US Navy

Slothbot takes a leisurely approach to environmental monitoring

For environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, infrastructure maintenance and certain security applications, slow and energy efficient can be better than fast and always needing a recharge. That's where "SlothBot" comes in.

New recycling technology for heavy duty military batteries

Scientists have developed an innovative cascade method for purifying silver from spent batteries used in submarines and military aircraft.

Robotics research may help Parkinson's patients

For years, Israeli neurologist Tamar Flash has had a fascination with the octopus, and the way the invertebrate's eight arms propel it effortlessly through the water. She's convinced this has major implications for diagnosing and treating Parkinson's disease — and possible other disorders as well.

Quantum dot polymer for next-gen screens

Scientists have developed and patented the fabrication of transparent, luminescent material they say could give smartphone and television screens flexible, stretchable, and shatterproof properties.

Spider silk could be used as robotic muscle

Spider silk, already known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property that might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers have found.

Boeing wins US$43 million contract for Orca robotic super subs

The Navy awarded Boeing a $43-million contract to build four Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles that will become multi-mission for the service.

Hybrid power management system

Atrex Energy has successfully developed, demonstrated and delivered a hybrid power management prototype unit to the Office of Naval Research testing facility.

Ohara Corporation

Ohara Corp is a Japanese company working on ceramic materials. Together with US-based start-up Polyplus, they have developed a solid ceramic electrolyte for Li-based batteries, which enables lithium metal anodes in next-gen battery technologies.

Advanced Ceramic Fibers

Advanced Ceramic Fibers (ACF) manufacture specialty fibers for metal, polymer and ceramic matrix composites. Ken Koller (CEO/COO), Shawn Perkins (President), and John Garnier (Founder/CTO) spoke with IDTechEx technology analyst Richard Collins.

Optomec LENS hybrid system used to manufacture dissolvable metal

Optomec, a leading global supplier of production-grade additive manufacturing systems for 3D Printed Metals unveiled details of how the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is using a LENS Hybrid Controlled Atmosphere System to develop dissolvable magnesium components that will have broad-reaching implications in the design and manufacture of next-generation medical implants.

US Marines 3D printed concrete barracks

The Additive Manufacturing Team at Marine Corps Systems Command teamed up with Marines from I Marine Expeditionary Force to operate the world's largest concrete 3D printer at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Champaign, Illinois.

If military robot falls, it can get itself up

Scientists at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have developed software to ensure that if a robot falls, it can get itself back up, meaning future military robots will be less reliant on their Soldier handlers.

Cell-sized robots

Researchers have created what may be the smallest robots yet that can sense their environment, store data, and even carry out computational tasks. These devices, which are about the size of a human egg cell, consist of tiny electronic circuits made of two-dimensional materials, piggybacking on minuscule particles called colloids.

Finding defects in 3D printing using gold

That glint of gold has always captured our eyes, but now the precious metal has a new use - finding defects in 3D printing.

Magnetic 3-D-printed structures crawl, roll, jump, and play catch

New printing technique could be used to develop remotely controlled biomedical devices.

Chicago Transit Board $32 million contract for all-electric buses

The Chicago Transit Board awarded a $32 million contract for the purchase of 20 new, all-electric buses - the latest investment by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the CTA to completely modernize the agency's bus fleet.

Making driverless cars change lanes more like human drivers do

In the field of self-driving cars, algorithms for controlling lane changes are an important topic of study. But most existing lane-change algorithms have one of two drawbacks: Either they rely on detailed statistical models of the driving environment, which are difficult to assemble and too complex to analyze on the fly; or they're so simple that they can lead to impractically conservative decisions, such as never changing lanes at all.