A platform has been developed for two or more vehicles with one or more residing within the other (a marsupial pair). This configuration consists of a large, versatile robot that is carrying a smaller, more specialized autonomous operating...

A small-footprint, full surface-mount-component printed circuit board employs MOSFET (metal-oxide-semi-conductor field-effect transistor) power switches to switch high currents from any input power supply from 3 to 30 V.

Multi-rate finite impulse response (MRFIR) filters are among the essential signal-processing components in space-borne instruments where finite impulse response filters are often used to minimize nonlinear group delay and finite-precision effects. Cascaded...

Many distributed systems share common sensors and instruments along with a common power line supplying current to the system. A communication technique and circuit has been developed that allows for the simple inclusion of an instrument, sensor, or actuator node within any system containing a common power...

An extremely fast offload engine system has been developed that operates at 60 Gigabits per second (Gbps), and has scalability to 100 Gbps full-duplex (f-d). This system is based on unique coding and architecture derived from splintered UDP (User Datagram Protocol) offload technology,...

This new interface will enable Principal Investigators (PIs), as well as UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) members to do their own flight planning and time estimation without having to request flight lines through the science coordinator. It uses an all-in-one Google Maps interface, a JPL...

Previously, it was time-consuming to hand-edit data and then set up simulation runs to find the effect and impact of the input data on a spacecraft. MPS Editor provides the user the capability to create/edit/update models and sequences, and immediately try them out using what appears to the user as one piece of software. MPS Editor...

An Object-Oriented Optimization (O3) tool was developed that leverages existing tools and practices, and allows the easy integration and adoption of new state-of-the-art software. At the heart of the O3 tool is the Central Executive Module (CEM), which can integrate disparate...

Metallic magnetic calorimeters (MMC) are one of the most promising devices to provide very high energy resolution needed for future astronomical x-ray spectroscopy. MMC detectors can be built to large detector arrays having thousands of pixels. Position-sensitive magnetic...

A connector retainer and mounting system has been designed to replace screw-mounting of Winchester connectors. Countersunk screws are normally used to secure connectors to structures, and to keep them from coming apart. These screws are normally put into...

A motor involves a simple design that can be embedded into a plate structure by incorporating ultrasonic horn actuators into the plate. The piezoelectric material that is integrated into the horns is pre-stressed with flexures. Piezoelectric actuators are attractive for their ability to...

For commercial, military, and aerospace applications, low-cost, small, reliable, and lightweight gas and liquid hermetically sealed valves with post initiation on/off capability are highly desirable for pressurized systems. Applications include remote fire suppression, single-use system-pressurization systems,...

Vibration dampers have been invented that are incorporated as components within the stationary labyrinth seal assembly. These dampers are intended to supplement other vibration-suppressing features of labyrinth seals in order to reduce the incidence of high-cycle-fatigue failures, which have been known to...

An explosive bolt has been developed that has a one-sided dual initiation train all the way down to the pyro charge for high reliability, while still allowing the other side of the bolt to remain in place after actuation to act as a thermal seal in an extremely high-temperature environment. This...

A winch system provides a method for launch and recovery capabilities for kites and tethered blimps or balloons. Low power consumption is a key objective, as well as low weight for portability. This is accomplished by decoupling the tether-line storage and winding/ unwinding functions, and...

The quality of images generated during an infrared thermal inspection depends on many system variables, settings, and parameters to include the focal length setting of the IR camera lens. If any relevant parameter is incorrect or sub-optimal, the resulting IR images will usually exhibit inherent...

A hybrid photochemical-machining process is coupled with precision stack lamination to allow for the fabrication of multiple ultra-high-resolution grids on a single array substrate. In addition, special fixturing and etching techniques have been developed that allow higher0resolution multi-grid...

The requirement for scatterometer-combined transmit-receive gain variation knowledge is typically addressed by sampling a portion of the transmit signal, attenuating it with a known-stable attenuation, and coupling it into the receiver chain. This way, the gain variations of the transmit and...

The push-pull framework was developed in hopes that an infrastructure would be created that could literally connect to any given remote site, and (given a set of restrictions) download files from that remote site based on those restrictions.

Space weather is described as the variability of solar wind plasma that can disturb satellites and systems and affect human space exploration. Accurate prediction requires information of the heliosphere inside the orbit of the Earth. However, for predictions using...

A random-force method has been developed to predict dynamic loads produced by rocket-engine random vibrations for new rocket-engine designs. The method develops random forces at multiple excitation points based on random vibration environments scaled from accelerometer data...

The problem of global maxima of functionals has been examined. Mathematical roots of local maxima are the same as those for a much simpler problem of finding global maximum of a multi-dimensional function. The second problem is instability — even if an optimal trajectory is found, there is no...

This week's Question: In a preliminary report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, a scientific panel concluded that ocean degeneration is happening much faster than previously predicted, and that the combination of factors currently distressing the marine environment is contributing...

Mentor Graphics Corporation (Wilsonville, OR) offers a unified embedded software debugging platform, from pre-silicon to final product, based on the integration of the Mentor® Embedded Sourcery™ CodeBench embedded software development tools with Mentor’s electronic system level (ESL), verification, and...