On January 26, Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving car program, requested renewal of the company’s Experimental Authority for radio transmitters operating in the 76 GHz range. These are almost certainly long-range radars fitted to Google’s prototype self-driving cars. The heavily-redacted filing notes that the mobile transmitters are currently located in M...
The proposal to pave the way for self-driving cars over the next decade was unveiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation in the wake of President Obama’s final State of the Union address. One proposed milestone includes developing testing and performance standards for fully autonomous vehicles within the next six months. Another half-year goal is to develop a “model...
The tests are a milestone in the company's efforts to develop self-driving vehicles, which include plans to develop an autonomous bus in the next three years and mass-produce them within five years, according to a Reuters report. Baidu joins Google and Apple, among other technology companies, in the race to develop sensing, positioning, infotainment and other software...
As more renewable resources keep getting added to power grids, peak demand patterns have been shifting -- and many utilities are racing to adapt their operations. Electric vehicles offer ample opportunities to help utilities enhance reliability, implement demand response, and even develop new revenue streams. The 2014 industry review by the American Council on Renewab...
Four types of autonomous vehicles under trial - including a shuttle that looks like a larger golf cart and a compact two-seater "pod" car - were unveiled in London. Officials and journalists tried out the shuttle at the event, taking short rides around a public square. The project was "still in the early days," Transport Minister Claire Perry said, but she added the n...
This technological step-up will give the flying billboards more speed and passenger-carrying capability than the company had with blimps. But the tire company is also going to continue referring to the airships as Goodyear blimps, even though they aren't. The new aircraft have a rigid structure inside the outer envelope. This lets the three engines be mounted high up on ...
Being one of the most customer-centric industries, automotive manufacturers are strained to constantly evolve their product design and manufacturing processes to meet the ever-growing customer demands, without neglecting the environmental requirements. A recent research from McKinsey on the future of global automotive industry suggests, that the global automotive indu...
Adding intelligence to the tools and shopfloor systems will help to simplify the production process and provide better improve efficiency for the production process by managing and checking the tasks the operator is completing. Using the NI System on Module, we will be able to quickly prototype these smart tools using NI’s approach to system design. Today’s aerospace ...
Jet engines come in an array of sizes and speeds, and as with many engineering projects, there is a balance between power and efficiency. Fighter jets use low-bypass turbofans to achieve fast bursts of speed, while commercial airliners use slower, more efficient high-bypass turbofans. GE Aviation engineers have taken this task to heart as they attempt to marry the best o...
orget military UAVs. For my money, there’s nothing cooler than sweet DIY projects like a chocolate drone or a custom-built quadcopter that looks like a TIE Interceptor from Star Wars. Read: This drone is made from chocolate The intrepid creator — who goes by the social media handle “Olivier C” (and deserves a Nobel Prize for his efforts) — designed a custom chassis...
Barcelona, Spain – You think you know what a connected car is and then you actually experience one and it’s something else altogether. That was my experience at Mobile World Congress after taking the driver’s seat in a concept vehicle based on an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) platform that supports VoLTE and Rich Communications Services (RCS). Summit Tech brought the...
The unmanned Atlas rocket — and NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft — soared into a clear late-night sky, right on time. Within two hours, all four observatories were flying free. "Just picture-perfect," launch manager Omar Baez said early today. "Everybody's cheering... Can't ask for any more." The quartet of observatories is being placed into an oblong or...
The enhancements, announced Thursday, are intended to minimize the amount of damage involved in car-to-car contact and reduce the amount of debris littering the track — or hurdling over catch fences and into spectator areas. Some drivers, however, sounded skeptical about how much engineers could to with new fastenings and bolts to prevent pieces of carbon fiber from b...
The company said Friday that a recent decision to push back the jet's maiden flight from this spring to a few months later would not delay its commercial deliveries. Workers were conducting hydraulic and other tests on two of the test jets in a cavernous assembly facility; another jet had been sent out for painting. Nobuo Kishi, a vice president of Mitsubishi Aircraft...
The company will be will be receiving an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, fixed-price contract for Domestic Charter Airlift Services. The combined face for the contracts is around $61.2 million. The project will be worked on through the country and should be finished by Sept. 30. According to the DoD, the “type of appropriation is fiscal year 2015 Transportation ...
Furthermore, potential crash situations arise when drones temporarily lose their GPS position information, for instance, when flying close to buildings where GPS signal is lost. In such situations, it is essential that drones can rely on back-up systems and regain stable flight. The drones of the UZH research group are equipped with a single camera and acceleration se...
Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. builds on its existing collection of Shockwave impact bits with the addition of thin-walled hole saws, introduced this year. The company recently sent ENR a set to try out with an 18-volt impact driver. The thin-walled hole saws range in diameter from ¾ in. to 1½ in. and are fitted with ¼-in. quick-change hex shanks. Like other impact saw...
Each automaker is taking a different tack in its composites integration, and there are some new signs of carbon fiber use in two new cars, one a concept and the other in production. The concept car is the hydrogen-powered Hyundai Intrado crossover, introduced in 2014. It wasn’t until this year, however, that we learned more about the materials used to fabricate the ve...
Indeed, the Russian leader's foreign policy antics in Ukraine, combined with some of his anti-United State rhetoric, has strained Russian-US relations, raising the spectre of the Cold War political struggles — even if only symbolically for now. What's this have to do with space launches? For many years the United States has relied on Russia to supply its RD-180 rocket t...
The chain of events is simple: SpaceShipTwo was released from its carrier craft and the rocket was fired. As SpaceShipTwo approached Mach 1.0, the copilot, Michael Alsbury, prematurey switched the feathering system from the locked to the unlocked position. Two seconds after that, the craft broke apart when, it appears, aerodynamic forces began to accuate the unlocked fea...
The company reported that the process uses press forming and was based on three intermediate material forms: Unidirectional carbon fiber, isotropic carbon fiber and long fiber thermoplastic pellet. Then, in December 2011, Teijin announced that it and General Motors (GM) had created a joint venture to work on this high-speed molding process together. Soon after, in early...
It is also known for its rapid prototyping capabilities. That was the impetus behind launching its new Mechanical Prototypes Division. Its first project? A full-scale fighter jet engine, but one that will never see the sky. That’s because it’s a Pratt & Whitney F135 engine mockup to be used for maintenance training purposes. It makes perfect sense, when you think abou...
Space missions are inextricably linked to tremendous costs and great risks. The numerous aborted projects lend proof to this fact. Since an unmanned space probe, once started, can no longer be repaired, it is imperative that no part or assembly fail. All the effort would otherwise be for naught, and scientists would have to wait several years for a replacement mission. C...
The company hopes that by the time the cityLexus GS450h takes a spin through Tokyo Lexus GS450h takes a spin through Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020, the venue will be served with additional autonomous vehicles. The Lexus model is limited in its driverless role. It switches to fully automated when it reaches a highway and passes a sensor, driving independent...
Toyota Motor Corp. demonstrated on a regular Tokyo freeway Tuesday what it called the "mobility teammate concept," meaning the driver and the artificial intelligence in a sensor-packed car work together as a team. In the demonstration, a Lexus drove itself within the 60 kpm (37 mph) speed limit for about 10 minutes, changing lanes, braking and steering. The human at t...
The SPS IPC Drives on November 25 in Nuremberg marked the launch of the Europe-wide Integrated Drive Systems Roadshow. The tour plan takes in over a dozen European countries and is scheduled to run on into 2016. Under the banner of “Extra Value Integrated”, the IDS truck will be touring with application-specific exhibits and live demos over an area of 65 square meters to...
The idea of drones transporting medication to remote villages or supplying food to regions cut off by environmental catastrophes is quite impressive. Now US-based Matternet plans to make what seemed like pure science fiction just a few years ago into a reality. The Industry Journal reports on exactly how they will do this. Online retailer Amazon recently made headline...
Aircraft electric power characteristics are critical in present-day designs. Design engineers of system blocks, ranging from central processing units to control surface actuators/motors, are increasingly concerned with voltage holdup and quality during transition times between external power aircraft electric system, emergency back-up power, or transient-induced voltage ...
The future belongs to electric motors, and commercial vehicles are no exception. To date, however, many attempts to develop electric motors for commercial vehicles have stalled at the prototype stage or are extremely expensive: Usually electric models cost between two and three times as much as their conventional equivalents. The reason for this is the lack of suitable t...
It is a great time for engineers, as computer aided design and computational analysis allows them to engineer automotive product design and build vehicles that are exceedingly fuel efficient, sleek and glamorous. The vehicle engineering industry has gone through a revolutionary phase with the CAD and CAE advancements, and now engineers can conceive designs and test ca...
In 1993, NHIndustries, mainly owned by the Eurocopter group (now Airbus Helicopters), started to design the NH90, a medium-sized military helicopter. Thirteen years later, it entered service. The pace of technological change has increased so rapidly and the competition has become so fierce that helicopter manufacturers usually have no more than four years to develop t...
Growing demand from consumers for these lightweight vehicles has been reported in Europe, the US and the booming BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China as well. As a result, car manufacturers worldwide are developing their own urban car models to tap into this burgeoning market. An urban – or city – car is a small, lightweight passenger vehicle intended for...
Four different components are used to manufacture the part: steel, glass fiber-reinforced plastic (GFP), a nonwoven carbon fiber mat and thermoplastic tape containing continuous carbon fiber. The nonwoven carbon fiber mat is first thermoformed and provides the basic shape of the seatback. Carbon fiber-containing tapes are then used to increase the strength in specific...
The technique, which has been proven for the first time by researchers at the university, has been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications. The research proposes a new kind of engine for producing energy based on the Leidenfrost effect – a phenomenon which happens when a liquid comes into near contact with a surface much hotter than its boiling poi...
Unsubstantiated or not, many thought durability and repair cost concerns over the truck’s new aluminum body would cause insurers to up their monthly premiums. But as customers have taken delivery of their new F-150s they haven’t seen much of an increase at all. In fact, some have even reported seeing their premiums drop. So, are insurance companies more confident in the...
Nissan Europe is testing the prototype of the car coated with the paint which could make car washes a thing of the past. Nissan said it is the first automaker to apply a super-hydrophobic, oleophobic industrial treatment called Ultra-Ever Dry to a vehicle body. The treatment is designed to repel all water-based and some oil-based liquids using a protective top laye...
