Electronics & Software

Haunted by memories of blackouts and power reductions, utility and battery companies are stepping up efforts to upgrade their substations with larger batteries. For instance, electric utility giant American Electric Power (Columbus, OH) has ordered three multimegawatt battery systems, with the goal of having 25 megawatts of...

A linear illumination system based on a highly reflective external enclosure improves light efficiency and brightness when utilizing fluorescent lamps, light emitting diodes (LED), laser diodes, organic LEDs, electroluminescent strips, or high-intensity discharge lamps as the light source. The system provides a critical advantage...

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), IBM, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have pushed the measurement of thin films to the edge to produce the first data on how the edges of metallic thin films contribute to their magnetic properties. The results may impact the...

Version 2.0 of the autogen software has been released. "Autogen" (automated sequence generation) signifies both a process and software used to implement the process of automated generation of sequences of commands in a standard format for uplink to spacecraft. Autogen requires fewer workers than are needed for older manual...

A parallel version of the MOPEX software, which generates mosaics of infrared astronomical images acquired by the Spitzer Space Telescope, extends the capabilities of the prior serial version. In the parallel version, both the input image space and the output mosaic space are divided among the...

A computer program denoted Tracking Data Delivery Software Orbit Data File (TDDSODF) converts deep-space-radio-communication spacecraft-tracking data from a currently used file format known in the art as "TRK-2-34" to a legacy format denoted "TRK-2-18." TDDSODF reads standard formatted data units (SFDUs) of several...

NASA Enterprise Visual Analysis (NEVA) is a computer program undergoing development as a successor to Launch Services Analysis Tool (LSAT), formerly known as Payload Carrier Analysis Tool (PCAT). NEVA facilitates analyses of proposed configurations of payloads and packing fixtures (e.g. pallets) in a space shuttle...

A computer program implements reference counting pointers (RCPs) that are lock-free, thread-safe, async-safe, and operational on a multiprocessor computer. RCPs are powerful and convenient means of managing heap memory in C++ software. Most prior RCP programs use locks to ensure thread...

A document proposes a CO2-reduction primary electrochemical cell as a building block of batteries to supply electric power on the surface of Venus. The basic principle of the proposed cell is similar to that of terrestrial Zn-air batteries, the major differences being that (1) the anode metal would not...

iC-Haus Corp. USA (Naperville, IL) introduces the iC-MH, a system-on-chip solution for magnetic sensor applications. The iC-MH’s 5 x 5 mm QFN28 package contains integrated Hall sensors with signal amplifier and gain control, two A/D converters for incremental and commutation signals, integrated RS-422 line...

Glenn Research Center (Cleveland, OH) has designed a power supply for a cordless drill in which ultracapacitors, rather than batteries, are used to store energy. Whereas charging of batteries usually takes hours, ultracapacitors can be charged in seconds. Read more here.