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AI Material That Adapts to Its Surroundings

UCLA engineers have designed a new class of material that can learn behaviors over time and develop a “muscle memory” of its own.

An Automatic Drawing Machine for Metamaterials

The drawing machine uses pens with ink containing conductive material or regular mechanical pencils with varying graphite content.

Heat-Proof Carbides May Revolutionize Aerospace Technology

The new materials are hard enough to stir molten steel and can withstand temperatures above 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit — about the same temperatures found just a few hundred miles above the surface of the sun.

Bringing Touch to Virtual Reality

The system aims to add the sense of touch to the metaverse for use in virtual-reality shopping and gaming, and potentially facilitate the work of astronauts and other professions that require the use of thick gloves.

Producing Oil from Duckweed

Scientists say that such oil-rich duckweed could easily be harvested to produce biofuels or other bioproducts.

iCLIP Speeds Up 3D Printing

“This new technology will help to fully realize the potential of 3D printing. It will allow us to print much faster, helping to usher in a new era of digital manufacturing, as well as to enable the fabrication of complex, multi-material objects in a single step.”

Fighting Gravity with the World’s First Propulsion Suit

Using jet fuel as a means to power five gas turbines, the suit can propel pilots about 40 mph for up to eight minutes and can generate more than 1,000 horsepower.

Gallium Nitride Yields More Energy-Efficient Devices

Engineers have created new high-power electronic devices that are more energy efficient than their predecessors.

Designing to Minimize Environmental Impact

According to the NASA Earth Observatory, air temperatures on Earth have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. Here is a suggestion about one way that engineers could help reduce the problems caused by that in their everyday work.

Robots Walk Autonomously Via Microscopic Brains

Engineers have installed tiny electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots so that the machines can walk autonomously, sans external control.

Glow-in-the-Dark Algae May Be Ideal for Soft Robots

Engineers developed soft devices containing algae that glow when under mechanical stress —perfect for building soft robots.

Scientists Stick Hydrogen Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine

One method for keeping removed carbon out of the atmosphere long-term involves injecting CO2 into rock formations deep underground.

Teaching Package-Handling Robots to Navigate Using Visual Cues

We humans are adept at using audio and visual cues for communication while carrying out collaborative tasks. Now researchers are aiming to implement gestural interaction in a networked system of robots.

A Motorless Sailplane to Explore Mars’ Atmosphere

The UA team aims to design a motorless sailplane that can soar over the Martian surface for days at a time, using only wind for propulsion.

Electronic Warfare Combat Training Pod

Using mPOD, “adversary” pilots can emulate enemy jamming techniques accurately, conditioning aircrews to evolving threat scenarios and better preparing them for real combat.

A Silky-Smooth Alternative to Microplastics

The EU has already declared that the nonbiodegradable microplastics must be eliminated by 2025, but a team of MIT scientists has perhaps expedited that timeline.

Think Twice About Wasting Waste

A treatment for floc sludge transforms it to an electrode material usable for high-performance capacitors.

Image Sensor Improvements for Enhanced Machine Vision

These latest nanostructured components, integrated on image sensor chips, are most likely to have the biggest impact in multimodal imaging.

Underwater Security System

KnightShield covers medium ranges in ports and detects hostile divers – whether using closed or open breathing apparatus – as well as AUVs, SDVs, DPVs, and UUVs.

Purdue’s Micro-Robot Could Help Treat Stroke Patients

A magnetically controlled medical device to remove blood accumulating in the brain during a stroke.

New Smart Masks Can Monitor Health

A researcher at MU College of Engineering at the University of Missouri is developing a smart mask that could monitor someone’s physiological status based on the nature of the person’s cough.

Unmanned Hover Plane

The Trojan Unmanned Hover Plane (UHP) is a one-of-a-kind system that bridges the gap between the need to hover and the need to reach long ranges, giving it the ability to perform aerial missions with pinpoint precision.

Where Do Technological Innovations Come From?

We can learn a lot about innovation in technology by looking to the past.

Stamp It: MIT Looks to Change the Ultrasound Game

The stamp-sized ultrasound sticker technology produces higher-resolution images over a longer duration.

Artificial Intelligence: Meet Human Intelligence

A designer’s job gets much more complicated when artificial intelligence is part of the system.

What Can Engineers Learn from Nature?

A number of the engineers I’ve interviewed have taken their inspirations from nature. As one said to me, nature has been evolving and perfecting its designs over thousands of years — we should...

How to Measure 20 Million Volts

As I was scrolling through research lab press releases for a Q&A column, one caught my eye: “Remote High-Voltage Sensor Unveiled at Sandia Gamma Ray Lab.” High voltage is not the sexiest of technology...

Why Hasn’t 3D Printing Caught On in Automotive?

More “talking across industries” can drive growth in additive manufacturing, says an industry expert.

'Floating Sensors' Spread Like Dandelion Seeds

Dropped by a drone, the battery-free devices hover 100 meters in the air.