Electric field imaging system, that's a new
technology.
People have tried to look at electric fields
coming from just the electron itself and generally
it fails because every time you try and make
a measurement the object that you're using
to measure with distorts the field.
So, electric field imaging is a method to
image those fields and you do it by putting
a sensor in there that does not disturb the
field.
It's a quantities measurement of an electric
field.
Others that have worked in the area generally
have signatures, not a quantitative measurement.
It works in two ways, and here we are being
photographed and we have a camera and a light.
Electric field imaging is very analogous to
that.
If you can illuminate objects with an electric
field, you can see how that field is distorted
by the presence of the object.
Every time that I turn one of my systems on,
I find a new thing that I never knew about.
For space systems, for example.
Plasma, we have plasma flow and things like
that.
We want to be able to control it more evenly.
You generally can't see some of the plasmas.
So if you can imagine the plasma, you can
identify how the controls are changing the
plasma flow.
Outside NASA.
Immediate applications are for looking at
the integrity of power systems and also safety.
One of the issues with power systems is that
if not grounded properly you can have a problem
with your system and things like that.
But also personnel safety.
Baggage inspection.
Additive manufacturing has come forward where
people can now make weapons out of all plastic.
You can actually image through the container
to identify those and they light up like light
bulbs in this case because they're generally
polymer systems.
We never knew that people walk on the floors
across rugs their footprints are left electrostatically
and you can see those footprints, they stay
there for days and so you can actually have
some forensics activity where you can look and see
what happened, where everybody was walking
around.
I think the biggest impact, you'll start to
see things like your cardiac system and your
nervous system. You'll start to image those areas.
If I introduce the more sensitive sensors
in terms of medical applications, you can
identify where problems are in the sense you're
now imaging the nervous system and the cardiac
potentials.
It's a very low cost system.
You could build one for a few hundred dollars
if you wanted to.
It's also real time and you can do multiple
dimensions.
It's going to sell itself, I don't have to
sell it.
This NASA technology and many others are ready
to be transferred to your business, find out
more by visiting technology.nasa.gov.
