Products of Tomorrow

Non-Electric Touchpad

Researchers at Tampere University have developed the world’s first soft touchpad that can sense the force, area, and location of contact without electricity. That has traditionally required electronic sensors, but the newly developed touchpad does not need electricity as it uses pneumatic channels embedded in the device for detection. Made entirely of soft silicone, the device contains 32 channels that adapt to touch, each only a few hundred micrometers wide. In addition to detecting the force, area, and location of touch, the device is precise enough to recognize handwritten letters on its surface and it can even distinguish multiple simultaneous touches. The device’s reliance on pneumatic channels, enables its use in environments such as MRI machines and other conditions that are unsuitable for electronic devices. Soft devices like soft robots and rehabilitation aids could also benefit from this new technology.

Contact: Veikko Sariola
+35 850-464-6138
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Hydrogel Semiconductor

Researchers in the lab of UChicago Pritzker School of Engineering have developed a hydrogel that retains the semiconductive ability needed to transmit information between living tissue and machine, which can be used both in implantable medical devices and non-surgical applications. The bluish gel flutters like a sea jelly in water but retains the immense semiconductive ability needed to transmit information between living tissue and machine. The hydrogel semiconductor, which the team has patented, is not merging a semiconductor with a hydrogel. It’s one material that is both semiconductor and hydrogel at the same time. Having a very soft material bond directly with tissue reduces the immune responses and inflammation typically triggered when a medical device is implanted. The new material can be used to create better brain-machine interfaces, biosensors, and pacemakers.

Contact: Paul Dailing
773-834-2943
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Thin Film Sensor

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a thin film sensor that measures temperatures up to 1200 °F, and whose prototype successor may achieve measurements up to ~3000 °F — which was the surface temperature of the Space Shuttle during its atmospheric reentry. The novel sensor design also quells the deleterious effects of thermal expansion mismatch between the thermal protection system (TPS) material comprised in the spacecraft’s outer shell, and the embedded thin film sensors’ component materials. This technology may prove extremely useful in a burgeoning commercial aerospace industry where the ability to measure temperature from the surface of a reentering spacecraft can be used to enhance performance and safety. The thin film temperature sensor may also have commercial applications in hypersonic aircraft, energy production, metallurgical blast furnaces, and other extreme high enthalpy environments.