Simply driving down the road gives you a sense for the current state of our infrastructure: crumbling and in need of repair. Aside from retrofitting or replacing current infrastructure with new construction and materials, new technology like sensors offers a way for inspectors to peer inside the systems almost continuously. But just placing a sensor…

The state of Missouri is keen on working with Missouri S&T to inspect and repair the state’s bridges with robots and drones. The drones will provide aid from the sky, analyzing and inspecting the bridges from their aerial viewpoint. When fitted with a repair arm, the drones will also be able to make minor repairs…

Global communications company Viasat Inc., (Nasdaq: VSAT) and Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) announced today a collaboration to accelerate the deployment of affordable, high-speed, high-quality internet to communities that lack reliable internet or have no connectivity at all. Viasat and Facebook are working together to make the internet accessible to more people in rural areas around the world. The…

The United States is suffering from aging infrastructure, earning a D+ grade nationwide on an A-F scale, the American Society of Civil Engineers reports. To better observe these structures, including deteriorating roads and bridges, University of Missouri (MU) scientists have developed a smartphone-based monitoring system. Smartphones are packed with various sensors, such as a camera,…

While speaking at an event in early December, Lance Collins, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering, noticed his phone receiving an unusual number of messages. He continued his speech, not knowing until later that he was being contacted on behalf of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a special project. The governor wanted to ask…

Developing a perfectly energy-efficient building is relatively easy to do—if you don’t give the building’s occupants any control over their environment. Since nobody wants that kind of building, Professor Christoph Reinhart has focused his career on finding ways to make buildings more energy-efficient while keeping user needs in mind. “At this point in designing buildings,…

To fortify the integrity of the United States’ energy grid, systems must be able to hold their own against destructive hackers. Sometimes, the best approach is to learn the ways of the enemy, beating them at their own game—a tactic that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) researchers took to heart.  Known…

When it comes to buildings and their occupants, USC researchers see a failure to communicate, yet improved dialogue between the two can help smart buildings work better for a sustainable society. In a new study, researchers found that subtle changes in design of virtual assistants results in behavioral changes that can help the environment. The researchers found…

Debates about cyber security in Australia over the past few weeks have largely centred around the passing of the government’s controversial Assistance and Access bill. But while government access to encrypted messages is an important subject, protecting Australia from threat could depend more on the task of developing a solid and robust cyber security response…

Holiday drivers who find that roadwork is driving them crazy may find in future years that a Purdue University-affiliated startup can seal the deal for a merrier journey. Environmental Concrete Products is a startup based on a Purdue innovation, with funding for the Indiana Soybean Alliance, which uses engineering sealant technology to protect and prolong…

A team of Missouri University of Science and Technology researchers has received a National Science Foundation research grant of nearly $1 million to develop stronger safeguards for a wide array of complex systems that rely on computers – from public water supply systems and electric grids to chemical plants and self-driving vehicles. Increasingly, these cyber-physical…

Researchers using magnetic signals have found unique “fingerprints” on steel, which could help to verify weapons treaties and reduce the use of counterfeit bolts in the construction industry. “Magnetic signals provide a wide range of possible national security applications,” said David Mascareñas, a research and development engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author…

Materials scientists at Duke University and UC San Diego have discovered a new class of carbides expected to be among the hardest materials with the highest melting points in existence. Made from inexpensive metals, the new materials may soon find use in a wide range of industries from machinery and hardware to aerospace. A carbide…

A research team led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a strategy for creating new high-strength alloys that are extremely strong, ductile and flexible. The strategy overcomes the critical issues of the strength-ductility trade-off dilemma, paving the way for innovative structural materials in future. Multiple-principal element alloys, generally referred to as high-entropy…

Designing safe bridges and water systems for low-income communities is not always easy for engineers coming from highly industrialized places. A new discipline called contextual engineering helps engineers think beyond personal values, expectations and definitions of project success when tackling global infrastructure problems. A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uses comprehensive…

Vertiv introduced a scalable, cloud-based management platform that brings advanced visibility, analytics and control to complex IT infrastructure, including large enterprise and hyperscale facilities and those at the edge of the network. Vertiv™ Intelligence (vIntelligence) delivers holistic, customer-directed visibility and control of the entire infrastructure through an easy-to-use app and online portal. It is available…

OKW’s unique new CONNECT plastic enclosures feature integrated cable glands which can be fitted at one or both ends for wire connected electronics.

The Story Bridge is 78 years old, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is hitting 95. Australian bridges are designed for a life span of 100 years. “The designers of these bridges allowed for the growth of traffic and load consideration, so safety factors for material strength were built into bridges like the Story and Sydney Harbour…

As occupants of the lowest lying state in the nation, residents of Delaware face the danger of roadway flooding regularly. Consequentially state agencies like the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) have made it a priority to monitor the status of roads, issuing flood warnings and closing roads that might prove dangerous to drivers. The conventional…

The sustainable electric grids of the future will be raised in New Mexico thanks to a $20 million National Science Foundation grant based on smart grid research born at New Mexico State University over the past five years.  The grant will expand this research to include scientists across the state. The National Science Foundation recently…

Marvell announced that a broad portfolio of its next generation 10/25GbE FastLinQ® Ethernet and QLogic® 16G/32G Fibre Channel technologies are now available on the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX. The latest adoption of Marvell® technologies by Dell EMC® continues both companies’ long-standing relationship of innovation and collaboration and delivers the I/O connectivity to enable a robust and enterprise-class composable…

Coordinated development of electricity infrastructure connecting offshore wind farms to land will bring financial and environmental benefits. Offshore wind plays an increasingly important role in Europe’s renewable power generation. According to a report by WindEurope, formerly the European Wind Energy Association, offshore represented 20 % of the annual EU wind power installations, with 3 154…

Five research organizations were awarded separate contracts totaling $11,511,565 to develop new methods to identify and attribute Network/Internet-scale Disruptive Events (NIDEs), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced today. Disrupted internet connectivity may significantly impact critical infrastructure systems, such as energy and water systems, the finance sector, commerce, and public safety and…

Despite whimsical ads about computing “in the cloud,” the internet lives on the ground. Data centers are built on land, and most of the physical elements of the internet – such as the cables that connect households to internet services and the fiber optic strands carrying data from one city to another – are buried in plastic…

VadaTech announces the AMC541. The AMC541 couples Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ XCZU19EG MPSoC FPGA with the TCI6638K2K communications KeyStone SoC to provide a high performance wireless infrastructure module. Zynq Ultrascale+ XCZU19EG MPSoC FPGA includes embedded Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 application processing unit, Dualcore ARM Cortex-R5 real-time processing unit, ARM Mali – MP2 GPU. The FPGA has Dual…