Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Generic Miniature Airplane for Research and Development

The Air Force Research Laboratory has promulgated the geometrical design of a miniature airplane denoted the Generic Micro Aerial Vehicle (GENMAV). This design is intended to serve as a...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

Measuring Skin Friction in Complex Flows That Include Shocks

A methodology for measuring skin friction (also known as wall shear) in complex flows typical of those inside supersonic-combustion ramjet (scramjet) engines has been developed....

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Miniaturized GPS Controlled-Reception-Pattern Antenna Array

Aminiaturized Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna array is being developed for use on aircraft on which the room available for installation of this or any other equipment is...

Products

Object Detection and Screening

Brijot Imaging Systems, Orlando, FL, has introduced the BIS-WDS® GEN 2 object detection and people screening system that provides security officials with an effective method of detecting and locating...

Products

Night Vision Systems

The Owl® and Prowler® night vision systems from B.E. Meyers & Co., Redmond, WA, can couple to 35-mm, CCD, and digital cameras along with C-Mount and 35-mm objective lenses, telescopes, microscopes, and...

Products

Military Training Simulation Software

Aptima, Inc., Woburn, MA, has announced the DDD 4.0 desktop simulation software for training military and civilian teams. DDD can model a range of environments, including AWACS air battle management,...

Products

Privacy Filters

3M, St. Paul, MN, has introduced an expanded line of the 3M™ Privacy Filters for laptop computers and LCD monitors to make data visible only to persons directly in front of the screen. The microlouver technology works...

Articles: Aerospace

Energy Storage for Hybrid Military Vehicles

The benefits of hybrid electric vehicles have been recognized by the U.S. Army and other military services. As a consequence, hybrid vehicles are being considered as future combat and tactical...

Articles: Aerospace

Update on NASA’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

In the August issue of Defense Tech Briefs, we highlighted NASA’s Altair/Predator B unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for Earth science missions. A lot has happened in the past two months, so we’re...

Articles: Aerospace

SpaceWire: The Standard for Aerospace Communications

Developed in 1999 under the auspices of the European Space Agency, SpaceWire answered a longstanding spaceflight problem: no standard, high-speed communications protocol existed for flight...

Briefs: Information Technology

Error-Free Data Acquisition and Archival for High-Bandwidth Military Applications

Acquiring data from sensors, transporting the data, and then archiving it for future reference has changed dramatically over the last few years. The...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

System for Imaging Turbulent Combustion Flows

Asystem of scientific instrumentation and data-processing equipment has been assembled for research and education in turbulence, mixing, and chemical reactions (especially combustion) in...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers

Variable-Data-Rate Speech Encoder

Avariable-data-rate (VDR) speech encoder has been designed to be interoperable with, and eventually to supplant, the many different voice encoders now used in military communication systems. Because these...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Apparatus Generates CE-Phase-Stable Two-Cycle Optical Pulses

A n apparatus that includes two optical parametric chirped pulse amplification stages has been built as a means of generating few-cycle, common-envelope (CE)-phase-stable,...

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Terahertz Fiber-Optic Lasers for Detection of Explosives

Fiber-optic lasers of a proposed type would serve as sources of coherent radiation at frequencies between 0.5 and 4.0 THz and output power levels ≥100 mW. In the original application...

Briefs: Materials

Alloys for Nozzles of Hypersonic Wind Tunnels

Alloys are being developed for nozzles of hypersonic wind tunnels to be used in testing components of future hypersonic missiles, aircraft, and space transportation systems. The nozzle components...

Briefs: Materials

Improved Dielectric-Breakdown Property of POSS-Filled Epoxy

A n experimental study has shown that the AC short-term dielectric breakdown potential of material specimens consisting of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) nanoparticles...

Briefs: Materials

Low-Water-Permeability Encapsulants for Acoustic Sensors

Afamily of improved encapsulating materials for protecting underwater acoustic sensors has been invented. These materials could also be used for encapsulation or protective coating of...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

Novel Methods of Detecting Buried Explosive Devices

Several novel methods of detecting landmines and other buried explosive devices have been proposed and are subjects of continuing research. The use of trained dogs has been shown to be an...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

All-Dielectric, Non-Electronic Radio-Receiver Front Ends

All-dielectric, non-electronic, photonicassisted front ends are being developed as alternatives to traditional metal antennas and the associated metal connections and input electronic...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

Liquid-Crystal-Particle Thermometry and Velocimetry System

A three-dimensional (3D) defocusing liquid-crystal-particle thermometry and velocimetry (3DDLCPTV) system has been designed and constructed (but not yet operated) for use in...

Briefs: Information Technology

Thwarting Code-Injection Attacks Using SDT-Based ISR

An improved method has been devised for defending a server or other computer against a code-injection attack, in which an attacker exploits a hardware or software vulnerability to inject...