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Blog – Page 11810

Still not sold on the whole robotics at this point; still not at the level where it needs from a multi-functional capability state plus still too jerky and most are more like a CPU on wheels.

TORONTO, ON –(Marketwired — February 23, 2016) — ­­ Astro Boy may be a fictional character, but Pepper the Robot is its real-­world incarnation. Pepper –­­ the world’s first humanoid robot –­­ will join exhibitors like MasterCard, Fluid, Vizera and Eyris, as they interact with industry experts as part of The Retail Collective Lab, sponsored by MasterCard, at this year’s Dx3 Trade Show and Conference.

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Satellites and spacecraft are generally complex to build on the ground, expensive to launch and obsolete in a decade or less.

These objects end up floating in orbit around the planet contributing to the pollution surrounding the Earth. But what if there was an alternative?

That’s the question David Barnhart, director of USC’s Space Engineering Research Center and lead for the Space Systems and Technology group for the USC Information Sciences Institute, is contemplating. What if we could just “grow” spacecraft, repurpose a hybrid of inorganic and organic materials and even allow food to grow in space?

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MOFFETT FIELD, California — Within five years, companies could begin in-orbit manufacturing and assembly of communications satellite reflectors or other large structures, according to Made in Space, the Silicon Valley startup that sent the first 3D printer to the International Space Station in 2014.

As Made in Space prepares to send a second 3D printer into orbit, the company is beginning work with Northrop Grumman and Oceaneering Space Systems on Archinaut, an ambitious effort to build a 3D printer equipped with a robotic arm that the team plans to install in an external space station pod, under a two-year, $20 million NASA contract. The project will culminate in 2018 with an on-orbit demonstration of Archinaut’s ability to additively manufacture and assemble a large, complex structure, said Andrew Rush, Made in Space president.

NASA’s selected the Archinaut project, officially known as Versatile In-Space Robotic Precision Manufacturing and Assembly System, as part of its Tipping Points campaign, which funds demonstrations of space-related technologies on the verge of offering significant payoffs for government and commercial applications. Archinaut was one of three projects NASA selected in November that focus on robotic manufacturing and assembly of spacecraft and structures in orbit.

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Graphene is too delicate to be produced commercially, but it seem that scientists have now stumbled upon the correct method of tuning it.

Graphene has many extraordinary properties. It is carbon, but it comes in the form of a two-dimensional, atomic thick, honeycomb lattice.

Remarkably, it is 100 times stronger than the strongest steel known to man, and is a very efficient conductor of heat and electricity. The possible applications for graphene-based electronics are myriad: they include better solar cells, OLEDs, batteries and supercapacitors, and they can also be used to make faster microchips that run on very little power.

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