Electronics & Software

The performance of an optical system (for example, a telescope) is limited by the misalignments and manufacturing imperfections of the optical elements in the system. The impact of these misalignments and imperfections can be quantified by the phase variations imparted on light traveling through the system. Phase retrieval...

This software allows one to down-sample a measured surface map for model validation, not only without introducing any re-sampling errors, but also eliminating the existing measurement noise and measurement errors.

The objective of this effort was to show that real-time aircraft control-surface hinge-moment information could be used to provide a robust and reliable prediction of vehicle performance and control authority degradation. For a given airfoil section with a control surface — be it a wing with an aileron,...

A generalized framework has been developed for systems validation that can be applied to both traditional and autonomous systems. The framework consists of an automated test case generation and execution system called Nemesis that rapidly and thoroughly identifies flaws or vulnerabilities within a system. By applying...

The frequency to voltage converter analog front end evaluation prototype (F2V AFE) is an evaluation board designed for comparison of different methods of accurately extracting the frequency of a sinusoidal input signal. A configurable input stage is routed to one or several of five separate,...

Faults in wiring systems are a serious concern for the aerospace and aeronautic (commercial, military, and civilian) industries. Circuit failures and vehicle accidents have occurred and have been attributed to faulty wiring created by open and/or short circuits. Often, such circuit failures...

Clock compensation for Gigabit Ethernet is necessary because the clock recovered from the 1.25 Gb/s serial data stream has the potential to be 200 ppm slower or faster than the system clock. The serial data is converted to 10-bit parallel data at a 125 MHz rate on a clock recovered from the...

Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are used in scientific and communications instruments on all spacecraft. As data rates get higher, and as the transition is made from parallel ADC designs to high-speed, serial, low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) designs, the need...

Generic, object-oriented fault models, built according to causal-directed graph theory, have been integrated into an overall software architecture dedicated to monitoring and predicting the health of mission- critical systems. Processing over the generic fault...

To advance the acceptance and incorporation of sustainable remediation metrics into the larger body of remedial work, the Center for Sustainable Groundwater and Soil Solutions (CSGSS) within the Savannah River National Laboratory (SNRL) created the Sustainable Remediation Initiative (SRI).

Traditionally, nodes in a sensor network simply collect data and then pass it on to a centralized node that archives, distributes, and possibly analyzes the data. However, analysis at the individual nodes could enable faster detection of anomalies or other...

detect minute amounts of emitted electromagnetic energy. Calibration of these receivers is vital to the accuracy of the measurements. Traditional calibration techniques depend on calibration reference internal to the receivers as reference for the calibration of the observed...

A novel cognitive computing architecture is conceptualized for processing multiple channels of multi-modal sensory data streams simultaneously, and fusing the information in real time to generate intelligent reaction sequences. This unique architecture is capable of...

For the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Command and Data Handling subsystem consisted of several electronic hardware assemblies that were connected with SpaceWire serial links. Electronic hardware would be commanded/controlled and telemetry data was obtained using the SpaceWire links. Prior...

An existing three-channel analog servo loop controller has been redesigned for piezoelectric-transducer-based (PZTbased) etalon control applications to a digital servo loop controller. This change offers several improvements over the previous analog controller, including software control over...

Retaining good key decision records is critical to ensuring the success of a project or operation. Having adequately documented decisions with supporting documents and rationale can greatly reduce the amount of rework or reinvention over a project’s, vehicle’s, or facility’s lifecycle. Stennis...

Enhanced Graphics for Extended Scale Range is a computer program for rendering fly-through views of scene models that include visible objects differing in size by large orders of magnitude. An example would be a scene showing a person in a park at night with the moon, stars, and galaxies in the background...

The Debris Examination Using Ballistic and Radar Integrated Software (DEBRIS) program was developed to provide rapid and accurate analysis of debris observed by the NASA Debris Radar (NDR). This software provides a greatly improved analysis capacity over earlier manual processes,...

The DDS SDOGS Integration Manager (DSIM) provides translation between native control and status formats for systems within DDS and SDOGS, and the ASIST (Advanced Spacecraft Integration and System Test) control environment in the SDO MOC (Solar...

can be used to perform an Eclipse-Free-Time (EFT) assessment of IRIS (Infrared Imaging Surveyor) mission orbits. EFT is defined to be those time intervals longer than one day during which the IRIS spacecraft is not in the Earth’s shadow. Program IRIS_EFT implements a special perturbation of orbital...

An update has been performed to software designed to do very rapid automated measurements of craters created in sandy substrates by rocket exhaust on liftoff. The previous software was optimized for pristine lab geometry and lighting conditions. This software has been enhanced to...

MATLAB Stability and Control Toolbox (MASCOT) utilizes geometric, aerodynamic, and inertial inputs to calculate air vehicle stability in a variety of critical flight conditions. The code is based on fundamental, non-linear equations of motion and is able to translate results into...

PatCon code was developed to help mission designers run trade studies on launch and arrival times for any given planet. Initially developed in Fortran, the required inputs included launch date, arrival date, and other orbital parameters of the launch planet and arrival planets at the given dates. These parameters...

Ring Image Analyzer software analyzes images to recognize elliptical patterns. It determines the ellipse parameters (axes ratio, centroid coordinate, tilt angle). The program attempts to recognize elliptical fringes (e.g., Newton Rings) on a photograph and determine their centroid position, the short-to-long-axis ratio, and the...

The SureTrak Probability of Impact Display software was developed for use during rocket launch operations. The software displays probability of impact information for each ship near the hazardous area during the time immediately preceding the launch of an unguided vehicle.