Modular, Portable, and Reconfigurable Wireless Sensing System

Monday, February 01 2010

This system records environmental conditions in an aircraft cabin to create a database for determination of normal conditions.

A modular, portable, reconfigurable wireless sensor system monitors and records environmental conditions in an aircraft cabin. By designing a sensor system that can be easily configured for different needs (with the ability and flexibility to accommodate different/ extra sensors), the system can be used to measure parameters that meet multiple research requirements. Through design considerations such as generalized signal interface, and hierarchical code structure that can be easily reworked for new sensors, this system can be used to measure parameters that meet multiple research requirements. This sensor system, the ASCENT 1000, is configured with temperature, humidity, sound level, carbon di-oxide, and pressure sensors. The system has been calibrated in the laboratory without the use of a pressure chamber.

This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).

Modular, Portable, and Reconfigurable Wireless Sensing System (reference FAA-0001) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).

Modular, Portable, and Reconfigurable Wireless Sensing System (reference FAA-0001) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

Login first to download.

 

Read more: Modular, Portable, and Reconfigurable Wireless Sensing System

Metallic Foam Reduces Airplane Noise

Monday, March 01 2010

For people who live around airports, noise created by planes can cause a disturbance. Researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH have been working with metallic foam that is installed around an engine to reduce noise. The firm foam, crafted from stainless steel, looks like a tightly compacted honeycomb made of silver metal, and feels uniform on the surface — gently abrasive, like a fine-grained pumice stone. “This is an open cell foam, which is mostly air. The foam is formed by ligaments — like a sponge that you use in your kitchen, except the ligaments are metal,” according to Glenn engineer, Cheryl Bowman.

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Designing the Next Generation of Military Robots

Monday, February 01 2010

Many recent blockbuster films and best-selling books depict the robotic apocalypse and have shed a negative light on military robotics. However, not all unmanned system development is aimed toward building autonomous machines that spy on foreign nations or neutralize enemy threats. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) continues to aggressively invest in developing unmanned systems and technologies because robots can perform the tasks that are too dull, dirty, or dangerous to warrant warfighter intervention.

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Photon-Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation Ladar

Monday, June 01 2009

Sensitivity improvements may enable low-power, eye-safe ladars for camouflage penetration, target identification, unmanned vehicle navigation, and face recognition.

This work is a follow-on to an effort to develop a method using Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GM-APD) photon-counting detectors in the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s chirped amplitude modulation (AM) ladar receiver to yield sensitivities approaching the shot noise limit. Such sensitivities represent about four orders of magnitude improvement over the sensitivities of the currently used unity-gain, optoelectronic mixing (OEM) metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) detectors. A variant of the chirped AM ladar has been experimentally assembled and tested, and new single photon-counting detector products were evaluated in terms of their benefits to the chirped AM ladar.

This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).

Photon-Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation Ladar (reference ARL-0045) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

Download it now!

 

This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).

Photon-Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation Ladar (reference ARL-0045) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

Login first to download.

 

Read more: Photon-Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation Ladar