High-Performance Modeling and Simulation of Anchoring in Granular Media for NEO Applications

NASA is interested in designing a spacecraft capable of visiting a near- Earth object (NEO), performing experiments, and then returning safely....

Mobile Multi-System Overview

At the time of this reporting, there are 2,589 rich mobile devices used at JPL, including 1,550 iPhones and 968 Blackberrys. Considering a total JPL population of 5,961 employees, mobile applications have a total...

I-FORCAST: Rapid Flight Planning Tool

I-FORCAST (Instrument – Field of Regard Coverage Analysis and Simulation Tool) is a flight planning tool specifically designed for quickly verifying the feasibility and estimating the cost of airborne...

3D Visualization in Geospatial Analysis

The past decade has seen an explosion of observations from airborne and satellite-based multiand hyperspectral sensors, as well as from synthetic-aperture radar and LiDAR. Distilling useful information...

Digital Imaging Systems for Ballistics Testing

Traditionally, the recording of ordnance proofing data has been split into two main areas: instrumentation and high speed photography. Instrumentation was more focused on the collection of...

Product of the Month: Dell Precision M4700 and M6700

Dell, Round Rock, TX, has introduced the Dell Pre cision M4700 and M6700 15" and 17" mobile workstations that incorporate Intel Core i5, i7, and Extreme Ed ition processors with Turbo...

Photovoltaic Tracking Control Systems

Tracking systems are included in more than one-third of new photovoltaic developments in Europe, but less than 10% in the US. If properly controlled, they can capture more energy from each panel than...

NASA Begins a New Journey of Exploration

“Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history. The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an...

Talking Mars

NASA Tech Briefs recently spoke with Doug McCuistion, Director of the Mars Exploration Program, and Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program and Program Scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). We...

The Technology of Curiosity

On April 14, 2004, NASA announced an opportunity for researchers to propose science investigations for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. Eight months later, the agency announced selection of eight...

CAD/CAE Software Enables NASA to Head Back to Mars

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, was designed to determine whether the Gale Crater on Mars ever had conditions...

An Ionic Twist on Hair Care

Disinfecting can be dirty work. Typical cleaning agents, like chlorine and alcohol, release fumes that don’t go away when applied in the contained environment of a spacecraft. So NASA scientists developed an...

The GigE Vision® Interface Standard: Transforming Medical Imaging

Live, high-resolution imaging is increasingly being leveraged to enhance operating procedures. It can improve the precision of physicians and their instruments, and minimize...

Imaging Sensor

OmniVision Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) offers the OV12830, a 12.7-megapixel CameraChip™ sensor designed to meet the image and video recording standards of smartphones and tablets. The OV12830 utilizes the OmniBSI- 2 pixel...

Digital High-Speed Cameras

Vision Research (Wayne, NJ) has added the v411 to its 1 Megapixel (Mpx)-v-Series line of digital high-speed cameras. The 4Gpx/s v411 has a top speed at full resolution of 4200 fps. V-Series cameras feature...

CCD Scientific Cameras

Photometrics (Tucson, AZ) has introduced CoolSNAP™ MYO and CoolSNAP™ KINO CCD cameras, which are designed to discern finer details in biological samples under lower light levels. The MYO, capable of cooling to...

Human-Machine Interface

The HMI5121P from Maple Systems (Everett, WA) is equipped with a bright 12.1" TFT touchscreen; up to 16.2 million colors can be shown on the 1024 × 768-pixel display. The model has a 800- MHz microprocessor, designed...

3D Visualization

Christie® (Cypress, CA) has added three Mirage M Series digital projectors: Mirage DS+14KM, Mirage HD14K-M, and Mirage WU14K-M. New Christie Twist™hardware provides built-in geometric warping with sharper imagery, and...

Infrared Camera

The IR-1000 near-infrared camera from Dage-MTI (Michigan City, IN) features automatic contrast and real-time edge enhancement. The realtime CCD camera includes electronics that automatically and instantaneously readjust when...

Blue Tunable Laser

New Focus™ (Santa Clara, CA) a Newport Corporation Brand, has introduced the Vortex™ Plus Blue TLB-6802 precision series, single-mode, finely-tunable laser. This is the world’s first precision tunable blue laser that...

Smart Camera

The In-Sight® 7000 smart camera from Cognex Corp. (Natick, MA) features a vision tool library; In-Sight measurement, location, and inspection vision tools; and the EasyBuilder® setup and deployment environment. The smart...