The heaviest vehicle to successfully land on Mars is the Curiosity Rover at 1 metric ton. Sending more ambitious robotic missions to the surface of Mars, and eventually humans, will require landed payload masses in the 5- to 20-ton range. A recent study was conducted to determine how to land more mass.

NASA has signed contracts with three industry partners to demonstrate progress in the use and eventual certification of systems critical to the safe operation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS).

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) emitted by a nuclear weapon exploded high above the United States could disable the electronic circuits of many devices vital to military defense and modern living. These could include complicated weapon systems as well as phones, laptops, credit cards and car computers. Also in trouble might be home appliances, gas station pumps and bank accounts.

The use of robots continues to grow within the National Guard and Guard members are likely to soon see additional robots with expanded capabilities. Robots are currently used for a number of mission sets including engineering, explosive ordnance disposal, reconnaissance and detection of chemical and biological agents. Future robots will expand on the capabilities of the current Talon series of robots, as well as take on additional, more generalized functions within a unit, said Bryan McVeigh, the project manager in the Force Projection section for the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office for Combat Support and Combat Service Support.

In early April, nine qualified teams will attempt to remotely navigate the dark and dirty corridors of Edgar Experimental Mine in Idaho Springs, Colorado, in preparation for the Circuits Stage of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Subterranean (SubT) Challenge. The SubT Integration Exercise, known as STIX, offers teams an opportunity to try out their technologies, including robotics, sensors and communications solutions, in a representative environment. The locations for the Circuits Stage events have not been announced.

Researchers used a new theory in physics called stress localization to create a durable silicone polymer coating capable of repelling ice from any surface. The new material uses elastic energy localization where ice meets the material, triggering cracks at the interface that slough off the ice.

BRS Aerospace
South St. Paul, MN
651-457-7491
www.brsaerospace.com

BRS Aerospace has engaged Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research (WSU-NIAR) to develop testing protocols for evaluating the safety and performance of aircraft parachute recovery systems in General Aviation (GA) and Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. Working with WSU-NIAR's Crash Dynamics and Virtual Engineering laboratories, BRS Aerospace will develop whole aircraft parachute recovery system Supplemental Type Certificates for a range of existing general aviation aircraft and approvals for new models currently under development in addition to advanced VTOL technology.

Radio frequency (RF) circuit elements that are traditionally considered to be linear frequently exhibit nonlinear properties that affect the intended operation of many other RF systems. Devices such as RF connectors, antennas, attenuators, resistors, and dissimilar metal junctions generate nonlinear distortion that degrades primary RF system performance. The communications industry is greatly affected by these unintended and unexpected nonlinear distortions. The high transmit power and tight channel spacing of the communication channel makes communications very susceptible to nonlinear distortion.

Defense-Grade FPGAs

Xilinx, Inc. (San Jose, CA) announced availability of its Defense-grade XQ UltraScale+ portfolio of products, providing the benefits of its UltraScale+ architecture plus extended temperature and ruggedized packages to address the needs of the aerospace and defense industry. The new products encompass the XQ Zynq^® UltraScale+ MPSoCs and RFSoCs, as well as XQ Ultra-Scale+ Kintex^® and Virtex ^® FPGAs.

In 1982, the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD), then assigned under the U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command (AVSCOM), began development of a new handling qualities specification for military rotorcraft. This effort resulted in the U.S. Army's initial Aeronautical Design Standard–33 (ADS-33A), “Handling Qualities Requirements for Military Rotorcraft,” published in May 1987. It was initially applied to the RAH-66 Comanche Helicopter program, meaning the handling qualities requirements generally related more to scout and attack classes of rotorcraft. As more data became available and lessons learned emerged from using ADS-33A, refinements were implemented into ADS-33B and ADS-33C).