-1
10830
30
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A Mass-Spectrometer System for Detecting Gas Leaks
The Hydrogen Umbilical Mass Spectrometer (HUMS) consists of an integrated sample delivery system, a commercial mass-spectrometer-based gas analyzer, and a set of calibration gas mixtures traceable to NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology). The system, except for the calibration gas...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A proposed optoelectronic system based on imaging-lidar and differential-altimetry techniques would generate data equivalent to a height map of a surface area. Originally conceived for use in...
Briefs: Imaging
A new design for a complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) snapshot imaging device of the photodiode-based, active-pixel-sensor (APS) type calls for features to prevent...
Briefs: Motion Control
Advanced, Lightweight, Low-Power-Consumption Actuator Brake
An advanced, lightweight, low-power consumption brake has been developed to satisfy NASA's special requirements for use on actuators during spaceflight. This brake can increase the stopping, holding, and parking ability of a spacecraft while reducing its electrical power consumption. Two...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Miniature high-resolution optical-absorption sensors for detecting trace amounts of chemical species of interest in gas and liquid samples are undergoing development. The transducer in a...
Briefs: Motion Control
A method of computing the speed at which to command an autonomous robotic vehicle to travel over rough terrain has been devised. The method amounts to a robotic implementation of the...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A proposed optoelectronic apparatus would perform the combined functions of a confocal microscope and a Raman spectrometer. It would be used to acquire Raman-spectral-image and/or...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A method of coarse alignment has been proposed for a primary telescope mirror that comprises multiple segments mounted on actuators that can be used to tilt and translate the segments to effect...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Experiments have shown that a highly oblate microspheroid made of low-dielectric-loss silica glass can function as a high-performance optical resonator. The shape of this resonator (see...
Briefs: Motion Control
A method of estimating the state of contact between (1) the wheels of a robotic vehicle equipped with a rocker-bogey suspension and (2) the ground has been devised. The contact-state...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Software for Generating Mosaics of Astronomical Images
Software is being developed to "stitch" together multiple astronomical images of small, adjacent patches of the sky into a single mosaic image of a large portion of the sky. These mosaics make data from large areas of the sky readily available for efficient viewing of many types of celestial...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Thin, initially transparent films made of variants of a polymeric cation-exchange material have been found to be useful for facilitating the luminescence detection and...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A proposed method of compressing image data would exploit the well-known capability of a converging lens to generate the Fourier transform of an image by purely optical means, in much less...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
In an alternative to the optical image-compression method of the preceding article, the Fourier transform of the input image would be formed on the output plane by white-light holography,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Algorithms have been developed to enable a robotic vision system to recognize, in real time (at a rate between 0.5 and 2 frames per second), known objects lying on the ground. In the...
Briefs: Information Technology
DVQ (which stands for "digital video quality") is a metric for evaluating the visual quality of digitized video images. Other video-quality metrics have been proposed, but it appears that each of...
Briefs: Software
Infrastructure Software for Mining Image Data Bases
Diamond Eye is a computer program that enables a user equipped with only a personal computer, web-browser software, and a network connection to analyze large collections of scientific image data. The system is based on a distributed applet/server architecture that provides platform-independent...
Briefs: Software
Software for Rapid Processing and Display of Earth Data
Digital Earth Workbench is a computer program that facilitates retrieval of Earth-related imagery and viewing of the imagery on either an ordinary computer video screen or a virtual-reality (head-tracked stereoscopic) display system. Examples of imagery that can be processed bythis software...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A novel micromachined incandescent light source has been designed and fabricated to operate at temperatures exceeding 2,500 K. The high-temperature, tungsten filament-based source has a high-brightness,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Automatic Bias Compensation in GPS Receivers
A technique of automatic bias compensation has been devised to correct errors caused by variations among electronic components in Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers that use the coarse/acquisition (C/A) GPS code. Even though there are large government and commercial markets for such GPS receivers,...
Briefs: Materials
Theoretical calculations verified by experiments have shown that suitably designed ribbons made of alumina can serve as low-loss dielectric waveguides for electromagnetic radiation at...
Briefs: Software
Multithreading Program for Retrieval of Optical Phase Fields
A multithreading computer program performs phase-retrieval and -unwrapping calculations to extract accurate image phase maps from noisy image magnitude fields generated by adaptive optics. [As used here, "phase retrieval" signifies the calculation of phase map modulo 2µ, while...
Briefs: Software
Software for Analyzing Earth/Spacecraft Radio Interference
The Spectral Analysis Tool (SAT) computer program assists in analysis of interference between radio signals in Earth/spacecraft communications. SAT provides an easy-to-use interactive graphical interface with a menu for selecting among the following utility subprograms: an editor for...
Briefs: Materials
"Smart coatings" denotes a class of high-temperature-resistant, multilayer, thin (total thickness < 10 µm) films that contain predominantly planar layers of sensor circuitry...
Briefs: Materials
Aggregate-Search Approach for Planning and Scheduling
Several algorithms developed for use in automated planning and scheduling of sets of interdependent activities employ aggregation techniques to increase the efficiency of searching for temporal assignments that are legal in the sense that they do not violate constraints. In the aggregate-search...
Briefs: Materials
Some success has been achieved in a development program directed toward improving the mechanical properties of electroformed copper-alloy structural components. Typical of such components are bundles...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Experiments have shown that an assembly of multiple free-piston Stirling engines can be designed and constructed in such a way as to both (1) make the vibrations of the engines balance...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
An important secondary topic addressed in the research and development effort described in the preceding article is the use of artificial neural networks to improve the monitoring and...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A special-purpose grinding tool and fixtures have been developed for reworking an edge of a seal surface on a nozzle-throat-support housing in a rocket engine (see Figure 1) to remove...
Top Stories
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
2025 Holiday Gift Guide for Engineers: Tech, Tools, and Gadgets
INSIDER: Research Lab
Scientists Create Superconducting Semiconductor Material
Blog: Software
Quiz: Materials
Blog: Aerospace
Tech Briefs Wrapped 2025: Top 10 Technology Stories
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
The Real Impact of AR and AI in the Industrial Equipment Industry
Upcoming Webinars: Motion Control
Next-Generation Linear and Rotary Stages: When Ultra Precision...
Upcoming Webinars: Energy
Hydrogen Engines Are Heating Up for Heavy Duty
Podcasts: Medical
How Wearables Are Enhancing Smart Drug Delivery
Podcasts: Power
SAE Automotive Podcast: Solid-State Batteries
Podcasts: Power
