If a Tyrannosaurus Rex living 66 million years ago featured a similar leg structure as an ostrich running in the savanna today, then we can assume bird legs stood the test of time – a good example of evolutionary selection. Graceful, elegant, powerful – flightless birds like the ostrich are a mechanical wonder. Ostriches, some of which weigh over 100kg, run through the savanna at up to 55km/h. The ostriches outstanding locomotor performance is thought to be enabled by the…
Stampede2, Frontera simulations model plate tectonics of bend in seamount chain. The Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain spans almost four thousand miles from the Hawaiian Islands to the Detroit Seamount in the north Pacific, an L- shaped chain that goes west then abruptly north. The 60-degree bend in the line of mostly undersea mountains and volcanic islands has puzzled scientists since it was first identified in the 1940s from the data of numerous echo sounding ships. A team of scientists have now…
A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of California, Irvine constructed a robot leg that, like its natural model, is very energy efficient. BirdBot benefits from a foot-leg coupling through a network of muscles and tendons that extends across multiple joints. In this way, BirdBot needs fewer motors than previous legged robots and could, theoretically, scale to large size. On March 16th, the researchers will publish their work in Science Robotics. If…
Novel material with promising properties for quantum computers and networks discovered – KIT researchers report in nature. Quantum information will revolutionize not only research and industry, but also our everyday life. Among others, it promises enormous progress in the simulation of materials and processes, which will push the development of new medical substances, the improvement of batteries, transport planning, and secure information and communication. A quantum bit (qubit) can assume many different states between 0 and 1 at the same…
Building a complete quantum computer based on cutting-edge German technology is the goal of the QSolid collaborative project, which has just started and to which the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has allocated € 76.3 million in funding for the next five years. The project centres on quantum bits – or qubits for short – of very high quality, i.e. with a low error rate. The quantum computer will be integrated into Forschungszentrum Jülich’s supercomputing infrastructure at an early…
The technology could lead to a new generation of powerful, low-cost 3D sensors for autonomous cars, drones, robots and even smartphones. When Google unveiled its first autonomous cars in 2010, the spinning cylinder mounted on the roofs really stood out. It was the vehicle’s light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system, which worked like light-based radar. Together with cameras and radar, LiDAR mapped the environment to help these cars avoid obstacles and drive safely. Since a then, inexpensive, chip-based cameras and…
Good things come to those who wait, as the saying goes. But wait no more! Shorter product development timeframes not only save time and money, but also improve competitiveness. This can be achieved with faster and more efficient testing processes. Fatigue tests [Ermüdungsversuche (EF)] on completed aircraft take up a significant portion of the time spent on aircraft development and certification. The aim is to reduce the time between the start of the project and certification from around eight years…
While voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant may be a useful part of everyday life, they are coming under fire from data protection and consumer advocates. The virtual assistants are alleged to collect user data and transfer it to clouds, where it can be transcribed and analyzed by third parties. Now, researchers from the Fraunhofer FIT are putting the issue under the microscope: In a living lab study involving 33 households, they are investigating how much voice assistants…
Concrete’s properties as a material have made it an essential part of today’s construction methods. Alongside its many advantages, however, this universal favorite has its share of drawbacks – the most prominent being that its heterogeneous nature makes it difficult to dimension components and structures on the basis of simulations. Cracks induced by bending tests have provided some insights into component behavior. Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer ITWM are developing analysis software designed for computed tomography, with the aim of…
Efficiency rates for production machinery frequently fall far below what technology could achieve. The common reason is experienced employees are not always available when a failure occurs while other employees lack the experience to solve the actual cause. That is where MADDOX comes in. A smart and self-learning assistance system that uses machine learning methods to analyze machine and process data. Via pattern recognition it also searches for similarities in failures and downtimes that occurred in the past. The system…
Fraunhofer IZM develops integration techniques for cryo-electronics. Quantum technology using superconductors are no longer a vision for the far-off future, but some of the hottest topics in current research. One major challenge remains: The electronic structures used to connect with the quantum parts of the quantum computers, such as qubits on chips, are often far bigger than the qubits themselves. Researchers at Fraunhofer IZM have innovated a process that fits twice as many connectors on the same surface than conventional…
… paving the way for advances in optical computing. The work is a significant step toward realizing a new generation of ultra-compact, low-energy-use computers capable of complex mathematical computation. Computers are an indispensable part of our daily lives, and the need for ones that can work faster, solve complex problems more efficiently, and leave smaller environmental footprints by minimizing the required energy for computation is increasingly urgent. Recent progress in photonics has shown that it’s possible to achieve more efficient…
Transfer project strengthens robot autonomy and teamwork with humans. Autonomous mobile robots that work safely and intuitively with humans are not only an important building block of Industry 4.0. In future space missions, they are expected to support infrastructure construction on foreign planets. In the recently completed transfer project TransFIT, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the University of Bremen and Siemens AG developed the robotic skills required for the autonomous and collaborative execution of complex assembly work….
Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and Oklahoma State University have developed an innovative terahertz imager microchip that can enable devices to detect and create images through obstacles that include fog, smoke, dust and snow. The team is working on a device for industrial applications that require imaging up to 20 meters away. The technology could also be adapted for use in cars to help drivers or autonomous vehicle systems navigate through hazardous conditions that reduce visibility. On…
Autonomous vehicles are not only a major challenge in road traffic. Solutions for highly automated, fully automated and autonomous ships are also being developed for the maritime world. But how can autonomous ships be integrated into conventional maritime traffic? To avoid accidents, shipping traffic in coastal areas with very high traffic density is regulated by traffic control centers on shore. What support can science offer operators in their efforts to monitor mixed shipping traffic in the future? These are the…
Arctic researchers and remote sensing experts use AI and HPC to characterize large, unexplored parts of the Earth. Permafrost — ground that has been permanently frozen for two or more years — makes up a large part of the Earth, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere. Permafrost is important for our climate, containing large amounts of biomass stored as methane and carbon dioxide, making tundra soil a carbon sink. However, permafrost’s innate characteristics and changing nature are not broadly understood….
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