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: 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...
Briefs: Software
Rapid Diagnostics of Onboard Sequences
Keeping track of sequences onboard a spacecraft is challenging. When reviewing Event Verification Records (EVRs) of sequence executions on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER), operators often found themselves wondering which version of a named sequence the EVR corresponded to. The lack of this information...
Briefs: Software
Mars Relay Lander and Orbiter Overflight Profile Estimation
This software allows science and mission operations to view graphs of geometric overflights of satellites and landers within the Mars (or other planetary) networks. It improves on the MaROS Web interface within any modern Web browser, in that it adds new capabilities to the MaROS suite.
Briefs: Software
MER Telemetry Processor
MERTELEMPROC processes telemetered data in data product format and generates Experiment Data Records (EDRs) for many instruments (HAZCAM, NAVCAM, PANCAM, microscopic imager, Mössbauer spectrometer, APXS, RAT, and EDLCAM) on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER). If the data is compressed, then MERTELEMPROC decompresses the data...
Briefs: Software
pyam: Python implementation of YaM
pyam is a software development framework with tools for facilitating the rapid development of software in a concurrent software development environment. pyam provides solutions for development challenges associated with software reuse, managing multiple software configurations, developing software product lines,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Numerical Simulation of Rocket Exhaust Interaction With Lunar Soil
This technology development originated from the need to assess the debris threat resulting from soil material erosion induced by landing spacecraft rocket plume impingement on extraterrestrial planetary surfaces. The impact of soil debris was observed to be highly detrimental during...
Briefs: Information Technology
The current Mission Control Center (MCC) is dedicated to the execution of human spaceflight missions. As the future of NASA and human space evolves, it is clear that...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Particle Filtering for Model- Based Anomaly Detection in Sensor Networks
A novel technique has been developed for anomaly detection of rocket engine test stand (RETS) data. The objective was to develop a system that post-processes a csv file containing the sensor readings and activities (time-series) from a rocket engine test, and detects any...
Briefs: Information Technology
A Posteriori Study of a DNS Database Describing Super - critical Binary-Species Mixing
Currently, the modeling of supercritical-pressure flows through Large Eddy Simulation (LES) uses models derived for atmospheric-pressure flows. Those atmospheric-pressure flows do not exhibit the particularities of high density-gradient magnitude features...
Briefs: Information Technology
Scalable SCPPM Decoder
A decoder was developed that decodes a serial concatenated pulse position modulation (SCPPM) encoded information sequence. The decoder takes as input a sequence of four bit loglikelihood ratios (LLR) for each PPM slot in a codeword via a XAUI 10-Gb/s quad optical fiber interface. If the decoder is unavailable, it passes the...
Briefs: Software
QuakeSim 2.0
QuakeSim 2.0 improves understanding of earthquake processes by providing modeling tools and integrating model applications and various heterogeneous data sources within a Web services environment. QuakeSim is a multi-source, synergistic, data-intensive environment for modeling the behavior of earthquake faults individually, and as part...
Briefs: Software
HURON (HUman and Robotic Optimization Network) Multi-Agent Temporal Activity Planner/ Scheduler
HURON solves the problem of how to optimize a plan and schedule for assigning multiple agents to a temporal sequence of actions (e.g., science tasks). Developed as a generic planning and scheduling tool, HURON has been used to optimize space mission...
Briefs: Software
MPST Software: MoonKommand
This software automatically processes Sally Ride Science (SRS) delivered MoonKAM camera control files (ccf) into uplink products for the GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B spacecraft as part of an education and public outreach (EPO) extension to the Grail Mission. Once properly validated and deemed safe for execution onboard the...
Briefs: Lighting
What kind of food will astronauts eat and what is the best way to grow it during deep space exploration missions? A group of plant biologists is seeking the answers as it...
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Briefs: Lighting
A new versatile measurement system devised by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) accurately and quickly measures the electric power...
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Briefs: Energy
Today's light-emitting diode light bulbs have a slight environmental edge over compact fluorescent lamps, and that gap is expected to grow significantly as technology and...
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Briefs: Software
Visual System for Browsing, Analysis, and Retrieval of Data (ViSBARD)
ViSBARD software provides a way of visualizing multiple vector and scalar quantities as measured by many spacecraft at once. The data are displayed three-dimensionally along the orbits that may be shown either as connected lines or as points. The data display allows the rapid...
Briefs: Information Technology
Modular, Autonomous Command and Data Handling Software With Built-In Simulation and Test
The spacecraft system that plays the greatest role throughout the program lifecycle is the Command and Data Handling System (C&DH), along with the associated algorithms and software. The C&DH takes on this role as cost driver because it is the brains of the...
Briefs: Software
Surface Temperature Data Analysis
Small global mean temperature changes may have significant to disastrous consequences for the Earth’s climate if they persist for an extended period. Obtaining global means from local weather reports is hampered by the uneven spatial distribution of the reliably reporting weather stations. Methods had to be...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The objectives of this work were to take the initial steps needed to develop a field programmable gate array (FPGA)- based wideband digital radiometer backend (>500 MHz bandwidth) that will enabl...
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