Electronics & Software

A simple, inexpensive device has been conceived for shifting the phase of a signal in a feed line of a scanning-beam microstrip antenna in order to change the direction of the beam. Heretofore, phase shifters used for this purpose have been relatively bulky and expensive.

Nickel-hydrogen electrochemical cells with capacities of 350 ampere-hours have been developed. These cells are intended primarily for use in government and commercial satellites; they have been fully qualified to satisfy performance requirements for operation in geosynchronous satellites for as long as 15 years....

A report presents some results of continuing efforts to develop advanced thermoelectric devices and, more particularly, thermoelectric unicouples for generating electric power from diverse thermal sources, including automotive exhausts and other waste-heat sources. The basic principles of...

External Data and Attribute Hyperlink are computer programs that can be added to Promis•e®, which is a commercial software system that automates routine tasks in the design (including drawing schematic diagrams) of electrical control systems. The programs were developed under the...

A computer program solves the differential equations of three-dimensional (3D) thermal convection of an incompressible fluid by use of a parallel-processing, finite volume numerical scheme. The equations of conservation of momentum, and energy are integrated over macroscopic control...

RBK4 is a computer program for testing electronic components for susceptibility to single-event upsets (SEUs). RBK4 controls the computer on which it is executed to communicate with both the board holding the device under test (DUT), a power supply, and other laboratory instruments including custom...

Compressed symbology is a product-identification method that was pioneered by NASA for tracking space-shuttle parts and is now being used to mark everything from groceries to automobile parts. Based on a system of two-dimensional marks applied to parts, compressed symbology was developed at NASA's...

A report discusses the potential application of artificial intelligence (AI) to planning, scheduling, and control of the optical configuration and other aspects of the operations of a large astronomical interferometer. Scientific demand and technical requirements necessitate...

A report proposes a method of cooperative modulation between (1) low-power radio transceivers associated with sensors geographically dispersed on a remote planet for relaying information between the sensors and an Earth station. The method, denoted node selection on orthogonal...

A report describes an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for controlling a power-switching metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) in a spacecraft power-supply system. Denoted an SCA (for switch-control ASIC), this ASIC is designed to be radiation-hard and to...

The Meteorological Range Safety Support System/Eastern Range Dispersion Assessment System (MARSS/ERDAS) is a system of interconnected computer workstations designed to acquire, process, and disseminate nearly real-time meteorological data and outputs of mathematical models of the atmospheric...

The Reconstruction of Serial Sections (ROSS) computer program processes data from a series of tomograms to generate a three-dimensional (3D) representation of an object, and further processes data from the 3D representation to enable the viewing of any part of the object from any of an...

DARWIN is a computer program that provides access, via the Internet, to geographically dispersed NASA computer archives of both meta-data and raw test data from wind tunnels and raw simulation data from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) sites. DARWIN facilitates the manipulation and...

An improved charge-termination technique has been developed to obtain a more accurate balance between charge and discharge of rechargeable lithium-ion-based electrochemical cells and batteries. The technique has been demonstrated experimentally and is now in use in a laboratory battery...

A software system has been developed for use in Earth operations centers communicating with a robotic exploratory vehicle (rover) on Mars. The software was designed for and field-tested on the Field Integrated Design and Operations rover — a prototype similar to rovers of the...

A computer program automatically generates topographical maps from data collected by scan-mode synthetic-aperture radar (scanSAR) during the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). A preprocessing subprogram subdivides the SAR data, along with ancillary spacecraft-motion, control,...

An algorithm that can discover potentially interesting objects in image data has been formulated and implemented in software. The algorithm is intended for applications in which the target objects are mathematically ill-defined and/or not known or specified in advance. Potential applications include...

An Automated Test Case Generator computer program generates parameter-based test cases for testing software and hardware systems. Given N parameters — each of which represents a kind of variation for testing — and a finite set of possible values for each parameter, the program generates individual...

The 3MCS computer program assists an instrumentation engineer in performing the 3 essential functions of design, documentation, and configuration management of measurement and control systems in a large test facility — initially, a propulsion-system test facility at Stennis Space...

The Front End Processor (FEP) Real-Time Embedded Software performs command and data-processing functions for an aeronautical MIL-STD-1553B telemetry link and ground support equipment (GSE) in a spacecraft-equipment-testing environment. The FEP is used in the Test, Control, and...

A report presents a theoretical study of communication among intelligent agents in the presence of quantum entanglement and the absence of classical (in the sense of non-quantum) communication channels. Several paradigms of self-organization based on quantum entanglement are introduced and...