NASA SBIR abstracts of 1991 phase 1 projects

The objectives of 301 projects placed under contract by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are described. These projects were selected competitively from among proposals submitted to NASA in response to the 1991 SBIR Program Solicitation. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 301, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference of the 1991 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA Field Center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number are included

Direct off-line robot programming via a common CAD package

This paper focuses on intuitive and direct off-line robot programming from a CAD drawing running on a common 3-D CAD package. It explores the most suitable way to represent robot motion in a CAD drawing, how to automatically extract such motion data from the drawing, make the mapping of data from the virtual (CAD model) to the real environment and the process of automatic generation of robot paths/programs. In summary, this study aims to present a novel CAD-based robot programming system accessible to anyone with basic knowledge of CAD and robotics. Experiments on different manipulation tasks show the effectiveness and versatility of the proposed approach

Simulation and Planning of a 3D Spray Painting Robotic System

Nesta dissertação é proposto um sistema robótico 3D de pintura com spray. Este sistema inclui uma simulação realista do spray com precisão suficiente para imitar pintura com spray real. Também inclui um algoritmo otimizado para geração de caminhos que é capaz de pintar projetos 3D não triviais. A simulação parte de CAD 3D ou peças digitalizadas em 3D e produz um efeito visual realista que permite analisar qualitativamente o produto pintado. Também é apresentada uma métrica de avaliação que pontua trajetória de pintura baseada na espessura, uniformidade, tempo e desperdício de tinta.In this dissertation a 3D spray painting robotic system is proposed. This system has realistic spray simulation with sufficient accuracy to mimic real spray painting. It also includes an optimized algorithm for path generation that is capable of painting non trivial 3D designs. The simulation has 3D CAD or 3D scanned input pieces and produces a realistic visual effect that allows qualitative analyses of the painted product. It is also presented an evaluation metric that scores the painting trajectory based on thickness, uniformity, time and waste of paint

Numerical analysis of the temperature distribution and offline programming of industrial robot for thermal spraying

El ojetivo del proyecto fin de carrera es la generación de la trayectoria del robot a partir de la información geométrica del modelo en CAD de una pieza del tren de alta velocidad (AVE). A partir del la generación del modelo en CAD, el software aplicado es SolidWorks, es posible realizar las secciones necesarias que definan la trayectoria de la pistola del robot. Con una única sección es posible definir esta trayectoria ya que esta pieza posee un movimiento de rotación en el eje Y.Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industria

Modeling that Leads to the Prediction of Photocatalytic Coatings Characterization

One of the abundant sources of energy on earth is a solar energy which is the clean and safest energy source. It is also known as universal energy, the most important source of renewable energy available today. On realizing that the light source has a crucial role in daily life, several scientists and researchers from centuries ago have studied to establish photo induced systems and utilized them. Long after the knowledge of thermal energy, photovoltaic energy, and photosynthesis in plants, two prominent scientists, Fujishima and Honda, have discovered the electrochemical photolysis of water with the Titanium dioxide electrode which was reported in Nature by Analogy with a natural photosynthesis in 1972 [21]. This discovery leads to the development of heterogeneous photocatalysis in various applications including air and water purification treatment and organic synthesis. Since then it has drawn the wide scientific interest of many academicians and commercial industries. Over the past few decades, the extensive study focused on photocatalysis. Titanium dioxide photocatalysis has been promoted as a leading and emerging green technology for air and water purification systems because of its versatile nature being non-toxic environment friendly, stability to photocorrosion, low cost and potential to function under solar light better than any other artificial light source. It can be exploited for both harvesting solar energy and the destruction of organic and inorganic pollutants, even micro-organisms, in water and air by solar light irradiation. Recently several researches have been focused on improving the operating efficiency of the photocatalytic process on both the mechanistic aspects and other operating parametric aspects including catalyst concentration load, irradiation time, relative humidity, reaction temperature and many more; however, rate limiting properties still remain elusive. Many issues hindering its application on large scale production still exists. Several chemists and materials scientists focused mainly on the synthesis of more efficient materials and the investigation of degradation mechanism while engineers and computational scientists focused mainly on the development of appropriate models both mathematical and statistical, graphical representations to evaluate the intrinsic kinetics parameters and to build the prediction models that allow the scale up or re-design of efficient large-scale photocatalytic reactors. The number of raw data points and raw data files collected by sensors during several experiments grows rapidly over a time. With a large number of raw data sets, a tool to handle such a large raw data set is a practical necessity both for visualization and data analysis along with the computing power. With an aim to build the prediction model of the photocatalytic characterization, scientific computing tools NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib based on the python programming language are used. For graphical analysis and statistical significance, a custom tool was built using the wxPython package

The NASA SBIR product catalog

The purpose of this catalog is to assist small business firms in making the community aware of products emerging from their efforts in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. It contains descriptions of some products that have advanced into Phase 3 and others that are identified as prospective products. Both lists of products in this catalog are based on information supplied by NASA SBIR contractors in responding to an invitation to be represented in this document. Generally, all products suggested by the small firms were included in order to meet the goals of information exchange for SBIR results. Of the 444 SBIR contractors NASA queried, 137 provided information on 219 products. The catalog presents the product information in the technology areas listed in the table of contents. Within each area, the products are listed in alphabetical order by product name and are given identifying numbers. Also included is an alphabetical listing of the companies that have products described. This listing cross-references the product list and provides information on the business activity of each firm. In addition, there are three indexes: one a list of firms by states, one that lists the products according to NASA Centers that managed the SBIR projects, and one that lists the products by the relevant Technical Topics utilized in NASA's annual program solicitation under which each SBIR project was selected

Technology 2000, volume 1

The purpose of the conference was to increase awareness of existing NASA developed technologies that are available for immediate use in the development of new products and processes, and to lay the groundwork for the effective utilization of emerging technologies. There were sessions on the following: Computer technology and software engineering; Human factors engineering and life sciences; Information and data management; Material sciences; Manufacturing and fabrication technology; Power, energy, and control systems; Robotics; Sensors and measurement technology; Artificial intelligence; Environmental technology; Optics and communications; and Superconductivity

Advances in CAD/CAM/CAE Technologies

CAD/CAM/CAE technologies find more and more applications in today’s industries, e.g., in the automotive, aerospace, and naval sectors. These technologies increase the productivity of engineers and researchers to a great extent, while at the same time allowing their research activities to achieve higher levels of performance. A number of difficult-to-perform design and manufacturing processes can be simulated using more methodologies available, i.e., experimental work combined with statistical tools (regression analysis, analysis of variance, Taguchi methodology, deep learning), finite element analysis applied early enough at the design cycle, CAD-based tools for design optimizations, CAM-based tools for machining optimizations