Briefs: Software
Approved as a Wallops control center backup system, the Wallops Ship Surveillance Software is a day-of-launch risk analysis tool for spaceport activities. The system calculates impact probabilities and displays ship locations relative to boundary lines. It enables rapid analysis of possible flight paths to preclude...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A hybrid lightweight composite tank has been created using specially designed materials and manufacturing processes. The tank is produced by using a hybrid structure consisting of at least two reinforced composite material systems. The inner composite layer comprises a distinct fiber and resin matrix...
Application Briefs: Materials
Ocean LED, Nuneaton, UK Proto Labs, Maple Plain, MN
Richard Sant, Chief Designer at OceanLED, sought a fast and flexible way to make low-cost, high-quality components for the firm’s latest LED lights. He found...
Articles: Electronics & Computers
Military systems represent extreme environments for COTS electronic equipment. Many systems involve multiple enclosures, often from different suppliers. Equipment layout, the...
Briefs: Software
This software generates high-quality plans for carrying out mine-sweeping activities under resource constraints. The autonomous planning and replanning system for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) takes as input a set of prioritized mine-sweep regions, and a...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
The Cryogenic Moisture Apparatus (CMA) is designed for quantifying the amount of moisture from the surrounding air that is taken up by cryogenic-tank-insulating material specimens while under typical conditions of...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
The figure depicts selected aspects of an apparatus for testing thermal-insulation materials for cryogenic systems at temperatures and under vacuum or atmospheric conditions representative of...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A proposed system for storing oxygen in liquid form and dispensing it in gaseous form is based on (1) initial subcooling of the liquid oxygen; (2) containing the liquid oxygen in a flexible vessel; (3) applying a gas spring to the flexible vessel to keep the oxygen compressed above the saturation pressure...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
The multimodal friction ignition tester (MFIT) is a testbed for experiments on the thermal and mechanical effects of friction on material specimens in pressurized, oxygen-rich atmospheres. In simplest terms,...
Briefs: Medical
VESGEN is a newly automated, userinteractive program that maps and quantifies the effects of vascular therapeutics and regulators on microvascular form and function. VESGEN analyzes two-dimensional, black and white vascular images by measuring important vessel morphology...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Assemblies of tanks having shapes that conform to each other and/or conform to other proximate objects have been investigated for use in storing fuels and oxidizers in small available spaces in upper stages of...
Application Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Stat-X fire suppression system Fireaway LLC Minnetonka, MN 952-935-9745 http://statx.com
When NASA Kennedy Space Center’s fire safety experts decided to replace the fire suppression...
Briefs: Software
Algorithms for planning flight paths of autonomous aerobots (robotic blimps) to be deployed in scientific exploration of remote planets are undergoing development. These algorithms are also adaptable...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A small, simple fixture has been found to be highly effective in reducing destructive unsteady hydrodynamic loads on a miniature submarine that is attached in piggyback fashion to the...
Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
For process industries, one of the greatest challenges plant operators face is finding a sensor technology that will provide reliable measurement of liquid levels in tanks while...
Briefs: Information Technology
Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS) is a recent product of a continuing effort to develop architectures for controlling either a single autonomous...
Briefs: Medical
A method and bioreactor for the continuous production of synchronous (same age) population of mammalian cells have been invented. The invention involves the attachment and growth of cells on an adhesive-coated porous membrane immersed in a perfused liquid culture medium in a microgravity analog...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A method denoted wireless acoustic- electric feedthrough (WAEF) has been conceived for transmitting power and/or data signals through walls or other solid objects made of a variety of...
Briefs: Medical
The hydrocyclone- filtration extractor (HFE), now undergoing development, is a simple, robust apparatus for processing large amounts of soil to extract trace amounts of microorganisms,...
Application Briefs: Imaging
For more than 40 years, Italray srl (Florence, Italy) has manufactured radiological equipment for traditional and digital medical applications, as well as computer-assisted systems...
Briefs: Materials
The immediately preceding article includes an example in which a composite overwrap on a pressure vessel contains wound filaments made of a hybrid of high-strength carbon fibers and poly(phenylene benzobisoxazole) [PBO] fibers. This hybrid material is chosen in an effort to increase the...
Briefs: Information Technology
An algorithm and software to implement the algorithm are being developed as means to estimate the state (that is, the position and velocity) of an autonomous vehicle, relative to a visible nearby target object, to provide guidance for maneuvering the vehicle. In the original intended application,...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Dramatic changes are taking place in the way U.S. service men and women prepare for their assignments. Since 9/11, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is moving from a training cycle in which...
Briefs: Software
A Mathcad computer program largely automates the design and analysis of the restraint layer (the primary load-bearing layer) of an inflatable vessel that consists of one or more sections having cylindrical, toroidal, and/or spherical shape(s). A restraint layer typically comprises webbing...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Asymmetric bulkheads are proposed for the ends of vertically oriented cylindrical pressure vessels. These bulkheads, which would feature both convex and concave contours, would offer...
Briefs: Medical
Thermal spore exposure vessels (TSEVs) are laboratory containers designed for use in measuring rates of death or survival of microbial spores at elevated temperatures. A major consideration in the design of a TSEV...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The Planetary Autonomous Amphibious Robotic Vehicle (PAARV), now at the prototype stage of development, was originally intended for use in acquiring and analyzing samples of solid,...
Briefs: Materials
Microsphere insulation panels (MIPs) have been developed as lightweight, long lasting replacements for the foam and vacuum-jacketed systems heretofore used for thermally insulating cryogenic vessels and transfer ducts. Whether preformed or applied in place, foam insulation deteriorates fairly rapidly: on cryogenic...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A proposed device would remove bubbles of gas from a stream of liquid (typically water), accumulate the gas, and periodically release the gas, in bulk, back into the stream. The device is intended...