DARPA

Route to flexible electronics made from exotic materials

Engineers have developed a technique to fabricate ultrathin semiconducting films made from a host of exotic materials other than silicon. To demonstrate their technique, the researchers fabricated flexible films made from gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, and lithium fluoride — materials that exhibit better performance than silicon but until now have been prohibitively expensive to produce in functional devices.

Neuromodulation technology to treat Diabetes

Could non-invasive devices replace drugs and regular insulin injections in the future treatment of diabetes? This is a central question a team of scientists are exploring as part of a research project worth up to $2.9 million.

Personalized soft exosuit breaks new ground

Fully wearable soft exosuit with automatic tuning helps users save energy and walk outside over difficult terrain.

Robots and drones making their own decisions? That's the goal

What if a parent could feel safe allowing a drone to walk their child to the bus stop? Robots working without human intervention? That might occur sooner than you think with a new avenue of artificial intelligence.

Soft multifunctional robots get really small

Robots could be safely deployed in difficult-to-access environments, such as in delicate surgical procedures in the human body.

Microrobotics for disaster recovery and high-risk environments

Partnering rescue personnel with robots to evaluate high-risk scenarios and environments can help increase the likelihood of successful search and recovery efforts, or other critical tasks while minimizing the threat to human teams.

Ecovative

Ecovative use mushrooms to provide sustainable alternatives to plastics and polystyrene foams for packaging, building materials and other applications.

Human-on-a-Chip: using tissue engineering to replicate the human body

An application of tissue engineering that is rapidly growing is the building of organ-on-a-chip devices.

Programming drones to fly in the face of uncertainty

Companies have big ideas for drones that can deliver packages right to your door. But even putting aside the policy issues, programming drones to fly through cluttered spaces like cities is difficult. Being able to avoid obstacles while traveling at high speeds is computationally complex, especially for small drones that are limited in how much they can carry onboard for real-time processing.

Engineering electronic medicine

Targeting a certain nerve very precisely with sound, light or electricity can modulate bleeding or inflammation. Ultrasound, for example, can go deep into tissue. Nerves can be stimulated with electricity via wires, but wires create a lot of problems: tugging and pulling and instability.

Self-driving rides in Las Vegas

Aptiv and Lyft announce a partnership to demonstrate a first-of-its-kind fully automated point-to-point ride-hailing experience in Las Vegas. Torc Robotics also offers autonomous rides.

Hesperos

IDTechEx analyst Nadia Tsao interviewed Hesperos President/CEO Dr Mike Shuler on August 24, 2017. Hesperos provides toxicology testing services using their proprietary organ-on-a-chip technology.