Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Products of Tomorrow: February 2016

The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial...

Articles: Aerospace

Drone Control: Flying the Crowded Skies

Articles: Aerospace

FAA and Drone Control

Since the early 1990s, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have operated on a limited basis in the National Airspace System (NAS). Until recently, UAS mainly supported public operations, such as military and border security...

Articles: Aerospace

CO2 Recovery System Puts Bubbles into Beer

Technology used to capture carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere can save brewers money.

Building on work he and his companies did with Johnson Space Center’s In Situ Resource Utilization...

Application Briefs: Aerospace

CAD-Based Process Analyzes Lidar Interferometer Instrument

Comet software
Comet Solutions
Cincinnati, OH
513-588-2773
www.cometsolutions.com

A Structural-Thermal-Optical-Performance (STOP) analysis is an...

Application Briefs: Aerospace

Plasma Etching System Expands Device Processing Capability at JPL

Apex SLR ICP etch system
Advanced Vacuum, a Plasma-Therm Co.
Saint Petersburg, FL
800-246-2592
www.plasmatherm.com

An Advanced Vacuum inductively...

Articles: Motion Control

Optimizing Drive Systems for Energy Savings

Energy savings are an extremely important topic in virtually every segment of industry today. In general, the largest consumer of power in a converting line or machine is the drive system. As...

Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control

Automation System Retrofit Transforms 175-Ton Hydraulic Forming Press

Southern Manufacturing Group (SMG) of Morrison, TN, makes automotive components and industrial valves. In 2012, the automation system for its 175-ton hydraulic forming...

Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Graphene Supports NASA-Developed Nanosensors

NASA Technologist Mahmooda Sultana has been leading the development of tiny graphene sensors. Because of the material’s extreme sensitivity, graphene-based sensors have a wide range of possible...

Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Energy Harvesting and the IoT: A New Bull Market

The romantic notion of grizzled ranchers out riding the range on horseback to shepherd their herd of cattle may soon be a distant memory, as cloud-based sensor technology now permits real-time...

Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition

When Sensors Mesh: How Sensor Networks Improve Performance

Innovations in communications and computing hardware and software have made it easier than ever to collect minute details regarding just about any topic of interest. For technology...

Application Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Researchers Prepare RoboSimian for Tasks Beyond Disaster Response

RoboSimian, a limbed robot developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is designed to operate in environments too dangerous or difficult for human intervention,...

Application Briefs: Energy

Energy Harvester Uses RF Waves to Power Air Pollution Sensors

As more connected devices enter the market and see wider adoption by an ever increasing number of industries, the Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly expanding.

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Integrated Circuits

The Standard Power Series from Honeywell (Fort Mill, SC) includes four new sensor ICs. The integrated circuits offer a sensitivity of 11 Gauss max., allowing design engineers to use larger air gaps between the sensor IC...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Wireless Remote Sensing

SignalFire Wireless Telemetry (Hudson, MA) has added capabilities to its Field Setup and Diagnostic ToolKit. Interfacing with sensors, thermocouples, load cells, pots, and turbine meters, the Signal Fire Wireless...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Wireless Router

The CirrusSense™ wireless router from Transducers Direct (Cincinnati, OH) provides remote pressure readings, diagnostics, and immediate email/text alarm alerts transmitted by CirrusSense™ pressure transducers. The device...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Optical Sensors

Micro-Epsilon (Raleigh, NC) offers optoNCDT 1320 and 1420 optical smart sensors. Electronics for signal processing are housed in each sensor body. Weighing 60 g, the devices are suitable for dynamic acceleration applications,...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Gas Sensor Modules

The new Komfy™ Switch with camera by D-Link features the iAQcore indoor air quality module from ams (Cupertino, CA). The iAQcore, a miniaturized, low-power gas sensor, uses a MEMS-based VOC component. The device provides...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Image Sensors

OmniVision Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) has released the OV16860, a 16-megapixel PureCel® Plus-S image sensor. A 1.3-micron pixel architecture enables full resolution recording at 45 frames per second. The sensor also...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Pressure Sensors

TE Connectivity (Berwyn, PA) has announced the 86BC, a 16-mm piezoresistive silicon pressure sensor packaged in a 316L stainless steel housing. O-ring mounting supports integration into industrial applications. The...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Harsh-Environment Sensors

WAGO Corp. (Germantown, WI) has added 3-Phase Power Measurement Modules to its XTR line of harsh environment (-40 °C to 70 °C extreme temperature and 5g vibration resistance) I/O. Varying communication interfaces...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Cable Extension Sensors

The POSIWIRE® WS21 cable extension sensor from ASM (Elmhurst, IL) is equipped with a non-contact, magnetic multi-turn-encoder that enables long measuring lengths up to 20,000 mm. Typical applications include linear...

Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Temperature Sensors

Exergen Corp. (Watertown, MA) has announced the Extreme IRt/c non-contact temperature sensor. A custom-designed housing protects the sensor from extreme vibrations, shifts in pressure, and other acute ambient changes. The...