Today on Engineering Newswire, we’re recharging drones on power lines, adding dimples to domes, and driving an autonomous caddy …
UAVs Perch on Power Lines: After carefully studying the bird’s ability to stall, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, have developed a lightweight UAV that can perch on a power line.
This ability could potentially allow UAVs to recharge their batteries using the magnetic fields emitted by the power lines.
Those Dimples Are for Speed: Research has shown that at low speeds the dimples in golf balls help reduce drag, while at higher speeds this advantage reverses. So, researchers at MIT took to making a material that is capable of both.
The surface of this material is stiff and smooth. By reducing the inner pressure of the material, the softer inner part of the material shrinks, causing the outer surface to wrinkle, or dimple.
A Driverless Future Goes to Washington: This week, in Washington D.C., Carnegie Mellon University researchers will demonstrate one of the most advanced autonomous vehicles ever designed. A vehicle capable of navigating on urban roads and highways without human intervention.
Developed with support from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, DARPA and General Motors, the car is the result of more than a decade of R&D by Carnegie Mellon scientists and engineers.
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Filed Under: Aerospace + defense, Automotive