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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An instrumentation system automates the detection and location of faults in multiconductor electrical cables. It can accelerate diagnoses of aircraft, automotive, or industrial cables, while reducing...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
During the development and testing of signal processing systems, it is useful to generate test signals in the laboratory in order to quantify system parameters such as dynamic range,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Process for Fabrication of Micro Fluidic Structures
Through an innovative microfabrication process, enclosed microstructures are created for "laboratory on a chip" applications, such as medical diagnostics. These microstructures include capillaries, tunnels, pipettes, reaction vessels, and cavities. Using only conventional lithographic techniques,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The figure illustrates a lightweight composite-material dual-beam reflector antenna for the SeaWinds spaceborne scatterometer instrument, which operates in the Ku band and is designed to measure wind...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The sight-to-touch translator (ST3) is a conceptual electronic apparatus that would generate a tactile representation of visible objects in its vicinity. The ST3 would be worn by a blind person; the tactile display...
Briefs: Manned Systems
Sensors made largely of commercially available optical and electronic components are being developed for use in measuring small horizontal displacements of payloads suspended below...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Three coplanar-stripline circuits have been designed to perform coupling and filtering functions in microwave systems. These circuits could be incorporated into feed networks for microwave...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Data signals can be transmitted via the same optical fibers that are used to transmit power from base stations to remote stations containing sensors and associated circuitry. [A prototype...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An improved motor controller provides a circuit that will allow a motor to run at full speed while traveling from point A to point B, and still be able to obtain the desired damping...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Signaling-and-Detection Scheme for Beacon Monitoring
A signaling-and-detection scheme has been proposed for use in conjunction with the remote-monitoring concept described in "Beacon Monitoring Would Reduce Interactions With Remote Systems" (NPO-19706), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 21, No. 5 (May 1997), page 54. To recapitulate: A remote system (a...
Briefs: Information Technology
Software for Improving Operational Processes
The Schedule and Cost Risk Analysis Modeling System (SCRAM) computer program identifies important sources of schedule and cost risks in an operational process. The related Process Analysis and Improvement Support System (PASS) program assists in the overall analysis and improvement of an operational...
Briefs: Motion Control
An operator interface is undergoing development along with other subsystems of a robot that would assist in caring for elderly and disabled patients. This development has been initiated in...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Hybrid high-temperature-superconductor (HTS)/semiconductor planar oscillator circuits that operate at a frequency of 8.4 GHz have been developed. In the original intended application, one...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Modulated (as opposed to steady) light can be used in the optical transmission of power to remotely located sensor circuitry in a system like that described in the preceding article,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The figure schematically illustrates a prototype general-purpose, microprocessor-based sensor and control system in which power, data, and control signals are transmitted via optical...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) serves as a building block for a digital system that effects maximum-likelihood decoding of a Viterbi code (a binary...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Microbridges that constitute the superconducting-transition sensory elements of electron-diffusion-cooled hot-electron bolometers can now be fabricated in increased yield and quality....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An algorithm estimates the Doppler frequency shift in a received radio signal with square-wave-pulse binary differential-phase-shift-keyed (DPSK) modulation. [With little modification,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
As the highest resolution seismic system available, the automated seafloor classification system (ASCS) can remotely and accurately map sediment properties for many seafloor applications. The...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Compact analog/digital electronic data processors of a novel type are based on the concept of the optimization cellular neural network (OCNN) and are implemented in very-large-scale...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Electrochromic devices change color and light transmissivity upon application of an electric charge. As such they should prove valuable as "smart" windows that can reduce air-conditioning costs...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A proposed focal-plane array (FPA) of quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) would exhibit peak response at two wavelengths. Heretofore, single-focal-plane arrays of photodetectors optimized for...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Cross-diffraction gratings have been proposed to provide optical coupling to quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) in focal-plane arrays (FPAs). The cross-grating coupling scheme is...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) systems have been used for a number of years in field and laboratory applications. The normal LDV system consists of a two-color, four-beam...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Passivation by coating with OCG285 (or equivalent) polyimide at critical steps of fabrication has been found to enhance the quality of tapered edges in high-critical-temperature...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A newly developed instrument, designed at Marshall Space Flight Center, uses the resistance to alternating current running through a device to measure the variances in...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Reducing Surface Leakage Currents in FPAs of QWIPs
Chemical surface treatments during fabrication have been proposed to reduce surface leakage currents in focal-plane arrays (FPAs) of quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs). For reasons explained below, if most or all of the surface leakage currents could be eliminated by such treatments,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Image-Matching System Highlights Changes in Skin Lesions
A video imaging and image-data-processing system for use in dermatological examinations acquires and processes images of patients' skins. The system processes a current image of a selected area of a patient's skin along with an image of the same area acquired previously, generating a...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A diagnostic signal-analysis technique, called the Phase Synchronized Enhancement Method (PSEM), has been developed. This method allows NASA engineers to retrieve any unique defect...
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