Articles

Vote for Tech Briefs’ 28th Annual Readers’ Choice Awards

These 12 products are the nominees for the 2022 Tech Briefs Readers’ Choice Product of the Year.

A High-Speed Look at Additive Manufacturing

Despite additive manufacturing's popularity, there are still several technological barriers that must be addressed to understand the process.

Optical Modules

The Teledyne e2v Optimom 2M combines the latest innovations in imaging and optics into one turnkey imaging solution by mounting a proprietary image sensor onto a board with a fixed lens and optional Multi Focus lens technology.

A Systems Engineering Approach to Sustainable Power Systems

Research and development work continue to deliver cleaner, more efficient, and more diverse ways of generating the energy we need to power modern society.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest Grand Prize Winner

The platform was developed to democratize programmable matter; to make prototyping, innovation, and research with soft robotics incredibly quick and easy; and to enable researchers, designers, and makers of all backgrounds to unleash their creativity and bring their ideas to life.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Aerospace & Defense Category Winner — The Well-Dressed Spacecraft

The sustainability crisis extends to low-Earth Orbit (LEO), where human-made debris poses a ubiquitous threat.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Automotive/Transportation Category Winner — Betterfrost Ultra-Low Energy Defrost & Defog System

Betterfrost’s solution defrosts and defogs electric vehicles’ windshields with 20 times less power than current technology and extends the range of an EV by 38 km on an average commute in winter.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Consumer Product Design Category Winner — Green Screen

The core of the Green Screen consists of noise-absorbing mineral wool, which also serves as a vertical surface for evaporating rain coming from the roofs of the adjacent buildings.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Electronics/Sensors/IoT Winner - RF Fingerprinting for Industrial IoT Security

Some of the hardest to detect cyber-attacks are wireless, including man-in-the-middle attacks and rogue access points.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Manufacturing/Robotics/Automation Winner - Large-Scale 3D Printing with Tubes

The 3D printing industry has grown quickly over the last decade with average compound annual growth rates of around 27 percent leading to a market size of $17.7 billion in 2022.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Medical Category Winner — The Novel Squid Glaucoma microShunt

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness, affecting 80 million patients globally including 3 million patients in the U.S.

2022 Create the Future Design Contest: Sustainable Technologies/Future Energy Category Winner — SUNPave: Tomorrow’s Energy Today

When solar panels are placed horizontally, they harvest 15-20 percent less energy from the sun, and hence consumers end up paying a higher price for the harvested energy.

Products of Tomorrow

From space propulsion to underwater monitoring and antibacterial coatings, three new innovations aim to address real-world problems.

Sustaining Shock Loads: Low-Speed, High-Torque Hydraulic Direct Drives

The most common use of HDD systems is for industrial applications moving heavy masses on a continuous basis with low speed and high torque, and especially high starting torque for operations with frequent stops and starts.

The Role of Compound Semiconductors in the IoT

Compound semiconductors will play an ever more important role in the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) into 5G territory.

Printed Rechargeable Batteries for the IIoT

Wireless sensors are critical for the IIoT, but they need long-term, reliable battery power.

Perfecting a Comprehensive Design Process

This article looks at two real-world applications in which machine vision and motion control work in harmony to solve different manufacturing challenges.

Optical Strain for Precision Measurements and Certification

Optical strain is material independent and measures the response of the integrated system, so designers can get a measure of the true response and strength of their designs.

Products of Tomorrow

To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Create the Future Design Contest: Success Story - Plastic-Eating Enzymes Chomp into the Future

A polymer breaking enzyme when infused into plastic causes the material to break down into its original components when submerged in compost or even warm water.

Executive Roundtable: Collaborative Robots

Will the adoption of cobots by SMEs accelerate in near future? What are the key challenges cobots need to overcome before they become ubiquitous?

Root of Trust: A Standardization Model that Needs to Happen Now

Billions of connected devices have been adopted within our personal eco-systems, rising two-fold during the pandemic. This means there are even more devices in our lives which can be attacked.

Fundamental EV Battery Models Explain New Tab Design

Cylindrical cells are one of the most common battery types used in electric vehicles. Tesla recently improved on the typical cylindrical cell design, developing a new tab design that allows for a much larger cell.

Ultrasound Tech Offers Sophisticated Battery-Testing Intelligence

The production and supply of lithium-ion batteries for the global EV and stationary energy storage systems (ESS) markets is growing at an exponential rate. At the same time,...

Niobium: Magic Metal for Battery Anodes?

The element niobium (Nb), a transition metal, stands ready to improve the performance of one of the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery’s confusing array of possible electrode chemistries — the LTO...

Optimizing EV Performance Through the Power of Data

We are constantly blindsided by unfortunate battery-related events because as any engineer knows, the devil is in the details – the implementation details.

Time-of-Flight: Highly Reliable 3D Imaging for Challenging Applications

There are multiple technologies based on the ToF concept. Generally, all of them are synchronized with a light source and estimate the distance by calculating the time taken for the light to travel from the camera to the object and then back again.

Meeting the Challenges for Space to Earth Optical Communication

Satellite radio communication is widely used in industry and government for high-bandwidth data transfers.

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow.