Features

Smart Actuators Deliver on the Promise of Industry 4.0

As Industry 4.0 initiatives bring more and more industrial axes of motion into the realm of automation, the need for cost-effective control across them grows as well. Advances in robotics,...

Q&A: Rice University's Rouzbeh Shahsavari Creates a Stronger, Lighter Cement

Professor Shahsavari and graduate student Sung Hoon have demonstrated a process for producing a cement that is stronger, lighter, and more durable than the traditional...

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Crash Test Dummies Get Older and Better with 3D Printing

MarkforgedWatertown, MAmarkforged.com The crash test dummy has come of age over many decades as the gold standard for safety testing of automobiles. Organizations like the National...

Vote for Product of the Year 2018

The 2018 Nominees Are: Each December, we ask our readers to cast their votes in the annual Tech Briefs’ Readers’ Choice Product of the Year Awards. Each month, our editors choose a Product of the Month that...

5 Ws of Spray-On Antennas

Who Manufacturers and users of wearables, functional fabrics, mobile devices, wireless routers, and Internet of Things devices.

Sterilizing Fogger Cleans Ambulances with a Breeze

Spinoff is NASA's annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the fields of...

Innovators Recognized for "Creating the Future" 2018

The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. In the past 16 years, the annual contest has drawn more than 13,000 product...

New on the Market: December 2018

Data Acquisition Devices The USB-1808 Series simultaneous-sampling data acquisition devices from Measurement Computing Corp., Norton, MA, provides synchronous and concurrent voltage I/O, waveform output,...

Facility Focus: Ames Laboratory

Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, IA. For more than 70...

Five Industry Trends Disrupting the Design and Manufacturing World

The engineering and manufacturing world is rapidly changing — are you changing with it? The claim of “reinventing” the fundamental tools of an industry is a bold one, but...

Simulation for Everyone

With the computational power and software available today, numerical simulation is a real option to quickly get answers to complicated technical, scientific, and engineering questions. Not only has the hardware doubled...

Product of the Month

Yokogawa Corporation of America, Newnan, GA, released the WT5000 power analyzer that achieves accuracy of ±0.03% at 50/60 Hz, allowing precision evaluation of power consumption, loss, and efficiency of electrical and...

Inside Story: S. Himmelstein and Company

S. Himmelstein and Company (Hoffman Estates, IL) has been designing and manufacturing torque measurement transducers and instrumentation since 1960. The company’s products offer significant advantages...

Custom Optomechanics in Industrial UV Lasers

Reliability and longevity directly impact the cost of using Q-switched, diode pumped, solid state, ultraviolet lasers in industrial applications. Damage to the intracavity harmonic crystal is often...

Ray Optics Simulation of Inertial Navigation Systems

Attitude detection is a crucial element in aircraft and spacecraft navigation. The motion of an aircraft consists of a translational component (motion of its center of mass with respect to...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Electronics/Sensors/IOT Category Winner

FUTURE ANTENNA MINIATURIZATION MECHANISM: MAGNETOELECTRIC ANTENNAS Hwaider Lin and Nian-Xiang Sun, Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA Antenna miniaturization...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Grand Prize Winner

INVISIBLE GLASS Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) has developed a method for creating surface nanotextures that effectively eliminates...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Medical Category Winner

IMPLANTABLE SENSOR TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM FOR ADVANCED PROSTHETIC CONTROL The Implantable Myoelectric Sensor (IMES) system transmits localized myoelectric signals simultaneously from...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Robotics/Automation/Manufacturing Category Winner

DON’T MELT. MELD.™ The MELD™ technology enables additive manufacturing (AM) of metals. This patented process is unique because there is no...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Aerospace & Defense Category Winner

DETECTING PLASTIC LANDMINES Hidden PFM-1 anti-personnel landmines are unexploded ordnance (UXO) devices that pose a difficult challenge to conventional landmine...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Automotive/Transportation Category Winner

ISCAD — ELECTRICAL DRIVE WITH 0% RARE EARTHS, 25% HIGHER DRIVING RANGE, AND 100% SAFETY Conventional electrical machines suffer from the problem that due to...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Consumer Products Category Winner

ALUMINUM-POWERED ELECTRICITY GENERATION Aluminum has an incredibly high energy density — double that of gasoline and an order of magnitude greater than lithium-ion....

2018 Create the Future Design Contest: Sustainable Technologies Category Winner

AEROGELS FROM ENVIRONMENTAL WASTES FOR NOVEL ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS Associate Prof. Hai Minh Duong and Prof. Nhan Phan-Thien, National University of Singapore...

Aerogel Insulation Makes Thinner, Warmer Outerwear

Spinoff is NASA's annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the fields of...

5 Ws of the SAFIRE Lithium-Ion Battery

Who The Safe Impact Resistant Electrolyte (SAFIRE) fire-resistant battery can be used in consumer electronics such as cellphones, in drones and cars, and in soldiers’ packs.

Smart Sensor Technology for the IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) applications — whether for city infrastructures, factories, or wearable devices — use large arrays of sensors collecting data for transmission over the Internet to a central,...

2018 Create the Future Design Contest Special Awards Section

The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 by Tech Briefs Media Group (publishers of Tech Briefs magazine) to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. Since...

Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.