Medical researchers are increasingly interested in developing smaller, wearable devices that can both monitor and treat patients, such as continuous-glucose meters, or Medtronic’s implantable ECG monitor. Just recently the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University unveiled an injectable mesh that is able to identity electrical signals within the brains of mice. The mes...
Next week, Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen will attempt a Space first by controlling an earthbound rover using force-feedback controls while he orbits the globe aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The experiment is scheduled to take place on September 7, with the Interact Centaur rover being based at the European Space Agency’s ESTEC technical centre in Noord...
Jeffery Greenblatt and Samveg Saxena, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, concluded in a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change that automated taxis could produce per-mile emissions between 87 and 94 percent lower than today’s average car. This is based on the assumption that self-driving taxis would be electrified as well as...
The Independent newspaper in the UK has claimed that car manufacturer Volkswagen actively suppressed academic research that shows a flaw in the security system it and other manufacturers use to immobilize their vehicles. The paper claims three university researchers from the UK and Holland were prevented from publishing their analysis of the built-in security system that...
Being a roboticist is often a thankless task, you spend hours coding every minute movement your robot can make and yet still it mightn’t move the way you want. Researchers have experimented with many techniques to both speed up and improve the process, including using motion capture. Well now a team from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is using this approach, ...
There has been a lot of talk about driverless cars over the last few years, Google is just one of the large players to have stoked the flames of interest on this topic. The tech-giant made an announcement last summer that it was to begin a limited production of a two-seater autonomous vehicle. More traditional vehicle manufacturers Audi and Daimler have since brought out...
The global fame of the Netherlands in the area of 3D printing has combined with its capital’s recognition for bridges in a collaboration by Heijmans, MX3D, and Joris Laarman Lab. The first-of-its-kind project aims to create a 3D printed steel pedestrian bridge that will span one of Amsterdam’s historic canals, though the exact location has not yet been made public. Plan...
A team from South Korea has won the Darpa Robotics Challenge. The competition involves a type of robot obstacle course which is designed to replicate conditions similar to the disaster zone that followed the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant catastrophe. Team Kaist’s DRC Hubo bipedal robot finished faster than the other 22 competitors to claim the top prize of USD$2m from the...
An enterprising farmer in Ireland has turned a UAV into a highly advanced ‘sheepdog’ capable of herding sheep at a distance. The drone’s first day on the job was filmed by its onboard camera and the results are quite impressive. Nicknamed Shep the Drone, the UAV performs a number of sharp twists and turns as it expertly guides the sheep around the field. Whether this wil...
The UK Department of Transport has just announced that driverless cars will be allowed to drive on public roads as part of a trial in four British cities. The prototypes which look somewhat like golf-carts will be appearing on the streets of Milton Keynes, Greenwich, Bristol and Coventry in time for the summer. The British government wants the UK to become a leader in th...
US media group CNN has signed an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which could open up the skies to a an era of newsgathering drones. The new intitiative will permit CNN to legally experiment with UAVs in producing video content. The initiative will also allow the US government agency to gather information which will inform its policy on drones. Cu...
The first electric tilt-rotor aircraft funded by AgustaWestland (a Finmeccanica Company) is the result of an impressive program, named “Project Zero”. It was orchestrated by multiple Finmeccanica Group subsidiaries, teaming up with proactive international (Italy, U.K., U.S.A. and Japan) companies outside of the traditional aerospace industry. The “Project Zero” is the pe...
Are we the only ones here to notice that computer geniuses tend to be younger and younger? And more and more creative! Jinha Lee started developing a 3-D desktop environment, the SpaceTop, while interning for Microsoft Applied Science (and taking a break from MIT!). This amazing new technology enables the user to grab web pages, videos and any other kind of documents, se...
Please let us introduce you to FUTEK’s highly popular device, the Miniature S-Beam Jr. Load Cell (LSB200), capable of measuring both tensile and compression forces. Extremely positive feedback has been given regarding its format, broad capacity field (from 10g to 100lb), no-risk lifetime warranty and availability. The LSB200 is the lifeline for The Robot Studio’s biomime...
Battelle, a research institute located around the world but headquartered in Ohio, US, has successfully tested its anti-icing system for aircraft in a leading wind tunnel facility. The carbon nanotube-base HeatCoat system is reportedly lighter and less power hungry than existing systems. Designed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), although applicable to larger commercia...
The students opted to build a quadcopter for their ME 202 course project, in compliance with instructions to turn their smartphones into controllers for a device of their own creation. Consulting associate professor and lecturer Matt Ohline says that there are endless applications to the smartphone-enabled Mechatronics Systems, and that the students have undertaken the p...
Unmanned vehicles and aircraft are steadily making the crossover from the lab into real environments. As these machines increase in sophistication it is only matter of course that they will begin to communicate with each other to complete joint tasks. The video below demonstrates a way to autonomously coordinate the landing of a UAV on top of a movable landing pad. The r...
Watch this fascinating video of the “world’s largest robotic swarm.” The swarm was created using 1,024 small robots called Kilobots, which are each equipped with an onboard microcontroller, infrared sensors and transmitters for communication and motors that permit them to move straight or turn left or right. The swarm was able to form 2D shapes like stars and also to spe...
Wallace and Gromit is a British stop-motion comedy franchise. The series centres on Wallace, an absent-minded inventor and cheese enthusiast, along with his companion Gromit, a silent yet intelligent anthropomorphic dog. Because of their widespread popularity, the characters have been described as positive international icons of both modern British culture in particular ...
MatterFab a metal 3D printing start-up in the US is developing a low-cost metal 3D printer. The company envisages it will be able to produce a 3D printer that is an order of magnitude cheaper than current metal printers, which typically range from the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. CEO and co-founder Matt Burris came upon the idea for a low-cost printer from s...
And now, a blast from the blast! Twenty-four years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope, or (HST), was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Unfortunately for the people involved it was far from plane sailing in the beginning. On reaching orbit, NASA realised that there was a serious problem with the telescope’s optical system. Engineers soon found the...
In 1983, Charles W. (Chuck) Hull began a revolution: he invented stereolithography. This innovation single-handedly ushered in the era of rapid prototyping, and set the stage for 31 years of market leadership. Learn more about 3D Systems’ fundamental contributions to the industry here.
Car lovers and engineers-to-be will adore this news! Swedish Daniel Norée made his a surprising mission: to design a remote control truggy – a cross between a monster truck and a buggy – using a 3D printer. And guess what? He succeed in doing so with TopSolid 7! Daniel Norée built all the parts composing the truggy with the new generation of CAD/CAM solution. He firs...
IBM has just announced key modifications regarding Watson. IBM spent 14 years working on Watson which is an artificial learning system that digests large volumes of information to find hidden meanings. It will now be available for companies, academics, individual software developers as a cloud product. The specificity is that it will be more than twice as powerful via th...
In California and Spain, robots now judge ripeness and harvest individual strawberries. Others handle nursery tasks. Out in the field, one company’s prototype is designed to dig holes, plant seeds and add chemical inputs, walking in any direction while avoiding obstacles. A group of such machines could cover an entire field together. Another model is already at wor...
A prototype driverless tractor can be programmed to perform a variety of field tasks, following the most efficient route and avoiding obstructions. A remote operator can monitor progress through onboard sensors and cameras. Another approach is to replace the tractor with a modular implement carrier. The prototype is suited to performing multiple jobs and can run 7 hours ...
In the Internet of Robotic Things, sensors gather production data and robots communicate with each other in real time via the web. For example, dedicated algorithms enable an automated bin picking system to identify and retrieve parts randomly mixed in a crate. Intercommunicating robots can modify procedures for more flexible production. Such an integrated system require...
The open, cloud-based system offers customers a way to capture and leverage the data in their machinery. It’s designed to make the IoT connection simple and inexpensive. MindSphere’s initial applications, Visual Analyzer and Fleet Manager, connect industrial systems to the cloud for tracking and analysis. The company also advises clients on how to make the mo...
The theft of Democratic Party data during the recent US election campaign is just one example. Outdated software and hardware are a real weakness, with update cycles sometimes as long as 20 years. Increasingly prevalent cloud connections are another source of vulnerability. The oil and gas sector is a prime target, but the widespread growth of Industry 4.0 means no field...
The term refers to inactive internal files that a company has tucked away in storage. Mining it could be worth millions. New software can selectively retrieve useful information, compare and link data from different sources and use it to improve efficiency or open new commercial avenues. For example, drug companies can use these techniques to spur innovation by fishing o...
On-site systems are often overwhelmed by the exploding quantity of data input and new connectivity and access demands. Cloud-based solutions can save hardware and IT management costs while offering access from anywhere, at any time via a variety of devices. In addition to off-the-shelf solutions, custom apps are being created for individual industries. New firms see adva...
The Akisai greenhouse project has been producing long-life, low-potassium lettuce since 2014. Sensors send vital environmental data to the cloud in real time. This enables remote management, with certain adjustments being performed automatically. Chemical-free and hosting few microbes, the lettuce is consumable without washing. Another program uses cloud-linked pedometer...
Kontron, a leading global provider of Embedded Computing Technology (ECT), today announced its new embedded mini-ITX motherboard with Intel® Core™ i3, i5, i7 or 6th Generation Intel® Xeon® E3 14 nm Quad Core CPUs. Its extended features and higher performance make the new Kontron mITX-SKL-S-C236 motherboard a perfect solution for Point of Sale or Point of Information scen...
SW1 EtherCAT drives by Ever Elettronica are easily interfaceable with the most common PLC available on the market. Our SW1 EtherCAT drives meet the CoE (CanOpen Over EtherCAT with DS402 profile) protocol and they can also be controlled in DC mode (Distributed Clock). By choosing these drives you will realize that their easy to use, along with fair prices, will prove to...
Operating 100 million times faster than traditional machines, quantum computers could revolutionize genome modeling, weather forecasting and other processes. Such machines also could search immense databases instantaneously. But such enormous power also carries enormous risk. Quantum computers will be able to crack today’s encryption codes, making safety measures e...
Europe's groundbreaking practices in this domain are not universally shared. Edward Snowden’s revelations showed that information on European citizens stored on US servers was subject to surveillance illegal in the EU. European companies storing such data elsewhere could be breaking the new law. These changes require clear privacy policies and data anonymization in...
