INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Iron Studded BNNTs Could Replace Semiconductors in Wearable Tech
The road to more versatile wearable technology is dotted with iron. Specifically, quantum dots of iron arranged on boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). The new material is the...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Stable "Superoxide" Opens the Door to a New Class of Batteries
While lithium-ion batteries have transformed our everyday lives, researchers are currently trying to find new chemistries that could offer even better energy possibilities. One...
INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
Device-Level Software Platform
The new Wubby (Palo Alto, CA) platform simplifies the development of IoT and Smart Home devices by providing a programming environment that supports Python code execution in the microcontroller of the device....
INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
Board Mount AC-DC Power Supplies
TDK Corporation (National City, CA) has announced the introduction of the TDK-Lambda KWS-A board mount AC-DC power supplies. Capable of starting up at -40°C, the convection cooled units will operate in...
INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
Compact Broadband Amplifiers
Rohde & Schwarz (Munich, Germany) has expanded its R&S BBA150 broadband amplifier family with the D series to cover the frequency range from 690 MHz to 3.2 GHz and power levels up to 800 W. Both frequency...
INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
PC/104 Single Board Computers
Sundance Multiprocessor Technology Ltd. (Chesham, UK) announced that it has integrated Xilinx’s new SDSoC development environment on to its EMC2-Z7030 single board computer (SBC). Sundance’s EMC2 range is a...
Question of the Week
Will commercial supersonic planes become a viable way to travel?
This week's Question: NASA announced last week that it was resurrecting a supersonic aircraft called the Quiet SST (“QueSST”). The space agency believes that the traditional sonic boom can be mitigated into a soft thump, or “heartbeat.” Supersonic planes could potentially...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Researchers Charge Up ‘Water Batteries’
Researchers from TU Graz and the Wetsus research center in The Netherlands have produced electrically charged water by means of a floating water bridge. The electric charge of the "water battery"...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Neural Network Chip Can Perform Powerful Artificial-Intelligence Tasks
In recent years, some of the most exciting advances in artificial intelligence have come courtesy of convolutional neural networks, large virtual networks of simple...
Question of the Week
Will driverless cars increase road reliance?
This week's Question: Autonomous vehicles have been touted as a way to combat roadway accidents and reduce energy expenditure and greenhouse gas emissions. A new study from University of Leeds, University of Washington, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, however, claims that the actual impact may be...
R&D: Materials
Researchers Use Rust to Improve 3D-Printing Process
A team of Northwestern researchers has created a new way to print three-dimensional metallic objects using rust and metal powders.
Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Product of the Month: March 2016
Paul N. Gardner Co., Pompano Beach, FL, announced the SmarTest coating thickness measurement system that consists of an app and a wireless sensor for measuring coating thickness with the help of a smartphone...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Autonomous Flight Termination System Reference Design Hardware
The current range ground-based infrastructure is extremely costly to operate and maintain. NASA has developed an Autonomous Flight Termination System (AFTS) that is an independent, self-contained subsystem mounted onboard a launch vehicle. The AFTS reference system eliminates the...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
RoboSimian: Software Algorithms for a Mobile Manipulation Quadruped Robot
RoboSimian, a statically stable quadrupedal robot capable of both dexterous manipulation and versatile mobility in difficult terrain, was built to compete in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robotics Challenge, a competitive effort to develop hardware...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Robot Task Commander with Extensible Programming Environment
As robotic systems are expected to perform complex tasks, system developers require tools for application programming that are more advanced than the current state of the art....
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Multi-Spacecraft Autonomous Positioning System/Network-Based Navigation
Current deep spacecraft rely heavily on ground-based navigation and tracking for state measurement. The requirement for long ground navigation passes, coupled with analysis support, produces a large latency for updating a vehicle’s state. As the current infrastructure...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Heading Versus Tilt Chart for Assessing HGA Occlusion and Flop Risk in MSL Operations
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) high-gain antenna (HGA) sits low on the deck, leaving the sky occluded in many directions by other parts of the rover. Each drive must end with the rover at a heading where the Earth will be unoccluded during the next HGA...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Rapid Forest Triage by Sub-Canopy Micro Air Vehicles
Today, tree distribution maps can only be generated manually in a very time-consuming process, and real-time microclimate mapping of a large 3D volume under tree canopy is not possible. A prototype small quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system was developed that is able to maneuver in...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Insertable, Miniature, In-Vivo Surgical Robot with Embedded Control
This innovation is a miniature, in-vivo surgical robot that is able to be inserted into the peritoneal cavity under insufflation. It is designed to perform Laparoendoscopic Single-Site Surgery (LESS). This robotic device is capable of direct visualization of the surgical...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
CMOS-Compatible Ohmic Contact RF MEMS Switch
Radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switches have advantages over their solid-state counterparts. However, ohmic contact MEMS devices face several significant limitations, preventing entry into the mass market. These limitations are cost, reliability, packaging, and...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Miller-Jogging for Synthesizer Lock Algorithm Extension
The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a wide range of CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) phase lock loop (PLL) chips with self-healing/self-calibration capabilities, allowing them to adapt, on the fly, to changes in temperature and other environment...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Deployable Antenna Circuit Board Material Design and Fabrication Process
The Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray (ISARA) antenna requires a rugged circuit board material that will meet the following requirements: (1) remains sufficiently...
Briefs: Communications
Mini-Stamp as a Micro-Display for At-a-Glance Subsystem Information for DSN Links
Operators of the Deep Space Network (DSN) attend to numerous tasks with the overall goal of providing continuous support for the world’s deep space missions. This high-stakes operations environment requires operators to understand the state of the DSN and predict...
Briefs: Communications
Command and Data Handling for the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission
The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is the fourth mission of the Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) program. The MMS mission, consisting of four identically instrumented spacecraft, will use Earth’s magnetosphere as a laboratory to study magnetic reconnection, a...
Briefs: Communications
Ka-Band Parabolic Deployable Antenna (KaPDA)
CubeSats provide the ability to conduct relatively inexpensive space missions. Over the past several years, technology and launch opportunities for CubeSats have exploded, enabling a wide variety...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Pyrotechnically Actuated Gas Generator Using Aqueous Methanol
The largest supersonic parachute ever developed is one of the test articles on the Supersonic Flight Dynamics Test (SFDT) vehicle of the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD)...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Deployable Perimeter Truss with Blade Reel Deployment Mechanism
Solar sail technology depends heavily on the total surface area of the sail. In other words, minimizing mass and volume of its support structure is the main objective,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Cantera Integration with T-MATS
The Toolbox for the Modeling and Analysis of Thermodynamic Systems (TMATS) software package is a library of building blocks that can be assembled to represent any thermodynamic system in the Simulink® (MathWorks, Inc.) environment. These elements, along with a Newton Raphson solver (also provided as part of the...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Rocket Sled Parachute Design Verification
Historically, parachutes have been load-tested by various methods including release from an aircraft, deploying in a wind tunnel, dragging through water, and shooting out of an air cannon. Each type of testing has its own advantages and drawbacks. Due to the loading mechanics particular to parachutes...
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Question of the Week
Will Robotics and Automation Lead to a Greater Appreciation of Nature?
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