Blog

Tech Briefs writers and editors share their opinions and find the fun, interesting, and unexpected stories behind today's leading-edge inventions.

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Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
A CU Boulder team is using digital twins — hyper-realistic VR environments — to provide a useful proxy for the moon, giving people a chance to get the hang of driving robots without risking damage to multi-million-dollar equipment.
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Equine-Assisted Interventions (EAIs) offer a powerful alternative to traditional talking therapies for patients with PTSD, trauma, and autism who struggle to express and regulate emotions through words alone.
Blog: Unmanned Systems
The new robot, dubbed ATMO (aerially transforming morphobot), uses four thrusters to fly, but the shrouds that protect them become the system's wheels in an alternative driving configuration. The whole transformation relies on a single motor to move a central joint that lifts ATMO's thrusters up into drone mode or down into drive mode.
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
A University of Nebraska–Lincoln engineering team is another step closer to developing soft robotics and wearable systems that mimic the ability of human and plant skin to detect and self-heal injuries.
Blog: Energy
Traditional Li-ion batteries rely on graphite as an anode material. However, the same graphite structure fails when it comes to sodium or potassium. But, by rethinking the shape of carbon at the microscopic level, researchers found a workaround.
Blog: Physical Sciences
My Opinion: Quantum computing is coming but has this engineer puzzled. As we celebrate 2025, the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, I find that thinking about these things from an engineer’s point of view is quite challenging.
Blog: RF & Microwave Electronics
From initial design to end-of-life recycling, digitalization is transforming every stage of battery development. Puneet Sinha, Senior Director and Global Head of the Battery Industry at Siemens Digital Industries Software, discusses the emerging battery technology trends and how digital transformation is reshaping the industry.
Blog: Connectivity
Self-driving cars which eliminate traffic jams, getting a health care diagnosis instantly without leaving your home, or feeling the touch of loved ones based across the continent may soon become reality thanks to a radical breakthrough in semiconductor technology.
Blog: Lighting Technology
MIT engineers have developed a resin that turns into two different kinds of solids, depending on the type of light that shines on it: Ultraviolet light cures the resin into a highly resilient solid, while visible light turns the same resin into a solid that is easily dissolvable in certain solvents.
Blog: Design
Two researchers have developed a new AI tool that can predict the 3D shape of chromosomes inside individual cells — helping researchers gain a new view of how our genes work.
Blog: AR/AI
One promising strategy to counter cognitive decline is through olfactory stimulation — engaging the sense of smell. Read on to learn how a team developed VR tech to do just that.
Blog: RF & Microwave Electronics
A research team has developed a biocompatible ultrasonic receiver that maintains its performance even when bent. Read on to learn more about it.
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
The work shows how a soft robot can use suction flow not just to stick to things, but also to sense its environment and control its own actions — just like an octopus.
Blog: Green Design & Manufacturing
Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering have engineered a practical liquid hydrogen storage and delivery system that brings zero-emission aviation significantly closer to reality.
Blog: Data Acquisition
Researchers were brainstorming ways that underwater vehicles could use turbulent water currents for propulsion and wondered if, instead of them being a problem, they could be an advantage.
Blog: Physical Sciences
Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, Georgia Tech engineers have created a five-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop.
Blog: Design
Our current battery industry needs to be re-energized. The decades-old technology isn’t always the ideal match for some of our recent advancements, like EVs, or for more extreme environments. Fortunately, some companies are charging up potentially ground-breaking ideas. Read on to learn more.
Blog: Materials
In a breakthrough that blends ancient design with modern materials science, researchers at the University of Houston have developed a new class of ceramic structures that can bend under pressure — without breaking.
Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
My Opinion: The Institute for Connected Sensor-Systems (IConS) at North Carolina State University is exploring new ways to combine sensor development and application-driven solutions.
Blog: Motion Control
While AI-driven robotics is driving greater efficiency and productivity, the manufacturing sector still faces several challenges that need to be addressed. How can manufacturers prepare for this new era of automation? Ujjwal Kumar, Group President, Teradyne Robotics, one of the keynote speakers at Automate 2025, shares his insights about the future of automation.
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
MIT engineers have found a way to fabricate a metamaterial that is both strong and stretchy. The base material is typically highly rigid and brittle, but it is printed in precise, intricate patterns that form a structure that is both strong and flexible.
Blog: Materials
Engineers have created a type of material that can expand, assume new shapes, move, and follow electromagnetic commands like a remotely controlled robot even though it lacks any motor or internal gears.
Blog: Design
A tiny, soft, flexible robot that can crawl through earthquake rubble or travel inside the human body may seem like science fiction, but a team is pioneering such adaptable robots by integrating flexible electronics with magnetically controlled motion.
Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
A research team has developed an electronic skin that detects and precisely tracks magnetic fields with a single global sensor. Read on to learn more.
Blog: Design
How can competitors both win when working together? Read on to find out SAE Media Group's Ed Brown's opinion on the matter.
Blog: Physical Sciences
The hopping robot, which is smaller than a human thumb and weighs less than a paperclip, has a springy leg that propels it off the ground and four flapping-wing modules that give it lift and control its orientation.
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Imagine a robot that can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one material. That is exactly what roboticists have achieved in robots developed at the University of California San Diego.
Blog: AR/AI
The work addresses the outfielder problem, which refers to the baseball player who stands in the outfield to catch the ball after it is hit. It is a classic challenge in physics and the neuroscience of movement, used to explore how humans and animals predict movements in a dynamic environment and how automated systems can be designed to mimic them.
News: Robotics, Automation & Control
Johns Hopkins University engineers have developed a pioneering prosthetic hand that can grip plush toys, water bottles, and other everyday objects like a human, carefully conforming and adjusting its grasp to avoid damaging or mishandling whatever it holds.

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