Designing Shock-Mitigating Seats for Boat Operators

Products for nautical applications face an unusual set of design challenges. The corrosiveness of salt water can cause premature degradation, and the impact of fast-moving vessels bouncing up against forceful ocean waves can also damage equipment.

A Harvesting Robot Automates Apple Picking

“AurOrA” is a small autonomous vehicle, which in the future will move independently around fruit orchards and detect full fruit boxes, pick them up, and take them to a defined unloading point.

Head-Worn Assistive Teleoperation of Mobile Manipulators

New research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute (RI) aims to increase autonomy for individuals with motor impairments by introducing a head-worn device that will help them control a mobile manipulator.

New Nanoparticle-Based Sensors Can Measure Residual Herbicides in Food

The work shows the real-world viability of their easy-to-use and inexpensive methods of testing.

Trial, Error, Repeat

When you're working to develop something new, something really innovative, you're going to fail — over and over. The difference between finally succeeding, or not, is whether you keep on going anyway, so you can learn something new from each failure.

Robot Fish Makes Splash with Motion Breakthrough

A robot fish fitted with a twisted and coiled polymer (TCP) to drive it forward, a lightweight low-cost device that relies on temperature change to generate movement, could make underwater...

Self-Folding Origami Machines Powered by Chemical Reaction

A Cornell-led collaboration harnessed chemical reactions to make microscale origami machines self-fold — freeing them from the liquids in which they usually function, so they...

New Transfer Process Moves 2D Materials from Growth Substrate to Device Substrate

Purdue University engineers have developed a patent-pending tool to make the manufacture of ultrathin semiconductors more consistent, controllable, and...

The History of Mars Missions

The Red Planet continues to fascinate future space explorers — engineers who have been developing landers and rovers for Mars exploration. Test your knowledge of the successful missions to Mars launched by the U.S.

Teaching Robots to Predict Humans' Actions

A group of researchers wants to teach robots how to predict human preferences in assembly tasks, so they can one day help out on everything from building a satellite to setting a table.

3D Printing a Mini Vacuum Pump

The technology would be pivotal in a portable mass spectrometer that could help monitor pollutants, perform medical diagnoses in remote areas, or even test Martian soil.

How Much Do You Know About the History of Digital Twins?

How much do you know about the history of digital twins? Find out with this quiz.

Tiny Biobattery With 100-Year Shelf Life Runs on Bacteria

Last fall, Binghamton University professor Seokheun “Sean” Choi and his Bioelectronics and Microsystems Laboratory published their research into an ingestible biobattery...

Perovskite Solar Cells — From the Lab to the Manufacturing Floor

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) has announced that a team of researchers, led by MIT and including the University of California San...

New Tech: See No Data, Steal No Data

Peter Fuhr has invented a new way to hide sensitive electric grid information from cyberattack: a constantly changing color palette.

Ensuring the Global Safety of Unattended Telescopes

The Las Cumbres Observatory relied on Pilz to develop safety systems for its automated telescopes. In addition to protecting people, a safety system is needed to help protect equipment in case of a malfunction.

How to Engineer Intrinsically Safe Hazardous Duty Wireless Sensors

An apparatus such as a wireless sensor used in a hazardous location must meet the required safety standards. Those standards are amplified when the hazardous duty is done in areas in or near explosive atmospheres.

Silk-Based Printable, Wearable, Biosensors

Researchers have developed a way to detect bacteria, toxins, and dangerous chemicals in the environment using a biopolymer sensor that can be printed like ink on a wide range of materials.

Robotic Wing Could Improve Drone Performance

Ornithological animals have always benefited from folding their wings during upstroke. So, a Swedish-Swiss research team has constructed a robotic wing that can flap like a bird.

An Energy-Efficient Method to Monitor Soil Moisture

The University of Maine’s Wireless Sensor Networks laboratory has developed a novel method of using AI and machine learning to make monitoring soil moisture more energy and cost efficient.

Rapidly Configuring Robots for Lunar Exploration

A team of MIT engineers is designing a kit of universal robotic parts that an astronaut could easily mix and match to rapidly configure different robot “species” to fit various lunar missions.

Gecko-Inspired Climbing Soft Robot

The new robot, developed by engineers at the University of Waterloo, uses ultraviolet (UV) light and magnetic force to move on any surface, even up walls and across ceilings.

New Sensor May Be Groundbreaking Tool for Soil Health

Bioengineers have developed sensors that monitor multiple soil parameters to provide farmers with accurate, real-time, continuous data to improve soil health and productivity.

Optical Switching at Record Speeds Opens Door for Ultrafast, Light-Based Electronics and Computers

The future of electronics will be based instead on using laser light to control electrical signals, opening the door for the establishment of “optical transistors” and the development of ultrafast optical electronics.

Who Knows How Much AI Knows? This Tech Does

Researchers have created software that is able to verify how much information an AI system farmed from an organization’s digital database.

Model Simulates Variable Flap Stiffness for the Best Lift

There is extensive research on how a fixed-position flap affects lift in the realm of fluid-structure interaction. However, taking the conversation in a new direction, researchers...