Stories
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Briefs: Aerospace
Flying animals both power and control flight by flapping their wings. This enables small natural flyers such as insects to hover close to a flower but also to rapidly escape danger. Animal flight has...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
For decades, robots in controlled environments like assembly lines have been able to pick up the same object over and over again. More recently, breakthroughs in computer vision have enabled...
Blog: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The ULiSSES device preserves organs, without the ice chest.
News: Robotics, Automation & Control
A Tech Briefs reader asks: What's next with military motion control?
Blog: Imaging
A new drone “folds” itself into configurations that suit a given environment.
Question of the Week: Energy
Will Wave-Powered Desalination Catch On?
Today's lead INSIDER story demonstrated how ocean waves can be used to turn seawater into freshwater.
Blog: Energy
Inventor Olivier Ceberio found a new way to turn ocean waves into fresh water.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
An automated system designs and 3D-prints complex robotic parts that are optimized according to an enormous number of specifications. The system fabricates actuators — devices that mechanically control...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Soft robots have a distinct advantage over rigid robots: they can adapt to complex environments, handle fragile objects, and interact safely with humans. Made from silicone, rubber, or other stretchable polymers, they...
Products: Semiconductors & ICs
Brushless Servo Motor
maxon precision motors (Taunton, MA) released the EC-i30 20W brushless servomotor with integrated electronics. With an integrated 4-quadrant speed controller, the motor is available as a 5-wire version. Both...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
A high-sensitivity and low-noise MEMS accelerometer was developed using multi-layer metal structures composed of multiple metal layers. The accelerometer achieves 1 μG level resolution that has...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
While most cars today run on 12-volt DC batteries, cars in the future will run on 48 volts. This increased voltage could affect ball bearing performance.
Briefs: AR/AI
A smartphone app was developed that allows a user to easily program any robot to perform a mundane activity such as picking up parts from one area and delivering them to another. The app, called VRa, uses...
Articles: Photonics/Optics
In the digital age, the measurement of rotation of a mechanical shaft on a motor or a rotating instrument knob needs to be done quickly and efficiently....
Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The characteristics of hybrid drives present a practical solution when a position needs to be detected with high precision
Briefs: AR/AI
Neural Lander Uses AI to Land Drones Smoothly
Landing multi-rotor drones smoothly is difficult. Complex turbulence is created by the airflow from each rotor bouncing off the ground during a descent. This turbulence is not well understood nor is it easy to compensate for, particularly for autonomous drones. That is why takeoff and landing are often...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Permeable concrete, quick disconnects, and more
Briefs: Aerospace
NASA’s Langley Research Center developed an inexpensive, long-endurance, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). It is capable of flying for 24 hours, landing in a 50 × 50...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
For decades, microchip transistors have become smaller, faster, and cheaper; however, miniaturization has reached a natural limit, as completely new problems arise when a length scale of only a...
NASA Spinoff: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Developing meals for long-duration missions is leading to personalized 3D-printed food.
Briefs: Medical
Researchers have 3D-printed an all-liquid device that, with the click of a button, can be repeatedly reconfigured on demand to serve a wide range of applications from making battery materials to screening drug...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A radically new kind of airplane wing, assembled from hundreds of tiny identical pieces, can change shape to control the plane’s flight, and could provide a significant boost in aircraft...
Briefs: Energy
A new device, inspired by a rose, inexpensively collects and purifies water. The device is a new approach to solar steaming for water production — a technique that uses energy from sunlight to...
Q&A: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Professor Negar Tavassolian is using vibration sensors to monitor heartbeats.
Briefs: Aerospace
Lightweight Sensing and Control System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Monitoring
A new sensing and control system for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) allows for semi-autonomous flight. Pilots need not leave the ground to conduct routine monitoring and surveillance quickly and cost-effectively. Such systems are particularly useful during long flight...
5 Ws: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Who
Anyone using standard, coated paper in conventional printers.
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Between walking and running, human gaits can cover a wide range of speeds; for example, at low speeds, the metabolic rate of walking is lower than that of running in a slow jog. The...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
3D printers that build small parts layer by layer from melted plastic can take up to an hour to produce a pocket-sized piece. This process is far too slow for the mass-production of components...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A set of five tiny fundamental parts can be assembled into a wide variety of functional devices including a tiny “walking” motor that can move back and forth across a surface or...
Top Stories
Blog: Lighting
A Stretchable OLED that Can Maintain Most of Its Luminescence
INSIDER: Design
Advancing All-Solid-State Batteries
Blog: Energy
Batteries that Can Withstand the Cold
Blog: AR/AI
My Opinion: We Need More Power Soon — Is Nuclear the Answer?
News: Power
Blog: Aerospace
Webcasts
On-Demand Webinars: Transportation
Quiet, Please: NVH Improvement Opportunities in the Early Design Cycle
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
From Spreadsheets to Insights: Fast Data Analysis Without Complex...
Upcoming Webinars: Aerospace
Cooling a New Generation of Aerospace and Defense Embedded...
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
Beyond AI-Copy-Paste Engineering: Advanced AI-Integration Success...
Upcoming Webinars: Energy
Battery Abuse Testing: Pushing to Failure
Upcoming Webinars: Power
