Researchers from Empa and ETH Zurich have produced a material prototype that damps vibrations completely and specifically conducts certain frequencies. The working model consists of a one-meter by one-centimeter aluminum plate that is one millimeter thick. The sheet-metal strip vibrates at different...

A handheld radiation camera developed by University of Michigan engineering researchers offers nuclear plant operators a faster way to find potentially dangerous hot spots and leaky fuel rods.The new 'Polaris-H' detector lays a gamma-ray map over an image of a room, pinpointing radiation sources with...

Spritz, a Boston-based software developer, claims that users of its technology can read up to 1,000 words per minute (wpm) via its new technology. At that rate, readers could finish a 300-page novel (like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, as the Huffington Post noted) in less than 90 minutes. The app,...

Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have developed a method to carry out large-scale manufacturing of everyday objects — from cell phones to food containers and toys — using a fully degradable bioplastic isolated from shrimp shells. The objects exhibit many of the same properties as...

Physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) envision a device that would harvest energy from Earth’s infrared emissions into outer space.The research team is proposing something akin to a photovoltaic solar panel. Instead of capturing incoming visible...

A new technology called Moov wants to be your own personal trainer. A wearable fitness gadget, Moov analyzes an exerciser's form, offering real-time suggestions on how to improve workouts. The small, plastic disc attaches to a specfic body part that a wearer wants to analyze during a work: A runner...

Porous silicon nanowires are fabricated by two-step, metal-assisted electroless chemical etching of p-type or n-type silicon wafers. This method, in combination with nanolithography or nanopatterning, can be applied to fabricate porous silicon nanostructures of different...

The field emission electron sources using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are being targeted for low-power vacuum microelectronic applications for harshenvironment operation (high temperature, pressure, and corrosive atmosphere). While CNTs have demonstrated excellent...

Samples of lunar regolith have included small glass spheres. Most literature has suggested the small spheres were formed by meteorite impacts. The resulting transformation of kinetic energy to thermal energy caused the lunar surface to melt. The process yielded glass spheres. Recreating a meteorite...

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...