Tech Briefs

Electronics & Software

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

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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A 1.6-THz power-combined Schottky frequency tripler was designed to handle approximately 30 mW input power. The design of Schottky-based triplers at this...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
FPGA Vision Data Architecture
JPL has produced a series of FPGA (field programmable gate array) vision algorithms that were written with custom interfaces to get data in and out of each vision module. Each module has unique requirements on the data interface, and further vision modules are continually being developed, each with their own custom...
Briefs: Software
System for Contributing and Discovering Derived Mission and Science Data
A system was developed to provide a new mechanism for members of the mission community to create and contribute new science data to the rest of the community. Mission tools have allowed members of the mission community to share first order data (data that is created by the...
Briefs: Software
Remote Viewer for Maritime Robotics Software
This software is a viewer program for maritime robotics software that provides a 3D visualization of the boat pose, its position history, ENC (Electrical Nautical Chart) information, camera images, map overlay, and detected tracks.
Briefs: Information Technology
Stackfile Database
This software provides storage retrieval and analysis functionality for managing satellite altimetry data. It improves the efficiency and analysis capabilities of existing database software with improved flexibility and documentation. It offers flexibility in the type of data that can be stored. There is efficient retrieval...
Briefs: Software
Reachability Maps for In Situ Operations
This work covers two programs that accomplish the same goal: creation of a “reachability map” from stereo imagery that tells where operators of a robotic arm can reach or touch the surface, and with which instruments. The programs are “marsreach” (for MER) and “phxreach.” These programs make use...
Briefs: Software
JPL Space Telecommunications Radio System Operating Environment
A flight-qualified implementation of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Operating Environment for the JPL-SDR built for the CoNNeCT Project has been developed. It is compliant with the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard, and provides the software...
Briefs: Information Technology
RFI-SIM: RFI Simulation Package
RFI-SIM simulates the RFI environment to estimate the interference from terrestrial emitters into spacecraft, or vice versa. A high-fidelity simulation of the RFI environment has been developed by employing all antenna-related and radar systemrelated parameters of multiple emitters, as well as that of the desired...
Briefs: Information Technology
ION Configuration Editor
The configuration of ION (Interplanetary Overlay Network) network nodes is a manual task that is complex, time-consuming, and error-prone. This program seeks to accelerate this job and produce reliable configurations.
Briefs: Software
Dtest Testing Software
This software runs a suite of arbitrary software tests spanning various software languages and types of tests (unit level, system level, or file comparison tests). The dtest utility can be set to automate periodic testing of large suites of software, as well as running individual tests. It supports distributing multiple tests...
Briefs: Information Technology
IMPaCT — Integration of Missions, Programs, and Core Technologies
IMPaCT enables comprehensive information on current NASA missions, prospective future missions, and the technologies that NASA is investing in, or considering investing in, to be accessed from a common Web-based interface. It allows dependencies to be established between missions...
Briefs: Information Technology
Integrated Systems Health Management (ISHM) Toolkit
A framework of software components has been implemented to facilitate the development of ISHM systems according to a methodology based on Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). This framework is collectively referred to as the Toolkit and was developed using General Atomics’ Health MAP™...
Briefs: Information Technology
Ionospheric Simulation System for Satellite Observations and Global Assimilative Model Experiments — ISOGAME
Modeling and imaging the Earth’s ionosphere as well as understanding its structures, inhomogeneities, and disturbances is a key part of NASA’s Heliophysics Directorate science roadmap. This invention provides a design tool for...
Briefs: Information Technology
Estimating Torque Imparted on Spacecraft Using Telemetry
There have been a number of missions with spacecraft flying by planetary moons with atmospheres; there will be future missions with similar flybys. When a spacecraft such as Cassini flies by a moon with an atmosphere, the spacecraft will experience an atmospheric torque. This torque could be...
Briefs: Information Technology
flexplan: Mission Planning System for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
flexplan is a mission planning and scheduling (MPS) tool that uses soft algorithms to define mission scheduling rules and constraints. This allows the operator to configure the tool for any mission without the need to modify or re-compile code. In addition, flexplan uses an ID...
Briefs: Information Technology
Glaciers and ice sheets modulate global sea level by storing water deposited as snow on the surface, and discharging water back into the ocean through melting. Their physical state can...
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Briefs: Information Technology
PowderSim: Lagrangian Discrete and Mesh-Free Continuum Simulation Code for Cohesive Soils
PowderSim is a calculation tool that combines a discrete-element method (DEM) module, including calibrated interparticle- interaction relationships, with a mesh-free, continuum, SPH (smoothed-particle hydrodynamics) based module that utilizes enhanced,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Basic Operational Robotics Instructional System
The Basic Operational Robotics Instructional System (BORIS) is a sixdegree- of-freedom rotational robotic manipulator system simulation used for training of fundamental robotics concepts, with in-line shoulder, offset elbow, and offset wrist. BORIS is used to provide generic robotics training to...
Briefs: Information Technology
Multiple-Frame Detection of Subpixel Targets in Thermal Image Sequences
The new technology in this approach combines the subpixel detection information from multiple frames of a sequence to achieve a more sensitive detection result, using only the information found in the images themselves. It is taken as a constraint that the method is automated,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Metric Learning to Enhance Hyperspectral Image Segmentation
Unsupervised hyperspectral image segmentation can reveal spatial trends that show the physical structure of the scene to an analyst. They highlight borders and reveal areas of homogeneity and change. Segmentations are independently helpful for object recognition, and assist with automated...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Pattern Generator for Bench Test of Digital Boards
All efforts to develop electronic equipment reach a stage where they need a board test station for each board. The SMAP digital system consists of three board types that interact with each other using interfaces with critical timing. Each board needs to be tested individually before combining into...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Feedback Augmented Sub-Ranging (FASR) Quantizer
This innovation is intended to reduce the size, power, and complexity of pipeline analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that require high resolution and speed along with low power. Digitizers are important components in any application where analog signals (such as light, sound, temperature, etc.) need...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
670-GHz Down- and Up-Converting HEMT-Based Mixers
A large category of scientific investigation takes advantage of the interactions of signals in the frequency range from 300 to 1,000 GHz and higher. This includes astronomy and atmospheric science, where spectral observations in this frequency range give information about molecular abundances,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Real-Time Distributed Embedded Oscillator Operating Frequency Monitoring
A document discusses the utilization of embedded clocks inside of operating network data links as an auxiliary clock source to satisfy local oscillator monitoring requirements. Modem network interfaces, typically serial network links, often contain embedded clocking...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Lidar Electro-Optic Beam Switch with a Liquid Crystal Variable Retarder
A document discusses a liquid crystal variable retarder, an electro-optic element that changes the polarization of an optical beam in response to a low-voltage electronic signal. This device can be fabricated so that the element creates, among other states, a half-wave of...
Briefs: Software
Description and User Instructions for the Quaternion_to_orbit_v3 Software
For a given inertial frame of reference, the software combines the spacecraft orbits with the spacecraft attitude quaternions, and rotates the body-fixed reference frame of a particular spacecraft to the inertial reference frame. The conversion assumes that the two spacecraft...
Briefs: Software
AdapChem
AdapChem software enables high efficiency, low computational cost, and enhanced accuracy on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulations used for combustion studies. The software dynamically allocates smaller, reduced chemical models instead of the larger, full chemistry models to evolve the calculation while ensuring the same...
Briefs: Software
Extended Testability Analysis Tool
The Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool is a software application that supports fault management (FM) by performing testability analyses on the fault propagation model of a given system. Fault management includes the prevention of faults through robust design margins and quality assurance methods, or the...
Briefs: Software
Software Modules for the Proximity-1 Space Link Interleaved Time Synchronization (PITS) Protocol
The Proximity-1 Space Link Interleaved Time Synchronization (PITS) protocol provides time distribution and synchronization services for space systems. A software prototype implementation of the PITS algorithm has been developed that also provides the...

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