Today, public cloud systems can be used for outsourcing computationally intensive applications and storing large amounts of data. However, these systems are not designed for millisecond-accurate control of machines in production environments. They are not freely configurable and are difficult to connect to real-time-capable networks. The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT has developed the Fraunhofer Edge Cloud in collaboration with other institutes and its partner German Edge Cloud to show companies how they can use local cloud systems to…
Researchers demonstrate quantum computer memory resilient against errors. Quantum computing holds the potential to be a game-changing future technology in fields ranging from chemistry to cryptography to finance to pharmaceuticals. Compared to conventional computers, scientists suggest that quantum computers could operate many thousand times faster. To harness this power, scientists today are looking at ways to construct quantum computer networks. Fault-tolerant quantum memory, that responds well when hardware or software malfunctions occur, will play an important role in these networks….
… thought to be impossible. Associate professor Mazhar Ali and his research group at TU Delft have discovered one-way superconductivity without magnetic fields, something that was thought to be impossible ever since its discovery in 1911 – up till now. The discovery, published in Nature, makes use of 2D quantum materials and paves the way towards superconducting computing. Superconductors can make electronics hundreds of times faster, all with zero energy loss. Ali: “If the 20th century was the century of…
Researchers have developed a technique that enables a robot to learn a new pick-and-place task with only a handful of human demonstrations. With e-commerce orders pouring in, a warehouse robot picks mugs off a shelf and places them into boxes for shipping. Everything is humming along, until the warehouse processes a change and the robot must now grasp taller, narrower mugs that are stored upside down. Reprogramming that robot involves hand-labeling thousands of images that show it how to grasp…
Stanford University researchers have developed a key experimental device for future quantum physics-based technologies that borrows a page from current, everyday mechanical devices. Reliable, compact, durable, and efficient, acoustic devices harness mechanical motion to perform useful tasks. A prime example of such a device is the mechanical oscillator. When displaced by a force – like sound, for instance – components of the device begin moving back-and-forth about their original position. Creating this periodic motion is a handy way to keep…
Successful research cooperation between Koenig & Bauer and the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences. In 2021, the number of counterfeit euro banknotes withdrawn from circulation was at a historically low level. Among other things, this is due to the fact that banknotes are becoming increasingly counterfeit-proof. The cooperation between Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions and the Institute for Industrial Information Technology (inIT) at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences is making an important contribution to this. It enables new authentication…
Research paves the way for high-powered telecommunication systems. For all the recent advances in integrated lithium niobate photonic circuits — from frequency combs to frequency converters and modulators — one big component has remained frustratingly difficult to integrate: lasers. Long haul telecommunication networks, data center optical interconnects, and microwave photonic systems all rely on lasers to generate an optical carrier used in data transmission. In most cases, lasers are stand-alone devices, external to the modulators, making the whole system more…
Sensors are a pillar of the Internet of Things, providing the data to control all sorts of objects. Here, precision is essential, and this is where quantum technologies could make a difference. Researchers in Innsbruck and Zurich are now demonstrating how nanoparticles in tiny optical resonators can be transferred into quantum regime and used as high-precision sensors. Advances in quantum physics offer new opportunities to significantly improve the precision of sensors and thus enable new technologies. A team led by…
Bristol scientists put finger on key to improving robot dexterity and performance of prosthetic hands. Machines can beat the world’s best chess player, but they cannot handle a chess piece as well as an infant. This lack of robot dexterity is partly because artificial grippers lack the fine tactile sense of the human fingertip, which is used to guide our hands as we pick up and handle objects. Two papers published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface give…
A new technique could enable a robot to manipulate squishy objects like pizza dough or soft materials like clothing. Imagine a pizza maker working with a ball of dough. She might use a spatula to lift the dough onto a cutting board then use a rolling pin to flatten it into a circle. Easy, right? Not if this pizza maker is a robot. For a robot, working with a deformable object like dough is tricky because the shape of dough…
Artificial intelligence is regularly applied in areas such as image analysis and speech recognition. However, in the industrial production sector its potential is still scarcely used. Several Fraunhofer institutes have recently developed a solution as part of the lighthouse project “ML4P — Machine Learning for Production”, which aims to make industrial manufacturing much more efficient through the use of machine learning. The software suite is very flexible and can be easily applied in existing production processes. The production industry is…
A collaborative new study led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates topological control capabilities in an acoustic system, with implications for applications such as 5G communications and quantum information processing. New research published in Nature Electronics describes topological control capabilities in an integrated acoustic-electronic system at technologically relevant frequencies. This work paves the way for additional research on topological properties in devices that use high-frequency sound waves, with potential applications including 5G communications and quantum information processing. The study was…
High resolution illumination of Earth’s interior down to the planet’s core with 3D global numerical simulations. Earthquakes do more than buckle streets and topple buildings. Seismic waves generated by earthquakes pass through the Earth, acting like a giant MRI machine and providing clues to what lies inside the planet. Seismologists have developed methods to take wave signals from the networks of seismometers at the Earth’s surface and reverse engineer features and characteristics of the medium they pass through, a process…
Scientists use gate set tomography to discover and validate a silicon qubit breakthrough. The Science Tiny quantum computing processors built from silicon have finally surpassed 99 percent fidelity in certain logic operations (“gates”). Quantum computers store information in the quantum state of a physical system (in this case, two silicon qubits) then manipulate the quantum state to perform a calculation in a manner that isn’t possible on a classical computer. Fidelity is a measure of how close the final quantum…
Microchips with tiny clocks may hold key to future of computing security. It’s fairly reasonable to assume that an encrypted email can’t be seen by prying eyes. That’s because in order to break through most of the encryption systems we use on a day-to-day basis, unless you are the intended recipient, you’d need the answer to a mathematical problem that’s nearly impossible for a computer to solve in a reasonable amount of time. Nearly impossible for modern-day computers, at least….
A UNIGE team has succeeded in storing a quantum bit for 20 milliseconds. A duration that had never before been achieved by a solid-state quantum memory. Computers, smartphones, GPS: quantum physics has enabled many technological advances. It is now opening up new fields of research in cryptography (the art of coding messages) with the aim of developing ultra-secure telecommunications networks. There is one obstacle, however: after a few hundred kilometers within an optical fiber, the photons that carry the qubits…
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