Category Technology/Electronics

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...

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...

Rechargeable lithium metal batteries with increased energy density, performance, and safety may be possible with a newly-developed, solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI), according to Penn State researchers. As the demand for higher-energy-density lithium metal batteries increases – for electric vehicles, smartphones, and drones – stability of the SEI has been a critical issue halting their advancement because a salt layer on the surface of the battery’s lithium electrode insulates it and conducts lithium ions.

“This layer is very i...