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Briefs: Materials
Ceramics Made From Wood
The term “ecoceramics” (a contraction of “environment-conscious ceramics”) denotes a class of ceramics made partly from wood-based products, which can include natural wood, sawdust, cardboard, and/ or paper. In addition to the environmental advantage of renewability of the carbonaceous ingredients, the concept of...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Lightweight, Low-Backlash Robot Wrist With Epicyclic Drive
A unique lightweight wrist with three degrees of rotational freedom has been developed as a prototype of wrists for future anthropomorphic robots that would perform a variety of tasks on Earth and in outer space. The three degrees of freedom (two rolling, one bending) intersect at the...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Ice-Melting Probe Using Steam and Jets of Hot Water
An improved probe has been proposed for burrowing vertically into ice for scientific exploration of polar icecaps, glaciers, and the like. The predecessor of the improved probe is a Philbert probe, which contains an electric heater to melt the ice in contact with it and thereby make it descend...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Two Techniques for Removing Core-Drill Debris
Two alternative techniques make it possible to remove core-drill debris more rapidly and efficiently than was previously possible. Either technique is a vast improvement over the prior art. For industries in which ultrasonic core drills are used, these two techniques are expected to result in savings of...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A technique based on electrical-continuity measurements has been proposed as a means of monitoring and controlling the thicknesses of semiconductor wafers during lapping, polishing,...
Briefs: Medical
An x-ray photogrammetric technique for minimally invasive measurement of displacements in muscles, limbs, and organs is undergoing development. This technique could be alternative or...
Briefs: Medical
The figure depicts the Biomass Production System (BPS), which is an advanced system that provides controlled conditions for growing, manipulating, sampling, and harvesting plants in...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Thin-film devices that comprise heaters in combination with thermocouples have been developed for measuring flow velocities extremely close to solid surfaces, at several distances from the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
An improved formulation of equations of flow of a general gas mixture includes consistent boundary conditions that are applicable to real gases. An analysis of prior formulations,...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Small instrumented, free-flying (unpowered) rotary aircraft have been proposed for use in gathering scientific data from hazardous or inaccessible terrain on remote planets as well as on Earth. These aircraft...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A proposed improved balloon system for carrying scientific instruments in the stratosphere would include a lightweight, ambient-pressure helium balloon and a vented infrared...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Direct methanol fuel cells that would function with aerosol feed (instead of all-gas or all-liquid feed) have been proposed. As explained below, aerosol feed would afford the advantages of liquid...
Briefs: Information Technology
A fine-pointing scheme that involves correlation of images and maximum-likelihood estimation has been proposed to enable tracking of optical sources. This scheme is intended for...
Briefs: Information Technology
Quantum Superluminal Transmission of Random Messages
In a proposed communication scheme, quantum entanglement and quantum nonlocality would be utilized to effect instantaneous transmission of randomly chosen messages to remote locations. Although the messages would not convey any information, they might nevertheless be of some value under...
Briefs: Information Technology
Goal-Based Fault Tolerance for Spacecraft Systems
A report discusses the concept of goal-based fault tolerance as implemented in NASA’s Mission Data System (MDS), which is a developmental architecture for unified flight, test, and ground software that is intended to be adaptable to a variety of next-generation deep-space missions. In goal-based...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
PWM and Synchronous Rectifier Controller ASICs
A report describes two radiation-hard application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that constitute a mixed-signal chip set that performs all the control functions for a power-converter module (PCM) in a spacecraft power-supply system. One of these ASICs serves mainly as a pulse-width modulation...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
DNS of a Supercritical H₂/O₂ Mixing Layer
This report discusses direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a mixing layer between supercritical flows of oxygen and hydrogen. The governing conservation equations were those of fluctuation- dissipation (FD) theory, in which low-pressure typical transport properties (viscosity, diffusivity and thermal...
Briefs: Information Technology
Remote Agent as Applied to the Deep Space 1 Spacecraft
A report presents updated information about the Remote Agent — a reusable artificial-intelligence software system that was described in “A Remote Agent Prototype for Spacecraft Autonomy” (NPO-19992), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 21, No. 3 (March 1997), page 106. This system was conceived to...
Briefs: Software
Multirover Coordination Based on Contract Net Protocol
A computer program coordinates operations of multiple cooperating rovers (small exploratory robotic vehicles deployed from a lander spacecraft), each of which is equipped with computer hardware and software that schedule the tasks assigned to it. The program implements a contract net protocol...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Pneumatic Accelerator for Launching a Spacecraft
A report proposes the development of a ground-based launch-assist apparatus that would accelerate a spacecraft to a speed of about 270 m/s. The apparatus would include a track along which the spacecraft would ride on a sled coupled to a large piston driven by compressed air along a tube (more...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A portable instrumentation system that includes an airborne and a ground-based subsystem acquires multispectral image data over swaths of terrain ranging in width from about 1/2 to 1 km. The system...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A lossless image-compression algorithm that can be executed entirely in electronic hardware has been developed. This algorithm yields about 15 percent more compression than does the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A highly sensitive, low-power, low-noise multifunctional active-excitation spectral analyzer (MAESA) that would span the wavelength range of 0.5 to 2.5 µm and would operate near room...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Software and electronic hardware are being developed to provide cockpit guidance and camera control for an air-to-air schlieren photography system that is to be used to take high-resolution...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Hand-Held Optoelectronic Particulate Monitors
Optoelectronic instruments are being developed for use in measuring the concentrations and sizes of microscopic particles suspended in air. The instruments could be used, for example, to detect smoke, explosive dust in grain elevators, or toxic dusts in industrial buildings. Like some older,...
Briefs: Imaging
High-Performance Processor of Hyperspectral Images
The Remote Sensing Hyperspectral Engine (RSHE) is a special-purpose, portable computer that performs high-performance processing of hyperspectral image data collected by a remote-sensing optoelectronic apparatus. Typically, the remote-sensing apparatus is airborne or spaceborne, the images are of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Arrays of HgCdTe infrared photodetectors have been developed to satisfy stringent performance requirements for use in NASA’s Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer. The design of these...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
The Propulsion group at Dryden Flight Research Center is performing analyses of the effectiveness of chemical-species sensors for detecting and assessing leakage. The group is also...
Briefs: Motion Control
Equipment for Removal of EDM Water Filters
An assembly of lifting equipment has been devised to enable the safe removal of water filters used in electrical-discharge machining (EDM). As explained below, this equipment prevents injuries of a type formerly associated with changing the filters.
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