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: Software
Rotating-Pump Design Code
Pump Design (PUMPDES) is a computer program for designing a rotating pump for liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, water, methane, or ethane. Using realistic properties of these fluids provided by another program called "GASPAK," this code performs a station-by-station, mean-line analysis along the pump flow...
Briefs: Software
SAUSAGE (Still Another Utility for SAR Analysis that's General and Extensible) is a computer program for modeling (see figure) the performance of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) or interferometric...
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Briefs: Software
Spectral Analysis Tool 6.2 for Windows
Spectral Analysis Tool 6.2 is the latest version of a computer program that assists in analysis of interference between radio signals of the types most commonly used in Earth/spacecraft radio communications. [An earlier version was reported in "Software for Analyzing Earth/ Spacecraft Radio Interference"...
Briefs: Software
Multi-Platform Avionics Simulator (MPAvSim) is a software library for development of simulations of avionic hardware. MPAvSim facilitates simulation of interactions between flight software and such avionic...
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Briefs: Software
The Synergistic Engineering Environment (SEE) is a system of software dedicated to aiding the understanding of space mission operations. The SEE can integrate disparate sets of data with analytical...
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Briefs: Software
TetrUSS is a comprehensive suite of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) programs that won the Software of the Year award in 1996 and has found increasing use in government, academia, and...
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Briefs: Software
DRAGONFLOW is a computer program that solves the Navier-Stokes equations of flows in complexly shaped three- dimensional regions discretized by use of a direct replacement of arbitrary grid...
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Briefs: Software
The High Gain Antenna Pointing and Obstruction Avoidance software performs computations for pointing a Mars Rover high-gain antenna for communication with Earth while (1) avoiding...
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Briefs: Software
GeoFEST(P) is a computer program written for use in the QuakeSim project, which is devoted to development and improvement of means of computational simulation of earthquakes. GeoFEST(P) models...
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Briefs: Software
A computer program implements stochastic evolutionary algorithms for planning and optimizing collision-free paths for robots and their jointed limbs. Stochastic evolutionary algorithms...
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Briefs: Software
Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a method for automatically tracking the polar caps on Mars as they advance and recede each year (see figure). The...
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Briefs: Software
The LINFLUX-AE computer code predicts flutter and forced responses of blades and vanes in turbomachines under subsonic, transonic, and supersonic flow conditions. The code solves the...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
IMU/GPS System Provides Position and Attitude Data
A special navigation system is being developed to provide high-quality information on the position and attitude of a moving platform (an aircraft or spacecraft), for use in pointing and stabilization of a hyperspectral remote-sensing system carried aboard the platform. The system also serves to...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Figure 1 depicts a switching circuit that drives a piezoelectric pump at a high voltage with a polarity that alternates at the desired mechanical pump frequency. This circuit offers...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Developing Signal Pattern Recognition Programs
Pattern Interpretation and Recognition Application Toolkit Environment (PIRATE) is a block-oriented software system that aids the development of application programs that analyze signals in real time in order to recognize signal patterns that are indicative of conditions or events of interest. PIRATE...
Briefs: Information Technology
An algorithm that effects fast lossless compression of multispectral-image data is based on low-complexity, proven adaptive filtering algorithms. This algorithm is intended for use in...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Improved Solar-Radiation-Pressure Models for GPS Satellites
A report describes a series of computational models conceived as an improvement over prior models for determining effects of solar-radiation pressure on orbits of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. These models are based on fitting coefficients of Fourier functions of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Algorithms for Maneuvering Spacecraft Around Small Bodies
A document describes mathematical derivations and applications of autonomous guidance algorithms for maneuvering spacecraft in the vicinities of small astronomical bodies like comets or asteroids. These algorithms compute fuel- or energy-optimal trajectories for typical maneuvers by solving...
Briefs: Information Technology
Practical Simulator Network (PSimNet) is a set of data communication protocols designed especially for use in handling messages between computers that are engaging cooperatively in...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Statistical Detection of Atypical Aircraft Flights
A computational method and software to implement the method have been developed to sift through vast quantities of digital flight data to alert human analysts to aircraft flights that are statistically atypical in ways that signify that safety may be adversely affected. On a typical day, there are...
Briefs: Information Technology
An automated system to assist a General Aviation (GA) pilot in improving situational awareness of weather in flight is now undergoing development. This development is prompted by the observation...
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Briefs: Information Technology
The Aviation Safety Monitoring and Modeling (ASMM) Project of NASA’s Aviation Safety program is cultivating sources of data and developing automated computer hardware and software to facilitate...
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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A three-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) W-band amplifier has been constructed and tested in a continuing effort to develop amplifiers as well as oscillators, frequency...
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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A proposed improved method of externally controlled time multiplexing of the readouts of focal plane arrays of pairs of stacked quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) that...
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Briefs: Software
Implementing Access to Data Distributed on Many Processors
A reference architecture is defined for an object-oriented implementation of domains, arrays, and distributions written in the programming language Chapel.
Briefs: Software
2D/3D Visual Tracker for Rover Mast
A visual-tracker computer program controls an articulated mast on a Mars rover to keep a designated feature (a target) in view while the rover drives toward the target, avoiding obstacles. Several prior visual tracker programs have been tested on rover platforms; most require very small and well-estimated motion...
Briefs: Software
Measurement and Controls Data Acquisition System
Measurement and Controls Data Acquisition System (MCDAS) is an application program that integrates the functions of two stand-alone programs: one for acquisition of data, the other for controls.
Briefs: Software
Adding Hierarchical Objects to Relational Database General-Purpose XML-Based Information Managements
NETMARK is a flexible, high-throughput software system for managing, storing, and rapid searching of unstructured and semi-structured documents. NETMARK transforms such documents from their original highly complex, constantly changing, heterogeneous...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Networks of video cameras, meteorological sensors, and ancillary electronic equipment are under development in collaboration among NASA Ames Research Center, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the...
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