Sensors/​Data Acquisition

NASA has patented a unique chemical sensor array leveraging nanostructures for monitoring the concentration of chemical species or gas molecules that is not damaged when exposed to protons and other high-energy particles over time. The nanotechnology-enabled chemical sensor array uses single...

Electron-ionized atom trapping technology is widely used in mass spectrometry and atomic clocks. The complexity of the trapping configuration operating in an ultra-high vacuum system is driven by demands for ultimate sensitivity, performance, and fundamental...

After decades of composite over-wrapped pressure vessel (COPV) development, manufacturing variance is still high, and has necessitated higher safety factors and additional mass to be flown on spacecraft, reducing overall performance. When liners are used in COPVs, they need...

Volcanic ash is a significant hazard to aircraft engine and electronics. It has caused damage to unwary aircraft and disrupted air travel for thousands of travelers, costing millions of dollars. The small, jagged fragments of rocks, minerals, and volcanic glass that constitute...

Quality measurements for design validation and certification requirements sometimes require hundreds or thousands of sensors and actuators. Maintaining such a complex system is difficult, especially over an extended time period and inevitable personnel changes. Many...

The goal of this work was to advance the development of new, extremely small (≈2 cm3), low-power (≈3 W), and low-cost micro mass spectrometer instrument systems (μMSIS) through the application of microelectro-mechanical system (MEMS) design and fabrication, and microsystem...

Many methods have been developed for interrogation of wireless passive sensors. Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors and RF reflection sensors can receive and reflect electronic magnetic waves that are broadcast and received by the antennas....

Structural health management systems that, by way of real-time monitoring, help mitigate accidents due to structural failures, will become integral technologies of the next-generation aerospace vehicles. Advanced sensor arrays and signal...

Optical detection of gaseous carbon dioxide, water vapor (humidity), and oxygen is desired in Portable Life Support Systems (PLSS) incorporating state-of-the-art CO2 scrubbing architectures. Earlier broadband detectors are nearing their end of life, and recent advances...

Extravehicular activities (EVAs) are dangerous to astronauts for a number of reasons, including high levels of physical exertion, potential for impacts by space debris particulates that could puncture the spacesuit and cause depressurization, Moon dust exposure that is...

The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) provides a wide range of space weather tools and services for the general scientific community. One such product that facilitates space weather situational awareness is collectively known as the Integrated Space Weather Analysis...

The NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) is NASA’s designated data center for information relevant to the physical state of the ocean. Its core datamanagement and workflow system, Data Management and Archive System (DMAS), is responsible for processing hundreds of...

Flight testing is expensive. It is therefore important that necessary flight data be collected in the most efficient manner possible. Inputs traditionally used for flight test maneuvers to collect aircraft stability and control data include doublets, impulses (stick raps), multisteps, and...

The JPL CO2 Virtual Science Data Environment (VSDE) (http://co2.jpl.nasa.gov) is a comprehensive effort to bring together the models, data, and tools necessary for atmospheric CO2 research. The VSDE site is designed to provide streamlined Web-based discovery and access to multiple global and regional...

Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) brightness temperature data from NASA field projects are in ASCII format. This Python script defines a class that will read in a single file from an individual aircraft flight and pull out timing, brightness temperatures from...

Observations in modern datasets have a continuum of quality that can be hard to quantify. For example, satellite observations are subject to often-subtle mixtures of confounding forces that distort the observation’s utility to a varying extent. For the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2)...

Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis for Earthquakes (ARIA-EQ) will be the first coordinated effort to automate geodetic imaging capabilities so they can be used for hazard response. The innovation is an automatic geodetic imaging data system that is the foundation for an operational hazard...

The Propellant Feed System Analytical Tool (PFSAT) predicts heat leak based on insulation type, installation technique, line supports, penetrations, and instrumentation. It also determines the optimum orifice diameter for an optional thermodynamic vent system (TVS) to counteract heat leak into the...

The Advanced Spacecraft Navigation and Timing using Celestial Gamma-Ray Sources concept is a novel relative navigation technology for deep-space exploration using measurements of celestial gamma-ray sources. This new Gamma-ray source Localization-Induced Navigation and...

Frequency modulation of a single-frequency laser with a linear triangular waveform is of great interest to many laser remote sensing and interferometry applications. Linear frequency modulation of a continuous-wave (CW) laser beam can make target...

The Outlier Detection Via Estimating Clusters (ODVEC) software provides an efficient method for real-time or offline analysis of multivariate sensor data for use in anomaly detection, fault detection, and system health monitoring. ODVEC uses models automatically derived from archived system data to identify...

The microgravity conditions of space travel create unique physiological demands on the astronauts’ skeletal structures, resulting in a reduction in bone strength from restructuring of the micro-architecture and loss of key minerals. An ultrasound system was developed that is capable of...

This innovation has two main parts — a wireless, flexible film heater containing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to convert radiated microwave energy into heat, and a radio frequency identification (RFID) temperature sensor to provide...

Sub-audible speech is a new form of human communication that uses tiny neural impulses (EMG signals) in the human vocal tract instead of audible sounds. These EMG signals arise from commands sent by the brain’s speech center to tongue and larynx muscles that enable production...

The characteristics of a thermal detector, such as sensitivity, response time, and saturation power (or energy resolution), are functions of the thermal conductance of the detector to its cryogenic environment. The thermal conductance is specified to achieve a tradeoff among...