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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Integrated circuits capable of sensing both infrared and visible images have been proposed. Until now, the usual practice for simultaneous imaging at both infrared and visible wavelengths in the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A recently developed gallium nitride-based linear array of ultraviolet detectors is blind to most of the visible spectrum, with a cutoff wavelength of 370 nm. This device is a prototype of GaN...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sensor Webs
Sensor webs are developmental collections of sensor pods that could be scattered over land or water areas or other regions of interest to gather data on spatial and temporal patterns of relatively slowly changing physical, chemical, or biological phenomena in those regions. Each sensor pod would be a node in a data-gathering/...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Microplasmic Coating Shows High Resistance to Wear, Heat and Corrosion
The process of anodizing, or controlled oxidation, of aluminum and aluminum alloys is more than seven decades old. The primary intent of anodizing aluminum and aluminum-alloy parts is to protect the highly reactive surface against corrosion in aqueous environments, such as humid...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The JGOAL collection of computer programs facilitates the real-time display, via the Internet, of multiple streams of data from the space shuttle and its ground support equipment at...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An improved method of closed-loop synchronization of a radio receiver with the phase of a carrier signal modulated by Gaussian minimum-shift keying (GMSK) has been proposed....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A variable-frequency, three-phase, sine-wave generator circuit has been designed for use as a source of polyphase excitation in studies of the propagation of traveling waves in plasmas. This circuit, combined...
Briefs: Software
Wiring is a major deliverable in just about all electromechanical equipment. From airplanes to semiconductor capital equipment, the key component tying together all of the technological innovations in...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Low-voltage high-current loads requiring precision voltage regulation are served by power systems that sense voltage remotely at the load. This creates the risk of an overvoltage (OV) condition at the load...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A microwave-cavity applicator has been developed for coating multiple fibers by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). A prototype of the applicator was used to deposit silicon carbide onto...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A seven-element microstrip patch antenna is designed to operate with circular polarization and high gain at a frequency of 2.2875 GHz. The antenna was developed in the early 1990s as a potential...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Monolithic microwave integrated-circuit (MMIC) frequency converters have been developed for use in satellite- and ground-based communications (see figure) at frequencies from about 18 to about...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Integrated Environmental Monitoring System for Clean Rooms
A system of electronic monitoring equipment under central computer control records and displays the readouts of environmental-quality instrumentation in clean rooms in the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. The instruments include airborne-particle counters,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved successive-approximation analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuits are undergoing development for eventual incorporation into focal-plane arrays of photodetectors. These...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A series-connected boost regulator (SCBR) is, as its name suggests, an electronic circuit for boosting a power-supply voltage to a higher and regulated value. The distinguishing feature of an SCBR is an...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Redundant fiber-optic transceivers have been incorporated into the High Speed Data Acquisition System (HSDAS) at Stennis Space Center, where they are used to communicate data acquired by...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved circuits that generate high-voltage pulses for driv-ing Q-switched lasers have been devised. To extract maximum energy from a laser cavity in the form of consistent laser pulses, the Q-switch pulses must rise...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) integrated-circuit video image detector of the active-pixel-sensor (APS) type has been designed to implement programmable...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Relatively inexpensive, lightweight biplates for methanol fuel cells have been proposed. The reductions in weight and cost, relative to biplates now used in methanol fuel cells, would be...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The Shuttle Projects Information Frontier (SPIF) Telemetry and Command Processor (TAC) is a personal-computer-based data-handling system that serves as part of an interface for transfer...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Vespel parts are made from a unique polymer by DuPont that has been called a problem solver for the semiconductor industry. Vespel SPC is a new generation of Vespel polyimide...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Transmissive light valves based on voltage-tunable color-selective absorption of light in surface plasmons are undergoing development. Like other surface-plasmon-based devices reported in a number of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The South Pole TDRSS Relay (SPTR) is a satellite radio relay communication system that provides an Internet link for a station at the South Pole. As the name of the system suggests, the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A rectangular integrated-circuit focal-plane array of 640 × 486 GaAs/AlxGa1 -xAs quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) constitutes the image sensor in an experimental long-wavelength...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sensor Products has recently filed two patents for, and introduced, the ASET® sensor for measuring interfacial stresses in real time. The sensor does not measure force, but rather the amount of surface...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Basic research on ion-trap mass spectrometry (IT/MS) in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has resulted in a new...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improved Ultrasonic Imaging of Microscopic Devices
Advances in time gating of ultrasonic signals in scanning acoustic microscopes have been proposed to enable detailed nondestructive examination of bonds and other interfaces deep within the interiors of such micromachined objects as high-density integrated electronic circuits and...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Researchers at Johnson Space Center (JSC) recently demonstrated that the resonant microstrip patch antenna (RMPA), which has been proven in commercial applications, can be applied with...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A proposed Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor would give information on approximate attitude as well as on position. Unlike other GPS-based attitude sensors, this attitude sensor would not depend on...
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