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
Software for Detecting Anomalies and Responding to Faults
The Automated Test Monitor computer program provides for continuous monitoring of the operations of a complex system (e.g., a spacecraft). This program implements a rigorous analytic (instead of an ad hoc) technique that prescribes exactly how to express requirements for the operation of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Program Generates Graphics To Help in Planning Space Flights
The Mission Planning Graphical Tool (MPGT) computer program provides a mouse-driven graphical representation of data on a spacecraft and its environment, for use in planning a space flight. MPGT is designed to be a generic software tool that can be configured to analyze any specified...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Low-voltage high-current loads requiring precision voltage regulation are served by power systems that sense voltage remotely at the load. This creates the risk of an overvoltage (OV) condition at the load...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Parallel Visual 3 (pV3) is an interactive computer program that provides selected displays of data generated in numerical simulations - especially simulations that involve parallel...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A microwave-cavity applicator has been developed for coating multiple fibers by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). A prototype of the applicator was used to deposit silicon carbide onto...
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Briefs: Materials
Separating Ethanol From Water Via Differential Miscibility
The differential miscibility of castor oil in ethanol and water would be exploited to separate ethanol from water, according to a proposal. Burning the separated ethanol would produce more energy than would be consumed in the separation process. In contrast, the separation of a small amount...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A seven-element microstrip patch antenna is designed to operate with circular polarization and high gain at a frequency of 2.2875 GHz. The antenna was developed in the early 1990s as a potential...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Monolithic microwave integrated-circuit (MMIC) frequency converters have been developed for use in satellite- and ground-based communications (see figure) at frequencies from about 18 to about...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Integrated Environmental Monitoring System for Clean Rooms
A system of electronic monitoring equipment under central computer control records and displays the readouts of environmental-quality instrumentation in clean rooms in the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. The instruments include airborne-particle counters,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved successive-approximation analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuits are undergoing development for eventual incorporation into focal-plane arrays of photodetectors. These...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A series-connected boost regulator (SCBR) is, as its name suggests, an electronic circuit for boosting a power-supply voltage to a higher and regulated value. The distinguishing feature of an SCBR is an...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Redundant fiber-optic transceivers have been incorporated into the High Speed Data Acquisition System (HSDAS) at Stennis Space Center, where they are used to communicate data acquired by...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved circuits that generate high-voltage pulses for driv-ing Q-switched lasers have been devised. To extract maximum energy from a laser cavity in the form of consistent laser pulses, the Q-switch pulses must rise...
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Briefs: Software
The OMNI time and attendance system is a workstation software system for automated, centralized recording of work time and attendance, and for flexible scheduling of work by...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Documents on Flight Software for the SAMPEX Spacecraft
A collection of four documents contains information on various aspects of the flight software of the Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) spacecraft. The first document is part of a longer paper that presents design requirements for the software; the information in...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) integrated-circuit video image detector of the active-pixel-sensor (APS) type has been designed to implement programmable...
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Briefs: Information Technology
The Radiographic Imaging Performance Support System (RIPSS) is a developmental computer network intended to serve as (1) a central electronic archive for the storage, retrieval, and...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Relatively inexpensive, lightweight biplates for methanol fuel cells have been proposed. The reductions in weight and cost, relative to biplates now used in methanol fuel cells, would be...
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Briefs: Information Technology
Program Estimates Run Time on a Parallel Computer
The Pathcalc computer program estimates the time needed to execute a given application program on a parallel computer of given computation and network capabilities. Pathcalc can be used to analyze the effects of changes in such parameters as central-processing-unit (CPU) speed, network bandwidth,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The Shuttle Projects Information Frontier (SPIF) Telemetry and Command Processor (TAC) is a personal-computer-based data-handling system that serves as part of an interface for transfer...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Vespel parts are made from a unique polymer by DuPont that has been called a problem solver for the semiconductor industry. Vespel SPC is a new generation of Vespel polyimide...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Transmissive light valves based on voltage-tunable color-selective absorption of light in surface plasmons are undergoing development. Like other surface-plasmon-based devices reported in a number of...
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Briefs: Software
Planning and Resource Reasoning Software
"Planning and Resource Reasoning" ("PARR") is the name now applied to a scheduling methodology and to computer programs developed to implement the methodology during the years 1985 through 1987. In PARR, one uses heuristics and reactive techniques to build schedules. PARR software is generic enough to be...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The South Pole TDRSS Relay (SPTR) is a satellite radio relay communication system that provides an Internet link for a station at the South Pole. As the name of the system suggests, the...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A rectangular integrated-circuit focal-plane array of 640 × 486 GaAs/AlxGa1 -xAs quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) constitutes the image sensor in an experimental long-wavelength...
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Briefs: Software
Automated Scheduling and Reporting of Fire Inspections
A computer-based automated system for scheduling, reporting, and tracking fire inspections at Kennedy Space Center has supplanted a manual system based on paper fire-inspection reports transmitted by mail. The automated system not only minimizes the consumption of paper and other resources but...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sensor Products has recently filed two patents for, and introduced, the ASET® sensor for measuring interfacial stresses in real time. The sensor does not measure force, but rather the amount of surface...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Basic research on ion-trap mass spectrometry (IT/MS) in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has resulted in a new...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved Ultrasonic Imaging of Microscopic Devices
Advances in time gating of ultrasonic signals in scanning acoustic microscopes have been proposed to enable detailed nondestructive examination of bonds and other interfaces deep within the interiors of such micromachined objects as high-density integrated electronic circuits and...

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