Stories
46
0
1050
30
Application Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
MarkforgedWatertown, MAmarkforged.com
The crash test dummy has come of age over many decades as the gold standard for safety testing of automobiles. Organizations like the National...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Gated Chopper Integrator (GCI)
Microvolt-level signals require gains of at least a thousand. Offsets and noise in the amplifier chain will be amplified by the same amount, which can saturate the amplifier or swamp the signal so it is not resolvable. Other methods use chopping and/or autozero techniques to lower the offset and noise. The key...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Optimetric Measurements Over Coherent Free-Space Optical Communication
High-precision ranging (optimetric) instruments are highly desired for both space navigation and communications as well as gravitational-based science missions. Traditionally, these measurements are made with instruments solely dedicated to ranging (i.e. Doppler shift of a...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Real-Time Ion Mobility Sensor System
A real-time ion mobility sensor developed to detect contaminants and explosives is reliable, sensitive, robust, and inexpensive. The technology improves sensitivity and reduces false alarms for threat agents, and can identify chemicals with a sensitivity of five parts per billion.
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Ionization-Based Multidirectional Flow Sensor
One significant area of research in fuel cell technology includes systems in which a fuel cell is combined with another power generation device (a turbine, for example) to create a hybrid system that combines the advantages of the two standalone systems, resulting in a high fuel-to-electricity...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Trained rescue dogs are the best disaster workers — their sensitive noses help them track down people buried by earthquakes or avalanches. But dogs need breaks. A new measuring device is always ready...
Articles: Imaging
As Industry 4.0 initiatives bring more and more industrial axes of motion into the realm of automation, the need for cost-effective control across them grows as well. Advances in robotics,...
Products: Semiconductors & ICs
Motor/Drive/Controller
Advanced Micro Controls (Terryville, CT) offers a size 17 PLC-based SMD Series integrated stepper motor/drive/controller system. The integrated solutions are suited for new machinery, retrofits, and rapid...
Application Briefs: Aerospace
There are few industries where the demands for material testing and quality assurance are more challenging than in the aerospace industry. Ensuring the safety of all...
Application Briefs: Automotive
Materials testing and characterization is often a lengthy process. It can take more than a year and billions of testing cycles for a manufacturer to characterize the properties of a new...
Blog: Test & Measurement
InSight project manager Tom Hoffman spoke with Tech Briefs about the importance of digging deep in our knowledge of Mars.
Question of the Week: Test & Measurement
Can ‘The Ocean Cleanup’ Clean Up the Ocean?
The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit effort begun by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, wants to clean up 50% of “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in five years, with the aim of a 90% reduction by 2040.
Using a 600-meter long floater, or collection platform, called System 001, the Cleanup technology acts a...
INSIDER: Test & Measurement
A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis was the first to successfully record environmental data using a wireless photonic sensor resonator with a...
Articles: Test & Measurement
S. Himmelstein and Company (Hoffman Estates, IL) has been designing and manufacturing torque measurement transducers and instrumentation since 1960. The company’s products offer significant advantages...
Application Briefs: Aerospace
Attitude detection is a crucial element in aircraft and spacecraft navigation. The motion of an aircraft consists of a translational component (motion of its center of mass with respect to...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
An advanced, highly compact thermal camera that traces its heritage to one now flying on NASA's Landsat 8 has been mounted in a corner of NASA's next...
Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Optical Monitoring System
The SpectraLock Optical Monitoring System from Eddy Company (Apple Valley, CA) provides in-situ monitoring and deposition rate control to produce single- and multi-layered thin films with exacting...
Articles: Materials
In order to make ultrafast pulses accessible to the broadest possible field of applications, Coherent has been implementing a comprehensive program of design methodologies, materials...
Briefs: Data Acquisition
A Robust Waveguide Millimeter-Wave Noise Source
A noise source is an enabling technology for passive millimeter-wave remote sensing applications such as atmospheric sounding, and precipitation and ice cloud measurements. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has developed a packaged noise source that will allow calibration of the front end at the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Colloids — insoluble particles or molecules anywhere from a billionth to a millionth of a meter across — are so small they can stay suspended indefinitely in a liquid or even in air. Robots about...
Products: RF & Microwave Electronics
Thermography Systems
Advanced Thermal Solutions, Norwood, MA, announced the tvLYT™ liquid crystal thermography system that provides a portable solution for temperature measurement of electronics, circuit...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
Articles: Data Acquisition
Internet of Things (IoT) applications — whether for city infrastructures, factories, or wearable devices — use large arrays of sensors collecting data for transmission over the Internet to a central,...
Blog: Test & Measurement
Rivers Ingersoll spoke with Tech Briefs about why it is so important to have an up-close understanding of the hummingbird and nectar bat.
Question of the Week: Test & Measurement
Are You Currently Using Mechanical Test Equipment to Measure Strain?
One way to measure strain and deformation in a material is through digital image correlation and non-contact sensors. Next week, in a live webinar presentation, speakers from Trilion Quality Systems and MTS Systems Corp. will review how customers have used their imaging and...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Wearable technologies are exploding in popularity in both the consumer and research spaces, but most of the electronic sensors that detect and transmit data from wearables are made of hard,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Optical fibers have been traditionally produced by making a cylindrical object called a preform — essentially, a scaled-up model of the fiber — and then heating it. Softened material...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
As the demand for air transportation increases, the capacity of the current U.S. ATM system will eventually be stressed to its limits. New technologies in communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS),...
Articles: Medical
The benefits of NASA's space exploration efforts are not limited to the cosmos. NASA technologies provide innovative solutions for people around the world. NASA missions have generated thousands of spinoffs —...
Top Stories
Blog: Power
My Opinion: We Need More Power Soon — Is Nuclear the Answer?
Blog: AR/AI
Aerial Microrobots That Can Match a Bumblebee's Speed
News: Energy
Blog: Electronics & Computers
Turning Edible Fungi into Organic Memristors
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Microscopic Swimming Machines that Can Sense, Respond to Surroundings
INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: Energy
Hydrogen Engines Are Heating Up for Heavy Duty
Upcoming Webinars: Electronics & Computers
Advantages of Smart Power Distribution Unit Design for Automotive...
Upcoming Webinars: Unmanned Systems
Quiet, Please: NVH Improvement Opportunities in the Early Design...
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
From Spreadsheets to Insights: Fast Data Analysis Without Complex...
Upcoming Webinars: Automotive
Battery Abuse Testing: Pushing to Failure
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
