Category Technology/Electronics

Technology could benefit lidar applications from autonomous driving to virtual reality. Researchers have developed a new chip-based beam steering technology that provides a promising route to small, cost-effective and high-performance lidar (or light detection and ranging) systems. Lidar, which uses laser pulses to acquire 3D information about a scene or object, is used in a wide range of applications such as autonomous driving, free-space optical communications, 3D holography, biomedical sensing and virtual reality.

“Optical beam ste...

Researchers have designed smart, colour-controllable whitelight devices from quantum dots – tiny semiconductors just a few billionths of a metre in size – which are more efficient and have better colour saturation than standard LEDs, and can dynamically reproduce daylight conditions in a single light.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, designed the next-generation smart lighting system using a combination of nanotechnology, colour science, advanced computational methods, electronics and a unique fabrication process.

The team found that by using more than the three primary lighting colours used in typical LEDs, they were able to reproduce daylight more accu...

Researchers train a machine-learning model to monitor and adjust the 3D printing process to correct errors in real-time. A new computer vision system watches the 3D printing process and adjusts velocity and printing path to avoid errors. Training the system in simulation, researchers avoid the costly trial-and-error associated with setting 3D printing parameters for new materials.

Scientists and engineers are constantly developing new materials with unique properties that can be used for 3D printing, but figuring out howto print with these materials can be a complex, costly conundrum.

Often, an expert operator must us...

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their collaborators have used DNA to overcome a nearly insurmountable obstacle to engineer materials that would revolutionize electronics.

One possible outcome of such engineered materials could be superconductors, which have zero electrical resistance, allowing electrons to flow unimpeded i.e. they don’t lose energy and don’t create heat, unlike current means of electrical transmission...