Goddard Engineering Colloquium Series

ABSTRACT -- The United States' Northeast Corridor is home to 17% of the nation's population and is responsible for 20% of the nation's GDP. Existing on just 2% of U.S. land mass, this powerful region is home to many major metropolitan areas but lacks efficient inter-city travel and is greatly constricted by congestion. Clogged highways, …

ABSTRACT -- NASA has charted the evolutionary path toward safe flight of unmanned air vehicles in our nation's airspace, from large Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) in FAA-controlled airspace to NASA's pioneering development of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM), the world's first system of tested technologies for safe, small UAS traffic management. NASA's vision is …

ABSTRACT -- The centrifugal mirror is a linear magnetic confinement concept with a promising path towards commercial fusion energy because of its stability, engineering simplicity, and expected affordability with respect to other fusion concepts. A radial electric field is applied in a mirror configuration, generating azimuthal rotation that in turn creates velocity shear that stabilizes …

ABSTRACT -- The talk will provide an overview on the effort of power grid wide-area monitoring and observations that were made possible from the grid edge synchronized data. The critical roles of wide-area phasor measurement in situation awareness, operation, and control will be discussed. The concept of electromechanical wave propagation in power grid will be …

ABSTRACT -- In 2013 I proposed writing for the 100th anniversary in 2015 of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA's predecessor agency, a new one-volume synthesis that told its story. It was intended as a basic history of NACA/NASA that traced its origins and evolution to the present. Written in an accessible style, …

ABSTRACT -- Just how safe is your car? And what’s going on with the latest autonomous technology? Whatever you drive, do you really know the level of safety that’s designed in both to prevent accidents, and then to protect you and your family if there’s a crash? As the price and complexity of our cars …

ABSTRACT -- I lead an Energy Materials and Devices research group at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a major mission to address the CO2 challenge. Our current research interests include (1) ultrahigh-temperature synthesis of new materials and their use in advanced energy devices, (2) beyond Li-ion batteries for transportation and the grid, and …

ABSTRACT -- The national security requirements of the Cold War drove the development of many new and improved technologies to meet critical defense and security needs. While many of these technologies have uniquely military or government applications, there are others that also have civilian and commercial applications. This presentation will highlight how four different technologies …

ABSTRACT -- Justin Littell will present a talk on the NASA Langley Landing and Impact Research Facility, colloquially known as the Gantry. The talk will include many visual examples and discussion about the types of tests that the Gantry has been used for over the years, starting with the simulated Apollo moon landings and continuing …

ABSTRACT -- Star Trek has been a staple in our culture and society for more than 50 years, not just because of its ability to tell stories of exploring the stars, but to inspire generations to literally explore the stars. Some of what seemed like science fiction back in the 60s has now become commonplace …

ABSTRACT -- Human spaceflight is incredibly complex, and future missions will become more challenging. It will not be sufficient on longer and more ambitious missions simply to ensure that things do not go wrong (risk mitigation); it will also be necessary to provide the tools (tangible and intangible) for the crew and the mission to …

ABSTRACT -- This talk will present battery-free autonomous microrobots that can fly in the wind or drive independently on the ground using microwatts of harvested energy from light or radio waves. This work challenges the conventional assumption that locomotion is beyond the reach of battery-free robots and demonstrates several approaches for achieving autonomous operation in …