Electrical/​Electronics

Aerial refueling technology for both manned and unmanned aircraft is critical for operations where extended aircraft flight time is required. Existing refueling assets are typically manned aircraft, which couple to a second aircraft through the use of a refueling boom....

SpaceCube 1.5 is a high-performance and low-power system in a compact form factor. It is a hybrid processing system consisting of CPU (central processing unit), FPGA (field-programmable gate array), and DSP (digital signal processor) processing elements. The primary processing engine is the Virtex-5 FX100T FPGA, which has two...

High-speed serial communication (i.e., Gigabit Ethernet) requires differential transmission and controlled impedances. Impedance control is essential throughout cabling, connector, and circuit board construction.

This work involved developing space qualifiable switch mode DC/DC power supplies that improve performance with fewer components, and result in elimination of digital components and reduction in magnetics. This design is for missions where systems may be operating under extreme conditions, especially at elevated temperature...

This innovation is a series of time-tag pulses from a photomultiplier tube, featuring short time interval between pulses (e.g., 2.5 ns). Using the previous art, dead time between pulses is too long, or too much hardware is required, including a very-high-speed demultiplexer. A faster method is...

With the need for long periods of extravehicular activities (EVAs) on the Moon or Mars or a near-asteroid, the need for long-performance batteries has increased significantly. The energy requirements for the EVA suit, as well as surface systems such as rovers, have...

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics. The ORNL battery design, which...

Lithium ion batteries are at the energetic heart of almost all things tech, from cell phones to tablets to electric vehicles. That’s because they are a proven technology, light, long-lasting and powerful. But they aren’t perfect.