Electronics & Software

A paper presents further results of continuing research reported in several previous NASA Tech Briefs articles, the two most recent being “Stochastic Representations of Chaos Using Terminal Attractors” (NPO-41519), [Vol. 30, No. 5 (May 2006), page 57] and “Physical Principle for...

The silicon substrate carrier was created so that a large-area array (in this case 62,000+ elements of a microshutter array) and a variety of discrete passive and active devices could be mounted on a single board, similar to a printed circuit board. However, the density and...

A method and apparatus were developed to minimize latency (time delay) in virtual environment (VE) and other discrete-time computer-based systems that require real-time display in response to sensor inputs. Latency in such systems is due to the sum of the finite time required for information...

PrimeSupplier, a supplier cross-program and element-impact simulation model, with supplier solvency indicator (SSI), has been developed so that the shuttle program can see early indicators of supplier and product line stability, while identifying the...

A conceptual “intelligent assistant” and an artificial-intelligence computer program that implements the intelligent assistant have been developed to improve control exerted by a human supervisor over a robot that is so distant that communication between the human and the robot involves...

A document discusses the use of saturating transformers in a matrix arrangement to address individual cells in a high-voltage battery. This arrangement is able to monitor and charge individual cells while limiting the complexity of circuitry in the battery. The arrangement...

A document describes a tool that predicts the likelihood of land-falling tropical storms and hurricanes exceeding specified peak speeds, given the mean wind speed at various heights of up to 500 feet (150 meters) above ground level. Empirical models to calculate mean and standard deviation of...

Two tools were developed for designing station-keeping trajectories and estimating delta-v requirements for designing missions to a small body such as a comet or asteroid. This innovation uses NPOPT, a non-sparse, general-purpose sequential quadratic programming (SQP) optimizer and the...

An integrated modeling tool has been developed to include multi-body dynamics, orbital dynamics, and touch-and-go dynamics for spacecraft covering three types of end- effectors: a sticky pad, a brush-wheel sampler, and a pellet gun.

Agora software is a simulation of spacecraft attitude and orbit dynamics. It supports spacecraft models composed of multiple rigid bodies or flexible structural models. Agora simulates multiple spacecraft simultaneously, supporting rendezvous, proximity operations,...

Port-O-Sim is a software application that supports engineering modeling and simulation of launch-range systems and subsystems, as well as the vehicles that operate on them. It is flexible, distributed, object-oriented, and real-time. A scripting language is used to configure an array of simulation objects...

A computer program loads configuration code into a Xilinx field-programmable gate array (FPGA), reads back and verifies that code, reloads the code if an error is detected, and monitors the performance of the FPGA for errors in the presence of radiation. The program consists mainly of a set of VHDL files (wherein...

The DSN Simulator (wherein “DSN” signifies NASA’s Deep Space Network) is an updated version of the software described in “DSN Array Simulator” (NPO-44506), Software Tech Briefs (Special supplement to NASA Tech Briefs), Vol. 32, No. 9 (September 2008), page 26. To recapitulate: This software is used for computational modeling...

The Proton Upset Monte Carlo Simulation (PROPSET) program calculates the frequency of on-orbit upsets in computer chips (for given orbits such as Low Earth Orbit, Lunar Orbit, and the like) from proton bombardment based on the results of heavy ion testing alone. The software simulates the bombardment of modern...

The DEBRIS software predicts the trajectories of debris particles shed by a space-shuttle launch vehicle during ascent, to aid in assessing potential harm to the space-shuttle orbiter and crew. The user specifies the location of release and other initial conditions for a debris particle. DEBRIS...

The Oxygen Generation System Laptop Bus Controller Flight Software was developed to allow the International Space Station (ISS) program to activate specific components of the Oxygen Generation System (OGS) to perform a checkout of key hardware operation in a microgravity environment, as...

A computer program implements a thrust impulse measurement (TIM) filter, which processes data on changes in velocity and attitude of a spacecraft to estimate the small impulsive forces and torques exerted by the thrusters of the spacecraft reaction control system (RCS). The velocity-change data...

The SSRMS Module 1 software is part of a system for monitoring an adaptive, closed-loop control of the motions of a robotic arm in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, where buoyancy in a pool of water is used to simulate the weightlessness of outer space. This software is so named because the...

Digital Camera Control Software (DCCS) is a computer program for controlling a boom and a boom-mounted camera used to inspect the external surface of a space shuttle in orbit around the Earth. Running in a laptop computer in the space-shuttle crew cabin, DCCS commands integrated displays and controls. By...

The RMDMES is a tool for modeling the disturbances imparted on spacecraft by spinning reaction wheels. Reaction wheels are usually the largest disturbance source on a precision pointing spacecraft, and can be the dominating source of pointing error. Accurate knowledge of the...