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: Wearables
Device detects pulse rate and blood oxygen saturation in real time.
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Briefs: Design
The respirator earned a 100 percent success rate for fit testing.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
This set of oculomotor metrics provide valid and reliable measures of dynamic visual performance.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The researchers plan to apply the design to edge computing devices.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A new area of artificial intelligence called analog deep learning promises faster computation with a fraction of the energy usage.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The software can be integrated with existing hardware to aid people using robotic prosthetics or exoskeletons.
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Briefs: Power
NASA’s System-Wide Safety (SWS) project is developing innovative data solutions to assure safe, rapid, and repeatable access to a transformed National Airspace System.
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Briefs: Medical
Combining high-speed camera and interferometer technology enables the detection of electrical pulses travelling through nerve cells.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Researchers designed a new type of soft robotic gripper that uses a collection of thin tentacles to entangle and ensnare objects.
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Briefs: Energy
A team has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size so that they can walk autonomously.
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Briefs: Data Acquisition
The new system learns directly from visual inputs to let a robot with a two-fingered gripper see, simulate, and shape doughy objects.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University believe they have developed the first AI pilot that enables autonomous aircraft to navigate a crowded airspace.
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Briefs: Data Acquisition
It is widely believed that Advanced Air Mobility is poised to have a significant societal impact in the coming years to move people and cargo more rapidly and efficiently.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Ultra-efficient catalysts were developed that are cost-effective to make and simple to scale.
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Briefs: Design
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing a novel microthruster that could provide easy-to-control propulsion during spaceflight.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have designed an Active Debris Removal Vehicle that can remove large orbital debris from low-Earth orbit.
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Briefs: IoMT
The design goal is to provide exceptional RF signal range and stability, while also reducing power consumption, in a miniaturized package.
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Briefs: Motion Control
NASA is developing the next generation of spacesuits for future missions.
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Briefs: Imaging
Researchers at University of Central Florida have developed an artificial intelligence device that mimics the retina of the eye.
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Briefs: Design
A new robotic system fuses visual information and radio-frequency signals to efficiently find hidden items buried under a pile of objects.
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Briefs: Motion Control
Instead of adding soft materials to a rigid robot body, researchers have taken a soft body and added rigid features to key components.
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Briefs: Materials
NASA has developed a new metal matrix composite (MMC) that can repair itself from large fatigue cracks that occur during the service life of a structure.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Manufacturing on Mars with 3D Printing
High-Martian content materials would be useful in making coatings to protect equipment from rust or radiation damage.
Briefs: Research Lab
Researchers have developed a shape-shifting material that can take and hold any possible shape.
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Briefs: Motion Control
Researchers produced a soft, mechanical metamaterial that can “think” about how forces are applied to it and respond via programmed reactions.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Computer-Implemented Energy Depletion Radiation Shielding
Radiation shielding for space as well as some terrestrial applications is challenging due to the wide variety and energy ranges of radiation particles.
Briefs: Design
Innovators from the NASA Glenn Research Center developed a software-based automated RFI mitigation system to increase communication reliability.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
This device could pave the way to higher-bandwidth wireless communications.
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Briefs: AR/AI
Digital data is subjected to errors when stored or transmitted due to the effects of noise on the medium or communication channel.
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