Biocompatible Ultrasonic Receiver Overcomes Many Wireless Charging Limitations

A research team has developed a biocompatible ultrasonic receiver that maintains its performance even when bent. Read on to learn more about it.

Simulating Space: Designing Satellites for Mission Success

Patrick North, Principal R&D Engineer, Ansys, is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast to explain how simulation software optimizes the design of military satellites.

An Octopus-Inspired Smart Robot

The work shows how a soft robot can use suction flow not just to stick to things, but also to sense its environment and control its own actions — just like an octopus.

World's First Petahertz-Speed Phototransistor in Ambient Conditions

What if ultrafast pulses of light could operate computers at speeds a million times faster than today's best processors? A team of scientists, including researchers from...

Multiphysics Modeling and Simulation Enhances BESS Design

Electrical grids and data centers around the world use battery energy storage systems (BESS) as a power source, and the adoption of BESS is only continuing to grow. Read on to learn more about we can enhance BESS.

Gaining a Competitive Edge with Functionally Integrated Components

Machine builders are under intense pressure to keep engineering time in line with shorter delivery schedules and materials, assembly, and inventory cost considerations. Machine builders are also striving to make equipment smaller, lighter, higher-performing, and easier for their customers to maintain. While functionally integrated products have been available for a long time, they are more vital today than ever. And there are more options available to provide solutions. Read on to learn more.

A Successful Catalyst Design for Advanced Zinc-Iodine Batteries

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries have attracted extensive attention due to their high safety, abundant reserves, and environmental friendliness. However, the low electrical conductivity of iodine hinders the redox conversion for an efficient energy storage process with zinc. Read on to learn how a research team addressed the existing issues in Zn-I2 batteries.

Researchers Develop Efficient Lithium Extraction Method, Setting Stage for Sustainable EV Battery Supply Chains

In the race to meet the growing global demand for lithium, a team of researchers from Rice University’s Elimelech lab has developed a breakthrough lithium extraction method that could reshape the industry. Read on to learn more about it.

Better Texture for Better Batteries

To create the new batteries needed for EVs, mobile devices, and renewable energy storage, researchers have explored new materials, new designs, new configurations, and new chemistry. But one aspect — the texture of the metals used — has been historically overlooked. Read on to learn more.

Tape-Based Robot Reaches Far When Extended

It’s a game a lot of us played as children — and maybe even later in life: unspooling measuring tape to see how far it would extend before bending. But to engineers at the University of California San Diego, this game was an inspiration, suggesting that measuring tape could become a great material for a robotic gripper. Read on to learn more about their robot, GRIP-tape.

Anode-Free Solid-State Batteries: Beyond Li-ion’s Limitations

A team led by Kelsey Hatzell, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, has uncovered insights that could help power a new type of battery, called an anode-free solid-state battery, past Li-ion’s limitations. Read on to learn more about it.

Single-Step 3D-Printing Process to Build Robots

The piezoelectric “meta-bot” is capable of propulsion, movement, sensing, and decision-making.

A New Method to Design Better Metallic Materials

In a new study, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign reported that automated high-resolution electron imaging can capture the nanoscale deformation events that lead to metal failure and breakage at the origin of metal failure. Read on to learn more.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a new type of optical receiver able to restore chaotic signals in free-space optical communication links distorted by atmospheric turbulence; a battery that can take any shape; and a new technology for an aircraft configuration that utilizes a strut/truss-braced oblique variable-sweep wing mounted on a constant cross-section geometry fuselage.

Advanced Microelectronics: Why A Next-Gen Semiconductor Doesn’t Fall to Pieces

The mechanism holding new ferroelectric semiconductors together produces a conductive pathway that could enable high power transistors. A new class of...

How the CARL-Bot Catches Some Tasty Waves

Researchers were brainstorming ways that underwater vehicles could use turbulent water currents for propulsion and wondered if, instead of them being a problem, they could be an advantage.

A 5-Inch Soft Robot that Can Jump 10 Feet in the Air

Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, Georgia Tech engineers have created a five-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop.

Soft Robot Can Carry Cargo Up and Down Steep Aerial Wires

Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates...

Eldercare Robot Helps People Sit and Stand, and Catches Them If They Fall

The United States population is older than it has ever been. Today, the country’s median age is 38.9, which is nearly a decade older than it was in 1980. And the...

How Compressed Air Led to a Battery Breakthrough

Our current battery industry needs to be re-energized. The decades-old technology isn’t always the ideal match for some of our recent advancements, like EVs, or for more extreme environments. Fortunately, some companies are charging up potentially ground-breaking ideas. Read on to learn more.

Origami-Inspired…Ceramics?!?

In a breakthrough that blends ancient design with modern materials science, researchers at the University of Houston have developed a new class of ceramic structures that can bend under pressure — without breaking.

My Opinion: Sensors Made to Order

My Opinion: The Institute for Connected Sensor-Systems (IConS) at North Carolina State University is exploring new ways to combine sensor development and application-driven solutions.

3D Printing Multiple Metals in a Single Complex Structure

Guhaprasanna “Guha” Manogharan and his team at Penn State College of Engineering and the Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition (CIMP-3D) have developed a method to 3D print complex parts with different materials to achieve multiple design and engineering goals.

How AI Can Help the Deaf and Non-Deaf Alike

Desperately wanting to bridge the gap between the deaf and people who don't know sign language, a Florida Atlantic University team decided to use AI and computer engineering to build a smart, real-time ASL system.

Strong, Stretchy, 3D-Printed Metamaterials

MIT engineers have found a way to fabricate a metamaterial that is both strong and stretchy. The base material is typically highly rigid and brittle, but it is printed in precise, intricate patterns that form a structure that is both strong and flexible.

How Amprius Is Advancing Energy Density for Electric Aircraft Batteries

Dr. Ionel Stefan, CTO, Amprius, is the guest on this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast.