Category Physics

An interface system that uses augmented reality technology could help individuals with profound motor impairments operate a humanoid robot to feed themselves and perform routine personal care tasks such as scratching an itch and applying skin lotion. The web-based interface displays a “robot’s eye view” of surroundings to help users interact with the world through the machine.

The system, described March 15 in the journal PLOS ONE, could help make sophisticated robots more useful to people who do not have experience operating complex robotic systems...

Quantum simulation gives a sneak peek into the possibilities of time reversal. An international team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory returned a computer briefly to the past. It suggests new paths for exploring the backward flow of time in quantum systems. They also open new possibilities for quantum computer program testing and error correction.

To achieve the time reversal, the research team developed an algorithm for IBM’s public quantum computer that simulates the scattering of a particle. In classical physics, this might appear as a billiard ball struck by a cue, traveling in a line...

Engineers have captured the full complexity of bat flight in a 3D computer model for the first time, potentially inspiring the future design of better drones and other aerial vehicles. Bats are among nature’s best flyers – able to fly for long periods of time, maneouvre in mid-air with pinpoint precision and get into some very tight spaces. However, scientists have not fully understood exactly how bats manage to fly so well, until now.

Engineers at the University of British Columbia have captured the full complexity of bat flight in a 3D computer model for the first time, potentially inspiring the future design of better drones and other aerial vehicles.

Researcher...

Technology designed to advance self-powering devices such as consumer electronics and defense innovations. A fascination with movie technology that showed robots perform self-repair through a liquid formula inspired a Purdue University professor to make his own discoveries – which are now helping to lead the way for advancements in self-powering devices such as consumer electronics and defense innovations.

The Purdue team, led by Wenzhuo Wu, the Ravi and Eleanor Talwar Rising Star Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering, has created wearable technology to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy.
“Our work presents an important step toward the practical...