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.

8,33,42,44,45,47,52,54,68
-1
3810
30
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The shapes of waveforms generated by commercially available analytical separation devices, such as some types of mass spectrometers and differential mobility spectrometers are, in general, inadequate...
Feature Image
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Group-III Nitride Field Emitters
Field-emission devices (cold cathodes) having low electron affinities can be fabricated through lattice- mismatched epitaxial growth of nitrides of elements from group III of the periodic table. Field emission of electrons from solid surfaces is typically utilized in vacuum microelectronic devices, including some...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An improved broadband planar magic-T junction that incorporates microstrip/slotline transitions has been developed. In comparison with a prior broadband magic-T junction incorporating...
Feature Image
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A system that comprises optical and electronic subsystems has been developed as an infrastructure for a spectroradiometer that measures time- dependent spectral radiance of the daylight sky,...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Toward Better Modeling of Supercritical Turbulent Mixing
A study was done as part of an effort to develop computational models representing turbulent mixing under thermodynamic supercritical (here, high pressure) conditions. The question was whether the large-eddy simulation (LES) approach, developed previously for atmospheric-pressure...
Briefs: Imaging
An alternative approach has been devised for encoding image data in compliance with JPEG 2000, the most recent still-image data- compression standard of the Joint Photographic Experts Group....
Feature Image
Briefs: Information Technology
An intelligent integrated health management system (IIHMS) incorporates major improvements over prior such systems. The particular IIHMS is implemented for any system defined as a...
Feature Image
Briefs: Information Technology
Delay Banking for Managing Air Traffic
Delay banking has been invented to enhance air-traffic management in a way that would increase the degree of fairness in assigning arrival, departure, and en-route delays and trajectory deviations to aircraft impacted by congestion in the national airspace system. In delay banking, an aircraft operator...
Briefs: Software
Constrained fitting for airfoil curvature smoothing (CFACS) is a spline-based method of interpolating airfoil surface coordinates (and, concomitantly, airfoil thicknesses) between specified discrete...
Feature Image
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Reducing Spaceborne-Doppler-Radar Rainfall-Velocity Error
A combined frequency- time (CFT) spectral moment estimation technique has been devised for calculating rainfall velocity from measurement data acquired by a nadir-looking spaceborne Doppler weather radar system. Prior spectral moment estimation techniques used for this purpose are based...
Briefs: Software
The propagation of shear (S) and compression (P) waves within the Earth represents a critically important phenomenon for geologists. For many years, geologists have developed...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Increasing the temperature at which jet aircraft engines operate would significantly improve thrust and fuel efficiency with reduced emissions. However, current engines operate...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Keuka Studios designs and manufactures custom architectural iron work and cable railings for commercial and home use. Keuka Studios first designs a product in CAD, CNC machines it to shape, and then...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Displaying CFD Solution Parameters on Arbitrary Cut Planes
USMC6 is a Fortran 90 computer program for post-processing in support of visualization of flows simulated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The name "USMC6" is partly an abbreviation of "TetrUSS — USM3D Solution Cutter," reflecting its origin as a post-processor for use with USM3D...
Briefs: Software
Flow Solver for Incompressible 2-D Drive Cavity
This software solves the Navier- Stokes equations for the incompressible driven cavity flow problem. The code uses second-order finite differencing on a staggered grid using the Chorin projection method. The resulting intermediate Poisson equation is efficiently solved using the fast Fourier...
Briefs: Software
Flow Solver for Incompressible Rectangular Domains
This is an extension of the Flow Solver for Incompressible 2-D Drive Cavity software described in the preceding article. It solves the Navier- Stokes equations for incompressible flow using finite differencing on a uniform, staggered grid. There is a runtime choice of either central differencing or...
Briefs: Aerospace
Simulating Avionics Upgrades to the Space Shuttles
Cockpit Avionics Prototyping Environment (CAPE) is a computer program that simulates the functions of proposed upgraded avionics for a space shuttle. In CAPE, pre-existing space-shuttle-simulation programs are merged with a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) display-development program, yielding a...
Briefs: Aerospace
A computer program called "phxlrsim" simulates the behavior of the radar system used as an altimeter and velocimeter during the entry, descent, and landing phases of the Phoenix lander spacecraft....
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Injecting Artificial Memory Errors Into a Running Computer Program
Single-event upsets (SEUs) or "bitflips" are computer memory errors caused by radiation. BITFLIPS (Basic Instrumentation Tool for Fault Localized Injection of Probabilistic SEUs) is a computer program that deliberately injects SEUs into another computer program, while the latter is...
Briefs: Software
A computer program has been written as an essential part of an electronic temperature control system for a space-borne instrument that contains several zones. The system was developed because...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Firmware for implementing a digital phasemeter within a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) has been devised. In the original application of this firmware, the phase that one seeks to measure is the...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Post-Flight Estimation of Motion of Space Structures: Part 1
A computer program estimates the relative positions and orientations of two space structures from data on the angular positions and distances of fiducial objects on one structure as measured by a target-tracking electronic camera and laser range finders on another structure. The program...
Briefs: Software
Post-Flight Estimation of Motion of Space Structures: Part 2
A computer program related to the one described in the immediately preceding article estimates the relative position of two space structures that are hinged to each other. The input to the program consists of time-series data on distances, measured by two range finders at different...
Briefs: Software
Simulating Operation of a Large Turbofan Engine
The Commercial Modular Aero- Propulsion System Simulation (CMAPSS) is a computer program for simulating transient operation of a commercial turbofan engine that can generate as much as 90,000 lb (≈0.4 MN) of thrust. It includes a power-management system that enables simulation of open- or...
Briefs: Software
MagBear12 is a computer code (see figure) that assists in the design of radial, heteropolar active magnetic bearings (AMBs). MagBear12 was developed to help in designing the system...
Feature Image
Briefs: Software
Computational Simulation of a Water-Cooled Heat Pump
A Fortran-language computer program for simulating the operation of a water-cooled vapor-compression heat pump in any orientation with respect to gravity has been developed by modifying a prior general-purpose heat-pump design code used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Although it is...
Briefs: Software
Computational Model of Heat Transfer on the ISS
SCRAM Lite ("SCRAM" signifies "Station Compact Radiator Analysis Model") is a computer program for analyzing convective and radiative heat transfer and heat-rejection performance of coolant loops and radiators, respectively, in the active thermal-control systems of the International Space Station...
Briefs: Software
Optimization of Angular-Momentum Biases of Reaction Wheels
RBOT [RWA Bias Optimization Tool (wherein "RWA" signifies "Reaction Wheel Assembly")] is a computer program designed for computing angular momentum biases for reaction wheels used for providing spacecraft pointing in various directions as required for scientific observations. RBOT is...
Briefs: Aerospace
Short- and Long-Term Propagation of Spacecraft Orbits
The Planetary Observer Planning Software (POPS) comprises four computer programs for use in designing orbits of spacecraft about planets. These programs are the Planetary Observer High Precision Orbit Propagator (POHOP), the Planetary Observer Long-Term Orbit Predictor (POLOP), the Planetary...

Videos