SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “voltage sensing”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 181 records · Page 10

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1972

ASDTIC - A feedback control innovation.

The ASDTIC (analog signal to discrete time interval converter) control subsystem provides precise output control of high performance aerospace power supplies. The key to ASDTIC operation is that it stably controls output by sensing output energy change as well as output magnitude. The ASDTIC control subsystem and control module were developed to improve power supply performance during static and dynamic input voltage and output load variations, to reduce output voltage or current regulation due to component variations or aging, to maintain a stable feedback control with variations in the loop gain or loop time constants, and to standardize the feedback control subsystem for power conditioning equipment.

Lalli, V. R.↗

NASA NTRS1972

ASDTIC: A feedback control innovation

The ASDTIC (Analog Signal to Discrete Time Interval Converter) control subsystem provides precise output control of high performance aerospace power supplies. The key to ASDTIC operation is that it stably controls output by sensing output energy change as well as output magnitude. The ASDTIC control subsystem and control module were developed to improve power supply performance during static and dynamic input voltage and output load variations, to reduce output voltage or current regulation due to component variations or aging, to maintain a stable feedback control with variations in the loop gain or loop time constants, and to standardize the feedback control subsystem for power conditioning equipment.

Lalli, V. R.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Radio sounding of the magnetosphere from a lunar-based VLF array

Using a lunar-based active radio transmitter and receiver system operating in the 'free space' wave modes, we can obtain much information on the structures and dynamics of remote magnetospheric plasma regions in a way similar to ionosondes. Powerful, narrow-band electromagnetic pulses can be transmitted over a wide frequency range (from 10 kHz to 1 MHz). The signals would be refracted and reflected off magnetospheric structures such as the plasmapause, plasmasheet, magnetopause, and the high and low latitude boundary layers. With a series of long dipole antennas, ranging in size from 400 m to 20 km with an output voltage ranging from 6 kV to less than 0.2 kV, a target plasma region at up to 100 R(sub E) can be explored. We illustrate this remote sensing technique by using the plasmasphere as a remote target, and modeling the propagations of the sounder transmitted and received pulses by ray tracing calculations.

Green, James L.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Advanced Measurement Devices for the Microgravity Electromagnetic Levitation Facility EML

This paper reports on two advanced measurement devices for the microgravity electromagnetic levitation facility (EML), which is currently under construction for the use onboard the "International Space Station (ISS)": the "Sample Coupling Electronics (SCE)" and the "Oxygen Sensing and Control Unit (OSC)". The SCE measures by a contactless, inductive method the electrical resistivity and the diameter of a spherical levitated metallic droplet by evaluating the voltage and electrical current applied to the levitation coil. The necessity of the OSC comes from the insight that properties like surface tension or, eventually, viscosity cannot seriously be determined by the oscillating drop method in the EML facility without knowing the conditions of the surrounding atmosphere. In the following both measurement devices are explained and laboratory test results are presented.

Brillo, Jurgen↗

NASA NTRS2021

Deriving Deformable Mirror Performance Requirements in Simulation with Experimental Verification

Coronagraph instruments rely on predictable and stable deformable mirror (DM) surface displacement to achieve the contrast required to detect Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting nearby Solar-type stars. Anomalous DM behavior, such as unstable or pinned actuators, can limit contrast in coronagraphs. Simulating how these undesired behaviors affect the performance of a high contrast imaging architecture is important for developing requirements on their associated hardware. Simulating a vortex coronagraph (VC) with two deformable mirrors, this study quantifies how the number of pinned actuators affect the performance of Focal Plane Wavefront Sensing and Control algorithms using both Grid Search Electric Field Conjugation (EFC) and Planned EFC, which uses Beta-Bumping. The simulation also quantifies how various types of voltage noise such as zero-mean Gaussian noise, zero-mean periodic noise, and drift can affect the contrast of a VC during an observation run. A tolerance of a change in the Mean Normalized Intensity of ${1\times10^{-11}}$ is allocated to both types of error. If Planned EFC is used, only 1 pinned actuator on both DMs can be tolerated. If only pure Grid Search EFC is used the DMs cannot have any pinned actuators. For the case of zero-mean Gaussian noise and zero-mean periodic noise, one can tolerate a noise standard deviation of no more than ${\sigma = 0.45 \text{ mV}}$. For drift, we can only tolerate ${\sigma = 0.30 \text{ mV}}$ or less. These results show that the DM electronics and the DM themselves need to be nearly defect free to avoid having more than 1 pinned actuator. The electronics need to be tested for different types of noise statistics and that both the average and standard deviation of the noise should be measured.

Dean L. Palmer↗

NASA NTRS1972

Handbook for the calculation of approximate data for spaceborne sensors

In allocating the RF spectrum for the transmission of sensed data from space to earth, the characteristics of the data produced by each sensor are discussed. For example, data may be in the form of a continually varying voltage (analog) or may be a series of discrete pulses (digital). For the analog signal, its important characteristics to the spectrum allocator are its highest frequency component (bandwidth) and its range from minimum values (dynamic range or signal-to-noise ratio). For the digital signal, the characteristic of interest is the bit rate.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1987

On the control of flexible structures by applied thermal gradients

Thermal, elastic, and feedback analyses are applied to the case of a beam with a distributed thermal actuator. The actuator is capable of producing a thermal gradient across the section of the beam. One candidate for such an actuator uses the Peltier effect, which appears in certain semiconductors. These devices act as heat pumps when a voltage is applied, causing a temperature gradient. It is shown that the thermal gradients can induce deflection in the beam. If the thermal gradients are applied in the proper sense to a vibrating beam, it is possible to increase the vibration damping exhibited by the structure. Experimental results are given for a cantilever beam, whose first vibrational mode damping ratio was increased from 0.81 to 7.4 percent with a simple lead compensation.

Edberg, D. L.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Control of flexible structures by applied thermal gradients

Edberg, Donald L.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Small Business Innovations (MISER)

Lightwave Electronics Corporation, Mountain View, CA, developed the Series 120 and 122 non-planner diode pumped ring lasers based on a low noise ring laser with voltage tuning that they delivered to Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract. The voltage tuning feature allows "phase-locking" the lasers, making them "electronic," similar to radio and microwave electronic oscillators. The Series 120 and 122 can be applied to fiber sensing, coherent communications and laser radar.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1977

Reconditioning experience at Marshall Space Flight Center

Problems encountered on Skylab prompted the development of a reconditioning circuit which involves a DC to DC converter, a circuit sensing device, and the capability of switching several size reconditioners onto a circuit. Across each cell there is a full bridge rectifier. During battery discharge, if there is low cell voltage, the reconditioning systems holds that voltage up and permits discharge to continue on the system. When the cell is good, the voltage is up about one volt, the diodes are back, or reversed biased, and the current drawn out of the system is very low. The system has a standby power thrown at about one volt. As the voltage drops on a cell, the circuit strts picking up the load and helps hold the overall battery voltage up.

Paschal, L. E.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Correction for Self-Heating When Using Thermometers as Heaters in Precision Control Applications

In precision control applications, thermometers have temperature-dependent electrical resistance with germanium or other semiconductor material thermistors, diodes, metal film and wire, or carbon film resistors. Because resistance readout requires excitation current flowing through the sensor, there is always ohmic heating that leads to a temperature difference between the sensing element and the monitored object. In this work, a thermistor can be operated as a thermometer and a heater, simultaneously, by continuously measuring the excitation current and the corresponding voltage. This work involves a method of temperature readout where the temperature offset due to self-heating is subtracted exactly.

Ressler, Michael E.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Current sensing circuit

A current sensing circuit is described in which a pair of bipolar transistors are arranged with a pair of field effect transistors such that the field effect transistors absorb most of the supply voltage associated with a load.

Franke, Ralph J.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Polarization Imaging Apparatus with Auto-Calibration

A polarization imaging apparatus measures the Stokes image of a sample. The apparatus consists of an optical lens set, a first variable phase retarder (VPR) with its optical axis aligned 22.5 deg, a second variable phase retarder with its optical axis aligned 45 deg, a linear polarizer, a imaging sensor for sensing the intensity images of the sample, a controller and a computer. Two variable phase retarders were controlled independently by a computer through a controller unit which generates a sequential of voltages to control the phase retardations of the first and second variable phase retarders. A auto-calibration procedure was incorporated into the polarization imaging apparatus to correct the misalignment of first and second VPRs, as well as the half-wave voltage of the VPRs. A set of four intensity images, I(sub 0), I(sub 1), I(sub 2) and I(sub 3) of the sample were captured by imaging sensor when the phase retardations of VPRs were set at (0,0), (pi,0), (pi,pi) and (pi/2,pi), respectively. Then four Stokes components of a Stokes image, S(sub 0), S(sub 1), S(sub 2) and S(sub 3) were calculated using the four intensity images.

Zou, Yingyin Kevin↗

NASA NTRS2005

NASA Tech Briefs, July 2005

Thin-Film Resistance Heat-Flux Sensors Circuit Indicates that Voice-Recording Disks are Nearly Full Optical Sensing of Combustion Instabilities in Gas Turbines Topics include: Crane-Load Contact Sensor; Hexagonal and Pentagonal Fractal Multiband Antennas; Multifunctional Logic Gate Controlled by Temperature; Multifunctional Logic Gate Controlled by Supply Voltage; Power Divider for Waveforms Rich in Harmonics; SCB Quantum Computers Using iSWAP and 1-Qubit Rotations; CSAM Metrology Software Tool; Update on Rover Sequencing and Visualization Program; Selecting Data from a Star Catalog; Rotating Desk for Collaboration by Two Computer Programmers; Variable-Pressure Washer; Magnetically Attached Multifunction Maintenance Rover; Improvements in Fabrication of Sand/Binder Cores for Casting; Solid Freeform Fabrication of Composite-Material Objects; Efficient Computational Model of Hysteresis; Gauges for Highly Precise Metrology of a Compound Mirror; Improved Electrolytic Hydrogen Peroxide Generator; High-Power Fiber Lasers Using Photonic Band Gap Materials; Ontology-Driven Information Integration; Quantifying Traversability of Terrain for a Mobile Robot; More About Arc-Welding Process for Making Carbon Nanotubes; Controlling Laser Spot Size in Outer Space; or Software-Reconfigurable Processors for Spacecraft.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2007

Space Technology 7 : Micropropulsion and Mass Distribution

The NASA New Millennium Program Space Technology 7 (ST7) project will validate technology for precision spacecraft control. The ST7 disturbance reduction system (DRS) will contain new micropropulsion technology to be flown as part of the European Space Agency's LISA (laser interferometer space antenna) Pathfinder project. After launch into a low Earth orbit in early 2010, the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft will be maneuvered to a halo orbit about the Earth-Sun LI Lagrange point for operations. The DRS will control the position of the spacecraft relative to a reference to an accuracy of one nanometer over time scales of several thousand seconds. To perform the control the spacecraft will use a new colloid thruster technology. The thrusters will operate over the range of 5 to 30 micro-Newtons with precision of 0.1 micro-Newton. The thrust will be generated by using a high electric field to extract charged droplets of a conducting colloid fluid and accelerating them with a precisely adjustable voltage. The control position reference will be provided by the European LISA Technology Package, which will include two nearly free-floating test masses. The test mass position and attitude will be sensed and adjusted using electrostatic capacitance bridges. The DRS will control the spacecraft position with respect to one test mass while minimizing disturbances on the second test mass. The dynamic control system will cover eighteen degrees of freedom, six for each of the test masses and six for the spacecraft. In the absence of other disturbances, the test masses will slowly gravitate toward local concentrations of spacecraft mass. The test mass acceleration must be minimized to maintain the acceleration of the enclosing drag-free spacecraft within the control authority of the micropropulsion system. Therefore, test mass acceleration must be predicted by accurate measurement of mass distribution, then offset by the placement of specially shaped balance masses near each test mass. The - acceleration is characterized by calculating the gravitational effect of over ten million modeled points of a nearly 500-kg spacecraft. This paper provides an overview of the mission technology and the process of precision mass modeling of the DRS equipment.

ST-7↗

NASA NTRS2017

UAV Inspection of Electrical Transmission Infrastructure with Path Conformance Autonomy and Lidar-Based Geofences NASA Report on UTM Reference Mission Flights at Southern Company Flights November 2016

Flights at low altitudes in close proximity to electrical transmission infrastructure present serious navigational challenges: GPS and radio communication quality is variable and yet tight position control is needed to measure defects while avoiding collisions with ground structures. To advance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation technology while accomplishing a task with economic and societal benefit, a high voltage electrical infrastructure inspection reference mission was designed. An integrated air-ground platform was developed for this mission and tested in two days of experimental flights to determine whether navigational augmentation was needed to successfully conduct a controlled inspection experiment. The airborne component of the platform was a multirotor UAV built from commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, and the ground component was a commercial laptop running open source software. A compact ultraviolet sensor mounted on the UAV can locate 'hot spots' (potential failure points in the electric grid), so long as the UAV flight path adequately samples the airspace near the power grid structures. To improve navigation, the platform was supplemented with two navigation technologies: lidar-to-polyhedron preflight processing for obstacle demarcation and inspection distance planning, and trajectory management software to enforce inspection standoff distance. Both navigation technologies were essential to obtaining useful results from the hot spot sensor in this obstacle-rich, low-altitude airspace. Because the electrical grid extends into crowded airspaces, the UAV position was tracked with NASA unmanned aerial system traffic management (UTM) technology. The following results were obtained: (1) Inspection of high-voltage electrical transmission infrastructure to locate 'hot spots' of ultraviolet emission requires navigation methods that are not broadly available and are not needed at higher altitude flights above ground structures. (2) The sensing capability of a novel airborne UV detector was verified with a standard ground-based instrument. Flights with this sensor showed that UAV measurement operations and recording methods are viable. With improved sensor range, UAVs equipped with compact UV sensors could serve as the detection elements in a self-diagnosing power grid. (3) Simplification of rich lidar maps to polyhedral obstacle maps reduces data volume by orders of magnitude, so that computation with the resultant maps in real time is possible. This enables real-time obstacle avoidance autonomy. Stable navigation may be feasible in the GPS-deprived environment near transmission lines by a UAV that senses ground structures and compares them to these simplified maps. (4) A new, formally verified path conformance software system that runs onboard a UAV was demonstrated in flight for the first time. It successfully maneuvered the aircraft after a sudden lateral perturbation that models a gust of wind, and processed lidar-derived polyhedral obstacle maps in real time. (5) Tracking of the UAV in the national airspace using the NASA UTM technology was a key safety component of this reference mission, since the flights were conducted beneath the landing approach to a heavily used runway. Comparison to autopilot tracking showed that UTM tracking accurately records the UAV position throughout the flight path.

Moore, Andrew J.↗

NASA NTRS1980

Driver for solar cell I-V characteristic plots

A bipolar voltage ramp generator which applies a linear voltage through a resistor to a solar cell for plotting its current versus voltage (I-V) characteristic between short circuit and open circuit conditions is disclosed. The generator has automatic stops at the end points. The resistor serves the multiple purpose of providing a current sensing resistor, setting the full-scale current value, and providing a load line with a slope approximately equal to one, such that it will pass through the origin and the approximate center of the I-V curve with about equal distance from that center to each of the end points.

Turner, G. B.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Electro-Active Transducer Using Radial Electric Field To Produce/Motion Sense Out-Of-Plane Transducer

An electro-active transducer includes a ferroelectric material sandwiched by first and second electrode patterns. When the device is used as an actuator, the first and second electrode patterns are configured to introduce an electric field into the ferroelectric material when voltage is applied to the electrode patterns. When the device is used as a sensor. the first and second electrode patterns are configured to introduce an electric field into the ferroelectric material when the ferroelectric material experiences deflection in a direction substantially perpendicular thereto. In each case, the electrode patterns are designed to cause the electric field to: i) originate at a region of the ferroelectric material between the first and second electrode patterns. and ii) extend radially outward from the region of the ferroelectric material (at which the electric field originates) and substantially parallel to the ferroelectric material s plane.

Bryant, Robert G.↗