Getting robots to do things isn’t easy: usually scientists have to either explicitly program them or get them to understand how humans communicate via language. But what if we could control robots more intuitively, using just hand gestures and brainwaves? A new system spearheaded by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) […]
A Better Device For Measuring Electromagnetic Radiation
Bolometers, devices that monitor electromagnetic radiation through heating of an absorbing material, are used by astronomers and homeowners alike. But most such devices have limited bandwidth and must be operated at ultralow temperatures. Now, researchers say they’ve found a ultrafast yet highly sensitive alternative that can work at room temperature — and may be much […]
New System Recovers Fresh Water From Power Plants
A new system devised by MIT engineers could provide a low-cost source of drinking water for parched cities around the world while also cutting power plant operating costs. About 39 percent of all the fresh water withdrawn from rivers, lakes, and reservoirs in the U.S. is earmarked for the cooling needs of electric power plants […]
Novel Transmitter Protects Wireless Devices From Hackers
Today, more than 8 billion devices are connected around the world, forming an “internet of things” that includes medical devices, wearables, vehicles, and smart household and city technologies. By 2020, experts estimate that number will rise to more than 20 billion devices, all uploading and sharing data online. But those devices are vulnerable to hacker […]
Study Helps Driverless Cars Change Lanes More Like Humans Do
In the field of self-driving cars, algorithms for controlling lane changes are an important topic of study. But most existing lane-change algorithms have one of two drawbacks: Either they rely on detailed statistical models of the driving environment, which are difficult to assemble and too complex to analyze on the fly; or they’re so simple […]
Fundamental Equations Guide Marine Robots To Optimal Sampling Sites
Observing the world’s oceans is increasingly a mission assigned to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)—marine robots that are designed to drift, drive, or glide through the ocean without any real-time input from human operators. Critical questions that AUVs can help to answer are where, when, and what to sample for the most informative data, and how […]
Plug-And-Play Diagnostic Devices
Researchers at MIT’s Little Devices Lab have developed a set of modular blocks that can be put together in different ways to produce diagnostic devices. These “plug-and-play” devices, which require little expertise to assemble, can test blood glucose levels in diabetic patients or detect viral infection, among other functions. “Our long-term motivation is to enable […]
Self-Driving Cars For Country Roads
Uber’s recent self-driving car fatality underscores the fact that the technology is still not ready for widespread adoption. One reason is that there aren’t many places where self-driving cars can actually drive. Companies like Google only test their fleets in major cities where they’ve spent countless hours meticulously labeling the exact 3D positions of lanes, […]
Depth-Sensing Imaging System Can Peer Through Fog
MIT researchers have developed a system that can produce images of objects shrouded by fog so thick that human vision can’t penetrate it. It can also gauge the objects’ distance. An inability to handle misty driving conditions has been one of the chief obstacles to the development of autonomous vehicular navigation systems that use visible […]
Insulator or Superconductor? Physicists Find Graphene is Both
It’s hard to believe that a single material can be described by as many superlatives as graphene can. Since its discovery in 2004, scientists have found that the lacy, honeycomb-like sheet of carbon atoms—essentially the most microscopic shaving of pencil lead you can imagine—is not just the thinnest material known in the world, but also […]