Webb Telescope Mirror Tech Improves Eye Surgery on Earth

Eye surgery patients on Earth are benefiting from early research on the NASA’s James Webb Telescope’s enormous mirrors.

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow.

Executive Roundtable: Collaborative Robots

Will the adoption of cobots by SMEs accelerate in near future? What are the key challenges cobots need to overcome before they become ubiquitous?

Root of Trust: A Standardization Model that Needs to Happen Now

Billions of connected devices have been adopted within our personal eco-systems, rising two-fold during the pandemic. This means there are even more devices in our lives which can be attacked.

Future Wearable Health Tech Could Measure Gases Released from Skin

Scientists have taken the first step to creating the next generation of wearable health monitors.

Sensor Breakthrough Paves the Way for a Map of the World Under Earth’s Surface

The quantum gravity gradiometer was used to find a tunnel buried outdoors in real-world conditions one meter below the ground surface.

Ultrathin Pressure Sensor Attaches to Skin

By recording the way in which hands perform various tasks, it could help researchers in fields such as sports and medical science as well as neuroengineering.

Thin, Stretchable Biosensors Could Make Surgery Safer

Researchers formulated and synthesized the bio-inks, with the goal of creating create an ultra-soft, thin, and stretchable material for biosensors that is capable of seamlessly interfacing with the surface of organs.

Advanced Humanoid Robotic Hand Technologies

The R2 hand and forearm assembly is designed in a modular fashion, enabling rapid replacement of components and sub-assemblies.

Teaching Drones How to Navigate Real-World Weather

For drones to autonomously perform necessary but quotidian tasks, they must be able to adapt to wind conditions in real time.

Firefly-Inspired Robotic Lightning Bugs Take Flight

The ability to emit light also brings these microscale robots, which weigh barely more than a paper clip, one step closer to flying on their own outside the lab.

Corrugated Rollable Tubular Boom

NASA’s new COROTUB boom is flattened, rolled, and stowed in a small package for easy transport to remote locations. When unfurled, it expands into a load-bearing structural boom.

Tiny Motors to Power a Network of Nanomachines

Researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin recently created the first ever solid-state optical nanomotor.

Integral Tuned Mass Absorber for Turbine Blades

A novel turbine blade design and manufacturing approach developed by NASA provides a significant reduction in turbine blade resonant vibration.

Active Flow Control System for Simple-Hinged Flaps

This simple, elegant invention can control flow separation resulting from the high flap deflections required by simple-hinged flap systems making such flaps a viable option for aircraft designers.

Enhancing Solar Option During Power Outages

Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have designed a novel building-solar controller that optimizes solar energy with smart technology to keep microgrids operating for up to five days.

New Approach to Reducing EV Battery Testing Time

A new optimization framework created by researchers at University of Michigan could drastically reduce the cost of assessing how battery configurations will perform over the long haul.

Large Format Li-Ion Calorimeter

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a method to measure the total and fractional heat response of large format Li-ion cells (cells with capacities greater than 100Ah) when driven into...

Room-Temperature Liquid-Metal Battery

The researchers have created a “room-temperature all-liquid-metal battery,” which includes the best of both worlds of liquid-and solid-state batteries.

A Biodegradable Filtration System for Waste Metal Recovery

This invention is a method of removing or adsorbing a target substance or material.

Using AI to Help Scale Up Advanced Solar Cell Manufacturing

The system makes it possible to integrate data from prior experiments, and information based on personal observations by experienced workers, into the machine learning process.

Unprinting Method Removes Toner with Xenon Light

A new way to unprint paper uses intense pulsed light from a xenon lamp.

Organic Steam Generator Uses Sunlight to Purify Water

Researchers have developed an inexpensive and eco-friendly steam generator to desalinate and purify water using sunlight.

New on the Market: September 2022

New on the market in September 2022, including inductors, a snap-action switch, a stamped spring socket, and more.

Virginia Tech College of Engineering

From artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and manufacturing to health sciences, robotics, and more, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering offers an advanced engineering curriculum.

Fundamental EV Battery Models Explain New Tab Design

Cylindrical cells are one of the most common battery types used in electric vehicles. Tesla recently improved on the typical cylindrical cell design, developing a new tab design that allows for a much larger cell.

Ultrasound Tech Offers Sophisticated Battery-Testing Intelligence

The production and supply of lithium-ion batteries for the global EV and stationary energy storage systems (ESS) markets is growing at an exponential rate. At the same time,...

Niobium: Magic Metal for Battery Anodes?

The element niobium (Nb), a transition metal, stands ready to improve the performance of one of the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery’s confusing array of possible electrode chemistries — the LTO...

A Supercapacitor Device for Carbon Capture

When it discharges, the carbon dioxide can be released in a controlled way and collected to be reused or disposed of responsibly.

Water-Activated Paper Battery

A team of researchers at EMPA have developed a water-activated disposable paper battery.

Electrolyte Additive Improves Battery Performance

The work could lead to improvements in the energy density of lithium batteries that power electric vehicles.

Triggering Li-ion Battery Cells with Laser Radiation

Inducing TR in a battery cell allows engineers to test and improve the safety performance of overheated batteries that can potentially catch fire or explode.

Building Temperature-Resilient Batteries

In tests, the proof-of-concept batteries retained 87.5 percent and 115.9 percent of their energy capacity at -40 °C and 50 °C (-40 °F and 122 °F), respectively.

Glassy Electrolyte Holds Promise for an All-Solid-State Sodium Battery

Lithium-ion batteries are currently the preferred technology for powering electric vehicles, but they’re too expensive for long-duration grid-scale energy storage systems.

Extending the Lifetime of Organic Aqueous Flow Batteries

Over the course of their research, the team discovered that these anthraquinones decompose slowly over time, regardless of how many times the battery has been used.

Designing Sodium-Ion Batteries with Extended Longevity

In batteries, electrolyte is the circulating “blood” that keeps the energy flowing. The electrolyte forms by dissolving salts in solvents, resulting in charged ions that flow between the positive and negative electrodes.

New Products

New products for September 2022.

Optimizing EV Performance Through the Power of Data

We are constantly blindsided by unfortunate battery-related events because as any engineer knows, the devil is in the details – the implementation details.

Designing a Silicon Photonic MEMS Phase Shifter with Simulation

Existing infrastructure still relies on many electrical signal processing components embedded inside fiber optic networks.

Meta Optical Elements

The size and complexity of lens systems can be reduced through flat optics that are based on pioneering meta optical elements (MOEs).

Time-of-Flight: Highly Reliable 3D Imaging for Challenging Applications

There are multiple technologies based on the ToF concept. Generally, all of them are synchronized with a light source and estimate the distance by calculating the time taken for the light to travel from the camera to the object and then back again.

Challenges of Fabricating and Coating Laser Crystals

Because laser crystals are sensitive optical components and are often used with high-power lasers, depositing the correct coatings onto them without introducing any defects is essential.

Designing a Human-Robot Collaboration System

Scientists analyzed the stability of the collaborative system based on speed and accuracy, as well as the conditions required for successfully performing tasks from geometric, force, and posture viewpoints.

New Technology Could Make Biopsies a Thing of the Past

MediSCAPE is a highspeed 3D microscope capable of capturing images of tissue structures that could guide surgeons to navigate tumors and their boundaries without needing to remove tissues and wait for pathology results.

Rice ‘Metalens’ Could Disrupt Vacuum UV Market

Tests showed the metalens they made could focus its 197-nanometer output onto a spot measuring 1.7 microns in diameter, increasing the power density of the light output by 21 times.

Upside-Down Design Expands Wide-Spectrum Super-Camera Abilities

Plasmonics is a technology that essentially traps the energy of light in groups of electrons oscillating together on a metal surface.

Researchers Demonstrate 40-Channel Optical Communication Link

It achieves 40 channels by combining a frequency comb light source based on a new photonic crystal resonator developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with an optimized mode-division multiplexer.

New Products

The new products in September 2022.

Meeting the Challenges for Space to Earth Optical Communication

Satellite radio communication is widely used in industry and government for high-bandwidth data transfers.

Product of the Month

The compact optoNCDT 1420LL laser sensors from Micro-Epsilon, Ortenburg, Germany, perform precise distance measurements on metallic and structured surfaces. The sensor projects a small laser line onto the measuring object,...

Lignin-Based Jet Fuel Packs More Power

An experimental plant-based jet fuel could increase engine performance and efficiency, while dispensing with aromatics, the pollution-causing compounds found in conventional fuels.

A New, Low-Cost Aluminum-Sulfur Battery

MIT researchers have developed a new kind of battery, made entirely from abundant, inexpensive materials.

5 Ws of the Artificial Leaf

Researchers at University of Cambridge have developed floating “artificial leaves” that generate clean fuels from sunlight and water and could eventually operate on a large scale at sea.

3D Printing Metal Components for Small Satellite Delivery Systems

Launcher depends on Velo3D to 3D-print complex rocket components for low-cost, small satellite delivery systems.

What’s the Future of Lunar Exploration?

Many countries are aiming to reach the Moon in 2024 and 2025. How much do you know about these upcoming Moon missions? Take this quiz to find out.

The Battery Powering a Truly Green Revolution in Personal Electronics

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced that they have figured out how to engineer a biofilm that harvests the energy in evaporation and...

New Perovskite Solar Cell Has a Commercially Viable Lifetime

Princeton Engineering researchers have developed the first perovskite solar cell with a commercially viable lifetime, marking a major milestone for an emerging class of renewable...

Model Predicts Seasonal Variability of Solar and Wind Power

Researchers at Columbia University, supported in part by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, conducted a study that modeled the seasonal variability of solar and...

Highly Conductive Aluminum Can Equal Copper

A first-ever simulation of aluminum conductivity offers a recipe for an inexpensive substitute for copper.

New Screening System May Point the Way to Clean, Renewable Hydrogen Power

A new, highly sensitive system for detecting the production of hydrogen gas may play an important role in the quest to develop hydrogen as an environmentally friendly and economical alternative to fossil fuels.

Electronic Skin Anticipates and Perceives Touch from Different Directions for the First Time

Scientists develop a new approach for miniaturization of soft ultra-compact and highly integrated sensor units for directional tactile sensitivity in e-skin systems.

Create the Future Design Contest: Success Story - Plastic-Eating Enzymes Chomp into the Future

A polymer breaking enzyme when infused into plastic causes the material to break down into its original components when submerged in compost or even warm water.

A Silky-Smooth Alternative to Microplastics

The EU has already declared that the nonbiodegradable microplastics must be eliminated by 2025, but a team of MIT scientists has perhaps expedited that timeline.

Electronic Warfare Combat Training Pod

Using mPOD, “adversary” pilots can emulate enemy jamming techniques accurately, conditioning aircrews to evolving threat scenarios and better preparing them for real combat.

How Much Do You Know About Electric Aircraft Advances?

How much do you know about the advances regarding to electric aircraft?

New Products

High-Speed InGaAs Photodiodes OSI Optoelectronics (Hawthorne, CA) has introduced infrared-sensitive, pigtail-packaged High-Speed InGaAs Photodiodes with active areas of 75 µm and 120 µm. The single/multi-mode fiber is optically...

Thin Device Triggers One of Quantum Mechanics’ Strangest Phenomena

An ultrathin invention could make future computing, sensing and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and more powerful by helping scientists control a strange but...

Advanced Microscope Techniques Could Improve Computer Memories

Anyone who has watched steam billow up from a boiling kettle or seen ice crystals form on a wet window in winter has observed what scientists call a phase transition. Phase...

Light-Sensing 3D-Printed Device Could Help People with Lupus

A team of engineers and doctors at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have designed a unique 3D-printed light-sensing medical device that is placed directly on the skin and...

Preventing Gridlock on the Ground

NASA technology is enabling airline flight managers to improve managing traffic on the ground and scheduling departures.

Q&A: Reinventing Offshore Wind Turbines

Dr. Brandon Ennis, Sandia National Laboratories’ offshore wind technical lead, had a radically new idea for offshore wind turbines: instead of a tall unwieldy tower, with blades at the top, he imagined a towerless turbine with blades pulled taut like a bow.

Novel Chemical Glucose Sensing Method Based on Boronic Acids and Graphene Foam

Since it is a chemical sensor instead of being enzyme-based, the new technology is robust, has a long shelf-life and can be tuned to detect lower glucose concentrations than current systems.

Making Low-Cost Automation Accessible

Roose’s Chocolate World, based in Belgium, is using an automated solution, “ChocoMatic,” that doesn’t break the bank.

How Much Do You Know About Humanoid Robots?

How much do you know about humanoid robots?

A Motorless Sailplane to Explore Mars’ Atmosphere

The UA team aims to design a motorless sailplane that can soar over the Martian surface for days at a time, using only wind for propulsion.

Eyes on Self-Driving Cars Reduce Accidents

Robotic eyes on autonomous vehicles could improve pedestrian safety, according to a new study at the University of Tokyo. Participants played out scenarios in virtual reality (VR) and had to decide...

Teaching Package-Handling Robots to Navigate Using Visual Cues

We humans are adept at using audio and visual cues for communication while carrying out collaborative tasks. Now researchers are aiming to implement gestural interaction in a networked system of robots.

NIST is Calibrating Gear Artifacts

Gears are sophisticated parts that play a vital role in cars, airplanes, construction and mining equipment, food processing, clock making, and more. And, companies are still trying to make them better —...

Smart Microrobots Walk Autonomously

A collaborative effort has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size — smaller than an ant’s head — so that they can walk autonomously without...

Scientists Stick Hydrogen Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine

One method for keeping removed carbon out of the atmosphere long-term involves injecting CO2 into rock formations deep underground.

How Much Do You Know About Computer History?

How did this computer revolution happen? Who were some of the pioneers? How long has it taken to get here?