The EUROPA planning system is a general-purpose, reusable, artificial intelligence software system for automatically generating plans for performing complex activities in parallel, in accordance with constraints on activities and their interactions. One part of the system input...

Vendor software supplied with commercial acoustic emission equipment is incapable of performing the analysis required to characterize damage and make decisions on remaining life for NASA composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs). The Acoustic Emission Analysis Applet (AEAA) software, currently...

The objective of this work was to develop a robust, cost-effective receiver with maximum dynamic range to track the frequency and power variation of a beacon signal. The result was the development of a frequency estimation algorithm that yields a more accurate...

The software for NASA’s Northstar Systems computed tomography (CT) and Picometrix Terahertz CT systems do not have the ability to unwrap and reslice cylindrical CT data to allow top-to-bottom, 2D sheet views of the data. Therefore, it is difficult to size flaws laterally...

The NASA Technology Transfer System (NTTS) is a NASA-created technology transfer workflow management system, a schema-less database management system used to track the life-cycle of NASA inventions. It is built on XDB, a NASA homegrown XML database. Because of its schema-less approach to store data, NTTS can host a cluster...

According to the Navigant Research firm, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has made a deal with central California landowners to build the world's first Hyperloop. The 5-mile test track will be built along California's Interstate 5. The Hyperloop, brought up in 2014 by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, would...

A new technique from Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers estimates material properties of physical objects, such as stiffness and weight, from video.

Researchers from Washington State University and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Laboratory have created a tunable shape-memory polymer. The shape-shifting plastic can “remember” its original shape and return to it after being deformed with heat or other forces.

This week's Question: The Fujitsu Arrows NX F-04G, a new smartphone set for release in Japan, comes with a built-in retinal scanner that can be used for a variety of different functions, including unlocking the device, accessing apps, and making mobile payments. A front-facing infrared...

Inspired by the way iridescent bird feathers play with light, UC San Diego scientists have created thin-film materials in a wide range of pure colors: red, orange, yellow, and green. The hues are determined by physical structure rather than pigments.

This week's Question: In a study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Australian researcher Jean-Loup Raul predicts that robotic and virtual-reality pets will grow in popularity as urban populations expand. “It might sound surreal for us to have robotic or virtual pets, but it could be totally normal for the next...

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) researchers have imaged the first acoustic signature of thunder, visually capturing the sound waves created by artificially triggered lightning.