The current installation method for tall, stacked capacitors is very cumbersome because the lead form is very sharp and prone to solder cracking due to thermal cycling. An astringent installation process was developed to obtain the best chance of a successful solder joint with a proper heel fillet so the...

The conventional methods of improving wireless system coverage performance are to increase the transmitter power and/or antenna gain. The high transmit power could lead to more power consumption and RF exposure issues. The use of a high-gain antenna could lead...

This software provides a toolbox of MATLAB functions for detecting precursor wiring faults, such as chafing, in shielded impedance-controlled cable using measurements from off-the-shelf time domain reflectometry or vector network analyzer hardware. It advances the state-of-the-art in...

Driving loads such as electric motors, relay coils, and solenoids requires a relatively large initial pull-in or start-up current from a driver in order to initiate operation of the load. To maintain continuous operation, the hold or running operating current required for a load may be 20%...

Flexible circuits with superconducting wiring atop polyimide thin films are being studied to connect large numbers of wires between stages in cryogenic apparatus with low heat load. The feasibility of a full microstrip process, consisting of two layers of superconducting material...

ESDA (Electrostatic Discharge Association) ESD STM 13.1-2000 requires frequent testing of the voltage leakage from the tip of a soldering iron and the resistance from the tip of the soldering iron to the common point ground. Without this test apparatus, the process is time-consuming and requires several wires,...

The goal of this technology is to provide improved calibration and measurement sensitivity to the Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission (SMAP) radiometer. While RF switches have been used in the past to calibrate microwave radiometers, the switch used on SMAP employs several techniques...

An integrated system tool will allow a technician to easily and quickly repair damaged high-performance electrical wire insulation in the field. Low-melt polyimides have been developed that can be processed into thin films that work well in the repair of damaged polyimide or fluoropolymer...

The design of machines that rely on arrays of servomotors such as robotic arms, orbital platforms, and combinations of both, imposes a heavy computational burden to coordinate their actions to perform coherent tasks. For example, the robotic equivalent of a person...

An In-Situ Wire Damage Detection System (ISWDDS) has been developed that is capable of detecting damage to a wire insulation, or a wire conductor, or to both. The system will allow for real-time, continuous monitoring of wiring health/integrity and reduce the number of false negatives and false positives while...

This invention is an electronically commutated brushless motor controller that incorporates Hall-array sensing in a small, 42-gram package that provides 4096 absolute counts per motor revolution position sensing. The unit is the size of a miniature hockey puck, and is a 44-pin male connector that provides many I/O...

This invention is an electronically commutated brushless motor controller that incorporates Hall-array sensing in a small, 42-gram package that provides 4096 absolute counts per motor revolution position sensing. The unit is the size of a miniature hockey puck, and is a 44-pin male connector that provides many I/O...

A document discusses a study that presents the first documented extraction loads, both nominal and worstcase, and presents the first comprehensive evaluation of extraction techniques, methodologies, and tool requirements relating to extracting printed wiring assemblies (PWAs) with Card-Loks...

A fabrication process is reported for prototype emitters of THz radiation, which operate cryogenically, and should provide a fast, stable blackbody source suitable for characterization of THz devices. The fabrication has been demonstrated and, at the time of this...

A fabrication process has been developed for cryogenic in-line filtering for the bias and readout of ultrasensitive cryogenic bolometers for millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The design is a microstripline filter that cuts out, or strongly attenuates, frequencies (10–50...

Faults in wiring systems are a serious concern for the aerospace and aeronautic (commercial, military, and civilian) industries. Circuit failures and vehicle accidents have occurred and have been attributed to faulty wiring created by open and/or short circuits. Often, such circuit failures...

A document describes the fabrication of a two-dimensional microcalorimeter array that uses microstrip wiring and integrated heat sinking to enable use of high-performance pixel designs at kilo - pixel scales (32×32). Each pixel is the high-resolution...

Many distributed systems share common sensors and instruments along with a common power line supplying current to the system. A communication technique and circuit has been developed that allows for the simple inclusion of an instrument, sensor, or actuator node within any system containing a common power...

A 35-nm-gate-length InP, high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) with a high-indium-content channel as the key component was developed to produce an MMIC (monolithic microwave integrated circuit) power amplifier. With a shorter gate length than previous transistor generations, it allows for electrons to...