A methodology has been developed and the software written to predict the probability of failure of transversely isotropic (a type of anisotropy) materials under generalized thermomechanical loading. This methodology is mechanistic in that it is...

Visual odometry (VO) refers to the estimation of vehicle motion using onboard cameras. A common mode of operation utilizes stereovision to tri angulate a set of image features, track these over time, and infer vehicle motion by computing the apparent point cloud motion with respect to the cameras. It has...

Orbital rendezvous and docking of two spacecraft is a topic of continued interest to NASA. For crewed missions, it is frequently the case that the target is cooperative (i.e., is equipped with some sort of navigation aid). If one of the relative navigation instruments is a Flash LIDAR,...

A novel optical design for imaging systems is able to achieve an ultra-wide field of view (UW-FOV) of up to 208°. The design uses an integrated optical design (IOD). The UW-FOV optics design reduces the wasted pixels by 49% when compared against the baseline fisheye lens. The IOD approach results in a...

The Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) architecture being developed for space applications requires that sensor data be autonomously sampled and transmitted to the system network. This transmission needs to occur on a predetermined, fixed...

A 4-channel digitizer was designed, built, and tested. The very large, complex board enables SweepSAR. The proposed Deformation, Eco-Systems, and Dynamics of Ice Radar (DESDynl-R) Lband SAR instrument employs multiple digital channels to optimize resolution...

NASA has an interest in utilizing the Ka-band frequency allocation. One of the main reasons for migrating to Kaband is the need for higher frequency bandwidth to enable higher data rates. A dual circular polarized wideband antenna for Ka-band communications applications was...

Two fundamental problems facing the development of a portable system to sustain life on extraterrestrial surfaces are (1) heat rejection and (2) rejection of metabolically produced CO2 to an environment with a ppCO2 of 0.4 to 0.9 kPa as is present on Mars. Portable life support systems...

A new concept of aircraft aerodynamic control surfaces has been developed in connection with another new concept of active wing shaping control for reducing aircraft drag that will result in less fuel burn. The first concept is referred to as a variable camber continuous...

This software addresses the problem of an autonomous vehicle patrolling a region for objects of interest using multiple cameras. The system must identify and track the objects over time and localize their positions in the world. It implements an autonomous perception and...

Electric conduction in polymers is one of the key elements in avoiding catastrophic internal electrostatic discharge in dielectrics during space missions. This software package enables the simulation of carrier mobility for any given site concentration, which is a material design...

The current software has been developed to work on NASA instrument datasets, an upgrade over similar software that only worked on datasets from climate model output. NASA is attempting to reformat satellite data to fit the specific and highly detailed data format and metadata requirements for CMIP5...

A previously created direct numerical simulation (DNS) database of mixing of species under supercritical pressure has been examined and analyzed for the purpose of understanding the modeling requirements in the context of large eddy...

A Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) system needs some internal concept of how the monitored system operates. This “operating concept” needs mathematical logic to represent the cause and effect relationship between constituent components of the system,...

Available guidance approaches for large numbers (i.e., swarms) of artificial agents are currently very limited. Swarms in nature (e.g., bees, birds, ants) typically contain hundreds to thousands of agents. The problem is how to mimic nature, and develop guidance laws for artificial (manmade)...