Electronics & Software

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...

The YaM computer program provides a conceptual framework (including configuration management) and a set of software tools that support the concurrent development of reusable software by members of a team. YaM favors development of software in modules that can be assembled into packages and...

A computer program implements an adaptive problem-solving (APS) algorithm for real-time development, refinement, and maintenance of the control strategy of an autonomous system that must operate in an environment about which little or no detailed information is available in advance. In the...

Recent improvements in the SINDA/FLUINT computer program have made the program into a highly capable, commercially viable software product for general mathematical modeling of thermohydraulic systems. Versions of SINDA/FLUINT have been described in a number of previous NASA Tech Briefs...

This test automation software reduces the burden of testing artificial-intelligence (AI) planning software written in the Heuristic Scheduling Testbed System (HSTS) [a software architecture for planning and scheduling]. It automates what would otherwise be the labor intensive and infeasibly...

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code has been developed to enable simulation of spray combustion near the fuel injectors in a liquid-fueled rocket engine. This code reflects the three-dimensional (3D), multiphase nature of the flow field in a rocket engine and is capable of modeling...

A query timeout detection algorithm has been proposed to support a protocol for reliable communications over links that are characterized by long delays because of (1) propagation of signals over interplanetary distances and/or (2) intermittency. The protocol could be an interplanetary analogue...

The Automated SAR Ortho-rectification Software System enables users of synthetic-aperture-radar (SAR) data to form processed images that are free of the distortion caused by the SAR imaging geometry and topography. The software consists of four modules:

A report discusses the use of the Web Interface for Telescience (WITS) for visualization and command sequence generation in the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) mission. WITS, which has been described in prior articles in NASA Tech Briefs, is an Internet-based software system that enables...

An article discusses anticipated advances in the design of increasingly capable integrated circuits containing ever smaller electronic devices. The article emphasizes the emergence of technology computer-aided design (TCAD) — a discipline in which computer-aided design is combined with computational...