Magazine

A rugged laser-diode oxygen sensor is being developed for detecting leaks of oxygen from diverse systems, including rocket engines, cryogenic systems, and medical equipment. The sensor is required to have a range of 250 to 250,000 parts per million, to be accurate within 5 percent, to be capable of operating at any...

A method of characterization of growing of protein crystals involves the utilization of an optical imaging technique known as spatial phase imaging. The methods used heretofore have been, variously, invasive (e.g., adding a dye that is absorbed by the protein of interest), destructive (e.g.,...

A computer program of the fuzzy-logictoolkit type has been devel- oped as a relatively simple, portable, highly compatible, means of providing fuzzy-logic reasoning capabilities for control and expert-system applications.This program is designed to work with the high-level scripting language Tcl/Tk...

Regprof is a computer program that analyzes the use of registers by another program that runs on a PowerPC 750 (or equivalent) computer. Regprof is useful for showing how well compilers make use of registers and for obtaining an indication of the susceptibility of application programs to...

Real-time Desktop Manager (RDM) is a computer program that manages displays and application programs. RDM was developed for use in connection with NASA’s remote manipulator system (RMS) group of flight controllers; it could also be used in chemical plants, laboratories, factories, hospitals, and other settings where it...

A class of optoelectronic noncontact computer-controlled scanning surface profilometers is undergoing development for use in automated or semiautomated in- spection of nominally flat surfaces. When fully developed, these profilometers would generate three-dimensional maps of the scanned surfaces for...

A proposed infrared transmitting fiber-optic endoscope, which would partly resemble a visible-light fiber-optic endoscope, instrument could be used to perform thermal imaging in harsh environments and/or confined spaces in a variety of situations in aerospace, industrial, automotive, and medical settings.

A compact instrument includes a fiber-optic probe that utilizes the evanescent-wave interaction to measure the accumulation of a biofilm. This instrument is a prototype of instruments that could be used to effect continuous monitoring and provide early warning of biofilms associated with...

A system based on ultrasonic sensors has been developed as a means of tracking moving objects with centimeter accuracy. The system is intended especially for tracking pertinent parts of the body of a human subject engaged in control of a remote anthropomorphic robot or immersed in a...

A compact actuator generates rotary or linear motion with a large torque or force, respectively. The original version of this actuator is designed to pull a wedge that, until pulled, prevents retraction of the proposed extended nose landing gear of the space shuttle. The original version is also...

A computer program deconvolves the digitized outputs of multiple chemical sensors in an array to extract indications of the identities and con- centrations of target chemicals (which could be individual compounds or specified mixtures of compounds). Chemical-sensor arrays — denoted,...

TSCALC is a computer program that calculates the space sink temp- erature (TS), defined as the equilibrium temp- erature of a spacecraft heat-dissipation radiator or other object nominally isolated except for radiative exchange of heat with the Sun, or any star for which equilibrium sink temp-...