Engineers develop micro-tentacles for tiny robots

The tiny tube circled an ant's thorax, gently trapping the insect and demonstrating the utility of a microrobotic tentacle developed by Iowa State Univ. engineers.
"Most robots use two fingers and to pick things up they have to squeeze," said Jaeyoun (Jay) Kim, an Iowa State Univ. associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and an associate of the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Ames Laboratory. "But these tentacles wrap around very gently."
And that makes them perfect hands and fingers for small robots designed to safely handle delicate objects.
The spiraling microrobotic tentacles are described in a research paper recently published in Scientific Reports. Kim is the lead author. Co-authors are In-Ho Cho, an Iowa State assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering; and Jungwook Paek, who recently earned his Iowa State doctorate in electrical and computer engineering and is moving to post-doctoral work at the Univ. of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Computing at the speed of light

Univ. of Utah engineers have taken a step forward in creating the next generation of computers and mobile devices capable of speeds millions of times faster than current machines.

The Utah engineers have developed an ultracompact beamsplitter—the smallest on record—for dividing light waves into two separate channels of information. The device brings researchers closer to producing silicon photonic chips that compute and shuttle data with light instead of electrons. Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Rajesh Menon and colleagues describe their invention in Nature Photonics.

Silicon photonics could significantly increase the power and speed of machines such as supercomputers, data center servers and the specialized computers that direct autonomous cars and drones with collision detection. Eventually, the technology could reach home computers and mobile devices and improve applications from gaming to video streaming.

Chinese Awards Part 2

Tim Studt here again, and mostly recovered from my day-long travel on Friday. Hot and humid here in Taipei, about 25 F warmer than in Chicago.

Today's judging at the Taiwan Excellence Awards covered healthcare-based tablet computers, electronic memory modules, top-end gaming computers, electric scooters, racing bicycles and even off-road mountain racing bike tires. All of these are state-of-the-art systems and market leaders in their respective industries with number one or two market shares.

The other judges are experts in quality, design and marketing assembled mostly in pairs. My R&D counterpart is the President of the Industrial Research Technology Institute (ITRI)—a frequent submitter and multiple winner of R&D 100 awards over the past several years. One of his R&D 100 Award winners from several years ago—flat panel electrostatic speakers—was the technology that we reviewed yesterday in the Bluetooth portable speakers.