Stories
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Facility Focus: Medical
Battelle Memorial Institute was founded in the early part of the 20th century as a charitable trust focused on research in metallurgy and allied industries. Founder Gordon Battelle studied metallurgy...
Articles: Transportation
The first mass-produced electric vehicles (EVs) hit the road late in 2010 with the introduction of the Nissan Leaf, which remains the world’s top-selling,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Rechargeable, High-Temperature, Molten Salt Battery
Growing demand for electric vehicles and more sustainable forms of transport means finding new forms of energy storage such as batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells. Currently, a major challenge facing the industry is the poor performance quality of rechargeable batteries, which often lose...
Briefs: Energy
Wearable biosensors for health monitoring lack a lightweight, long-lasting power supply. A new method was developed for making a charge-storing system that is easily integrated into clothing...
Briefs: Energy
Recent technical advances have enabled flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) to become more compact and able to support higher-power applications. Due to their proven reliability,...
Briefs: Energy
Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a new dielectric material based on barium titanate nanopowder processed via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The rapid and full...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Thin, durable heating patches were created using intense pulses of light to fuse tiny silver wires with polyester. Their heating performance is nearly 70 percent higher than similar patches. The inexpensive patches...
Articles: Transportation
Smarter, better, faster, less expensive — those words are the mantra of today’s global economy. As organizations seek to streamline operations and do more with less, they...
Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
The MIT system can monitor the behavior of electronic devices within a building, a factory – and even a 270-foot Coast Guard cutter.
Blog: Energy
A new technology may lead to a more mainstream use of algal biofuels.
Question of the Week: Transportation
Will Carbon Fibers Find a New Place in Vehicles?
In a Tech Briefs article last week, Virginia Tech professor Greg Liu spoke about his team’s newly developed porous carbon fibers, and how the material may someday change how vehicles are built and powered.
INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Researchers at Rice University have made test cells for lithium metal batteries with a coat of red phosphorus on the separator that keeps the anode and cathode electrodes apart. The phosphorus...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Researchers from Drexel University say that adding MXene to silicon anodes could extend the life of Li-ion batteries by as much as five times. It’s able...
Question of the Week: Energy
Will ‘Structural Batteries’ Replace Conventional Ones?
Structural batteries are built into the actual configuration of battery-powered products – think the wing of a drone or the bumper of an electric vehicle. These batteries could reduce weight and extend range of a vehicle, but they're usually heavy, unsafe, or short-lived.
Facility Focus: Test & Measurement
Since 1967, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) has been the United States’ premier particle physics laboratory, working on the world's most advanced particle accelerators and...
Briefs: Power
Most electronics only function within a certain temperature range but blending two organic materials together creates electronics that withstand extreme heat. The new plastic material could reliably conduct...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A customizable nanomaterial was developed that combines metallic strength with a foam-like ability to compress and spring back. The material can store and release mechanical energy on the nanoscale, and fits...
Articles: Energy
The Create the Future Design Contest, launched in 2002 by the publishers of Tech Briefs magazine, helps stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Fuel Cell/Fuel Cell Hybrid System
Fuel cells can deliver clean, reliable, and uninterrupted power nearly 100 percent of the time. Fuel cells offer the advantage of efficiency by converting chemical energy directly to electricity. They have no moving parts, thereby eliminating failures associated with pumps, blowers, heat exchangers, and other...
Briefs: Software
Real-Time, Fuel-Optimal, Powered Descent Guidance Using Interpolated Time-of-Flight and Propellant Mass
Soft landing using rockets requires a trajectory to be planned for the lander from rocket ignition — typically several kilometers in altitude and moving at up to 200 m/s — to the point near the surface with near-zero velocity. The exact...
5 Ws: Robotics, Automation & Control
Who
Piezoelectric materials are used in everything from cellphones and wearables, to robotics, energy harvesting, and tactile sensors.
Briefs: Communications
Objects in our daily lives, such as speakers, refrigerators, and even cars, are becoming “smarter” day by day as they connect to the Internet and exchange data, creating the Internet of Things (IoT)....
Briefs: Aerospace
Heat shields are essentially used as the brakes to stop spacecraft from burning up and crashing on entry and reentry into a planet's atmosphere. Current spacecraft heat shield methods include huge...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Multi-Purpose, Flexible Wing Structure for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems
Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as micro air vehicles, are promising tools for a variety of military and commercial applications. Some small UAS have flexible wings and are lightweight, making them back-packable and easy to deploy. Most UAS that are currently...
Briefs: Aerospace
Green Electric Monopropellant (GEM)-Fueled Pulsed Plasma Thruster
NASA required a rocket thruster able to produce a number of pulses at high specific impulse at a relatively low voltage (~300 to 400V). The key problem was that existing propellants for liquid-fueled pulsed plasma thrusters (LPPTs) required high voltages to ablate and accelerate the...
Briefs: Propulsion
An optical setup developed by researchers at Sandia's Combustion Research Facility and the Technical University of Denmark can now quantify the formation of soot — particulate matter consisting...
Briefs: Imaging
Researchers have developed an imaging technique that uses a tiny, super sharp needle to nudge a single nanoparticle into different orientations and capture 2-D images to help reconstruct...
Articles: Data Acquisition
Additive manufacturing is poised to liven the pace and scale of manufacturing. Deploying a range of techniques that use 3-D models to print objects layer by layer, it can generate a...
Blog: Semiconductors & ICs
Tesla uses batteries to store energy underneath the car seats. What if we could store energy everywhere on the vehicle?
Top Stories
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Aerial Microrobots That Can Match a Bumblebee's Speed
Blog: Electronics & Computers
Turning Edible Fungi into Organic Memristors
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Revolutionizing the Production of Semiconductor Chips
News: Energy
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
World’s Smallest Programmable, Autonomous Robots
INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Webcasts
On-Demand Webinars: Power
E/E Architecture Redefined: Building Smarter, Safer, and Scalable Vehicles
Upcoming Webinars: Energy
Hydrogen Engines Are Heating Up for Heavy Duty
Upcoming Webinars: Electronics & Computers
Advantages of Smart Power Distribution Unit Design for Automotive...
Upcoming Webinars: Automotive
Quiet, Please: NVH Improvement Opportunities in the Early Design...
Upcoming Webinars: Power
A FREE Two-Day Event Dedicated to Connected Mobility
Podcasts: Defense
How Sift's Unified Observability Platform Accelerates Drone Innovation
