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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Generic Helicopter-Based Testbed for Surface Terrain Imaging Sensors
To be certain that a candidate sensor system will perform as expected during missions, we have developed a field test system and have executed test flights with a helicopter- mounted sensor platform over desert terrains, which simulate Lunar features. A key advantage to this...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
An optimized geometry has been proposed for superconducting sensing coils that are used in conjunction with superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) in magnetic resonance imaging...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Robot Electronics Architecture
An electronics architecture has been developed to enable the rapid construction and testing of prototypes of robotic systems. This architecture is designed to be a research vehicle of great stability, reliability, and versatility. A system according to this architecture can easily be reconfigured (including expanded...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Sensing a Changing Chemical Mixture Using an Electronic Nose
A method of using an electronic nose to detect an airborne mixture of known chemical compounds and measure the temporally varying concentrations of the individual compounds is undergoing development. In a typical intended application, the method would be used to monitor the air in an...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A class of inertial- sensor systems with drift compensation has been invented for use in measuring the orientations of human heads (and perhaps other, similarly sized objects). These systems...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A proposed microstrip Yagi antenna would operate at a frequency of 8.4 GHz (which is in the X band) and would feature a mechanically simpler, more elegant design, relative to a prior...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Tunable microwave devices based on metal terminals connected by thin ferroelectric films (see Figure 1) can be made to perform better by patterning the films to include suitably...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A free-space optical beam combiner now undergoing development makes it possible to use the outputs of multiple multimode laser diodes to pump a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A total of 81 optimal logic circuits based on four-gate field-effect transistors (G4FETs) have been designed to implement all Boolean functions of up to three variables. The purpose of this development was...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A relatively rapid, economical process has been devised for patterning a thin film of indium tin oxide (ITO) that has been deposited on a polyester film. ITO is a transparent, electrically conductive...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
In a proposed improvement of tooling for friction stir welding, gimballed shoulders would supplant shoulders that, heretofore, have been fixedly aligned with pins. The proposal is especially...
Briefs: Materials
Pellets made of a high-surface-area composite of silica and titania have shown promise as means of removing elemental mercury from flue gases. With further technical development...
Briefs: Materials
Lightweight Tanks for Storing Liquefied Natural Gas
Single-walled, jacketed aluminum tanks have been conceived for storing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in LNG-fueled motor vehicles. Heretofore, double- wall steel tanks with vacuum between the inner and outer walls have been used for storing LNG. In comparison with the vacuum-insulated steel tanks,...
Briefs: Materials
Hybrid Wound Filaments for Greater Resistance to Impacts
The immediately preceding article includes an example in which a composite overwrap on a pressure vessel contains wound filaments made of a hybrid of high-strength carbon fibers and poly(phenylene benzobisoxazole) [PBO] fibers. This hybrid material is chosen in an effort to increase the...
Briefs: Materials
Making High-Tensile-Strength Amalgam Components
Structural components made of amalgams can be made to have tensile strengths much greater than previously known to be possible. Amalgams, perhaps best known for their use in dental fillings, have several useful attributes, including room- temperature fabrication, corrosion resistance, dimensional...
Briefs: Materials
A simple, inexpensive method for bonding solid objects exploits hydroxidecatalyzed hydration and dehydration to form silicatelike networks in thin surface and interfacial layers between...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Balanced flow meters are recent additions to an established class of simple, rugged flow meters that contain no moving parts in contact with flow and are based on measurement of pressure drops across...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A battery-powered, pen-sized, portable instrument for measuring molecular fluorescence spectra of chemical and biological samples in the field has been proposed. Molecular fluorescence...
Briefs: Imaging
An architecture for back-illuminated complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) and charge-coupled-device (CCD) ultraviolet/visible/near infrared-light image sensors, and a method...
Briefs: Imaging
A compact, high-resolution, two-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorometer (EEMF) has been designed and built specifically for use in identifying and measuring the...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A metrology system that contains no moving parts simultaneously measures the bearings and ranges of multiple reflective targets in its vicinity, enabling determination of the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A four-port magic-T hybrid waveguide junction serves as the central component of a high-efficiency two-way power combiner circuit for transmitting a high-rate...
Briefs: Information Technology
A framework for high-level specification of data distributions in data-parallel application programs has been conceived. [As used here, "distributions" signifies means to express...
Briefs: Information Technology
The inductive monitoring system (IMS) is a system of computer hardware and software for automated monitoring of the performance, operational condition, physical integrity, and other aspects...
Briefs: Information Technology
Processing Satellite Imagery To Detect Waste Tire Piles
A methodology for processing commercially available satellite spectral imagery has been developed to enable identification and mapping of waste tire piles in California. The California Integrated Waste Management Board initiated the project and provided funding for the method's development....
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A circuit and method for transmitting and receiving on-off-keyed (OOK) signals with fractional signal-to-noise ratios uses available high-temperature silicon-on-insulator (SOI) components...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Switched Band-Pass Filters for Adaptive Transceivers
Switched band-pass filters are key components of proposed adaptive, software- defined radio transceivers that would be parts of envisioned digital-data- communication networks that would enable real-time acquisition and monitoring of data from geographically distributed sensors. Examples of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Systems to provide improved tactile feedback to aircraft pilots are being developed to help the pilots maintain harmony between their control actions and the positions of aircraft control surfaces,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A waveguide structure for combining the outputs of four amplifiers operating at 35 GHz (Ka band) is based on a similar prior structure used in the X band. The structure is designed to function with low...
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