Category Technology/Electronics

Robot Overcomes Uncertainty to Retrieve Buried Objects

the team of researchers with their project
Caption:Fadel Adib, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Signal Kinetics group in the MIT Media Lab (far left) with (from left to right) Tara Boroushaki, Nazish Naeem, and Laura Dodds, research assistants in the Signal Kinetics group.
Credits:Image: James Day, MIT Media Lab

FuseBot is a new robotic system that fuses visual information and radio-frequency signals to efficiently find hidden items buried under a pile of objects, whether or not the targeted item has an RFID tag.

For humans, finding a lost wallet buried under a pile of items is pretty straightforward — we simply remove things from the pile until we find the wallet...

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From Transistor to Memristor: Switching Technologies for the Future

From transistor to memristor: switching technologies for the future
Three-dimensional schematic of a memristor made of multilayer hexagonal boron nitride. Credit: Mario Lanza / KAUST

The invention of the transistor by Bell Laboratory in 1947 ushered in an era of electronic devices that were smaller and ran cooler using far less power than their bulky and fragile vacuum tube counterparts. Transistors function as a binary switch to facilitate electrical current from off to on states. Radios, calculators and telephones were among the first wave of instruments to replace vacuum tubes with the new semiconductor technology...

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Topological Superconductors: Fertile ground for Elusive Majorana (‘angel’) Particle

Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) images: edge of FeSe/STO, with inset atomic-resolution STM showing the topmost Se atom arrangement and crystal orientation

Majorana fermions promise information technology with zero resistance. A new, multi-node FLEET review investigates the search for Majorana fermions in iron-based superconductors.

The elusive Majorana fermion, or ‘angel particle’ proposed by Ettore Majorana in 1937, simultaneously behaves like a particle and an antiparticle — and surprisingly remains stable rather than being self-destructive.

Majorana fermions promise information and communications technology with zero resistance, addressing the rising energy consumption of modern electronics (already 8% of global electricity consumption), and promising a sustainable future...

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Organic Bipolar Transistor developed

Organic bipolar transistors can also handle demanding data processing and transmission tasks on flexible electronic elements, e.g. here for electrocardiogram (ECG) data.

Researchers have developed a highly efficient organic bipolar transistor. The work opens up new perspectives for organic electronics – both in data processing and transmission, as well as in medical technology applications.

Prof. Karl Leo has been thinking about the realization of this component for more than 20 years, now it has become reality: His research group at the Institute for Applied Physics at the TU Dresden has presented the first highly efficient organic bipolar transistor. The results of the research work have now been published in the leading specialist journal Nature.

The invention of the transisto...

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