Stories

New algorithms allow an autonomous robotic plane to dodge obstacles in a subterranean parking garage, without the use of GPS. Because autonomous plane navigation in confined spaces is difficult, the MIT team is providing the plane with an accurate digital map of its environment.The plane determines...

Sandia National Laboratories has developed a cost-effective robotic hand that can be used in disarming improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. The technology is dexterous enough to mimic human capabilities.The Sandia Hand is modular, so different types of fingers can be attached with magnets and quickly...

A driver remotely steers a modified vehicle through an obstacle course from a nearby location as a researcher looks on. Occasionally, the researcher instructs the driver to keep the wheel straight — a trajectory that appears to put the vehicle on a collision course with a barrel....

A new sensor and software suite sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) recently returned from West Africa after helping partner nations track and identify target vessels of interest as part of an international maritime security operation. Researchers deployed the Rough...

Ford Motor Co. expects that by 2015, 80 percent of the cars it sells in North America will have Wi-Fi built in. Two Wi-Fi-equipped cars sitting at a stoplight could exchange information free of charge, but if they wanted to send that information to the Internet, they’d probably have to use a paid service...

Researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably...

Robots like the PR2, from the Menlo Park, CA-based Willow Garage, perform a variety of tasks: bringing objects to people, opening doors, and even folding laundry. And while companies including iRobot create technologies to take care of minor jobs such as cleaning floors and pools, others...

If you’re a racing fan who has always thought that, given the opportunity, you could match your technical skills wheel-to-wheel with some of the best engineers in the sport, you’ve got one last chance to make your dream come true. Mega-distributor Mouser Electronics has been conducting a unique competition this year called the...

A research team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has developed a software tool that enables users to perform in-depth analysis of modeling and simulation data, then visualize the results on screen. The new data analysis and visualization tool offers improved ease of use compared to...

A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology has used complex computational models to design swimming micro-robots that carry cargo and navigate in response to stimuli such as light.The simple micro-swimmers could rely on volume changes in unique materials known as hydrogels to move tiny flaps that...

On Sunday, NASA's Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars. The orbiter ushers in a new era of exploration that, some say, could turn up evidence that Mars once had the necessary ingredients for life — or might even still harbor life today. The land rover also creates new possibilities for human exploration of...

Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), collaborating with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, have now demonstrated a drastically new way of achieving negative refraction in a metamaterial.The primary advantages of the new technology...

A team of researchers at MIT has discovered a way to create wrinkled surfaces with precise sizes and patterns. This basic method, they say, could be harnessed for a wide variety of useful structures: microfluidic systems for biological research, sensing, and diagnostics; new photonic devices that can control...

Humans have launched 40 spacecraft to Mars, and the latest machine to make the effort is NASA's Mars Science Laboratory. If the Mars Science Laboratory lands safely next week, instruments will begin to analyze the soil, air, and rocks for life, past or present. While some say that the costs are not worth the...

A team of Harvard scientists has developed a slick way to prevent the troublesome bacterial communities from ever forming on a surface.The researchers used their recently developed technology, dubbed SLIPS (slippery-liquid-infused porous surfaces), to effectively create a hybrid surface that is smooth and slippery...

A University of Missouri equine veterinarian, Kevin Keegan, has developed a way to detect lameness in horses using a motion detection system called the “Lameness Locator.” It also detects lameness earlier than veterinarians using the traditional method of a subjective eye test.

Using piezoelectric materials, Georgia Tech researchers have replicated the muscle motion of the human eye to control camera systems in a way designed to improve the operation of robots. This new muscle-like action could help make robotic tools safer and more effective for MRI-guided...

Batoid rays, such as stingrays and manta rays, are fast and highly maneuverable, and can cruise for long distances in the open ocean. Engineers are now trying to emulate the seemingly effortless but powerful swimming motions of rays by engineering their own ray-like machine modeled on nature.The team...

A University of Georgia research team has developed a single-step method to rapidly and accurately detect viruses, bacteria, and chemical contaminants. Yiping Zhao, professor of physics in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, along with doctoral students Jing Chen and Justin Abell,...

Kansas State University researchers Hayder Rasheed, associate professor of civil engineering, and Yacoub Najjar, professor of civil engineering, are collaborating to better detect and measure damage in concrete bridges. The researchers have created a bridge health index - a rating system...

FLOWBEC (Flow and Benthic Ecology 4D) is a National Oceanography Centre (NOC)-led project that brings together a consortium of UK researchers to investigate the effects of devices that harness tide and wave energy by monitoring environment and wildlife behavior at various test sites. The...

Three years of their hard work plunged in the Atlantic Ocean on a Monday in July and a group of NASA engineers could not have been more thrilled.They were part of the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) team that is working to develop an inflatable heat shield. The technology...

An international team of scientists has published the results of a 2004 experiment to fertilize oceans with iron. The ocean fertilization was an effort to reduce the carbon at the water’s surface and potentially...