Industry News

June 2022
New Approach Reduces EV Battery Testing Time by 75%

Wei Lu, a U-M professor of mechanical engineering cycling batteries in the Lu Lab at the George G. Brown Laboratories building on the North Campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, May 31, 2022.

­Testing the longevity of new electric vehicle battery designs could be four times faster with a streamlined approach, researchers at the University of Michigan have shown.  Their optimization framework could drastically reduce the cost of assessing how battery configurations will perform over the long
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Date:
06/27/2022
Personal Health Trackers May Include Smart Face Mask, Other Wearables

An infrared image of a person wearing a smart mask concept.

­For years, automotive companies have developed intelligent sensors to provide real-time monitoring of a vehicle’s health, including engine oil pressure, tire pressure and air-fuel mixture. Together, these sensors can provide an early warning system for a driver to identify a potential problem before it may ne
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Date:
06/27/2022
Powercast & InPlay Team on Battery-free BLE Sensor Beacon Powered over 120 Feet

Powercast and InPlay have created a platform for designing battery-free, maintenance-free, IoT sensor systems that can be powered over long distances up to 120 feet.

­Sensors Converge – Powercast Corporation and InPlay, inventor of the programming-free, ultra-low-cost and low-power Bluetooth sensor NanoBeacon system-on-chip (SoC) technology, have created a platform for designing battery-free, maintenance-free, long-range wireless IoT sensor systems that de
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Date:
06/27/2022
RWE's U.S. Hickory Park Solar Project with Co-Located Storage Facility in Operation

Silvia Ortin, CEO RWE Renewables Americas: "Projects like Hickory Park, With its co-located battery storage systems, will become increasingly important as renewables from a bigger part of the energy mix...."

­RWE Renewables' Hickory Park Solar project, a 195.5-megawatt (MWac) facility coupled with a 40 MW 2-hour battery storage system, located in Mitchell County, Georgia, is in operation. RWE is operator/manager of the solar facility, selling the energy and renewable attributes from the facility to Georgia Powe
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Date:
06/24/2022
Electric Car Charging Project sees Coventry Graduate win National Accolade

Coventry University graduate Anujan Metheus was presented with the Association of Project Management (APM) Student of the Year Award

­A Coventry University graduate’s work to help prepare Coventry for the electric car revolution, has seen him honoured with a top project management award. Anujan Metheus, who completed his Masters in Engineering Project Management at Coventry University last year, was presented with the Association of Projec
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Date:
06/24/2022
Cocrystal Engineering— A Clever Way for Designing Multifunctional Material

Flu-TCNQ cocrystal with integrated n-type charge transport and red emission properties.

­Cocrystal engineering is an ingenious strategy for assembling organic molecules through the non-covalent interaction force, avoiding harsh experimental conditions (i.e., high temperature and high pressure). By selecting the appropriate components, the donor-acceptor (D-A) molecules can be assembled like the ji
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Date:
06/24/2022
University of Houston Research Allows for 3D Printing of 'Organic Electronics'

Mohammad Reza Abidian, associate professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, has introduced a new photosensitive resin doped with an organic semiconductor material to fabricate highly conductive 3D microstructures....

­When looking at the future of production of micro-scale organic electronics, Mohammad Reza Abidian – associate professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering – sees their potential for use in flexible electronics and bioelectronics, via multiphoton 3-
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Date:
06/24/2022
Efficient Satellite Downlink with a Ka Band Dual Circular Polarization Transmitter

Efficient Satellite Downlink with a Ka Band Dual Circular Polarization Transmitter

­Low earth orbit (LEO) satellites are being increasingly used for environmental monitoring of the earth, as well for logistic purposes, such as the navigation of maritime vessels. The data transmitted from the satellite terminals to the receivers on Earth, known as “downlink,” is steadily increasing and, as
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Date:
06/24/2022
Solving the Solar Energy Storage Problem with Rechargeable Batteries that can Convert and Store Energy at Once

This review focuses on recent progress of the working principles, device architectures, and performances of various closed-type and open-type photo-enhanced rechargeable metal batteries, exploring their challenges and future perspectives.

­As the climate crisis looms, scientists are racing to find solutions to common clean energy problems, including solar energy storage. Solar energy is one of the best renewable resources we have, but it has challenges that prevent it from being widely adopted and replacing conventional energy sources. Because so
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Date:
06/24/2022
MIT Receives DOE Award to Study the Deployment of Accident Tolerant Fuels in Small Modular Reactors

Seth Grae, President and CEO of Lightbridge

­Lightbridge Corporation announced that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”) has been awarded approximately $800,000 by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (“DOE”) Nuclear Energy University Program R&D Awards to study the deployment of Accident Tolerant Fuels in Small Modular Reactors. Th
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Date:
06/22/2022
Turtle Trackers Fly Drones Out of Sight

Uncrewed aerial systems, or drones, show promise for observing sea turtles to better understand their reproductive behaviors and support conservation. (Embry-Riddle)

­In a first, an uncrewed aircraft system, or drone, operated by an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University team has begun searching for threatened and endangered sea turtles beyond visual sight lines. Thanks to a first-ever “beyond visual line of sight” (BVLOS) waiver from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administr
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Date:
06/22/2022
Research Study: On-Road Hydrogen Vehicles to Exceed 1 Million Globally by 2027

According to ­a new study from Juniper Research, the number of hydrogen vehicles in service globally will exceed 1 million in 2027.

­A new study from Juniper Research has found the number of hydrogen vehicles in service globally will exceed 1 million in 2027, from just over 60,000 in 2022 – a substantial growth of over 1,500%. Juniper Research defines hydrogen vehicles as vehicles that use hydrogen propulsion systems as the
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Date:
06/20/2022
The World's First Ultra-Fast Photonic Computing Processor Using Polarization

Polarisation as an independent channel

­New research uses multiple polarisation channels to carry out parallel processing – enhancing computing density by several orders over conventional electronic chips. In a paper published today in Science Advances, researchers at the University of Oxford have developed a method using the polarisation o
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Date:
06/15/2022
Insect-Inspired AI for Autonomous Robots

Swarm of tiny drones is able to localize gas leaks

­Small autonomous mobile robots, such as drones, rovers, and legged robots, promise to perform a wide range of tasks, from autonomously monitoring crops in greenhouses to last-kilometer delivery. These applications require robots to operate for extended periods while performing complex tasks, often in unknown, ch
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Date:
06/15/2022
Renesas Invests $10M in Arduino to Access Huge Open-Source Developer Community

Chris Allexandre, Senior Vice President, Head of Sales and Corporate Digital Marketing, IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit, Renesas

­Renesas Electronics Corporation announced an investment in Arduino’s new round of Series B funding. The partnership with Arduino enables Renesas to make its broad range of products available for Arduino’s technology platforms used by its worldwide developer community. Arduino was first developed as an eas
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Date:
06/14/2022
Robot Skin Heals

Illustration showing the cutting and healing process of the robotic finger (A), its anchoring structure (B) and fabrication process (C).

­Researchers from the University of Tokyo pool knowledge of robotics and tissue culturing to create a controllable robotic finger covered with living skin tissue. The robotic digit had living cells and supporting organic material grown on top of it for ideal shaping and strength. As the skin is soft and can ev
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Date:
06/09/2022
New Feedback System can Improve Efficiency of Fusion Reactions

From left: graduate student Ricardo Shousha, an image of solar flares, and graphs showing details of plasma discharges

­Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have refined the use of magnetic fields to improve the performance of doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks. The improved technique protects internal parts from damage by instabilities called “edge-localized mo
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Date:
06/09/2022
URI Chemist Earns DOE Early Career Award to Study Potential Fuel Cell Chemical Reaction

Dugan Hayes, URI assistant professor of chemistry, in his lab at the Beaupre Center for Forensic and Chemical Sciences on the Kingston Campus.

­With an Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, a University of Rhode Island chemist will study a surprising chemical reaction that could be useful in releasing hydrogen for fuel cells. Dugan Hayes, an assistant professor of chemistry, is one of only 83 scientists nationwide chosen in
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Date:
06/09/2022
Local Governments Must Take Responsibility for Clean Heat

Sir John Armitt, chairman of the UK’s National Infrastructure Commission

­Net zero energy goals for heating need to be owned and delivered by regional and local governments, according to a new report led by the University of Birmingham. In addition, the report emphasises the need to balance these on-the-ground local decisions with long-term policy decisions from Government. For example, it calls on the Government to fund pathfinder projects that will decarbonise 30,000 homes in the next five years and recommends the s
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Date:
06/08/2022
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