Charge Control Methods for Supercapacitors

A comparison of passive and active supercapacitor charging methods emphasizes the need for a close inspection on power source and supercapacitor demand.

CMOS The Future of Image Sensor Technology

CMOS imaging is trending to become the dominant imaging technology. Initially, CMOS was limited by its inherent noise. Architectures were then essentially analog and the idea of integrating the...

Piezo Technology in Pneumatic Valves

Pneumatic valves made with piezo technology offer many advantages. They are small, lightweight, extremely precise, durable, fast, and save energy. Piezo valves do not need energy to maintain a switching...

An Inside Look at Electromechanical Power-Off Braking Options

Power-off brakes are designed to hold or stop motion in the absence of power. Adding an electrical current releases the brake, freeing the load for motion. Given the safety...

Method and Circuit for In-Situ Health Monitoring of Solar Cells in Space

NASA’s Glenn Research Center has developed a method and apparatus for in-situ health monitoring of solar cells. The innovation is a novel approach to solar cell...

15 Questions to Ask About Circuit Protection for Wearable Electronics

Have you attended an electronics or design tradeshow lately? Have you visited a big-box retailer or browsed an online electronics vendor? If so, you’ve probably seen...

Low-Temperature-Compatible Electronics for a Miniature Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer

Missions to Titan are severely limited in available mass and power because spacecraft have to travel over a billion miles to get there, consuming...

Compact Radar Transceiver With Included Calibration

The Digital Beamforming Synthetic Aperture Radar (DBSAR) is an eight-channel phased array radar system that employs solid-state radar transceivers, a microstrip patch antenna, and a...

Fluorescence-Based Sensor for Monitoring Activation of Lunar Dust

This sensor unit is designed to determine the level of activation of lunar dust or simulant particles using a fluorescent technique. Activation of the surface of a lunar soil...

Valve-“Health”-Monitoring System

A system that includes sensors and data-acquisition, wireless data- communication, and data-processing subsystems has been developed as a means of both real-time and historical tracking of information...

Series-Connected Buck Boost Regulators

A series-connected buck boost regulator (SCBBR) is an electronic circuit that bucks a power-supply voltage to a lower regulated value or boosts it to a higher regulated value. The concept of the SCBBR...

Flasher Powered by Photovoltaic Cells and Ultracapacitors

A unique safety flasher powered by photovoltaic cells and ultracapacitors has been developed. Safety flashers are used wherever there are needs to mark actually or potentially...

Photovoltaic Power Station With Ultracapacitors for Storage

The figure depicts a solar photovoltaic power station in which ultracapacitors, rather than batteries, are used to store energy. Developments in the semiconductor industry have...

Supplementing Overvoltage Protection

Low-voltage high-current loads requiring precision voltage regulation are served by power systems that sense voltage remotely at the load. This creates the risk of an overvoltage (OV) condition at the...

Stable Breakdown Obtained in Silicon Carbide Rectifiers

Experiments have revealed that stable breakdown-voltage characteristics can be achieved in silicon carbide rectifiers. Stable breakdown-voltage characteristics are essential to the...