Impact Lab – Page 241 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Space

Lockheed Martin is Bursting the Bubble with Inflatable Habitats – Literally

December 25, 2022

Lockheed Martin Nextstep concept

When developing new technology, rarely is having it explode a good thing.

Unless you’re demonstrating that an inflatable habitat is capable of surviving environments beyond the extremes of space.

As part of NASA’s NextSTEP program, Lockheed Martin is developing an inflatable structure technology to support human space habitation in low-Earth orbit, at the Moon and beyond.

Last week, Lockheed Martin reached a critical milestone in developing this next-generation technology (completely in-house) by successfully completing an ultimate burst pressure test, achieving a burst at 285 psi and more than six times the max operating pressure.

What’s a burst test? Pretty close to what it sounds like: a test that pressurizes a subscale or full-scale inflatable habitat until it literally bursts. The goal of the burst is to test the strength of the habitat many times beyond what it will experience in space to validate its design – similar to the structural loads testing typically done on other spacecraft like Orion.

Solar Power

Turning Science Fiction Into Science Fact: Space Solar Power Beaming

December 23, 2022

An artistic rendering showing the concept of collecting solar energy in space and beaming converted RF energy to a terrestrial rectenna.

By Keith Cowing

In the 1940s, science fiction author Isaac Asimov theorized the concept of collecting the sun’s energy in space, then beaming that energy down to Earth.

Today, Northrop Grumman’s Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) Project team is making that science fiction a reality with steady progress towards transmitting solar energy from space to anywhere on Earth. SSPIDR technology can be especially useful in forward operating and contested areas where warfighters need steady power to maintain mission operations.

Harnessing solar power for use on Earth has enormous potential for communities where energy is scarce. For example, when military personnel establish a forward operating base one of the most dangerous parts of the ground operation is getting power. Convoys and supply lines, which are major targets for adversaries, are the usual methods to supply power. However, solar-powered beaming energy technology can provide constant, consistent and logistically agile power to expeditionary forces operating in hard-to-reach areas – assuring power is transmitted via radio frequency (RF) from space and reducing reliance on fuel convoys and other energy generation methods.

Utilizing one of the company’s test chambers specifically designed for RF at its Baltimore manufacturing and test campus, the SSPIDR team successfully demonstrated the transmission of directed RF energy to a ground-based rectifying antenna (rectenna) – a critical milestone in the development of this pioneering technology. In this demonstration, engineers steered RF energy to rectenna hardware, energizing a series of lights that indicated successful formation of an energy beam and conversion to useful electrical current.

Medical Breakthrough

New ‘Cellular Glue’ Concept Could Heal Wounds, Regrow Nerves

December 23, 2022

The team’s new “cellular glue” molecules helped these cells assemble into a structure.

By Monisha Ravisetti

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco announced a fascinating innovation on Monday. They call it “cellular glue” and say it could one day open doors to massive medical achievements, like building organs in a lab for transplantation and reconstructing nerves that’ve been damaged beyond the reach of standard surgical repair.

Basically, the team engineered a set of synthetic molecules that can be manipulated to coax cells within the human body to bond with one another. Together, these molecules constitute the so-called “cellular glue” and act like adhesive molecules naturally found in and around cells that involuntarily dictate the way our tissues, nerves and organs are structured and anchored together.

Only in this case scientists can voluntarily control them.

“The properties of a tissue, like your skin for example, are determined in large part by how the different cells are organized within it,” Adam Stevens, a researcher at UCSF’s Cell Design Institute and first author of a paper in the journal Nature, said in a statement. “We’re devising ways to control this organization of cells, which is central to being able to synthesize tissues with the properties we want them to have.”

Doctors could eventually use the sticky material as a viable mechanism to mend patients’ wounds, regrow nerves otherwise deemed destroyed and potentially even work toward regenerating diseased lungs, livers and other vital organs.

That last bit could lend a hand in alleviating the crisis of donor organs rapidly running out of supply. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, 17 people in the US die each day while on the waitlist for an organ transplant, yet every 10 minutes, another person is added to that list.

“Our work reveals a flexible molecular adhesion code that determines which cells will interact, and in what way,” Stevens said. “Now that we are starting to understand it, we can harness this code to direct how cells assemble into tissues and organs.”

3D Printer

New biomaterial for 3D Printing can regenerate bones and prevent infections

December 23, 2022

New biomaterial can regenerate bones and prevent infections

Scientists at the Universidad Católica de Valencia’s (UCV) Bioengineering and Biomaterials Laboratory in Spain have created a new porous biomaterial for 3D printing that can regenerate bones while also preventing infections. The biotech creations, which are custom-made for each case using 3D printing, include a bioactive alginate coating. This coating promotes bone regeneration and kills bacteria that can prevent bone formation from being completed.

Because the material is biodegradable, it eventually disappears from the body after the bone has been regenerated. The research was conducted on small animals, specifically rabbits. The following step will be to test larger animals and, eventually, humans.

The American Chemical Society’s ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces journal published the UCV study (ACS). The work was done in collaboration with a number of institutions.

AI

‘World’s first robot lawyer’: DoNotPay wants to build an AI to help people fight traffic tickets

December 22, 2022

DoNotPay is also taking on parking tickets and corporations.

By Claire Goforth

A company is working towards making history and saving drivers money in the process. Whether it works is anyone’s guess, but DoNotPay claims it is building artificial intelligence designed to represent people in traffic court.

The company’s chief executive officer tweeted about their ambitious plan on Monday.

“We want to build a @donotpay bot that listens to the court hearing via your AirPods and whispers what to say with GPT-3 and LLMs,” Joshua Browder wrote. “We just want to experiment and will pay the ticket, even if you lose!” He asked anyone with an upcoming hearing on a speeding ticket to send him a direct message.

(Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, or GPT-3, is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to emulate text written by humans in response to a prompt; LLMs is an acronym for large language models, an algorithm that also uses deep learning to understand written language.)

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to whisper in people’s ears during a court hearing is a novel idea, but it could also run afoul of laws prohibiting practicing law without a license and other court rules. People wasted no time pointing these issues out.

“Sounds like practicing law without a license…?” wrote a Twitter user who describes themself as an attorney.

drones

Mobile, Autonomous 3D-printed Drone Manufacturing

December 22, 2022

ABOUT THE 2022 OODA LOOP SERIES: AUTONOMOUS EVERYTHING

By Daniel Pereira

In a series of posts entitled Autonomous Everything, we explore automation in all its technological forms, including legacy working assumptions about the term itself. Autonomous Everything includes a broad autonomous future in areas such as Security Automation, Automation and the Workforce, Automation – or Augmentation – of the workforce, and Automation of AI/Machine Learning Training Models and Industry Standardization. Recently, we checked in with Junaid Islam, a well-known cybersecurity expert, to discuss security automation tools, the increased cyber risks enterprises face, and the emerging AI-based Zero Trust cybersecurity for Smart Energy, Transportation, and Manufacturing systems.

We now explore Orbital Composites’ work with United States Air Force to create mobile, autonomous 3D-printed drone manufacturing capabilities.

Medicine

New Israeli tech could use light to control drugs

December 22, 2022

‘This technology opens opportunities for biomedical and biotechnological applications’

Researchers from Israel’s Tel Aviv University developed a new technology that could lead to better control over the release of drugs in the human body – by using ultraviolet light.

The technology is inspired by the “viral factories” made by the measles virus when infecting a cell. True to their name, these compartments are made within the host cell, containing the necessary material for making more viral particles. Recent studies have also shown that these viral factories are actually liquid-like structures.

Driverless vehicles

Hyundai Motor Robots Begin Pilot Programs to Advance Last-mile Delivery

December 22, 2022

Hyundai Motor Group has started two pilot delivery service programs using autonomous robots based on its Plug & Drive (PnD) modular platform at a hotel and a residential-commercial complex located on the outskirts of Seoul.

The delivery robot consists of a storage unit integrated on top of a PnD driving unit. Alongside the loading box used to deliver items, a connected screen displays information for customers.

First shown at CES 2022, the Group’s PnD modular platform is an all-in-one single-wheel unit that combines intelligent steering, braking, in-wheel electric drive and suspension hardware, including a steering actuator for 360-degree, holonomic rotation.

It moves autonomously with the aid of LiDAR and camera sensors. An integrated storage unit allows the robot to transport products to customers.

Space

Wild Research Project Reveals How Future Cities on Asteroids Could Work

December 22, 2022

In what they deem a “wildly theoretical” paper, University of Rochester researchers imagine covering an asteroid in a flexible, mesh bag made of ultralight and high-strength carbon nanofibers as the key to creating human cities in space.

University of Rochester scientists show how asteroids could be future viable space habitats using physics and engineering principles.

During this past year, Jeff Bezos launched himself into space, while Elon Musk funded a space flight for a non-astronaut crew. Space collaborations between government and private entities, including Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin, are becoming more common. However, with the recent emergence of the so-called “New Space” movement, aerospace companies are working to develop low-cost access to space for everyone, not only billionaires.

But for a future beyond Earth, humans will require places to accommodate homes, buildings, and other structures for millions of people to live and work.

Thus far, space cities only exist in science fiction. But are space cities feasible in reality? And, if so, how?

According to new research from University of Rochester scientists, our future may lie in asteroids.

In what they deem a “wildly theoretical” paper, the researchers outline a plan for creating large cities on asteroids. Published in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, the scientists include Adam Frank, the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Peter Miklavčič, a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering and the paper’s first author.

“Our paper lives on the edge of science and science fiction,” Frank says. “We’re taking a science fiction idea that has been very popular recently—in TV shows like Amazon’s The Expanse—and offering a new path for using an asteroid to build a city in space.”

Driverless vehicles

Autonomous Trucks Equipped with Deep Learning-Driven Robotic Arms

December 22, 2022

TrailerConnect uses proprietary software algorithms, hardware and sensors integrated onto Yaskawa-supplied arms to locate, identify, connect to and disconnect from semi-trailers without modifications or adapters.

By Marina Mayer

Outrider released TrailerConnect, a patented technology that robotically attaches the needed brake and electric lines from yard trucks to any trailers and chassis.

“Outrider is reinventing the modern distribution yard to be more efficient, safer and sustainable, and we are delivering the breakthrough technology like TrailerConnect to do it,” says Andrew Smith, CEO and founder of Outrider. “TrailerConnect automates a dangerous task traditionally performed over 6 billion times annually worldwide. Four years of development and close partnerships with our priority customers has resulted in a technology integral to autonomously moving freight.”

Driverless vehicles

Hyundai Motor Group robots get rolling with pilot programs to advance last-mile delivery

December 20, 2022

New pilot programs demonstrate Hyundai Motor Group’s new Plug & Drive (PnD)-based robots with integrated autonomous driving technology and Group insights

Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) has started two pilot delivery service programs using autonomous robots based on its Plug & Drive (PnD) modular platform at a hotel and a residential-commercial complex located in the outskirts of Seoul.

The delivery robot consists of a storage unit integrated on top of a PnD driving unit. Alongside the loading box used to deliver items, a connected screen displays information for customers.

First shown at CES 2022, the Group’s PnD modular platform is an all-in-one single wheel unit that combines intelligent steering, braking, in-wheel electric drive and suspension hardware, including a steering actuator for 360-degree, holonomic rotation. It moves autonomously with the aid of LiDAR and camera sensors. An integrated storage unit allows the robot to transport products to customers.

By adding the autonomous driving capability, the PnD-based robot can find the optimal route within the area to deliver packages to recipients. It can recognize and avoid fixed and moving objects and drive smoothly, providing a fast delivery time.

“PnD-based delivery robots allow quicker delivery times with improved safety through the use of autonomous driving technology, including fast obstacle avoidance capabilities,” said Dong Jin Hyun, Head of Robotics LAB of Hyundai Motor Group. “We plan to keep upgrading mobility services, convenience, safety and affordability for customers through our pilot programs.”

Automobiles

H-POWERED – NEW PININFARINA WITH SWAPPABLE HYDROGEN BOTTLES WHICH THREATEN TESLA’S ELECTRIC VEHICLES ARE SET FOR PRODUCTION

December 20, 2022

By Cody Carlson

CAR manufacturing startup Namx has revealed a prototype version of their debut hydrogen-powered vehicle – and it will be able to get nearly 500 miles out of just one charge.

The vehicle, known as the HUV, is the first model to be partially powered by a patented removable tank system created to make hydrogen fuel widely available.