Nasa Tech Briefs May 2012

Welcome to your Digital Edition of
NASA Tech Briefs and Photonics Tech Briefs

Included in This May Edition:
NASA Tech Briefs
May 2012
Photonics Tech Briefs

Photonics Solutions for the Design Engineer
Vol. 36 No. 5
www.techbriefs.com
May 2012
Fiber optic oxygen sensors use the fluorescence

of a chemical complex in a sol-gel to measure the
partial pressure of oxygen. A pulsed blue LED sends
light at approximately 475nm to an optical fiber like
this one, which in turn transmits it to a probe thats
been coated with a thin layer of hydrophobic
sol-gel material. To learn more, read the
feature article on page IIa.
(Image courtesy of Ocean Optics)
Fiber Optic Oxygen Sensors

How Do They Work? ..............................IIa
Battery Options for

Uninterruptible Power Supplies
Has the Ultimate Camera Interface

Finally Arrived?.......................................2a
Method of Bonding Optical Elements
With Near-Zero Displacement................4a
Measuring Greenhouse Gases
Optical Phase Recovery and

Locking in a PPM Laser
Communication Link...............................5a
Inside:
Test & Measurement
Suppliers Guide
Reliable Optical Pump Architecture

for Highly Coherent Lasers ....................6a
Method to Enhance the Operation
of an Optical Inspection Instrument .....8a
High-Speed Edge-Detecting
Line Scan Smart Camera ........................8a
Downsampling Photodetector
Array With Windowing..........................9a
Optical Communications
Channel Combiner ................................10a
Development of Thermal Infrared
Sensor to Supplement Operational
Land Imager ..........................................10a
Product of the Month/
New Products ........................................12a
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Intro
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May 2012
Vol. 36 No. 5
www.techbriefs.com
Battery Options for

Measuring Greenhouse Gases
Inside:
Test & Measurement
Suppliers Guide
Intro
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Test & Measurement Equipment
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Intro
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May 2012 Vol. 36 No. 5
F E ATUR E S
14
Battery Options for

18
Application Briefs
33
Test & Measurement OEM Supplier Guide
79
NASA TechNeeds
20
S O LUTIO N S
20
Technology Focus: Test & Measurement
20
Air Gaging for Non-Contact Measurement of

Complex Geometric Tolerances
Absolute Position of Targets Measured Through a
Chamber Window Using Lidar Metrology Systems
An Inefficient Fin Non-Dimensional Parameter to
Measure Gas Temperatures Efficiently
On-Wafer Measurement of a Multi-Stage MMIC
Amplifier With 10 dB of Gain at 475 GHz
Software to Control and Monitor Gas Streams
Anomaly Detection in Test Equipment via
Sliding Mode Observers
Miniaturized Laser Heterodyne Radiometer (LHR) for
Measurements of Greenhouse Gases in the
Atmospheric Column
22
24
28
28
31
32
42
Electronics/Computers
42
Fast and Adaptive Lossless Onboard Hyperspectral

Data Compression System
Iridium Interfacial Stack IrIS
Goldstone Solar System Radar Waveform Generator
Amplitude-Stabilized Oscillator for a
Capacitance-Probe Electrometer
42
44
45
72
DEPARTM ENTS
8
46
Software
46
Histogrammatic Method for Determining

Relative Abundance of Input Gas Pulse
Predictive Sea State Estimation for Automated
Ride Control and Handling PSSEARCH
LEGION: Lightweight Expandable Group of
Independently Operating Nodes
Real-Time Projection to Verify Plan Success During Execution
Automated Performance Characterization of DSN System
Frequency Stability Using Spacecraft Tracking Data
Web-Based Customizable Viewer for Mars
Network Overflight Opportunities
46
47
48
48
49
Manufacturing & Prototyping
50
52
Graphene Transparent Conductive Electrodes for

Next-Generation Microshutter Arrays
Fabrication of a Cryogenic Terahertz Emitter for Bolometer
Focal Plane Calibrations
Fabrication of an Absorber-Coupled MKID Detector
54
Mechanics/Machinery
54
Long-Life, Lightweight, Multi-Roller Traction Drives

for Planetary Vehicle Surface Exploration
Wavefront Compensation Segmented Mirror
Sensing and Control
Free-Mass and Interface Configurations of
Hammering Mechanisms
50
55
56
10
Whos Who at NASA
12
NASA Patents
41
Technologies of the Month
76
Advertisers Index
78
NASAs Innovative Partnerships Office
NEW
50
UpFront
FOR
58
ENGI NEER S
70
Product Focus: Sensors & Detectors
71
New Products/Software
SPEC I AL
SU PPLEM ENT

May 2012


1a 14a

Follows page 40 in selected editions only.

58
DESI GN
Materials & Coatings

Advanced Bonding Methods Incorporating

Epoxy Resin Technology
Land Imager ..........................................10a
New Products ........................................12a
(Solutions continued on page 6)
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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NASA Tech Briefs, May 2012
2010 The MathWorks, Inc.
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Contents continued
60
Electrochemical Ultracapacitors Using Graphitic Nanostacks
61
Bio-Medical
61
61
Monitoring Location and Angular Orientation of a Pill

Molecular Technique to Reduce PCR Bias for Deeper
Understanding of Microbial Diversity
Improved Whole-Blood-Staining Device
62
Physical Sciences
64
PRTs and Their Bonding for Long-Duration,

Extreme-Temperature Environments
3D Display Using Conjugated Multiband Bandpass Filters
Real-Time, Non-Intrusive Detection of Liquid Nitrogen in
Liquid Oxygen at High Pressure and High Flow
High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer for the
Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Laser Ablation Electrodynamic Ion Funnel for In Situ
Mass Spectrometry on Mars
Mid- and Long-IR Broadband Quantum Well Photodetector
65
66
66
67
Books and Reports
67
67
67
Dual-Compartment Inflatable Suitlock

Techniques for Solution-Assisted Optical Contacting
Large-Strain Transparent Magnetoactive Polymer
Nanocomposites
Thermodynamic Vent System for an On-Orbit Cryogenic
Reaction Control Engine
Time Distribution Using SpaceWire in the SCaN Testbed on ISS
67
74
The content of individual tech briefs included in this publication has been provided by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Neither Associated Business Publications Co.,
Ltd. nor the United States Government nor any person acting on behalf of the United States
Government assumes any liability resulting from the use of the information contained in this document, or warrants that such use will be free from privately owned rights. The U.S. Government
does not endorse any commercial product, process, or activity identified in this publication.
OF
TH E
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SpaceClaim Engineer 2012 3D direct

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64
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PR ODU C T
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Advanced bonding methods that incorporate epoxy
resin technology are among the most reliable and
cost-effective fastening options in demanding applications such as those found in the transportation,
optical, and electronics industries. Learn more about
epoxy resins in the tech brief from Master Bond
(Hackensack, NJ) beginning on page 58.
(Image courtesy of Master Bond)
Permissions: Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or
personal use of specific clients, is granted by Associated Business Publications, provided that
the flat fee of $3.00 per copy be paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (222 Rose
Wood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923). For those organizations that have been granted a photocopy
license by CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. The fee code for users of the
Transactional Reporting Service is: ISSN 0145-319X194 $3.00+ .00
Intro
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are not afliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by Autodesk, Inc., and/or its afliates and/or subsidiaries. MATLAB is a registered trademark of The Mathworks, Inc. Pro/ENGINEER and Creo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation
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Intro
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UP
FRONT
Linda Bell
Editorial Director
> Tune in to TechBriefs TV
SAE International and Tech Briefs Join Forces
Tune in to TechBriefs TV, a new

video service from NASA Tech Briefs.
At techbriefs.tv, design engineers
can explore videos from government
and university laboratories, industry
partners, and more. New videos
available daily offer a glimpse into
the ongoing technology innovations
that can be applied to engineering
or manufacturing solutions. Tailored
playlists focus on areas that have
always been important to the readers of NASA Tech Briefs, from medical design and motion control, to
photonics and electronics. As
TechBriefs TV grows, engineers will
be able to watch an increasing range
of content customized for them.
SAE International, the global association of engineers in the aerospace, automotive, and
commercial vehicle industries, has acquired Tech Briefs Media Group (TBMG), publishers of
NASA Tech Briefs. As an independent subsidiary of SAE International, TBMG will continue
to provide readers with exclusive information on new NASA technologies that you look forward to each month in NASA Tech Briefs, its sister publications, and supplements. For more
information on SAE, visit www.sae.org.
Robonaut Lends More Than Just a Helping Hand

In the March 2010 issue of NASA Tech Briefs, we introduced you to Robonaut 2, or R2 (read the original article at
www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/7635).
Last year, R2 became the first humanoid robot in space, and
has been busy testing its technology in microgravity aboard
the International Space Station.
When General Motors (GM) and NASA began collaborating on R2, one of the design requirements was for the robot
to operate tools designed for humans. An unprecedented
level of hand dexterity was achieved on R2 through sensors,
actuators, and tendons comparable to the nerves, muscles,
and tendons in a human hand.
NASA and GM have been developing a robotic glove that
auto workers and astronauts can wear to help do their jobs
better while potentially reducing the risk of repetitive stress
injuries. Officially named the Human Grasp Assist device, it is
generally called the K-Glove or Robo-Glove. Initial testing of
the Robo-Glove indicates the wearer can hold a grip longer
and more comfortably.
Watch a video of how Robo-Glove was developed at www.techbriefs.com/tv/robonaut.
Find out more at www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/robo-glove.html.
> App of the Month

Earth-Now
A free iPhone
app from NASA
literally puts the
whole world in
the palm of your
hands. Earth-Now
immerses cyber
explorers in dazzling visualizations of near-real-time
global climate data from NASAs
fleet of Earth science satellites. It displays data on many of the key vital
signs of our planet that NASA satellites track. It is available at the iTunes
Store or by visiting www.jpl.nasa.
gov/apps.
New Web Site Shares Space Station Benefits for Humanity

When the International Space Station (ISS) was first imagined, the idea was to create a research platform for the benefit of humankind. That goal is now a reality, and we can already
see some amazing breakthroughs, including the Robo-Glove
described above. So what else has the space station yielded to
humankind? The International Space Station Benefits for
Humanity Web site (www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/
research/benefits/index.html) shows you the global progress
resulting from the technologies of the ISS.
One of those technologies is the neuroArm, born of the Canadian Space Agencys family of space robots on the ISS. NeuroArm works with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems, letting surgeons perform operations while a patient is inside an MRI machine. Paige
Nickason (shown in the photo pointing to where the robot entered her head) was the first
patient to have brain surgery performed by the neuroArm.
Watch a video of neuroArm at work at www.techbriefs.com/tv/neuroarm.
> Next Month in NTB

The June issue of NASA Tech Briefs
will feature a special report on
Aviation Technology, and the winners of NASAs annual Inventions of
the Year competition.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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Whos Who at NASA
Stephen Merkowitz, Project Manager, Space

Geodesy Initiative, NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
ASA is helping
to lead an international effort to
upgrade the systems
that supply crucial
location information and Earth science measurements.
Stephen Merkowitz
is a scientist and Project Manager for the
upgraded ground station that will help
serve satellites of the future.
NASA Tech Briefs: What is geodesy, and
what is NASAs international geodesy initiative?
Stephen Merkowitz: Geodesy is the
science of where things are, where
theyre going, and where theyve been.
It is used to study the Earths shape, rotation, and gravity. NASA currently offers
a network of space geodetic ground stations that do Very Long Baseline
Interferometry (VLBI), satellite laser
ranging (SLR), and GNSS (global navigation satellite system) or GPS tracking.
The new space geodesy project will
develop and implement the next-generation systems. The current systems are
20 to 30 years old.
One of the primary drivers for
upgrading the system is sea-level measurement, where you would like to be
able to make those measurements at the
millimeter level and have them be stable
over the years, so you can do repeated
measurements.
NTB: What is VLBI?
Merkowitz: VLBI is a system of radio telescopes that observes distant quasars.

Theyre so far away that their position in
the sky is relatively stable. We can use
them as a stable reference system, and we
do this by observing these quasars with a
number of radio telescopes all over the
globe. NASA operates a few, but we do
need the global community to do this,
and theyll observe the same quasar simultaneously. So in a sense, you can think of
all of these little telescopes acting togeth-
NTB: How does the satellite ranging

system work?
Merkowitz: Todays systems are operating at about the centimeter level, so we
can determine the distance to the satellites to roughly a centimeter. The newer
systems will be about an order of magnitude better, with millimeter-level tracking.
Theyll be able to [work with] many more
sources: different satellites and satellites at
higher altitudes and during the daytime.
Most importantly, from a cost perspective,
is that these systems will be much more
autonomous than the current system.
Were building a lot of automation into
them so that the skill level of an operator
and the amount of effort an operator has
to use with these systems is significantly
decreased. It will be much cheaper to
have more of these stations.
NTB: Why is determination of a location so challenging?
Merkowitz: From our perspective, the
challenge is that everythings moving.
The satellites are moving, and the Earth
is moving. We think that the Earth just
rotates in space, but it actually wobbles
on its axis. The length of a day varies
over time. Thats why we occasionally
have leap seconds, to make up for the
fact that the clock time is slightly different than the Earths rotation times. In
addition, you have ground motion
the plate tectonics moving. The Earths
crust is not stable, so all of these things
are moving around relative to each
other, and were trying to pin down
essentially where the center mass of the
Earth is over time to a millimeter.
To learn more about geodesy, read a full
transcript, or listen to a downloadable podcast of the interview, visit www.techbriefs.
com/podcast. For more information, contact
elizabeth.a.zubritsky@nasa.gov.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
er as one big telescope. You also get baseline information between the telescopes
when youre doing the same observation,
which allows you to determine the orientation of the Earth in space.
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Over the past three decades, NASA has granted more than 1000 patent licenses in virtually every area
of technology. The agency has a portfolio of thousands of patents and pending applications available
now for license by businesses and individuals, including these recently patented inventions:
Position Sensing for Rotor in

Hybrid Stepper Motor
U.S. Patent No. 7,911,174
David E. Howard, Dean C. Alhorn,

and Dennis A. Smith, Marshall Space
Flight Center, Alabama
Stepper motors generate heat associated with their fully loaded condition.
This heat build-up can be detrimental to
the motor. Position sensors work for
brushless servo stepper motors that use a
rotor with alternating north and south
poles, but not with hybrid stepper
motors. This invention senses rotor position in a hybrid-type stepper motor.
The rotor has first and second spacedapart armatures with the first armature
defining a number of north poles and
the second armature defining a number
of south poles. First and second Hall
sensors are positioned in a spaced-apart
relationship with the first and second
armatures of the rotor so that the first
and second Hall sensors generate electrical outputs that are 90 out of phase
with one another as the rotor rotates.
The electrical outputs are adjusted relative to a reference, and the amplitude of
the electrical outputs is adjusted to
account for spacing differences between
the rotor and each of the Hall sensors.
Robotic-Movement Payload
Lifter and Manipulator
William R. Doggett, Bruce D. King,

Timothy J. Collins, and John T.
Dorsey, Langley Research Center,
Hampton, VA
A variety of devices are used for lifting,
manipulating, and/or placing payloads
for Earth-based operations, including
cranes and forklifts. For planetary operations, however, more efficient devices
are required that can provide multiple
functions. This invention presents an
apparatus that can be used for both pay-
load lifting and manipulation using

robotic-like movements.
The payload lifter/manipulator module includes a rotatable joint supporting
spreader arms angularly spaced with
respect to one another. A rigid arm is
coupled to the joint and extends out to
a tip. A tension arm has a first end and a
second end with the first end being coupled to the tip of the rigid arm. The tension arm incorporates pivots along the
length. Each pivot can be engaged by, or
disengaged from, the outboard end of a
spreader arm based on a position of the
spreader arm. A hoist, positioned
remotely with respect to the module and
coupled to the second end of the tension arm, controls the position of the
spreader arms to control the position of
the arms tip.
Self-Validating Thermocouple
Jose M. Perotti, Carlos T. Mata,

Josephine B. Santiago, Peter Vokrot,
Carlos E. Zavala, and Bradley M.
Burns, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
In many sensors and thermocouples,
the cause for failure is directly related to
the physical bonding between the thermocouple sensor element and the attachment surface. This invention provides a
self-validating thermocouple that detects
sensor probe open circuits, short circuits,
and unnoticeable faults such as probe
debonding and degradation.
The system incorporates a heating or
excitation element into the measuring
junction of the thermocouple. By heating the measuring junction and observing the decay time for the detected DC
voltage signal, it is possible to indicate
whether the thermocouple is bonded or
debonded. A change in the thermal
transfer function of the thermocouple
system causes a change in the rise and
decay times of the thermocouple output.
For more information on the inventions described here, contact the appropriate
NASA Field Centers Innovative Partnerships (IP) Office.
See page 78 for a list of office contacts.
www.techbriefs.com
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Battery Options
for Uninterruptible
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A 12V, 95-Amp/hour VRLA high-temperature battery from CSB Battery Co.
he lead-acid battery was invented

by the French physicist Gaston
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battery was required, and represents
70% of the secondary (rechargeable)
batteries used worldwide. Even today,
with the advent of higher-power-density
and low-weight batteries, the lead-acid
battery in all of its forms is the most commonly used battery type.
It is the mainstay of the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and
automobile industries. This is primarily due to its high power capabilities
and very low cost. Lead-acid batteries
are available in various design topologies, such as flooded SLI, traction and
stationary types, Valve Regulated LeadAcid (VRLA or SLA), Absorbed Glass
Mat (AGM), and Gel Cell recombination types.
The UPS industry uses flooded SLI,

stationary types, and their sealed counterpart, the VRLA battery. Due to the
dangers associated with spillage, and the
hydrogen gas emissions associated with
flooded batteries, they are primarily
used with large, stationary UPS systems
in permanent, fixed locations.
forcible introduction of them to the positive electrode.

Negative electrode reaction:
PbSO4(s) + H+(aq) + 2-e Pb(s)
+ HSO-4(aq)
Positive electrode reaction:
PbSO4(s) + 2H2O(l) PbO2(s)
+ HSO-4(aq) + 3H+(aq) + 2-e
Charge and Discharge

The basic flooded cell design consists
of a positive electrode made of lead
dioxide, and a negative electrode constructed from a highly porous sponge
lead. Both electrodes are continuously
submerged on a solution of water and
sulfuric acid. Antimony is added to the
electrodes to increase the batterys performance. The following details the
charge and discharge electrochemistry
of the battery.
The charging process is accomplished
by the forcible removal of electrons
from the negative electrode, and the
As the cell approaches a fully charged

state, the majority of the PbSO4 has been
converted to Pb or PbO2, and the cell
voltage then increases to the gassing
voltage of approximately 2.39 Volts.
Beyond this state of charge, an overcharge reaction begins, resulting in the
production of hydrogen and oxygen.
Internal battery water is also lost due to
it being converted into hydrogen and
oxygen and expelled from the battery. If
substantial overcharging occurs, positive
electrode corrosion and even plate
buckling can occur, resulting in permanent battery damage.
The discharge process is caused by the
conduction of electrons from the positive electrode back into the cell at the
negative electrode.
Negative electrode reaction:
PbSO4(s) + H+(aq) + 2-e Pb(s)
+ HSO-4(aq)
Positive electrode reaction:
PbSO4(s) + 2H2O(l) PbO2(s)
+ HSO-4(aq) + 3H+(aq) + 2-e
The nominal voltage of a single cell in
a lead-acid battery is 2 Volts. For example,
a 12-Volt car battery is constructed from
six cells. When discharged below an 80%
depth of discharge (1.7 Vdc per cell), cell
damage can result. The resulting destructive process is referred to as excessive sulfation, or the crystallization of lead sulfate. Basically, lead is taken into the electrolyte solution, crystallized, and coats
the batterys plates (electrodes).
Figure 1. VRLA lifecycle chart.
14
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Intro
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Battery Options
The manufacturers stated service life
for flooded batteries is dependent on the
battery grade and quality. The stated service life is dependent on the water level
being maintained, as well as the battery
being properly charged, and installed in a
location having a continuous 20 to 30 C
(68 to 86 F) environment. Flooded batteries are available with advertised service
life ratings from three to over 20 years.
Valve Regulated Lead-Acid

The largest number of UPS types
sold are the small, portable varieties.
Typically, their power ratings range

from 100VA up to 10kVA. As such, the
largest bulk of the batteries used in the
UPS industry are the VRLA types. The
VRLA battery is ideal for portable
applications as they incorporate a pressure relief vent that seals the batterys
cells and prevents the escape of the
electrolyte. They incorporate re-sealable vents that are normally closed to
prevent the entrance of oxygen, and
just as important, retain hydrogen gas
to keep their recombination process
in balance.
Within the VRLA battery family, the

electrolyte is immobilized using two differing methods. The first is through the
use of a gelled electrolyte and is often
referred to as a Gel Cell. The gel is
impregnated into a sheet of microporous material that acts as the separator between the positive and negative
electrodes. Like with flooded batteries,
the gel electrolyte contains water and
sulfuric acid. The second design is
referred to as Absorptive Glass Mat
(AGM). The design is almost identical to
the gel type, except the separator material is AGM made from glass microfibers.
With a conventional flooded battery,
hydrogen and oxygen are lost to the outside of the battery. Hydrogen and oxygen
balance is not a problem, as the battery
can have lost water added. However, in a
VRLA battery, the closely spaced electrode plates are separated by a porous
glass mat material. The cell is filled with
only enough electrolytes to cover the surface of the electrode plates and the individual glass strands of the separator material. This creates a starved-electrolyte condition, and allows for the homogeneous
gas transfer between the plates, which
facilitates the recombination of hydrogen
and oxygen gasses back into water when
the battery is recharged. Under normal
recharge conditions, the cell vent
remains closed, and maintains cell pressure, assisting in the process.
VRLA battery electrode topology is typically in two forms: cylindrically wound or
flat-plate prismatic. Cylindrical VRLA batteries can withstand higher internal pressures. As such, their vents have been
designed to open at 25 to 40 psi. However,
flat-plate prismatic type batteries can have
vent relief pressures as low as 1 to 2 psi.
When stored, both flooded and VRLA
batteries will self-discharge over time
and, if not recharged, will become excessively discharged. Further, the rate of
self-discharge is accelerated as the storage temperature is elevated above the
ideal 25 C temperature. Battery manufacturers recommend the batteries be
fully charged prior to storage, and
recharged at specified intervals dependent on the ambient temperature in
which the batteries are stored. As an
example, a manufacturer may recommend a recharge be performed every six
months if stored at 25 C, while storage
in a 60 C environment may require a
recharge every two weeks.
Extreme Environment Operation

Operating batteries in high-temperature environments will greatly reduce
16
Intro
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their service life. At the higher

temperatures, the chemistry
inside the battery can become
very active and increase the rate
of grid corrosion and internal
deterioration. The typical service
life of a prismatic VRLA battery
is three to five years in a 25 C
operating environment. Most
VRLA battery manufacturers
state the battery life will be less
than a year at 50 C. Cold temperatures below 0 C typically
affect a batterys capacity. As the
operating
temperature
is
reduced, the internal resistance
of the battery increases. The
internal resistance of a typical
lead-acid battery may increase by
50% between 30 and -18 C.
There are other factors that Figure 2. Service life vs. temperature.
affect battery life. Lead-acid batteries have a cycle life rating (Figure 1).
dry out over time. However, metalIncreasing the number of discharge and
encased cylindrical VRLA designs incorrecharge cycles over a year will shorten
porate higher-pressure vents and ultrathe batterys life. Even when used within
pure lead, thereby lengthening their life.
the ideal temperature range, most prisSome manufacturers offer cylindrical
matic VRLA batteries suffer from a slow
VRLA batteries with an advertised 10loss of hydrogen and oxygen gasses,
year service life at 25 C. The stated operwhich adversely affects the recombinaational temperature range is a remarktion process, causing the battery cells to
able -60 to 80 C.
Air-Bearing Solutions
for Test and Inspection
The China Storage Battery

Company (CSB) has recently
started offering their XTV line of
VRLA prismatic batteries (Figure
2) with an advertised service life
of 12 years (at 25 C). Even more
remarkable, CSB states the batteries will have a four-year service
life when used in a 50 C (122 F)
environment. CSB is keeping
their XTV battery design details
under wraps, and no further
details are available.
As UPS manufacturers are
making great strides in designing systems that will provide
many years of reliable operation, in many systems, the batteries are often the weakest
link. In some cases, they can fail
without warning if not maintained and tested periodically.
A good understanding of the batterys
suitability for a specific application is
essential.
This article was written by Michael A.
Stout, Vice President of Engineering at Falcon
Electric, Inc., Irwindale, CA. For more information, visit http://info.hotims.com/40433121.
ABRS
rotary
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stage
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AH0510B_TM
17
Intro
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Application
P ressure Controllers Used
in Sounding Rocket
Payload Attitude Control
Systems
PC Series absolute pressure controllers
Alicat Scientific
Tucson, AZ
520-290-6060
www.alicatscientific.com
Pressure controllers from Alicat Scientific
have been selected for use in NASA sounding
rockets to control payload attitude. The payload sections of some NASA sounding rockets are required to
achieve pointing accuracies of finer than 1 arc second (1/3600
of a degree). Conventional attitude control systems (using solenoid valves) introduce too much shock and vibration, and are
imprecise. NASA contractor Northrop Grumman chose the
Alicat absolute pressure controllers for use with the rockets delicate optical instruments.
The pressure controllers are used to directly feed the payloads attitude control jets. The four pressure controllers are
fed from a common gaseous argon manifold at approximately
Briefs
160 psig, with a stock multidrop RS-232 sending set-point commands to the controllers. As
soon as the rocket passes 100 km in altitude, all
controllers are brought up to 5 PSIA with both
pitch and yaw moments balanced. The spacecrafts attitude is then modified by modulating
the pressure commands sent to the controllers.
The controllers enable commanded pressure changes in increments as small as 0.00234
psi or as large as 150 psi, with extreme speed.
NASAs testing demonstrated that the controllers accurately track a 5-Hz sign wave, correlating to a response time faster than 32 milliseconds. As there are no backup systems for
attitude control, the controllers are considered
to be mission-critical pieces of equipment.
To meet NASAs requirements, the controllers were modified slightly with a different capacitor and connector hardware. To enhance durability and reduce mass, the main electronics board was potted in plastic and the bodies were fabricated from aluminum, rather than the typical stainless steel.
The controllers passed NASA testing for shock, vibration, thermal cycling, and exposure to vacuum, and have completed several successful missions. Northrop Grumman has ordered 28
controllers over a five-year period for this application.
For Free Info Visit http://info.hotims.com/40433-115
C uriosity Rover Uses CCD Sensors

to Navigate Surface of Mars
CCD image sensors
Teledyne DALSA
Waterloo, ON, Canada
514-333-1301
www.teledynedalsa.com
Currently cruising through space at more than 10,000 mph,
the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is scheduled to touch
down on the red planet in August. The Mars Science
Laboratory was launched on November 26, 2011, and is part of
NASAs long-term effort of robotic exploration of Mars.
To accomplish its mission of determining whether the
landing area has ever had, or still offers, environmental conditions favorable to microbial life, the MSLs Curiosity rover
is tasked with navigating and mapping the rocky Gale crater
while avoiding the numerous hazards it will face as it moves
across the Martian terrain. Custom-designed CCD (charge
coupled device) image sensors from Teledyne DALSA that
proved their reliability in the previous Mars Exploration
Rover (MER) mission will function as the navigational eyes
for the rover.
The Curiosity rover is designed to roll over obstacles up to
65 centimeters (25 inches) high and travel up to 200 meters
(660 feet) per day as it explores Mars. To ensure that the rover
can see its way successfully across the Martian landscape,
NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers outfitted it
18
with sensors that provided successful guidance capabilities on

the last MER mission.
These MER CCD sensors are mounted on two different types
of engineering cameras: the hazard avoidance cameras, known
as Hazcams, and navigation cameras called Navcams.
Hazcams and Navcams will work together to provide a complementary and comprehensive view of the terrain. Eight blackand-white Hazcams are mounted on the lower portion of the
front and back of the rover. Each camera has a wide (124 x 124
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degree) field of view. The cameras must

have a wide viewing range on either side
because, unlike human eyes, the
Hazcams cannot move independently
since they are mounted directly to the
rover body. The rover will use pairs of
images generated by these cameras to
map out the shape of the terrain as far as
3 meters (10 feet) in front of it in a
wedge shape that is over 4 meters wide
(13 feet) at the farthest distance.
The Hazcams will use visible light to
capture three-dimensional (3D) imagery.
This imagery will safeguard against the
rover getting lost or inadvertently colliding with objects, and it will work in tandem with software that allows the rover
to make its own safety choices and to
think on its own. The Hazcams also are
used by ground operators to drive the
vehicle and to operate the robotic arm.
The navigation camera (45 x 45
degree field of view) unit consists of a
stereo pair of black-and-white navigation
cameras mounted on the mast
(Curiositys neck and head) that will use
visible light to gather panoramic 3D
imagery of the ground near the wheels.
Scientists and engineers will make surface navigation plans based on what the
images tell them about nearby rocks or
other obstacles. The Navcams also are
used for onboard obstacle detection.
Between 1998 and 2003, DALSA and
NASA engineers worked together to
design and build several versions of the
CCD sensor for the MER project. NASA
engineers designed the 1.2 x 2.4 cm 1k
frame transfer CCD sensors, which convert light into electrical signals, while
DALSA provided fabrication expertise.
DALSA engineers reviewed the design
with NASA engineers, proposed changes,
made masks to build the devices, and fabricated and tested the wafers. Then the
wafers were sent to NASA, where the
CCD was tested and assembled. Full,
extended qualification of the devices
found no flaws, so the devices were
selected to fly to Mars.
NASA incorporated ten of these sensors on each of the two Mars Exploration
Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which
launched in 2003. NASA used this technology again in the Curiositys navigation
and hazard-avoidance cameras. The CCDs
used on the current project were selected
from the batch of sensors that performed
well on the Spirit rover and that continue
to guide the Opportunity rovers journey
across the Martian surface.
For Free Info Visit http://info.hotims.com/
40433-116

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19
Technology Focus: Test & Measurement

Air Gaging for Non-Contact Measurement of Complex
Geometric Tolerances
Air gaging is used where the geometry or surface integrity of the part being measured prevents
contact probing.
Stotz Air Gaging Products, Advanced Machine & Engineering Co., Rockford, Illinois
Air gaging relies on a law of
back pressure bleed system. The
Air Gage Principles
physics that states flow and presflow system requires a much
sure are directly proportionate to
higher volume of air, which
P
requires much larger nozzles.
clearance and react inversely to
R
Because the nozzles are larger,
each other. As clearance increasF
E
L
the nozzle must be kept closer to
es, airflow also increases and air
S
O
S
the part, and therefore has a
pressure decreases proportionateW
U
smaller nozzle drop. This can
ly. As clearance decreases, airflow
R
E
shorten tool life. The flow sysalso decreases and air pressure
tem can be used with long hoses
increases.
CLEARANCE
CLEARANCE
without affecting the response
This is accomplished by having a
regulated airflow that travels As airflow increases in the target range, there is a direct inverse pro- time of the amplifier, which
through some type of restriction, portion to the pressure. This can be precisely controlled and meas- makes it the ideal candidate for
long holes such as gun barrels.
such as a needle valve or jeweled ured over any contoured surface.
orifice, and then through the nozAir gaging is a very fast, effizle in the air tool. As the obstruction
The masters are typically at the MIN and
cient, and reliable method of measuring.
It is designed to be used on workpieces
(workpiece) is brought closer to the nozMAX of the tolerance of the workpiece.
with tolerances of 0.005" or smaller. The
zle, airflow is reduced and the back presThis allows for linearity of the measureresolution and repeatability of the meassure is increased. When the nozzle is comment through the entire measuring
urement can be in the millionths of an
pletely obstructed, the flow is zero and the
range. Because it is a two-master system,
inch. Because air gaging is a non-contact
back pressure is equal to the regulated air.
each time calibration is performed, the
user is compensating for any wear, dirt
method, it is useful for measuring soft,
Conversely, when the nozzle is open to the
build-up, or minor damage to the tooling.
highly polished, thin-walled, and other
atmosphere, airflow is at a maximum and
The differential system divides the air
materials susceptible to marking. Air gagthe back pressure is at a minimum.
The first air gages used a simple back
stream into two fixed restrictions. One
ing is extremely easy to use and requires
pressure technology and provided the
side ends in a zero valve, which balances
no special skills for the operator.
Multiple operators will achieve the same
basis for the development of virtually all
pressure to the fixed second leg of the sysor nearly the same measuring results
air gaging styles used today. This design
tem, which ends at the air ring or plug.
when measuring the same part, thus takwas much improved in 1943, when a U.S.
The difference between these two legs is
ing operator technique out of the measpatent was granted for a simple back presmeasured by a differential pressure meter
urement results. This is a problem when
sure system that incorporated the newly
that bridges the two legs. This type uses a
single master to set it to zero. Tooling for
using a contact gage such as a micromedeveloped air pressure regulator. Many
this type of system needs to be ordered for
ter or dial bore gage.
improvements in air gaging systems and
each particular magnification. This system
Air gaging can be used to measure
styles have been developed through the
years. There are several varieties of air
is not as forgiving with worn or damaged
complex geometric tolerances such as
gaging systems that include back pressure
tooling because it uses a single calibration
diameter, taper, parallelism, squareness,
bleed, differential, and flow type systems.
point. Any part not made near the zero is
flatness, and matching of components
in a very fast and efficient method.
The back pressure bleed system is the
more likely to have an inaccurate reading.
These may not be able to be checked
most versatile. Tooling from different air
This becomes more of an issue as one
with fixed-limit gaging or may be costly
gaging systems may be used with this type.
reaches the outer limits of the tolerances.
The flow system is measured and read
and time-consuming to check in a difIt is configured with an air pressure reguin a flowmeter tube that supports a float.
ferent way. The size of probes continues
lator to control the incoming air pressure
This system uses two masters for calibrato get smaller, and can now be as small
to ensure maximum linearity. It is the section. It is similar to the back pressure
as 0.6 mm (0.024") in diameter.
ond restriction that allows the user to
adjust for different air gage tooling by
bleed system in its accuracy across the
Many of todays columns and/or
adjusting the incoming air pressure to
tolerance range. The range of magnifimeasuring computers can become an
match the style of air tooling used. This
cation is adjusted by changing flow tubes
integral part of the manufacturing cell,
type uses two setting masters to calibrate.
and scales, and is not as simple as the
with communication to robotic loaders
20
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The Tamarisk
320 Thermal Camera
Actual Size
THE INCREDIBLY TINY

THERMAL CAMERA.
WHERE WILL YOU USE IT?
Security, unmanned vehicles, retail analytics and a range of other applications are about
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Which means its incredibly easy to integrate the Tamarisk
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Test & Measurement

and the ability to send offset values to
the machine, which allows for aroundthe-clock manufacturing with 100%
inspection of workpieces.
Air gaging systems operate at air pressures that can remove contaminants such
as abrasive particles and coolant, which
will eliminate the need for a separate
cleaning in most applications. The air tooling has no moving parts, and therefore has
a very long and dependable service life.
Air gaging technology is continually
improving as computer technology continues to evolve. These systems can
range from simple desktop readouts to
full SPC computers with contour scanning capabilities. As manufacturing
requirements continue to become more
complex, air gaging technology evolves
to meet the demand.
This work was done by Christopher Koehn,
Business Unit Manager Stotz Air Gaging
Products, Advanced Machine & Engineering Co. For more information, visit
http://info.hotims.com/40433-123.
Robotic devices allow fully automated, inline testing of products.
Absolute Position of Targets Measured Through a Chamber

Window Using Lidar Metrology Systems
This technique can be used to measure objects in thermal-vacuum chamber test environments,
in furnaces used to forge items for manufacturing, and for measuring chemically volatile or
radioactive materials through a window.
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Lidar is a useful tool for taking metrology measurements without the need for
physical contact with the parts under test.
Lidar instruments are aimed at a target
using azimuth and elevation stages, then
focus a beam of coherent, frequency
modulated laser energy onto the target,
such as the surface of a mechanical structure. Energy from the reflected beam is
mixed with an optical reference signal
that travels in a fiber path internal to the
instrument, and the range to the target is
calculated based on the difference in the
frequency of the returned and reference
signals. In cases when the parts are in
extreme environments, additional steps
need to be taken to separate the operator
and lidar from that environment. A
model has been developed that accurately reduces the lidar data to an absolute
position and accounts for the three
media in the testbed air, fused silica,
and vacuum but the approach can be
adapted for any environment or material.
The accuracy of laser metrology measurements depends upon knowing the
parameters of the media through which

the measurement beam travels. Under
normal conditions, this means knowledge of the temperature, pressure, and
humidity of the air in the measurement
volume. In the past, chamber windows
have been used to separate the measuring device from the extreme environment within the chamber and still permit
optical measurement, but, so far, only relative changes have been diagnosed. The
ability to make accurate measurements
through a window presents a challenge as
there are a number of factors to consider.
In the case of the lidar, the window will
increase the time-of-flight of the laser
beam causing a ranging error, and refract
the direction of the beam causing angular
positioning errors. In addition, differences
in pressure, temperature, and humidity on
each side of the window will cause slight
atmospheric index changes and induce
deformation and a refractive index gradient within the window. Also, since the window is a dispersive media, the effect of
both phase and group indices have to be
22
considered. Taking all these factors into

account, a method was developed to measure targets through multiple regions of
different materials and produce results
that are absolute measurements of target
position in three-dimensional space,
rather than simply relative position.
The environment in which the lidar
measurements are taken must be broken
down into separate regions of interest and
each region solved for separately. In this
case, there were three regions of interest:
air, fused silica, and vacuum. The angular
position of the target inside the chamber is
solved using only phase index and phase
velocity, while the ranging effects due to
travel from air to glass to vacuum/air are
solved with group index and group velocity. When all parameters are solved simultaneously, an absolute knowledge of the
position of each target within an environmental chamber can be derived.
Novel features of this innovation
include measuring absolute position of
targets through multiple dispersive and
non-dispersive media, deconstruction of
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Great Decisions in Product

Engineering #137.
A simulation specialist tries five design alternatives before lunch
and the company exceeds sales targets before mid-year.
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siemens.com/plm/nxcae
2012 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. All rights reserved. Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered
trademarks of Siemens AG. All other logos, trademarks or service marks used herein are the property of their respective owners.
NX CAE
for faster
simulation
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Test & Measurement

lidar raw data from a commercial off-theshelf unit into reworkable parameters,
and use of group velocities to reduce
range data. Measurement of structures
within a vacuum chamber or other harsh
environment, such as a furnace, may now
be measured as easily as if they were in an
ambient laboratory. This analysis permits
transformation of the raw data into

absolute spatial units (e.g., mm).
This technique has also been extended to laser tracker, theodolite, and
cathetometer measurements through
refractive media.
This work was done by David Kubalak,
Theodore Hadjimichael, and Raymond Ohl of
Goddard Space Flight Center; Anthony

Slotwinski of Nikon Metrology; Randal Telfer
of Orbital Sciences Corp.; and Joseph Hayden
of Sigma Space Corp. For more information,
download the Technical Support Package
(free white paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp
under the Information Technology category.
GSC-16192-1
An Inefficient Fin Non-Dimensional Parameter to Measure

Gas Temperatures Efficiently
This method provides a convenient sensing error guideline.
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
A gas containment vessel that is not in
thermal equilibrium with the bulk gas
can affect its temperature measurement.
The physical nature of many gas dynamics experiments often makes the accurate measurement of temperature a
challenge. The environment itself typically requires that the thermocouple be
sheathed, both to protect the wires and
hot junction of the instrument from
their environment, and to provide a
smooth, rigid surface for pressure seal-
packed in a ceramic powder inside the

sheath, protecting them somewhat from
temperature gradients along the sheath,
but there is no effective mechanism to
shield the sheath from the enclosure
body itself. Standard practice dictates
that thermocouples be used in installations that do not present large thermal
gradients along the probe. If this conduction dominates heat transfer near
the tip of the probe, then temperature
measurements may be expected to be
skewed. While the same problem may be
experienced in the measurement of
temperature at various points within a
solid in a gradient, it tends to be aggravated in the measurements of gas temperature, since heat transfer dependent
on convection is often less efficient than
conduction along the thermocouple.
The proposed solution is an inefficient
fin thermocouple probe. Conventional
wisdom suggests that in many experiments where gas flows through an enclosure (e.g., flow in pipe, manifold, nozzle,
etc.), the thermocouple be introduced
flush to the surface, so as not to interfere
with the flow. In practice, however, many
such experiments take place where the
flow is already turbulent, so that a protruding thermocouple probe has a negligible effect on the flow characteristics.
The key question then becomes just how
far into the flow should a thermocouple
protrude in order to properly sense the
gas temperature at that point. Modeling
the thermocouple as an inefficient fin
directly addresses this question. The
appropriate assumptions in this case
are: one-dimensional conduction along
the fin; steady-state, constant, and
homogeneous thermal conductivity;
negligible radiation; and a uniform,
constant heat transfer coefficient over
the probe surface. It is noted that the
24
ing of the enclosure. However, that

enclosure may also be much colder than
the gas to be sensed, or vice-versa. Either
way, the effect of such gradients is to
potentially skew the temperature measurements themselves, since heat may
then be conducted by the instrument.
Thermocouple designers traditionally
address this problem by insulating the
sheath from the thermocouple leads
and hot junction as much as possible.
The thermocouple leads are typically
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Test & Measurement

nature of the ceramic-filled probe makes
the key assumption of homogeneous
thermal conductivity that much more
conservative.
Normally a mathematical expression is
used to assess fin efficiency, i.e., how far
from the fin base heat can be carried. In
this case, however, the thermocouple
probe should be designed to be an inefficient fin; that is, parameters should be
chosen such that the temperature of the

wall does not affect the temperature
sensed at the tip of the probe. This inefficient fin parameter is then numerically
equal to ln(l00/% error), where % error
is computed with respect to the temperature difference between the wall and the
fluid. A one-to-one correspondence
between this parameter and the error in
sensed temperature may thus be estab-
Detail A
Detail B
A Schematic of the Apparatus Used in the Rocket Throat Cooling Experiment. The three instruments
measure throat temperature, gas temperature, and gas pressure (top to bottom). At left, the gas-sensing probe is nearly flush with the inner surface of the throat, corresponding with a low inefficient fin
non-dimensional number. At right, the D (probe diameter) and L (distance past the enclosure wall)
were changed to correspond to a non-dimensional number of 4.60.
lished. For example, for a maximum error

of 5%, the non-dimensional parameter
value is 3.00. For an error of 1%, the target parameter value becomes 4.60. This
parameter dictates the minimum distance
for a given probe.
This simple method provides a convenient guideline to maintain flow temperature sensing error within a predefined range, given a temperature mismatch between a gas and its surrounding walls. This approach was put to practice in such an experiment, where a hot
rocket nozzle was cooled using a twophase fluid (where the fluid temperature may thus be verified, using the saturation pressure). The measured temperature in the cooling annulus showed
good agreement with the method, and
the thermocouple became essentially
insulated from the wall by setting the
hot junction at a distance corresponding to the parameter value of 4.60.
This work was done by Patrick Lemieux,
William Murray, Terry Cooke, and James
Gerhardt of California Polytechnic State
University for Dryden Flight Research Center.
For more information, download the
Technical Support Package (free white
paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the
Physical Sciences category. DRC-010-030
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Intro
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Accelerating the Speed of Design.
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Intro
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Test & Measurement
On-Wafer Measurement of a
Multi-Stage MMIC Amplifier
With 10 dB of Gain at 475 GHz
Little Sensors, Big Ideas
Imaging applications include hidden weapons

detection, troop protection, and airport security.
NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
JPL has measured and calibrated a WR2.2 waveguide wafer
probe from GGB Industries in order to allow for measurement
of circuits in the 325500 GHz range. Circuits were measured,
and one of the circuits exhibited 10 dB of gain at 475 GHz.
The MMIC circuit was fabricated at Northrop Grumman
Corp. (NGC) as part of a NASA Innovative Partnerships
Program, using NGCs 35-nm-gate-length InP HEMT process
technology. The chip utilizes three stages of HEMT amplifiers,
each having two gate fingers of 10 m in width. The circuits use
grounded coplanar waveguide topology on a 50-m-thick substrate with through substrate vias. Broadband matching is
achieved with coplanar waveguide transmission lines, on-chip
capacitors, and open stubs. When tested with wafer probing,
the chip exhibited 10 dB of gain at 475 GHz, with over 9 dB of
gain from 445490 GHz.
Low-noise amplifiers in the 400500 GHz range are useful
for astrophysics receivers and earth science remote sensing
instruments. In particular, molecular lines in the 400500 GHz
range include the CO 4-3 line at 460 GHz, and the CI fine
structure line at 492 GHz. Future astrophysics heterodyne
instruments could make use of high-gain, low-noise amplifiers
such as the one described here. In addition, earth science
remote sensing instruments could also make use of low-noise
receivers with MMIC amplifier front ends.
Present receiver technology typically employs mixers for frequency down-conversion in the 400500 GHz band.
Commercially available mixers have typical conversion loss in
the range of 710 dB with noise figure of 1,000 K. A low-noise
amplifier placed in front of such a mixer would have 10 dB of
gain and lower noise figure, particularly if cooled to low temperature. Future work will involve measuring the noise figure
of this amplifier.
This work was done by Lorene A. Samoska, King Man Fung, David
M. Pukala, and Pekka P. Kangaslahti of Caltech; and Richard Lai
and Linda Ferreira of Northrup Grumman Corp. for NASAs Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, download the
Technical Support Package (free white paper) at
www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Electronics/Computers category.
NPO-47541
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highly accurate inertial
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Software to Control and

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John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida

This software package interfaces with various gas stream
devices such as pressure transducers, flow meters, flow controllers, valves, and analyzers such as a mass spectrometer. The
software provides excellent user interfacing with various windows that provide time-domain graphs, valve state buttons, pri-
Call 800.449.3878 or visit us online at

www.microstrain.com
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Yokogawa Oscilloscope Families

TEST & MEASUREMENT
http://tmi.yokogawa.com
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Test & Measurement

ority-colored messages, and warning
icons. The user can configure the software to save as much or as little data as
needed to a comma-delimited file. The
software also includes an intuitive scripting language for automated processing.
The configuration allows for the assignment of measured values or calibration so
that raw signals can be viewed as usable
pressures, flows, or concentrations in real
time. The software is based on those used
in two safety systems for shuttle processing and one volcanic gas analysis system.
Mass analyzers typically have very

unique applications and vary from job
to job. As such, software available on
the market is usually inadequate or targeted on a specific application (such
as EPA methods). The goal was to
develop powerful software that could
be used with prototype systems. The
key problem was to generalize the software to be easily and quickly reconfigurable.
At Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the
prior art consists of two primary meth-
s17" LCD High-Resolution Touch Screen Display

s 18 Channels of Voltage & DC Bridge Inputs
s Dedicated 1 TByte Removeable Hard Drive for Data Capture
s 800 kHz Sample Rate/Channel
s 100 kHz Bandwidth
Rugged Construction for Field or Lab Applications

Astro-Med, Inc.
600 East Greenwich Avenue
West Warwick, RI 02893
www.astro-med.com
30
Phone: 401-828-4000
Toll-free: 877-867-9783
mtgroup@astromed.com
ods. The first method was to utilize

LabVIEW and a commercial data acquisition system. This method required
rewriting code for each different application and only provided raw data. To
obtain data in engineering units, manual calculations were required. The
second method was to utilize one of
the embedded computer systems developed for another system. This second
method had the benefit of providing
data in engineering units, but was limited in the number of control parameters.
Other products allow the same end
effect, except multiple computers
would be required along with multiple
software packages. This is compounded by the difficulty in timing the various software products. The software
package described here is a combination of gas stream monitoring software
products. It combines pressure monitoring and control, fluid flow monitoring and control, and many chemical
analysis products, including, but not
limited to, mass analyzers, turbo
pumps, dew point sensors, oxygen sensors, temperature sensors, and the
like. It allows for real-time display of
raw data as well as reassigned calibration data. The software is capable of
timing events as well as running scripts
for semi-autonomous operation. The
software also records this variety of
data with proper timing.
This complex software package is
composed of two primary parts: hardware communications and user interfacing. The hardware interfacing section allows for the computer to transfer data and commands (via digital or
analog signals) to a wide variety of system components such as sensors,
valves, transducers, analyzers, pumps,
etc. The hardware interfacing section
also allows for the recording of the
transferred data/commands to be
stored on the local computer. The
user interface section gathers the data
from the hardware interfacing section
and presents it to the user in various
user-configurable methods. The two
most common methods of providing
data to the user are via time-domain
charting and real-time parameter
value/status.
This work was done by C. Arkin, Charles
Curley, Eric Gore, David Floyd, and Damion
Lucas of Kennedy Space Center. For more
information, download the Technical
Support Package (free white paper) at
www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Software
category. KSC-13643
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Anomaly Detection
in Test Equipment
via Sliding Mode
Observers
Data Analysis and Graphing Software
Commercial applications of
the algorithms exist in the oil,
natural gas, and chemical
industries for identifying and
localizing leaks.
Powerful. Flexible. Easy to Use.

preserves its
leadingOverallstatusOriginPro
as the most functional
Stennis Space Center, Mississippi
and comprehensive data analysis and

graphing software on the market.
Although other software programs
are available, few are as easy to use,
accessible, and high-end when it comes
to performing rigorous data analysis or
producing publication-quality graphs.
Keith J. Stevenson
Journal of American Chemical Society, March 2011
Nonlinear observers were originally

developed based on the ideas of variable
structure control, and for the purpose of
detecting disturbances in complex systems. In this anomaly detection application, these observers were designed for
estimating the distributed state of fluid
flow in a pipe described by a class of
advection equations.
The observer algorithm uses collected data in a piping system to estimate
the distributed system state (pressure
and velocity along a pipe containing
liquid gas propellant flow) using only
boundary measurements. These estimates are then used to further estimate and localize possible anomalies
such as leaks or foreign objects, and
instrumentation metering problems
such as incorrect flow meter orifice
plate size.
The observer algorithm has the following parts: a mathematical model of
the fluid flow, observer control algorithm, and an anomaly identification
algorithm. The main functional operation of the algorithm is in creating the
sliding mode in the observer system
implemented as software. Once the sliding mode starts in the system, the equivalent value of the discontinuous function in sliding mode can be obtained by
filtering out the high-frequency chattering component. In control theory,
observers are dynamic algorithms for
the online estimation of the current
state of a dynamic system by measurements of an output of the system.
Classical linear observers can provide
optimal estimates of a system state in
case of uncertainty modeled by white
noise. For nonlinear cases, the theory of
nonlinear observers has been developed
and its success is mainly due to the sliding mode approach.
Using the mathematical theory of variable structure systems with sliding
In a nutshell, Origin, the base version, and

OriginPro, with extended functionality, provide
point-and-click control over every
element of a plot. Additionally,
users can create multiple types
of richly formatted plots, perform
data analysis and then embed
both graphs and results into
dynamically updated report
templates for efcient re-use
of effort.
Vince Adams
Desktop Engineering, July 2011
Compatible with Windows 7.

Native 64-bit version available.
Learn more at www.OriginLab.com
OriginLab Corporation
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USA: (800) 969-7720
FAX: (413) 585-0126
EMAIL: sales@originlab.com
WEB: www.originlab.com
Intro
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31
modes, the observer algorithm is

designed in such a way that it steers the
output of the model to the output of the
system obtained via a variety of sensors,
in spite of possible mismatches between
the assumed model and actual system.
The unique properties of sliding mode

control allow not only control of the
model internal states to the states of the
real-life system, but also identification of
the disturbance or anomaly that may
occur.
This work was done by Wanda M. Solano

of Stennis Space Center and Sergey V.
Drakunov of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University. For more information, call the
Innovative Partnerships Office at 228-6881929. SSC-00369
Miniaturized Laser Heterodyne Radiometer (LHR) for

Measurements of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmospheric Column
Instrument could be used to validate other Earth observing missions.
This passive laser heterodyne radiometer (LHR) instrument simultaneously
measures multiple trace gases in the
atmospheric column including carbon
dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), and
resolves their concentrations at different
altitudes. This instrument has been
designed to operate in tandem with the
passive aerosol sensor currently used in
AERONET (an established network of
more than 450 ground aerosol monitoring instruments worldwide). Because
aerosols induce a radiative effect that
influences terrestrial carbon exchange,
simultaneous detection of aerosols with

these key carbon cycle gases offers a
uniquely comprehensive measurement
approach.
Laser heterodyne radiometry is a technique for detecting weak signals that was
adapted from radio receiver technology.
In a radio receiver, a weak input signal
from a radio antenna is mixed with a
stronger local oscillator signal. The
mixed signal (beat note, or intermediate
frequency) has a frequency equal to the
difference between the input signal and
the local oscillator. The intermediate fre-
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quency is amplified and sent to a detector

that extracts the audio from the signal.
In the LHR instrument described here,
sunlight that has undergone absorption
by the trace gas is mixed with laser light at
a frequency matched to a trace gas
absorption feature in the infrared (IR).
Mixing results in a beat signal in the RF
(radio frequency) region that can be
related to the atmospheric concentration.
For a one-second integration, the estimated column sensitivities are 0.1 ppmv for
CO 2, and <1 ppbv for CH4.
In addition to producing a standalone ground measurement product,
this instrument could be used to calibrate/validate four Earth observing missions: ASCENDS (Active Sensing of CO2
Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons), OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory), OCO-3, and GOSAT (Greenhouse gases Observational SATellite).
The only network that currently measures CO2 and CH4 in the atmospheric column is TCCON (Total Carbon Column
Observing Network), and only two of its
16 operational sites are in the United
States. TCCON data is used for validation
of GOSAT data, and will be used for
OCO-2 validation. While these Fouriertransform spectrometers (FTS) can measure the largest range of trace gases, the
network is severely limited due to the high
cost and extreme size of these instruments
(these occupy small buildings and require
personnel
for
operation).
The
LHR/AERONET instrument offers a significantly smaller (carry-on luggage size)
autonomous instrument that can be
incorporated into AERONETs much
larger (450 instruments) global network.
This work was done by Emily Steel and
Matthew McLinden of Goddard Space Flight
Center. For more information, download the
Physical Sciences category. GSC-16327-1
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Special Advertiser Supported Section
OEM Supplier Guide:
Test & Measurement

Automated Test Equipment ...........................33
Communications/RF/
Microwave Test .............................................33
Data Acquisition/Analysis..............................34
EMI/RFI/EMC Test..........................................34
Inspection Equipment ...................................34
Multimeters/DMMs ........................................36
Oscilloscopes ................................................36
Power Supplies/Sources................................36
Recorders/Data Loggers ...............................36
Software .......................................................38
Spectrum Analyzers......................................38
Test Instruments - Other ..............................38
Test Services ................................................40
VTI Instruments
Phone: 949-955-1894
Fax: 949-955-3041
tsarfi@vtiinstruments.com
www.vtiinstruments.com
Communications/
RF/Microwave Test
Automated Test
Equipment
Aries Electronics
www.arieselec.com
EADS North America

Test and Services
Phone: 949-859-8999
Fax: 949-859-7139
info@ts.eads-na.com
www.ts.eads-na.com
Aerotech, Inc.
www.aerotech.com
Amtec Corporation
www.amtec-corp.com
Averna
www.averna.com
Berkeley Varitronics Systems, Inc.
www.bvsystems.com
FineTest Inc.
www.finetest.com
Avantes
Phone: 866-678-4248
Fax: 303-410-8669
infoUSA@avantes.com
www.avantes.com
Geotest-Marvin Test Systems

www.geotestinc.com
EADS North America

Test and Services
Phone: 949-859-8999
Fax: 949-859-7139
info@ts.eads-na.com
www.ts.eads-na.com
Lansmont Corporation
Phone: 831-655-6600
Fax: 831-655-6606
sales@lansmont.com
www.lansmont.com
Bishop-Wisecarver Corporation
Phone: 925-439-8272
Fax: 925-439-5931
info@bwc.com
www.bwc.com
Fox Electronics
www.foxonline.com
Giga-tronics Incorporated
www.gigatronics.com
Maury Microwave Corporation

www.maurymw.com
HXI/Renaissance Electronics Inc.

www.hxi.com
Myostat Motion Control Inc.

www.myostat.ca
Circuit Check Inc.

www.circuitcheck.com
Ironwood Electronics
www.ironwoodelectronics.com
L-3 Communications Narda Microwave-East
www.nardamicrowave.com
Microtips Technology
www.microtipsusa.com
National Instruments
Corporation
Phone: 800-531-5066
Fax: 512-683-8411
Kristina.Hilboldt@ni.com
www.ni.com
DEWESoft, LLC
Phone: 419-574-8599
Fax: 419-877-5505
sales@DEWESoft-US.com
www.DEWESoft.com
dSPACE
www.dpsaceinc.com
Schmit Prototypes
www.schmitprototypes.com
DuroPC
www.duropc.com
Vishay Precision Group

www.vishaypg.com
Corporation
Phone: 800-531-5066
Fax: 512-683-8411
www.ni.com
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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33
OEM Supplier Guide: Test & Measurement

Communications/RF/Microwave Test
continued
Rohde & Schwarz USA, Inc.

www.rohde-schwarz.com/USA
RT Logic
www.rtlogic.com/ds-t400cs.php
Elsys Instruments
Phone: 845-238-3933
Fax: 845-782-6045
Klaas.Vogel@elsys-instruments.com
www.elsysinstruments.com
Servometer
www.servometer.com
Spectrum Sensors
www.SpecSensors.com
G Systems, L.P.
www.gsystems.com
TEGAM, Inc.
www.tegam.com
VTI Instruments
Phone: 949-955-1894
Fax: 949-955-3041
EMI/RFI/EMC Test
Teledyne Microelectronic Technologies

www.teledynemicro.com
Magnetic Shield Corporation

www.magnetic-shield.com
Valon Technology, LLC

www.ValonTechnology.com
HBM, Inc.
Phone: 800-578-4260
Fax: 508-485-7480
info@usa.hbm.com
www.hbm.com
Data Acquisition/
Analysis
Rigol Technologies, Inc.

Phone: 877-4-RIGOL-1
Fax: 440-232-4488
Chris_armstrong@rigoltech.com
www.RIGOLNA.com
Hoffmann + Krippner, Inc.

www.hoffmannkrippner.com
ACCES I/O Products, Inc.

www.accesio.com
Schurter Inc.
www.schurterinc.com
Acromag, Inc.
www.acromag.com
Phone: 831-655-6600
Fax: 831-655-6606
sales@lansmont.com
www.lansmont.com
Astro-Med, Inc.
www.astro-med.com
BitFlow, Inc.
www.bitflow.com
BittWare
www.bittware.com
Spectrum Control
www.SpecEMC.com
Tech-Etch, Inc.
www.tech-etch.com
Teseq
www.teseq.com
LMS North America

www.lmsintl.com
Critical Imaging LLC

www.criticalimaging.net
Measurement Computing
www.mccdaq.com
Inspection Equipment
Data Translation Inc.

www.datatranslation.com
4D Technology Corporation
www.4dtechnology.com
Dataforth Corporation
www.dataforth.com
Adimec Electronic Imaging, Inc.

www.adimec.com
Corporation
Phone: 800-531-5066
Fax: 512-683-8411
www.ni.com
DEWESoft, LLC
Phone: 419-574-8599
Fax: 419-877-5505
www.DEWESoft.com
AFL
www.AFLglobal.com
Allison Park Group, Inc.
www.apgvision.com
BEI Kimco Magnetics
www.beikimco.com
Omega Engineering, Inc.

www.omega.com
OMICRON Lab
www.omicron-lab.com
Polhemus
www.polhemus.com
Dewetron, Inc.
Phone: 401-284-3750
Fax: 401-284-3755
grant.smith@dewamerica.com
www.dewamerica.com
Carl Zeiss Industrial

Metrology, LLC
Phone: 800-327-9735
metrology@zeiss.com
www.zeiss.com/metrology
Silicon Designs
Phone: 425-391-8329
Fax: 425-391-0446
sales@silicondesigns.com
www.silicondesigns.com
EDAX Inc.
www.edax.com
Electro Standards Laboratories
www.electrostandards.com
34
Cognex Corporation
www.cognex.com
Coursen Coating Labs
www.coursencoating.com
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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Power your most demanding setups with ease.
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Intro
Cov
ToC

Inspection Equipment
continued
ESDI
www.esdimetrology.com
Digi-Key Corporation
www.digikey.com
Rittal Corporation
www.Rittal-Corp.com
Gradient Lens Corporation

www.gradientlens.com
LeCroy Corporation
www.lecroy.com
ROAL Electronics
www.roallivingenergy.com
Standex Electronics
www.standexelectronics.com
IMI Technology Co., Ltd.

www.imi-tech.com
ISVI Corp.
www.isvi-corp.com
TDK-Lambda Americas
www.us.tdk-lambda.com/lp

Fax: 440-232-4488
www.RIGOLNA.com
JENOPTIK Optical Systems GmbH

www.jenoptik.com/digitalimaging
Methods Machine Tools, Inc.
www.methodsmachine.com
Versatile Power, Inc.

www.versatilepower.com
Voltage Multipliers Inc.
www.voltagemultipliers.com
Xenon Corporation
www.xenoncorp.com
Tektronix, Inc.
www.tek.com
Pepperl+Fuchs, Inc.
www.pepperl-fuchs.us
Plastic & Metal Center, Inc. PMC
www.pmcgo.com
Recorders/
Data Loggers
Power Supplies/
Sources
Power Technology Inc.

www.powertechnology.com
Renishaw Inc.
www.renishaw.com
Allegro MicroSystems, Inc.

www.allegromicro.com
Schoelly Imaging, Inc

www.schoellyimaging.com
AMETEK Programmable Power

www.programmablepower.com
SCHOTT North America,

Lighting and Imaging
www.us.schott.com/lightingimaging
Boca Bearings
www.bocabearings.com
DEWESoft, LLC
Phone: 419-574-8599
Fax: 419-877-5505
www.DEWESoft.com
Chroma Systems Solutions, Inc.

www.chromausa.com
Steinmeyer Inc.
www.steinmeyer.com
EXAIR Corporation
www.exair.com
Crane Aerospace & Electronics

www.craneae.com
Titan Tool Supply, Inc.

www.titantoolsupply.com
EMCO High Voltage Corporation

www.emcohighvoltage.com
Multimeters/DMMs
Phone: 831-655-6600
Fax: 831-655-6606
sales@lansmont.com
www.lansmont.com
Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions, Inc.

www.haydonkerk.com
Fluke Corporation
www.fluke.com
Heilind Electronics
www.heilind.com
Kepco, Inc.
www.kepcopower.com
Linear Technology Corporation

www.linear.com
Lumina Power Inc.

www.luminapower.com

Fax: 440-232-4488
www.RIGOLNA.com
Moog Animatics
www.animatics.com
Corporation
Phone: 800-531-5066
Fax: 512-683-8411
www.ni.com
Murata Power Solutions

www.murata-ps.com
Placid Industries, Inc.
www.placidindustries.com
Resinlab
www.resinlab.com
VTI Instruments
Phone: 949-955-1894
Fax: 949-955-3041
PVI Systems, Inc.

www.pvisys.com

Fax: 440-232-4488
www.RIGOLNA.com
Oscilloscopes
Agilent Technologies
www.agilent.com
36
VTI Instruments
Phone: 949-955-1894
Fax: 949-955-3041
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
Cov
ToC
Advertisement
Bishop-Wisecarver
2104 Martin Way
Pittsburg, CA 94565
Phone: 888-580-8272
E-mail: sales@bwc.com
www.bwc.com
Company Description
Bishop-Wisecarver is a certified
woman-owned manufacturer specializing in linear and curvilinear motion
technologies. We offer a wide range of
products in many sizes, options, and
customizations to fit a variety of application environments. For more than 60
years, we have created innovative solutions for tough application challenges.
DISCOVER YOUR PERFECT FIT
Target Markets
LoPro linear actuators are built on DualVee Motion Technology

creating tough, cost effective, low friction, low profile solutions in
unlimited lengths ideal for debris-laden conditions, extreme climates
and corrosive environments. Various coatings and materials available.
Single, multi-axis and custom gantries available.
Industrial Machinery, Tools & Equipment, General Manufacturing, Research & Development
Services Offered
Actuation options include belt,

chain, lead screw and ball screw.
Bishop-Wisecarvers
extensive product offering includes linear and
rotary motion components, guides, slides, and
actuated systems used
worldwide in industries
such as packaging, medical device manufacturing, liquid handling and
measurement, controls
and instrumentation,
wood processing, food
processing, and semiconductor fabrication.
With our expanding
en gineering resources,
Bishop-Wisecarver is more
than a company that offers linear and rotary guide wheelbased solutions built on DualVee Motion Technology. Our
desire to be your number-one choice is what drives us to
continually develop our industry knowledge, services, and
imagination whether it is an off-the-shelf product or a custom solution, we fit you to a vee.
Visit bwc.com to learn more about our wide range of products, watch
videos, download data sheets and CAD files, view catalogs, read customer
application stories, utilize our equations toolbox and much more.
www.bwc.com
Bishop-Wisecarver Corporation is a certified

woman-owned manufacturer of the original DualVee
guide wheel and industry leader in linear and rotary motion technologies.
sales@bwc.com | 2104 Martin Way Pittsburg, CA 94565 | 888.580.8272
Intro
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ToC
37
Software
Spectrum Analyzers
Aeroflex
www.aeroflex.com
Atego
www.atego.com
Dytran Instruments, Inc.

Phone: 818-700-7818
Fax: 818-700-7880
lmarquart@dytran.com
www.dytran.com
FTRX LLC
www.ftrx-llc.com
DEWESoft, LLC
Phone: 419-574-8599
Fax: 419-877-5505
www.DEWESoft.com

Fax: 440-232-4488
www.RIGOLNA.com
EADS North America

Test and Services
Phone: 949-859-8999
Fax: 949-859-7139
info@ts.eads-na.com
www.ts.eads-na.com
Stanford Research Systems

www.thinksrs.com
EADS North America

Test and Services
Phone: 949-859-8999
Fax: 949-859-7139
info@ts.eads-na.com
www.ts.eads-na.com
Test Instruments Other
Engineering Technology Associates, Inc.

www.eta.com
Advanced Test Equipment Rentals

www.ATECorp.com
HBM-nCode
www.hbm.com/ncode
Asylum Research
www.AsylumResearch.com
Integrated Engineering Software

www.integratedsoft.com
AWAIBA CMOS Image Sensors

www.awaiba.com
Envirotronics
Phone: 800-368-4768
Fax: 616-554-5021
sales@envirotronics.com
www.envirotronics.com
Fiber Optic Center
focenter.com
GTC Falcon, Inc.
www.gtcfalcon.com
BellowsTech, LLC
www.bellowstech.com
Headwall Photonics Spectral Imaging

www.HeadwallPhotonics.com
Binsfeld Engineering Inc.

www.binsfeld.com
Phone: 831-655-6600
Fax: 831-655-6606
sales@lansmont.com
www.lansmont.com
Image Science
www.image-science.co.uk
Capacitec, Inc.
www.capacitec.com
Keithley Instruments
www.keithley.com
Cincinnati Sub-Zero
www.cszindustrial.com
MSC Software
www.mscsoftware.com
Crouzet North America Motors

www.crouzet.com
Corporation
Phone: 800-531-5066
Fax: 512-683-8411
www.ni.com
Krohn-Hite Corporation
Phone: 508-580-1660
Fax: 508-583-8989
joeinglis@krohn-hite.com
www.krohn-hite.com
DEWESoft, LLC
Phone: 419-574-8599
Fax: 419-877-5505
www.DEWESoft.com
NEi Software
www.NEiSoftware.com
Phone: 831-655-6600
Fax: 831-655-6606
sales@lansmont.com
www.lansmont.com
Dexter Research Center, Inc.

www.dexterresearch.com
Dynaflow, Inc.
www.dynaflow-inc.com
VTI Instruments
Phone: 949-955-1894
Fax: 949-955-3041
38
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
Cov
ToC
Advertisement
shock and vibration sensors; static and

dynamic pressure transducers; acoustic
sensors; signal conditioning electronics;
portable calibrators; cable
assemblies and
accessories;
Wilcoxon Research electro-
Meggitt Sensing Systems

Measurement Group
30700 Rancho Viejo Road
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
Phone: 949-493-8181
Fax: 949-661-7231
E-mail: Jessica.koble@meggitt.com
www.meggittsensingsystems.com
magnetic and piezoelectric shakers; and

Sensorex servo inclinometers, servo
accelerometers, LVDTs, RVDTs, IMUs and
gyroscopes.
Company Description
Meggitt Sensing
Systems, a Meggitt
group division, is a
leading supplier of
high-performance
sensing and monitoring systems for
physical parameter measurements in
extreme environments. It has operated
since 1927 through its antecedents
ECET, Endevco, Ferroperm Piezoceramics,
Lodge Ignition, Sensorex, Vibro-Meter and
Wilcoxon Research whose portfolios
form the basis of product lines offered by
todays Meggitt Sensing Systems.
Going to extremes.
Meggitts high-reliability sensors for extreme
testing are now offered under one umbrella.
> Rocket launch and payload separation
> High-g mechanical shock and pyroshock
> Cryogenic and extreme high-temperature
vibration measurements
> Flight test and engine monitoring
Target Markets
Aerospace, automotive, defense, industrial, medical, military, power generation,
R&D, space, and test and measurement,
supporting the following applications:
Rocket launch and payload separation
High-g mechanical shock and pyroshock
HALT/HASS/ESS
Cryogenic and extreme high-temperature vibration measurements
Aircraft flight and flutter testing
Modal and structural analysis
Component durability testing
Vehicle and powertrain NVH
Vehicle dynamics, ride handling and road
load data acquisition (RLDA)
Acoustics, aerodynamics, turbulent flow
measurements
Implantable medical devices (accelerometer technologies)
Platform stabilization (oil and gas, transportation platforms)
Engine monitoring
Legislative and safety testing/crash test
Satellite testing/ground vibration testing
Onboard flight test
Sensorex SX43030
> Rugged MEMS-based IMU
> Acceleration on three
orthogonal axes
> On-board pitch, roll and yaw
High-g shock and

vibration
Services Offered
Endevco 7270A series

> 2000 to 200,000 g full scale
ranges
> High resonance frequency;
DC response
> Minimal zero shift after shock
Endevco piezoelectric, piezoresistive

and variable capacitance accelerometers;
1-888-363-3826
1-949-493-8181 (International)
Cryogenic
Endevco 2271A
> -269C to +260C operation
> 10K g pk shock survivability
> 10-32 top or side connector
Airborne testing
Endevco 2680MX
> Compact, rugged, lightweight
> Biased and unbiased dual
outputs
> Adjustable gain; optional
low-pass filter
Extreme high
temperature
Endevco 6240M10
>

> Hermetically sealed
> 5 pC/g sensitivity
Pressure
Endevco 8515C
> Ultra-thin (0.76 mm)
> 15 or 50 psia; 200 mV FSO
> Optional mounting pad
www.meggitt.com
Intro
Cov
ToC
39

Test Instruments Other
continued
Mad City Labs, Inc.

www.madcitylabs.com
VISIONx Inc.
www.visionxinc.com
Micro-Epsilon
www.micro-epsilon.com
Wavelength Electronics, Inc.

www.teamWavelength.com
MicroStrain
www.microstrain.com
Yokogawa Meters & Instruments

Zemetrics Inc.
www.zemetrics.com
Cryogenic
Engineering
A 5-Day Course
Ocean Optics
Phone: 727-733-2447
Fax: 727-733-3962
info@oceanoptics.com
www.oceanoptics.com
Test Services
API Delevan
www.delevan.com
ASM International
www.asminternational.org
Ophir-Spiricon
www.ophiropt.com/photonics
Bird Precision
www.birdprecision.com
Optical Perspectives Group, LLC

www.optiper.com
Composite Technology Development, Inc.

www.ctd-materials.com
CSA Group
www.csagroup.org
PCB Piezotronics, Inc.

Phone: 800-828-8840
Fax: 716-684-0987
info@pcb.com
www.pcb.com
CSZ Testing Services

www.csztesting.com
Isola Group S.a.r.l.
www.isola-group.com
Physik Instrumente LP Piezo Nano

Positioning
www.pi-usa.us
JG&A Metrology Center

www.jgarantmc.com
Sensortechnics Inc.
www.sensortechnics.com
Laservision USA
www.lasersafety.com
Shimadzu Scientific Instruments

www.ssi.shimadzu.com
Michigan Metrology LLC

www.michmet.com
Smalley Steel Ring Co.

www.smalley.com
Morehouse Instrument Co.

www.mhforce.com
Sofradir EC
www.sofradir-ec.com
Newport Corporation
www.newport.com
STABILUS
www.stabilus.com
PennEngineering
www.pemnet.com
Stellar Technology, Inc.

www.stellartech.com
Premier Semiconductor Services, LLC

www.premiers2.com
Tel-Tru Manufacturing Co.

www.teltru.com
Q-PLUS Labs
www.qpluslabs.com
ThermoElectric Cooling America

Corporation
www.thermoelectric.com
Technology Advancement Group, Inc. (TAG)

www.TAG.com
Tranter, Inc.
www.tranter.com
Vibrac Torque Test Systems
www.vibrac.com
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
Cov
ToC
ADVERTISEMENT
Technologies of the Month

Sponsored by
For more information on these and other new, licensable inventions,

visit www.techbriefs.com/techsearch
Indoor Positioning System Utilizes

Wireless LAN Network
Square Piston Engine Reduces Emissions

Midwest IP Market Place
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

A positioning system utilizes ZigBee, a wireless sensor network on the 2.4-GHz ISM band. The technology applies stochastic reasoning in analyzing the ID and received signal
strength indication (RSSI) of received wireless signals. Due to
multipath interference, the position of people or target objects
can be estimated within a margin of error of one to several
meters, regardless of signal loss, noise, or signal fluctuation.
The emergency signal transfer system, which was demonstrated in commercial buildings, can alert and guide users to
the nearest emergency exit by means of mobile phones.
Other applications of the technology include positioning
users, robot movement support, and determining conditions
of indoor environments. The system has been installed and
tested at Landmark Plaza in Yokohama City, Japan.
Get the complete report on this technology at:
www.techbriefs.com/tow/201205a.html
Email: nasatech@yet2.com
Phone: 781-972-0600
The Square Piston Engine (SPEC), a two-stroke engine

with a square piston, has an improved power-to-weight ratio
compared to existing engines. The engine features the same
three moving parts as a conventional two-stroke engine:
crank, gudgeon, and piston. The delayed opening of the
exhaust port on the power stroke provides a cleaner burn of
the fuel, yielding more torque and lower emissions. The
SPEC also has a closed-loop engine oiling system, which provides component durability and reduced hydrocarbon consumption. The engine is modular in design, providing significant manufacturing flexibility.
A number of prototypes have been constructed and have
operated on a variety of fuels. One such prototype has run in
excess of 500 hours. Further development work is required
to enhance engine efficiency through software modeling of
port placement.
Get the complete report on this technology at:
www.techbriefs.com/tow/201205b.html
Phone: 781-972-0600
TechNeeds Requests for Technologies

TechNeeds are anonymous requests for technologies that you and your organization may be able to fulfill.
Responding to a TechNeed is the first step to gaining an introduction with a prospective buyer
for your technology solution.
Materials that Form Mesh-Based Sheets
Packaging Defect Detection
Materials exist that provide optical clarity, but the fabricmaking process drives the costs too high. A company seeks
cost-effective materials and technologies that will form meshbased sheets exhibiting high optical clarity and low haze. The
resulting sheet/film/fabric will also be evaluated based on
cost effectiveness of production (material and process), the
ability to be processed in current machines, and water diffusion. The material must be food-grade and flexible, and it
should have a pore/mesh size no greater than 200 microns.
Respond to this TechNeed at:
www.techbriefs.com/tn/201205c.html
Phone: 781-972-0600
Consumers desire dent-free packages and properly affixed

labels on 3D rigid packaging. A client seeks an automated
system that will check the quality of these labels, and will
detect, measure, and record critical information. The detection procedure will inform changes in processes, materials,
or equipment to reduce or eliminate the imperfections.
Such technology would first be applied for off-line lab tests,
and then ideally be scaled for use in an online packaging system; the system will require real-time monitoring during
packaging production. The equipment must detect defects
as small as 2 mm.
Respond to this TechNeed at:
www.techbriefs.com/tn/201205d.html
Phone: 781-972-0600
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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41
Space
Qualied POL
Regulators
For Digital Payloads
Fast and Adaptive Lossless Onboard
Hyperspectral Data Compression System
Implementation in a field-programmable gate array provides a
practical, real-time system.
Part
Number
Output Output Output Typ

Voltage Current Power Eff.
(V)
(A)
(W) (%)
SBB501S
1.0
14.0
14
72
SBB501R2S
1.2
14.0
16.8
73
SBB501R5S
1.5
14.0
21
76
SBB501R8S
1.8
14.0
25
79
SBB502R5S
2.5
12.0
30
86
SBB503R3S
3.3
9.1
30
89
FEATURES:
Total dose >100K Rads (Si)
SEE hardness rated, SEL/SEB/SET with
LET >82 MeV-cm2/mg
Operates from 4.5V to 5.5V DC supply
Fixed output voltage: 1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.8, 2.5 and
3.3V adjustable to 10%
Modern hyperspectral imaging systems

are able to acquire far more data than can
be downlinked from a spacecraft.
Onboard data compression helps to alleviate this problem, but requires a system
capable of power efficiency and high
throughput. Software solutions have limited throughput performance and are
power-hungry. Dedicated hardware solutions can provide both high throughput
and power efficiency, while taking the
load off of the main processor. Thus a
hardware compression system was developed. The implementation uses a fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA).
The implementation is based on the
fast lossless (FL) compression algorithm
reported in Fast Lossless Compression of
Multispectral-Image Data (NPO-42517),
NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 30, No. 8 (August
2006), page 26, which achieves excellent
compression performance and has low
complexity. This algorithm performs predictive compression using an adaptive filtering method, and uses adaptive Golomb
coding. The implementation also packetizes the coded data. The FL algorithm is
well suited for implementation in hardware. In the FPGA implementation, one
sample is compressed every clock cycle,

which makes for a fast and practical realtime solution for space applications.
Benefits of this implementation are:
The underlying algorithm achieves a
combination of low complexity and
compression effectiveness that exceeds
that of techniques currently in use.
The algorithm requires no training
data or other specific information
about the nature of the spectral bands
for a fixed instrument dynamic range.
Hardware acceleration provides a
throughput improvement of 10 to 100
times vs. the software implementation.
A prototype of the compressor is available in software, but it runs at a speed that
does not meet spacecraft requirements.
The hardware implementation targets the
Xilinx Virtex IV FPGAs, and makes the
use of this compressor practical for Earth
satellites as well as beyond-Earth missions
with hyperspectral instruments.
This work was done by Nazeeh I. Aranki,
Didier Keymeulen, and Matthew A. Klimesh
of Caltech, and Alireza Bakhshi of B&A
Engineering for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, contact
iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov. NPO-46867
Output power up to 30W or 14A maximum

-55 to +85C operating case temperature
without power de-rating
Extremely low input ripple current, no
external lter capacitors required
Iridium Interfacial Stack IrIS
For more information call 1.800.981.8699

or visit www.irf.com
A bondable metallization stack prevents diffusion of oxygen

and gold into silicon carbide monolithically integrated circuits
operating above 500 C.
John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio
THE POWER MANAGEMENT LEADER
Iridium Interfacial Stack (IrIS) is the

sputter deposition of high-purity tantalum
silicide (TaSi2-400 nm) / platinum (Pt-200
nm) / iridium (Ir-200 nm) / platinum (Pt200 nm) in an ultra-high vacuum system
followed by a 600 C anneal in nitrogen for
30 minutes. IrIS simultaneously acts as
both a bond metal and a diffusion barrier.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
This bondable metallization that also acts

as a diffusion barrier can prevent oxygen
from air and gold from the wire-bond
from infiltrating silicon carbide (SiC)
monolithically integrated circuits (ICs)
operating above 500 C in air for over
1,000 hours. This TaSi2/Pt/Ir/Pt metallization is easily bonded for electrical con-
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FOR
AEROSPACE & DEFENSE
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of components and solutions for A&D applications. And let us help turn your
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Intro
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nection to off-chip circuitry and does not
require extra anneals or masking steps.
There are two ways that IrIS can be
used in SiC ICs for applications above 500
C: it can be put directly on a SiC ohmic
contact metal, such as Ti, or be used as a
bond metal residing on top of an interconnect metal. For simplicity, only the
use as a bond metal is discussed. The
layer thickness ratio of TaSi 2 to the first Pt
layer deposited thereon should be 2:1.
This will allow Si from the TaSi2 to react
with the Pt to form Pt2Si during the 600
C anneal carried out after all layers have
been deposited. The Ir layer does not

readily form a silicide at 600 C, and
thereby prevents the Si from migrating
into the top-most Pt layer during future
anneals and high-temperature IC operation. The second (i.e., top-most) deposited Pt layer needs to be about 200 nm to
enable easy wire bonding. The thickness
of 200 nm for Ir was chosen for initial
experiments; further optimization of the
Ir layer thickness may be possible via further experimentation. Ir itself is not easily wire-bonded because of its hardness
and much higher melting point than Pt.
Below the iridium layer, the TaSi 2 and Pt

react and form desired Pt2Si during the
post-deposition anneal while above the
iridium layer remains pure Pt as desired
to facilitate easy and strong wire-bonding
to the SiC chip circuitry.
This work was done by David Spry of Glenn
Research Center. For more information,
under the Electronics/Computers category.
Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention should be addressed to
NASA Glenn Research Center, Innovative
Partnerships Office, Attn: Steven Fedor, Mail
Stop 48, 21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland,
Ohio 44135. Refer to LEW-18736-1 .
Goldstone Solar
System Radar
Waveform
Generator
Pre-distortion of the
transmitted signal to
compensate for time-base
distortion allows reception of
an undistorted signal.
NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, California
Due to distances and relative motions
among the transmitter, target object, and
receiver, the time-base between any transmitted and received signal will undergo
distortion. Pre-distortion of the transmitted signal to compensate for this time-base
distortion allows reception of an undistorted signal. In most radar applications,
an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG)
would be used to store the pre-calculated
waveform and then play back this waveform
during transmission. The Goldstone Solar
System Radar (GSSR), however, has transmission durations that exceed the available
memory storage of such a device. A waveform generator capable of real-time predistortion of a radar waveform to a given
time-base distortion function is needed.
To pre-distort the transmitted signal,
both the baseband radar waveform and
the RF carrier must be modified. In the
GSSR, this occurs at the up-conversion
mixing stage to an intermediate frequency (IF). A programmable oscillator (PO)
is used to generate the IF along with a
time-varying phase component that
matches the time-base distortion of the RF
44
Intro
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carrier. This serves as the IF input to the waveform generator

where it is mixed with a baseband radar waveform whose timebase has been distorted to match the given time-base distortion
function producing the modulated IF output. An error control
feedback loop is used to precisely control the time-base distortion
of the baseband waveform, allowing its real-time generation.
The waveform generator produces IF modulated radar waveforms whose time-base has been pre-distorted to match a given
arbitrary function. The following waveforms are supported: continuous wave (CW), frequency hopped (FH), binary phase code
(BPC), and linear frequency modulation (LFM). The waveform
generator takes as input an IF with a time varying phase component that matches the time-base distortion of the carrier. The
waveform generator supports interconnection with deep-space
network (DSN) timing and frequency standards, and is controlled
through a 1 Gb/s Ethernet UDP/IP interface.
This real-time generation of a time-base distorted radar
waveform for continuous transmission in a planetary radar is a
unique capability.
This work was done by Kevin J. Quirk, Ferze D. Patawaran, Danh H.
Nguyen, and Huy Nguyen of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, download the Technical Support
Package (free white paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the
Electronics/Computers category. NPO-47730
Escape from
everyday vacuum
pumping chores...
Amplitude-Stabilized
Oscillator for a CapacitanceProbe Electrometer
A multichannel electrometer voltmeter that employs a
mechanical resonator maintained in sustained amplitude-stabilized oscillation has been developed for the space-based measurement of an Internal Electrostatic Discharge Monitor (IESDM)
sensor. The IESDM is new sensor technology targeted for integration into a Space Environmental Monitor (SEM) subsystem used
for the characterization and monitoring of deep dielectric charging on spacecraft. Creating a stable oscillator from the mechanical resonator was achieved by employing magnetic induction for
sensing the resonators velocity, and forcing a current through a
coil embedded in the resonator to produce a Lorentz actuation
force that overcomes the resonators dissipative losses. Control
electronics employing an AGC loop provide conditions for stabilized, constant amplitude harmonic oscillation.
The prototype resonator was composed of insulating FR4
printed-wire-board (PWB) material containing a flat, embedded, rectangular coil connected through flexure springs to a
base PWB, and immersed in a magnetic field having two regions
of opposite field direction generated by four neodymium block
magnets. In addition to maintaining the mechanical movement
needed for the electrometers capacitor-probe transducer, this
oscillator provides a reference signal for synchronous detection
of the capacitor probes output signal current so drift of oscillation frequency due to environmental effects is inconsequential.
This work was done by Brent R. Blaes and Rembrandt T. Schaefer
of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free white paper)
at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Electronics/Computers category. NPO-47336
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Intro
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45
Software
Histogrammatic Method
for Determining Relative
Abundance of Input Gas
Pulse
To satisfy the Major Constituents
Analysis (MCA) requirements for the
Vehicle Cabin Atmosphere Monitor
(VCAM), this software analyzes the relative abundance ratios for N2, O2, Ar, and
CO2 as a function of time and constructs
their best-estimate mean. A histogram is
first built of all abundance ratios for
each of the species vs time. The abundance peaks corresponding to the
intended measurement and any obfuscating background are then separated
via standard peak-finding techniques in
histogram space. A voting scheme is
then used to include/exclude this particular time sample in the final average
based on its membership to the intended measurement or the background
population. This results in a robust and
reasonable estimate of the abundance of

trace components such as CO2 and Ar
even in the presence of obfuscating
backgrounds internal to the VCAM
device.
VCAM can provide a means for monitoring the air within the enclosed environments, such as the ISS (International
Space Station), Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CEV), a Lunar Habitat, or
another vehicle traveling to Mars. Its
miniature pre-concentrator, gas chromatograph (GC), and mass spectrometer can provide unbiased detection of a
large number of organic species as well
as MCA analysis. VCAMs software can
identify the concentration of trace
chemicals and whether the chemicals
are on a targeted list of hazardous compounds. This innovations performance
and reliability on orbit, along with the
ground teams assessment of its raw data
and analysis results, will validate its technology for future use and development.

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Predictive Sea State

Estimation for Automated
Ride Control and Handling
PSSEARCH
PSSEARCH provides predictive sea
state estimation, coupled with closedloop feedback control for automated
ride control. It enables a manned or
unmanned watercraft to determine the
3D map and sea state conditions in its
vicinity in real time. Adaptive path-planning/replanning software and a control
surface management system will then
use this information to choose the best
settings and heading relative to the seas
for the watercraft.
PSSEARCH looks ahead and anticipates potential impact of waves on the
boat and is used in a tight control loop
to adjust trim tabs, course, and throttle
settings. The software uses sensory
inputs
including
IMU
(Inertial
Measurement Unit), stereo, radar, etc.
to determine the sea state and wave conditions (wave height, frequency, wave
direction) in the vicinity of a rapidly
moving boat. This information can then
be used to plot a safe path through the
oncoming waves.
The main issues in determining a safe
path for sea surface navigation are: (1)
deriving a 3D map of the surrounding
environment, (2) extracting hazards
and sea state surface state from the
imaging sensors/map, and (3) planning
a path and control surface settings that
avoid the hazards, accomplish the mission navigation goals, and mitigate crew
injuries from excessive heave, pitch, and
roll accelerations while taking into
account the dynamics of the sea surface
state. The first part is solved using a wide
baseline stereo system, where 3D structure is determined from two calibrated
pairs of visual imagers.
Once the 3D map is derived, anything
above the sea surface is classified as a
46
This work was done by Lukas Mandrake,

Benjamin J. Bornstein, Stojan Madzunkov,
and John A. MacAskill of Caltech for NASAs
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
This software is available for commercial
licensing. Please contact Daniel Broderick of
the California Institute of Technology at
danielb@caltech.edu. Refer to NPO-47217.
Intro
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potential hazard and a surface analysis

gives a static snapshot of the waves.
Dynamics of the wave features are
obtained from a frequency analysis of
motion vectors derived from the orientation of the waves during a sequence of
inputs. Fusion of the dynamic wave patterns with the 3D maps and the IMU outputs is used for efficient safe path planning.
This work was done by Terrance L.
Huntsberger, Andrew B. Howard, Hrand
Aghazarian, and Arturo L. Rankin of
Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Software category.
In accordance with Public Law 96-517,
the contractor has elected to retain title to this
invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its
commercial use should be addressed to:
Innovative Technology Assets Management
JPL
Mail Stop 202-233
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109-8099
E-mail: iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov
Refer to NPO-47533, volume and number
of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the
page number.
tion in which a machine learning system

is used in closed-loop fashion to efficiently explore the input parameter
space of a complex numerical simulation. The machine learning system
decides which jobs to run through the
simulator; then, through LEGION calls,
the system farms those jobs out to a collection of compute nodes, retrieves the
job results as they become available, and
updates a predictive model of how the
simulator maps inputs to outputs. The
machine learning system decides which
new set of jobs would be most informa-
tive to run given the results so far; this

basic loop is repeated until sufficient
insight into the physical system modeled
by the simulator is obtained.
This work was done by Michael C. Burl of
Software category.
LEGION: Lightweight
Expandable Group of
Independently Operating
Nodes
LEGION is a lightweight C-language
software library that enables distributed asynchronous data processing
with a loosely coupled set of compute
nodes. Loosely coupled means that a
node can offer itself in service to a larger task at any time and can withdraw
itself from service at any time, provided
it is not actively engaged in an assignment. The main program, i.e., the one
attempting to solve the larger task,
does not need to know up front which
nodes will be available, how many
nodes will be available, or at what times
the nodes will be available, which is
normally the case in a volunteer computing framework. The LEGION software accomplishes its goals by providing message-based, inter-process communication similar to MPI (message
passing interface), but without the
tight coupling requirements. The software is lightweight and easy to install as
it is written in standard C with no exotic library dependencies.
LEGION has been demonstrated in a
challenging planetary science applicaNASA Tech Briefs, May 2012
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47
Software
Real-Time Projection to
Verify Plan Success During
Execution
The Mission Data System provides a
framework for modeling complex systems in terms of system behaviors and
goals that express intent. Complex activity plans can be represented as goal networks that express the coordination of
goals on different state variables of the
system. Real-time projection extends the
ability of this system to verify plan
achievability (all goals can be satisfied
over the entire plan) into the execution

domain so that the system is able to continuously re-verify a plan as it is executed, and as the states of the system
change in response to goals and the
environment.
Previous versions were able to detect
and respond to goal violations when
they actually occur during execution.
This new capability enables the prediction of future goal failures; specifically,
goals that were previously found to be
achievable but are no longer achievable
due to unanticipated faults or environ-
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This software provides an automated

capability to measure and qualify the frequency stability performance of the Deep
Space Network (DSN) ground system,
using daily spacecraft tracking data. The
results help to verify if the DSN performance is meeting its specification, therefore
ensuring commitments to flight missions;
in particular, the radio science investigations. The rich set of data also helps the
DSN Operations and Maintenance team
to identify the trends and patterns, allowing them to identify the antennas of lower
performance and implement corrective
action in a timely manner.
Unlike the traditional approach
where the performance can only be
obtained from special calibration sessions that are both time-consuming
and require manual setup, the new
method taps into the daily spacecraft
tracking data. This new approach sig-
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mental conditions. Early detection of

such situations enables operators or an
autonomous fault response capability to
deal with the problem at a point that
maximizes the available options.
For example, this system has been
applied to the problem of managing battery energy on a lunar rover as it is used
to explore the Moon. Astronauts drive
the rover to waypoints and conduct science observations according to a plan
that is scheduled and verified to be
achievable with the energy resources
available. As the astronauts execute this
plan, the system uses this new capability
to continuously re-verify the plan as
energy is consumed to ensure that the
battery will never be depleted below safe
levels across the entire plan.
In particular, this enables an execution system to predict problems such as
resource exhaustion before they occur.
The models are expressed and executed
in a way that can be optimized for realtime use in an embedded system.
This work was done by David A. Wagner,
Daniel L. Dvorak, Robert D. Rasmussen,
Russell L. Knight, John R. Morris, Matthew
B. Bennett, and Michel D. Ingham of Caltech
for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more
information, contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov.
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nificantly increases the amount of data

available for analysis, roughly by two
orders of magnitude, making it possible to conduct trend analysis with good
confidence.
The software is built with automation
in mind for end-to-end processing. From
the inputs gathering to computation
analysis and later data visualization of
the results, all steps are done automatically, making the data production at
near zero cost. This allows the limited
engineering resource to focus on highlevel assessment and to follow up with
the exceptions/deviations.
To make it possible to process the continual stream of daily incoming data
without much effort, and to understand
the results quickly, the processing needs
to be automated and the data summarized at a high level. Special attention
needs to be given to data gathering,
input validation, handling anomalous
conditions, computation, and presenting the results in a visual form that
makes it easy to spot items of exception/deviation so that further analysis
can be directed and corrective actions
followed.
This work was done by Timothy T. Pham,
Richard J. Machuzak, Alina Bedrossian,
Richard M. Kelly, and Jason C. Liao of

Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, contact
iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov.
Web-Based Customizable
Viewer for Mars Network
Overflight Opportunities
This software displays a full summary
of information regarding the overflight
opportunities between any set of lander
and orbiter pairs that the user has access
to view. The information display can be
customized, allowing the user to choose
which fields to view/hide and filter.
The software works from a Web browser on any modern operating system. A
full summary of information pertaining
to an overflight is available, including
the proposed, tentative, requested,
planned, and implemented. This gives
the user a chance to quickly check for
inconsistencies and fix any problems.
Overflights from multiple lander/
orbiter pairs can be compared instantly,
and information can be filtered
through the query and shown/hidden,

giving the user a customizable view of
the data. The information can be
exported to a CSV (comma separated
value) or XML (extensible markup language) file. The software only grants
access to users who are authorized to
view the information.
This application is an addition to the
MaROS Web suite. Prior to this addition,
information pertaining to overflight
opportunities would have a limited
amount of data (displayed graphically)
and could only be shown in strict temporal ordering. This new display shows
more information, allows direct comparisons between overflights, and allows the
data to be manipulated in ways that it
was unable to be done in the past.
The current software solution is to use
CSV files to view the overflight opportunities.
This work was done by Roy E. Gladden,
Michael N. Wallick, and Daniel A. Allard
of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, contact
iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov.
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Graphene Transparent Conductive Electrodes for NextGeneration Microshutter Arrays
Graphene is a single atomic layer of
graphite. It is optically transparent and
has high electron mobility, and thus has
great potential to make transparent conductive electrodes. This invention contributes towards the development of
graphene transparent conductive electrodes for next-generation microshutter
arrays.
The original design for the electrodes
of the next generation of microshutters
uses indium-tin-oxide (ITO) as the electrode material. ITO is widely used in
NASA flight missions. The optical transparency of ITO is limited, and the material is brittle. Also, ITO has been getting
more expensive in recent years. The
objective of the invention is to develop a
graphene transparent conductive elec-
trode that will replace ITO. An exfoliation procedure was developed to make
graphene out of graphite crystals. In
addition, large areas of single-layer
graphene were produced using low-pressure chemical vapor deposition
(LPCVD) with high optical transparency. A special graphene transport procedure was developed for transferring
graphene from copper substrates to
arbitrary substrates.
The concept is to grow large-size
graphene sheets using the LPCVD system through chemical reaction, transfer the graphene film to a substrate,
dope graphene to reduce the sheet
resistance, and pattern the film to the
dimension of the electrodes in the
microshutter array.
Graphene transparent conductive

electrodes are expected to have a transparency of 97.7%. This covers the electromagnetic spectrum from UV to IR. In
comparison, ITO electrodes currently
used in microshutter arrays have 85%
transparency in mid-IR, and suffer from
dramatic transparency drop at a wavelength of near-IR or shorter. Thus,
graphene also has potential application
as transparent conductive electrodes for
Schottky photodiodes in the UV region.
This work was done by Mary Li, Mahmooda
Sultana, and Larry Hess of Goddard Space
Flight Center. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free
white paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp
under the Manufacturing & Prototyping category. GSC-16148-1
Fabrication of a Cryogenic Terahertz Emitter for Bolometer

Focal Plane Calibrations
The methods used produce an emitter that features greater precision.
A fabrication process is reported for
prototype emitters of THz radiation,
which operate cryogenically, and should
provide a fast, stable blackbody source
suitable for characterization of THz

devices. The fabrication has been
demonstrated and, at the time of this
reporting, testing was underway. The
emitter is similar to a monolithic silicon

bolometer in design, using both a lownoise thermometer and a heater element on a thermally isolated stage. An
MORE MANUFACTURING & PROTOTYPING TECH BRIEFS

Online at www.techbriefs.com/prototyping
Read these new reports:
Processing of Nanosensors Using a Sacrificial Template Approach
Fabrication of a Cryogenic Bias Filter for Ultrasensitive Focal Plane
High-Temperature Shape Memory Polymers
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impedance-matched, high-emissivity coating is also integrated to tune the blackbody properties.
This emitter is designed to emit a precise amount of power as a blackbody
spectrum centered on terahertz frequencies. The emission is a function of the
blackbody temperature. An integrated
resistive heater and thermometer system
can control the temperature of the blackbody with greater precision than previous incarnations of calibration sources
that relied on blackbody emission.
The emitter is fabricated using a silicon-on-insulator substrate wafer. The

buried oxide is chosen to be less than 1
micron thick, and the silicon device
thickness is 12 microns. Layers of
phosphorus compensated with boron
are implanted into and diffused
throughout the full thickness of the silicon device layer to create the thermometer and heater components.
Degenerately doped wiring is implanted to connect the devices to wire-bondable contact pads at the edge of the
11:48 AM
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approach before you
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1:03 PM
Your second board is
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10:05 AM
Your first board is
ready to test.
3:14 PM
9:00 AM
After a few tweaks,

youre ready to make
your finished board.
Your circuit design is

done and youre ready
to make a prototype.
4:09 PM
emitter chip. Then the device is micromachined to remove the thick-handle

silicon behind the thermometer and
heater components, and to thermally
isolate it on a silicon membrane. An
impedance-matched emissive coating
(ion assisted evaporated Bi) is applied
to the back of the membrane to enable
high-efficiency emission of the blackbody spectrum.
In operation, the heater is supplied
with a voltage that is PID-controlled
(proportional-integral-derivative-controlled) by the output of the thermometer. Both components are quiet,
and require low-noise readout and
power supplies to function correctly.
The fabricated chip is mounted and
heat-sunk to a copper housing that
directs and collimates the beam of terahertz power emitted from the chip.
Filtering in the optical column in the
copper housing with metal mesh or
neutral density components is also possible. The implanted silicon is highly
reliable and stable. The Bi coating is
robust but may require passivation if
the environment for installation has
corrosives (i.e., acid flux, heavy solvents from a Dewar).
This work was done by James Chervenak,
Ari Brown, and Edward Wollack of Goddard
Space Flight Center. For more information,
Your finished board is

ready to go.
Fabrication of an
Absorber-Coupled
MKID Detector
5:00 PM
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This allows for multiplexed

microwave readout and,
consequently, good spatial
discrimination between pixels
in the array.
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Absorber-coupled microwave kinetic

inductance detector (MKID) arrays were
developed for submillimeter and farinfrared astronomy. These sensors comprise arrays of lambda/2 stepped
microwave impedance resonators patterned on a 1.5-mm-thick silicon membrane, which is optimized for optical
coupling. The detector elements are
Leonard Weber
Agilent
www.lpkfusa.com/pcb
1-800-345-LPKF
52
Intro
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supported on a 380-mm-thick micromachined silicon wafer. The resonators

consist of parallel plate aluminum transmission lines coupled to low-impedance
Nb microstrip traces of variable length,
which set the resonant frequency of
each resonator. This allows for multiplexed microwave readout and, consequently, good spatial discrimination
between pixels in the array. The transmission lines simultaneously act to
absorb optical power and employ an
appropriate surface impedance and
effective filling fraction. The fabrication
techniques demonstrate high-fabrication yield of MKID arrays on large, single-crystal membranes and sub-micron
front-to-back alignment of the microstrip circuit.
An MKID is a detector that operates
upon the principle that a superconducting materials kinetic inductance and
surface resistance will change in
response to being exposed to radiation
with a power density sufficient to break
its Cooper pairs. When integrated as
part of a resonant circuit, the change in
surface impedance will result in a shift
in its resonance frequency and a
decrease of its quality factor. In this
approach, incident power creates quasi-
particles inside a superconducting resonator, which is configured to match the

impedance of free space in order to
absorb the radiation being detected. For
this reason MKIDs are attractive for use
in large-format focal plane arrays,
because they are easily multiplexed in
the frequency domain and their fabrication is straightforward.
The fabrication process can be summarized in seven steps: (1) Alignment
marks are lithographically patterned
and etched all the way through a silicon
on insulator (SOI) wafer, which consists
of a thin silicon membrane bonded to a
thick silicon handle wafer. (2) The metal
microwave circuitry on the front of the
membrane is patterned and etched. (3)
The wafer is then temporarily bonded
with wafer wax to a Pyrex wafer, with the
SOI side abutting the Pyrex. (4) The silicon handle component of the SOI
wafer is subsequently etched away so as

to expose the membrane backside. (5)
The wafer is flipped over, and metal
microwave circuitry is patterned and
etched on the membrane backside.
Furthermore, cuts in the membrane are
made so as to define the individual
detector array chips. (6) Silicon frames
are micromachined and glued to the silicon membrane. (7) The membranes,
which are now attached to the frames,
are released from the Pyrex wafer via dissolution of the wafer wax in acetone.
This work was done by Ari Brown, WenTing Hsieh, Samuel Moseley, Thomas
Stevenson, Kongpop U-Yen, and Edward
Wollack of Goddard Space Flight Center. For
more information, download the Technical
www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Manufacturing & Prototyping category. GSC16202-1
Find more tech briefs about new NASA

advances in Manufacturing & Prototyping by visiting
www.techbriefs.com/prototyping.
'ROUP
53
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Mechanics/Machinery
Long-Life, Lightweight, Multi-Roller
Traction Drives for Planetary Vehicle
Surface Exploration
These drives can be used for Earth-based applications where
extreme temperatures are involved.
NASAs initiative for Lunar and Martian
exploration will require long lived, robust
drive systems for manned vehicles that
must operate in hostile environments.
The operation of these mechanical drives
will pose a problem because of the existing
extreme operating conditions. Some of
these extreme conditions include operating at a very high or very cold temperature, operating over a wide range of temperatures, operating in very dusty environments, operating in a very high radiation
environment, and operating in possibly
corrosive environments.
Current drive systems use gears with various configurations of teeth. These gears
must be lubricated with oil (or grease) and
must have some sort of a lubricant resupply
system. For drive systems, oil poses problems such as evaporation, becoming too viscous and eventually freezing at cold temperatures, being too thin to lubricate at high
temperatures, being degraded by the radiation environment, being contaminated by
the regolith (soil), and if vaporized (and
not sealed), it will contaminate the regolith.
Thus, it may not be advisable or even possible to use oil because of these limitations.
An oil-less, compact traction vehicle
drive is a drive designed for use in hostile
environments like those that will be
encountered on planetary surfaces.
Initially, traction roller tests in vacuum
were conducted to obtain traction and
endurance data needed for designing the
drives. From that data, a traction drive was
designed that would fit into a prototype
lunar rover vehicle, and this design data
was used to construct several traction
drives. These drives were then tested in air
to determine their performance characteristics, and if any final corrections to the
designs were necessary.
A limitation with current speed reducer
systems such as planetary gears and harmonic drives is the high-contact stresses
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
that occur at tooth engagement and in the

harmonic drive wave generator interface.
These high stresses induce high wear of
solid lubricant coatings, thus necessitating
the use of liquid lubricants for long life.
Because of their near-pure rolling contact, traction drives can operate unlubricated at very cold temperatures or at high
temperatures by using low-wear, high-traction materials or coatings. Oil-less traction
drives will not encounter the temperature
swing problems of other proposed planetary vehicle drives. Traction drives also will
be less sensitive to dusty conditions if
sealed properly, and will also not contaminate a planetary environment because
there is no liquid lubricant used.
The oil-free traction drive is a toothless drive system that is capable of dry
operation using low-wear, high-friction
materials and coatings. Multi-roller traction drive configurations offer high
reduction ratios (>30 to 1) in a single
stage, reducing motor size and providing a
lightweight wheel drive system.
A traction drive with nearly pure rolling
action provides much longer life than
could be achieved with gear or harmonic
drive systems in applications where liquid
lubricants could not be used. Use of
ceramic-coated titanium or polymer
rollers will reduce the weight of the drives
and also reduce the cost to launch.
This work was done by Richard C. Klein,
Robert L. Fusaro, and Florin Dimofte of
NASTEC, Inc. for Glenn Research Center.
Mechanics/Machinery category.
Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention should be addressed to
NASA Glenn Research Center, Innovative
Stop 48, 21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland,
Ohio 44135. Refer to LEW-18826-1.
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Wavefront Compensation Segmented Mirror Sensing and Control

Six degrees of freedom can be sensed at each segment edge.
The primary mirror of very large submillimeter-wave telescopes will necessarily be segmented into many separate
mirror panels. These panels must be
continuously co-phased to keep the telescope wavefront error less than a small
fraction of a wavelength, to ten microns
RMS (root mean square) or less. This
performance must be maintained continuously across the full aperture of the
telescope, in all pointing conditions,
and in a variable thermal environment.
A wavefront compensation segmented
mirror sensing and control system, consisting of optical edge sensors, Wavefront
Compensation Estimator/Controller
Software, and segment position actuators is proposed. Optical edge sensors
are placed two per each segment-to-segment edge to continuously measure
changes in segment state. Segment position actuators (three per segment) are
used to move the panels. A computer
control system uses the edge sensor
measurements to estimate the state of all
of the segments and to predict the wavefront error; segment actuator commands are computed that minimize the
wavefront error.
Translational or rotational motions of
one segment relative to the other cause
lateral displacement of the light beam,
which is measured by the imaging sensor. For high accuracy, the collimator
uses a shaped mask, such as one or more
slits, so that the light beam forms a pattern on the sensor that permits sensing
accuracy of better than 0.1 micron in
two axes: in the z or local surface normal
direction, and in the y direction parallel
to the mirror surface and perpendicular
to the beam direction.
Using a coaligned pair of sensors, with
the location of the detector and collimated light source interchanged, four
degrees of freedom can be sensed: transverse x and y displacements, as well as
two bending angles (pitch and yaw). In
this approach, each optical edge sensor
head has a collimator and an imager,
placing one sensor head on each side of
a segment gap, with two parallel light
beams crossing the gap.
Two sets of optical edge sensors are
used per segment-to-segment edge, separated by a finite distance along the segment edge, for four optical heads, each
with an imager and a collimator. By ori-
enting the beam direction of one edge

sensor pair to be +45 away from the segment edge direction, and the other sensor pair to be oriented 45 away from
the segment edge direction, all six
degrees of freedom of relative motion
between the segments can be measured
with some redundancy.
The software resides in a computer

that receives each of the optical edge
sensor signals, as well as telescope
pointing commands. It feeds back the
edge sensor signals to keep the primary
mirror figure within specification. It
uses a feed-forward control to compensate for global effects such as decollima-
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Intro
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55
Mechanics/Machinery
tion of the primary and secondary mirrors due to gravity sag as the telescope
pointing changes to track science
objects.
Three segment position actuators will
be provided per segment to enable controlled motions in the piston, tip, and
tilt degrees of freedom. These actuators
are driven by the software, providing the
optical changes needed to keep the telescope phased.
A novel aspect of this design is the
angled optical edge sensor configuration. By angling the light beam of each
edge sensor pair at + and 45, a full four

degrees of freedom can be sensed at
each segment edge by each sensor pair.
This configuration results in full observability of the segment optical state, and
is crucial in achieving the needed performance.
The software incorporates a structural/optical model of the telescope in a
least-squares or Kalman filter-based estimator/controller, which processes the
optical edge sensor signals in a lowbandwidth control loop. The estimator
produces an estimate of the optical
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A series of free-mass designs for the

ultrasonic/sonic driller/corer (USDC)
has been developed to maximize the
transfer of energy from the piezoelectric
transducer through the horn to the bit,
as well as to minimize potential jamming. A systematic development was
made producing novel designs of freemass configurations where the impact
force is spread across a minimal area
maximizing the impact on the bit. The
designed free masses were made to operate at high temperatures (500 C) as on
Venus, and they can be made to operate
at extremely low temperature, too.
56
state of the mirror, and predicts the

resulting wavefront error, balancing
current against previous measurements
in a least-squares optimization. The
controller calculates the segment actuator commands that will minimize not
the sensor signals, but the predicted
wavefront error. This formulation
allows the controller to compensate for
the optical effects of motions (such as
lateral sag of the segments) that are not
directly actuated. The result is far better performance than could be
achieved using a conventional sensornulling approach.
This work was done by David C. Redding,
John Z. Lou, Andrew Kissil, Charles M.
Bradford, David Woody, and Stephen Padin
of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free
under the Mechanics/Machinery category.
The software used in this innovation is
available for commercial licensing. Please contact Daniel Broderick of the California
Institute of Technology at danielb@caltech.edu.
Refer to NPO-47964.
Intro
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In normal operation, the free mass

bounces between the horn and the bit,
impacting both repeatedly. The impact
stress profile, maximum stress, contact
time duration, and the required yielding

stress for the materials of the free mass,
bit, and horn are all affected by the contact area. A larger contact area results in
lower stress in the contact
region, and avoids yielding of
the materials. However, before
the excitation voltage is
applied to the transducer, the
horn, free mass, and the bit are
pressed together. Larger contact area results in a stronger
coupling of the bit to the horn
transducer, which greatly
changes the vibration characteristics of the transducer, and
makes the USDC difficult to
start. To obtain optimum per(a)
(b)
formance, a catalog of freemass designs is required, allowing maximum flexibility during
trade-off for these conflicting
contact area requirements.
For this purpose, seven different designs were conceived:
(c)
point contacts, circular contacts, point/circular contacts,
In the improved USDC Design, the rod was eliminated, and a
solid cylinder-shaped free mass retained with a cup was
line contacts, ring contacts,
used. On the left (a) is shown the rod configuration for the
line/ring contacts, and dashed
retention of the free mass, and on the right (b) the cup conline contacts. Besides point/
figuration is shown for the free mass retention. Part (c)
shows a free mass with flat and curved contact areas.
circular and line/ring con-
tacts, the free mass can be designed as

any of the above shapes. Depending on
the ratio of the diameter to the height,
and the free-mass retention method
used (the cup or rod), the free mass can
be configured with one or more sliding
surfaces on the outside or inside diameter surface or both. Matching horn tips
and free mass may also offer some utility
in maximizing the stress pulse.
This work was done by Xiaoqi Bao, Stewart
Sherrit, Mircea Badescu, Yoseph Bar-Cohen,
Steve Atkins, and Patrick N. Ostlund of
Mechanics/Machinery category.
In accordance with Public Law 96-517,
the contractor has elected to retain title to this
invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its
commercial use should be addressed to:
Innovative Technology Assets Management
JPL
Mail Stop 202-233
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109-8099
E-mail: iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov
Refer to NPO-47780, volume and number
of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the
page number.
57
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Advanced Bonding Methods
Incorporating Epoxy Resin Technology
High-performance structural adhesives are designed for
demanding industries such as aerospace, automotive, and
electronics.
Master Bond, Hackensack, New Jersey
Over the past 30 years, significant technology gains in polymer engineering
have greatly expanded the applications
suited to adhesive bonding with epoxy
resins. Advanced bonding methods that
incorporate epoxy resin technology are
among the most reliable and cost-effective fastening options in highly demanding industries such as aerospace, automotive, marine, construction, and electronics. In many applications, epoxy resins are
finding use in welding, brazing, and soldering operations.
High-performance epoxies combine
substantial mechanical strength with
dimensional stability, resistance to harsh
chemicals, and user-friendly handling
characteristics at a reasonable cost.
These advanced structural adhesives can
be formulated to bond steel, aluminum,
and other non-ferrous metals, in addition to many thermosets and thermoplastics, fiber-reinforced composites,
ceramics, concrete, brick, glass, wood,
and foam structures. Compared to other

commercial adhesives, epoxies feature
several important advantages: they fill
gaps, resist water and chemicals, and
achieve high strength and durability
within timely cure schedules.
Of all the available adhesive technologies, epoxies also feature the highest
tensile shear strengths 6,000 psi and
greater with fiber-reinforced compounds offering shear strengths in
excess of 10,000 psi. Bonds are generally rigid, but can be made more pliant
with flexibilizers if necessary. Service
temperatures range from below -60 F
to higher than 500 F. Further, these
structural adhesives cure with minimal
shrinkage and without creating volatile
compounds. When used to join dissimilar metals, the bondline functions as a
barrier against galvanic corrosion.
Another key benefit of epoxy adhesives
is that they offer robust electrical insulation, and are therefore suited for appli-
Epoxy Adhesives are easy to apply, and adhere to a wide range of substrates.
www.techbriefs.com
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cations involving electrical and electronic assemblies.

Most epoxy adhesive systems consist of
a base resin, hardener, accelerator, flexibilizers, fillers, diluents, and additives. The
base resin significantly influences both
thermal stability and chemical resistance.
Depending on the selected hardener, an
epoxy adhesive may cure quickly (in just
40 seconds) or slowly (over 48 hours),
either at room temperature or elevated
temperatures in the 150 to 400 F range.
Bond strength, mechanical strength,
flexibility, heat and chemical resistance,
electrical and thermal conductivity, and
many other properties all may be adjusted according to the type and amount of
various chemical components added to
the epoxy formulation.
Epoxy adhesives are usually produced
as one- or two-component formulas, and
as either ambient or heat-cured liquids,
pastes, or films. Films are available as supported or unsupported tapes, with the
principal supporting elements made of
glass, cloth, graphite fibers, or nylon film.
Substantial technology development
has occurred over the last several years
with regard to improving the performance
characteristics of epoxy adhesives. Many
research and development projects were
in response to the aerospace industrys

need for lighter-weight, more fuel-efficient
components. These technology advances
resulted in improved toughness and peel
strength, increased high-temperature service capabilities, and greater resistance to
water and other chemicals including
fuels and lubricants at elevated temperatures. Further, the shelf life of one-component pastes and films has been extended without requiring low-temperature (40
F) storage. Cure times have been shortened, while superior bonding properties
have been maintained, and in some cases,
improved upon.
Gains achieved with regard to increased
peel strength are particularly noteworthy.
While structural adhesives have traditionally featured high tensile shear strength,
they have also exhibited low peel strength,
a marked disadvantage for many bonding
operations. Today, this deficiency is being
corrected with more sophisticated chemistry and formulation technology, including modification with liquid elastomers.
Furthermore, epoxy-based adhesives with
significantly improved peel strength continue to feature the high tensile shear
strengths typical of these materials.
Of equal significance are recent
improvements in thermal stability for one-
and two-component structural adhesives.

Advanced epoxy adhesive systems now
perform satisfactorily at temperatures of
500 F and higher. Key to this development is the production of new heat-resistant epoxy resins based on novel chemical
structures. These advanced resins can be
cured over a wide temperature range with
specially designed curing agents that yield
impressive bond strengths.
Two-component epoxies are usually
cured at ambient or moderately elevated
temperatures in the 75 to 200 F range
and tend to achieve somewhat lower
strengths and more limited service temperature capabilities compared to onecomponent formulas. Single-component paste and film epoxy adhesives are
often used in the aerospace and transportation industries because they offer
the highest shear strengths, service temperature capabilities, and ease of processing. These epoxies require elevated
temperature cures, frequently in the 250
to 400 F range.
Beyond punishing temperatures, epoxies are also finding use in highly corrosive
environments, such as those in the chemical processing industries. Specialized
two-component liquid and paste adhesives now feature superior resistance to
59
Intro
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strong mineral acids, bases, and organic solvents after only ambient temperature cures.
Todays advanced epoxy resins often function as thermal and
electrical insulators as well. In certain electronics applications,
it is now required that adhesives conduct electricity, heat, or
both. Electrically and thermally conductive adhesives have
been developed in response to this demand. Electrically conductive epoxies contain metallic fillers such as silver, copper,
and nickel in finely divided powder form. For less stringent
requirements, graphite fillers are acceptable. Thermal conductivity is achieved using either specialized metals or inorganic
fillers, including alumina. Both one- and two-component conductive adhesive systems are available with either ambient or
elevated temperature cures. Advanced adhesive systems are
also being utilized in NASA-compliant low-outgassing and
fiber-optic applications.
This work was done by Master Bond. For more information, visit
http://info.hotims.com/40433-122.
Electrochemical Ultracapacitors Using Graphitic Nanostacks

Applications include cell phones and other portable consumer electronic devices, hybrid electric
vehicles, automatic electronic defibrillators, and uninterruptable power supplies.
Electrochemical ultracapacitors (ECs) have been developed
using graphitic nanostacks as the electrode material. The
advantages of this technology will be the reduction of device
size due to superior power densities and relative powers compared to traditional activated carbon electrodes. External testing showed that these materials display reduced discharge
response times compared to state-of-the-art materials. Such
applications are advantageous for pulsed power applications
such as burst communications (satellites, cell phones), electromechanical actuators, and battery load leveling in electric vehicles. These carbon nanostructures are highly conductive and
offer an ordered mesopore network. These attributes will pro-
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Fluorinated Oils, Greases,

PTFE Release Agents and
Dry Film Lubricants
Miller-Stephenson offers a complete line of inert high
performance uorinated lubricants that include Krytox
Oils and Greases, as well as a family of PTFE Release
Agents/Dry Lubricants. They provide superior lubricity, while
being thermally stable, non-ammable, non-migrating, and
contain no silicone. Krytox offers extreme pressure, anticorrosion and anti-wear properties, with oxygen compatibility
and low outgassing. Our PTFE creates a superior release for
plastics, elastomers and resins with multiple releases
between applications. For technical information and sample,
call 203-743-4447.
California - Illinois - Connecticut - Canada

e-mail: support@miller-stephenson.com
www.miller-stephenson.com
60
vide more complete electrolyte wetting, and faster release of

stored charge compared to activated carbon.
Electrochemical capacitor (EC) electrode materials were
developed using commercially available nanomaterials and
modifying them to exploit their energy storage properties.
These materials would be an improvement over current ECs
that employ activated carbon as the electrode material.
Commercially available graphite nanofibers (GNFs) are used as
precursor materials for the synthesis of graphitic nanostacks
(GNSs). These materials offer much greater surface area than
graphite flakes. Additionally, these materials offer a superior
electrical conductivity and a greater average pore size compared to activated carbon electrodes.
The state of the art in EC development uses activated carbon
(AC) as the electrode material. AC has a high surface area, but
its small average pore size inhibits electrolyte ingress/egress.
Additionally, AC has a higher resistivity, which generates parasitic heating in high-power applications. This work focuses on
fabricating EC from carbon that has a very different structure
by increasing the surface area of the GNF by intercalation or
exfoliation of the graphitic basal planes. Additionally, various
functionalities to the GNS surface will be added that can exhibit pseudocapacitance. This pseudocapacitance exhibits faradaic (charge transfer) properties that can further increase the
overall relative and volumetric capacitance of the material.
A process is also proposed to use GNF as a precursor material to fabricate GNS that will be used as EC electrodes. This
results in much better electrical conductivity than activated
carbon. This is advantageous for high-pulsed-power applications to reduce parasitic heating. Larger average pore size
allows more complete electrolyte wetting (faster charge transfer kinetics). These properties contribute to a lowered equivalent series resistance (ESR), increased specific power, shorter
charging times, and decreased parasitic heating. The high density of basal plane edges provides nucleation sites for activation
(addition of hydrophilic functional groups) that facilitate electrolyte wetting, and will contribute to pseudocapacitance.
This work was done by Christopher Marotta of Eltron Research &
Development, Inc. for Glenn Research Center. For more information,
download the Technical Support Package (free white paper) at
www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Materials & Coatings category.
Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention
should be addressed to NASA Glenn Research Center, Innovative
Partnerships Office, Attn: Steven Fedor, Mail Stop 48, 21000
Brookpark Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44135. Refer to LEW-18787-1
Intro
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Indium
Metal
Bio-Medical
Monitoring Location and Angular
Orientation of a Pill
System is part of targeted drug delivery.
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
A mobile pill transmitter system
moves through, or adjacent to, one or
more organs in an animal or human
body, while transmitting signals from its
present location and/or present angular
orientation. The system also provides
signals from which the present roll angle
of the pill, about a selected axis, can be
determined. When the location coordinates angular orientation and the roll
angle of the pill are within selected
ranges, an aperture on the pill container
releases a selected chemical into, or
onto, the body. Optionally, the pill, as it
moves, provides a sequence of visually
perceptible images. The times for image
formation may correspond to times at
which the pill transmitter system location or image satisfies one of at least four
criteria.
This invention provides and supplies
an algorithm for exact determination of
location coordinates and angular orientation coordinates for a mobile pill
transmitter (PT), or other similar device
that is introduced into, and moves within, a GI tract of a human or animal body.
A set of as many as eight nonlinear equations has been developed and applied,
relating propagation of a wireless signal

between either two, three, or more
transmitting antennas located on the PT,
to four or more non-coplanar receiving
antennas located on a signal receiver
appliance worn by the user.
The equations are solved exactly, without approximations or iterations, and
are applied in several environments: (1)
association of a visual image, transmitted
by the PT at each of a second sequence
of times, with a PT location and PT
angular orientation at that time; (2)
determination of a position within the
body at which a drug or chemical substance or other treatment is to be delivered to a selected portion of the body;
(3) monitoring, after delivery, of the
effect(s) of administration of the treatment; and (4) determination of one or
more positions within the body where
provision and examination of a finerscale image is warranted.
This work was done by John F. Schipper for
Ames Research Center. For more information,
under the Bio-Medical category. ARC-15810-1
Why does
indium make
a good seal?
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Learn more:
http://indium.us/C401
Molecular Technique to Reduce PCR Bias

for Deeper Understanding of Microbial
Diversity
This technique has applications in medical manufacturing,
food processing, and municipal water treatment.
Current planetary protection policies
require that spacecraft targeted to sensitive solar system bodies be assembled
and readied for launch in controlled
cleanroom environments. A better
understanding of the distribution and
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
www.indium.com
askus@indium.com
frequency at which high-risk contaminant microbes are encountered on

spacecraft surfaces would significantly
aid in assessing the threat of forward
contamination. However, despite a growing understanding of the diverse micro-
Cov
ToC
ASIA t CHINA t EUROPE t USA

2012 Indium Corporation
Bio-Medical
bial populations present in cleanrooms,
less abundant microbial populations are
probably not adequately taken into
account due to technological limitations. This novel approach encompasses
a wide spectrum of microbial species
and will represent the true picture of
spacecraft cleanroom-associated microbial diversity.
All of the current microbial diversity
assessment techniques are based on an
initial PCR amplification step. However,
a number of factors are known to bias
PCR amplification and jeopardize the
true representation of bacterial diversity. PCR amplification of a minor template appears to be suppressed by the
amplification of a more abundant template. It is widely acknowledged among
environmental molecular microbiologists that genetic biosignatures identified from an environment only represent the most dominant populations.
The technological bottleneck overlooks
the presence of the less abundant
minority population and may underestimate their role in the ecosystem maintenance.
DNA intercalating agents such as
propidium monoazide (PMA) covalently bind with DNA molecules upon
photolysis using visible light, and make
it unavailable for DNA polymerase
enzyme during polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Environmental DNA samples will be treated with suboptimum
PMA concentration, enough to intercalate with 9099% of the total DNA. The
probability of PMA binding with DNA
from abundant bacterial species will be
much higher than binding with DNA
from less abundant species. This will
increase the relative DNA concentration of previously shadowed less
abundant species available for PCR
amplification. These PCR products
obtained with and without PMA treatment will then be subjected to downstream diversity analyses such as
sequencing and DNA microarray. It is
expected that PMA-coupled PCR will

amplify the minority population and
help in understanding microbial diversity spectrum of an environmental sample at a much deeper level.
This new protocol aims to overcome
the major potential biases faced when
analyzing microbial 16S rRNA gene
diversity. This study will lead to a technological advancement and a commercial
product that will aid microbial ecologists
in understanding microbial diversity
from various environmental niches.
Implementation of this technique may
lead to discoveries of novel microbes
and their functions in sustenance of the
ecosystem.
This work was done by Parag A.
Vaishampayan and Kasthuri J. Venkateswaran
of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, download the
Bio-Medical category. NPO-48200
Improved Whole-Blood-Staining Device

Additional applications have been identified.
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
Dramatic improvements have been
made in NASAs Whole Blood
Staining Device (WBSD) since it was
last described in Whole-BloodStaining Device, NASA Tech Briefs, Vol.
23, No. 10 (October 1999), page 64.
The new system has a longer shelf life,
a simpler and more effective operational procedure, improved interface
with instrumentation, and shorter
processing time. More specifically, the
improvements have targeted bag and
locking clip materials, sampling ports,
and air pocket prevention.
The WBSD stains whole blood collected during spaceflight for subsequent flow cytometric analysis. In
short, the main device stains white
blood cells by use of monoclonal antibodies conjugated to various fluorochromes, followed by lysing and fixing of the cells by use of a commercial
reagent that has been diluted according to NASA safety standards. This system is compact, robust, and does not
require electric power, precise mixing, or precise incubation times.
Figure 1 depicts the present
improved version for staining applications, which is a poly(tetrafluo-
Figure 1. Photo of the Improved Version for staining applications.
62
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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roethylene) bag with a Luer-lock port

and plastic locking clips. An InterLink
(or equivalent) intravenous-injection
port screws into the Luer-lock port. The
inflatable/collapsible nature of the bag
facilitates loading and helps to minimize
the amount of air trapped in the fully
loaded bag.
Some additional uses have been identified for the device beyond whole blood
staining. The WBSD has been configured for functional assays that require
culture of live cells by housing sterile
culture media, mitogens, and fixatives
prior to use [Figure 2(a)]. Simple injection of whole blood allows cell-stimulation culture to be performed in reduced
gravity conditions, and product stabilization prior to storage, while protecting
astronauts from liquid biohazardous
materials. Also, the improved WBSD has
reconstituted powdered injectable
antibiotics by mixing them with diluent
liquids [Figure 2(b)]. Although such

mixing can readily be performed on
Earth by shaking in glass vials, it cannot
readily be performed this way in outer
space without entraining air bubbles.
The present device can be preloaded
with the powder and diluent(s) in separate compartments. The powder and
diluent(s) can be mixed, without introducing air bubbles, by removing the
clip(s), then shaking. This use of the
device could also be advantageous in terrestrial applications because it maintains
the isolation of the constituents until the
time of use.
This work was done by Clarence F. Sams of
Johnson Space Center and Brian Crucian,
Bonnie Paul, Shannon Melton, and Terry
Guess of Wyle Laboratories. For more information, download the Technical Support Package
under the Bio-Medical category. MSC24176-1/7-1/8-1
IR-TEMPERATURE
IR-TEMPERATURE
SENSORS
IR-TEMPERATURE
for non-contact temperature
SENSORS
measurement
-50 - 1800C
for non-contactfrom
temperature
SENSORS
100-L Heparin Whole Blood
500-L Sterile Culture

Media + Mitogens
measurement
Measurement
spot
from -50
0.45mm
from
- 1800C
for
non-contact
temperature
measurement
laser seriesspot
with
laser-50
integrated
from
- 1800C
CT
Measurement
from
0.45mm
laser sighting
CT
laser seriesspot
withfrom
laser0.45mm
integrated
Measurement
Up
to sighting
250C ambient temperature
laser
CT
lasercooling
series with laser integrated
without
Up
to sighting
250C ambient temperature
laser
Exposure
time from 1 ms
without cooling
Up to 250C ambient temperature
Analogue
and digital
Exposure
time
from 1outputs
ms
without cooling
incl. Profibus DP
Analogue
and digital
Exposure time
from 1outputs
ms
Specific
wavelength
incl. Profibus
DP versions for
Analogue
and digital
outputs
glass, metals,
ceramics
Specific
wavelength
incl. Profibus
DP versions for
glass, metals, ceramics
Specific wavelength versions for
glass, metals, ceramics
500-L Optilyse
500-L Sterile PBS
(a)
CONTACT US
CONTACT US
CONTACT US
MICRO-EPSILON
Raleigh, NC 27617 / USA
MICRO-EPSILON
Phone
+1/919 787 9707
(b)
Figure 2. WBSD Configurations: (a) for functional assays, and (b) for powdered injectable antibiotics.
Intro
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me-usa@micro-epsilon.com
MICRO-EPSILON
Phone +1/919 787 9707
Phone
787 9707
Free
Info+1/919
at http://info.hotims.com/40433-808
www.techbriefs.com
Physical Sciences
PRTs and Their Bonding for Long-Duration, ExtremeTemperature Environments
Research was conducted on the qualification of Honeywell platinum resistance thermometer (PRT) bonding for
use in the Mars Science Laboratory
(MSL). This is the first time these sensors will be used for Mars-related projects. Different types of PRTs were
employed for the Mars Exploration
Rover (MER) project, and several reliability issues were experienced, even for a
short-duration mission like MER compared to MSL. Therefore, the development of a qualification process for the
Honeywell PRT bonding was needed for
the MSL project. Reliability of the PRT
sensors, and their bonding processes, is

a key element to understand the health
of the hardware during all stages of the
project, and particularly during surface
operations on Mars. Three extreme temperature summer season cycles and
three winter season cycles (total: 1983
thermal cycles) were completed, and no
Honeywell PRT failures associated with
the bonding process were found.
Seventy-eight PRTs were bonded onto
six different substrate materials using four
different adhesives during the thermal
cycling, which included a planetary protection cycle to +125 C for two hours,
three protoflight/qualification cycles

(135 to 70 C), 1,384 summer cycles
(105 to 40 C), and 599 winter cycles
(130 to 15 C). There were no observed
changes in PRT resistances, bonding characteristics, or damage identified from the
package evaluation as a result of the qualification tests.
This work was done by Rajeshuni
Ramesham, Gordon C. Cucullu III, and
Rebecca L. Mikhaylov of Caltech for NASAs
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov. NPO47649
3D Display Using Conjugated Multiband Bandpass Filters

Stereoscopic display techniques are
based on the principle of displaying two
views, with a slightly different perspective, in such a way that the left eye views
only by the left eye, and the right eye
views only by the right eye. However, one
of the major challenges in optical
devices is crosstalk between the two
channels. Crosstalk is due to the optical
devices not completely blocking the
wrong-side image, so the left eye sees a
little bit of the right image and the right
eye sees a little bit of the left image. This
results in eyestrain and headaches.
A pair of interference filters worn as
an optical device can solve the prob-
lem. The device consists of a pair of

multiband bandpass filters that are conjugated. The term conjugated
describes the passband regions of one
filter not overlapping with those of the
other, but the regions are interdigitated. Along with the glasses, a 3D display
produces colors composed of primary
colors (basis for producing colors) having the spectral bands the same as the
passbands of the filters. More specifically, the primary colors producing one
viewpoint will be made up of the passbands of one filter, and those of the
other viewpoint will be made up of the
passbands of the conjugated filter.
Thus, the primary colors of one filter

would be seen by the eye that has the
matching multiband filter. The inherent characteristic of the interference
filter will allow little or no transmission
of the wrong side of the stereoscopic
images.
This work was done by Youngsam Bae and
Victor E. White of Caltech, and Kirill
Shcheglov of SBC Global for NASAs Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. For more information,
under the Physical Sciences category. NPO47578
Real-Time, Non-Intrusive Detection of Liquid Nitrogen in

Liquid Oxygen at High Pressure and High Flow
Stennis Space Center, Mississippi
An integrated fiber-optic Raman sensor has been designed for real-time, nonintrusive detection of liquid nitrogen in
liquid oxygen (LOX) at high pressures
and high flow rates in order to monitor

the quality of LOX used during rocket
engine ground testing. The integrated
sensor employs a high-power (3-W)
64
Melles Griot diode-pumped, solid-state

(DPSS), frequency-doubled Nd:YAG 532nm laser; a modified Raman probe that
has built-in Raman signal filter optics;
www.techbriefs.com
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two high-resolution spectrometers; and

photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) with
selected bandpass filters to collect both
N2 and O2 Raman signals.
The PMT detection units are interfaced with National Instruments
LabVIEW for fast data acquisition.
Studies of sensor performance with dif-
ferent detection systems (i.e., spectrometer and PMT) were carried out. The
concentration ratio of N2 and O2 can be
inferred by comparing the intensities of
the N2 and O2 Raman signals. The final
system was fabricated to measure N2 and
O2 gas mixtures as well as mixtures of
liquid N2 and LOX.
This work was done by Jagdish P. Singh

and Fang-Yu Yueh of Mississippi State
University, and Rajamohan R.Kalluru and
Louie Harrison of Mississippi Ethanol LLC
for Stennis Space Center. For more information contact Jagdish Singh at (662) 3257375. Refer to SSC-00322.
High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer for the Global Hawk

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
This instrument can be used for improved weather forecasting and environmental monitoring.
Microwave imaging radiometers operating in the 50183 GHz range for retrieving atmospheric temperature and water
vapor profiles from airborne platforms
have been limited in the spatial scales of
atmospheric structures that are resolved
not because of antenna aperture size, but
because of high receiver noise masking
the small variations that occur on small
spatial scales. Atmospheric variability on
short spatial and temporal scales (second/km scale) is completely unresolved
by existing microwave profilers.
The solution was to integrate JPLdesigned, high-frequency, low-noiseamplifier (LNA) technology into the
High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), which is an airborne
microwave sounding radiometer, to lower
the system noise by an order of magnitude to enable the instrument to resolve
atmospheric variability on small spatial
and temporal scales.
HAMSR has eight sounding channels
near the 60-GHz oxygen line complex,
ten channels near the 118.75-GHz oxygen line, and seven channels near the
183.31-GHz water vapor line. The
HAMSR receiver system consists of three
heterodyne spectrometers covering the
three bands. The antenna system consists
of two back-to-back reflectors that rotate
together at a programmable scan rate via
a stepper motor. A single full rotation
includes the swath below the aircraft followed by observations of ambient (roughly 0 C in flight) and heated (70 C)
blackbody calibration targets located at
the top of the rotation.
A field-programmable gate array
(FPGA) is used to read the digitized
radiometer counts and receive the reflector position from the scan motor encoder,
which are then sent to a microprocessor
and packed into data files. The micro-
The HAMSR Instrument (left) is deployed in a forward bay under the nose of the Global Hawk aircraft
(right).
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Intro
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65
Physical Sciences
processor additionally reads telemetry
data from 40 onboard housekeeping
channels (containing instrument temperatures), and receives packets from an
onboard navigation unit, which provides
GPS time and position as well as independent attitude information (e.g., heading,
roll, pitch, and yaw). The raw data files are
accessed through an Ethernet port. The
HAMSR data rate is relatively low at 75
kbps, allowing for real-time access over the
Global Hawk high-data-rate downlink.
Once on the ground, the raw data are
unpacked and processed through two levels of processing. The Level 1 product contains geo-located, time-stamped, calibrated brightness temperatures for the Earth
scan. These data are then input to a lD
variational retrieval algorithm to produce
temperature, water vapor, and cloud liq-
uid water profiles, as well as several derived

products such as potential temperature
and relative humidity.
The addition of a state-of-the-art LNA
to the 183-GHz receiver front-end and
the upgrade of the 118-GHz LNA provide
excellent low-noise performance, which
is critical for microwave sounding
retrievals. The data system is upgraded to
provide in-flight data access through the
Global Hawk data link, making it possible
to relay data to the ground in real time.
This is particularly relevant for hurricane
observations where HAMSR can provide
real-time information on tropical storm
structure, intensity, and evolution.
This instrument is the first to demonstrate the value of the technology
through atmospheric water vapor measurements. The receiver noise was
reduced by an order of magnitude compared to the previous receiver. A

ground-based measurement campaign
demonstrated unprecedented measurements of small-scale water vapor variability, resolving atmospheric fluctuations
on meter and second space and time
scales. Subsequent airborne measurements on the Global Hawk UAV showed
similar results over a 40-km swath. This is
a critical step in space-qualifying these
receivers.
This work was done by Shannon T. Brown,
Boon H. Lim, Alan B. Tanner, Jordan M.
Tanabe, Pekka P. Kangaslahti, Todd C.
Gaier, Mary M. Soria, Bjorn H.
Lambrigtsen, Richard F. Denning, and
Robert A. Stachnik of Caltech for NASAs Jet
contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov. NPO-48100
Laser Ablation Electrodynamic Ion Funnel for In Situ Mass

Spectrometry on Mars
A front-end instrument, the laser ablation ion funnel, was developed, which
would ionize rock and soil samples in the
ambient Martian atmosphere, and efficiently transport the product ions into a
mass spectrometer for in situ analysis.
Laser ablation creates elemental ions
from a solid with a high-power pulse
within ambient Mars atmospheric conditions. Ions are captured and focused with
an ion funnel into a mass spectrometer
for analysis. The electrodynamic ion fun-
nel consists of a series of axially concentric ring-shaped electrodes whose inside

diameters (IDs) decrease over the length
of the funnel. DC potentials are applied
to each electrode, producing a smooth
potential slope along the axial direction.
Two radio-frequency (RF) AC potentials,
equal in amplitude and 180 out of
phase, are applied alternately to the ring
electrodes. This creates an effective
potential barrier along the inner surface
of the electrode stack. Ions entering the
funnel drift axially under the influence

of the DC potential while being restricted radially by the effective potential barrier created by the applied RF. The net
result is to effectively focus the ions as
they traverse the length of the funnel.
This work was done by Paul V. Johnson
and Robert P. Hodyss of Caltech, and Keqi
Tang and Richard D. Smith of PNNL for
NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more
information, contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov.
NPO-47638
Mid- and Long-IR Broadband Quantum Well Photodetector

A single-stack broadband quantum
well infrared photodetector (QWIP) has
been developed that consists of stacked
layers of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells
with absorption peaks centered at various wavelengths spanning across the 9to-11-m spectral regions. The correct
design of broadband QWIPs was a critical step in this task because the earlier
implementation of broadband QWIPs
suffered from a tuning of spectral
response curve with an applied bias.
Here, a new QWIP design has been
developed to overcome the spectral tuning with voltage that results from nonuniformity and bias variation of the elec-
trical field across the detector stacks with

different absorption wavelengths.
In this design, a special effort has been
made to avoid non-uniformity and bias
tuning by changing the doping levels in
detector stacks to compensate for variation of dark current generation rate
across the stacks with different absorption
wavelengths. Single-pixel photodetectors
were grown, fabricated, and tested using
this new design.
The measured dark current is comparable with the dark measured current for
single-color QWIP detectors with similar
cutoff wavelength, thus indicating high
material quality as well as absence of per-
66
formance degradation resulting from

broadband design. The measured spectra
clearly demonstrate that the developed
detectors cover the desired special range
of 8 to 12 m. Moreover, the shape of the
spectral curves does not change with
applied biases, thus overcoming the problem plaguing previous designs of broadband QWIPs.
This work was done by Alexander Soibel,
David Z. Ting, Arezou Khoshakhlagh, and
Sarath D. Gunapala of Caltech for NASAs Jet
download the Technical Support Package (free
white paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under
the Physical Sciences category. NPO-48398
www.techbriefs.com
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Books & Reports

Dual-Compartment
Inflatable Suitlock
A paper discusses a dual-compartment
inflatable suitlock (DCIS) for Extravehicular Activity (EVA) that will allow
for dust control, suit maintenance, and
efficient EVA egress/ingress. The
expandable (inflatable technologies)
aspect of the design will allow the unit to
stow in a compact package for transport.
The DCIS consists of three hard, inline bulkheads, separating two cylindrical membrane-walled compartments.
The inner bulkhead can be fitted with a
variety of hatch types, docking flanges,
and mating hardware, such as the common berthing mechanism (CBM), for
the purpose of mating with vehicles,
habitats, and other pressurized modules. The inner bulkhead and center
bulkhead function as the end walls of
the inner compartment, which, during
operations, would stay pressurized,
either matching the pressure of the
habitat or acting as a lower-pressure
transitional volume. The suited
crewmember can quickly don a suit,
and egress the suitlock without waiting
for the compartment to depressurize.
The outer compartment can be pressurized infrequently, when a long dwell
time is expected prior to the next EVA,
or during off-nominal suit maintenance
tasks, allowing shirtsleeve inspections
and maintenance of the space suits.
The outer bulkhead has a pressureassisted hatch door that stays open and
stowed routinely, but can be closed for
suit maintenance and pressurization as
needed.
This work was done by A. Scott Howe of
Caltech, and Kriss J. Kennedy, Peggy L.
Guirgis, and Robert M. Boyle of Johnson
Space Center for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free
NPO-47786
Techniques for SolutionAssisted Optical Contacting

A document discusses a solutionassisted contacting technique for optical contacting. An optic of surface flat-
ness Lambda/20 was successfully contacted with one of moderate surface

quality, or Lambda/4. Optics used were
both ultra-low expansion (ULE) glass
(Lambda/4 and Lambda/20) and fused
silica (Lambda/20).
A stainless steel template of the
intended interferometer layout was
designed and constructed with three
contact points per optic. The contact
points were all on a common side of the
template. The entire contacting jig was
tilted at about 30. Thus, when the isopropanol was applied, each optic slid
due to gravity, resting on the contact
points.
All of the contacting was performed in
a relatively dusty laboratory. A number of
successful contacts were achieved where
up to two or three visible pieces of dust
could be seen. These were clearly visible
due to refraction patterns between the
optic and bench. On a number of optics,
the final step of dropping isopropyl
between the surfaces was repeated until a
successful contact was achieved.
The new procedures realized in this
work represent a simplification for optical contacting in the laboratory. They
will both save time and money spent during the contacting process, and research
and development phases. The techniques outlined are suitable for laboratory experiments, research, and initial
development stages.
This work was done by Glenn De Vine,
Brent Ware, Danielle M. Wuchenich, Robert
E. Spero, William M. Klipstein, and Kirk
McKenzie of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, download
the Technical Support Package (free white
Manufacturing & Prototyping category.
NPO-47963
Large-Strain Transparent
Magnetoactive Polymer
Nanocomposites
A document discusses polymer nanocomposite superparamagnetic actuators
that were prepared by the addition of
organically modified superparamagnetic
nanoparticles to the polymer matrix.
The nanocomposite films exhibited
large deformations under a magnetostatic field with a low loading level of 0.1
wt% in a thermoplastic polyurethane

elastomer (TPU) matrix. The maximum
actuation deformation of the nanocomposite films increased exponentially with
increasing nanoparticle concentration.
The cyclic deformation actuation of a
high-loading magnetic nanocomposite
film was examined in a low magnetic
field, and it exhibited excellent reproducibility and controllability. Low-loading TPU nanocomposite films (0.12
wt%) were transparent to semitransparent in the visible wavelength range,
owing to good dispersion of the magnetic nanoparticles. Magnetoactuation
phenomena were also demonstrated in
a high-modulus, high-temperature polyimide resin with less mechanical deformation.
This work was done by Michael A. Meador
of Glenn Research Center and Mitra Yoonessi
of the Ohio Aerospace Institute. For more
information, download the Technical
www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Materials
& Coatings category.
Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention should be addressed
to NASA Glenn Research Center, Innovative
Stop 48, 21000 Brookpark Road,
Cleveland, Ohio 44135. Refer to LEW18752-1.
Thermodynamic Vent
System for an On-Orbit
Cryogenic Reaction Control
Engine
A report discusses a cryogenic reaction
control system (RCS) that integrates a
Joule-Thompson (JT) device (expansion
valve) and thermodynamic vent system
(TVS) with a cryogenic distribution system to allow fine control of the propellant
quality (subcooled liquid) during operation of the device. It enables zero-venting
when coupled with an RCS engine. The
proper attachment locations and sizing of
the orifice are required with the propellant distribution line to facilitate line conditioning. During operations, system
instrumentation was strategically installed
along the distribution/TVS line assembly,
and temperature control bands were
identified.
(Continued on page 74)
www.techbriefs.com
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67
Upcoming...
Webinars
Thermal Management of High Power Electronics
Live Presentation Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 2:00 pm ET
High-power, high-efficiency power electronics including IGBTs, MOSFETs, diodes, and thyristors are pushing ever higher throughput
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associated with the electronics, available space, and environmental conditions, several cooling options are available.
This presentation will outline design considerations and options for both air- and liquid-cooled systems. The goal is to provide insight
to the thermal challenges and realistic solutions that can be cost effectively designed and implemented.
Presenters:
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Manager of Custom Products
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This 30-minute webinar includes:

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Please visit www.techbriefs.com/webinar91
Advanced Physics-Based Analysis for

Aerodynamics Applications
Simulation has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for the modeling of complex fluid system behavior. Moving beyond single
point analysis involves the introduction of new advanced approaches such as adjoint methods.
In this presentation, the basic ideas behind adjoint methods will be described and an overview given of the implementation of the
ANSYS Fluent adjoint solver. An explanation of the role of these methods in robust design and optimization will be presented.
Presenter:
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Live Q&A session
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Principal Engineer
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High Speed, High Bandwidth

(Copper and Fiber Interconnects)
Within this webinar we will discuss todays challenges to meet the demand for reduction in Size and Weight while maintaining Power
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We will discuss the performance at the box/board level, as well as the copper I/O challenges and solutions being sought on the high
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COMSOL Multiphysics Version 4.3 is a major upgrade to COMSOLs flagship engineering simulation environment with powerful additions for electrical, mechanical, fluid, and chemical simulations. Three new products are introduced: Nonlinear Structural Materials
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Register for this webinar and find out about all of the new modules and upgrades that will be included with this release.
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Application Demo
Vice President of Sales

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API Technologies Corp.,
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70
Intro
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temperature range of -40 to +105 C, and are available in 1/4" and

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73
Books & Reports

(Continued from page 67)
A sub-scale run tank, full-scale distribution line, open-loop TVS, and a combination of procured and custom-fabricated
cryogenic components were used in the
cryogenic RCS build-up. Simulated onorbit activation and thruster firing profiles were performed to quantify system
heat gain and evaluate the TVSs capability to maintain the required propellant
conditions at the inlet to the engine
valves. Test data determined that a small
control valve, such as a piezoelectric, is
optimal to provide continuously the
required thermal control. The data
obtained from testing has also assisted
with the development of fluid and thermal models of an RCS to refine integrated cryogenic propulsion system designs.
This system allows a liquid oxygenbased main propulsion and reaction
control system for a spacecraft, which
improves performance, safety, and cost
over conventional hypergolic systems
due to higher performance, use of nontoxic propellants, potential for integration with life support and power subsystems, and compatibility with in-situ produced propellants.
This work was done by Eric A. Hurlbert, Kris
A. Romig, Rafael Jimenez, and Sam Flores of
ELECTRONIC
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REPAIR
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Johnson Space Center. For more information,

MSC-24543-1
Time Distribution Using

SpaceWire in the SCaN
Testbed on ISS
A paper describes an approach for
timekeeping and time transfer among
the devices on the CoNNeCT projects
SCaN Testbed. It also describes how the
clocks may be synchronized with an
external time reference; e.g., time tags
from the International Space Station
(ISS) or RF signals received by a radio
(TDRSS time service or GPS).
All the units have some sort of counter that is fed by an oscillator at some
convenient frequency. The basic problem in timekeeping is relating the counter value to some external time standard
such as UTC.
With SpaceWire, there are two
approaches possible: one is to just use
SpaceWire to send a message, and use
an external wire for the sync signal. This
is much the same as with the RS-232
messages and l pps line from a GPS
PHOTONIS OFFERS
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SpaceWire time code features. A standard SpaceWire interface provides four
signals: Tick In, Time In, Time Out, and
Tick Out. When one end of the
SpaceWire link asserts Tick In, some
small amount of time later (a few
microseconds), Tick Out at the other end
of the link is asserted. So there is a virtual wire connection over the SpaceWire
link that can do synchronization (with an
uncertainty and latency on the order of a
few microseconds). The Time In signal
provides an interface to send a 6-bit time
code that is transparently inserted in the
stream of data and control tokens being
carried across the link, and recovered
and presented on the Time Out at the
destination without needing to create a
special time message.
This work was done by James P. Lux of
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74
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Intro
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Intro
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Advertisers Index
For free product literature, enter advertisers reader service numbers at www.techbriefs.com/rs, or visit the
Web site listed beneath their ad in this issue.
Advertisers listed in bold-face type have banner ads on the NASA Tech Briefs Web site www.techbriefs.com
Reader Service
Number
Company
Page
Reader Service
Number
Company
Page
ACCES I/O Products ......................................774 ..........................16
Measurement Computing Corp. ......................793 ..........................48
Advanced Technical Ceramics Company ..........749 ............................9a

Aero Research Associates, Inc. ..........................757 ..........................13a
Meggitt Sensing Systems Measurement Group ..........................................836, 837 ....................39
Aerotech, Inc. ....................................................775 ............................17
Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik GmbH....................808 ............................63
Agilent Technologies..........................................767, 784 ................9, 35
MicroStrain, Inc. ................................................780 ............................28
Alicat Scientific, Inc. ..........................................792 ............................47
Miller-Stephenson Chemical Co. ......................804 ............................60
AllMotion, Inc.....................................................770 ............................12
Minalex Corporation..........................................768 ............................24
Alpha Wire Company ........................................812 ............................71
Mini-Systems, Inc. ..............................................833 ............................74
Altos Photonics, Inc. ..........................................755 ..........................14a
Mouser Electronics, Inc...................................760 ..................COV II
Astro-Med, Inc. ..................................................783 ............................30
National Instruments..........................................819....................COV IV
AutomationDirect ..............................................772 ............................15
Newark/element14 ............................................769 ............................11
Avantes Inc. ........................................................747 ............................4a
Newport Corporation ........................................790 ............................26
Avnet Electronics ................................................779 ............................27
Ocean Optics, Inc. ..............................................778 ............................25
Belt Technologies, Inc. ......................................800 ............................56
Omega Engineering ........................................761 ............................1
Bird Precision ....................................................822 ............................73
Omicron USA ....................................................794 ............................49
Bishop-Wisecarver Corp. ....................................785, 786 ....................37
Omley Industries Inc. ........................................827 ............................73
Boyd Coating Research Co., Inc. ......................802 ............................58
OriginLab Corporation......................................782 ............................31
BRL Test, Inc.......................................................831 ............................74
PennEngineering................................................799 ............................55
c3controls............................................................771 ............................13
PhotoMachining, Inc. ........................................828 ............................73
Cargille Laboratories, Inc. ................................823 ............................73
Photon Engineering ..........................................750 ............................7a
COMSOL, Inc. ................................................766, 832 ..............7, 74
PHOTONIS USA ................................................746, 834 ..............3a, 74
Concept Group, Inc. ..........................................821 ............................53

Create The Future Design Contest....................818 ..............80-COV III
Cryocourses ........................................................807 ............................40
DCC Corporation ..............................................824 ............................73
Dewetron Inc...................................................776 ..........................19
Digi-Key Corporation ........................................763 ..............................3
Dimension ......................................................................................50
DRS Technologies, Inc. ......................................773 ............................21
Edwards Vacuum ................................................797 ............................45
ElectroCraft, Inc. ................................................801 ............................57
Enwave Optronics, Inc. ......................................751 ..........................12a
Proto Labs, Inc. ..................................................795 ............................51

RDP Group..........................................................820 ............................32
RF Monolithics, Inc. ..........................................789 ............................44
Richardson RFPD............................................788 ..........................43
Roithner Lasertechnik GmbH ..........................756 ..........................14a
SEMICON West 2012..........................................816 ............................75
SENSORS Tech Forum ......................................758 ..........................11a
Siemens PLM Software ......................................777 ............................23
Silicon Designs, Inc. ..........................................829 ............................73
Smalley Steel Ring Company ............................798 ............................54
ERG Aerospace Corp. ........................................809 ............................65
Spectrogon US Inc. ............................................752 ..........................12a
FORTUS 3D Production Systems ....................................................50
Spectrum Sensors & Controls Inc. ....................813 ............................71
General Polygon Systems ..................................825 ............................73
TAL Technologies Inc. ......................................815 ............................72
GPD Optoelectronics Corp. ..............................748 ............................5a
TDK-Lambda Americas Inc. ..............................803 ............................59
HaydonKerk Motion Solutions ........................826 ..........................73
Wavelength Electronics ......................................754, 830 ..............6a, 73
Imagineering, Inc. ..........................................762 ............................2
Xenon Corporation............................................753 ............................6a
IMS 2012 ............................................................817 ............................77
yet2.com ................................................................................................41
Indium Corporation ..........................................806 ............................61
Yokogawa Corporation of America....................781 ............................29
International Rectifier ....................................787 ..........................42
NASA Tech Briefs, ISSN 0145-319X, USPS 750-070, copyright 2012 in U.S. is published
monthly by Tech Briefs Media Group, 261 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1901, New York, NY 10016.
The copyright information does not include the (U.S. rights to) individual tech briefs
that are supplied by NASA. Editorial, sales, production, and circulation offices at 261
Fifth Avenue, Suite 1901, New York, NY 10016. Subscription for non-qualified subscribers
in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, $75.00 for 1 year; $135 for 2 years. Single copies $6.25.
Foreign subscriptions one-year U.S. Funds $195.00. Remit by check, draft, postal,
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senders risk. Address all communications for subscriptions or circulation to NASA Tech
Briefs, 261 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1901, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New
York, NY and additional mailing offices.
KAMAN Corporation ........................................835 ............................10

Keil, Tools by ARM ............................................791 ............................46
Krohn-Hite Corporation ....................................810 ............................70
Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc. ............................811 ............................70
LPKF Laser & Electronics ..................................796 ............................52
M.S. Kennedy Corporation..............................765 ............................6
Master Bond, Inc. ..............................................814 ............................72
MathWorks ..........................................................764 ..............................5
76
POSTMASTER: Send address changes and cancellations to NASA Tech Briefs, P.O. Box
3525, Northbrook, Il 60065.
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Look Whats Happening at IMS2012!

Plenary Session Speaker: Steve Mollenkopf
Monday, 18 June 2012

1730-1900
President and Chief Operating Officer, Qualcomm

3G/4G Chipsets and the Mobile Data Explosion
The rapid growth of wireless data and complexity of 3G and 4G chipsets drives new
design and deployment challenges for radio and device manufacturers along with
carriers. This talk will provide a perspective on the problem from the point of view
of a large, worldwide manufacturer of semiconductors and technology for cellular
and connected consumer electronics devices. The increase in device and network
complexity will result in significant business opportunities for the industry.
Closing Ceremony Speaker: Thomas H. Lee
Thursday, 21 June 2012

1600-1730
Professor, Stanford University

The Fourth Age of Wireless and the Internet of Everything
Making predictions is hard, particularly about the future. The patterns of history are
rarely discernible until theyre obvious and perhaps irrelevant. Wireless may be an
exception, at least in broad outline, for the evolution of wireless has been following
a clear pattern that tempts us to extrapolate. Marconis station-to-station spark
telegraphy gave way to a second age dominated by station-to-people broadcasting,
and then to todays ubiquitous people-to-people cellular communications. Each new
age was marked by vast increases in value as it enlarged the circle of interlocutors. Now, these three ages have
covered all combinations of stations and people, so any Fourth Age will have to invite things into the mix
to provide another stepwise jump in the number of interlocutors. This talk will describe how the inclusion of
multiple billions of objects, coupled with a seemingly insatiable demand for ever-higher data rates, will stress an
infrastructure built for the Third Age. Overcoming the challenges of the coming Fourth Age of Wireless to create
the Internet of Everything represents a huge opportunity for RF engineers. History is not done.
The IMS2012 Housing Bureau and Registration are now open!

Dont miss your chance to see the latest RF/Microwave technology advancements while accessing over 500
companies technologies and services.
Visit http://ims2012.mtt.org for complete details and to download your Program Book. Review technical sessions,
workshop descriptions and exhibiting companies so you can make the most of your time at Microwave Week!
http://ims2012.mtt.org
Intro
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NASAs Innovative Partnerships

Office (IPO)
w w w . t e c h b r i e f s . c o m
Published by .........................................Tech Briefs Media Group
Publisher.....................................................Joseph T. Pramberger
NASAs R&D efforts produce a robust supply of promising technologies with applications in many industries. A key mechanism in identifying commercial applications for this technology is NASAs national
network of laboratories and business support entities. The network includes ten NASA field centers,
and a full tie-in with the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) for Technology Transfer. To explore technology transfer, development, and collaboration opportunities with NASA, visit www.ipp.nasa.gov.
Editorial Director ........................................................Linda L. Bell

Editor, PTB and Embedded Technology...............Bruce A. Bennett
Technical/Managing Editor.........................................Ted Selinsky
Technical Writers.........................................................Shirl Phelps
.........................................................................Nick Lukianoff
Managing Editor, TechBriefs.TV................................Kendra Smith
Editor, Medical Design Briefs .....................................Emily Chang
NASAs Technology Sources
Associate Editor...........................................................Billy Hurley
If you need further information about new technologies presented in NASA Tech Briefs,
request the Technical Support Package (TSP) indicated at the end of the brief. If a TSP is not
Innovative
Partnerships
Officethat
at the
NASA field
center that
thewith
available, the IPO
at the NASA
field center
sponsored
the research
cansponsored
provide you
research can
provide you
with
additional refer
information
if applicable,These
refer centers
you to the
additional
information
and,
if applicable,
you to and,
the innovator(s).
are the
innovator(s).
These centers aretechnology.
the source of all NASA-developed technology.
source
of all NASA-developed
Production Manager.............................................Adam Santiago
Ames Research Center

Selected technological strengths: Information
Technology; Biotechnology; Nanotechnology;
Aerospace Operations Systems; Rotorcraft;
Thermal Protection Systems.
Lisa L. Morse
Lockyer
David
604-1754
(650) 604-4724
lisa.l.lockyer@nasa.gov
david.r.morse@nasa.gov
Dryden Flight Research Center
Selected technological strengths:
Aerodynamics; Aeronautics Flight Testing;
Aeropropulsion; Flight Systems; Thermal
Testing; Integrated Systems Test and
Validation.
Yvonne
D. Gibbs
Ron
Young
276-3720
(661) 276-3741
yvonne.d.gibbs@nasa.gov
ronald.m.young@nasa.gov
Kennedy Space Center

Selected technological strengths: Fluids and
Fluid Systems; Materials Evaluation; Process
Engineering; Command, Control, and Monitor
Systems; Range Systems; Environmental
Engineering and Management.
David R. Makufka
(321) 867-6227
david.r.makufka@nasa.gov
Langley Research Center
Selected technological strengths: Aerodynamics;
Flight Systems; Materials; Structures; Sensors;
Measurements; Information Sciences.
Elizabeth
B. Plentovich
Michelle Ferebee
(757) 864-2857
864-5617
elizabeth.b.plentovich@nasa.gov
michelle.t.ferebee@nasa.gov
Production Manager ................................................Cortney Silva

Art Director ...............................................................Lois Erlacher
Designer ...........................................................Bernadette Torres
Marketing Director.............................................Debora Rothwell
Circulation Manager .............................................Marie Claussell
Circulation/Audience Development Coordinator ....Brandie Denlinger
Subscription Changes/Cancellations........................nasa@omeda.com
NASA Tech Briefs are provided by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, Innovative Partnerships Program:
Administrator...............................................Charles F. Bolden, Jr.
Chief Technologist.......................................................Mason Peck
Technology Transfer Program Executive ................Daniel Lockney
TECH BRIEFS MEDIA GROUP
261 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1901, New York, NY 10016
(212) 490-3999 FAX (212) 986-7864
Chief Executive Officer ..............................Domenic A. Mucchetti
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Technology Director .............................................Oliver Rockwell
Systems Administrator............................................Albert Sunseri
Web Developer......................................................Karina Adames
Online Content Manager/Web Developer..............Peter Bonavita
Marshall Space Flight Center

Selected technological strengths: Materials;
Manufacturing; Nondestructive Evaluation;
Biotechnology; Space Propulsion; Controls and
Dynamics; Structures; Microgravity Processing.
Jim
TerryDowdy
L. Taylor
544-7604
(256) 544-5916
jim.dowdy@nasa.gov
terry.taylor@nasa.gov
Glenn Research Center

Selected technological strengths:
Aeropropulsion; Communications; Energy
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Research.
Kathleen A.
Needham
Kimberly
Dalgleish-Miller
433-2802
(216) 433-8047
kathleen.k.needham@nasa.gov
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Goddard Space Flight Center
Selected technological strengths: Earth and
Planetary Science Missions; LIDAR; Cryogenic
Systems; Tracking; Telemetry; Remote Sensing;
Command.
Nona Cheeks
(301) 286-5810
nona.k.cheeks@nasa.gov
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Selected technological strengths: Near/DeepSpace Mission Engineering; Microspacecraft;
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Graczck
Indrani Graczyk
354-4906
(818) 354-2241
indrani.graczck-1@nasa.gov
indrani.graczyk@jpl.nasa.gov
Johnson Space Center
Selected technological strengths: Artificial
Intelligence and Human Computer Interface;
Life Sciences; Human Space Flight
Operations; Avionics; Sensors;
Communications.
David
John E.Leestma
James
(281) 483-3809
david.c.leestma@nasa.gov
john.e.james@nasa.gov
Stennis Space Center

Selected technological strengths: Propulsion
Systems; Test/Monitoring; Remote Sensing;
Nonintrusive Instrumentation.
Ramona Travis
(228) 688-3832
ramona.e.travis@ssc.nasa.gov
National Technology Transfer Center
Digital Media Producer ................................................Phil Abalos

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Innovative
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Carl Ray, Program Executive
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78
Bill Hague
...........................................................................at (310) 457-6783
CO, UT, MT, WY, ID, NM ...............................................Tim Powers
...........................................................................at (973) 409-4762
S. Calif., AZ, NV ...............................................................Tom Boris
...........................................................................at (949) 715-7779
New Business Managers ........................................Patrick Harvey
...........................................................................at (973) 409-4686
Angelo Danza
...........................................................................at (973) 874-0271
Michael Barboza
...........................................................................at (973) 545-2565
Reprints........................................................................Jill Kaletha
.................................................................at (866) 879-9144, x168
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NASA TechNeeds
www.techbriefs.com/nasatechneeds
NASA Tech Briefs (NTB) has been a very successful method by which NASA conveys technologies available for commercial use to
the NTB audience. NTB readers represent a broad spectrum of technology experts in many disciplines and industries across the country, and just as you may benefit from NASA technology, NASA may also benefit from your technology.
To help tap into the technologies you may be aware of that can address NASAs technology needs, NTB features NASA TechNeeds,
a series of articles that highlights the technology needs of the Agency. (A detailed overview of NASAs tech needs areas is available
at: www.techbriefs.com/nasatechneeds.) The objective is to provide awareness of NASAs future needs and requirements, which
could facilitate potential future partnerships.
Each article describes specific selected technologies of importance. In every case, a NASA point of contact will be provided so that
those interested have the means to explore the potential for partnerships with NASA.
NASA wants to make NTB a means by which we can achieve mutually beneficial two-way technology transfer, building on the
track record of success that NTB has achieved in transferring NASA technology for commercial development and public benefit.
Dust Mitigation Connectors for Electrical Cables and Fluid Lines

By Jeff Kohler and Robert Mueller, Kennedy Space Center, FL
aults in wiring systems are a serious

concern for the aerospace and aeronautic (commercial, military, and civil)
industries. Circuit failures and vehicle
accidents have occurred and have been
attributed to faulty wiring created by
open and/or short circuits. Often, such
circuit failures occur due to vibration
during vehicle launch or operation.
Therefore, developing non-intrusive,
fault-tolerant techniques is necessary to
detect circuit faults and automatically
route signals through alternate recovery
paths while the vehicle or lunar surface
systems equipment is in operation.
Lunar/Martian dust has been identified as a significant challenge in future
exploration missions. Development of
dust mitigation technologies that can
either be retrofitted to existing aerospace standard electrical connectors
(i.e. Amphenol Astronaut Zero-G or
MIL-DLT-38999) or incorporated into
new designs is vital. In the dusty lunar
environment, astronauts will be making
and breaking various connections with
gloved hands.
The conventional connector with protective dust barrier mitigates dust by
incorporating a physical dust shield.
These dust barriers may be retrofitted to
existing military or International Space
Station connectors. Alternatively, it is
possible to utilize existing connectors
that can be incorporated into a universal
connector housing. Contactless connectors have advantages over conventional
connectors where environment integrity
poses a design constraint.
The use of removable caps is a common approach for preventing dust and
dirt from entering connectors when electrical cables or fluid lines are detached.
However, caps that are not in use can
accumulate dust and/or be misplaced.
In high-dust environments, where cable
or line reliability is critical, these issues
can be especially problematic.
During STS-134, Astronaut Greg Chamitoff successfully installed antennas for the External
Wireless Communication system, routing cables,
setting up the antenna, installing handrails, and
connecting power cables during this spacewalk.
NASA Technology Needs

NASA is seeking electrical connector
concepts combining dust mitigation
strategies and cable diagnostic technologies that will have significant application
for lunar and Martian surface systems, as
well as for dusty terrestrial applications.
NASA also seeks a dust-tolerant fluids
connector that must be able to transfer
cryogenic fluids such as liquid oxygen,
liquid hydrogen, liquid helium, or liquid
nitrogen without leaking. Dust intrusion
is very likely to cause a leak path on a
connector seal, so the best way of preventing this is to keep the dust off the
seals at all times.
NASA is seeking ways to keep connectors clean while in a mated configuration

or while separated in two halves. Leak
detection methods incorporated into the
design would also be of high value.
NASA has identified several additional
features they would like to include in the
Dust-Mitigation Connector:
Versatility Designed for use on electrical cables or fluid lines (liquids or
gases)
Scalability Sized for use by astronauts wearing gloves, but can be scaled
down for use with smaller cable/line
sizes and diameters
Intelligence Detect, identify, and
locate circuit faults in electrical cables
Robustness Anticipated to have a
lifetime of 5 to 10 years in high-dust
environments
Ruggedness Designed to withstand
being run over by a vehicle
Ease of use Designed for quick and
easy attachment/detachment by a person wearing bulky gloves
Affordability Anticipated to cost less
than $275
More Information
Initial work on these connectors has been
done at the John F. Kennedy Space Center by
NASAs Dr. Carlos Calle, Adam Dokos, Mark
Lewis, Jose Perotti, and Robert Mueller, with
support from ASRC Aerospaces Ivan
Townsend, Dr. Pedro Medelius, Dr. Gary
Bastin, Dr. Chris Immer, and Jeffrey Carlson.
For more information, please contact Robert
Mueller at rob.mueller@nasa.gov or 321-8672557; or email nasa@techbriefs.com.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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79
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Name
Peter Simonsen
Job Title
Design Engineer,
Embedded Software
Area of Expertise
Renewable Energy
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Perform real-world
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2010 National Instruments. All rights reserved. LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments.
Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 2811
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800 453 6202

May 2012


Land Imager ..........................................10a
New Products ........................................12a
Intro
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Fiber Optic
Oxygen Sensors
How Do They Work?
iber optic oxygen sensors use the

fluorescence of a chemical complex in a sol-gel to measure the
partial pressure of oxygen. The pulsed
blue LED sends light, at ~475 nm, to an
optical fiber. The optical fiber carries
the light to the probe. The distal end of
the probe tip consists of a thin layer of a
hydrophobic sol-gel material.
A sensor formulation is trapped in
the sol-gel matrix, effectively immobilized and protected from water. The
light from the LED excites the formulation complex at the probe tip. The
excited complex fluoresces, emitting
energy at ~600 nm. If the excited complex encounters an oxygen molecule,
the excess energy is transferred to the
oxygen molecule in a non-radiative
transfer, decreasing or quenching the
fluorescence signal. The degree of
quenching correlates to the level of oxygen concentration or to oxygen partial
pressure in the film, which is in dynamic equilibrium with oxygen in the sample. The energy is collected by the
probe and carried through the optical
fiber to the spectrometer. This data can
then be displayed using software such as
OOISensors Software.
and temperature of the oxygen-containing media.
Calibration
In order to make accurate oxygen
measurements of your sample, you must
first perform a calibration procedure
with your oxygen sensor system. Two
major factors affect the calibration procedure of your system.
1. First, decide if you are going to
compensate for changes in temperature in your sample. If you are working with a sample where there are no
fluctuations in temperature, you do
not need to compensate for temperature. Temperature affects the fluorescence decay time, fluorescence intensity, collisional frequency of the oxygen molecules with the fluorophore,
Calibration curves are generated from

your standards and the algorithms to calculate concentration values for unknown samples. The second order polynomial algorithm provides a better
curve fit and, therefore, more accurate
data during oxygen measurements,
especially when working in a broad oxygen concentration range.
Linear (Stern-Volmer)
Algorithm
The output (voltage or fluorescent
intensity) of our fiber optic oxygen sensors can be expressed in terms of the
Stern-Volmer algorithm. The SternVolmer algorithm requires at least two
standards of known oxygen concentration. The first standard must have 0%
oxygen concentration and the last standard must have a concentration in the
high end of the concentration range in
which you will be working. The fluorescence intensity can be expressed in
terms of the Stern-Volmer equation
where the fluorescence is related quantitatively to the partial pressure of oxygen:
Fluorescence Quenching
Oxygen, as a triplet molecule, is able
to quench efficiently the fluorescence
and phosphorescence of certain
luminophores. This effect (first
described by Kautsky in 1939) is called
"dynamic fluorescence quenching."
Collision of an oxygen molecule with a
fluorophore in its excited state leads to a
non-radiative transfer of energy. The
degree of fluorescence quenching relates to the frequency of collisions, and
therefore to the concentration, pressure
and the diffusion coefficient of oxygen. The sample should be maintained at a constant temperature ( 3
C) for best results.
2. Next, choose the algorithm you wish
to use for your calibration procedure.
The Linear (Stern-Volmer) algorithm
requires at least two standards of
known oxygen concentration while
the second order polynomial algorithm requires at least three standards
of known oxygen concentration.
I0
1 kp02
I
The NeoFox Phase Measurement fluorescencebased optical sensor system.
IIa
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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Photonics Tech Briefs, May 2012
I0 is the intensity of fluorescence at

zero pressure of oxygen,
I is the intensity of fluorescence at a
pressure p of oxygen,
k is the Stern-Volmer constant
For a given media, and at a constant
total pressure and temperature, the partial pressure of oxygen is proportional to
oxygen mole fraction.
The Stern-Volmer constant (k) is primarily dependent on the chemical composition of the sensor formulation. Our
probes have shown excellent stability
over time, and this value should be
largely independent of the other parts
of the measurement system. However,
the Stern-Volmer constant (k) does vary
among probes, and it is temperature
dependent. All measurements should
be made at the same temperature as the
calibration experiments or temperature
monitoring devices should be used.
If you decide to compensate for temperature, the relationship between the
Stern-Volmer values and temperature is
defined as:
I0 = a0 + b0 * T + c0 * T 2
k=a+b*T+c*T2
The intensity of fluorescence at zero
pressure of oxygen (I0) depends on
details of the optical setup: the power of
the LED, the optical fibers, loss of light
at the probe due to fiber coupling, and
backscattering from the sample. It is
important to measure the intensity of
fluorescence at zero pressure of oxygen
(I0) for each experimental setup.
It is evident from the equation that the
sensor will be most sensitive to low levels
of oxygen. The photometric signal-tonoise ratio is roughly proportional to the
square root of the signal intensity. The
rate of change of signal intensity with oxygen concentration is greatest at low levels.
Deviations from the Stern-Volmer relationship occur primarily at higher oxygen
concentration levels. Using the second
order polynomial algorithm when calibrating corrects these deviations.
Backscattering in the media can increase
the collection efficiency of the probe,
increasing the observed fluorescence. It is
important to perform calibration procedures in the media of interest for highly
scattering substances. For optically clear
fluids and gases, this is unnecessary.
Second Order
Polynomial Algorithm
The second order polynomial algorithm requires at least three standards
of known oxygen concentration. The

first standard must have 0% oxygen concentration and the last standard must
have a concentration in the high end of
the concentration range in which you
will be working. The second order polynomial algorithm is considered to provide more accurate data because it
requires at least three known concentration standards while the Linear (SternVolmer) algorithm requires a minimum
of two known concentration standards.
The second order polynomial algorithm
is defined as:
ln(X)=a+b/T*+ cln(T*)
I0
1 K 1 *[O ] K 2 *[O ]2
I
Temperature range: 0C - 75C
I0 is the fluorescence intensity at zero

concentration
I is the intensity of fluorescence at a
pressure p of oxygen
K1 is the first coefficient
K2 is the second coefficient
If you decide to compensate for temperature, the relationship between the
second order polynomial algorithm and
temperature is defined as:
I0 = a0 + b0 * T + c0 * T2
K1 = a1 + b1 * T + c1 * T2
K2 = a2 + b2 * T + c2 * T2
Henry's Law
It is possible to calibrate the system in
gas and then use the probe in liquid or
vice versa. In theory, your sensor probe
detects the partial pressure of oxygen. In
order to convert partial pressure to concentration, you can use Henry's Law.
When the temperature is constant, the
weight of a gas that dissolves in a liquid
is proportional to the pressure exerted
by the gas on the liquid. Therefore, the
pressure of the gas above a solution is
proportional to the concentration of the
gas in the solution. The concentration
(mole %) can be calculated if the
absolute pressure is known:
Oxygen mole fraction = oxygen partial pressure / absolute pressure
Since the sensor detects partial pressure of oxygen, the response in a gas
environment is similar to a liquid environment in equilibrium with gas.
Therefore, it is possible to calibrate the
sensor in gas and then use the system
with liquid samples and vice versa if you
utilize Henry's Law.
However, Henry's Law does not apply
to gases that are extremely soluble in
water. The following information illustrates the solubility of oxygen in water at
different temperatures.
X=mole fraction
T* = T/100 in Kelvin
a = -66.7354
b = 87.4755
c = 24.4526
Scattering Media
Fluorescence emissions from the sensor formulation propagate in all directions. In clear media, only those emissions propagating toward the fiber within the acceptance angle of the probe
are detected. If the probe tip is held
near a reflecting surface, or immersed
in a highly scattering media, the fluorescence signal will increase. The
increase will be proportional for both
the intensity of the fluorescence at a
pressure of oxygen and the intensity of
fluorescence at zero pressure of oxygen, but will not affect the SternVolmer constant. For this reason, it is
necessary to measure the intensity of
fluorescence at zero pressure of oxygen
in the sample. Also, if you are measuring oxygen in highly scattering media,
then the standards you use for your calibration procedure should be in the
same media as your sample for the most
accurate results.
This article was written by Monde
Qhobosheane, Ph.D., Field Sales Engineer,
Ocean Optics (Dunedin, FL). For more information, contact Dr. Qhobosheane at
sensors@oceanoptics.com, or visit http://info.
hotims.com/40433-200.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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1a
Applications
Has the Ultimate Camera Interface Finally Arrived?
n the early days of machine vision,

like with all new technology, there was
a lot of confusion as to what constituted
a video interface between camera and
computer. It was known that a camera
and frame grabber were needed, but
because the frame grabber and camera
manufacturers were from places all
over, there wasn't much agreement on
how the two should be connected. This
led to a time of several cameras with
several cables, often the same camera
manufacturer may have had different
cables for each family of cameras on
offer. Couple that with the fact that
frame grabber interfaces also had no
interface standards and you ended up
with a lot of cables, sitting around long
after the frame grabber or the camera
had served its purpose. This led to standardization, and agreement by all parties on what constitutes an acceptable
number of interfaces.
One of the early adopted and agreed
upon interfaces was the Camera Link
interface, first introduced in late 2000
(v.1.0) and updated in 2004 (v1.1). The
current revision (v2.0), was ratified in
February 2012. In 2006, another interface, GigE Vision, was introduced and
the latest version (v2.0) was released in
November 2011.
As time moved on, it was generally
accepted that Camera Link was the
industry standard for vision systems
requiring real time data in small volume
systems (large image transfer with low
latency) whereas the GigE Vision could
support data transmission up to 100m
albeit at a time loss. GigE Vision used
standard CAT-5/CAT-6 network cables,
which are cheap as a cable needed for
data transmission. Camera Link was
standardized so the customer had a vast
array of cameras and frame grabbers to
choose from.
While other interfaces (Analog,
Firewire, USB2 etc.) are still out in the
machine vision world, the design rule of
thumb was, Camera Link for high
speeds and short distances and GigE
Vision for lower speeds (100MB/s) at
long distances.
As one can see both of these are fairly
new interfaces but each has its own limitations. These limitations werent realized until sensor technology began to
develop at a fast pace in the 2000s. This

development resulted in improved resolution and higher frame rates, meaning
there was an increasing need for larger
bandwidth. It was time to develop a new
standard, something that would be an
improvement over the GigE Vision and
Camera Link interfaces.
With GigE Vision 2.0 now scalable to
10 GigE, this has resulted in some benefits, but the resulting power requirements and the fact that the transmission
speeds are similar to those of Camera
Link Full+ (850MB/s), meant that universal adoption wasnt immediate and
trepidation by some manufacturers
slowed its growth.
Another option is CoaXPress, which
was adopted in early 2011. CoaXPress is
the current interface that will be one of
the fastest growing for the next 3-4 years.
Because of the low cost of cables, and
the data transmission rates and achievable distances, this interface looks to be
a major player in the coming years.
CoaXPress can currently be expanded to
four ports, resulting in 25Gb/s of data
throughput, so the technology expansion is resolved for now and the next few
generations of sensor. CoaXPress also
has the benefit of being able to operate
on industry standard 75 coaxial cable.
Camera Link HS (a new interface,
not Camera Link 2.0) has taken some
of the benefits of Camera Link and
enhanced them, while at the same

time, taking the weaknesses and eliminating them. Features such as a low
cost solution, scalable bandwidths and
reliable data delivery are part of this
new interface.
The Camera Link HS interface will be
released in May 2012 and it's poised to be
a big player in the Machine Vision market. However, the timing of its release
will be a factor in its success. The recent
adoption of CoaXPress and its many benefits has led several frame grabber manufacturers and camera manufacturers to
build their newest product to this standard. At the most recent Vision trade
show in Stuttgart (November 2011),
arguably one of the most important
trade shows for the vision industry, there
were considerably more CoaXPress products than Camera Link HS.
Another interface is USB3 Vision
which was also accepted as a global standard in late 2011. A draft standard will
be available in May 2012. Looking back
at Vision again, there were a lot of USB3
cameras in effect. USB3 cameras are
popular but for companies looking to
simply replace part of the their system,
they will need to upgrade their laptops
and motherboards to the latest version.
USB3 also needs Windows 7 with a service pack to run, but when Windows 8 is
released (due Q3, 2012), USB3 support
will be native.
The CoaXPress compatible KBN-PCE-CXP4 from BitFlow can handle four CXP cameras up running at
3.125 Gb/s.
2a
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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If I were a gambling man, Id venture

a good deal of money on the interface
that's accepted first by G3. After all, an
interface can change a good deal until
it's released. On the CLHS side, no one
has achieved the 20 links yet. This is
because so many input levels, from sensor people, to camera people, to cable
people each have their own agenda for
certain parts of the standard. These
changes may be seen in later revisions of
the standard.
When a customer needs a vision system, cost can be as much of a factor as
performance. For some customers performance is the ultimate factor and as
such, they will simply use the one that
does exactly what they want it to do. For
others, the price point can dictate how
exact they want their system to be, or
how much they can live with certain factors, (bandwidths, distances etc.) Then
there's the customer who wants the
redundancy factor. Knowing that there
are other cameras/cables or frame grabbers other than the one they selected
gives them a sense of ease that this is an
Interface
CoaXPress
USB3 Vision
Camera Link HS
GigEVision
Bandwidth
600 MB/s per link

- up to 4 links
300MB/s
300MB/s per link up to 20 links
100MB/s
Cable length
Up to 140m
Currently 10m
15m Copper,
100mFiber
100M
Power over Cable?
Up to 13W/link
4.5W
Yes
Yes
Multiple Cameras
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Accepted as a
Global Standard
by G3
Q1, 2011
Q4, 2011
Q4, 2011
Q4, 2011
interface thats here to stay and not the

whim of some engineers in a back room
of some lab.
For now, Camera Link is still the king
of high speed data transfer, albeit over
shorter distances, but the CoaXPress
team is looking for that title. USB will
always be available, and not just as a
cheaper option. Each standard has its
own merits. The Camera Link HS draft
is now out for the required final review
by industry stakeholders. While little is
expected to change, its not set in stone

as yet. But like all things we wait for, the
delivery might not be exactly what we
expect. A summation might be a phrase
from the 1500's Better the devil you
know, than the devil you dont.
This article was written by Donal Waide,
Director of Sales, BitFlow (Woburn, MA). For
more information, contact Mr. Waide at
donal.waide@bitflow.com, or visit http://
info.hotims.com/40433-201.
3a
Intro
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Method of Bonding Optical Elements With Near-Zero

Displacement
Displacement caused by epoxy shrinking as it cures is reduced less than 200 nm.
The International X-ray Project seeks
to build an x-ray telescope using thousands of pieces of thin and flexible glass
mirror segments. Each mirror segment
must be bonded into a housing in nearly
perfect optical alignment without distortion. Forces greater than 0.001 Newton,
or displacements greater than 0.5 m of
the glass, cause unacceptable optical distortion. All known epoxies shrink as they
cure. Even the epoxies with the least
amount of shrinkage (<0.01%) cause
unacceptable optical distortion and misalignment by pulling the mirror segments towards the housing as it cures. A
related problem is that the shrinkage is
not consistent or predictable so that it
cannot be accounted for in the setup
(i.e., if all of the bonds shrunk an equal
amount, there would be no problem).
A method has been developed that
allows two components to be joined with
epoxy in such a way that reduces the displacement caused by epoxy shrinking as
it cures to less than 200 nm. The method
involves using ultraviolet-cured epoxy
with a displacement sensor and a nanoactuator in a control loop. The epoxy is
cured by short-duration exposures to UV
light. In between each exposure, the
nano-actuator zeroes out the displacement caused by epoxy shrinkage and
thermal expansion. After a few exposures, the epoxy has cured sufficiently to
prevent further displacement of the two
components.
Bonding of optical elements has
been done for many years, but most
optics are thick and rigid elements that
resist micro-Newton-level forces without causing distortion. When bonding
thin glass optics such as the 0.40-mm
thick IXO X-ray mirrors, forces in the
micro- and milli-Newton levels cause
unacceptable optical figure error. This

innovation can now repeatedly and reliably bond a thin glass mirror to a metal
housing with less than 0.2 m of displacement (<200 nm).
This is an enabling technology that
allows the installation of virtually stressfree, undistorted thin optics onto structures. This innovation is applicable to
the bonding of thin optical elements, or
any thin/flexible structures, that must
be attached in an undistorted, consistent, and aligned way.
This work was done by David Robinson of
Goddard Space Flight Center and Ryan
McClelland, Glenn Byron, and Tyler Evans
of SGT, Inc.. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free
Spectroscopy Solutions for

Researchers, Industrial End User, OEMs
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9kijecif[Yjhec[j[hi%ioij[ci
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:[cefhe]hWc\eh\[Wi_X_b_joj[ij_d]
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AvaSpec NIRline
900-2500 nm
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200-1100 nm
AvaSpec Sensline
200-1100 nm
OEM spectrometer modules

200-2500 nm
info@avantes.com | website: www.avantes.com
4a
Intro
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ToC
Optical Phase Recovery and Locking in a PPM Laser

Communication Link
Coherence augmentation in a pulsed optical communication link will enable enhanced Doppler
tracking and ranging capabilities.
Free-space optical communication
holds great promise for future space
missions requiring high data rates. For
data communication in deep space, the
current architecture employs pulse position modulation (PPM). In this scheme,
the light is transmitted and detected as
pulses within an array of time slots.
While the PPM method is efficient for
data transmission, the phase of the laser
light is not utilized.
The phase coherence of a PPM optical signal has been investigated with
the goal of developing a new laser communication and ranging scheme that
utilizes optical coherence within the
established PPM architecture and photon-counting detection (PCD). Experimental measurements of a PPM modulated optical signal were conducted,
and modeling code was developed to
generate random PPM signals and simulate spectra via FFT (Fast Fourier
Transform) analysis. The experimental
results show very good agreement with
the simulations and confirm that
coherence is preserved despite modulation with high extinction ratios and
very low duty cycles.
A real-time technique has been
developed to recover the phase information through the mixing of a PPM
signal with a frequency-shifted local
oscillator (LO). This mixed signal is
amplified, filtered, and integrated to
generate a voltage proportional to the
phase of the modulated signal. By
choosing an appropriate time constant
for integration, one can maintain a
phase lock despite long dark times
between consecutive pulses with low
duty cycle. A proof-of-principle demonstration was first achieved with an
RF-based PPM signal and test setup.
With the same principle method, an
optical carrier within a PPM modulated laser beam could also be tracked
and recovered. A reference laser was
phase-locked to an independent
pulsed laser signal with low-duty-cycle
pseudo-random PPM codes. In this
way, the drifting carrier frequency in
the primary laser source is tracked via
its phase change in the mixed beat
note, while the corresponding voltage
feedback maintains the phase lock

between the two laser sources.
The novelty and key significance of
this work is that the carrier phase infor-
mation can be harnessed within an

optical communication link based on
PPM-PCD architecture. This technology development could lead to quan-
TE-cooled Extended Response to 2.6 microns available
Intro
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5a
RESEARCHERS ARE TAKING A

CLOSER
LOOK AT
PULSED
LIGHT
Reliable Optical Pump

Architecture for Highly
Coherent Lasers Used in
Space Metrology Applications
High peak energy source for emerging applications
IN NANOTECHNOLOGY...
Sintering nanoparticle inks on low-temperature
substrates
IN HEAT SENSITIVE THIN FILM CURING...
Curing materials for organic photovoltaics, OLED
displays and flexible circuit printing.
This design also can be used in scientific

instrumentation where repair is difficult such
as in underwater deployment.
IN POLYMER SCIENCE AND BIOCHEMISTRY...

Developing biological surface coatings for cell growth
Call us with your next application:

+1 978-661-9033 ext. 216
www.xenoncorp.com/light
The design and initial demonstration of a laser pump module (LPM) incorporating single-mode, grating-stabilized 808nm diode lasers and a low-loss, high-port-count optical combiner are completed. The purpose of the developed LPM is to reliably pump an Nd:YAG crystal in the laser head (LH), which
serves as the optical metrology source for SIM-Lite mission.
Using the narrow-linewidth, single-mode laser diodes enables
placement of the pump power near Nd adsorption peak, which
enhances pumping efficiency. Grating stabilization allows for
stable pump spectra as diode operating temperature and bias
current change. The low-loss, high-port-count optical combiner enables efficient combining of tens of pumps. Overall, the
module supports 5+ years of continuous operation at 2 W of
pump power with reliability approaching 100 percent.
The LPM consists of a laser diode farm (LDF) and a pump
beam combiner (PBC). An array of 807- to 808-nm fiber-pigtailed laser diodes makes up the LDF. A Bragg grating in each
5-m core single-mode (SM) fiber pigtail acts to stabilize the
lasing spectra over a range of diode operating conditions.
These commercially available single-mode laser diodes can
deliver up to 150 mW of optical power. The outputs from the
multiple pumps in the LDF are routed to the PBC, which is a
37-input by 1-output all-fiber device. The input ports consist
of 5-m core SM fiber, while the output port consists of 105m core, 0.15 NA (numerical aperture) multi-mode (MM)
fiber. The combiner is fabricated by fusing the 37 input fibers
while simultaneously tapering the fused region. At the completion of this process, the MM fiber is spliced to the end of
the adiabatic taper, and, for protection, the combiner is
sheathed by a capillary tube. A compact and robust metal
housing was designed and fabricated to protect the PBC during space deployment.
Finally, the combined pump light is delivered to the LH via
MM optical fiber. Within the head, the pump beam optical train
matches the pump beam to the lasing mode profile, which
enhances pumping efficiency. The LH houses non-planar resonant oscillator (NPRO), and provides all conditioning necessary
for proper NPRO operation. Two large magnets ensure unidirec-
6a
tum-limited efficient performance within the communication link itself, as well as enable high-resolution optical tracking capabilities for planetary science and spacecraft navigation.
This work was done by David C. Aveline, Nan Yu, and William H.
Farr of Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free white paper)
at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Electronics/Computers category. NPO-47994
Intro
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tional propagation through the ring, mitigating hole burning. A set of heaters
enables slow NPRO frequency tuning,
while a piezoelectric transducer enables
fast tuning. LH produces 300 mW at 1,319

nm when pumped by 1.9 W at 808 nm.
A software package predicting LDF
reliability during the mission lifetime
was developed based on the reliability

theory of diode lasers. Extensive numerical simulations were carried out to
select LDF architecture that meets the
stringent reliability requirement
Lase
(>99.7% probability of successful
Bea
operation over 5.5 years), while
balancing the competing needs to
keep the number of laser diodes
manageable and their operating
temperature as close to room temperature as possible. Detailed senPum
sitivity studies were also perBea
formed to make sure that the
selected architecture is not vulnerable to possible deviations of key
diode and mission parameters
from their assumed values. The
LDF architecture that was ultimately chosen meets the reliability
requirements with 37 pump laser
diodes operating at 1 C (or 5
C for an extra margin of safety).
This work was done by Hernan
Erlig, Yueming Qiu, Ilya Y.
Poberezhskiy, Patrick L. Meras, Daniel
H. Chang, and Yen-Hung Wu of
Caltech for NASAs Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. For more information, contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov.
Picture of SIM-lite NPRO based LH. The optical pump is delivered to the NPRO via multimode optical fiber. The
laser beam is free spaced coupled to remainder of metrology system.
NPO-47654
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7a
Intro
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Method to Enhance the Operation of an Optical Inspection

Instrument Using Spatial Light Modulators
The interferometer would accommodate a large variety of spherical and aspherical optical
components.
For many aspheric and freeform optical
components, existing interferometric
solutions require a custom computer-generated hologram (CGH) to characterize
the part. The overall objective of this
research is to develop hardware and a procedure to produce a combined, dynamic,
Hartmann/Digital Holographic interferometry inspection system for a wide range
of advanced optical components, including aspheric and freeform optics. This
new instrument would have greater versatility and dynamic range than currently
available measurement systems.
The method uses a spatial light modulator to pre-condition wavefronts for
imaging, interferometry, and data processing to improve the resolution and
versatility of an optical inspection instrument. Existing interferometers and
Hartmann inspection systems have
either too small a dynamic range or
insufficient resolution to characterize
conveniently unusual optical surfaces
like aspherical and freeform optics. For
interferometers, a specially produced,
computer-generated holographic opti-
cal element is needed to transform the

wavefront to within the range of the
interferometer.
A new hybrid wavefront sensor
employs newly available spatial light
modulators (SLMs) as programmable
holographic optical elements (HOEs).
The HOE is programmed to enable the
same instrument to inspect an optical
element in stages, first by a Hartmann
measurement, which has a very large
dynamic range but less resolution. The
first measurement provides the information required to precondition a reference wave that avails the measurement
process to the more precise phase shifting interferometry.
The SLM preconditions a wavefront
before it is used to inspect an optical
component. This adds important features to an optical inspection system,
enabling not just wavefront conditioning
for null testing and dynamic range extension, but also the creation of hybrid
measurement procedures. This, for
example, allows the combination of
dynamic digital holography and
Hartmann sensing procedures to cover a

virtually unlimited dynamic range with
high resolution. Digital holography technology brings all of the power and benefits of digital holographic interferometry
to the requirement, while Hartmanntype wavefront sensors bring deflectometry technologies to the solution.
The SLM can be used to generate
arbitrary wavefronts in one leg of the
interferometer, thereby greatly simplifying its use and extending its range. The
SLM can also be used to modify the system into a dynamic Shack-Hartmann system, which is useful for optical components with large amounts of slope. By
integrating these capabilities into a single instrument, the system will have
tremendous flexibility to measure a variety of optical shapes accurately.
This work was done by James Trolinger,
Amit Lal, Joshua Jo, and Stephen Kupiec of
MetroLaser, Inc. for Goddard Space Flight
Center. For more information, download the
Physical Sciences category. GSC-16056-1
High-Speed Edge-Detecting Line Scan Smart Camera

This circuit reduces size and system complexity while increasing processing frame rates.
A high-speed edge-detecting line
scan smart camera was developed. The
camera is designed to operate as a component in a NASA Glenn Research
Center developed inlet shock detection system. The inlet shock is detected
by projecting a laser sheet through the
airflow. The shock within the airflow is
the densest part and refracts the laser
sheet the most in its vicinity, leaving a
dark spot or shadowgraph. These spots
show up as a dip or negative peak within the pixel intensity profile of an
image of the projected laser sheet. The
smart camera acquires and processes in
real-time the linear image containing
the shock shadowgraph and outputting
the shock location. Previously a highspeed camera and personal computer
would perform the image capture and

processing to determine the shock
location.
This innovation consists of a linear
image sensor, analog signal processing
circuit, and a digital circuit that provides a numerical digital output of the
shock or negative edge location. The
smart camera is capable of capturing
and processing linear images at over
1,000 frames per second. The edges are
identified as numeric pixel values within the linear array of pixels, and the
edge location information can be sent
out from the circuit in a variety of ways,
such as by using a microcontroller and
onboard or external digital interface to
include serial data such as RS-232/485,
USB, Ethernet, or CAN BUS; parallel
8a
digital data; or an analog signal. The

smart camera system can be integrated
into a small package with a relatively
small number of parts, reducing size
and increasing reliability over the previous imaging system.
This work was done by Norman F. Prokop of
Glenn Research Center. For more information,
Inquiries concerning rights for the commercial use of this invention should be addressed
to NASA Glenn Research Center, Innovative
Stop 48, 21000 Brookpark Road,
Cleveland, Ohio 44135. Refer to LEW18816-1.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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Downsampling Photodetector Array With Windowing

Applications include laser ranging for commercial surveys, and building-to-building
optical data links.
1 Gb/s
Readout ASIC
In a photon counting detector array,

each pixel in the array produces an electrical pulse when an incident photon on
that pixel is detected. Detection and
demodulation of an optical communication signal that modulated the intensity
of the optical signal requires counting
the number of photon arrivals over a
given interval. As the size of photon
counting photodetector arrays increases, parallel processing of all the pixels
exceeds the resources available in current application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and gate array (GA) technology; the desire for a high fill factor in
avalanche photodiode (APD) detector
arrays also precludes this.
Through the use of downsampling
and windowing portions of the detector
array, the processing is distributed
between the ASIC and GA. This allows
demodulation of the optical communication signal incident on a large photon
counting detector array, as well as providing architecture amenable to algorithmic changes.
The detector array readout ASIC
functions as a parallel-to-serial converter, serializing the photodetector array
output for subsequent processing.
Additional downsampling functionality
for each pixel is added to this ASIC.
Due to the large number of pixels in
the array, the readout time of the
entire photodetector is greater than
the time between photon arrivals;
therefore, a downsampling pre-processing step is done in order to
increase the time allowed for the readout to occur. Each pixel drives a small
counter that is incremented at every
detected photon arrival or, equivalently, the charge in a storage capacitor is
incremented. At the end of a user-configurable counting period (calculated
independently from the ASIC), the
counters are sampled and cleared. This
downsampled photon count information is then sent one counter word at a
time to the GA.
For a large array, processing even the
downsampled pixel counts exceeds the
capabilities of the GA. Windowing of the
array, whereby several subsets of pixels
are designated for processing, is used to
further reduce the computational
requirements. The grouping of the desig-
SerDes
Front-End Pre-Processor
(FEPP)
To Uplink
Receiver
One-Time Programmable Gate Array
Detector
Discrete Control
Bump Bonding
Processing can be distributed across an ASIC and GA through downsampling and windowing portions
of the Detector Array.
nated pixel frame as the photon count

information is sent one word at a time to
the GA, the aggregation of the pixels in a
window can be achieved by selecting only
the designated pixel counts from the seri-
al stream of photon counts, thereby obviating the need to store the entire frame
of pixel count in the gate array. The pixel
count sequence from each window can
then be processed, forming lower-rate
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Intro
1 Gb/s
SerDes
Cov
ToC
9a

pixel statistics for each window. By having
this processing occur in the GA rather
than in the ASIC, future changes to the
processing algorithm can be readily
implemented.
The high-bandwidth requirements of
a photon counting array combined with
the properties of the optical modulation

being detected by the array present a
unique problem that has not been
addressed by current CCD or CMOS
sensor array solutions.
This work was done by Ferze D. Patawaran,
William H. Farr, Danh H. Nguyen, Kevin J.
Quirk, and Adit Sahasrabudhe of Caltech for

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more
information, download the Technical Support
Package (free white paper) at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Electronics/
Computers category. NPO-48346
Optical Communications Channel Combiner

NASA has identified deep-space optical communications links as an integral
part of a unified space communication
network in order to provide data rates in
excess of 100 Mb/s. The distances and
limited power inherent in a deep-space
optical downlink necessitate the use of
photon-counting detectors and a powerefficient modulation such as pulse position modulation (PPM). For the output
of each photodetector, whether from a
separate telescope or a portion of the
detection area, a communication receiver estimates a log-likelihood ratio for
each PPM slot. To realize the full effective aperture of these receivers, their
outputs must be combined prior to
information decoding.
A channel combiner was developed to

synchronize the log-likelihood ratio
(LLR) sequences of multiple receivers,
and then combines these into a single
LLR sequence for information decoding. The channel combiner synchronizes the LLR sequences of up to three
receivers and then combines these into a
single LLR sequence for output. The
channel combiner has three channel
inputs, each of which takes as input a
sequence of four-bit LLRs for each PPM
slot in a codeword via a XAUI 10 Gb/s
quad optical fiber interface. The crosscorrelation between the channels LLR
time series are calculated and used to
synchronize the sequences prior to combining. The output of the channel com-
biner is a sequence of four-bit LLRs for

each PPM slot in a codeword via a XAUI
10 Gb/s quad optical fiber interface.
The unit is controlled through a 1 Gb/s
Ethernet UDP/IP interface.
A deep-space optical communication
link has not yet been demonstrated. This
ground-station channel combiner was
developed to demonstrate this capability
and is unique in its ability to process
such a signal.
This work was done by Kevin J. Quirk,
Jonathan W. Gin, Danh H. Nguyen, and
Huy Nguyen of Caltech for NASAs Jet
contact iaoffice@jpl.nasa.gov. NPO-47733
Development of Thermal Infrared Sensor To Supplement

Operational Land Imager
The application is for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission.
The thermal infrared sensor (TIRS) is
a quantum well infrared photodetector
(QWIP)-based instrument intended to
supplement the Operational Land
Imager (OLI) for the Landsat Data
Continuity Mission (LDCM). The TIRS
instrument is a far-infrared imager operating in the pushbroom mode with two
IR channels: 10.8 and 12 m. The focal
plane will contain three 640512 QWIP
arrays mounted onto a silicon substrate.
The readout integrated circuit (ROIC)
addresses each pixel on the QWIP
arrays and reads out the pixel value (signal). The ROIC is controlled by the
focal plane electronics (FPE) by means
of clock signals and bias voltage value.
The means of how the FPE is designed
to control and interact with the TIRS
focal plane assembly (FPA) is the basis
for this work.
The technology developed under the

FPE is for the TIRS focal plane assembly (FPA). The FPE must interact with
the FPA to command and control the
FPA, extract analog signals from the
FPA, and then convert the analog signals to digital format and send them via
a serial link (USB) to a computer. The
FPE accomplishes the described functions by converting electrical power
from generic power supplies to the
required bias power that is needed by
the FPA. The FPE also generates digital
clocking signals and shifts the typical
transistor-to-transistor logic (TTL) to
5 V required by the FPA. The FPE also
uses an application-specific integrated
circuit (ASIC) named System Image,
Digitizing, Enhancing, Controlling,
And Retrieving (SIDECAR) from
Teledyne Corp. to generate the clock-
10a
ing patterns commanded by the user.

The uniqueness of the FPE for TIRS
lies in that the TIRS FPA has three
QWIP detector arrays, and all three
detector arrays must be in synchronization while in operation. This is to avoid
data skewing while observing Earth flying in space. The observing scenario
may be customized by uploading new
control software to the SIDECAR.
This work was done by Peter Shu,
Augustyn Waczynski, and Emily Kan of
Goddard Space Flight Center; Yiting Wen of
MEI, Inc.; and Robert Rosenberry of
Qinetiq, Inc. For more information, download the Technical Support Package (free
GSC-16057-1
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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Intro
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New Products
Product of the Month
Infrared Laser Beam Evaluation Tool

The CoolCard II from Pathfinder Research (Lafayette, CO) is a handheld infrared laser beamfinder and beam evaluation instrument. The IR beam-quality
evaluation tool can be used with lasers
and other IR sources operating from the
near-IR to 10-m wavelengths. Using thermally-stabilized liquid crystal technology,
the CoolCard senses and resolves the
fine spatial character of lasers operating near and beyond 1.7 m.
The beamfinder features a rechargeable, field-replaceable Li-ion
battery with capacity sufficient for multi-hour continuous operation.
Glass Reflectron Lens Process

PHOTONIS USA (Sturbridge, MA) has
been awarded a patent for the manufacture of resistive glass tubes with non-linear
gradient electrical resistance changes. The
patented process creates a solid-piece reflectron lens. Reflectron lenses are used in Timeof-Flight (TOF) mass spectrometers to create
an electrostatic field to alter ion flow, providing for a longer flight path
and greater resolution. A reflectron lens made with resistive glass provides an assembly replacement for a stacked ring assembly yet provides
the same ability to alter ion flow.
Fiber Laser
The Mentad fiber laser from RPMC Lasers
(OFallon, MO) is now available at the 1.0m
wavelength. The 4.25 2.7 0.8" Mentad
produces pulse energies up to 50J, with
pulse widths from 500ps to 1.25s and rep
rates from 5kHz to 2MHz. The laser is also
available at 1.5m. At 1.5m, the Mentad can
produce up to 100J of pulse energy. Typical applications for the Mentad include: LIDAR, range finding, telemetry, target ID, 3D and topography scanning, and weather and pollutant detection.
Infrared Emitters
Opto Diode Corp. (Newbury Park, CA)
has introduced three new infrared (IR) emitters. The OD-850W gallium aluminum arsenide (GaAlAs) LED features a wide-emission angle and typical optical output of
40mW. The new device has a peak emission
wavelength at 850nm.
Hermetically sealed, the standard TO-46 package is designed with
gold-plated surfaces and welded caps. The IR LED offers optical power
of 40mW typical at 100mA, continuous forward current at 100mA, and
peak forward current at 300mA (absolute maximum ratings at 25C).
The storage and operating temperatures range from -40C to 100C,
with a maximum junction temperature of 100C.
12a
Intro
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UV Zoom Lens
Resolve Optics Ltd (Chesham, UK) supplies a lightweight version of
the 80-200mm focal length UV Zoom lens, developed for use with its
Digital Cerenkov Viewing Device (DCVD). The DCVD, equipped with
UV Zoom lens, captures the Cerenkov image of spent nuclear fuel for
analysis and comparison.
The DCVD UV Zoom lens is wavelength-corrected to view a nuclear
fuel assembly situated 13 meters away from the lens and through 10
meters of water. The UV Zoom lens operates from 10 to 55C. Miniature motors allow accurate remote setting of both zoom and focus
functions. A filter slide was also incorporated in the design, enabling
the lens to be switched between UV (270 to 350nm) and visible (400 to
700nm) without the need to refocus the lens. A lockable C mount ensures the lens cannot come
loose during operation.
Embedded Vision System

ADLINK Technology (San Jose, CA) has released the EOS1200, an embedded vision system that implements the 2nd Generation Intel Core i7 quad core processor. The product provides four independent gigabit PoE (power over Ethernet)
ports with data transfer rates up to 4.0 Gb/s. The EOS-1200 further supports IEEE 1588 precise time protocol, enabling synchronization with multi-camera
acquisition. The system uses one Ethernet cable to deliver power supply, data transfer, and
data synchronization.
An application programming interface (API) allows users to program power status, especially
when cameras are idle. The EOS-1200 also provides auto-detection to ensure compatibility with
both PoE and conventional non-PoE devices. The vision system features I/O capability, including four serial ports, two USB 3.0 ports, 32 PNP/NPN isolated digital I/Os and dual storage (two
SATA interface, and one CFAST slot), an internal USB port, and 1 kbit programmable EEPROM. Driver support is provided for Windows 7/XP and Embedded standard 7, in both 32-bit
and 64-bit versions.
Cylindrical Lenses
Dayoptics (Fuzhou, China) produces cylindrical lenses from a
variety of materials including BK7, fused silica, sapphire, CaF2, and
MgF2 as standard. Cylindrical lenses focus light in only one dimension and are commonly used in range finders to produce astigmatism. Cylindrical lenses are also used in semiconductor diode lasers
as FAC lenses. Lens dimensions range from 1mm 1mm to 100mm
100mm.
Camera Development Kit

D3 Engineering (Rochester, NY), New Scale Technologies
(Victor, NY), and Sunex (Carlsbad, CA) have teamed up to
create a new OEM SmartCamera Developers Kit. The kit allows engineers to develop and integrate camera systems.
D3 Engineering integrates Texas Instruments DaVinci
DSP with the M3-F focus module from New Scale Technologies. The M3-F module uses patented closed-loop piezoelectric smart actuator technology to deliver precise lens motion
in a 1" cubed form factor. The device moves lenses up to 5
grams, allowing use of advanced glass and polymer materials. Users can customize their kits by
choosing from a range of standard and custom Sunex lenses. Sunex offers lenses with patented
aspheric optical technology, proprietary high-index optical materials, and integral optical filters.
Kits can also be customized with the users choice of image sensor, with resolution up to 14MP.
D3 Engineerings SmartCam electronics incorporate 256 MB DDR2 onboard memory, HDMI
and NTSC video output, and 10/100 Ethernet. For prototyping and evaluations, daughtercard
connections allow access to all processor peripherals and GPIO.
www.techbriefs.com
Intro
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New Products
Frame Grabber
BitFlow (Woburn, MA) has announced the NeonCLQ Quad, a Camera Link/PoCL frame grabber that provides interfaces for four cameras
plus I/O. All four cameras can be synchronized or independently operated with different resolutions, frame rates, and triggering modes.
The frame grabber supports PoCL (Power over Camera
Link) cameras and is backwards compatible with non-PoCL cameras
and cables. It also supplies Safe Power with full protection to the frame
grabber and PC from CL power line faults. In addition, the Neon-CLQ
board is a half size x4 PCIe board. BitFlows FlowThru technology
minimizes image latency and guarantees zero CPU usage for image capture. Cameras up to 24 bits at 85 MHz pixel clock are also supported.
The Neon-CLQ, powered by the BitFlow Software Development Kit
(SDK), is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms. The
kit provides drivers, DLLs, and configuration utilities for customers interested in using third-party software.
Laser Measurement Mobile App

Ophir Photonics (North Logan, UT)
offers the Quasar App, a mobile application that displays laser meter data on Android devices or tablets. The Quasar App
connects to Ophirs Quasar device via
Bluetooth. Once connected, the App displays power readings from the
laser measurement sensor within a range of 10 meters.
A rechargeable NiMH battery also provides more than 20 hours of
use. Ophirs StarLab PC software is included with each interface and
converts the PC into a laser power/energy meter, with features such as
log power and energy, averages, statistics, and histograms.
Vacuum Spectrometer
The Model 248/310 grazing incidence
spectrometer from McPherson (Chelmsford,
MA) makes direct optical measurements
from one to 300 nanometers. The device enables testing of soft x-ray (XUV) high energy
light sources (plasma or laser) and samples.
Life time, persistence, or decay can be measured with continuous spectral scanning.
A new up scanning feature combines the 789A-3 digital drive and
248/310 spectrometer system accessories. Soft- or hardware triggers coordinate data collection at specific wavelengths. Software, backed up by
hardware, sets the wavelength scan region. An optional adjustable end
switch system for the 248/310 is available. The vacuum spectrometers
have focal lengths of 0.2 to two meters and more.
Light Source
The BluLoop Light Source from Ocean Optics
(Dunedin, FL) is a compact, LED-based source with
balanced spectral output across the visible (400-700
nm) range. When coupled to a miniature spectrometer, optical fibers, and sampling accessories, BluLoop can be used for color and reflectance measurements and general-purpose VIS-NIR spectroscopy.
The four LEDs are individually tunable for balancing of the spectral
output. BluLoop produces flatter spectral output in the visible range
for more predictable response, especially for color analysis.
14a
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Welcome to your Digital Edition of

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Fiber optic oxygen sensors use the fluorescence

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