Patents

Over the past three decades, NASA has granted more than 1000 patent licenses in virtually every area of technology. The agency has a portfolio of 3000 patents and pending applications available now for license by businesses and individuals, including these recently patented inventions:

Bearingless Switched Reluctance Motor

U.S. Patent No. 6,727,618

Carlos R. Morrison, John H. Glenn Research Center

Switched reluctance motors typically are constructed of a stator with an even number of poles and a rotor with an even number of poles. The rotor poles typically protrude crosswise around the rotating shaft in an outward manner; the stator poles protrude inwardly. In switched reluctance motors, the protruding stator poles attract the poles on the outer surface of the rotor to generate torque and rotate the rotor. However, switched reluctance rotors suffer from vibration caused by large magnetic forces on the rotor, and traditional bearings are subject to wear.

This invention provides a bearingless switched reluctance motor having a stator with a plurality of pairs of poles and a hybrid rotor with a plurality of pole pairs in a laminated bundle on a first portion, and a stack of circular laminations forming a circular disc on a second portion. Levitation is produced, and vibration is suppressed by using feed-back and feed-forward commands in the control software.

Extremely Efficient, Miniaturized, Long-Lived Alpha-Voltaic Power Source Using Liquid Gallium

U.S. Patent No. 6,700,298

G. Jeffrey Snyder, Jagdishbhai Patel, and Jean-Pierre Fleurial, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Industrial-sized processes in electrical power plants generate megawatts of electricity for distribution over an electric grid powering cities and towns. But there is a need for electric power generation in environments isolated from large-scale or other electric power grids, such as in open water and deep ocean exploration, or even in orbital and deep space.

The purpose of this invention is to provide an extremely efficient, compact, and long-lasting power source that can be used to supply electrical power where it otherwise would be unavailable. The invention uses the kinetic energy of alpha particles emitted during radioactive decay, and converts the large quantity of available kinetic energy to electrical energy. The resulting devices provide a corresponding power level of approximately 20 milliwatts each. Devices using the technology can be connected in series to elevate the voltage and in parallel to elevate the current.

Communications Interface For Wireless Communications Headset

U.S. Patent No. 6,745,014

Marc A. Seibert and Anthony Joseph Culotta, Jr., Kennedy Space Center

A universal interface adapter circuit interfaces a wireless communications headset with any type of communications system, including those that require push-to-talk (PTT) signaling. The adapter is comprised of an RF signaling receiver, a microcontroller and associated circuitry for decoding and processing received signals, and programmable impedance matching and line interfacing circuitry for interfacing a wireless communications headset system base to a communications system.

The user utilizes a portable signaling transmitter to send signals to the receiver. A control signal closes a switch to complete a voice connection between the headset system base and the communications system so that the user can communicate with the system. The adapter also can be configured to respond to or deliver any other signals. Multiple wireless users can operate independently in the same environment through a number of interface adapters.

For more information on the inventions described here, contact the appropriate NASA Field Center's Innovative Technology Partnerships (ITP) Office.