Software

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

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Briefs: Software
A team has programmed a robotic spacecraft simulator with what it calls s-FEAST: Safe Fault Estimation via Active Sensing Tree Search. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
This advance could enable quantum computers that use programmable optical qubits or “spin-photon qubits” to connect quantum nodes across a remote network. It could also advance a quantum internet that is not only more secure but could also transmit more data than current optical-fiber information technologies. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A team at MIT has moved beyond traditional trial-and-error methods to create materials with extraordinary performance through computational design. Their new system integrates physical experiments, physics-based simulations, and neural networks to navigate the discrepancies often found between theoretical models and practical results. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
Researchers have successfully developed a wide-bandwidth, low-polarization semiconductor optical amplifier based on tensile-strained quantum wells. The study, published in the journal Sensors, presents a significant advancement in optical communication technology, addressing the growing demand for higher bandwidth and lower polarization sensitivity. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Owl-Wing Study Could Aid in Developing Low-Noise Fluid Machinery
The study could aid in understanding the role of TE fringes in the silent flight of owls and can inspire biomimetic designs that could lead to the development of low-noise fluid machinery. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Software
Penn Engineers have developed a new algorithm that allows robots to react to complex physical contact in real time, making it possible for autonomous robots to succeed at previously impossible tasks, like controlling the motion of a sliding object. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A new approach uses commercial chip fab materials and techniques to fabricate specialized transistors to serve as the building block of the timing device. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Manned Systems
Incorporating a vision-based navigation method, NASA Ames has developed a novel Alternative Position, Navigation, and Timing (APNT) solution for AAM aircraft in environments where GPS is not available. Read on to learn more about it.
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Briefs: Software
To address scalable control of orbital dynamics, NASA Ames Research Center has patented Swarm Orbital Dynamics Advisor (SODA) — a solution that accepts high-level configuration commands and provides the orbital maneuvers needed to achieve the desired type of swarm relative motion. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Lighting
A new type of organic light emitting diode (OLED) could replace bulky night vision goggles with lightweight glasses, making them cheaper and more practical for prolonged use, according to University of Michigan researchers. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
As industrial automation technologies continue to advance, the balance between traditional and open solutions will likely evolve. The emphasis will be on providing versatile platforms that meet varied user needs. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Data Acquisition
A Centralized Data Management Platform
Many organizations have data stored in differing formats and various locations throughout the organization and often outside the organization. It is often difficult to access such data. Developed at NASA Ames Research Center is a novel data management platform for managing interconnected data and its derivatives. Read on to learn more about it.
Briefs: Unmanned Systems
Yen-Ling Kuo at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science is collaborating with a team at the Toyota Research Institute to build language representations of driving behavior that enable a robot to associate the meaning of words with what it sees by watching how humans interact with the environment or by its own interactions with the environment. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
Leveraging Machine Learning and AI to Automate Wearable Tech Design
Defying engineering challenges in record time, researchers at the University of Maryland developed a machine learning model that eliminates hassles in materials design to yield green technologies used in wearable heaters. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A new paper explores pick-and-place solutions with more precision. In precise pick-and-place, also known as kitting, the robot transforms an unstructured arrangement of objects into an organized arrangement. The approach, dubbed SimPLE (Simulation to Pick Localize and placE), learns to pick, regrasp and place objects using the object’s computer-aided design model. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
A new algorithm may make robots safer by making them more aware of human inattentiveness. In simulations, it improved safety by about a maximum of 80 percent and efficiency by about a maximum of 38 percent compared to existing methods. Read on to learn more about it.
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Briefs: Software
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a proof-of-concept sensor that may usher in a new era for millimeter wave radars. They call its design a “mission impossible” made possible. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
High-performance servo motion is now more affordable and accessible than ever due to integrated controllers, making the technology viable even for applications, which could not formerly support the cost or complexity of traditional implementations. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
The sensing and control principles used in this framework could lead to new tactile sensors that can be attached to any existing robotics system, offering new sensing and control paradigms for safe human-robot interaction without altering the robot’s original design. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
Scientists have pioneered a method for using semiconductor technology to manufacture processors that significantly enhance the efficiency of transmitting vast amounts of data across the globe. The innovation is poised to transform the landscape of wireless communication. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
Because they can go where humans can’t, robots are especially suited for safely working with hazardous nuclear waste. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have designed and tested a remote-controlled, dual-arm telerobotics system with human-like capabilities that has the potential to revolutionize hazardous waste clean-up and holds potential for broader applications.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Innovators at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) have developed computer vision software that derives target posture determinations quickly and then instructs an operator how to properly align a robotic end-effector with a target that they are trying to grapple.
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Briefs: Software
Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed and successfully flight tested a high-performance computing platform, known as the Descent and Landing Computer (DLC), to suit the demands of safe, autonomous, extraterrestrial spacecraft landings for robotic and human exploration missions.
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Briefs: Software
A promising way to study disease and test new drugs is to use cellular and engineered tissue models in a dish, but existing methods to study heart cell contraction and calcium handling require a good deal of manual work, are prone to errors, and need expensive specialized equipment. Researchers at Columbia Engineering unveiled a groundbreaking new tool today that addresses these challenges head-on: BeatProfiler.
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Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
The team hopes this project can better position renewable energy as the primary source of electricity in the industry sector. The project aims to enable researchers and renewable energy installation companies to determine the optimal number of solar panels and wind turbines needed to prevent over or under production.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Professor Angela Schoellig from the Technical University of Munich uses ChatGPT to develop choreographies for swarms of drones to perform along to music. An additional safety filter prevents mid-air collisions. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Software
Because it requires no battery that must be recharged or replaced, and because it requires no special wiring, such a sensor could be embedded in a hard-to-reach place, like inside the inner workings of a ship’s engine. There, it could automatically gather data on the machine’s power consumption and operations for long periods of time.
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Briefs: Software
Microelectronics face a key challenge because of their small size. To avoid overheating, microelectronics need to consume only a fraction of the electricity of conventional electronics while still operating at peak performance. Researchers have achieved a breakthrough that could allow for a new kind of microelectronic material to do just that.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An innovative approach to artificial intelligence (AI) enables reconstructing a broad field of data, such as overall ocean temperature, from a small number of field-deployable sensors using low-powered edge computing, with broad applications across industry, science, and medicine.
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