Manufacturing & Prototyping

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In 2026, Tech Briefs is proudly celebrating its 50th Anniversary with a special September issue honoring five decades of innovation — reflecting on the legacy that shaped engineering and...

Physical AI Accelerates Next-Gen Biomanufacturing

Robotic biomanufacturing company Multiply Labs recently announced a landmark milestone in its mission to scale production of cell and gene therapies. The company is now leveraging NVIDIA’s open Isaac and GR00T technologies including advanced robotics simulation and perception, marking a turning point for an industry that has historically relied on manual, “artisanal” processes. Read on to learn more.

Slashing Order Processing Time with End-to-End Automation

Read on to find out how Lane Automotive slashed order processing time from 109 to under 15 minutes.

Hierarchical 3D LiDAR Localization Improves Robot Positioning

Researchers at Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) in Spain have developed a hierarchical localization system that significantly improves robot positioning in large, changing environments. The method addresses one of the most challenging problems in mobile robotics: the so-called “kidnapped robot” problem, in which a robot loses knowledge of its initial pose after being moved, powered off, or displaced. Read on to learn more.

Elevating Clinical Trial Logistics Performance Through Automation

To address challenges and future-proof its clinical trial supply chain, Zuellig Pharma partnered with Hai Robotics to introduce intelligent automation at its new Clinical Trial Support Innovation Center. Read on to learn more.

Executive Roundtable: AI in Machine Vision

In this special feature, we asked three industry experts — Eric Carey, CTO, Teledyne DALSA, Brian Benoit, Director of Advanced Vision Products at Cognex, and Ron Jubis, President of Sales, North America and Managing Director of SICK, Inc.— to share their thoughts on the impact of AI on machine vision, emerging challenges and best practices, as well as the trustworthiness of AI-driven visual inspection.

Energy-Efficient Freshwater Generation System Inspired by Nature

A team of researchers is designing novel systems to capture water vapor in the air and turn it into liquid. University of Waterloo Professor Michael Tam and his Ph.D. students Yi Wang and Weinan Zhao have developed sponges or membranes with a large surface area that continually capture moisture from their surrounding environment. Read on to learn more.

Using Waste to Purify Water

Using waste to purify water may sound counterintuitive. But at TU Wien, this is exactly what has now been achieved: a special nanostructure has been developed to filter a widespread class of harmful dyes from water. Read on to learn more about it.

Artificial Reef Could Protect Marine Life, Reduce Storm Damage

A team at MIT is hoping to fortify coastlines with “architected” reefs — sustainable, offshore structures engineered to mimic the wave-buffering effects of natural reefs while also providing pockets for fish and other marine life. The team’s reef design centers on a cylindrical structure surrounded by four rudder-like slats. Read on to learn more about it.

The Kitchen Tech Hack Aiming to Revolutionize 3D Printing

Professor Fangyong Niu's team at the Dalian University of Technology may have fixed a pivotal 3D-printing problem by doing something unconventional: They added a microwave. Read on for an interview with Professor Niu.

Lunar Lattices and Their Earthly Impact

An innovative 3D printing process that advanced NASA’s approach to outfitting a lunar habitat is making buildings on Earth beautiful, efficient, and strong.

How Much Do You Know About Extrusion Tooling?

How much do you know about extrusion tooling? Find out with this quiz.

How Sift's Unified Observability Platform Accelerates Drone Innovation

On this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology Podcast, we learn about a new tool that could help manufacturers optimize the way they design and create new drones. Austin Spiegel, CTO of Sift, is the guest to explain their "unified observability platform" and how drone manufacturers can leverage it to optimize their design, validation, manufacturing, and overall engineering processes from prototype to operations.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including COMSOL Multiphysics® version 6.4; Novotechnik's Vert-X 26 Series of non-contacting magnetic angle sensors; HMS Networks' N-Tron NT110-FX2, an unmanaged Ethernet switch with two fiber ports; Littelfuse's MMIX1T500N20X4 X4-Class Ultra-Junction Power MOSFET; and more.

Holey Carbon Allotropes

Researchers at NASA have developed new methods to manufacture carbon materials (e.g., nanotubes, graphene) with holes through the graphitic surface of the particles. The methods generate materials with increased accessible surface area, increased functional groups at damage sites, and improved through-surface molecular transport properties.

Building a New 3D Material with DNA

In two papers, one released in Nature Materials and a second in ACS Nano, researchers describe a new methodology for fabricating targeted 3D nanoscale structures via self-assembly that can find use in a variety of applications, and they provide a design algorithm for others to follow suit. And it’s all based on the most basic biomolecular building blocks: DNA. Read on to learn more.

Combining 3D Embroidery Techniques with Machine Learning for Fabric-Based Touch Sensors

A new study from NC State University combines three-dimensional embroidery techniques with machine learning to create a fabric-based sensor that can control electronic devices through touch. Read on to learn more.

Getting Robots to “Bee” have Without a Plan

Bees, ants, and termites don’t need blueprints. They may have queens, but none of these species breed architects or construction managers. Each insect worker, or drone, simply responds to cues like warmth or the presence or absence of building material. Now, researchers at Penn Engineering have developed mathematical rules that allow virtual swarms of tiny robots to do the same. Read on to learn more.