Electrical/​Electronics

Access our comprehensive library of electrical and electronics technical briefs from engineering experts at NASA and major government, university, and commercial laboratories.

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Space Modem GMSK Modulator

A high-rate GMSK (Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying) modulator was developed for space operation. Currently, multi-user modems are under development, and the GMSK modulator provides a way of packing more users within a space environment, especially for Mars exploration.

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Co-Optimized, Blunt-Body Re-entry Vehicle Design Process

A document describes a design optimization method for determining optimal shapes for vehicles with mid-range lift-to-drag ratios that are entering or re-entering planetary atmospheres. The design space includes consideration of hypersonic aerothermodynamic properties (for minimizing...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

A monitoring network has been created that can be added to a battery consisting of many parallel cells. This network allows the health of individual cells, as measured by the current that...

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved Battery Health Monitoring

Battery health monitoring is an emerging technology field that seeks to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of battery systems before they run out of charge. Such predictive measures require interpretation of large amounts of battery status data within a Bayesian prognostic framework.

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

Immediately following firing of the solid rocket booster (SRB) separation motors during STS-134 ascent, an unknown object resembling a headless bolt was captured by...

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers

This electronic device is designed to provide optimal control of an electromagnetically actuated shutter used on a digital or photographic camera. The SD36B1 Electromechanical Shutter...

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sub-Nanosecond, Compact, Low-Power Time-Interval Measurement

This innovation is a sub-nanosecond time-interval measurement that is compact and inexpensive, implemented in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Currently, high-speed count ers or semi-custom or custom ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) are used for time-interval...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

A vehicle electronic control unit consists of various high-side power stages for driving different loads. Common faults that these power stages experience are Short Circuit to...

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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs

A high-temperature-capable widebandgap semiconductor power module package, coupled with a new high-temperature- capable bonding process...

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Quad First Stage Processor: A Four-Channel Digitizer and Digital Beam-Forming Processor

A 4-channel digitizer was designed, built, and tested. The very large, complex board enables SweepSAR. The proposed Deformation, Eco-Systems, and Dynamics of Ice Radar (DESDynl-R) Lband SAR instrument employs multiple digital channels to optimize resolution...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Methods for Mitigating Space Radiation Effects, Fault Detection and Correction, and Processing Sensor Data

The Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) architecture being developed for space applications requires that sensor data be autonomously sampled and transmitted to the system network. This transmission needs to occur on a predetermined, fixed...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Compact Ka-Band Antenna Feed with Double Circularly Polarized Capability

NASA has an interest in utilizing the Ka-band frequency allocation. One of the main reasons for migrating to Kaband is the need for higher frequency bandwidth to enable higher data rates. A dual circular polarized wideband antenna for Ka-band communications applications was...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

During the past two decades, large, high-density, high-input/output (I/O) electronic interconnect SMT (surface mount technology) packages such as ceramic...

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Particle Filter Simulation and Analysis Enabling Non-Traditional Navigation

Particle filters (PFs) offer the possibility of addressing many unsolved problems in orbit determination and prediction. This work builds on an existing GSRP (Graduate Student Researchers Project) effort to incorporate a particle filter into GSFC’s (Goddard Space...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Current-Controlled Output Driver for Directly Coupled Loads

Driving loads such as electric motors, relay coils, and solenoids requires a relatively large initial pull-in or start-up current from a driver in order to initiate operation of the load. To maintain continuous operation, the hold or running operating current required for a load may be...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The Subgrid-Scale Scalar Variance Under Supercritical Pressure Conditions

A quantity called “the conserved scalar” is very important in the modeling of turbulent reactive flows in large eddy simulations because, if it can be defined, it numerically simplifies the solution of the conservation equations by confining the reaction term to a...

Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Interactive Inventory Monitoring

The invention is a radio frequency identity detector (RFID)-based system that assists a user in location of an item, in response to an electronic query for the status of the item. The item(s) being sought may be a book on a library shelf, an item from a store inventory, a legal or financial document, a medical...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Quasi-Terminator Orbits for Mapping Small Primitive Bodies

A common objective for primitive body missions (i.e., those to asteroids, comets, and small planetary moons) is to map the target body surface as completely as possible. Ideally, this map is constructed from a large collection of images containing multiple views of every point on the...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sensor for Spatial Detection of Single- Event Effects in Semiconductor-Based Electronics

Ionizing radiation has a detrimental effect on digital electronics that need to operate in extraterrestrial environments. As space missions become longer and more complex, there is a need for flight computers that can withstand harsh radiation environments...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Automated Generation of Adaptive Filter Using a Genetic Algorithm and Cyclic Rule Reduction

Modern datasets consisting of retrievals from space-based missions have target results, but often are accompanied by hundreds or thousands of other retrieved parameters or facts regarding a particular retrieval (e.g., pressure, temperature, spectral...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Parallel Particle Filter Toolkit

Research on using inexpensive and personal-level parallel computing architectures to speed up the implementations of the class of particle filters has been conducted. This study leverages NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and multi-core CPUs (central processing units) that are quickly becoming commonly...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Centering a DDR Strobe in the Middle of a Data Packet

The Orion CEV Northstar ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) project required a DDR (double data rate) memory bus driver/receiver (DDR PHY block) to interface with external DDR memory. The DDR interface (JESD79C) is based on a source synchronous strobe (DQS\) that is sent along with...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Using a Commercial Ethernet PHY Device in a Radiation Environment

This work involved placing a commercial Ethernet PHY on its own power boundary, with limited current supply, and providing detection methods to determine when the device is not operating and when it needs either a reset or power-cycle. The device must be radiation- tested and free...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Ultra-Wideband, Dual-Polarized, Beam- Steering P-Band Array Antenna

A dual-polarized, wide-bandwidth (200 MHz for one polarization, 100 MHz for the orthogonal polarization) antenna array at P-band was designed to be driven by NASA’s EcoSAR digital beam former. EcoSAR requires two wide P-band antenna arrays mounted on the wings of an aircraft,...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Submerged AUV Charging Station

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are becoming increasingly important for military surveillance and mine detection. Most AUVs are battery powered and have limited lifetimes of a few days to a few weeks. This greatly limits the distance that AUVs can travel underwater. Using a series of submerged AUV charging...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector With Selective Polarization Coupling

A conventional low-noise detector requires a technique to both absorb incident power and convert it to an electrical signal at cryogenic temperatures. This innovation combines low-noise detector and readout functionality into one device while maintaining high absorption,...

Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Flexible Microstrip Circuits for Superconducting Electronics

Flexible circuits with superconducting wiring atop polyimide thin films are being studied to connect large numbers of wires between stages in cryogenic apparatus with low heat load. The feasibility of a full microstrip process, consisting of two layers of superconducting material...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

Four application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that provide sensing, actuation, and power conversion capabilities for distributed control in a high-temperature (over 200...

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers

As small gasoline engines evolve to use more sophisticated electronic engine controls, new challenges will face the smallengine manufacturers, including...

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