NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The safety system consists of two features:The first part is a system monitor that runs on the quadrotor UAV flight computer to analyze system health. If a critical state is detected the module triggers a safety alert to initiate emergency behaviors like hover in place or emergency landing.The second part is a monitoring module on a base station computer that receives live data from a quadrotor UAV about its internal states (battery level, flight status, planned behavior, etc.) via a wireless link. The module has to monitor and analyze the incoming data and make emergency notifications to the operator, if a critical event occurs (e.g. battery power is bellow critical threshold, or the vehicle is exceeded its pre-programed maximum range).

AiResearch Manufacturing Company, a division of the Garrett Corporation, is engaged in manufacturing a broad variety of products of the aerospace, energy, metals, transit, and marine industries. Products such as fuel controls and rotating accessories for gas turbines are produced by another Garrett division. Computerized analysis is employed to determine how well proposed seals will stand up to stress. For such analysis, AiResearch uses a computer program supplied by COSMIC known as VISCEL. Program saves engineers time in development of software and contributes to improved efficiency in seal analysis.

Under a Jet Propulsion Laboratory SBIR, Cambridge Research and Instrumentation Inc., developed a new class of filters for the construction of small, low-cost multispectral imagers. The VariSpec liquid crystal enables users to obtain multi-spectral, ultra-high resolution images using a monochrome CCD camera. Application areas include biomedical imaging, remote sensing, and machine vision.

The accuDEXAR Bone Mineral Density Assessment System, manufactured by Schick Technologies, Inc., utilizes camera on a chip" sensor technology invented and developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Schick's accuDEXA system offers several advantages over traditional osteoporosis tests which assess bone density loss in the hip and spine and require specialized personnel to conduct. With accuDEXA physicians can test the entire body's bone density at a peripheral site such as the finger without applying gels or having patients remove garments. Results are achieved in 30 seconds and printed out in less than a minute compared to the estimated exam time of 15 minutes for hip and spine density analyses. Schick has also applied the CMOS APS technology to a new software product that performs dental radiography using up to 90 percent less radiation exposure than conventional x-rays. Called Computed Dental RadiographyR the new digital imaging product utilizes an electronic sensor in place of x-ray film to generate sharp and clear images that appear on a computer screen within 3 seconds and can be enlarged and enhanced to identify problems."

A computer program to translate Unified Modeling Language (UML) Free-form Implementation Diagrams into a legacy C implementation of a Behavior Network has been developed in order to simplify the development of C-code for behavior based control systems. UML is a popular standard developed by the Object Management Group (OMG) to model software architectures graphically. The C implementation of a Behavior Network is functioning as a decision tree. Simplfying the process of behavior-based control code generation. The autocoding approach used in this work is derived from that previously applied to NASA missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory.

This invention provides a method and system for fabricating a biomarker sensor array by dispensing one or more entities using a precisely positioned, electrically biased nanoprobe immersed in a buffered fluid over a transparent substrate. Fine patterning of the substrate can be achieved by positioning and selectively biasing the probe in a particular region, changing the pH in a sharp, localized volume of fluid less than 100 nm in diameter, resulting in a selective processing of that region. One example of the implementation of this technique is related to Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN), where an Atomic Force Microscope probe can be used as a pen to write protein and DNA Aptamer inks on a transparent substrate functionalized with silane-based self-assembled monolayers. But it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability. For example, the invention can be applied to formation of patterns using biological materials, chemical materials, metals, polymers, semiconductors, small molecules, organic and inorganic thins films, or any combination of these.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computer-aided Tomography (CT) images are often complementary. In most cases, MRI is good for viewing soft tissue but not bone, while CT images are good for bone but not always good for soft tissue discrimination. Physicians and engineers in the Department of Radiology at the University of Michigan Hospitals are developing a technique for combining the best features of MRI and CT scans to increase the accuracy of discriminating one type of body tissue from another. One of their research tools is a computer program called HICAP. The program can be used to distinguish between healthy and diseased tissue in body images.