Electronics & Software

A proposed analog/digital circuit would improve the accuracy of determining the time of occurrence of a peak in an analog waveform. In the past, the time of occurrence of the peak was determined by comparing the magnitude of digital data samples. The time or clock pulse associated with the peak...

High-performance electronic circuits would incorporate self-checking features for detection of radiation-induced single-event latchups (SELs), according to a proposal. The basic SEL-detection scheme calls for redundant circuitry and a current-voting scheme similar to voting schemes that...

Many commercially available advanced-technology CMOS and bipolar integrated circuits are susceptible to single-event latchup (SEL) effects caused by heavy ions or protons from cosmic rays or solar flares, making them unsuitable for satellite applications. Remanufacturing the integrated circuits...

Berkeley Laboratory researchers have demonstrated a novel superconducting gradiometer that helps to reduce ambient magnetic field noise generated by relatively distant sources in favor of tiny magnetic signals generated by a local source. This is another step toward the operation of SQUID-based instruments...

Research closely related to that reported in the preceding article has shown that δ-doped charge-coupled devices (CCDs) could be used to detect incident protons and perhaps other positive ions, and to measure the kinetic energies of the ions, down to about 1.25 keV. Prior to the development...

An integrated circuit physical layout has been developed for the RSDL ASIC™ — an integrated circuit that encodes telemetry data and transfers the data (which are grouped together in transfer frames) to a radio transmitter. The RSDL ASIC is described in "ASIC for...

A technique for estimating the boresight direction of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver antenna involves utilization of the relationship between the strengths of received signals and the direction-dependent antenna gain pattern. The technique is fundamentally different from, and...

A report discusses the performance of a soft digital-data-transition tracking loop (DTTL) in a radio receiver that recovers digital data conveyed by binary phase-shift keying. The DTTL is used as a symbol synchronizer; it provides symbol timing to essential parts of the receiver. The DTTL...

An automated system of computer hardware and software has been developed for managing construction projects at Stennis Space Center. This system replaces an older collection of paper-based subsystems, wherein documents were copied, filed, and distributed in labor-intensive processes. Data...