Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected Aurora Flight Sciences to build the so-called “X-Plane,” an unmanned aircraft that will take off and land vertically.
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Category: transportation – Page 580
VideoDisclaimer: The author of this article, Jason Belzer, is a member of rLoop and serves as the non-profit’s legal counsel. When billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk proposed the Hyperloop — a futuristic transportation system capable of propelling passengers to supersonic speeds — back in 2013, it is unlikely that even he could have imagined that just a few years later his vision would be tantalizing close to reality. Yet ironically, Musk, who has helped build companies like Tesla Motors and SpaceX that are on the leading edge of technological innovation, will not receive the credit if the Hyperloop indeed becomes a reality. Instead, that honor will be bestowed upon on a small group of teams now working feverishly to construct a prototype that will be tested this summer at SpaceX headquarters in California.
Imagine tackling one of the most complex engineering projects in the history of the human race, requiring countless hours of collaboration and experimentation by some of the world’s most talented engineers, and never actually meeting the people you are working with in a physical setting. You might think it’s impossible, or you might be a member of rLoop — the only non student team to reach the final stage of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.
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A cognitive neuroscientist and his team at HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, seem to have achieved the impossible.
According to a press release, the team “measured the brain activity patterns of six commercial and military pilots, and then transmitted these patterns into novice subjects as they learned to pilot an airplane in a realistic flight simulator.”
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This looks very promising.
The human body is designed pretty well: Our muscles are able to switch between strength and dexterity, limbs stiffening when we do an energy-fueled task like lifting a bowling ball and softening when we do something delicate like painting with a brush. This ability is very rarely replicated in engineering systems, namely because it’s expensive, but also because it’s been damn hard to clone.
However, HRL Laboratories — the same Malibu-based researchers who brought you microlattice — has announced they’ve been able to replicate the reactions of human muscle in metal. Their goal is to use this new technology to create cars with smoother rides and, more intriguingly, more human-like robots.
New material improving stealth mode vehicles and planes.
When Surrey NanoSystems introduced the original Vantablack, the company said the carbon nanotube material is capable of absorbing 99.96 percent of light that touches it. It’s so dark, it can fool your eyes into seeing a smooth surface even when the nanotubes were actually grown on crumpled foil (seriously — watch the video below the fold). Well, the new version of Vantablack is darker than that. In fact, Surrey can’t even give us the percentage of light that gets absorbed, because its spectrometers can’t measure it.
In this video below (and the GIF above), you can see the material engulf the laser pointer in darkness when it moves across:
These #3Dprinted sphere-shaped tires could be the future of automobiles thanks to Goodyear.
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Audi RSQ – a fantastic car. Certainly a design icon, but first of all, a movie star. The Audi RSQ was the first car we developed for a motion picture – with great success. This sporty coupé for the 2004 Hollywood science-fiction “I, Robot” was a visionary concept of what a car might look like in 2035. Four designers, ten model engineers, ten weeks, all creative liberties – that’s what it took to create this Audi of the future.
What was really unique and visionary about the Audi RSQ: It was the first Audi demonstrating piloted driving capabilities. Here is one of my favorite moments in the movie – a moment that tells you a lot about piloted driving:
The Audi RSQ is going autonomously in a busy, but fluent traffic situation. Suddenly, the car comes under heavy attack by enemy robots. Actor Will Smith in his role of a police officer decides to take over. Like all heroes, he wants to manage and control critical situations by himself. But his lady co-driver does not trust him and says: “Oh no, don’t do it! It is too dangerous to control the car by yourself!” And she is right, he is damaging the car a few minutes later.
This dialogue is a great lesson in future technology:
Spherical tire takes autonomous cars sideways into the future.
http://www.gizmag.com/goodyear-tires-autonomous-cars/42135/
The Goodyear Eagle-360 is our vision for a tire for the long-term future that looks radically different from tires today…it’s a sphere! The unique shape means ultimate manoeuvrability, safety and connectivity for autonomous vehicles.
