in a person’s blood...
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 innovation.
Nearly 70 percent of the energy produced in the United States each year is wasted as heat. Much of that heat is less than 100 °C and emanates from things like computers, cars, or...
Sensor Controller
The induSENSOR MSC7401 sensor controller from Micro-Epsilon, Ortenburg, Germany, is used for displacement and distance measurements and is operated with LVDT and LDR measuring gauges and...
NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a new aircraft design with the engine nacelle over the wing, improving engine ground clearance and freeing landing gear design. While previous...
Microchannels fabricated into a silicon-Pyrex wafer with a diameter of 75 m and total channel length of 40, 60, 80, or 100 mm — characterized by specialized microbeads...
The Moon is a treasure chest of science. The lunar samples returned during the Apollo program dramatically changed our view of the solar system, yet they just scratch the surface...
A robot is being developed that tracks facial movements to perform human tasks. The robot resembles large, squiggly arms holding tiny cameras. Sitting in a rolling office chair across from one of the arms, the robot's...
Fully Automated Beam Monitoring System
Ophir-Spiricon (North Logan, UT) has announced Ophir® BeamWatch® Integrated, a fully automated, non-contact laser measurement system designed to measure critical beam parameters in...
Traditionally, prism-based cameras are often selected over trilinear cameras when it comes to bulk material scanning, as the inherent line-shift of a trilinear camera can...
There's an entire world our eyes miss, hidden in the ranges of light wavelengths that human eyes can't see. But infrared cameras can pick up this light emitted as...
The critical angle lens reflector has commercial applications that supersede ordinary mirrored reflectors. The physics of the critical angle lens reflector are based on the optics...
Real-time 3D lidar is poised to be the third leg of the trifecta of sensor technologies enabling both advanced driver-assistance (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles. The other two pieces are cameras and radar. David Hall, CEO...
Performance of image sensors for security cameras must be geared to low-light sensitivity, high signal to noise ratio, and high temperature performance. Security image sensors are typically...
With the aim of bringing more human-like reasoning to autonomous vehicles, MIT researchers have created a system that uses only simple maps and visual data to enable driverless cars to...
For many years now, CMOS (Complementary, Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) based sensors have dominated the high-speed imaging market. Cameras are being released with ever-higher headline...
The convergence of “new” materials, improved free-form shape fabrication, and changes in the aerospace marketplace has transformed the previously static field of custom optics into a very dynamic...
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have been working with HiPERCAM, a high-speed, multicolor camera, which is capable of taking more than 1,000 images per...
Dewesoft, Whitehouse, OH, introduced single-channel KRYPTON data acquisition modules for use in harsh environments such as exposure to extreme temperatures, water spray or submersion, or high shock and vibration. The...
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have demonstrated "4D knitting. The computationally-controlled machines are being used to make a variety of soft textile objects.
Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have designed and tested a prototype...
In free space, the light wave of a laser beam spreads on an exactly straight line. Under certain circumstances, however, a much more complicated behavior occurs. If the movement of the wave is...
Jigang Wang patiently explained his latest discovery in quantum control that could lead to superfast computing based on quantum mechanics. He mentioned light-induced superconductivity...
Blue Pulsed Laser Diode Module
OSI Laser Diode (LDI) (Edison, NJ) launched a blue 450-nm pulsed laser diode module that includes an electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection device. The new CVB 450-TO56R gallium nitride (GaN) laser...
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the Moon. Fifty years later, we celebrate their achievement, and we want to hear from you.
A high-sensitivity and low-noise MEMS accelerometer was developed using multi-layer metal structures composed of multiple metal layers. The accelerometer achieves 1 µG level...
A new approach developed at MIT to building robots is based on a set of five millimeter-scale components, all of which can be attached to each other by a standard connector. Using this simple...