Award-Winning NASA Camera Revolutionizes How We See the Invisible

A shock wave interacting with a thin layer of fluid at Mach 10 in a wind tunnel, as captured by the Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren (SAFS) system invented in 2020 by researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Compared to conventional Schlieren imaging it eliminates irrelevant features such astunnel boundary layers, off-plane shockwaves, and flow structures from temperature variations outside the wind tunnel.

Credits: NASA/Brett Bathel

Imagine trying to photograph wind. That’s similar to what NASA engineers dealt with during a recent effort to study how air moves around planes, rockets, and other kinds of aerospace vehicles. Air is invisible, but our understanding of how it flows is crucial for building better, safer aircraft.

For 80 years, researchers used a technique called “focused schlieren imaging.” Think of it as a special camera system that can “see” air movement by detecting tiny changes in its density. It’s the same effect that lets you to see heat waves rising from hot pavement on a sunny day — just much more precise.

The Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren (SAFS) system is a game-changer. It’s a compact, low-cost, easy-to-use visualization tool that is less complex than traditional focusing schlieren systems.

“What makes this breakthrough compelling is the ripple effect,” said NASA’s Brett Bathel, who invented the SAFS alongside fellow engineer Joshua Weisberger at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “When researchers can see and understand air movement in ways that were previously difficult to achieve, it leads to better aircraft designs and safer flights for everyone.” 

The SAFS system is an innovative measurement technology the uses cameras and light polarization to visualize flow structures. In this video, the SAFS is showing the middle section of a rocket booster and capturing the complex shock structures along the booster for various angles of attack.

NASA/Brett Bathel

Switching from older systems to SAFS in wind tunnels and other specialized research environments allows aerospace engineers to gather high-speed flow visualization data more efficiently, with less facility downtime, and lower costs. For the aviation industry, it opens doors to new discoveries, potentially revolutionizing how we design everything from commercial airliners to spacecraft.

With SAFS in its toolbox, NASA is also better positioned to meet its mission goals related to efficiency and safety in aviation and space. Researchers are using SAFS to capture flow separation on the High Lift Common Research Model, a tool for improving how accurately we can predict the takeoff and landing performance of new aircraft. And it’s helping them investigate shock cell structures — diamond shapes that form in exhaust plumes — for the Space Launch System model.

The NASA technology is already being used worldwide, adopted by over 50 institutions in more than 8 countries, from Notre Dame to the University of Liverpool. Companies continue to license the technology and commercial versions are hitting the market.

The impact has been so significant that NASA’s researchers earned multiple awards. R&D World gave SAFS a spot on its 2025 R&D 100 Awards, selected by a panel of global experts.

NASA also named the SAFS a 2025 NASA Government Invention of the Year, the highest award the agency gives to groundbreaking technologies.

Giant Leap Ahead

To understand why the SAFS is a big deal, you need to know what researchers were working with before.

The older focused schlieren imaging setup required researchers to have access to both sides of what they were testing. They needed to set up separate grids of light sources on each side and align them perfectly with each other. It’s the equivalent of lining up two window screens on opposite sides of a room so their patterns match exactly.

The SAFS system is an imaging method developed by Brett Bathel and Joshua Weisberger at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It provides researchers with a simple setup for testing than the complex, manual alignment needed with traditional dual-grid setup systems.

NASA/

Setting up one of these systems could take weeks of painstaking adjustments, and if someone accidentally bumped the system or needed to make an adjustment? Start over.

Enter the SAFS system. In 2020, NASA researchers asked a critical question: What would happen if they could eliminate all that complexity by using the properties of light itself?

The solution? Light polarization. Your polarized sunglasses work by filtering light in specific directions. The SAFS system does something similar, using light polarization to create the same effect as the older, cumbersome dual-grid setup. The SAFS system only requires access to one side of the object you’re testing. And, instead of needing two separate grids that must be perfectly aligned, it uses just one grid that does double duty.

What used to take weeks of setup now takes just minutes. Need to make adjustments? No problem. The SAFS system can tweak sensitivity, change its field of view, or adjust focus on the fly. The system is compact and immune to vibrations (goodbye, starting-over-because-someone-walked-by).

Sometimes revolutionary advances come not from adding complexity, but from finding new creative solutions to age-old problems. The SAFS is proof that there’s always room for innovation — and this one is already making its mark on the world.

The work on SAFS was supported through NASA’s Aerosciences Evaluation and Test Capabilities portfolio office and Transformational Tools and Technologies project, which works to develop new computational tools to help predict aircraft performance. The project is part of NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program under its Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.

Diana Fitzgerald

Writer

Source: Award-Winning NASA Camera Revolutionizes How We See the Invisible - NASA

A gel for wounds that won't heal: Oxygen-delivering technology can prevent amputations - medicalxpress

Diagram of the self-oxygenating wound-healing technology. Credit: Iman Noshadi/UCR

As aging populations and rising diabetes rates drive an increase in chronic wounds, more patients face the risk of amputations. UC Riverside researchers have developed an oxygen-delivering gel capable of healing injuries that might otherwise progress to limb loss.

How oxygen deprivation stalls healing

Injuries that fail to heal for more than a month are considered chronic wounds. They affect an estimated 12 million people annually worldwide, and around 4.5 million in the U.S. Of these, about one in five patients will ultimately require a life-altering amputation.

The new gel, tested in animal models, targets what researchers believe is a root cause of many chronic wounds: a lack of oxygen in the deepest layers of the damaged tissue. Without sufficient oxygen, wounds languish in a prolonged state of inflammation, allowing bacteria to flourish and tissue to deteriorate rather than regenerate.

"Chronic wounds don't heal by themselves," said Iman Noshadi, UCR associate professor of bioengineering who led the research team.

"There are four stages to healing chronic wounds: inflammation, vascularization where tissue starts making blood vessels, remodeling, and regeneration or healing. In any of these stages, lack of a stable, consistent oxygen supply is a big problem," he said.

When oxygen from the air or bloodstream cannot penetrate far enough into injured tissue, the result is hypoxia, which derails normal healing. The researchers' approach to preventing hypoxia with a gel is detailed in a paper published in Communications Materials.

A tiny electrochemical oxygen factory

The soft, flexible gel contains water as well as a choline-based liquid that is antibacterial, nontoxic, and biocompatible. When paired with a small battery similar to those used in hearing aids, the gel becomes a tiny electrochemical machine splitting water molecules to generate a slow, steady stream of oxygen.

Unlike treatments that deliver oxygen only at the surface, the gel conforms to the unique shape of each wound, filling crevices where oxygen levels are often lowest and infection risk is highest. Before it sets, the material molds precisely to the contours of the damaged tissue.

Equally important, the oxygen delivery is continuous. Vascularization can take weeks, so brief bursts of oxygen are not enough. The new system can provide sustained oxygen levels for up to a month, helping transform a nonhealing wound into one that behaves like a normal injury.

Promising results in animal models

In tests on diabetic and older mice, chosen because their wounds closely resemble chronic wounds in older humans, untreated injuries failed to heal and were often fatal. With the oxygen-generating patch applied and replaced weekly, wounds closed in about 23 days, and the animals survived.

"We could make this patch as a product where the gel may need to be renewed periodically," said Prince David Okoro, UCR bioengineering doctoral candidate in Noshadi's lab and paper co-author.

The gel's chemistry offers an added benefit. Choline, a key component, has properties that help modulate the immune system and calm excessive inflammation. Chronic wounds are often overwhelmed by reactive oxygen species, which are unstable molecules that damage cells and prolong inflammation. By increasing stable oxygen while helping rein in this immune overreaction, the gel restores balance rather than triggering further stress.

"There are bandages that absorb fluid, and some that release antimicrobial agents," said Okoro. "But none of them really address hypoxia, which is the fundamental problem. We're tackling that directly."

Beyond wounds: Building future organs

The implications of this project extend beyond wound care. Oxygen and nutrient deprivations are major challenges in attempts to grow replacement tissues or organs, which is one of the primary goals of the Noshadi laboratory.

"When the thickness of a tissue increases, it's hard to diffuse that tissue with what it needs, so cells start dying," Noshadi said. "This project can be seen as a bridge to creating and sustaining larger organs for people in need of them."

There are some factors causing the prevalence of chronic wounds that cannot be solved with a gel. In addition to climbing rates of diabetes and aging populations, UCR bioengineer and paper co-author Baishali Kanjilal notes other factors.

"Our sedentary lifestyles are causing our immune responses to decrease," she said. "It's hard to get to societal roots of our problems. But this innovation represents a chance to reduce amputations, improve quality of life, and give the body what it needs to heal itself." 

Provided by University of California - Riverside 

by Jules Bernstein, University of California - Riverside

edited by Robert Egan 

Source: A gel for wounds that won't heal: Oxygen-delivering technology can prevent amputations