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Spinoff story
Hydraulic Carts Streamline Structural Tests for Aircraft
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
Aircraft hydraulic testing facilities can be jungles of hoses, wires, and pipes. When replacing its hydraulic system, the Flight Loads Laboratory at Armstrong Flight Research Center significantly reduced the miles of connections by hiring East Aurora, New York-based Moog Inc. to develop a series of hydraulic carts. Each SmartCART can connect eight hydraulic actuators to a front-end computer with just two connections. The system is especially useful for facilities that have to reconfigure test setups frequently.