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III-nitride devices are commonly made on sapphire substrates today for various commercial electronic and optoelectronic applications. Thus, this innovation relates directly to the combination of devices on opposite sides of the sapphire substrate. One possible device combination is to have LEDs one side and solar cells on the other, such as for displays.

NASA GSFCs EHD pump uses electric fields to move a dielectric fluid coolant in a thermal loop to dissipate heat generated by electrical components with a low power system. The pump has only a few key components and no moving parts, increasing the simplicity and robustness of the system. In addition, the lightweight pump consumes very little power during operation and is modular in nature. The pump design takes a modular approach to the pumping sections by means of an electrically insulating cartridge casing that houses the high voltage and ground electrodes along with spacers that act as both an insulator and flow channel for the dielectric fluid. The external electrical connections are accomplished by means of commercially available pin and jack assemblies that are configurable for a variety of application interfaces. It can be sized to work with small electric components or lab-on-a-chip devices and multiple pumps can be placed in line for pumping greater distances or used as a feeder system for smaller downstream pumps. All this is done as a one-piece construction consolidating an assembly of 21 components over previous iterations.

The system, the Reconfigurable Image Generator (RIG), consists of software and a hardware configuration, and a Synthetic Environment Database Generation System (RIG-DBGS). This innovative Image Generator (IG) uses Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technologies and is capable of supporting virtually any display system. The DBGS software leverages high-fidelity real-world data, including aerial imagery, elevation datasets, and vector data. Through a combination of COTS tools and in-house created applications, the semi-automated system can process large amounts of data in days rather than weeks or months, a disadvantage of manual database generation. A major benefit of the RIG technology is that existing simulation users can leverage their investment in existing real-time 3D databases (such as OpenFlight) as part of the RIG system.

The technology combines electroactively controlled liquid crystal lenses with a means for determining the pilots head position. When the pilots head is positioned to look outside the front or side windscreens, the lenses restrict light transmission. When the pilots head is lowered to view the instrument panel or other cockpit displays, the lenses allow light transmission so that the view of the instruments is unimpeded. Light transmission through the lenses can be selectively controlled by the system, ranging from 0.1% to 10%. The lenses are mounted in conventional eyeglass frames. The frames include a detection system to determine the position and orientation of the pilots head. Circuits within the frames activate the lenses to restrict light transmission when the pilots head is oriented to look out the windscreen. A PC, linked to the aircraft flight computer or altimeter, is also in the control loop and turns off the system to allow unimpeded visibility when the aircraft is below 200 feet or for other specified conditions. The technology readiness level of this invention is at stage seven with a prototype having been tested.

Commercial soft magnetic cores used in power electronics are limited by core loss and decreased ferromagnetism at high temperatures. Extending functional performance to high temperatures allows for increased power density in electric systems with fixed power output and elevated operating temperature. The innovators at Glenn developed a unique composition and process to improve the temperature capability of the material. Nanocomposite soft magnetic materials are typically comprised of a combination of raw materials including iron, silicon, niobium, boron, and copper. Instead of niobium, NASA's material utilizes small cobalt and tantalum additions. The raw materials are combined to form an amorphous precursor through melt spinning. NASA&#39s innovation with the fabrication lies in the thermal annealing step, which nucleates and crystallizes the precursor to form the composite structure of the material. By adjusting the temperature and magnetic field of the thermal annealing step, Glenn's process results in good coupling between the crystalline and amorphous matrix phases. Innovators at Glenn demonstrated the temperature robustness using small test cores of their material and are investigating additional quality attributes compared to other well-known soft magnetic materials (see two Figures below).

Space and ground launch support related hardware often operate under extreme pressure, temperature, and corrosive conditions. When dealing with this type of equipment, it is frequently necessary to run wiring, tubes, or fibers through a barrier separating one process from another with one or both operating in extreme environments. Feedthroughs used to route the wiring, tubes, or fibers through these barriers must meet stringent sealing and leak tightness requirements. This affordable NASA feedthrough meets or exceeds all sealing and leak requirements utilizing easy-to-assemble commercial-off-the-shelf hardware with no special tooling. The feedthrough is a fully reconfigurable design; however, it can also be produced as a permanent device. Thermal cycling and helium mass spectrometer leak testing under extreme conditions of full cryogenic temperatures and high vacuum have proven the sealing capability of this feedthrough with or without potting (epoxy fill) on the ends. Packing material disks used in the construction of the device can be replaced as needed for rebuilding a given feedthrough for another job or a different set of feeds if potting is not used for the original feedthrough build. (Potting on one or both sides of the sleeve provides double or triple leak sealing protection). Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) connectors were adapted for the pressure seal on the feedthrough; however, any commercial connector can be similarly adapted. The design can easily be scaled up to larger (2" diameter) and even very large (12" or more) sizes.

Energy management is one of the most challenging issues in the world today. Accordingly, various energy harvesting technologies have gained attention, including harvesting energy from ambient vibration sources using piezoelectric materials. However, conventional piezoelectric energy harvesting transducer (PEHT) structures have effective piezoelectric constants that are lower than about 10^4 pC/N, (resonant mode). These low piezoelectric constants lead to conventional PEHTs not being able to harvest electric power effectively. Further, for a specific vibration/motion source, it would be advantageous to maximize the mechanical energy captured from the vibration structure into the piezoelectric device and to convert a greater fraction of that mechanical energy into electrical energy more efficiently. This invention is a system and method using multistage force amplification of piezoelectric energy harvesting transducers (MFAPEHTs) to increase the effective piezoelectric constant to >10^6 pC/N and to increase the mechanical energy input to the device. The invention utilizes 33 mode PZT to permit maximum coupling between the input mechanical energy with the piezoelectric material, and multilayer construction of single crystal PMN-PT material to significantly amplify the voltage/charge generation and storage from the applied mechanical force.

This critical safety tool can be used for a wider variety of aircraft, including general aviation, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) while also improving performance in the fighter aircraft currently using this type of system. <strong>Demonstrations/Testing</strong> This improved approach to ground collision avoidance has been demonstrated on both small UAVs and a Cirrus SR22 while running the technology on a mobile device. These tests were performed to the prove feasibility of the app-based implementation of this technology. The testing also characterized the flight dynamics of the avoidance maneuvers for each platform, evaluated collision avoidance protection, and analyzed nuisance potential (i.e., the tendency to issue false warnings when the pilot does not consider ground impact to be imminent). <strong>Armstrong's Work Toward an Automated Collision Avoidance System</strong> Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) remains a leading cause of fatalities in aviation, resulting in roughly 100 deaths each year in the United States alone. Although warning systems have virtually eliminated CFIT for large commercial air carriers, the problem still remains for fighter aircraft, helicopters, and GAA. Innovations developed at NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center are laying the foundation for a collision avoidance system that would automatically take control of an aircraft that is in danger of crashing into the ground and fly it&#8212;and the people inside&#8212;to safety. The technology relies on a navigation system to position the aircraft over a digital terrain elevation data base, algorithms to determine the potential and imminence of a collision, and an autopilot to avoid the potential collision. The system is designed not only to provide nuisance-free warnings to the pilot but also to take over when a pilot is disoriented or unable to control the aircraft. The payoff from implementing the system, designed to operate with minimal modifications on a variety of aircraft, including military jets, UAVs, and GAA, could be billions of dollars and hundreds of lives and aircraft saved. Furthermore, the technology has the potential to be applied beyond aviation and could be adapted for use in any vehicle that has to avoid a collision threat, including aerospace satellites, automobiles, scientific research vehicles, and marine charting systems.

This invention relates to the prediction of the remaining useful life of an object in use. It develops a mathematical model to describe battery behavior during individual discharge cycles as well as over its cycle life. The models used to estimate the remaining useful life of batteries are linked to the internal electro-chemical processes of the battery. The effects of temperature and load have been incorporated into the models. Model validation studies were conducted using data from a series of battery cycling experiments at various thermal and electrical loading conditions. Subsequently, the model has been used in a particle filtering framework to make probabilistic predictions of remaining useful life for individual discharge cycles as well as for cycle life.

This invention provides a four-part system that includes: (1) first and second, spaced-apart planar collectors; (2) first and second arrays of Multi-Wall Carbon Nanotube (MWCNT) towers, serving as electrodes, that extend between the first and second collectors, where the MWCNT towers are grown directly on the collector surfaces without deposition of a catalyst or a binder material on the collectors surface; (3) a separator module having a transverse area that is substantially the same as the transverse area of either electrode; and (4) at least one MWCNT tower that acts as a hydrophilic structure with improved surface wettability. The growth of MWCNT and/or Single Wall Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) towers is done directly on polished, ultra-smooth alloy substrates containing iron and or nickel, such as nichrome, kanthal and stainless steel. The growth process for generating an MWCNT tower array requires heating the collector metal substrate in an inert argon gas atmosphere to 750 C. After thermal equilibration, 1000 sccm of 8/20 ethylene/Hs gas flow results in the growth of carbon nanotube towers.