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Briefs: Software
Cassini Archive Tracking System
The Cassini Archive Tracking System (CATS) is a computer program that enables tracking of scientific data transfers from originators to the Planetary Data System (PDS) archives. Without CATS, there is no systematic means of locating products in the archive process or ensuring their completeness. By keeping a database...
Briefs: Software
Computing Fault Displacements From Surface Deformations
Simplex is a computer program that calculates locations and displacements of subterranean faults from data on Earth-surface deformations. The calculation involves inversion of a forward model (given a point source representing a fault, a forward model calculates the surface deformations) for...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
RedShift Systems, Waltham, Massachusetts
The desire to “see” in complete darkness or through obscurants such as smoke or fog has driven the development and adoption of thermal imaging...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Optically driven deformable mirrors may eventually supplant electrically driven deformable mirrors in some adaptive-optics and active-optics applications. Traditionally, the mirror facets in electrically...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A method of equipping fiber-optic-coupled laser diodes to evenly illuminate specified fields of view has been proposed. The essence of the method is to shape the tips of the optical fibers...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Coherent, Santa Clara, California
Ultraviolet lasers currently are used in a very diverse range of industries and applications. This is because their high-energy photons directly can break...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Composites are becoming the material of choice for the manufacture of large, complex aerostructures. The aft section of the jumbo Airbus A380 and the wings of the...
Briefs: Medical
A proposed method of surgical repair of fractured bones would incorporate recent and future advances in the art of composite materials. The composite materials used in this method...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An Alternative for Emergency Preemption of Traffic Lights
An electronic communication and control system has been developed as a prototype of advanced means of automatically modifying the switching of traffic lights to give priority to emergency vehicles. This system could be used alternatively or in addition to other emergency...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The purpose of this article is to describe, in more detail, the transponder installed in each vehicle that participates in the emergency traffic-light-preemption system described in the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The figure shows an intersection monitor that is a key subsystem of an emergency traffic-light-preemption system that could be any of the systems described in the three immediately...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Automated Announcements of Approaching Emergency Vehicles
Street intersections that are equipped with traffic lights would also be equipped with means for generating audible announcements of approaching emergency vehicles, according to a proposal. The means to generate the announcements would be implemented in the intersection-based subsystems of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Digital Front End for Wide-Band VLBI Science Receiver
An upgrade to the very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) science receiver (VSR) — a radio receiver used in NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) — is currently being implemented. The current VSR samples standard DSN intermediate frequency (IF) signals at 256 MHz and after digital...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A proposed free-space optical communication system would operate in a full-duplex mode, using a single constant-power laser beam for transmission and reception of binary signals at both...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Optical oscillators that exploit resonantly enhanced four-wave mixing in nonlinear whispering- gallery- mode (WGM) resonators are under investigation for potential utility as low-power,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A scheme for stabilizing the frequency of a microwave signal is proposed that exploits the operational characteristics of a coupled optoelectronic oscillator (COEO) and related...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
In a procedure that partly resembles the lost-wax casting process, a crucible made of a brittle material (ceramic, quartz, or glass) is covered with a layer of metal containing channels. The...
Briefs: Information Technology
Several artificial-intelligence search techniques have been tested as means of solving the swath segment selection problem (SSSP) ? a real-world problem that is not only of interest in its own right,...
Briefs: Information Technology
The spatial standard observer is a computational model that provides a measure of the visibility of a target in a uniform background image or of the visual discriminability of two images. Standard observers have...
Briefs: Information Technology
An alternative to an optimal method of automated classification of signals modulated with M-ary phase-shift-keying (M-ary PSK or MPSK) has been derived. The alternative method is approximate, but it...
Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Assistant for Analyzing Tropical Rain Mapping Radar Data
TDS is composed of software and hardware elements incorporating a two-frequency spaceborne radar system for measuring tropical precipitation. The TDS would be used primarily in generating data products for scientific investigations. The most novel part of the TDS would be expert-system...
Briefs: Information Technology
Discerning Trends in Performance Across Multiple Events
The program can perform Fourier analysis and other functions for the purposes of frequency analysis and trending of all variables. These functions facilitate identification of past use of diagnosed systems and of anomalies in such systems, and enable rapid assessment of related current...
Briefs: Materials
Doped pyrochlore oxides of a type described below are under consideration as alternative materials for high temperature thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). In comparison with...
Briefs: Materials
Today, a major thrust toward improving the thermomechanical properties of engine components lies in the development of fiber-reinforced silicon carbide matrix composite materials,...
Briefs: Materials
Patches for Repairing Ceramics and Ceramic Matrix Composites
Patches consisting mostly of ceramic fabrics impregnated with partially cured polymers and ceramic particles are being developed as means of repairing ceramics and ceramic-matrix composites (CMCs) that must withstand temperatures above the melting points of refractory metal alloys. These...
Briefs: Materials
Electrolyte additive 4-vinyl-1, 3-dioxolane-2-one has been found to be promising for rechargeable lithium-ion electrochemical cells. This and other additives, along with advanced...
Briefs: Materials
Optimizing solution chemistry and the addition of titania and fumed silica powder reduces shrinkage. These materials would serve to increase thermal efficiency by providing thermal...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Identification, analysis, and control of fluid mechanically generated sound from models of aircraft and automobiles in special low-noise, semi-anechoic wind tunnels are an important research...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A proposed three degree of freedom (tilt/tip/piston) manipulator, suitable for aligning an optical or mechanical component, would offer several advantages over prior such manipulators:
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