Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Circuits for conditioning AC power supplied to computers are under development. A power conditioner of this type would be an interface between a conventional AC power line and a...
Briefs: Software
Program Injects Random Faults for Testing Computers
JIFI (Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Implementation of a Fault Injector) is a computer program for studying the ability of a computer to tolerate, detect, and/or recover from faults (that is, bit errors). JIFI affords the capability to inject faults into user-specified central- processing-unit...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) has been designed to function as a low-power-consumption, low-noise amplifier (LNA) at frequencies from about 65 to about 110 GHz. This MMIC...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Monolithic integrated circuits (in particular, Schottky-diode-based frequency multipliers) that operate at frequencies as high as a few terahertz are being developed in a...
Briefs: Software
KPP — a Preprocessor for VHDL
KPP is a computer program that serves as a preprocessor for VHDL code. [“VHDL” signifies VHSIC Hardware Description Language, which is a language used by the United States Department of Defense for describing, designing, and simulating very-high-speed integrated circuits (VHSICs).] KPP is based on, and similar...
Briefs: Software
Software for Analyzing Valve-Actuator
A computer program assists engineers in analyzing data on the performances of actuators of fuel and oxidizer valves in the main engines of the space shuttle. The program could be adapted to similar use in other settings in which, as in the space shuttle, valve actuators are instrumented to provide data on...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Capacitors in which the main dielectric layers are made from sintered nanocrystalline BaTiO3 have been fabricated and tested in an initially successful and continuing...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Millimeter-wave/microwave ablation (essentially, heating by use of millimeter-wave and microwave electromagnetic radiation) has been proposed as a means of treating atherosclerotic...
Briefs: Software
Software for Network Processing of
The Electronic Portable Information Collection (EPIC) computer program is a computer system that processes work authorization documents (WADs). The EPIC System, which is also known as the Portable Data Collection System, comprises a central data server and portable data terminals. The central data server acts...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Systems of caged trim masses manipulated by magnetic fields have been proposed for effecting fine control of the positions and/or orientations of spacecraft. The systems were...
Briefs: Materials
The term “prefield test” denotes an in situ test of contaminated soil in preparation for in situ treatment of the soil by a method called “electrokinetically enhanced...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
SMARTCOM is a computer program for the analysis and design of actively controlled “smart” structures. Typically, an actively controlled “smart” structure incorporates...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Study of Inertial and Gravitational Masses of a Boson
A report presents a theoretical study of the relationship between the inertial mass (mi) and gravitational mass (mg) of a self-interacting neutral scalar boson in a heat bath. The question of whether these masses differ arises in modern physics. In quantum field theory, the mass of a particle...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Metal/Dielectric Color Filters for Flat Panel Displays
A report expands on the proposal described in “Low-Absorption Color Filters for Flat Panel Display Devices” (NPO-20435) NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 23, No. 12 (December 1999), page 34. To recapitulate: The dye pixel color filters in a conventional liquid-crystal or other display device would...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A new technique for retrieving cirrus properties from radiometric measurements at submillimeter wavelengths has been developed. The technique can accurately measure the amount of ice...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Multiphase-Flow Model of Fluidized-Bed Pyrolysis of Biomass
A report presents additional information about the subject matter of “Model of Pyrolysis of Biomass in a Fluidized- Bed Reactor” (NPO-20708) NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 6 (June 2001), page 59. The model is built on equations for the dynamics of three components — gas, sand, and...
Briefs: Information Technology
An improved algorithm for detecting gray-scale and binary templates in digitized images has been devised. The greatest difference between this algorithm and prior template-detecting algorithms stems from...
Briefs: Software
Fast algorithms and the first complete and efficient circuits for implementing two quantum wavelet transforms have been developed in theory. The significance of this development...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A system of electronic hardware and software has been developed as an experimental prototype of a visual interface between a human operator and a possibly remote one-arm...
Briefs: Software
Software for Geometric Calibration of Video Cameras
A software library and set of programs largely automate the geometric calibration of video cameras. Developed especially for robotic vision systems, this software generates the information needed to determine the three-dimensional (3D) positions of objects that appear in two- dimensional (2D)...
Briefs: Motion Control
The figure depicts a mechanism that is capable of simultaneously rotating as many as six disposable bioreactor chambers about horizontal axes. The particular bioreactor chambers for...
Briefs: Motion Control
Tip fences have been invented to reduce the noise generated in the airflows about the high-lift systems (the flaps and slats) of airplane wings. Tip fences also afford an important...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Cells that contain thin, single-crystal films of photoresponsive organic materials [e.g., meta-nitroaniline (m-NA)] have been invented for use as nonlinear optics and especially as...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
An optoelectronic oscillator with a nominal operating frequency of 11.763 GHz has been designed and constructed to demonstrate a technique for reducing the sensitivity of the...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The figure depicts an apparatus for measuring x-ray diffraction (XRD) and/or x-ray fluorescence (XRF) in a specimen of material. The specimen could be, for example, a standard XRD powder...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A proposed program of research would be oriented toward the development of fluorescent dyes for use in two-photon microscopy. Two-photon microscopy and its predecessor, one-photon microscopy, are...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A method of growing lattice-mismatched InxGa1-xAs epitaxial layers on InP substrates using intermediate buffer layers of...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The Ultrabend bolt is a specially designed bolt instrumented with strain gauges (see figure) that are connected into twin Wheatstone-bridge circuits. The geometric arrangement of the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Using Laser Diodes to Characterize Force and Pressure Sensors
A proposed method of characterizing microphones and other pressure and force sensors would exploit the temporally varying forces of impingement of amplitude-modulated light beams from inexpensive laser diodes. What makes the method likely to be practical is the surprising fact that...
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