Electronics & Software

This week's Question: At this year's Mobile World Congress in Spain, Sierra Wireless and Philips CityTouch demonstrated "smart city" lighting capabilities. The companies' systems connect a city's individual street lights to the Internet via 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. The "smart" technology allows...

Optical communications in terrestrial and space environments require transmitted signals on the order of 40 GHz and higher, because of the uncertain and changing transmission environments. A robust communications system is needed that will provide these frequencies and substantial discrimination between...

An aircraft pilot would prefer to receive information on weather patterns, obstructions, and other conditions that may interfere with a flight plan, formal or informal, as the pilot’s flight proceeds, with a latency of no more than a few minutes. Learning of, and reacting to, a changing environment...

The TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) and Terra ESMO (Earth Science Mission Operations) Ground Systems needed a method of passing scheduling data through the Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) bus to other subsystems without modifying the Planning and...

The Integrated Trending and Plotting System (ITPS) is a comprehensive tool for storage, extraction, analysis, and plots of spacecraft housekeeping telemetry data (GMSEC R3.0 — Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center). ITPS reports information to...

Silicon avalanche photodiodes (Si APDs) have low dark current and low excess noise factor, and are currently used in many of NASA’s missions. Noise equivalent power (NEP) of 40 to 50 fW/(Hz)1/2 over 140-MHz bandwidth has been demonstrated for Si APDs. Si APDs have very...

The conventional methods of improving wireless system coverage performance are to increase the transmitter power and/or antenna gain. The high transmit power could lead to more power consumption and RF exposure issues. The use of a high-gain antenna could lead...

SW DONKI is a comprehensive Web application for space weather forecasters, scientists, and the general space weather community. It serves as an archive for space weather activities including solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), solar energetic particles, and...

The Software Bus Network (SBN) is a plug-in component developed for the Core Flight System (cFS) framework that extends the core Flight Executive (cFE) Software Bus (SB) publish/subscribe messaging service across partitions, processes, processors, and networks. This extension is...

An efficient, cost-effective, and unique computer program has been developed that analyzes a variety of practical engineering problems. STructural Analysis Routines (STARS) is a fully integrated, multidisciplinary, finite element-based, graphic-oriented analysis tool that combines...

The Hazard Analysis Management Tool (HAMT) is comprised of a database and user interface that manages hazard analysis information, manages hazard verifications, and manages relationships between hazard attributes and project elements. The tool offers numerous benefits including the ability for multiple users to...

Several software application development tools exist that enable the rapid development of Web applications. Among other things, Web applications greatly enhance the human-computer interaction (HCI) required by many...

Space-based interferometry missions have the potential to revolutionize imaging and astrometry, providing observations of unprecedented accuracy. Realizing the full potential of these interferometers poses several significant technological challenges. These include the efficient maneuvering of...

A team of European researchers at the University of Cambridge has created an electronic device that detects the charge of a single electron in less than one microsecond. The "gate sensor" could be applied to quantum computers of the future to read information stored in the charge or spin of a single...

MIT Media Laboratory researchers are developing a wearable device that turns the user’s thumbnail into a miniature wireless track pad.

Soft nanoparticles from a University of Pennsylvania research team stick to the plane where oil and water meet, but do not stick to one another. The interface presents a potentially useful set of properties. The nanoparticles freely move past one another while being confined to the interface, effectively acting as a 2D...

A new prototype video camera is fully self-powered and can produce an image each second, indefinitely, of a well-lit indoor scene. Columbia University researchers designed a pixel that can not only measure incident light but also convert the incident light into electric power.