Articles

Vision Integration Transforms Collaborative Robotics

Without integrated vision, robots can only perform tasks in precisely the same way every time. If a part is even slightly out of position or rotated differently, the robot may fail to complete its task, or worse, cause an error in the process. Read on to learn more.

Why Human Expertise Is Driving the Future of Autonomy

The future of industrial autonomy will not be defined by systems that operate as opaque black boxes, but by approaches that deliberately embed the expertise of the people who know the processes best. Machine teaching makes this possible by making the skills and strategies of expert operators the foundation of AI system design. Read on to learn more.

The Mechanics Behind Motion: Exploring Planetary Servo Gearboxes

While growing up, many of us were fascinated by watching gears turning, whether in bicycles, clocks or garbage trucks packing trash on the old rear-load machines. Today, gearing systems play a crucial role in machinery, transmitting power efficiently and reliably across a wide range of applications. Read on to learn more.

Training Uncrewed Underwater Vehicles for Visualization of Subsurface Structures

Through a combination of modeling, simulation, and machine learning (ML), USM researchers are laying the groundwork for intelligent uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) capable of autonomously and accurately revealing what lies beneath the waves. Read on to learn more.

A Satellite Micro-Vibration Test Platform to Isolate Vibrations

The micro-vibration test instrument gives the ESA a high confidence that a satellite’s mechanisms in space will generate verified forces and torques as displayed and confirmed on the micro-vibration test instrument on Earth. Read on to learn more about it.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a drone with flapping wings that can locate and hover around a moving light like a moth to a flame; a new multi-layered metalens design that could revolutionize portable optics in devices like phones, drones, and satellites; and more.

High-Performance Electrification Solutions Reshaping Military Systems

The electrification of military systems is a positive step that will deliver enormous technical, operational, and sustainability advantages across defense equipment lifecycles. But it requires deep system-level technical expertise to ensure systems work seamlessly together across power conversion, distribution, and conditioning. Read on to learn more.

2025 Award Finalists

In this article, you’ll learn about the Create the Future Design Contest finalists in all seven categories chosen from over 600 new product ideas submitted from 67 countries.

Making Diesel Engines Nearly Emission-Free

The team spent seven years developing NOxZero™ — a highly efficient, low-cost, and easy-to-install technology that reduces diesel NOx emissions to near-zero levels. In the standard Diesel system, urea — also known as Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) or AdBlue — is injected into the diesel exhaust stream. Read on to learn more about the 2025 Create the Future Contest's Automotive & Transportation finalist.

Ultra-Efficient Hydrogen Combustion for Clean, Distributed Power and Propulsion

REV Force, a radically new hydrogen-compatible engine platform developed by Alpha-Otto Technologies, combines a patented mode of engine operation with an advanced combustion strategy to redefine what’s possible in clean, distributed power. Read on to learn more about the Energy, Power & Propulsion Finalist from the 2025 Create the Future Contest.

Silent Sentry: A Software-Defined Passive Sensor for Counter-Stealth and Battlefield Survivability

Silent Sentry is a software system that transforms existing passive microwave sensors into advanced threat detectors. The system is based on Passive Microwave Radiometry (PMR), which “listens” for the faint, naturally emitted thermal radiation from all objects. Read on to learn more about Silent Sentry, which was the Aerospace & Defense finalist at the 2025 Create the Future Design contest.

100x Audio Digital-to-Analog Performance Improvement

Multi-Path is a new audio digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) architecture that improves today’s best DAC performance by 100X (40dB) or more. Noise, linearity, and dynamic range are so advanced that today’s finest test equipment cannot fully measure it (40nVrms broadband noise floor). Read on to learn more about the 2025 Create the Future Design Contest Electronics finalist.

REACT®: Automated Capsule Recycling Technology for a Circular Coffee Industry

The REACT® Coffee Maker is an innovative integrated appliance that automates both the brewing and clean recycling of single-use coffee capsules. Unlike conventional capsule coffee machines, which leave used capsules contaminated with organic coffee grounds, the REACT® Coffee Maker incorporates a patented mechanical separation module that automatically empties each capsule immediately after brewing. Read on to learn more about the 2025 Create the Future Design Contest Manufacturing & Materials finalist.

Woodpeckr

A team at the University of Waterloo has developed Woodpeckr — a semi-autonomous robot designed to climb and drill wooden utility poles during the electrical line installation process. Read on to learn more about Woodpeckr, which was the Robotics & Automation finalist at the 2025 Create the Future Design contest.

Blood Viscosity: The Next Vital Sign – A Wearable Breakthrough in Trauma, Sepsis, and Vascular Health

The first real-time, wearable blood viscosity monitoring device fills a long-standing void in trauma, burn, and sepsis care by delivering continuous, noninvasive insights into the body’s fluid and vascular dynamics. Read on to learn more about the technology, which was the Medical finalist at the 2025 Create the Future Design contest.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including an artificial neuron made of conductive plastics that can perform advanced functions similar to those of biological nerve cells; a new method that significantly boosts the performance and stability of solar cells; and more.

Battery Innovation Key for Commercial and Off-Highway EVs

The move to electrified on- and off-highway equipment is not without its challenges. The industry itself lags greatly behind the passenger car industry, which accounted for 17.5 million EVs sold globally last year. But why? Read on to find out.

Solving Fleet Electrification Bottlenecks with Battery-Integrated Charging Systems

Charging infrastructure has become the primary bottleneck to fleet electrification. Despite growing demand for electric trucks and increasing pressure to decarbonize logistics operations, many fleet operators face long delays for grid upgrades, transformer installations, and permitting, at times waiting more than a year to power vehicles that have already arrived. OptiGrid was formed in response to this growing gap between vehicle readiness and infrastructure availability. Read on to learn more.

Next-Generation Elastomer Seals: Enhancing Battery Safety and Sustainability in E-Mobility

As the EV market accelerates toward mass adoption, the need for durable, efficient, and scalable battery technologies is reshaping supply chain priorities across the automotive and energy sectors. Advanced sealing materials, such as high-performance elastomers, are emerging as strategic enablers in this transformation. Read on to learn more.

Driving EV Development with a Twin-Battery Approach

IAV hopes that its twin-battery design concept will function as a showcase to others in the battery industry that, even if you have demands that are contradicting, there can still be a solution. Read on to learn more.

The Impact of AI Across the Industrial Value Chain

It is no exaggeration to say that AI will be the next big leap across all of industry, reimagining the way people work, products are designed, and factories are operated. But AI doesn’t mean a fully autonomous future but rather a harmony, uniting people and technology in a way that plays to the strength of both to achieve a result greater than what either could achieve alone. Read on to learn more.

When Automation Goes Wrong: Lessons from the Field

Automation is a powerful tool, but only when designed and implemented with a systems-level mindset. Failures rarely stem from the automation hardware itself but often result from gaps in planning, integration, or life cycle support. Read on to learn more.

Implementing Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance is based on condition monitoring, anomaly detection, and classification algorithms, and integrates predictive models which can estimate the remaining machine runtime. Read on to learn more about it and how to implement it.

How to Optimize Self-Powered Sensing

MIT researchers have developed a method that anyone can use to design an energy management interface between the harvester and the sensor load to minimize the drain on the harvester and maximize the amount of data that can be transmitted by the sensor. Read on to learn more via this Q&A with Daniel Monagle and Steven B. Leeb.

2025 Rising Star Awards Winners

SAE Media Group’s Women in Engineering: Rising Star Awards program shines the spotlight on trailblazers who not only excel in their respective domains but also stroke the flames of inspiration in others. This year’s awards program features six categories: Aerospace/Defense, Automotive/Transportation, Electronics, Manufacturing/Materials, Medical, and Robotics, Automation and AI. In this special section, you’ll meet the winners in all six categories.

How Through-Hole Reflow Technology Transforms Production

A new technology closes the gap and combines PCB production into a single process, leveraging the capabilities of SMT. The resulting through-hole reflow (THR) process allows for components to be mounted through those pre-drilled holes — but secured during the same soldering process as the SMT-designed components. Read on to learn more.

Aerospace & Defense Rising Star Awards Winner 2025

Keshika Warnakula, Senior Flight Mechanics Engineer, Syos Aerospace, from Auckland, New Zealand is the 2025 Rising Star Award Winner for Aerospace and Defense.

Electronics Rising Star Awards Winner 2025

Samantha Shumberger, Senior Design Engineer, Molex, from Wellsville, PA, is the 2025 Rising Star Award Winner for Electronics.

Robotics, Automation & AI Rising Star Awards Winner 2025

Ipsita Mohanty, Co-Founder and Chief AI Architect, QApp from San Jose, CA, is the 2025 Rising Star Award Winner for Robotics, Automation & AI.