Design

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.

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.

A New, Low-Cost Aluminum-Sulfur Battery

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

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.

New Products: September 2022 Battery & Electrification Technology

New products for September 2022.

Designing a Silicon Photonic MEMS Phase Shifter with Simulation

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Magazine Archives

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Walking Feeds Pressure to Pneumatic Robots That Could Help Those with Disabilities

Mechanical engineers at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering have built a handy extra limb able to grasp objects and go, powered only...

Focusing the Sun – A Big Gain for Solar Power Efficiency

A new kind of optical concentrator can passively focus the sun onto a photovoltaic cell from any angle to reduce the amount of photovoltaic material needed for a given amount of power generation.

How Well Do You Know 3D Printing?

3D printing has furthered myriad industries and advanced mankind in unimaginable ways. Take this quiz to test your knowledge about the practice.

An Alternative to Lithium-Ion Batteries

Have we found a better alternative to lithium-ion batteries?

Can You Name These Six Earthbound Benefits of ISS?

Before it goes — after more than 20 years on the job — take this quiz to test your knowledge about the ISS' earthbound benefits.

A New Kind of Transistor — A Conductive Polymer

A new material holds promise for the next generation of organic electronics.

Smart Implants to Monitor Healing

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering are creating patient-specific 3D-printed smart metamaterial implants that double as sensors to monitor spinal healing.