Briefs: Software
The study could aid in understanding the role of TE fringes in the silent flight of owls and can inspire biomimetic designs that could lead to the development of low-noise fluid machinery. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Transportation
Applications include vehicle and aircraft tires, sports helmets, military equipment, and seals and couplings. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, North Carolina State University engineers have discovered a way to make a single plastic cubed structure transform into more than 1,000 configurations using only three active motors. The findings could pave the way for shape-shifting artificial systems that can take on multiple functions and even carry a load. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Propulsion
The “nanoswimmers” could be used to remediate contaminated soil, improve water filtration, or even deliver drugs to targeted areas of the body.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The sensing and control principles used in this framework could lead to new tactile sensors that can be attached to any existing robotics system, offering new sensing and control paradigms for safe human-robot interaction without altering the robot’s original design. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Materials
Researchers from NC State University have demonstrated mini soft hydraulic actuators that can be used to control the deformation and motion of soft robots that are less than a millimeter thick. The researchers also demonstrated that this technique works with shape memory materials.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Researchers have found a way to bind engineered skin tissue to the complex forms of humanoid robots. This brings with it potential benefits to robotic platforms such as increased mobility, self-healing abilities, embedded sensing capabilities and an increasingly lifelike appearance.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A team of scientists has successfully created a new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities, including the ability to control energy waves on the surface of a solid material. These waves, called mechanical surface waves, are fundamental to how vibrations travel along the surface of solid materials.
Briefs: Software
Led by Purdue University, the Resilient ExtraTerrestrial Habitats institute's goal is to “design and operate resilient deep space habitats that can adapt, absorb and rapidly recover from expected and unexpected disruptions.”
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
NASA’s Ames Research Center has developed a novel closed-form solution to model wing flutter aerodynamics for any aircraft wing (within a certain thickness regime and without camber). This closed-form solution can be readily extended to wing sections with camber.
Briefs: Power
Boom Supersonic, the company building supersonic planes, is developing Symphony, a new propulsion system designed and optimized for its Overture supersonic airliner.
Briefs: Materials
A technique enables manufacturing of minuscule robots by interlocking multiple materials in a complex way.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Intrigued to see if many limbs could be helpful for locomotion in this world, a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology is using a centipede's style of movement to its advantage. They developed a new theory of multilegged locomotion and created many-legged robotic models.
Briefs: Design
The ventilators are simpler and cheaper to make than those currently available.
Briefs: Materials
A team at ETH Zurich has developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.
Briefs: Power
A team of MIT engineers is creating a one-megawatt motor that could be a key stepping-stone toward electrifying larger aircraft. The team has designed and tested the major components of the motor.
Briefs: Automotive
Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed new software to aid in the development, evaluation, and demonstration of safer autonomous, or driverless, vehicles. Called the Vehicle-in-Virtual-Environment (VVE) method, it allows the testing of driverless cars in a perfectly safe environment.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Imagine a team of humans and robots working together to process online orders — real-life workers strategically positioned among their automated coworkers who are moving intelligently back and forth in a warehouse space. This could become a reality sooner than later, thanks to researchers at the University of Missouri.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
An ultra-small actuator has nanometer-scale precision.
Briefs: Energy
NASA engineers have developed a new approach to mitigating unwanted motion in floating structures. Ideally suited to applications including offshore wind energy platforms and barges, the innovation uses water ballast as a motion damping fluid.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The innovation can provide a wide range of damping forces, a linear damping function and/or an extended dynamic range of attenuation, providing broad flexibility in configuration size and functional applicability.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Integrating sensors into rotational mechanisms could make it possible for engineers to build smart hinges that know when a door has been opened, or gears inside a motor that tell a mechanic how fast they are rotating. Engineers have now developed a way to easily integrate sensors into these types of mechanisms.
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
To improve efficiency, it is necessary to characterize and reduce flow separation on curved surfaces.
Briefs: Materials
Taking inspiration from nature, a team of researchers at Queen Mary’s School of Engineering and Materials Science has successfully created an artificial muscle that seamlessly transitions between soft and hard states while also possessing the remarkable ability to sense forces and deformations.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The tiny motors mimic how rock climbers navigate inclines.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
A catalytic reaction causes a two-dimensional, chemically coated sheet to spontaneously morph into a three-dimensional gear.
Briefs: Medical
Achievable coils increase the capabilities of the micromotors.
Briefs: Materials
NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel technology that provides an autonomous, miniaturized fluidic system for lipid analysis.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
To enable key aerospace R&D applications, NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a single-piece flow-through transducer design capable of measuring all six components adding in the Axial force measurement.
