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Category: engineering – Page 216

Congrats Hong Kong Univ.

Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have fabricated microscopically-small lasers directly on silicon, enabling the future-generation microprocessors to run faster and less power-hungry – a significant step towards light-based computing.

The innovation, made by Prof Kei-may Lau, Fang Professor of Engineering and Chair Professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara; Sandia National Laboratories and Harvard University, marks a major breakthrough for the semiconductor industry and well beyond.

Silicon forms the basis of everything from solar cells to the integrated circuits at the heart of our modern electronic gadgets. However, the crystal lattice of silicon and of typical laser materials could not match up, making it impossible to integrate the two materials until now, when Prof Lau’s group managed to integrate subwavelength cavities — the essential building blocks of their tiny lasers — onto silicon, allowing them to create and demonstrate high-density on-chip light-emitting elements. The finding was recently published as the cover story on Applied Physics Letters.

Continue reading “HKUST Develops Tiny Lasers that Opens New Era for Light-based Computing” | >

When the Holiday season kicks off next fall (2017); I have a feeling that I may end up buying a Penny Robot or a BMI controlled drone for my niece & nephews.

The post is also available in: Hebrew :הכתבה זמינה גם ב

A new research out of Arizona State University with DARPA funding.

Using a skullcap fitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer, researchers are able to control multiple drones using human thought and vision to guide the quadcopters wirelessly. The device records electrical brain activity and measures the movement of the drones based on parts of the brain that light up. This signal is monitored and sent to another computer that transmits a signal to the drones, making them move. Panagiotis Artemiadis, director of the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab and an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, has been working with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and U.S. Air Force to develop this technology. Artemiadis has been working on brain-to-machine interfaces since 2009, but only recently made the leap to controlling more than one device.

Continue reading “Farewell Remote Controllers, Hello Brain Controlled UAV’s” | >

Think of a traditional robot and you probably imagine something made from metal and plastic. Such “nuts-and-bolts” robots are made of hard materials. As robots take on more roles beyond the lab, such rigid systems can present safety risks to the people they interact with. For example, if an industrial robot swings into a person, there is the risk of bruises or bone damage.

Researchers are increasingly looking for solutions to make robots softer or more compliant – less like rigid machines, more like animals. With traditional actuators – such as motors – this can mean using air muscles or adding springs in parallel with motors. For example, on a Whegs robot, having a spring between a motor and the wheel leg (Wheg) means that if the robot runs into something (like a person), the spring absorbs some of the energy so the person isn’t hurt. The bumper on a Roomba vacuuming robot is another example; it’s spring-loaded so the Roomba doesn’t damage the things it bumps into.

But there’s a growing area of research that’s taking a different approach. By combining robotics with tissue engineering, we’re starting to build robots powered by living muscle tissue or cells. These devices can be stimulated electrically or with light to make the cells contract to bend their skeletons, causing the robot to swim or crawl. The resulting biobots can move around and are soft like animals. They’re safer around people and typically less harmful to the environment they work in than a traditional robot might be. And since, like animals, they need nutrients to power their muscles, not batteries, biohybrid robots tend to be lighter too.

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The human brain has Quantum consciousness according to China. Why a cogitative thinking system that truly mimics the human brain will require QC.

Chinese scientists have proposed a new theory that explains why humans are so much more intelligent than animals even though our brains are often much smaller than those of other species. Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Neuroscience and Neuro-engineering have previously carried out studies backing the theory that the brain not only processes and passes on information not only through electrical and chemical signals, but also with photons of light.

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In this video, D-Wave Systems Founder Eric Ladizinsky presents: The Coming Quantum Computing Revolution.

“Despite the incredible power of today’s supercomputers, there are many complex computing problems that can’t be addressed by conventional systems. Our need to better understand everything, from the universe to our own DNA, leads us to seek new approaches to answer the most difficult questions. While we are only at the beginning of this journey, quantum computing has the potential to help solve some of the most complex technical, commercial, scientific, and national defense problems that organizations face. We expect that quantum computing will lead to breakthroughs in science, engineering, modeling and simulation, financial analysis, optimization, logistics, and national defense applications.”

Eric Ladizinsky is a senior scientific management executive with a strong background in physics, engineering, materials, manufacturing and team building. Mr. Ladizinsky leads D-Wave’s technical effort to develop the superconducting integrated circuit fabrication process and is often called upon to evangelize on all aspects of quantum computing. At Northrop Grumman Space Technology (formerly TRW, Inc.), he ran a multi-million dollar DARPA program in Quantum Computing using superconducting integrated circuit technology. Mr. Ladizinsky has a BSc. Physics and Mathematics degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and is an Adjunct Professor of Physics at Loyola Marymount University.

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Nice work; understanding the quantum effects in nanomechanical systems is closer to reality in being achieved. Imagine a nanobot or microbot with quantum mechanic properties.

Rob Knobel is probing the ultimate limits of nanomechanical systems to develop and build tiny vapour sensors, which could be used as airport security tools to prevent terrorism or drug smuggling.

He and his students are using highly specialized equipment in the $5-million Kingston Nano Fabrication Laboratory (KNFL), which opened a year ago in Innovation Park, to fabricate nanosensors made from graphene, a form of carbon a single atom thick.

“Graphene is the strongest, lightest material yet discovered, and it has remarkable electrical and mechanical properties. We’re developing graphene chemical sensors that can detect vapours in parts per billion or trillion concentration. These could potentially be used for detecting explosives or biological agents,” says Dr. Knobel, an associate professor, the Chair of Engineering Physics and a Queen’s Engineering graduate himself.

Continue reading “Exploring the promise of the quantum realm” | >

Innovation is all the buzz in Asia. Australia, China, Korea, Vietnam, and now lets look at India.

Personally, I believe there is great potential in India for some amazing innovations. Just look at their own historical sites and artifacts, art, etc.; no one can claim creativity, imagination, etc. does not exist. And, not to mention the engineering feats that have been proven by India many times.

India has moved 16 rungs up the global ranking for innovation in 2016, as compared to 2015, but still remains a lowly 66th, well below Malaysia and Vietnam, leave alone China in the middle-income category and far below countries like South Korea and Japan, and other high-income innovation hubs like Switzerland, the US, the UK and Singapore. What can be done to make India a hub of innovation? Improve the quality of education across all levels. A technology policy that incentivises genuine R&D is required. Ease of entry and exit of firms, competition, a vibrant financial sector that allocates capital to new profit potential, a culture of entrepreneurship and an end to failure-shaming would help. The least obvious requirement is political empowerment of the common man.

Close on the heels of the release of the ranking comes the news that India has got one more unicorn, a startup with a valuation in excess of $1billion, with fresh investment in Hike, a messenger app from the Bharti stable, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. This is a welcome development, and testimony to innovation at work in India. However, compared to what WeChat, a Chinese app that brings many functionalities together including payments and messages that expire, Indian innovation looks limited. Huge research and development expenditure by global majors in their units in India has helped raise the country’s ranking in the global index. But this only means Indian brawn working to bring foreigners’ innovation to fruition, for the most part.

Continue reading “How to make India an innovation hub” | >

Hey Boston Dynamics why don’t you team up with D-Wave and/ or Google’s QC work in building your advance robot because everyone knows that the real magic in robotics and other AI isn’t going to be realized until QC is implemented as part of the under lying technology.

Boston Dynamics is an engineering company that specializes in building dynamic robots and software for human simulation. You know doubt know of them from the many videos they produce. One of the more recent ones is below:

Currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Google, Inc. Began as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where National Academy of Engineering member Marc Raibert and his colleagues first developed robots that ran and maneuvered like animals. They founded the company in 1992, and their ground-breaking work continues to inspire the work.

Continue reading “Boston Dynamics: On a mission to build the most advanced robots on earth” | >

DARPA has just launched the Engineering Living Materials program, with a vision to create building materials that grow on-site. The materials would be used to construct buildings that repair themselves and adapt to the environment.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has certainly had its hand in making the gizmos and gadgets we enjoy into a reality. The agency is still hard at work blazing the trail for the tech of the future, issuing challenges for the creation of the most advanced things on this Earth.

It has issued a new challenges, this time in the field of construction. DARPA has just announced the Engineering Living Materials program, a program to develop building materials that grow on site, repair themselves, and even adapt to the environment. “The vision of the ELM program is to grow materials on demand where they are needed,” said ELM program manager, Justin Gallivan, in a press release. “Imagine that instead of shipping finished materials, we can ship precursors and rapidly grow them on site using local resources.”

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