This is a book on energy storage. Most electrical energy is AC, and is used when generated. Direct current is stored in battery, but there is no such things as an AC battery. There are other ways to store the energy. Solar cells only produce electricity during the day, and we might need the energy at night. Hydro power system generate power when there is a sufficient amount of water flow. Nuclear plants generate power as needed. Power from geothermal wells is generally available 24x7.

This book is intended as an introduction to the topics of computer virtualization and the cloud. We will see how the topics come together.The book includes extensive reference and background material. It will not teach you to be an expert in virtualization or cloud technologies. It will teach you to understand and appreciate these topics, and how they fit into the big picture of computing. The best way to learn these technologies is to use them.

I am assuming a basic knowledge of computer architecture, but most of what you need to know is also included. The details of computer math are presented in an appendix. I have collected together a representative list of reference books and interesting titles in the bibliography. In a quickly evolving field such as embedded computers, new and relevant material is emerging all the time. This book represents a current snapshot of the field. The plan is to update the material at reasonable int...

This book covers the topic of On-orbit repair and servicing of spacecraft. Putting a communications satellite in synchronous orbit will set you back 100’s of millions of dollars. Once on orbit, you hope it survived the launch environment, and operates correctly. You further hope it works at least for its design lifetime, and as long as possible. This approach, based on good engineering design practices, lessons learned, and hope, it the equivalent of buying a new Tesla with non-rechargeabl...

This book documents the development of missile and spacecraft guidance computers from the earliest efforts to the current Space Station and satellite onboard systems. This book developed from the author's presentation at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in 2009 for the Workshop on Flight Software. The second and third editions were expanded with new material and references. The fourth edition updated the material to the state of the art in 2014, with discussions of...

Apollo was built in the era of “big iron” computer mainframes. The concept of an onboard computer for space missions was radically new. There was only one place in the world that could design the Apollo Guidance Computers, and that was MIT. It took most of the U.S.’s production of integrated circuits, another radical idea replacing individual vacuum tubes, to build the AGC’s. It took 2,000 person-years of independent code review and validation to ensure that they would operate properly.

This book is about the Personal Robots from the 1980's that inspired hopes for the future. This was triggered, in part, by the robots of the Star War series. R2D2 was based on the three service droids of the early Science Fiction movie, Silent Running. They were named Huey, Louie, and Dewey. At the same time, personal computers were emerging as affordable and easier to use. The excitement and the technology reached a tipping point. Before this time, robotics mainly meant large hydraulic un...

This book is an update to an earlier book on x86 computer architecture, hardware and software. The x86 describes not only a line of microprocessor chips dating back to 1978, but also an instruction set architecture (ISA) that the chips implement. The chip families are built by Intel and other manufacturers, and execute the same instructions, but in different ways. The results are the same, arithmetically and logically, but may differ in their timing.Why the focus on the Intel x86? ...

This book covers the topic of satellite control centers. We'll take a look at the historical development of satellite control centers, from the earliest efforts of the iconic Apollo Mission Control at Houston. Mention a spacecraft control center, and every one remembers the one from the movie Apollo-13.The primary focus will be NASA efforts, but similar facilities are in use by other spacefaring nations. This book is intended as an technical introduction to the subject. We'll look ...

There is a brief review of computer architecture, binary math, and digital logic that you can skip, if you are familiar with these topics.The evolution of the 8-bit processors is a history of the advance of semiconductor technology from the first transistors, to the breakthrough of multiple transistors on a chip, the integrated circuit. A lot of this happened when the “Silicon Valley” of northern California was mostly known for its citrus crops. The tools that made all this happen ...

In 1983, the British company Acorn Computers Ltd. was shopping for a new 16-bit processor to replace the 8-bit Mostek 6502 that they were then using. Some say that Acorn was rejected by Intel, others say that Acorn didn’t like either the Intel 80286 or the Motorola MC 68000. In any case, the company decided to develop its own processor called the Acorn RISC Machine, or ARM. The company had been started in Cambridge, UK, in 1978. The name Acorn was supposed to suggest expandability and grow...

This book covers the topics of the existence of planets around others stars. We think now we are unique in the Universe, but the Universe is very large. This book just touches the surface of this very exciting field. With better telescopes and data processing methods, more planets in our galaxy have been found. Dedicated planet-finding facilities on the ground and in space have been deployed. We now see that planets are rather common in our galaxy. The next big question is, do any of them ...