world updates
Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the context of health care or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change thanks to new, miniaturized sensors developed by researchers at the Tufts University School of Engineering that, when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on glucose, salt and alcohol intake. Credits
Audio MEMS: Fraunhofer Institute, Aachen University and IWE2 Institute demonstrate printed miniature loudspeakers. Until now, conventional vacuum and mask-based manufacturing methods have been used to produce piezoMEMS, but these methods are time-consuming and cost-intensive, especially for the manufacture of small batches. Credits
Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab (USA) have now developed an alternative approach that they believe could offer much more precise control of prosthetic limbs. After inserting small magnetic beads into muscle tissue, they can precisely measure the length of a muscle as it contracts. They hope to test the approach in people with amputation within the next few years. Credits
An international team of scientists at Georgia Tech (USA) has designed a BMI (brain-machine interface) system that can control a robotic arm or wheelchair by simply imagining the action via a detection system that is easier to wear than earlier systems. It has miniaturized, imperceptible micro-needle electrodes, and flexible circuits with stretchable interconnectors. Credits
The device built at University of California San Diego (USA) can convert fingertips sweat into electricity. It is one square centimeter wide and flexible. It captures sweat with a flexible hydrogel that sits against the skin and can generate 300 millijoules of energy per square centimeter during a night’s sleep—enough to power a wristwatch for a day. Credits
The primary purposes of InnoMake (Austria) shoes is to help visually impaired and blind people as they walk, to support the elderly, fire department and other rescue personnel.
These shoes have six key components: two sensors, a vibration unit, a processing unit, a Bluetooth wireless communication module, and an ultra-bright LED. Tec-Innovation mounts all the electronic components and a battery in a water- and dust-resistant casing at the front of the shoe. Distance measurement and foot movement sensors feed data to the processing module. The vibration unit provides haptic feedback for obstacle alerts. Credits
Vortex Bladeless is a vortex induced vibration resonant wind generator produced in Avila (Spain). It harnesses wind energy from a phenomenon of vorticity called Vortex Shedding. Basically, bladeless technology consists of a cylinder fixed vertically with an elastic rod. The cylinder oscillates on a wind range, which then generates electricity through an alternator system. In other words, it is a wind turbine which is not actually a turbine. Credits
The highly flexible MiR200, from the Danish company Mobile Industrial Robots A/S, autonomously transports up to 200 kg. It can be mounted with customized top modules such as bins, racks, lifts, conveyors or even a collaborative robot arm. The MiR200 robot safely maneuvers around people and obstacles, through doorways and in and out of elevators. And the robots’ mission can be altered with just a smartphone. Credits
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and the Seoul National University have developed flexible thermoelectric devices with high power generation performance by maximizing flexibility and heat transfer efficiency. The developed thermoelectric device showed excellent flexibility, thereby allowing stable operation even when it is bent or stretched. When attached to human skin, 7 μW/cm2 of electricity was generated from the body temperature only. Credits
Optical MEMS: waveguide design for wearable RGB scanning projector. Researchers at University of Fukui (Japan) have created a high resolution 8×4×3 mm projector for wearables using a new waveguide design. The laser beam scanning module can project color video onto the retina by tuning the MEMS driving frequency. Credits
Wyss Institute (USA) researchers have created a sensor that can detect strain, pressure, and shear up to ~250% strain when embedded in an artificial “skin” made of highly stretchable silicone rubber. The sensor itself is composed of eutectic gallium–indium (eGaIn), a conductive liquid that is injected into microchannels arranged in three parallel layers of bonded silicone. Credits
Hand drawing in virtual reality (VR) with hand tracking by Holonautic, a startup company from EPFL (Switzerland). Finally managed to bring the hand drawing feature to an acceptable feeling. Now even possible to use other objects to guide your pen with physics. Credits
Soft sensors composed of conductive materials that exhibit changes in their electrical conductivity when stretched (which is how they detect movement) are coupled with a programmable microcontroller chip. To achieve this, researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (USA) combined the printed soft sensors with a digital “pick-and-place process” that applies a modest vacuum through an empty printing nozzle (through which ink is normally dispensed) to pick up electronic components and place them onto the substrate surface in a specific, programmable manner. Credits
Soft robots have a distinct advantage over their rigid forebears: they can adapt to complex environments, handle fragile objects and interact safely with humans. EPFL researchers (Switzerland) presented soft robots made from silicone, rubber or other stretchable polymers, they are ideal for use in rehabilitation exoskeletons and robotic clothing. Soft bio-inspired robots could one day be deployed to explore remote or dangerous environments. Credits
Scientists from EPFL (Switzerland) have developed microscopic, hydrogel-based muscles that can manipulate and mechanically stimulate biological tissue. These soft, biocompatible robots could be used for targeted therapy and to help diagnose and prevent disease. Credits
A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and The Ohio State University has developed a material that uses magnetic fields to transform into a variety of shapes. The material could enable a range of new applications from antennas that change frequencies on the fly to gripper arms for delicate or heavy objects. Credits
The graphene enhanced heat pipe exhibits a specific thermal transfer coefficient which is about 3.5 times better than that of copper-based heat pipe. The new findings by this cooperation among Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), SMIT Center (China), Marche Polytechnic University (Italy), and Fudan University (China), pave the way for using graphene enhanced heat pipes in lightweight and large capacity cooling applications, as required in many applications such as avionics, automotive electronics, laptop computers, handsets, data centres as well as space electronics.
Thanks to a close look at wings in nature, the FESTO BionicSwifts are agile, nimble and can even fly loops and tight turns. The five artificial swallows can move in a coordinated and autonomous manner in a defined airspace by interacting with a radio-based indoor GPS (ultra wideband, UWB). Credits
Human bodily fluids and secretions contain molecules known as biomarkers that contain a wealth of information about the body's health and the presence of disease. Among secretions such as tears, sweat and saliva, tears are considered the best source of biomarkers, with concentrations similar to those found in blood. A collaborative team, which includes a group from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (USA), has developed a fabrication method to meet all the challenges in making a hydrogel contact lens for biomarker sensing. Credits
For athletes trying to run fast, the proper shoe can be essential to achieving peak performance. This is why Adidas has married 3D printing with robotic automation in a mass-market footwear project it’s called Futurecraft.Strung. Using a customized, 3D-printed sole, a Futurecraft.Strung manufacturing robot can place some 2,000 threads from up to 10 different sneaker yarns in one upper section of the shoe. Credits
A new type of ultra-efficient, nano-thin material could advance self-powered electronics, wearable technologies and even deliver pacemakers powered by heart beats. The flexible and printable piezoelectric material, which can convert mechanical pressure into electrical energy, has been developed by an Australian research team led by RMIT University. The new material could be used to develop devices that convert blood pressure into a power source for pacemakers. Credits
The TNZ14 material, which belongs to the ZTi-Med® powder family, has the lowest elastic modulus among titanium alloys for additive manufacturing. Presented by Z3DLab, it is a biocompatible material designed to maintain a good strength-ductility ratio. The Young modulus of 43 GPa makes it very close to the elastic modulus of the human bone (~30 GPa). Because of its unique properties, TNZ14 offers a large range of applications such as medical and luxury. Credits
This is a render of a lattice structure that has the potential to exhibit zero/negative thermal expansion. A metamaterial, originating from the latin "meta" meaning beyond, is a material that have been human engineered to have properties that don't normally exist in naturally occurring materials. Here is an interesting paper on the topic.
Power MEMS: stretchable micro-supercapacitors to self-power wearable devices from Pennsylvania State University (USA). Current versions of batteries and supercapacitors powering wearable health-monitoring and diagnostic devices have many shortcomings, including low energy density and limited stretchability. Credits
Wyss Institute (USA) developed these Smart Thermally Actuating Textiles (STATs). They are tightly-sealed pouches that are able to change shape or maintain their pressure even in environments in which the exterior temperature or airflow fluctuates. This soft robotics technology could be developed as novel components of rehabilitation therapies or to prevent tissue damage in hospital bed or wheelchair-bound individuals. Credits