Briefs: Software
Deterministic Annealing Clustering
This software partitions a dataset into clusters of data using the Deterministic Annealing algorithm, a more sophisticated clustering technique than usually available in scientific and commercial software. The results provided are deterministic, i.e. unique (within the machine precision tolerance), whereas...
Briefs: Materials
Electromagnetic Metamaterial with Wide Angular and Broadband Spectral Absorption
Propagation in a waveguide requires proper termination of signals to prevent reflections from interfering with the desired circuit functionality. Conventional termination designs for a two-dimensional planar waveguide topology provide maximum signal suppression in...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
CAD models have been developed that enable objects to be 3D-printed out of commercially available plastics; these objects can wirelessly communicate with other smart devices, including a...
Briefs: Materials
NASA Langley Research Center has developed fluorinated alkyl ether-containing epoxies designed as an anti-insect coating. The robust and durable coating was developed...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Engineers have fabricated transparent, gel-based robots that move when water is pumped in and out of them. They are made entirely of hydrogel — a tough, rubbery, nearly...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A novel tool was developed that allows users to qualify small-diameter bearings before incorporating them into components. The High-Sensitivity, Environmentally Isolated Bearing...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
The foodborne pathogen Escherichia coli O157 causes an estimated 73,000 illnesses and 60 deaths every year in the United States. Better safety tests could help avoid some of the illnesses...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
System Enables Robots to Understand Contextual Commands
Today’s robots can accomplish many repetitive tasks, but their inability to understand the nuances of human language makes them mostly useless for more complicated requests. For example, if a specific tool is placed in a toolbox and a robot is asked to “pick it up,” it would be...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Magnesium is 75 percent lighter than steel, 33 percent lighter than aluminum, and is the fourth most common element on Earth behind iron, silicon, and oxygen. But despite its light...
Briefs: Materials
Researchers at NASA have developed new methods to manufacture carbon materials (e.g., nanotubes, graphene) with holes through the graphitic surface of the particles. The...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Wind turbine designers are working to provide blade designs that allow a turbine connected to the blades or rotor to effectively convert wind into electricity. The blades must also be...
Briefs: Imaging
Currently there is no reliable way to determine, during tumor-removal surgery, whether the excised tissue is completely cancer-free at its margins — the proof that...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Measurement devices that can withstand the acid rains on Venus, radiation in space, and the heat of car engines are being developed to improve research in these extreme...
Briefs: Materials
Superconducting materials are technologically important because electricity flows through them without resistance. Only low-temperature superconductivity seemed possible before 1986,...
Briefs: Medical
A new chip device called Tissue Nano-transfection (TNT) can generate any cell type of interest for treatment within the patient’s own body. This technology may be used to repair injured...
Briefs: Software
Researchers have developed a method to quickly and accurately identify people and cell lines from their DNA. The software could be used to flag mislabeled or contaminated cell lines in cancer...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
High-voltage wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices like 15-kV silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs have attracted attention because of potential applications in high-voltage and high-frequency power...
Briefs: Medical
LightCensor Software for Optimized Viewing of Medical Images
Because of improved display quality, the smartphone has been advocated by medical imaging vendors for viewing medical images in specific conditions that require urgency of results, or when full-sized workstation displays are not readily available. As a handheld device, the viewing...
Articles: Materials
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
Briefs: Medical
Researchers have created biosensor technology for wearable devices that continuously analyzes sweat or blood for different types of biomarkers such as proteins that...
Briefs: Software
Discontinuous-Galerkin Spectral-Element Solver (Eddy)
Eddy is a fundamental research code for advancing spectral methods for complex geometry. The software is intended to enable researchers to collaborate through a common framework that supports three-dimensional simulations on practical problems. Areas of interest include advanced numerical...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Cryogenic and Non-Cryogenic Liquid Level Instrument
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has developed a unique prototype for measuring the liquid level in a tank, employing a novel process. The technology can operate in a wide range of environments, including high and low temperatures and pressures, and is simpler and less expensive than other...
Briefs: Materials
A light foam was created from two-dimensional sheets of hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) that absorbs carbon dioxide. Freeze-drying h-BN turned it into a macro-scale foam that...
NASA Spinoff: Materials
Spinoff is NASA’s annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the fields of health...
Briefs: Software
Data Compression and Pattern Recognition Software for Hypersensor Data
Historically, there have been various approaches to problems relating to the detection of small, weak, or hidden objects, substances, or patterns embedded in complex backgrounds. One approach has been to use low-dimensional sensor systems that attempt to detect a clean...
Briefs: Medical
Portable Device for Rapid Detection of the Zika Virus
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed more than 5,000 cases of the Zika virus in the U.S. from January 2015 to February 2017. The vast majority of those cases were travelers returning from affected areas. Florida has the highest number of cases of the Zika virus at 1,069...
Application Briefs: Medical
Santa Rosa, CA
www.keysight.com
Implantable medical biosensors are commonly used to treat health problems via the unobtrusive collection of...
Briefs: Software
Adjoint Error Estimation for Embedded-Boundary Cartesian Meshes for use with Cart3D
This technology provides means of estimating numerical errors in user-specified output functionals, such as lift or drag, for fluid flow simulations. The new method computes an improved estimate of the output (relative to the baseline simulation), an estimate of...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A fundamental advance in controlling soft robots involves using magnetic fields to remotely manipulate microparticle chains embedded in soft robotic devices. Several devices have been developed...
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