Electronics & Software

The split-geometry design for arrays of photoconductive HgCdTe infrared photodetectors described in the preceding article can also be used to mitigate the deleterious effect of a phenomenon called "sweepout," which degrades performance. Sweepout occurs in conventional small HgCdTe...

Focal-plane arrays of HgCdTe photoconductors have been designed and fabricated to satisfy special requirements for high-performance long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) photodetectors. The special requirements are the following:

A computer program processes images acquired at different times by instrumentation aboard a spacecraft to detect small satellites of asteroids and other planetary bodies. The program coregisters the images, removes instrument artifacts and images of background stars, and performs a...

The Automated Planning and Scheduling Environment (ASPEN) version 2 computer program comprises a modular, reconfigurable software framework and collection of software components that can be used for automated planning and scheduling in a variety of applications. ASPEN can automatically generate...

A library of computer programs has been developed to solve the problem of parametric ranking of a set of hypotheses on the basis of incomplete and/or uncertain information. In general, the ranking must be learned by use of training examples in which one observes the values of random...

A report describes a study of nominal-performance (H2), robust-performance (μ-synthesis), and mixed H2/μ methods for designing fixed-order controllers applied to an active-tendon control system for suppressing seismic vibrations in a structure. The study involves an application of...

A proposed charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera would be mechanically shuttered by a planar array of micromachined, electromechanically actuated shutters. This proposal has arisen as part of the solution to the problem of designing a visible/near-infrared imaging spectrometer using a commercial...

Active-pixel-sensor (APS) circuits and perhaps other dense complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits would be powered by infrared beams transmitted by laser diodes and received by photodetectors, according to a proposal. Clock signals for...

Three integrated software products are being developed for use in the further development of autopilot systems for reusable launch vehicles (RLVs). The need for these products arises because of the unique nature of RLVs:

Thermoplastic coupling is a patented welding process that is used to join thermoplastic parts. At the drill press, during a connector design brainstorming session, an engineer at Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories inserted a plastic rod into a cavity that was slightly too small in its...

Several modifications of the design and operation of lithium-ion rechargeable electrochemical cells have been proposed to prolong the cycle lives of the cells. As explained below, overdischarge can result in dissolution of a metal current collector in the anode of a cell, with consequent...