Group items tagged

12 new NIAC 1 studies - many topics familiar to us ... please have a look at those closest to your expertise to see if there is anything new/worth investigating (and in general to be knowledgeable on them since we will get questions sooner or later on them)
Principal Investigator Proposal Title Organization City, State, Zip Code
Atchison, Justin Swarm Flyby Gravimetry Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218-2680
Boland, Eugene Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed Techshot, Inc. Greenville, IN 47124-9515
Cash, Webster The Aragoscope: Ultra-High Resolution Optics at Low Cost University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0389
Chen, Bin 3D Photocatalytic Air Processor for Dramatic Reduction of Life Support Mass & Complexity NASA ARC Moffett Field, CA 94035-0000
Hoyt, Robert WRANGLER: Capture and De-Spin of Asteroids and Space Debris Tethers Unlimited Bothel, WA 98011-8808
Matthies, Larry Titan Aerial Daughtercraft NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
Miller, Timothy Using the Hottest Particles in the Universe to Probe Icy Solar System Worlds John Hopkins University Laurel, MD 20723-6005
Nosanov, Jeffrey PERISCOPE: PERIapsis Subsurface Cave OPtical Explorer NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
Oleson, Steven Titan Submarine: Exploring the Depths of Kraken NASA GRC Cleveland, OH 44135-3127
Ono, Masahiro Comet Hitchhiker: Harvesting Kinetic Energy from Small Bodies to Enable Fast and Low-Cost Deep Space Exploration NASA JPL Pasadena, CA 91109-8001
Streetman, Brett Exploration Architecture with Quantum Inertial Gravimetry and In Situ ChipSat Sensors Draper Laboratory Cambridge, MA 02139-3539
Wiegmann, Bruce Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) NASA MSFC Huntsville, AL 35812-0000

Eh, the swarm flyby gravimetry is very similar to the "measuring gravitational fields" project I proposed in the brewery

seems also potentially useful for astronauts ...

Making a jumping spider eye with nanophotonics and computer vision: depth from defocus with an integrated mentalens sensor! Some in the ACT might be familiar with the concept...

Solid state tunnel junction can cool "payload" to sub-Kelvin temperatures. This would be much more convenient than for example helium3-helium4 mixing. Proposed use for cooling sensors on spacecraft - could extend lifetime of satellites like ESA's about to switched off Herschel almost indefinitely.

The next advance in weather forecasting may not come from a new satellite or supercomputer, but from a device in your pocket. University of Washington atmospheric scientists are using pressure sensors included in the newest smartphones to develop better weather forecasting techniques.

Hard work in functional materials is driving the development of new wearable electronics that could be advantageous for communications and sensing is being pursued in the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America Institute. Through embroidering circuits into fabric with 0.1 mm precision full integration of electronic components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing is now possible.

After graphene and blue brain, the European Commission has quietly announced plans to launch a €1-billion Euro project to boost a raft of quantum technologies - from secure communication networks to ultra-precise gravity sensors and clocks.

Self-destruct options from the Mission: Impossible movies could become a reality for even the most common smartphones and laptops used by government officials or corporate employees. A new self-destruct mechanism can destroy electronics within 10 seconds through wireless commands or the triggering of certain sensors. Just don't leave your computer sitting in the sun for long...

so what about a space sensor for measuring thermal efficiency of buildings? Can you have a look ?

beautiful and hypnotic, but I'd like to know exactly what it is they are visualizing. These don't seem to be the changes in people's locations during phone calls...

of interest to Tom's project?

Mantis shrimp seem to have 12 types of photo-receptive sensors - but this does not really improve their ability to discriminate between colors. Speculation is that they serve as a form of pre-processing for visual information: the brain does not need to decode full color information from just a few channels which would would allow for a smaller brain. I guess technologically the two extremes of light detection would be RGB cameras which are like our eyes and offer good spatial resolution, and spectrometers which have a large amount of color channels but at the cost of spatial resolution. It seems the mantis shrimp uses something that is somewhere between RGB cameras and spectrometers. Could there be a use for this in space?

> RGB cameras which are like our eyes ...apart from the fact that the spectral response of the eyes is completely different from "RGB" cameras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cones_SMJ2_E.svg) ... and that the eyes have 4 types of light-sensitive cells, not three (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cone-response.svg) ... and that, unlike cameras, human eye is precise only in a very narrow centre region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fovea) ...hmm, apart from relying on tri-stimulus colour perception it seems human eyes are in fact completely different from "RGB cameras" :-) OK sorry for picking on this - that's just the colour science geek in me :-) Now seriously, on one hand the article abstract sounds very interesting, but on the other the statement "Why use 12 color channels when three or four are sufficient for fine color discrimination?" reveals so much ignorance to the very basics of colour science that I'm completely puzzled - in the end, it's a Science article so it should be reasonably scientifically sound, right? Pity I can't access full text... the interesting thing is that more channels mean more information and therefore should require *more* power to process - which is exactly opposite to their theory (as far as I can tell it from the abstract...). So the key is to understand *what* information about light these mantises are collecting and why - definitely it's not "colour" in the sense of human perceptual experience. But in any case - yes, spectrometry has its uses in space :-)

Short range chemical analysis methods exist already, but using new high power lasers one could extend the operation length to e.g aircraft.

Isabelle?

The optical setup is very simple and lightweight: a compact semi-conductor DFB laser source and an all optical fiber system for amplification and supercontinuum generation. Interesting for space applications!

"An elegant combination of electronics and elastic materials has been used to construct a small visual sensor that closely resembles an insect's eye. The device paves the way for autonomous navigation of tiny aerial vehicles."

The most tiny autopilot in the world was introduced yesterday by the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands. Named Lisa/s, she comes in at the scales with just a mere 1.9 grams, the 2*2 cm board has everything that a multirotor needs. Among the sensors are a 3 axle gyroscope, compass, barometer and a gps module.

Also hardware and software are open source!

Luca Turin presents a theory according to which the sense of smell is aroused by molecular vibrations instead of the shape-based compatibility with receivers on the proteins.

I guess it might also make sense to put a camera on an extension to look around corners without having to advance the vehicle to where it can be shot at... ?: Could the Oculus be used to let humans control humanoid robots? I guess so. Could humans perform experiments using such robots? Probably. Could Oculus be used to control these robots on the ISS? I guess so. --> Finally we eliminated the last need for humans in space!!! :-D (Maybe we could replace humans on Earth with robots that control one another through Oculus Rift...)

Even cooler would be to have like a swarm of drones around the tank to act as a sensor array and look around corners for you.

We present the design and experimental implementation of a power harvesting metamaterial. A maximum of 36.8% of the incident power from a 900 MHz signal is experimentally rectified by an array of metamaterial unit cells. We demonstrate that the maximum harvested power occurs for a resistive load close to 70 Ω in both simulation and experiment.

Not easily digestible piece of esa document, but to prove Paul's point. And yes, they have already planned to train neural networks on a database of different water types, so that the satellite figures out from the combined retrieval of backscattering and absorption = f(λ) which type of water it is looking at. Type of water relates to οptical clarity of the water, a variable called turbidity. We could do this as well for mapping iron fertilization locations if we find its spectral signature. Lab time?????

Apparently a spin-off company of the University of Wisconsin is developing non-magnetic motors. Maybe this could be useful for reaction wheels etc. on satellites that monitor the Earth's magnetic field... (preventing magnetic interference with sensors)

Duncan, this is one for you! - you can probably even build one in your kitchen ...