INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
The term “gigafactory” has become common lexicon for a manufacturing facility constructed to produce the almost incalculable number of individual battery cells required for the millions of...
Articles: Energy
Application Briefs: Automotive
Application Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Articles: Electronics & Computers
Briefs: Aerospace
CAESAR Plug-in for MagicDraw
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In recent years, cable management has come into the limelight because machine reliability has increased dramatically, even though robots have grown more complex. Unfortunately, the...
Articles: Test & Measurement
Laser engineers are leveraging new materials, unusual gain mechanisms, and innovative cavity designs to push laser performance into new regimes. Pulse lengths are getting...
Facility Focus: Defense
Sandia National Laboratories — headquartered in Albuquerque, MN, with a principal lab in Livermore, CA — is operated and managed by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC (a wholly owned...
Briefs: Propulsion
Thruster-Based Attitude and Translation Control with Minimum Pulse-Count Disturbance Rejection
Thruster-based control typically requires a substantial engineering effort in order to mitigate an important issue: the control system tends to use many thruster pulses to accomplish what a single thruster pulse could do instead. This fundamental...
Facility Focus: Aerospace
The MITRE Corporation was chartered in 1958 as a private, not-for-profit organization to provide engineering and technical guidance for the federal government. Today, with locations in McLean, VA and Bedford, MA, MITRE...
Briefs: Software
Using SysML to Model Layered System Interfaces
To produce accurate system architecture descriptions, it is essential to be able to describe interfaces between system elements at different levels of abstraction and from different perspectives at the same time. For example, the connection from system A to system B may be viewed at a high level as...
Articles: Motion Control
Direct drive servo motor and drive technology has many advantages. It reduces an axis’ parts count, mechanical losses, and often its objectionable noise. What’s more, it also...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
After more than 16 years of operation, NASA’s Earth Observing–1 (EO-1) spacecraft was decommissioned on March 30 of this year. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) developed by...
Briefs: Software
Human Factors Analysis Support Tool (H-FAST) v 2.0
Large-scale systems engineering projects involve multiple teams of engineers working in parallel. These projects typically include numerous human factors challenges, many of which first become evident during the integration stage. Human factors evaluations are essential in gathering human...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created computer chips that can be configured to perform complex calculations and store massive amounts of information within the...
Briefs: Software
A Systems Engineering Approach to Architecture Development
Architecture development often is conducted prior to system concept design when there is a need to determine the best-value mix of systems that works collectively in specific scenarios and time frames to accomplish a set of mission area objectives. Conducted prior to Pre-Phase A of the...
Briefs: Software
Multi-Mission Operations System (MMOS)
Each mission needs to develop a Mission Operations System (MOS). Without a standard design to use as a reference, system engineers typically look to a subset of previous missions and develop a system with a mix of heritage, new design, and in some cases, reinvention of existing capabilities. If a reference...
Briefs: Information Technology
Systems Engineering Education and Development (SEED) Web Application
This application serves as Web-based management of the Systems Engi - neering Education and Development (SEED) program, and enables the SEED Program Manager to track and manage the applications and assignments. In the past, the handling of the applications and assignments was...
Briefs: Software
Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool V8.0
An assessment of a system’s safety requirements is required early in the design process when cost and time impacts are minimal. These requirements include fault detection, failure isolation, and failure recovery. Systems engineering groups at NASA have been exploring model-based products to better...
Articles: Aerospace
Technology often takes circuitous paths. A magnetron developed for precision bombing during World War II led to the microwave oven, and a battery-powered drill created for collecting...
Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping
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 aircraft safety,...
Briefs: Materials
NASA has developed a class of low-density, flexible ablators that can be fabricated into heat-shields capable of being packaged, stowed, and deployed in space. The key characteristics of this new...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Characterizing Richness of Previously Unmapped Terrain and Estimating its Impact on Navigation Performance using 3D Range Sensors in Flight
Landers to large planetary bodies such as Mars typically use a secondary reconnaissance spacecraft to generate high-fidelity 3D terrain maps that are subsequently used for landing site selection and creating...
Briefs: Information Technology
MBSE-Driven Systems Engineering Visualization Suite
There is a need to define the information architecture, ontologies, and patterns that drive the construction and architecture of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) models, but less clarity is given to the logical follow-on of that effort: how to practically leverage the resulting semantic...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Characterizing Richness of Previously Unmapped Terrain and Estimating its Impact on Navigation Performance using 3D Range Sensors in Flight
Landers to large planetary bodies such as Mars typically use a secondary reconnaissance spacecraft to generate high-fidelity 3D terrain maps that are subsequently used for landing site selection and creating...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Scenario Power Load Analysis Tool (SPLAT) MagicDraw Plug-in
Power consumption during all phases of spacecraft flight is of great interest to the aerospace community. As a result, significant analysis effort is exerted by both system and electrical-domain engineers to understand the rates of electrical energy generation and consumption under many...
Briefs: Communications
Confidence Intervals for the Bit Error Rate of Coded Communications Systems
The bit error rate (BER) is a wellunderstood metric for measuring communications system performance. When a system is not amenable to analytical performance analysis, a Monte Carlo simulation is often used to determine the performance. In such simulations, it is...
Top Stories
Blog: Design
Using Coffee to Reduce Waste from 3D Printing
INSIDER: Energy
EV Battery Recycling Still Being Defined
Blog: Energy
Zinc-Air Batteries: A Cheaper, Safer Alternative to Li-ion Batteries
Quiz: Robotics, Automation & Control
How Much Do You Know About Drones?
Videos: Energy
Blog: Materials
DNA Combined with Glass Results in a Stronger, Lighter Material

Question of the Week
Blog: Artificial Intelligence: Meet Human Intelligence
Webcasts
On-Demand Webinars: Energy

Software Solutions for Battery Management System Applications With AUTOSAR
Upcoming Webinars: Automotive

Leveraging Electronics Digital Twins on AWS to Accelerate...
Upcoming Webinars: Aerospace

Choosing a Silicone for Operation in Harsh Thermal Environments
Webinars: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Scan-Based and Project Design for Medical
Upcoming Webinars: Electronics & Computers

Introduction to the Integration of Electronics Switching and...
Upcoming Webinars: Power
