University of Michigan

Footwear that leads the way

Interactive haptic footwear guides users through vibrations.

Patient leaves hospital hospital without a human heart

he University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center has sent home a patient with a total artificial heart, a first in heart care in Michigan.

Bulletproof battery

New battery technology from the University of Michigan should be able to prevent the kind of fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013.

Insect-inspired robotic platform in Army exercise

Army researchers are finding they have much to learn from bees hovering near a picnic spread at a park.

Harvesting energy to power the internet of things

Proessor Dutta designs hardware and software for smart dust and larger sensors that don't need batteries because they can harvest energy from the world around them. They can run on power from the light in a room, the magnetic field around an electrical wire, or the heat from a shower head, for example.

New technology may lead to prolonged power in mobile devices

Researchers have created technology that could be the first step toward wearable computers with self-contained power sources or, more immediately, a smartphone that doesn't die after a few hours of heavy use.

What's in store? The future of batteries to be revealed

A current major topic of conversation within the advanced battery and electric vehicle industry is the future of battery technology and chemistries in the context of energy density, safety and cost.

Wearable tech for disease monitoring

A new wearable vapor sensor being developed could one day offer continuous disease monitoring for patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia or lung disease.

Toward ultimate light efficiency on the cheap

Researchers have taken a major stride toward perfectly efficient lighting that is also relatively inexpensive and simple to make.

Vibrations enhance efficiency of photosynthesis

Biophysics researchers have used short pulses of light to peer into the mechanics of photosynthesis and illuminate the role that molecule vibrations play in the energy conversion process.

VISEDO nominated for an international cleantech competition

he Later Stage Award is one of the most well-followed Cleantech competitions in the world, and this year's competition is now at the stage in which each country nominates their own candidates.

Pyramid scheme for brighter organic LEDs

Researchers are arranging PHOLEDs into a pyramid to improve efficiency of LEDs.

Thermoelectric energy harvesters- market and application assessment

Although thermoelectric phenomena have been used for heating and cooling applications extensively, electricity generation has only seen very limited market penetration in niche applications and it is only in recent years that interest has increased for applications of energy generation through thermoelectric harvesting. This growth in interest will continue and will be characterized by an overall market for thermoelectric energy harvesters that will reach almost US$1 billion by 2024.

New tech could lead to night vision contact lenses

An ultrathin light detector that can sense wavelengths our eyes can't see has the potential to put heat vision technology into a contact lens, its University of Michigan developers say.

Solar sails to power CubeSats for space exploration

Two tiny, cube-shaped research satellites hitched a ride to Earth orbit to validate new hardware and software technologies for future NASA Earth-observing instruments.

New 8 million dollar battery laboratory

A new $8 million battery lab has opened at the University of Michigan that will help Ford develop batteries that are smaller, lighter and less expensive to produce.

Stretchable gold conductor grows its own wires

Networks of spherical nanoparticles embedded in elastic materials may make the best stretchy conductors yet.

Solar power heads in a new direction: thinner

Most efforts at improving solar cells have focused on increasing the efficiency of their energy conversion, or on lowering the cost of manufacturing. But now researchers are opening another avenue for improvement, aiming to produce the thinnest and most lightweight solar panels possible.

Nano engineering boosts thermoelectric materials by 200 percent

By engineering a semiconducting material at the level of its individual atoms, a researcher, has boosted its ability to convert heat into power by 200 percent and its electrical conductivity by 43 percent.

Improved organic thermoelectrics

Thermoelectric materials can be used to turn waste heat into electricity or to provide refrigeration without any liquid coolants, and a research team from the University of Michigan has found a way to nearly double the efficiency of a particular class of them that's made with organic semiconductors.