LunarWSN Node - A Wireless Sensor Network Node Designed for In-Situ Lunar Water Ice Detection

In this paper, we present a fully functional cubic sensor node prototype designed to be ballistically deployed from a rover or lander to regions of interest that might be unsafe or impractical for rovers or landers to reach. Unlike helicopters or drones, this system can be deployed in airless environments. Crucially, the nodes are equipped with wireless ranging and wireless communications capabilities, such that each node can be localized by leveraging wireless ranging with triangulation, and a cluster of deployed nodes form an expandable WSN (Wireless Sensor Network), that we term LunarWSN. The hardware redundancy of the network can reduce the chance of failure. Each node is a light (\u3c170g), miniaturized (5cm×5cm×5cm), modular design, that allows sensor payloads to be customized to different scientific missions. As a representative case study, the node described in this paper is equipped with an impedance sensor designed to measure the permittivity of the lunar soil, which infers water content. With the help of LunarWSN, more in situ measurement results can be obtained to acquire meter-scale-resolution knowledge of lunar resource distribution and dynamic phenomena

Marshall Space Flight Center Research and Technology Report 2018

Many of NASAs missions would not be possible if it were not for the investments made in research advancements and technology development efforts. The technologies developed at Marshall Space Flight Center contribute to NASAs strategic array of missions through technology development and accomplishments. The scientists, researchers, and technologists of Marshall Space Flight Center who are working these enabling technology efforts are facilitating NASAs ability to fulfill the ambitious goals of innovation, exploration, and discovery

Engineering Support Contract Capabilities Awareness

No abstract availabl

MEMS Technology for Biomedical Imaging Applications

Biomedical imaging is the key technique and process to create informative images of the human body or other organic structures for clinical purposes or medical science. Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology has demonstrated enormous potential in biomedical imaging applications due to its outstanding advantages of, for instance, miniaturization, high speed, higher resolution, and convenience of batch fabrication. There are many advancements and breakthroughs developing in the academic community, and there are a few challenges raised accordingly upon the designs, structures, fabrication, integration, and applications of MEMS for all kinds of biomedical imaging. This Special Issue aims to collate and showcase research papers, short commutations, perspectives, and insightful review articles from esteemed colleagues that demonstrate: (1) original works on the topic of MEMS components or devices based on various kinds of mechanisms for biomedical imaging; and (2) new developments and potentials of applying MEMS technology of any kind in biomedical imaging. The objective of this special session is to provide insightful information regarding the technological advancements for the researchers in the community

2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy

This document is an update (new photos used) of the PDF version of the 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy that will be available to download on the OCT Public Website. The updated 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy, or "technology dictionary", uses a technology discipline based approach that realigns like-technologies independent of their application within the NASA mission portfolio. This tool is meant to serve as a common technology discipline-based communication tool across the agency and with its partners in other government agencies, academia, industry, and across the world

Small business innovation research. Abstracts of completed 1987 phase 1 projects

Non-proprietary summaries of Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects supported by NASA in the 1987 program year are given. Work in the areas of aeronautical propulsion, aerodynamics, acoustics, aircraft systems, materials and structures, teleoperators and robotics, computer sciences, information systems, spacecraft systems, spacecraft power supplies, spacecraft propulsion, bioastronautics, satellite communication, and space processing are covered

3rd International Workshop on Instrumentation for Planetary Missions : October 24–27, 2016, Pasadena, California

The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for collaboration, exchange of ideas and information, and discussions in the area of the instruments, subsystems, and other payload-related technologies needed to address planetary science questions. The agenda will compose a broad survey of the current state-of-the-art and emerging capabilities in instrumentation available for future planetary missions.Universities Space Research Association (USRA); Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI); Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)Conveners: Sabrina Feldman, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, David Beaty, Jet Propulsion Laboratory ; Science Organizing Committee: Carlton Allen, Johnson Space Center (retired) [and 12 others

Modern Telemetry

Telemetry is based on knowledge of various disciplines like Electronics, Measurement, Control and Communication along with their combination. This fact leads to a need of studying and understanding of these principles before the usage of Telemetry on selected problem solving. Spending time is however many times returned in form of obtained data or knowledge which telemetry system can provide. Usage of telemetry can be found in many areas from military through biomedical to real medical applications. Modern way to create a wireless sensors remotely connected to central system with artificial intelligence provide many new, sometimes unusual ways to get a knowledge about remote objects behaviour. This book is intended to present some new up to date accesses to telemetry problems solving by use of new sensors conceptions, new wireless transfer or communication techniques, data collection or processing techniques as well as several real use case scenarios describing model examples. Most of book chapters deals with many real cases of telemetry issues which can be used as a cookbooks for your own telemetry related problems

Energy harvesting of low-grade waste heat with colloid based technology

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Investigative Development of an UWB Radar for UAS-borne Applications

The engineering ethos of the last decade has been miniaturization. Progress in various industries like material design, semiconductor technology, and digital signal processing has resulted in low-profile electrical systems. This has facilitated the means of integration onto platforms. Sensors such as radars are typically large, heavy, and consume a lot of power. Miniaturization of radars can enable important applications like remote sensing the various aspects of the Earth System from Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). Information about natural topography like ice sheets, vegetation cover, and ocean currents can improve our understanding of the natural processes and continued measurements offer insight into the changes over time. Soil plays a vital role in the Earth’s hydrological cycle. The moisture in soil influences the weather, vegetation, and human endeavors like construction. Models are built using an extensive set of temporal soil moisture data to predict natural disasters like droughts, floods, and landslides. It plays a central role in the areas of agriculture and water resource management and hence can influence policy making and economic decisions. In this work, an investigative approach to the design, build, and test of a 2 – 18 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave radar for snow and soil measurements is reported. The radar system is designed to be integrated to the Vapor 55 rotorcraft, which is a Group 1 UAS. The radar can operate as a scatterometer to measure backscatter signatures in all four combinations of vertical and horizontal polarizations; or as a nadir-looking sounder for fine-resolution snow thickness measurements. One of the primary contributions of this work is the exploration of a single-module that integrates the radar’s RF transmitter, RF receiver, receiver’s IF section, wideband sweep generator, and the DC bias circuitry for the active components. The sweep generator is based on a phase-locked loop and frequency multiplication/translation stage. The compact assembly is in the form of two multilayer Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) merged together and it occupies an area of nearly 170 cm2. This thesis describes the design, construction, and testing of the module, along with recommendations for future revisions. A commercially off-the-shelf module (Arena series by Tomorrow.io, formerly Remote Sensing Solutions) is the digital backend and it consists of an Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) and a data acquisition system capable of sampling up to 250 MSPS. The module is low-profile with dimensions of 7.6 cm x 19.3 cm x 2.3 cm and weighs less than 400 g including the separate aluminum enclosure intended to be integrated with the radar’s RF and mixed-signal sections. A second contribution of this work is the design of a prototype antenna front-end, which consists of four four-element antenna arrays housed in a Delrin plastic fixture and are fed using custom-designed microstrip power dividers. The dimensions of the fixture are 13.7 cm x 5.9 cm x 5.5 cm and the uniform elemental distance is 2.5 cm. The arrays are fastened to a metal sheet and a custom-designed four-layer fiberglass composite fairing protects the arrays. The entire front-end is integrated on the rotorcraft and measured in an anechoic chamber. The measured, fully integrated return loss of each array covers 2 – 18 GHz and the highest value is -7.22 dB at 5.23 GHz. The radiation pattern shows a distinct nadir-pointing main lobe for nearly the entire bandwidth, however the effects of the platform increase the average side-lobe levels to less than 10 dB for 12 – 18 GHz. The measured maximum nadir gain is 15.88 dB at 10 GHz and there is a greater than 6 dB variation in magnitude within the bandwidth. This variation is compensated by processing the backscatter data over distinct sub-bands that have a maximum nadir gain variation of 6 dB. Lastly, the thesis describes two system tests conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a prototype radar with soil as the target. These are proof-of-concept measurements to detect differences in backscatter signatures between dry and wet soil. Gravimetric measurements of collected soil samples indicate an average change of 9.5% between the two moisture states. The antenna front-end is exclusively characterized using a Vector Network Analyzer and measurements are recorded for both co- and cross-polarization at three look angles of nadir, 15°, and 30°. The relative measurements are repeated on the same patch of land with a 1U version of the miniaturized radar. There are distinct differences in relative received power and backscatter profile for all four polarizations and at each look angle. It is observed that vertical polarization indicates a change in moisture content by an increase in the relative received power over an extended range beyond the primary backscatter signal. The horizontal polarization results in a greater peak received power for the primary backscatter signal, relative to the vertical polarization. The degradation in backscatter profile for vertical polarization is higher than horizontal polarization as a function of angle and this is observed for both dry and wet soil.The ETD Release form has been added to this record as a License bitstrea