Tech Briefs

A comprehensive library of technical briefs from engineering experts at NASA and major government, university, and commercial laboratories covering all aspects of innovations in electronics, software, photonics, imaging, motion control, automation, sensors, test, materials, manufacturing, mechanical, and mechatronics.

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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A method of growing lattice-mismatched InxGa1-xAs epitaxial layers on InP substrates using intermediate buffer layers of InAsyP1-yhas been invented to improve the performance of...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A system of electronic hardware and software has been developed as an experimental prototype of a visual interface between a human operator and a possibly remote one-arm anthropomorphic...
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Briefs: Motion Control
Software for Geometric Calibration of Video Cameras
A software library and set of programs largely automate the geometric calibration of video cameras. Developed especially for robotic vision systems, this software generates the information needed to determine the three-dimensional (3D) positions of objects that appear in two- dimensional (2D)...
Briefs: Motion Control
The figure depicts a mechanism that is capable of simultaneously rotating as many as six disposable bioreactor chambers about horizontal axes. The particular bioreactor chambers for...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Tip fences have been invented to reduce the noise generated in the airflows about the high-lift systems (the flaps and slats) of airplane wings. Tip fences also afford an important...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Capacitors in which the main dielectric layers are made from sintered nanocrystalline BaTiO3 have been fabricated and tested in an initially successful and continuing effort to increase...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Millimeter-wave/microwave ablation (essentially, heating by use of millimeter-wave and microwave electromagnetic radiation) has been proposed as a means of treating atherosclerotic...
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Briefs: Software
KPP — a Preprocessor for VHDL
KPP is a computer program that serves as a preprocessor for VHDL code. [“VHDL” signifies VHSIC Hardware Description Language, which is a language used by the United States Department of Defense for describing, designing, and simulating very-high-speed integrated circuits (VHSICs).] KPP is based on, and similar...
Briefs: Software
Software for Analyzing Valve-Actuator
A computer program assists engineers in analyzing data on the performances of actuators of fuel and oxidizer valves in the main engines of the space shuttle. The program could be adapted to similar use in other settings in which, as in the space shuttle, valve actuators are instrumented to provide data on...
Briefs: Software
Software for Network Processing of
The Electronic Portable Information Collection (EPIC) computer program is a computer system that processes work authorization documents (WADs). The EPIC System, which is also known as the Portable Data Collection System, comprises a central data server and portable data terminals. The central data server acts as...
Briefs: Materials
The term “prefield test” denotes an in situ test of contaminated soil in preparation for in situ treatment of the soil by a method called “electrokinetically enhanced...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
SMARTCOM is a computer program for the analysis and design of actively controlled “smart” structures. Typically, an actively controlled “smart” structure incorporates piezoelectric...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Systems of caged trim masses manipulated by magnetic fields have been proposed for effecting fine control of the positions and/or orientations of spacecraft. The systems were conceived...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
A new technique for retrieving cirrus properties from radiometric measurements at submillimeter wavelengths has been developed. The technique can accurately measure the amount of ice present...
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Briefs: Information Technology
An improved algorithm for detecting gray-scale and binary templates in digitized images has been devised. The greatest difference between this algorithm and prior template-detecting algorithms stems from the...
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Briefs: Software
Fast algorithms and the first complete and efficient circuits for implementing two quantum wavelet transforms have been developed in theory. The significance of this development within...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Study of Inertial and Gravitational Masses of a Boson
A report presents a theoretical study of the relationship between the inertial mass (mi) and gravitational mass (mg) of a self-interacting neutral scalar boson in a heat bath. The question of whether these masses differ arises in modern physics. In quantum field theory, the mass of a particle...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Metal/Dielectric Color Filters for Flat Panel Displays
A report expands on the proposal described in “Low-Absorption Color Filters for Flat Panel Display Devices” (NPO-20435) NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 23, No. 12 (December 1999), page 34. To recapitulate: The dye pixel color filters in a conventional liquid-crystal or other display device would be...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Multiphase-Flow Model of Fluidized-Bed Pyrolysis of Biomass
A report presents additional information about the subject matter of “Model of Pyrolysis of Biomass in a Fluidized- Bed Reactor” (NPO-20708) NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 6 (June 2001), page 59. The model is built on equations for the dynamics of three components — gas, sand, and...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Active-pixel integrated-circuit image sensors that can be programmed in real-time to effect artificial reconfigurable vision on demand have been developed and demonstrated. In...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The Ultrabend bolt is a specially designed bolt instrumented with strain gauges (see figure) that are connected into twin Wheatstone-bridge circuits. The geometric arrangement of the...
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Briefs: Materials
Improved fiber-optic transducers, denoted tiger fibers, have been proposed for sensing volatile compounds. Tiger fibers are so named because, as described below, their sensitive portions...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Using Laser Diodes to Characterize Force and Pressure Sensors
A proposed method of characterizing microphones and other pressure and force sensors would exploit the temporally varying forces of impingement of amplitude-modulated light beams from inexpensive laser diodes. What makes the method likely to be practical is the surprising fact that these...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Efforts are underway to implement an improved design of the device described in "Normally Closed, Piezoelectrically Actuated Microvalve" (NPO-20782), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 1 (January...
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Briefs: Energy
A relatively simple test circuit immediately and automatically provides indications of (1) the continuity (or the lack thereof) of the wires of a two-wire cable, plus (2) a short circuit (if any)...
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Briefs: Manned Systems
Automated Detection of Streaks in Rocket-Engine Plumes
A high-speed observer (HSO) system comprising a high-frame-rate digital video camera and a high-speed computer that processes the camera output has been developed for use in monitoring the exhaust plume of the space shuttle main engine (SSME) during tests. The HSO system is designed to analyze...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Software for Analyzing Root Causes of Process Anomalies
Root Cause Analysis (RoCA) is a computer program that assists analysts in understanding the root causes of process anomalies. As used here, “process anomalies” includes incidents that have caused, or that can potentially cause, injuries to personnel, damage to facilities, abnormal costs,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Program Computes Pointing Corrections for a Radiotelescope
TLC is a computer program that determines corrections for radiotelescopepointing errors associated with tilts and elastic deformations. These errors occur because for rotation in azimuth, a radiotelescope is mounted on wheels that move on a circular track that deviates from perfect...
Briefs: Information Technology
Ex — Software for Numerical Computation in Native Oberon
“Ex” is the name of a library of software modules from which one can rapidly develop prototype or production versions of efficient numerical-computation application programs in the Native Oberon programming environment. Mathematical constructs that can be represented and processed by...

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