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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Improving Control in a Joule-Thomson Refrigerator
A report discusses a modified design of a Joule-Thomson (JT) refrigerator under development to be incorporated into scientific instrumentation aboard a spacecraft.In most other JT refrigerators (including common household refrigerators), the temperature of the evaporator (the cold stage) is kept...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
High-Temperature, High-Load-Capacity Radial Magnetic Bearing
A radial heteropolar magnetic bearing capable of operating at a temperature as high as 1,000 °F (≈540 °C) has been developed. This is a prototype of bearings for use in gas turbine engines operating at temperatures and speeds much higher than can be withstood by lubricated...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Automated Rapid Prototyping of 3D Ceramic Parts
An automated system of manufacturing equipment produces three-dimensional (3D) ceramic parts specified by computational models of the parts. The system implements an advanced, automated version of a generic rapid-prototyping process in which the fabrication of an object having a possibly complex 3D...
Briefs: Materials
Photocatalytic Coats in Glass Drinking-Water Bottles
According to a proposal, the insides of glass bottles used to store drinking water would be coated with films consisting of or containing TiO2. In the presence of ultraviolet light, these films would help to remove bacteria, viruses, and trace organic contaminants from the water.
Briefs: Materials
A new type of composite material has been proposed for membranes that would constitute the reflective surfaces of planned lightweight, single curvature (e.g., parabolic cylindrical)...
Briefs: Materials
Nickel-Tin Electrode Materials for Nonaqueous Li-Ion Cells
Experimental materials made from mixtures of nickel and tin powders have shown promise for use as the negative electrodes of rechargeable lithium-ion electrochemical power cells. During charging (or discharging) of a lithiumion cell, lithium ions are absorbed into (or desorbed from,...
Briefs: Materials
Patched Off-Axis Bending/Twisting Actuators for Thin Mirrors
Two documents present updates on thin-shell, adjustable, curved mirrors now being developed for use in spaceborne imaging systems. These mirrors at an earlier stage of development were reported in “Nanolaminate Mirrors With Integral Figure-Control Actuators” (NPO-30221), NASA Tech...
Briefs: Medical
Automation of Vapor-Diffusion Growth of Protein Crystals
Some improvements have been made in a system of laboratory equipment developed previously for studying the crystallization of proteins from solution by use of dynamically controlled flows of dry gas. The improvements involve mainly (1) automation of dispensing of liquids for starting...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Fabrication of Spherical Reflectors in Outer Space
A process is proposed for fabrication of lightweight spherical reflectors in outer space for telescopes, radio antennas, and light collectors that would be operated there. The process would obviate the relatively massive substrates and frames needed to support such reflectors in normal Earth...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
High-Temperature, High-Load-Capacity Radial Magnetic Bearing
A radial heteropolar magnetic bearing capable of operating at a temperature as high as 1,000°F (≈540°C) has been developed. This is a prototype of bearings for use in gas turbine engines operating at temperatures and speeds much higher than can be withstood by lubricated...
Briefs: Motion Control
When developing the steering component of the Catrike Speed recumbent tricycle, the manufacturer switched from metal bearings to igubal® plastic rod ends for lighter weight (80% less) and...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A multitude of tests are necessary during the manufacture of sophisticated tables used to position patients in nuclear-medicine-based medical imaging machines. Some of the tests,...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology comprises organic thin films that, when placed between two conductors, can serve as a display. This technology requires very little...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Using Laser-Induced Incandescence To Measure Soot in Exhaust
An instrumentation system exploits laser-induced incandescence (LII) to measure the concentration of soot particles in an exhaust stream from an engine, furnace, or industrial process that burns hydrocarbon fuel. In comparison with LII soot-concentration-measuring systems that have been...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
This enhanced illumination design and analysis program, called LightTools® 5.1, enables easy and accurate modeling of sophisticated backlights for flat panel displays. It...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sensors for Pointing Moving Instruments Toward Each Other
Optoelectronic sensor systems are being developed for use in maintaining fixed relative orientations of two scientific- instrument platforms that are in relative motion. In the original intended application, the platforms would be two spacecraft flying in formation and separated by a long...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An improved cathode structure on a membrane/electrode assembly has been developed for a direct methanol fuel cell, in a continuing effort to realize practical power systems containing...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A modified chemical composition has been devised to improve the performance of the anode of a direct methanol fuel cell. The main feature of the modified composition is the incorporation of hydrous...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An advanced solid-state power amplifier that can generate an output power of as much as 17 W at a design operating frequency of 8.4 GHz has been designed and constructed as a smaller, lighter, less...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Upgrading the Space Shuttle Caution and Warning System
A report describes the history and the continuing evolution of an avionic system aboard the space shuttle, denoted the caution and warning system, that generates visual and auditory displays to alert astronauts to malfunctions. The report focuses mainly on planned human-factors-oriented...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Fractal Reference Signals in Pulse-Width Modulation
A report proposes the use of waveforms having fractal shapes reminiscent of sawteeth (in contradistinction to conventional regular sawtooth waveforms) as reference signals for pulse-width modulation in control systems for thrusters of spacecraft flying in formation.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A system for collecting samples of powdered rock has been devised for use in conjunction with an ultrasonic/sonic drill/corer (USDC) — a lightweight, low-power apparatus designed to...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A computer-controlled apparatus processes batches of soybeans into one or more of a variety of food products, under conditions that can be chosen by the user and reproduced from batch to...
Briefs: Software
An advanced computer code is undergoing development for numerically simulating laser cooling and trapping of large numbers of atoms. The code is expected to be useful in...
Briefs: Information Technology
A recently conceived approach to automated real-time control of the actions of a robotic system enables an embedded real-time planning algorithm to develop plans that are more robust than they...
Briefs: Information Technology
Dominant element-based gradient descent and dynamic initial learning rate (DOGEDYN) is a method of sequential principal component analysis (PCA) that is well suited for such applications as data...
Briefs: Imaging
Flight-control and navigation systems inspired by the structure and function of the visual system and brain of insects have been proposed for a class of developmental miniature robotic...
Briefs: Information Technology
Semantic Metrics for Analysis of Software
A recently conceived suite of object-oriented software metrics focus is on semantic aspects of software, in contradistinction to traditional software metrics, which focus on syntactic aspects of software. Semantic metrics represent a more human-oriented view of software than do syntactic metrics. The...
Briefs: Information Technology
Development of Software for a Lidar-Altimeter Processor
A report describes the development of software for a digital processor that operates in conjunction with a finite-impulse-response (FIR) chip in a spaceborne lidar altimeter.Processing is started by a laserfire interrupt signal that is repeated at intervals of 25 ms. For the purpose of...
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