Future of Engineering

System allows them to operate powered wheelchairs and computers

The novel system developed by engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology allows individuals with disabilities to operate a computer, control a powered wheelchair and interact with their environments simply by moving their tongues.

Maysam Ghovanloo, an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering along with graduate student Xueliang Huo has developed the tongue-operated assistive technology, called the Tongue Drive system.

A rice grain sized magnet is attached into an individual's tongue by implantation. Once this is done the user can control the movement of a cursor across a computer screen or a powered wheelchair around a room.


Magnetic field sensors are mounted on a headset outside the mouth or on an orthodontic brace inside the mouth. This detects the movement of the tongue. The output signals are then wirelessly transmitted to a portable computer, which can be carried on the user’s clothing or wheelchair.

Hands and feet are connected to the brain through the spinal cord. Whereas the tongue is directly controlled by the brain through the cranial nerve. The movements of the tongue are also fast and accurate making it the most preferred choice by the researchers.

Results indicate a 100 percent accuracy for six individual commands. Based on the results one can definitely say that the future looks promising for this system.

Most people with severe disabilities have the will power to take on the world just like everybody else. What really dampens their spirit is the dependency factor. Sometimes they have to depend on friends and loved ones to carry out their everyday tasks. This system will make life easy for the individual and the caregiver.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

They sure do.

Source - Gatech.edu
Watch a video of Ghovanloo describing the Tongue Drive system and its applications here.
Watch a video of Huo operating a powered wheelchair with the Tongue Drive system here.

Labels: Automation, Electrical-Engineering

“Never underestimate the power of the architectural imagination.” says Kennedy

Curtains play an important role in any household. They don't just filter dust and heat, they spice up a room with their colorful vibrancy. Thanks to the adventurous spirit of Shiela Kennedy, now they have an additional role to perform - absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity.



Sheila Kennedy a visiting lecturer in architecture teaches Sustainable Strategies for Textile Construction at MIT. And she has found a way to enable solar textiles made of semiconductor materials and organic photovoltaics(OPV) to generate electricity.



In a project named Soft House, Kennedy has transformed household curtains into mobile, flexible energy-harvesting surfaces with integrated solid-state lighting. These curtains powered by the sun can generate up to 16,000 watt-hours of electricity--more than half the daily power needs of an average American household.

Currently she is keen on creating affordable prototypes that will demonstrate the efficiency of her ideas.

Source - MIT

More textile innovations
Scientifically Designed 'Butterfly Dress' Reveals What You Feel

Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Engineering-Education

“This is an unobtrusive monitoring system that will increase the safety of seniors and improve their ability to live independently,” Tyrer said.

Harry Tyrer, a University of Missouri electrical and computer engineering professor alongwith MU nursing Associate Professor Myra A. Aud is exploring the use of sensor technology in construction.

Image courtesy of Harry Tyrer

This fantastic duo has come up with the creation of the smart carpet that promises to help the elderly people who have trouble while walking.

They have introduced a new type of sensor that can be printed on thin, flexible sheets using organic ink. Organic ink sensors are flexible and inexpensive. This would be placed on the sensor sheet that is layered between the room's carpet and the carpet pad.

Once this is done, it will be easy to spot the movement of the person. This technology would be very helpful in hospitals, care taking institutions and homes of senior citizens. A caregiver can easily track the movement of the patients and can be immediately alerted if someone falls.

It can also provide additional info about the changes in gait or behaviors that can indicate a fall. This is not possible with the current sensor technologies. Because current floor sensor systems depend on vibration readings to monitor a person's activity. But it is not dependable and easily prone to misinterpretation.

Source - University of Missouri

Labels: Computer-Science, Electrical-Engineering

A Cameroonian Electro-mechanical engineer, Dr. Benz Enow Bate, has invented an earth resistance solution capable of considerably improving the protection of electrical installations.The earth resistance-reducing paste has been named Benz Fill, after its inventor. Benz Fill reduces the earth’s resistance to less than 0.5ohms, a value believed to be very appropriate for conducting excess or faulty current into the soil. This technology, the inventor says, shall greatly reduced electricity related fire hazards. The earth’s resistance is reduced by injecting Benz Fill into the soil surrounding an earth electrode. The Benz-Fill has just been patented by the Organization of African Property Rights as an innovative invention. Dr. Benz Enow Bate says the idea was conceived when he was a student in London. During his laboratory experiments he noticed that a fire accident related to electrical failure could actually be traced back to poor earthing.


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Labels: Electrical-Engineering

The oceans can't recover from the heat trap of carbon-dioxide as quickly as the atmosphere could. The rise in temperatures in the ocean work on a mean turnover rate of up to 1000 years, so even if all carbon-based energy extraction were to cease right now, it is probably too late to prevent a rise in temperatures to levels mortal to coral reefs

Corals lay the foundation for underwater colonies of marine life. If the coral die out, the effects run straight up the food chain to the fish that humans depend on for food. Unless we find a way to assist the coral to recover, we will reduce the available food stock for humans from the sea.

Perhaps there is a way for humans to undo the damage we have caused and allow our foodstocks to return to sustainable levels. Bio-Rock Mineral Accretion Technology may be one way that we can put things back to normal. Biorock Technology, or mineral accretion technology is a method that applies safe, low voltage electrical currents through seawater, causing dissolved minerals to crystallize on structures, growing into a white limestone similar to that which naturally makes up coral reefs and tropical white sand beaches. This material has a strength similar to concrete. It can be used to make robust artificial reefs on which corals grow at very rapid rates.
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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

“For more than eight years, Paul Bellezza has been pursuing a dream. His goal: to be able to mass produce his “Highly Efficient Thermoelectric Generator,” an invention that would produce electricity more efficiently than anything now on the market. Bellezza’s generator is built of thermoelectric positive and negative type semiconductor elements between hot and cold paddles connected in series. His development of a toroidal ring has created high DC currents with low voltage in the 2,000- to 5,000-watt AC range. Ongoing work in varying energy design circuits will yield the high AC electrical efficiency outputs from DC thermoelectric power. The generator produces electrical power from any heat source, including high-temperature solar array. The compact generator is capable of being linked in several pairs to increase power output. Bellezza envisions the generator being used for camping, in RVs and as a quieter alternative to today’s generators. It also could improve the efficiency of hybrid automobiles, he believes.


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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Sciences

A university's work on electricity conduction could significantly boost storage.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh say they have invented a method to switch electricity on and off at nano-scale dimensions. The invention could lead to the creation of more compact data storage devices by increasing aerial density between data bits on silicon.

The project, headed by Jeremy Levy, a professor in the university's School of Arts and Sciences, sought to create a new process to control the connectivity between insulating materials from an electrical conductor to an insulator and then back again.

In an interview, Levy said the principle could be refined to allow for the development of very powerful and tightly packed ultra-high-density storage devices for logic and memory devices.
The results of the project, known as "nanoscale control of an interfacial metal-insulator transition at room temperature," were published last week on the Web site of Nature Materials magazine.

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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Material-Sciences

Using magnetic forces to hold the elements of a modular spacecraft together without mechanical connection is being studied by Cornell University's College of Engineering as part of a Northrop Grumman-led team working on the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's System F6 fractionated satellite programme. F6 aims to replace the traditional large monolithic satellite with several small independently launched spacecraft flying in close formation.

Cornell is working with flux-pinning superconductors that resist movement within magnetic fields and which could be used to hold spacecraft components in place without mechanical connections. The superconductors can be turned on and off, allowing flux-pinned modules to repositioned or replaced like the "virtual building blocks" of a fractionated satellite, says the university. Cornell is also studying electromagnetic formation flight, which can passively stabilise formations of spacecraft flying in close proximity (less than 1m), while also preventing them from colliding. DARPA plans to fly a fractionated satellite within four years.

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Keywords: Electromagnetic, Cornell University, F6 fractionated satellite programme, flux-pinning superconductors, DARPA

Labels: Aerospace-Engineering, Electrical-Engineering, Material-Sciences

Scientists from the University of Utah today said that they can convert waste heat into sound and electricity. Physicist Orest Symko and his research team at the University of Utah said they succeeded in building small devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity.

According to Symko, most of the heat-to-electricity acoustic devices are housed in cylinder-shaped "resonators" that fit in the palm of a hand. Each cylinder, or resonator, contains a "stack" of material with a large surface area – such as metal or plastic plates, or fibers made of glass, cotton or steel wool – placed between a cold heat exchanger and a hot heat exchanger. When heat is injected, the heat builds to a threshold and moving air produces sound. The sound is then converted into electricity by using "piezoelectric" devices that are squeezed in response to pressure, including sound waves, and change that pressure into electrical current. Only about 20% of the sound energy is lost when pressure is converted to electricity, Symko said.

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Keywords: Orest Symko, resonators, steel wool, heat exchanger

Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

Nightlights, including ones that illuminate when you clap, could be a thing of the past now that two inventors have come up with a new rug that lights up when you step on it. The electroluminescent carpet could keep you from stubbing your toe during a nocturnal walk to the bathroom, guide you to the bedroom after a late-night out and even replace a child's conventional nightlight. The electroluminescent rug uses rechargeable batteries and lights up in response to the weight applied when a person walks across the carpet. Electroluminescence relies on an electric field to generate visible light. Other light producers include photoluminescence, which is used in many glow-in-the-dark toys; and chemoluminescence, which involves light-producing chemical reactions (as in the body of a firefly). So-called responsive surfaces such as Footlume are considered by some experts the next big thing in interiors for fashion-savvy and techie homeowners.

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Keywords: Nightlights, electroluminescent carpet, nocturnal, photoluminescence, chemoluminescence, Footlume, fashion-savvy, techie

Labels: Chemical-Engineering, Electrical-Engineering, Sciences

Scientists and engineers are racing to develop ways to use light instead of electricity to avoid traffic jams inside computers.

Today’s fastest computers employ miles of tiny copper wires to connect multiple data processors packed on silicon chips. Each little "brain" - in effect, a miniature adding machine - must exchange information with hundreds or thousands of partners on the same or connecting chips.

"The weakest link in the overall capability of the computer is the ability to move information from chip to chip," said John Stroman, a computer design strategist at Intel Corp., the big computer-chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. "Moving information around is the biggest limitation on the performance of computers, and it becomes a greater limitation as CPUs become faster."

Computer scientists think that the solution may be photons, the tiny packets of energy that make up a beam of light. Photons aren’t the same as electrons, the fundamental particles of electricity.

The science of photons is known as "nanophotonics," since it deals with infinitesimally small elements at the nanoscale. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter; a nanogram is 1 billionth of a gram.

It will be several years before photons can do much of the work of electrons, but the pace of research is accelerating.

"Within the next five years, practical methods to move information around using light will exist," said an expert.

More from here ( on "Research )

Labels: Computer-Science, Electrical-Engineering

Superconductors to provide new levels of stability and control in large structures and satellite formations in space

By taking advantage of the surprising physics of magnetic flux pinning, spacecraft components could hover a fraction of an inch to several feet apart without electrical power. Flux-pinning superconductor materials resist movement within magnetic fields, and flux pinning can be turned on or off simply by cooling or heating the superconductors. As a result, modules consisting of magnets and flux-pinning superconductors can maintain the position and orientation of spacecraft components. Furthermore, flux-pinned connections are stable without active feedback control, which typically requires on-board computers and power.

Dr. Mason Peck from the Cornell University College of Engineering is continuing his research begun in 2005 with recent funding from F6 contractor Northrop Grumman Corporation, where magnetic flux pinning holds special promise for eliminating the complexity of mechanical connectors currently designed into space systems for docking, attaching, and configuring components. F6 (Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft United by Information eXchange) is a new spacecraft design strategy being studied by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DOD).

Peck's use of magnetic flux pinning complements a related technology, EMFF (electromagnetic formation flight), by providing passive stability for formations of spacecraft in close proximity (less than 1 meter). It also eliminates power, software, and electronics hardware as single points of failure for controlling the positions of nearby components. Electromagnetic actuation can provide coarse or fine control of the formation. In addition, the technology provides a passive bumper that can guarantee no contact while components are maneuvering in space

Full report from here

Labels: Aerospace-Engineering, Electrical-Engineering, Material-Sciences, Physics

A University of Pennsylvania professor is exploring an approach to nanotechnology that will allow circuit theory to operate in an entirely new regime--one where "current" is no longer defined as the movement of electrons and holes, but instead as an electromagnetic wave.
If Nader Engheta's theories prove successful in practice--and researchers are already working on experiments to test this--then the work could strike the elusive balance between finding new technologies that can reliably operate at nanometer scales and ensuring that the technologies can bootstrap on decades of knowledge about more-conventional electronics.

For one thing, Engheta said he is interested the possibility of creating switches from metananocircuitry. They could lead to a new kind of optical information processing and, perhaps, a new form of nanoscale computational unit, said Engheta, the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of electrical and systems engineering at Penn.


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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Material-Sciences

Stanford electronics researchers, lead by electrical engineering Professor Abbas El Gamal, are developing such a camera that makes a 2-D photo with an electronic "depth map" containing the distance from the camera to every object in the picture, a kind of super 3-D.

They built it around their "multi-aperture image sensor." They've shrunk the pixels on the sensor to 0.7 microns, several times smaller than pixels in standard digital cameras, and have grouped the pixels in arrays of 256 pixels each, and they're preparing to place a tiny lens atop each array.

Full story here

Via: Next Big Future

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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Sciences

A company has been formed to commercialize the thermoelectric research. Researchers at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of technology have found a way to more efficiently convert electricity from heat, a breakthrough they claim could make a wide range of products more energy-efficient.

The thermoelectric effect has been understood for a long time, but the researchers were able to use nanotechnology to make the process of generating electricity from heat far more efficient. The company's first product is a material that can withstand temperatures of about 400 degrees Fahrenheit used in a range of industrial products. Cars that are partly powered from the heat of their exhaust systems are a good application of the technology, but the company intends to first target utility-scale power plants, which give off a great deal of waste heat.

Full report here

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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

By crushing a widely used semiconductor into nanoparticles, researchers said on Thursday they have created a compound that could lead to cleaner, more efficient refrigerators, solar power plants and other devices.

The crushed material makes it possible to conduct electricity without conducting so much heat, solving a problem that has baffled engineers for 50 years.

Writing in the journal Science, the teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College said their method provides a cheap way to achieve a major increase in thermoelectric efficiency.

Full report here

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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering, Material-Sciences

Some 2,000 homes in Japan get electricity and heat water — with power generated by a hydrogen fuel cell. The technology is more commonly seen in futuristic cars with tanks of hydrogen instead of gasoline, a key culprit in pollution and global warming.

Developers say fuel cells that use natural gas to get hydrogen produce one-third less of the pollution that causes global warming than conventional electricity generation does.

So is this trend of fuel cells in homes that has started in Japan likely to spread to the rest of the world? Read on...

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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

A new type of membrane based on tiny iron particles appears to address one of the major limitations exhibited by current power-generating fuel cell technology. While there are many types of fuel cells, in general they generate electricity as the result of chemical reactions between an external fuel -- most commonly hydrogen -- and an agent that reacts with it. The membrane that separates the two parts of the cell and facilitates the reaction is a key factor in determining the efficiency of the cell.

Researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have developed a membrane that allows fuel cells to operate at low humidity and theoretically to operate at higher temperatures.

Full story here

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Labels: Chemical-Engineering, Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

All new coal plant the world over should be built in such a way that they are ready to capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which are seen as the main cause of global warming and climate change, says International Energy Agency (IEA) Greenhouse Gas Research Programme GM John Gale.

He says that coal will probably be the biggest component of the world's considerable increase in primary energy demand to 2030, and that the opportunity should be taken to create space for CCS even when minor modifications are undertaken at existing coal-fired plant.

Full story here

Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

Coming on the heels of the recent massive blackout in Florida which left millions without power, the fourth annual Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Conference is dedicated to finding cheaper and more reliable ways to deliver electricity to customers in an era where the nation's power grid is overtaxed with ever greater demand.

The two-day conference -- held on March 10-11 at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon -- focussed on efficiency, security and control in future energy systems, from cyber-physical to wind-generated. It addressed topics such as micro-grid generation, industry and policy challenges, advanced technologies for generation and environmental issues.

See a preview press release of the conference here

Labels: Electrical-Engineering

Looking at data center power of the future

Researcher Parthasarathy Ranganathan foretells a future in which power management features will be built into the processor, memory, server, software and cooling systems. Coordination will be paramount. "What happens if you turn all these elements on at the same time?" the principal research scientist at HP Labs asks. "How do I make sure that the system doesn't explode?"

Power management systems will have to operate holistically, without one component conflicting with another, Ranganathan says. Ranganathan is just one of many researchers at the tech industry's biggest labs researching on how future data centers will handle increasing demands for processing capability and energy efficiency while simplifying IT.

Full story here

Labels: Computer-Science, Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

Scientists Ponder the Successor to Moore's Law

The National Science Foundation will fund projects that push computing power beyond silicon.

In anticipation of Moore's Law becoming irrelevant in the next 10 to 20 years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) wants funding for research that could lead to a replacement for current silicon technology.

The NSF last week requested US$20 million from the U.S. government for fiscal 2009 to start the "Science and Engineering Beyond Moore's Law" effort, which would fund academic research on technologies, including carbon nanotubes, quantum computing and massively multicore computers, that could improve and replace current transistor technology.

Full story here

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Labels: Computer-Science, Electrical-Engineering

Turning physics on its ear

It all began back in 1985, when Thane Heins started thinking about how magnets could be used to improve power generators. Has this college dropout done the impossible and created a perpetual motion machine?

Thane Heins is nervous and hopeful. It's Jan. 24, 2008, and in four days the Ottawa-area native will travel to Boston where he'll demonstrate an invention that appears – though he doesn't dare say it – to operate as a perpetual motion machine.

The audience, esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn, could either deflate Heins' heretical claims or add momentum to a 20-year obsession that has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters.

Full story here

Update: Heins a couple of days back demonstrated his machine to MIT professor Markus Zahn, an expert in electromagnetic and electronic systems. It proved interesting enough to stump the professor, as well. But Zahn thinks the idea is worth investigating further. "It's an unusual phenomena I wouldn't have predicted in advance," Zahn told The Toronto Star. "But I saw it. It's real."...so there!

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Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Electronics-Communications-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

Energy-Saving Material Takes Top Prize in Design Contest

Competition sponsored by NASA Tech Briefs and SolidWorks Corp. attracts nearly a thousand innovative product ideas from engineers worldwide

Litroenergy, a patent-pending designed material that emits light for more than a decade without electricity or sun exposure, has won the $20,000 grand prize in the 2007 Create the Future Design Contest sponsored by NASA Tech Briefs magazine and SolidWorks Corporation (www.solidworks.com).

Full report here

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Energy-Saving Material Takes Top Prize in Design Contest

Energy-Saving Material Takes Top Prize in Design Contest

Labels: Electrical-Engineering, Energy-Environment-Engineering

Future screens may lie on the surface of the eye

Frontier technology lays minute circuits and lights on contact lenses

Screens that sit on the eye are on their way. Scientists at the University of Washington have fit a tiny electric circuit onto a contact lens, and shown that a rabbit can happily wear it. The embedded circuit incorporates lights, and, although the technology is still nascent, it could lead to contact lenses that act as tiny screens. These screens would, ideally, superimpose images on the wearer’s world.

If this technology comes to fruition, the lenses could be used in video games and while surfing the internet, or display health-related information like heart rate and blood pressure. Drivers and pilots wearing them wouldn’t need to lower their gaze check instruments, and traders could keep constant track of the stock market!

Full news report here

Labels: Bio-engineering, Electrical-Engineering