Aerospace

Mineral Could be Used to Create Transparent Armor

Imagine a glass window that’s tough like armor, a camera lens that doesn’t get scratched in a sand storm, or a smartphone that doesn’t break when dropped. Except it’s not glass;...

3-Phase Single-Step Power Correction in MilAero Systems

As OEMs seek advantages in Size, Weight, Power and Cost (SWaP-C), focus is shifting to advancements in power electronics. Gaining an advantage requires close attention not only to...

Using Sensor Technology to Combat Legacy Issues in Defense Avionics

Reliance on aging military platforms has become a global concern and military aircraft today are expected to remain in service for longer than their original life cycles....

Counterfeit Electronics in the DOD Supply Chain

Counterfeit semiconductor devices entering the Department of Defense (DOD) supply chain continue to pose risks to many of our country’s most sophisticated aerospace and defense systems....

Touch and Go

Since the digital revolution changed forever the pilot’s working environment, innovators and suppliers of cockpit systems have strived to provide a continuous stream of new developments and products that offer increasingly...

Sandwich Cores for the Future

The search for lighter weight, stronger materials to construct airplanes and spacecraft remains as important as ever. But it takes a long time for new materials in aerospace structures to make their way into...

Making AESA Radar More Flexible

A modular, building-block approach brings greater design flexibility to Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar technology, simplifying system integration, and permitting rapid first-line repair with no...

Developing Secondary Surveillance Radar Automated Test Equipment

Unlike primary radars, Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) calculates the range and azimuth of a target, such as an aircraft, using a bidirectional communication link to gather...

Structural Composites with Tuned EM Chirality

Work on structural composites with tunable chiral elements has produced electronically tunable overall chiral composites, mechanically tunable chiral composites, flat lenses with soft hyperbolic...

Quantitative Diagnostics of Multilayered Composite Structures with Ultrasonic Guided Waves

Aging infrastructure has a major impact on safety, increasing the need to assess damage severity. Machinery, systems, and components such as...

Reactive, Multifunctional, Micellar, Composite Nanoparticles for Destruction of Bio-Agents

Multifunctional composites have been investigated for destruction of bio-agents. These materials’ unique properties at the nano scale, including...

NASA Studies How Volcanic Ash Affects Airplane Engines

NASA researchers are poring over data from a recent test that involved sending volcanic ash through an airplane engine. The primary issue, according to NASA, is that volcanic ash forms...

Army’s “Robo-Raven” UAV Flies with Flapping Wings

In the future, it's possible that some unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) might sport wings that flap like a bird or a butterfly. The Army Research Lab has been testing such a UAV, known...

Remotely Piloted Plane Bridges Gap Between Wind Tunnel and Crewed Testing

A new modular, subscale remotely piloted aircraft offers NASA researchers more affordable options for developing a wide range of cutting edge aviation and space...

"Fused Reality" Combines Simulation and Flying to Train Pilots

There are two ways for pilots to gain proficiency in an airplane and evaluate its handling qualities: climb into the cockpit and take off, or practice in a ground-based...

Researchers Urge Changes to Design of Commercial Aircraft Engines

Virginia Tech researchers are urging changes in how commercial aircraft engines are designed in the wake of a possible new threat to passenger aircraft safety: drones, or...

Implementing Secure Command and Control in Unmanned Systems

Unmanned vehicles are at the forefront of an evolution, especially with the proliferation of the Internet of Things. After decades of serving mission-critical applications in...

Powering On

The steady rise in demand for high-thrust, big-fan engines for new wide-body commercial airplanes continues to generate massive business, as the 2015 half-year results from Rolls-Royce demonstrated. But at the same time,...

Countering Cybersecurity Threats Against Unmanned Vehicle Systems

As the use of UASs and UAVs increase in the modern battlefield, the need to secure these weapon platforms is of increasing importance as any flaw could have catastrophic...

Enhance EMC Testing with Digital IF

Modern electromagnetic interference (EMI) receivers and spectrum analyzers used for compliance and precompliance testing employ digital intermediate-frequency (digital IF) processing technology for signal...

Compact Thermal Management Solutions for Mobile Laser Weapon Systems

The Navy is developing a vehicle mounted directed energy (DE) weapon system in their Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) Directed Energy On-The-Move (OTM) program. As part of...

Radio Relays Improve Wireless Products

In order to transmit communications through Earth’s atmosphere, satellites and space vehicles need radio equipment that can operate at higher frequencies than on Earth. These higher frequencies, until...

Ontology for Insider Threat Indicators

The study of insider threat presents some of the most complex challenges in information security. Even defining the insider threat has proven difficult, with interpretations and scope varying depending...

Data Mining in Cyber Operations

Defending cyberspace is a complex and largely scoped challenge that considers emerging threats to security in space, land, and sea. The global cyber infrastructure presents many challenges because of the...

Framework for Resilient Remote Monitoring

This method provides continuous monitoring across network-attached devices to identify and mitigate targeted cyber attacks.

System administrators and cyber defenders continue to face challenges in...

Communication Protocol for CyAMS and the Cyber Fighter Associate Interface

This program evaluates agility maneuvers that may be employed within networks to mitigate the effect of cyber attacks.

As the military adopts more networked...

NASA Tests New Green Propellants for Satellites

To stay in the proper orbit, many satellites have thrusters – small rocket engines – that fire to change altitude or orientation in space. On Earth, where gravity dominates, five pounds of...

Tool Nondestructively Characterizes Structural Materials as they Deform

Materials scientists are busy developing advanced materials, while also working to squeeze every bit of performance out of existing materials. This is...