ENGGtalks Newsroom

12 Apr 23

Solar power is ‘a global juggernaut pushing fossil fuels into oblivion’: Andrew Blakers, Professor of Engineering

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Solar electricity is now “the cheapest energy in history. Cheaper than coal, oil or gas energy. This is the remarkable change that’s happened in the past five years,” says Andrew Blakers, one of a small team of research engineers that has been instrumental in bringing about this transformation. In recognition…

11 Apr 23

Automotive Radar Object Simulation for Validation

Civil, Structural & Architecture

This is a sponsored article brought to you by Rohde & Schwarz. Homologation and validation of new vehicle models today require millions of test kilometers to be driven under different environmental conditions, on different types of roads in various countries around the world. Due to the increased complexity of automated…

11 Apr 23

Book review: ‘Charging Around’ by Clive Wilkinson

Civil, Structural & Architecture, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

In summer 2010, my old friend Kevin Dawson (then a BBC Radio 4 producer and now a public radio executive in the USA) was invited to take part in one of the first long-distance electric car journeys across Europe. In my capacity as E&T’s features editor at the time, I…

10 Apr 23

Solar-to-Hydrogen Pilot Plant Reaches Kilowatt Scale

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Researchers have built a kilowatt-scale pilot plant that can produce both green hydrogen and heat using solar energy. The solar-to-hydrogen plant is the largest constructed to date, and produces about half a kilogram of hydrogen in 8 hours, which amounts to a little over 2 kilowatts of equivalent output power.“We…

10 Apr 23

Public Safety Notification on Amniotic Fluid Eyedrops

Biotechnology & Biomedical

Audience: Patients, Health Care Practitioners Purpose: To inform the public, including patients and health care practitioners, that manufacturers are marketing and distributing amniotic fluid eyedrops to treat, mitigate, or cure diseases or...

09 Apr 23

Robotic Flea Leaps 87 Times Its Own Length

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.Although fleas are annoying pests, credit must be given where it’s due. These tiny creatures, just 3 millimeters long, can leap as far as 330 millimeters in a single hop—a distance close to 100 times…

08 Apr 23

What Flight 50 Means for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

Aerospace & Aeronautical

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Ingenuity helicopter is preparing for the 50th flight of its five-flight mission to Mars. Flight 49, which took place last weekend, was its fastest and highest yet—the little helicopter flew 282 meters at an altitude of 16 meters, reaching a top speed of 6.50 meters per…

08 Apr 23

4 Ways to Put Lasers on Silicon

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Metallurgy & Material Science

Photonic integrated circuits, which combine a collection of optoelectronic functions on a single chip, are an increasingly common part of everyday life. They are used in high-speed optical transceivers that link server racks in data centers, including the one used to deliver the IEEE Spectrum website, in lidars to keep…

07 Apr 23

Video Friday: Peep Handling

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechanical, Production & Manufacturing

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.Robotics Summit & Expo: 10–11 May 2023, BOSTONICRA 2023: 29 May–2…

07 Apr 23

Holograms Supercharge Nanoscale 3D Printing

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation, Metallurgy & Material Science

Using holograms, a nanoscale 3D printer can now rapidly fabricate complex items with details smaller than a wavelength of visible light, a new study finds. This research can rapidly manufacture nanotechnological arrays of wires, lenses, rotating magnetic gears, and other structures—suggesting applications in electronics, photonics, microrobotics and more.Currently, the most…