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Briefs: Energy
Researchers have developed better rechargeable batteries by applying silicon to the batteries’ cathodes. Read on to learn more about it.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Getting 800 robots in a warehouse to and from their destinations efficiently while keeping them from crashing into each other is no easy task. So, a group of MIT researchers who use AI to mitigate traffic congestion applied ideas from that domain to tackle this problem. Read on to learn what they built.
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Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Material transport workflows for production and assembly lines are time-consuming, non-value-adding tasks for most manufacturers. AMRs provide a simple, efficient, and cost-effective way to automate material handling and in-house transportation tasks in nearly any situation where employees would previously have been required to push carts around the facility.
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Briefs: AR/AI
In the future, the researchers want to derive simple, rule-based insights from their neural model, since the decisions of the neural network can be opaque and difficult to interpret. Simpler, rule-based methods could also be easier to implement and maintain in actual robotic warehouse settings.
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Technology & Society: Energy
Sandia engineers convert excess renewable electricity into heat that gets stored in piles of gravel.
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Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Moving robots demands a lot of energy, and batteries, the typical power source, limit lifetime and raise environmental concerns. Researchers at the University of Washington have now created MilliMobile, a tiny, self-driving robot powered only by surrounding light or radio waves.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A Software Model Makes Transport Robots Smarter
Imagine a team of humans and robots working together to process online orders — real-life workers strategically positioned among their automated coworkers who are moving intelligently back and forth in a warehouse space. This could become a reality sooner than later, thanks to researchers at the University of Missouri.
Articles: Robotics, Automation & Control
Autonomous mobile robots are one of the most exciting technologies in the robotics and automation sector. How important is the integration between the hardware and software? How will AI influence the next generation of AMRs? Tech Briefs posed these questions to five industry experts to garner their views on the current status and future outlook for AMRs.
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Briefs: Power
Researchers at Texas A&M University have discovered a 1,000 percent difference in the storage capacity of metal-free, water-based battery electrodes.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Roboticists have been using a technique similar to origami to develop autonomous machines out of thin, flexible sheets. These lightweight robots are simpler and cheaper to make and more compact for easier storage and transport.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Researchers have developed a robot that uses radio waves, which can pass through walls, to sense occluded objects. The robot, called RF-Grasp, combines this powerful sensing with more traditional computer vision to...
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Briefs: Energy
A new design could extend the shelf-life of single-use metal-air batteries for electric vehicles, off-grid storage, and other applications.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The solution increases water recovery, prevents mineral scaling, and cuts the volume of brines in half.
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Briefs: Automotive
Battery reuse systems could be profitable for both electric vehicle companies and grid-scale solar operations.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
This technology charges lithium batteries faster and reduces the risk of device explosions.
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Briefs: Energy
This supercapacitor promises storage, high power, and fast charging.
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Briefs: Software
Sublimable Propellant Source for Iodine-Fed Ion Propulsion System
NASA Marshall has developed a system for generating iodine vapor from solid iodine for use as a propellant in a Hall or ion thruster propulsion system. Xenon has generally been the preferred propellant for these spacecraft ion propulsion systems but more recently, iodine-based...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Check valves are traditionally designed as a simple poppet/spring system where the spring is designed to equal the force created from the sealing area of the valve seat multiplied by the...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
In many chemical processes, it is often desirable to detect the presence, quantity, and/or qualities of certain chemicals of interest; for example, in many closed chemical processes (either batch or...
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Briefs: Communications
Video Distribution & Storage Unit (VDSU)
Engineers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Satellite Services Projects Division (SSPD) have designed a high-performance, space-qualified video distribution and storage unit for Restore-L, a spacecraft that will rendezvous, grasp, refuel, and relocate client spacecraft. While previous...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has created the Cryo-Fluid Capacitor (CFC) that capitalizes on the energy storage capacity of liquefied gases, and the relative simplicity of high-pressure gas bottles while...
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Briefs: Medical
Panoramic irradiators are commonly used to disinfect and sterilize products such as medical supplies, cosmetic raw materials, food, food containers, and medical supplies. The irradiators...
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Briefs: Propulsion
The advent of cryocooler technology ushers in an era where a cryogenic environment is created and maintained locally. It is no longer necessary to transport cryogen from a factory where it is produced to the...
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Briefs: Energy
Cryo-Fluid Capacitor (CFC) for Solid-State Storage and Supply-on-Demand of Cryogenic Fluids
Storage and transfer of fluid commodities such as oxygen, hydrogen, natural gas, nitrogen, argon, etc. are absolute necessities in virtually every industry. These fluids are typically contained in one of two ways: as low-pressure cryogenic liquids, or as...
Briefs: Data Acquisition
Infectious diseases remain the world’s top contributors to human death and disability, and with recent outbreaks of Zika virus infections, there is a keen need for simple,...
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Briefs: Imaging
A large-area detector without any dead space capable of handling a large dynamic range does not currently exist. Current large-area detectors have dead zones created by abutting several modules...
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Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Detecting Low-Level Harmful Substances in a Large Volume of Fluid
There are many applications requiring the detection and concentration of harmful substances in a fluid; for example, detecting the presence and concentration of a microbial pathogen in a source of drinking water such as a lake, reservoir, river, stream, storage tank, water main, or...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Novel Vent Design Features Variable Flow Control and Rain Protection
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center scientists have designed a vent that can be useful for purging closed compartments, while preventing backflow and foreign object entry. The technology uses a system of configurable devices to provide variable flow control and prevent water,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In storage and/or transport of certain items, the ability to detect tampering with a container or compartment for such items can be necessary and valuable. In the transport of hazardous substances or nuclear materials...
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