On the Moon, there are raw materials that humanity could one day mine and use. Various space agencies, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), are already planning missions to better explore Earth’s satellite and find minerals. This calls for appropriate exploration vehicles. Swiss researchers led by ETH Zurich are now pursuing the idea of sending not just one solitary rover on an exploration tour, but rather an entire team of vehicles and flying devices that complement each other. The…
Using Hi Tech to Illuminate Quantum Mysteries. In a breakthrough akin to the effects of 3D cinema, scientists are using light particles to uncover the mysteries of electron behavior and propel our understanding of quantum materials forward. These materials, rich with potential for energy-efficient electronics and cutting-edge technology of tomorrow, are distinguished by their topological properties that could rarely be measured directly – until now. An international team of researchers, together with the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat, has made…
Mars rovers have teams of human experts on Earth telling them what to do. But robots on lander missions to moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter are too far away to receive timely commands from Earth. Researchers in the Departments of Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a novel learning-based method so robots on extraterrestrial bodies can make decisions on their own about where and how to scoop up terrain samples. “Rather than simulating how…
Physicists at the University of Regensburg (UR) led by the research groups of Professor Dr. Christoph Strunk / Dr. Nicola Paradiso and Professor Dr. Jaroslav Fabian made an exciting discovery: In their publication just published in Nature Nanotechnology, the research teams experimentally demonstrate a dramatic sign change of the supercurrent diode effect. The corresponding experimental data are in quantitative agreement with the theory of Dr. Andreas Costa, also physicist at the University of Regensburg. Most transistors, including the building blocks…
How polarization patterns enable new technology. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers have developed a novel method for underwater geolocalization using deep neural networks that have been trained on 10 million polarization-sensitive images collected from locations around the world. This new study, led by electrical and computer engineering professor Viktor Gruev, along with computer science professor David Forsyth, enables underwater geolocalization using only optical data while providing a tool for tethered-free underwater navigation. These findings were recently published in the journal eLight. “We…
This AI system only needs a small amount of data to predict molecular properties, which could speed up drug discovery and material development. Discovering new materials and drugs typically involves a manual, trial-and-error process that can take decades and cost millions of dollars. To streamline this process, scientists often use machine learning to predict molecular properties and narrow down the molecules they need to synthesize and test in the lab. Researchers from MIT and the MIT-Watson AI Lab have developed…
Deep learning approach enables accurate electronic structure calculations at large scales. The electronic structure of a material plays a crucial role in fundamental but also applied research. However, the lack of a suitable simulation technique has long been a roadblock for the progress of these technologies. Researchers have now pioneered a machine learning-based simulation method that supersedes traditional electronic structure simulation techniques. The arrangement of electrons in matter, known as the electronic structure, plays a crucial role in fundamental but…
Have you ever been compelled to enter sensitive payment data on the website of an unknown merchant? Would you be willing to consign your credit card data or passwords to untrustworthy hands? Scientists from the University of Vienna have now designed an unconditionally secure system for shopping in such settings, combining modern cryptographic techniques with the fundamental properties of quantum light. The demonstration of such “quantum-digital payments” in a realistic environment has just been published in Nature Communications. Digital payments…
Researchers have combined research with real and robotic insects to better understand how they sense forces in their limbs while walking, providing new insights into the biomechanics and neural dynamics of insects and informing new applications for large legged robots. Campaniform sensilla (CS) are force receptors found in the limbs of insects that respond to stress and strain, providing important information for controlling locomotion. Similar force receptors exist in mammals known as Golgi tendon organs, suggesting that understanding the role…
The new photonic chip enables exponentially faster and more energy-efficient artificial intelligence The data centers and high-performance computers that run artificial intelligence programs, such as large language models, aren’t limited by the sheer computational power of their individual nodes. It’s another problem — the amount of data they can transfer among the nodes — that underlies the “bandwidth bottleneck” that currently limits the performance and scaling of these systems. The nodes in these systems can be separated by more than…
Autonomous watercraft… Surveying bodies of water precisely is a challenging task. Authorities and port operators are required to provide up-to-date maps of riverbeds and port facilities. Until now, this has required the use of special mapping vessels and a great deal of manpower. It is costly and is not being carried out with the frequency and precision that will be required for future applications, such as autonomous shipping. For this reason, a team of researchers at the Fraunhofer IOSB has…
Software for virtual court proceedings. Since the coronavirus pandemic, video conferences have become an everyday occurrence across a variety of professions. Online court hearings are also becoming increasingly important around the world. In large countries such as Canada and Australia, virtual court hearings have become commonplace to avoid long journeys. A research team at Fraunhofer Austria is currently working on software to take online court cases to a new level: The aim is to develop virtual avatars that will represent…
… in making decisions and reducing costs. New perspectives for the healthcare sector: The support system for decision-making developed as part of the MED²ICIN project should increase the treatment success rate. It supports physicians in their decision-making process by pooling all of the information on an individual patient and comparing this to that of cohorts made up of similar individuals. As well as helping to select the best option for therapy, this solution reduces treatment time and costs. Seven institutes…
Digitalization in the metal industry… Fraunhofer researchers have developed an extremely heat-resistant ceramic-based ink. For the first time, this enables metal components processed in the automotive industry at temperatures over 1,000 ºC to be marked with a code. The code can be scanned and is linked to a database in which all the manufacturing parameters for the component in question are stored. The advantages of the technology are not simply the ability to detect production glitches and defective components at…
Maintenance of modern aircraft is a complex process. The use of AR smart glasses with 3D information visualization should make repair and maintenance work easier for aircraft mechanics. Virtual elements such as instructions, displays and technical tools can be operated by way of gesture, voice and gaze control. With the help of augmented reality systems, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE have developed concepts and solutions for maintaining the Airbus A400M. Modern aircraft are…
Electrical current is a stream of charged elementary particles. In semiconductor devices, ballistic electrons move at high speeds, making it difficult to address them individually. A controlled collision of individual electrons can provide the time resolution required for one electron to interrogate the other. The operating principle of such an electron collider circuit is similar to hitting one fast moving projectile with another well-timed shot. The challenge is therefore to precisely synchronize two individual electrons to exploit their interaction. …
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