Courtesy of SpaceX

On Friday, April 19th, 2013, SpaceX‘s Grasshopper did its fifth test-launch, and it continued its trending exponential altitude gains. In its fifth test, performed at the company’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, the rocket reached an altitude of 820 ft (250 m) before coming back down to Earth. In its previous test on March 7th, 2013 the space mission vessel reached just 263 feet of altitude, although that was its best at that time.

The Grasshopper is being constantly worked on by the private space mission and exploration company, SpaceX, with the objective being to create a fully reusable launch system for a VTVL (verticle takeoff, veticle landing rocket). At the time of this writing, all of the SpaceX rockets are expendable vehicles. Clearly, a fully reusable rocket would be far more financially efficient than the constant need for building and using up expendable rockets.

Courtesy of SpaceX

All indicators at this time point to SpaceX hitting its target sooner or later (and probably sooner).

Courtesy of SpaceX

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This story was culled from multiple sources.

Image courtesy of Jiao Lin and Samuel Twist

Balthasar Müller, a graduate student at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) who is co-author of a paper published April 19th, 2013 discussing a new way for precisely manipulating light at the subwavelength scale in such a way that it doesn’t do any damage to a data-carrying signal, says “If you want to send a data signal around on a tiny chip with lots of components, then you need to be able to precisely control where it’s going. If you don’t control it well, information will be lost. Directivity is such an important factor.”

Müller and his Harvard-led team of researchers have created a nanoscale coupler which converts an optical signal into waves which traverse a metal surface. This coupler produces a wave known as a “surface plasmon polariton”, which is a surface ripple in the sea of electrons existing within metals.

“[Controlling the direction of these waves by changing the angle at which light strikes the surface of the coupler] was a major pain. Optical circuits are very difficult to align, so readjusting the angles for the sake of routing the signal was impractical,” Müller elaborates.

The research team’s newly designed coupler consists of a thin sheet of gold which has been peppered with tiny slits arranged similarly to herringbones. Light can now come in perpendicularly and whatever its polarization — be it linear, left-hand circular, or right-hand circular — the coupler routes it in accordance with that.

Principal investigator Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard SEAS, says “The go-to solution until now has been a series of parallel grooves known as a grating, which does the trick but loses a large portion of the signal in the process. Now perhaps the go-to solution will be our structure. It makes it possible to control the direction of signals in a very simple and elegant way.”

“[The possibilities for making future high-speed information networks which might mix nanoscale electronics -- which currently exist -- with optical and plasmonic elements on a single microchip have] generated great excitement in the field,” adds Capasso.

Image courtesy of Mark Brongersma

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Story Source: Harvard SEAS

An illustration of the time crystal experiment planned at UC-Berkeley .Electric fields will be used to corral calcium ions into a 100-micron-wide “trap,”where they will form a crystalline ring.The scientists believe a static magnetic field will cause the ring to rotate. Image: Hartmut Häffner

In February 2012, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek, who is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, publicly stated that he may have hit upon time crystals”.  These theoretical time crystals don’t get their tick-tock from any stored energy but, instead, from the symmetry-breaking of time. This special energy allows for a special form of perpetual motion — and perpetual motion is something which physics has long concluded is an impossibility.

“Most research in physics is continuations of things that have gone before. [Time crystals are] kind of outside the box,” says Wilczek.

Back in 2010 as he was preparing notes for giving a class he “was thinking about the classification of crystals, and then it just occurred to me that it’s natural to think about space and time together. So if you think about crystals in space, it’s very natural also to think about the classification of crystalline behavior in time.”

When matter crystallizes, its atoms fix themselves onto a lattice point and suddenly have a discrete, as opposed to a continuous, set of possibilities for where to exist. Because of this quality, physicists say that crystals break the spatial symmetry of nature (which says that all places in space are equivalent, in terms of physics). Time crystals would be stable in their “ground state,” in spite of cyclical variations in their structures which physicists say could be a form of perpetual motion.

Hartmut Häffner, a quantum physicist at the University of California at Berkeley, says “For a physicist, this is really a crazy concept to think of a ground state which is time-dependent. The definition of a ground state is that this is energy-zero. But if the state is time-dependent, that implies that the energy changes or something is changing. Something is moving around.”

Wilczek says “It’s like you draw targets and wait for arrows to hit them.”

In June of 2012, a group of physicists led by Xiang Zhang, who is a nanoengineer at Berkeley, and Tongcang Li, a physicist and postdoctoral researcher working in Zhang’s group, put forward an experimental idea to test the reality of these theoretical time crystals.

Unlike the three spatial dimensions in classical physics, in quantum mechanics the dimension of time is represented as “a disturbing, aesthetically unpleasant asymmetry,” according to Jakub Zakrzewski, a professor of physics and head of atomic optics at Jagiellonian University  in Poland. Thus, the different treatments of time at the classical and the quantum levels of physics may be a stumbling block to a reconciled and complete understanding of the laws of physics, including the “weird” aspects of quantum mechanics like the atomic entanglement which Einstein called disturbing “spooky action at a distance.”

“I’m very interested in seeing if I can make a new contribution following Einstein,” Li said. “He said that quantum mechanics is not complete.”

Häffner says that if time crystals can break time symmetry as usual chrystals break spatial symmetry then “it tells you that in nature those two quantities seem to have similar properties, and that ultimately should reflect itself in a theory.” This would justify Einstein‘s concern.

If Li‘s experiment can prove the reality of time crystals that“will really challenge our understanding. But first we need to prove that it does indeed exist.”

Image: Hartmut Häffner

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Story adapted from Simons Science News

Vo has been working with the Moog company (founded by and named after the inventor of the famous and music-world-transforming Moog keyboard synthesizer) since 2006. The technology enabling the award-winning Moog Guitar and Moog Lap Steel was invented by Vo, and he has been working on his Acoustic Synthesis system since 2009. At the time of this writing he’s offering a limited number of “inventor’s cut” products for sale through his design company, Vo Inventions LLC, and Moog is totally supportive of him.

“Moog Music and I have a great relationship, but it’s a bit of an unusual relationship in the sense that it too is an invention, built for our specific purpose and out of the usual mold. As a result, most of the speculation about it is likely to be wrong I guess. Nothing has changed in our relationship. I’ve always been an independent inventor and I’ve worked with Moog in whatever way makes sense for their corporate strategies and my ideas and initiatives as an inventor.”

The Vo-96 Acoustic Synthesizer comprises more than 1,200 components, among them three high bandwidth digital signal processors and 12 physical full bridge transducer drives. The Core-96 is the analog and digital signal processing vibration control engine, situated out of view within the acoustic guitar. Between the bridge and the sound hole and flat against the upper face of the guitar lay the combined capacitive touch interface (with LED status indication and lock-out) and physical sensoriactuator unit.

Photograph courtesy of Vo Inventions.

The sonic capabilities of an acoustic guitar get augmented via controlling the vibration of the guitar strings. The Vo-96 is capable of 12 channels of sub-microsecond analog sampling as well as 96 virtual channels of vibration control (16 per string). No external amplifier required, either.

“The DSP and control systems of the Vo-96 operate completely in the background, adding and subtracting harmonic motions from the string by modulating the magnetic field around the string. Synthesis occurs on the string, in directly perceivable reality,” says Vo.

Image courtesy of Vo Inventions.

Besides providing captivating harmonic accompaniment to acoustic guitar picking, the synthesizer’s modulations are capable of enhancing the sound of a definitively mediocre acoustic guitar, making it have a voice like a higher-end guitar.

Photograph courtesy of Vo Inventions.

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Story adapted from one written by Paul Ridden

The project was developed by IBA Hamburg, famous for their environment-friendly and energy efficient projects.

The main idea of the project is to provide renewable energy to the Elbe Islands. It is expected to be achieved through combining solar thermal energy, biogas, wooden chips and waste heat from a nearby industrial company. The core technology of the project is buffer storage with a volume of 2,000 cubic meters, which will be supplied by biomethane-fired combined heat and power plant (CHPP), a wood-burning plant, a solar thermal plant and by the waste heat from an industrial manufacturer.

Funding for the initiative is provided by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund, and by the city of Hamburg.

It is expected that Energiebunker will supply the entire Reiherstieg district with electricity and heat, producing 3,000 megawatt hours of electricity and 22,500 megawatt hours of heat. This will heat 3,000 households and will electrify nearly a thousand households. The project is expected to be completed in 2015 and will reduce the production of CO2 by 6,600 tons per year.

via: [IBA Hamburg]

Pripyat was built in 1970 with the purpose to be a home town for the people who work in Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It housed nearly 49 000 residents before the nuclear disaster in April, 1986, and is located 100km to the North of Kiev, Ukraine.

During 70‘s and early 80‘s the nuclear power plants were proclaimed to be safer and cleaner than other energy sources at the same time. The idea of the “peaceful atom” was strongly propagated at this time, which aimed to show that nuclear energy can be used not only for destruction. Or to distract foreign attention from Soviet nuclear weapons, probably.

The city was considered also as main river and railroad cargo port, along with being residence for the nuclear plant workers. Names of the city infrastructures were typical for the period of Soviet Ukraine, as many streets and city objects were named after Soviet ideologists, national heroes and ideas. Pripyat was built by the unique for it’s time triangular principle and a defined centre with a city hall, public and recreational facilities, shopping centres and a hotel.

People were evacuated for two days after the disaster in 1986. After that many buildings were vandalised and almost all of them are crumbling and eroding over the years. Probably   the most famous landmarks in the city is the ferris wheel,  which was a subject of many potographs and pictures.

via: [wikipedia]

This is the Agora tower, planned to be built in the Xinyin district of Taipei, Taiwan. Designer is Vincent Callebaut who is famous for his strong eco-vision. The architect has designed a place where its inhabitants will create strong symbiotic relationship between themselves and nature. Suspended orchards will be planted on balconies, along with  vegetable gardens and herbal and medical greenery that will supply citizens with fresh production. It is expected that industrial waste will be returned as a ‘technical nutrient’ to be recycled. The towers resemble the structure of DNA and offer four types of dwellings. The angled apartments additionally offer exceptional views of the city by multiplying the transversal views of the overall east-west rhomboidal pyramid.

The tower is surrounded by artificial forest, and houses a pedestrian square and aquatic glade inside. А fixed central circular light well provides sufficient, natural light and ventilation to the deepest levels, where are the car park and swimming pool. The cylindrical void houses a vertical garden and farm maintained by the inhabitants.

Photo-voltaic cells, rainwater filtration systems and phyto-depuration structures expand the green profile of Agora tower. Two staircases, 4 high speed elevators and 1 car elevator provide fast transportation within the tower.  Descending balconies are shielded by the superior level, while ascending terraces are open air and have maximum exposure to sunlight.

via: [designboom.com]

COLLEGE PARK, Md., April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In this age of advanced technology, how hard could it be to develop a robotic bird that flies by flapping its wings? Despite the apparent simplicity of the idea, it’s very hard—if you want the bird to actually fly.

And how hard could it be to make a robot bird whose wings can flap independently of each other? So hard that it’s been a breakthrough that’s been out of reach for engineers—until now.

University of Maryland Professors S. K. Gupta and Hugh Bruck and their students have developed and demonstrated a new robotic bird, “Robo Raven“, whose wings flap completely independently of each other, and also can be programmed to perform any desired motion, enabling the bird to perform aerobatic maneuvers. This is the first time a robotic bird with these capabilities has been built and successfully flown.

What makes building robotic birds so difficult? Not only is there a long trial and error process, but every error leads to a crash, often one that is fatal to the robot. This makes design iterations painfully slow.

Gupta, a professor in Mechanical Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research in the A. James Clark School of Engineering, has been working on flapping-wing robotic birds for the better part of a decade. He and his graduate students, along with Mechanical Engineering Professor Hugh Bruck, first successfully demonstrated a flapping-wing bird in 2007. This bird used one motor to flap both wings together in simple motions. By 2010 the design had evolved over four successive models. The final bird in the series was able to carry a tiny video camera, could be launched from a ground robot, and could fly in winds up to 10 mph—important breakthroughs for robotic micro air vehicles that one day could be used for reconnaissance and surveillance. It even fooled a local hawk, which attacked the robot in mid-flight on more than one occasion.

But the limitation of simultaneous wing flapping restricted how well the robotic bird could fly. So Gupta decided to tackle the much thornier problem of creating a more versatile bird with wings that operated independently, just like real birds. An unsuccessful attempt in 2008 led to the project being shelved for a while. Then, in 2012, Gupta partnered with Bruck and their graduate students to try again.

“Our new robot, Robo Raven, is based on a fundamentally new design concept,” Gupta says. “It uses two programmable motors that can be synchronized electronically to coordinate motion between the wings.”

The challenge was that the two actuators required a bigger battery and an on-board micro controller, which initially made Robo Raven too heavy to fly.

“How did we get Robo Raven to ‘diet’ and lose weight?” Gupta asks. “We used advanced manufacturing processes such as 3D printing and laser cutting to create lightweight polymer parts.”

But smarter manufacturing and lighter parts were only part of the solution.

So the team did three more things to get Robo Raven airborne. They programmed motion profiles that ensured wings maintained optimal velocity while flapping to achieve the right balance between lift and thrust. They developed a way to measure aerodynamic forces generated during the flapping cycle, enabling them to evaluate a range of wing designs and quickly select the best one. Finally, the team performed system-level optimization to make sure all components worked well together and provided peak performance as an integrated system.

“We can now program any desired motion patterns for the wings,” Gupta says. “This allows us to try new in-flight aerobatics—like diving and rolling—that would have not been possible before, and brings us a big step closer to faithfully reproducing the way real birds fly.”

Funding

Funding for the robotic birds project has been provided by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Army Research Laboratory, and the Army Research Office.

Photos

1) Robo Raven in flight. 2) Robo Raven’s wings flap completely independent of each other. 3) (L-R)Students Luke Roberts, John Gerdes, and Ariel Perez-Rosado with Robo Raven. CREDITS:University of Maryland.

More information

Watch a video of Robo Raven in action:

S. K. Gupta writes about Robo Raven on his blog, Pursuit of Unorthodox Ideas:

Robo Raven: A Step towards Bird-Inspired Flight

View videos of Gupta’s early (simultaneous) flapping-wing robotic birds: Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle Designs by SK Gupta’s Group

S. K. Gupta’s home page /www.isr.umd.edu/faculty/gupta/

Hugh Bruck’s home page /terpconnect.umd.edu/~bruck/WAM-pub//

About the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland ranks among the top 20 public research universities in the nation, and is the closest in proximity to the nation’s capital. As the state’s flagship university, UMD educates the most talented students from Maryland and beyond. For more information, please visit:

The University of Maryland: www.umd.edu
The A. James Clark School of Engineering: www.eng.umd.edu
The Institute for Systems Research: www.isr.umd.edu
The Department of Mechanical Engineering: www.enme.umd.edu

SOURCE University of Maryland

In the real world of the present as this is being written, robotics engineers are still searching for a sensitive “robot skin” that will enable robots to have a human-like touch. And they may be closing in on the necessary material.

Research scientists at Georgia Tech have made a touch-reactive material which is sensitive enough to read fingerprints. This material might provide robots with a human-like sense of touch.

In this material there are thousands of piezotronic transistors, and within each one of them there are 1,500 nanowires from 500 to 600 nanometers in diameter. What’s new about these transistors is that they sense changes in their own polarity when pressure gets applied to them, because of the nanowires’ zinc oxide composition via which they at once possess piezoelectric and semiconducting properties.

Image courtesy of Georgia Tech

It took almost three years for the research team ofg Zhong Lin Wan, Wenzhuo Wu, and Xiaonan Wen to chemically grow hundreds of arrays measuring 92 x 92 transistors. These were all then put into vertical arrangements called “taxels“. These engender individual electronic signals when they’re touched. These taxels were sandwiched between layers of gold and indium tin oxide to link them together, and then coated with a the polymer Parylene which prevents moisture and corrosion.The arrays produced by these combinations have a density of 234 pixels per inch and are able to register pressures beginning at 10 kilopascals (1.5 psi).  This is very close to human touch sensitivity.

Applications for advanced touch-screens which can read fingerprints and artificial limbs, in addition to use with robots, are envisioned for the material.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences continue to fund R&D of the taxel material.

Artist’s impression courtesy of Gizmag

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Story adapted from one written by Jonathan Fincher.

Artist concept courtesy of UW.

All proposed missions to Mars have a problem: getting there and back again within a reasonable time frame. Today’s best chemical rockets would require that such a mission take up years of astronauts’ lives while they are away from families, loved ones, and their native humus.

John Slough,  a professor of astrophysics and the leader of a team of researchers from the University of Washington (UW) and Redmond, Washington-based MSNW, says “Using existing rocket fuels, it’s nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth. We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace.”

His team is looking to get this more powerful source of energy from the development of fusion driven rocket spaceships. The research team is experimenting with the fusion-creation method known as a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC). This is a device which compresses plasma into closed magnetic field lines without a central penetration. Gigantic electric capacitors then generate a one million amp magnetic field which causes large lithium metal foil rings to implode on a gob of ionized hydrogen plasma as it squirts into the engine. After the plasma gets squeezed her for a few microseconds, fusion takes place and the magnetic field then squirts the superheated, ionized metal out of the rocket’s nozzle to create a pulse of thrust.

An FRC spaceship would require merely a sand-grain-sized piece of material to get as much power as one gallon of chemical rocket fuel. The research team insists that the FDR engine would have a mass of merely 148 tons and would need just a single launch to put it into orbit. It could travel to Mars in just 105 days. And of course it would be able to travel back to Earth after the crew’s time on Mars in that same amount of time.

This would make the spaceship more efficient economically, too.

“I think everybody was pleased to see confirmation of the principal mechanism that we’re using to compress the plasma. We hope we can interest the world with the fact that fusion isn’t always 40 years away and doesn’t always cost $2 billion,” says Slough.

Diagram courtesy of UW.

 Video: [Fusion Driven Rocket]

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Story adapted from one written by science writer David Szondy.