#Engineering latest news
- A color-based sensor to emulate skin's sensitivity December 1, 2023In a step toward more autonomous soft robots and wearable technologies, researchers have created a device that uses color to simultaneously sense multiple mechanical and temperature stimuli.
- Unsafe lead levels in school drinking water: new study IDs building risk factors November 30, 2023Civil and environmental engineers have determined the factors that may help identify the schools and daycare centers at greatest risk for elevated levels of lead in drinking water. The most telling characteristic for schools in Massachusetts is building age, with facilities built in the 1960s and 1970s -- nearly a third of the facilities tested -- […]
- Network of robots can successfully monitor pipes using acoustic wave sensors November 29, 2023An inspection design method and procedure by which mobile robots can inspect large pipe structures has been demonstrated with the successful inspection of multiple defects on a three-meter long steel pipe using guided acoustic wave sensors.
- How do you make a robot smarter? Program it to know what it doesn't know November 28, 2023Engineers have come up with a new way to teach robots to know when they don't know. The technique involves quantifying the fuzziness of human language and using that measurement to tell robots when to ask for further directions. Telling a robot to pick up a bowl from a table with only one bowl is […]
- Researchers engineer a material that can perform different tasks depending on temperature November 28, 2023Researchers report that they have developed a new composite material designed to change behaviors depending on temperature in order to perform specific tasks. These materials are poised to be part of the next generation of autonomous robotics that will interact with the environment.
- Immersive engagement in mixed reality can be measured with reaction time November 27, 2023In the real world/digital world cross-over of mixed reality, a user's immersive engagement with the program is called presence. Now, researchers have identified reaction time as a potential presence measurement tool. Their findings have implications for calibrating mixed reality to the user in real time.
- New method uses crowdsourced feedback to help train robots November 27, 2023A new technique enables an AI agent to be guided by data crowdsourced asynchronously from nonexpert human users as it learns to complete a task through reinforcement learning. The method trains the robot faster and better than other approaches.
- Wave devouring propulsion: A revolutionary green technology for maritime sustainability November 27, 2023A new form of wave devouring propulsion (WDP) could power ships and help to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the maritime industry.
- 'Dolomite Problem': 200-year-old geology mystery resolved November 23, 2023For 200 years, scientists have failed to grow a common mineral in the laboratory under the conditions believed to have formed it naturally. Now, researchers have finally pulled it off, thanks to a new theory developed from atomic simulations. Their success resolves a long-standing geology mystery called the 'Dolomite Problem.' Dolomite -- a key mineral […]
- Revolutionary breakthrough in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells November 23, 2023Engineers have achieved a world first by manufacturing the first back-contact micrometric photovoltaic cells.