Magazine

The University of Georgia Research Foundation has a portfolio of technologies for the fast and accurate detection and identification of pathogens and chemicals. The technologies provide for a scalable and inexpensive method for the detection of disease agents as well as...

The National Institute of AIST in Japan has developed a communication technology that uses the direct current (DC) power line of a solar panel as a communication line. The technology helps monitor the power generation in each solar panel, which is useful for the maintenance...

A company seeks biorational approaches to new pesticides. “Biorational” approaches include processes, organisms, or chemistries that occur spontaneously in nature. By isolating these substances, a biorational pesticide may be created. These naturally derived (or synthesized products...

Healthy people and pre-diabetic individuals may have a reduced sensitivity (or resistance) to insulin. A company seeks natural ingredients that can be added to foods that will enhance the body’s sensitivity to insulin, and help maintain post-absorptive blood glucose control at a...

A digital architecture has been implemented for a trace gas sensor platform, as a companion to standard analog control electronics, which accommodates optical absorption whose fractional absorbance equivalent would result in excess error if assumed to be linear. In cases where the absorption...

This innovation is a lightweight, small sensor for inert gases that consumes a relatively small amount of power and provides measurements that are as accurate as conventional approaches. The sensing approach is based on generating an electrical discharge and measuring the specific gas breakdown...

This work relates to the generic problem of remote active imaging; that is, a source illuminates a target of interest and a receiver collects the scattered light off the target to obtain an image. Conventional imaging systems consist of an imaging lens and a high-resolution detector array [e.g., a CCD...

Dispersed Fringe Sensing (DFS) is a technique for measuring and phasing segmented telescope mirrors using a dispersed broadband light image. DFS is capable of breaking the monochromatic light ambiguity, measuring ab solute piston errors between segments of large segmented primary mirrors to tens of...

Fault detection, diagnosis, and prognosis are essential tasks in the operation of autonomous spacecraft, instruments, and in situ platforms. One of NASA’s key mission requirements is robust state estimation. Sensing, using a wide range of sensors and sensor fusion approaches, plays a central role in robust...

A sensitive resistor-based NO microsensor, with a wide detection range and a low detection limit, has been developed. Semiconductor microfabrication techniques were used to create a sensor that has a simple, robust structure with a sensing area of 1.10 × 0.99 mm. A Pt interdigitated...

The formation of scour patterns at bridge piers is driven by the forces at the boundary of the water flow. In most experimental scour studies, indirect processes have been applied to estimate the shear stress using measured velocity profiles. The estimations are based on theoretical models and...

Qualification and verification of advanced electronic packaging and interconnect technologies, and various other types of hardware elements for the Mars Exploration Rover’s Spirit and Opportunity (MER)/Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) flight projects, has been performed to...

Wireless sensors connected in a local network offer revolutionary exploration capabilities, but the current solutions do not work in extreme environments of low temperatures (200K) and low to moderate radiation levels (<50 krad). These sensors (temperature,...

Bump bonding hybridization techniques use arrays of indium bumps to electrically and mechanically join two chips together. Surface-tension issues limit bump sizes to roughly as wide as they are high. Pitches are limited to 50 microns with bumps only 8–14 microns high on each wafer. A new process...