Soldiers marching lockstep across a bridge can cause the structure to collapse if the rhythm of their step matches the bridge’s natural vibration frequency. Combustion engineers must consider a similar effect when designing the gas turbines used in electricity generation and aero-engines. Just as soldiers’ feet can cause bridge sway to reach the point of…
Robots Learn By Checking In On Team Members
The software and hardware needed to co-ordinate a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can communicate and work toward a common goal have recently been developed by KAUST researchers. “Giving UAVs more autonomy makes them an even more valuable resource,” says Mohamed Abdelkader, who worked on the project with his colleagues under the guidance…
Unleashing Ultraviolet Brings Visible Improvement
Military and civil authorities could benefit from secure optical communication systems that use light to carry messages between moving vehicles. Researchers at KAUST have now demonstrated rapid data transfer using ultraviolet-B (UV-B) light, which provides many advantages over visible light. Optical communications systems using visible lasers and light emitting diodes (LEDs) suffer from interference due…
Divide and Conquer Pattern Searching
Searching for recurring patterns in network systems has become a fundamental part of research and discovery in fields as diverse as biology and social media. KAUST researchers have developed a pattern or graph-mining framework that promises to significantly speed up searches on massive network data sets. “A graph is a data structure that models complex…