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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 523 records · Page 29
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NASA NTRS1991

Mixed application MMIC technologies - Progress in combining RF, digital and photonic circuits

Approaches for future 'mixed application' monolithic integrated circuits (ICs) employing optical receive/transmit, RF amplification and modulation and digital control functions are discussed. We focus on compatibility of the photonic component fabrication with conventional RF and digital IC technologies. Recent progress at Honeywell in integrating several parts of the desired RF/digital/photonic circuit integration suite required for construction of a future millimeter-wave optically-controlled phased-array element are illustrated.

Swirhun, S.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Compensated digital readout family

ISC has completed test on an IC which has 32 channels of amplifiers, low pass anti-aliasing filters, 13-bit analog-to-digital (A/D) converters with non-uniformity correction per channel and a digital multiplexer. The single slope class of A/D conversion is described, as are the unique variations required for incorporation of this technique for use with on-focal plane detector readout electronics. This paper describes the architecture used to implement the digital on-focal plane signal processing functions. Results from measured data on a test IC are presented for a circuit containing these functions operating at a sensor frame rate of 1000 hertz.

Ludwig, David E.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Evaluation of capillary electrophoresis for in-flight ionic contaminant monitoring of SSF potable water

Until 1989, ion chromatography (IC) was the baseline technology selected for the Specific Ion Analyzer, an in-flight inorganic water quality monitor being designed for Space Station Freedom. Recent developments in capillary electrophoresis (CE) may offer significant savings of consumables, power consumption, and weight/volume allocation, relative to IC technology. A thorough evaluation of CE's analytical capability, however, is necessary before one of the two techniques is chosen. Unfortunately, analytical methods currently available for inorganic CE are unproven for NASA's target list of anions and cations. Thus, CE electrolyte chemistry and methods to measure the target contaminants must be first identified and optimized. This paper reports the status of a study to evaluate CE's capability with regard to inorganic and carboxylate anions, alkali and alkaline earth cations, and transition metal cations. Preliminary results indicate that CE has an impressive selectivity and trace sensitivity, although considerable methods development remains to be performed.

Mudgett, Paul D.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Automating analog design: Taming the shrew

The pace of progress in the design of integrated circuits continues to amaze observers inside and outside of the industry. Three decades ago, a 50 transistor chip was a technological wonder. Fifteen year later, a 5000 transistor device would 'wow' the crowds. Today, 50,000 transistor chips will earn a 'not too bad' assessment, but it takes 500,000 to really leave an impression. In 1975 a typical ASIC device had 1000 transistors, took one year to first samples (and two years to production) and sold for about 5 cents per transistor. Today's 50,000 transistor gate array takes about 4 months from spec to silicon, works the first time, and sells for about 0.02 cents per transistor. Fifteen years ago, the single most laborious and error prone step in IC design was the physical layout. Today, most IC's never see the hand of a layout designer: and automatic place and route tool converts the engineer's computer captured schematic to a complete physical design using a gate array or a library of standard cells also created by software rather than by designers. CAD has also been a generous benefactor to the digital design process. The architect of today's digital systems creates the design using an RTL or other high level simulator. Then the designer pushes a button to invoke the logic synthesizer-optimizer tool. A fault analyzer checks the result for testability and suggests where scan based cells will improve test coverage. One obstinate holdout amidst this parade of progress is the automation of analog design and its reduction to semi-custom techniques. This paper investigates the application of CAD techniques to analog design.

Barlow, A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Using advanced microelectronic test chips to qualify ASIC's for space

Qualification procedures for complex integrated circuits are being developed under a U.S. government program known as Qualified Manufacturing Lines (QML). This effort is focused on circuits designed by IC manufacturers and has not addressed application specific IC's (ASIC's) designed at system houses. The qualification procedures described here are intended to be responsive to the needs of system houses who design their own ASIC's and have them fabricated at Silicon foundries. A particular focus of this presentation will be the use of the TID (total Ionizing Dose) Chip to evaluate CMOS foundry processes and to provide parameters for circuit simulators. This chip is under development as a standard chip for qualifying the total dose aspects of ASIC's. The benefits of standardization are that the results will be well understood and easy to interpret. Data is presented and compared for 1.6 micron and 3.0 micron CMOS. The data shows that 1.6 micron CMOS is significantly harder than 3.0 micron CMOS. Two failure modes are explored: (1) the radiation-induced degradation of timing delays; and (2) radiation-induced leakage currents.

Buehler, M. G.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Flutter analysis of supersonic axial flow cascades using a high resolution Euler solver. Part 1: Formulation and validation

This report presents, in two parts, a dynamic aeroelastic stability (flutter) analysis of a cascade of blades in supersonic axial flow. Each blade of the cascade is modeled as a typical section having pitching and plunging degrees of freedom. Aerodynamic forces are obtained from a time accurate, unsteady, two-dimensional cascade solver based on the Euler equations. The solver uses a time marching flux-difference splitting (FDS) scheme. Flutter stability is analyzed in the frequency domain. The unsteady force coefficients required in the analysis are obtained by harmonically oscillating (HO) the blades for a given flow condition, oscillation frequency, and interblade phase angle. The calculated time history of the forces is then Fourier decomposed to give the required unsteady force coefficients. An influence coefficient (IC) method and a pulse response (PR) method are also implemented to reduce the computational time for the calculation of the unsteady force coefficients for any phase angle and oscillation frequency. Part 1, this report, presents these analysis methods and their validation by comparison with results obtained from linear theory for a selected flat plate cascade geometry. A typical calculation for a rotor airfoil is also included to show the applicability of the present solver for airfoil configurations. The predicted unsteady aerodynamic forces for a selected flat plate cascade geometry and flow conditions correlated well with those obtained from linear theory for different interblade phase angles and oscillation frequencies. All the three methods of predicting unsteady force coefficients, namely, HO, IC, and PR, showed good correlations with each other. It was established that only a single calculation with four blade passages is required to calculate the aerodynamic forces for any phase angle for a cascade consisting of any number of blades, for any value of the oscillation frequency. Flutter results, including mistuning effects, for a cascade of stator airfoils are presented in Part 2 of the report.

Reddy, T. S. R.↗
NASA NTRS1994

The 1993 multiwavelength campaign on 3C 279: The radio to gamma-ray energy distribution inlow state

Simultaneous observations of 3C 279 at radio, millimeter, near-infrared, optical, ultraviolet (with IUE) and X-ray (with ROSAT) wavelengths were obtained in 1992 December-1993 January, during a three week pointing at the source by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The blazar was in a quiescent or 'low' state during this period. Comparing the multiwavelength energy distribution to that from 1991 June, when 3C 279 was in its brightest recorded gamma-ray state, we find the following: (1) 3C 279 faded dramatically at all frequencies above 10(exp 14) Hz, while the flux variations at low frequencies (radio to millimeter wavelengths) were minor. (2) The near-infrared-optical-ultraviolet spectral shape was softer (steeper) in the quiescent state, and the X-ray spectra also appear softer, although the spectral indix measured by ROSAT refer to a lower energy band than that measured earlier with Ginga. (3) The ratio of the gamma-ray luminosity to that across all other frequencies decreased from a value of approximately equal to 10 in the flaring state to a value approximately equal to 1 in the quiescent state. These findings imply that the production of gamma-rays is closely related to the optical-ultraviolet continuum, in agreement with models where gamma-rays are produced through inverse Compton (IC) scattering by relativistic electrons emitting the synchrotron continuum. The observed nonlinear relation between the synchrotron and IC requires both a change in the electron spectrum and an associated change in the seed photons.

Maraschi, L.↗
NASA NTRS1996

High-Speed Soft-Decision Decoding of Two Reed-Muller Codes

In this research, we have proposed the (64, 40, 8) subcode of the third-order Reed-Muller (RM) code to NASA for high-speed satellite communications. This RM subcode can be used either alone or as an inner code of a concatenated coding system with the NASA standard (255, 233, 33) Reed-Solomon (RS) code as the outer code to achieve high performance (or low bit-error rate) with reduced decoding complexity. It can also be used as a component code in a multilevel bandwidth efficient coded modulation system to achieve reliable bandwidth efficient data transmission. This report will summarize the key progress we have made toward achieving our eventual goal of implementing, a decoder system based upon this code. In the first phase of study, we investigated the complexities of various sectionalized trellis diagrams for the proposed (64, 40, 8) RM subcode. We found a specific 8-trellis diagram for this code which requires the least decoding complexity with a high possibility of achieving a decoding speed of 600 M bits per second (Mbps). The combination of a large number of states and a high data rate will be made possible due to the utilization of a high degree of parallelism throughout the architecture. This trellis diagram will be presented and briefly described. In the second phase of study, which was carried out through the past year, we investigated circuit architectures to determine the feasibility of VLSI implementation of a high-speed Viterbi decoder based on this 8-section trellis diagram. We began to examine specific design and implementation approaches to implement a fully custom integrated circuit (IC) which will be a key building block for a decoder system implementation. The key results will be presented in this report. This report will be divided into three primary sections. First, we will briefly describe the system block diagram in which the proposed decoder is assumed to be operating, and present some of the key architectural approaches being used to implement the system at high speed. Second, we will describe details of the 8-trellis diagram we found to best meet the trade-offs between chip and overall system complexity. The chosen approach implements the trellis for the (64, 40, 8) RM subcode with 32 independent sub-trellises. And third, we will describe results of our feasibility study on the implementation of such an IC chip in CMOS technology to implement one of these sub-trellises.

Lin, Shu↗
NASA NTRS1996

High-Speed Soft-Decision Decoding of Two Reed-Muller Codes

In his research, we have proposed the (64, 40, 8) subcode of the third-order Reed-Muller (RM) code to NASA for high-speed satellite communications. This RM subcode can be used either alone or as an inner code of a concatenated coding system with the NASA standard (255, 233, 33) Reed-Solomon (RS) code as the outer code to achieve high performance (or low bit-error rate) with reduced decoding complexity. It can also be used as a component code in a multilevel bandwidth efficient coded modulation system to achieve reliable bandwidth efficient data transmission. This report will summarize the key progress we have made toward achieving our eventual goal of implementing a decoder system based upon this code. In the first phase of study, we investigated the complexities of various sectionalized trellis diagrams for the proposed (64, 40, 8) RNI subcode. We found a specific 8-trellis diagram for this code which requires the least decoding complexity with a high possibility of achieving a decoding speed of 600 M bits per second (Mbps). The combination of a large number of states and a hi ch data rate will be made possible due to the utilization of a high degree of parallelism throughout the architecture. This trellis diagram will be presented and briefly described. In the second phase of study which was carried out through the past year, we investigated circuit architectures to determine the feasibility of VLSI implementation of a high-speed Viterbi decoder based on this 8-section trellis diagram. We began to examine specific design and implementation approaches to implement a fully custom integrated circuit (IC) which will be a key building block for a decoder system implementation. The key results will be presented in this report. This report will be divided into three primary sections. First, we will briefly describe the system block diagram in which the proposed decoder is assumed to be operating and present some of the key architectural approaches being used to implement the system at high speed. Second, we will describe details of the 8-trellis diagram we found to best meet the trade-offs between chip and overall system complexity. The chosen approach implements the trellis for the (64, 40, 8) RM subcode with 32 independent sub-trellises. And third, we will describe results of our feasibility study on the implementation of such an IC chip in CMOS technology to implement one of these sub-trellises.

Lin, Shu↗
NASA NTRS1995

Separation and Detection of Toxic Gases with a Silicon Micromachined Gas Chromatography System

A miniature gas chromatography (GC) system was designed and fabricated using silicon micromachining and integrated circuit (IC) processing techniques. The silicon micromachined gas chromatography system (SMGCS) is composed of a miniature sample injector that incorporates a 10 microliter sample loop; a 0.9 meter long, rectangular shaped (300 micrometer width and 10 micrometer height) capillary column coated with a 0.2 micrometer thick copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) stationary phase; and a dual detector scheme based upon a CuPc-coated chemiresistor and a commercially available 125 micrometer diameter thermal conductivity detector (TCD) bead. Silicon micromachining was employed to fabricate the interface between the sample injector and the GC column, the column itself, and the dual detector cavity. A novel IC thin-film processing technique was developed to sublime the CuPc stationary phase coating on the column walls that were micromachined in the host silicon wafer substrate and Pyrex (r) cover plate, which were then electrostatically bonded together. The SMGCS can separate binary gas mixtures composed of parts-per-million (ppm) concentrations of ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) when isothermally operated (55-80 degrees C). With a helium carrier gas and nitrogen diluent, a 10 microliter sample volume containing ammonia and nitrogen dioxide injected at 40 psi ((2.8 x 10(exp 5)Pa)) can be separated in less than 30 minutes.

Kolesar, Edward S.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Development of 3-Phase CCD Timing Generator

Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) are used in a wide range of commercial, scientific, and defense applications. They are primarily utilized for imaging and spectroscopic functions. Compact, cost-effective technology to miniaturize the auxiliary electronics required to operate the CCD is highly desirable. Because of the importance of reducing size and weight in defense and space applications, emphasis must be placed on the reduction in size. The purpose of this project is to minimize the CCD timing generator electronics for 3-phase CCDs by replacing conventional ICs with a single programmable IC. This timing generator will give the user the ability to vary the number of horizontal and vertical pixels and to choose between integration and readout modes. This, in turn, will reduce the size and weight of CCD focal plane assemblies as a whole.

Bennett, Kory L.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Burst Mode ASIC-Based Modem

The NASA Lewis Research Center is sponsoring the Advanced Communication Technology Insertion (ACTION) for Commercial Space Applications program. The goal of the program is to expedite the development of new technology with a clear path towards productization and enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers. The industry has made significant investment in developing ASIC-based modem technology for continuous-mode applications and has made investigations into East, reliable acquisition of burst-mode digital communication signals. With rapid advances in analog and digital communications ICs, it is expected that more functions will be integrated onto these parts in the near future. In addition custom ASIC's can also be developed to address the areas not covered by the other IC's. Using the commercial chips and custom ASIC's, lower-cost, compact, reliable, and high-performance modems can be built for demanding satellite communication application. This report outlines a frequency-hop burst modem design based on commercially available chips.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1997

Integration of CELSS Simulation with Long-Term Crop Scheduling

This project presents guidelines for the integration of the Intelligent Crop Scheduler (ICS) developed by Leon (1995) with a version of the Biological Life Support System (BLSS) simulation based on the work by Volk and Rummel (1987). These guidelines will also aid in defining the appropriate model detail of simulation-based schedulers. ICS determines what, when and how much to plant of different crops. These decisions are made such that the critical reservoir levels are maintained close to their nominal or desired settings during the duration of the mission. Initial feasibility of the approach has been demonstrated using simplified implementations of the scheduling approach and CELSS 'world' model developed by the investigator at JSC in the Summer of 1995. The BLSS model incorporates more detail. The increased fidelity is in terms of added mass-regeneration formalism (biochemical stoichiometry), more plants, and more accurate modeling of the mechanical system. This report describes the main features of the Crop scheduler and CELSS simulator, discusses integration issues, and provides with detailed guidelines for the integration of these two applications.

Leon, V. Jorge↗
NASA NTRS1999

A Multipole Expansion Method for Analyzing Lightning Field Changes

Changes in the surface electric field are frequently used to infer the locations and magnitudes of lightning-caused changes in thundercloud charge distributions. The traditional procedure is to assume that the charges that are effectively deposited by the flash can be modeled either as a single point charge (the Q model) or a point dipole (the P model). The Q model has four unknown parameters and provides a good description of many cloud-to-ground (CG) flashes. The P model has six unknown parameters and describes many intracloud (IC) discharges. In this paper we introduce a new analysis method that assumes that the change in the cloud charge can be described by a truncated multipole expansion, i.e., there are both monopole and dipole terms in the unknown source distribution, and both terms are applied simultaneously. This method can be used to analyze CG flashes that are accompanied by large changes in the cloud dipole moment and complex IC discharges. If there is enough information content in the measurements, the model can also be generalized to include quadrupole and higher order terms. The parameters of the charge moments are determined using a dme-dimensional grid search in combination with a linear inversion, and because of this, local minima in the error function and the associated solution ambiguities are avoided. The multipole method has been tested on computer-simulated sources and on natural lightning at the NASA Kennedy Space Center and U.S. Air Force Eastern Range.

Koshak, William J.↗
NASA NTRS1998

A Multipole Expansion Method for Analyzing Lightning Field Changes

Changes in the surface electric field are frequently used to infer the locations and magnitudes of lightning-caused changes in thundercloud charge distributions. The traditional procedure is to assume that the charges that are effectively deposited by the flash can be modeled either as a single point charge (the Q-model) or a point dipole (the P-model). The Q-model has 4 unknown parameters and provides a good description of many cloud-to-ground (CG) flashes. The P-model has 6 unknown parameters and describes many intracloud (IC) discharges. In this paper, we introduce a new analysis method that assumes that the change in the cloud charge can be described by a truncated multipole expansion, i.e., there are both monopole and dipole terms in the unknown source distribution, and both terms are applied simultaneously. This method can be used to analyze CG flashes that are accompanied by large changes in the cloud dipole moment and complex IC discharges. If there is enough information content in the measurements, the model can also be generalized to include quadrupole and higher order terms. The parameters of the charge moments are determined using a 3-dimensional grid search in combination with a linear inversion, and because of this, local minima in the error function and the associated solution ambiguities are avoided. The multipole method has been tested on computer simulated sources and on natural lightning at the NASA Kennedy Space Center and USAF Eastern Range.

Koshak, William J.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Landsat-7 EMT+ On-Orbit Radiometric Calibration

Landsat-7 was launched on April 15, 1999 and completed its on orbit initialization and verification period on June 28, 1999. The ETM+ payload is similar to the TM sensors on previous Landsat satellites and incorporates two new devices to improve its absolute radiometric calibration. The Full Aperture Solar Calibrator (FASC) is a deployable diffuser panel. This device has been deployed 9 times to date, with a normal deployment schedule of once per month. The initial analysis of the FASC data has given absolute calibration results within 5% of the prelaunch integrating sphere calibrations and a range of variation of 2% between dates. The Partial Aperture Solar Calibrator (PASC), is a set of auxiliary optics that allows the ETM+ to view the sun through a reduced aperture. Data have normally been acquired on a daily basis with the PASC. Initial results with the PASC were encouraging, despite some unexpected saturation in the shortest wavelength band. The response of the ETM+ short wavelength (silicon) bands to the PASC increased initially and has begun to decrease in some of these bands. The longer wavelength (InSb) bands have shown up to 30% oscillations that vary between detectors within the band. Studies are ongoing to better characterize the response to the PASC. The ETM+ also incorporates an internal calibrator (IC), a shutter that oscillates in front of the focal plane that directs light from the internal calibrator lamps to the focal plane. The responses to this device are also varying, though differently than the PASC results. Both the IC and PASC results are attributable to the calibration devices as opposed to the ETM+ itself.

Markham, Brian L.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Freezing Behavior of Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosols Inferred from Trajectory Studies

Temperature histories based on 10-day back growth trajectories for six ER-2 flights during AASE I (1989) and AAOE (1987) are presented. These trajectories along with the properties of the observed PSC (polar stratospheric cloud) particles are used here to infer the physical state of the pre-existing sulfuric acid aerosols. Of all the ER-2 flights described here, only the PSCs observed on the flights of January 24 and 25, 1989 are consistent with the thermodynamics of liquid ternary solutions of H2SO4/HNO3/H2O Ib PSCs). For these two days, back trajectories indicate that the air mass was exposed to SAT (sulfuric acid tetrahydrate) melting temperatures about 24 hours prior to being sampled by the ER-2. For the remaining ER-2 flights (January, 16, 19, and 20 for the AASE I campaign and August 17 for the AAOE campaign), the observed PSCs were probably composed of amorphous solid solutions of HNO3 and H2O (Type Ic PSCs). Formation of such Type Ic PSCs requires the presence of solid H2SO4 aerosols since liquid aerosols yield ternary solutions. The 10-day back trajectories of these flights indicate that the air mass was not exposed to SAT melting temperatures during the past week and had experienced cooling/warming cycles prior to being sampled by the ER-2. These temperature histories, recent laboratory measurements and the properties of glassy solids suggest that stratospheric H2SO4 aerosols may undergo a phase transition to SAT upon warming at approximately 198 K after going through a cooling cycle to about 194 K or lower.

Tabazadeh, A.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Technical Challenges in Reliable Microelectronics Packaging of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) for Space Applications

MEMS have shown a significant promise in the last decade for a variety of applications such as air-bag, pressure sensors, accelerometer, microgyro, chemical sensors, artificial nose, etc. Standard semiconductor microelectronics packaging needs the integrated circuits (IC) to be protected from the harsh environment, and provide electrical communication with the other parts of the circuit, facilitate thermal dissipation efficiently, and impart mechanical strength to the silicon die. Microelectronics packaging involves wafer dicing, bonding, lead attachment, encapsulation to protect from the environment, electrical integrity, and package leak tests to assure the reliable IC packaging technology. Active elements or microstructures in MEMS devices often interfaces with the hostile environment where packaging leak tests and testing of such devices using chemical and mechanical parameters will be very difficult and expensive. Packaging of MEMS is significantly complex as they serve to protect from the environment and microstructures interact with the same environment to measure or affect the desired physical or chemical parameters. The most of the silicon circuitry is sensitive to temperature, moisture, magnetic field, light, and electromagnetic interference. The package must then protect the on-board silicon circuitry while simultaneously exposing the microsensor to the effect it measures to assure the packaging technology of MEMS. MEMS technology has a major application in developing a microspacecraft for space systems provided reliability of MEMS packaging technology is sufficiently addressed. This MEMS technology would eventually miniaturize many of the components of the spacecraft to reach the NASA's goal by building faster, cheaper, better, smaller spacecraft to explore the space more effectively. This paper discusses the latest developments in the MEMS technology and challenging technical issues in the packaging of hermetically sealed and non-hermetically sealed MEMS sensor devices for microspacecraft applications.

Ramesham, Rajeshuni↗