Articles: Wearables

Products of Tomorrow: November 2020

A smartwatch that tracks medication levels, a flexible LED, and NASA's "Micro-Organ" device platform.

Application Briefs: Test & Measurement

Giant Telescope Construction Viewed Through an Industrial Lens

Once installed at Las Campanas Observatory in the Chilean Andes, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will introduce incredible opportunities for astrophysics.

Briefs: Medical

Imaging Technology Could Improve Cancer Surgery

Cancer treatment could be dramatically improved by precisely locating the edges of tumors during surgery to remove them.

Briefs: Communications

Long-Range Wireless Sensor Network

The network is designed for remote, low-resource locations where power and communications infrastructure are scarce.

Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control

Algorithm Improves Navigation of Autonomous Driving Robots

Future robots could be taught how to outperform humans.

Briefs: Wearables

Ring Detects Finger Location to Track Hand Movements

The technology, which could be added to smart watches, could detect the onset of Parkinson’s disease or help with stroke rehabilitation.

Briefs: Motion Control

Octopus-Inspired Soft Robotic Arm

The Tentacle Bot can grip, move, and manipulate a wide range of objects.

NASA Spinoff: Test & Measurement

Balance Scale Predicts and Helps Prevent Falls

A technique to assess astronauts’ balance recovery helps people assess their risk of falling.

Briefs: Energy

Sunlight Converts Emissions into Useful Materials

An environmentally friendly method upcycles carbon dioxide emissions into polymers and other materials.

Briefs: Software

Virtual and Augmented Reality Device Simulates Vision Loss

VR/AR devices can simulate some of the key difficulties experienced due to glaucoma.

Briefs: Materials

3D-Printed Sweating Robot Muscle

This form of thermal management can help enable untethered, high-powered robots to operate for long periods of time without overheating.

Briefs: Medical

Tiny, Magnetically Powered Neural Stimulator

Tests show magnetoelectric power is a viable option for clinical-grade implants.

Products: Imaging

New Products: November 2020 Photonics & Imaging Technology

Multi-sensor imaging systems, eyesafe laser finders, machine vision algorithms, and more.

Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs

Continuous and Stable Lasing Achieved From Low-Cost Perovskites at Room Temperature

With low-cost materials called perovskites, stable, continuous lasing is achieved at room temperature for over an hour.

Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Megapixel Photon-Counting Camera Technology

See what kinds of applications are possible when you can literally see light propagating through space.

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Material Advances for LED Quantum Dot Efficiency

Creating next-generation LEDs for novel efforts like COVID-19 decontamination requires LED manufacturers to reevaluate the materials that they’re using.

Briefs: Materials

Ambient Light Alters Refraction in 2D Material

See how tantalum disulfide is supporting new kinds of optics, and potentially new kinds of application for VR and self-driving cars.

Briefs: AR/AI

“Alexa, Go to The Kitchen and Fetch Me a Snack”

MIT engineers are envisioning robots more like home helpers.

Articles: Photonics/Optics

Overcoming Pitfalls When Measuring Thin, Parallel Optics

A "TPSI" process makes it possible to distinguish between the front and back of optical surfaces, and to characterize the quality of both in a single measurement.

Application Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Measuring Layer Thickness Using a Microscope

With Nikon's Layer Thickness software module, comprehensive information about a specimen is obtained more quickly than if an operator is making all the measurements by hand.

Briefs: Photonics/Optics

Recovering Data: NIST’s Neural Network Model Finds Small Objects in Dense Images

A NIST method employs a neural network to detect patterns like geometric objects in imaging data.

Products: Test & Measurement

Product of the Month: November 2020 Tech Briefs

The SHFQA Quantum Analyzer from Zurich Instruments operates at up to 8.5 GHz and can perform direct readout of superconducting and spin qubits.

Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition

A Spider-Inspired Design Paves Way for Better Photodetectors

Purdue University innovators are taking cues from the spider to develop 3D photodetectors for biomedical imaging.

Blog: Software

Woodworking, Simplified: New Software Aids in Design

An interactive software being developed at the University of Tokyo allows architects and furniture makers with little experience in woodworking to to design and build structurally sound wood joints.

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

Transforming Rover Explores the Toughest Terrain

NASA’s DuAxel, a pair of two-wheeled rovers each called Axel, can split in half with each half connected only by a tether that unspools as the lead axle approaches a hazard.