Sensors have become intertwined with our everyday life. From the cars to phones to medical devices, sensors are embedded in many of the technologies we consistently use.
This from the University of Michigan:
Researchers used precisely tuned acoustic tones to deceive 15 different models of accelerometers into registering movement that never occurred. The approach served as a backdoor into the devices—enabling the researchers to control other aspects of the system.
By: Gary W. Hunter, Raed A. Dweik, Darby B. Makel, Claude C. Grisby, Ryan S. Mayes, and Cristian E. Davis
The advent of the Internet of Things suggests the potential for broad dissemination of information through a world of networked systems. An aspect of this paradigm is reflected in the concept of Smart Sensors Systems previously described in Interface: Complete self-contained sensor systems that include multi-parameter sensing, data logging, processing and analysis, self-contained power, and an ability to transmit or display information.
One application of Smart Sensor Systems is in the healthcare field. The concept of smart technologies that can monitor a patient’s health, assist in remote assessment by a health care provider, and improve the patient’s quality of life with limited intrusion and decreased costs is another aspect of a more interconnected world composed of distributed intelligent systems. One area where smart sensor systems may have a significant health care impact is in the area of breath analysis.
Breath analysis techniques offer a potential revolution in health care diagnostics, especially if these techniques can be brought into standard use. Of particular interest is the development of portable breath monitoring systems that can be used outside of a clinical setting, such as at home or during an activity. This article provides a brief overview of the motivation for breath monitoring, possible components of portable breath monitoring systems, and provides an example of this approach.
Read the full article in the winter 2016 edition of Interface.
By: Jonathan Coopersmith, Texas A&M University
Imagine if you could gas up your GM car only at GM gas stations. Or if you had to find a gas station servicing cars made from 2005 to 2012 to fill up your 2011 vehicle. It would be inconvenient and frustrating, right? This is the problem electric vehicle owners face every day when trying to recharge their cars. The industry’s failure, so far, to create a universal charging system demonstrates why setting standards is so important – and so difficult.
When done right, standards can both be invisible and make our lives immeasurably easier and simpler. Any brand of toaster can plug into any electric outlet. Pulling up to a gas station, you can be confident that the pump’s filler gun will fit into your car’s fuel tank opening. When there are competing standards, users become afraid of choosing an obsolete or “losing” technology.
Most standards, like electrical plugs, are so simple we don’t even really notice them. And yet the stakes are high: Poor standards won’t be widely adopted, defeating the purpose of standardization in the first place. Good standards, by contrast, will ensure compatibility among competing firms and evolve as technology advances.
My own research into the history of fax machines illustrates this well, and provides a useful analogy for today’s development of electric cars. In the 1960s and 1970s, two poor standards for faxing resulted in a small market filled with machines that could not communicate with each other. In 1980, however, a new standard sparked two decades of rapid growth grounded in compatible machines built by competing manufacturers who battled for a share of an increasing market. Consumers benefited from better fax machines that seamlessly worked with each other, vastly expanding their utility.
From artificial limbs to cochlear implants, biomedical advancements are opening up new opportunities for health care. Now, researchers from the University of Delaware are working to further improve the lifetime and effectiveness of those biomedical devices by improving communication between the technology and neural tissue.
In order to improve the devices, researchers worked to develop a direct interfacing material to improve communication between the device and the body. For this, the team focused on a conjugated polymer known as PEDOT.
Video credit: Leah Dodd/ University of Delaware
This from University of Delaware:
Compared to other methods, surface modification through electro-grafting takes just minutes. Another advantage is that a variety of materials can be used as the conducting substrate, including gold, platinum, glassy carbon, stainless steel, nickel, silicon, and metal oxides.
“Our results suggest that this is an effective means to selectively modify microelectrodes with highly adherent and highly conductive polymer coatings as direct neural interfaces,” says David Martin, lead researcher.
Sometimes the biggest advancements are the smallest in size.
A multidisciplinary team from Sandia National Laboratories recently demonstrated that notion by using nanoparticles and a nanoconfinement system to improve the performance of hydrogen storage materials. The researchers believe that this development is a step in the right direction to improve efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.
Currently, hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles store hydrogen as a high-pressure gas. However, the researchers argue that a solid material would be able to act like a sponge, with the ability to absorb and release hydrogen more efficiently. Using a hydrogen storage material of this nature could increase the amount of hydrogen able to be stored in a vehicle. In order to be efficient and competitive in the transportation sector, a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle would have to be able to travel 300 miles before refueling.
“There are two critical problems with existing sponges for hydrogen storage,” says Vitalie Stavila, co-author of the study and past ECS member. “Most can’t soak up enough hydrogen for cars. Also, the sponges don’t release and absorb hydrogen fast enough, especially compared to the 5 minutes needed for fueling.”
By: Mike Williams, Rice University
Rice University researchers have modeled a nanoscale sandwich, the first in what they hope will become a molecular deli for materials scientists.
Their recipe puts two slices of atom-thick graphene around nanoclusters of magnesium oxide that give the super-strong, conductive material expanded optoelectronic properties.
Rice materials scientist Rouzbeh Shahsavari and his colleagues built computer simulations of the compound and found it would offer features suitable for sensitive molecular sensing, catalysis and bio-imaging. Their work could help researchers design a range of customizable hybrids of two- and three-dimensional structures with encapsulated molecules, Shahsavari said.
The research appears this month in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Nanoscale.
The scientists were inspired by experiments elsewhere in which various molecules were encapsulated using van der Waals forces to draw components together. The Rice-led study was the first to take a theoretical approach to defining the electronic and optical properties of one of those “made” samples, two-dimensional magnesium oxide in bilayer graphene, Shahsavari said.
“We knew if there was an experiment already performed, we would have a great reference point that would make it easier to verify our computations, thus allowing more reliable expansion of our computational results to identify performance trends beyond the reach of experiments,” Shahsavari said.
By: Manimaran Govindarasu, Iowa State University and Adam Hahn, Washington State University
Called the “largest interconnected machine,” the U.S. electricity grid is a complex digital and physical system crucial to life and commerce in this country. Today, it is made up of more than 7,000 power plants, 55,000 substations, 160,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and millions of miles of low-voltage distribution lines. This web of generators, substations and power lines is organized into three major interconnections, operated by 66 balancing authorities and 3,000 different utilities. That’s a lot of power, and many possible vulnerabilities.
The grid has been vulnerable physically for decades. Today, we are just beginning to understand the seriousness of an emerging threat to the grid’s cybersecurity. As the grid has become more dependent on computers and data-sharing, it has become more responsive to changes in power demand and better at integrating new sources of energy. But its computerized control could be abused by attackers who get into the systems.
Until 2015, the threat was hypothetical. But now we know cyberattacks can penetrate electricity grid control networks, shutting down power to large numbers of people. It happened in Ukraine in 2015 and again in 2016, and it could happen here in the U.S., too.
As researchers of grid security, we know the grid has long been designed to withstand random problems, such as equipment failures and trees falling on lines, as well as naturally occurring extreme events including storms and hurricanes. But as a new document from the National Institute of Standards and Technology suggests, we are just beginning to determine how best to protect it against cyberattacks.
New research demonstrates the development of the first stretchable integrated circuit, made entirely using an inkjet printer.
The team behind this research believes this development could lead to the manufacturing of inexpensive “smart fabric.” Potential applications include wallpaper that can turn an entire wall into an electronic display and electronics that could be scaled up and down easily.
“We can conceivably make the costs of producing flexible electronics comparable to the costs of printing newspapers,” says Chuan Wang, co-author of the paper and former ECS member. “Our work could soon lead to printed displays that can easily be stretched to larger sizes, as well as wearable electronics and soft robotics applications.”
A team of researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology recently developed a new form of ransomware that could take over control of water treatment plants. The simulated hacking exercise was able to command programmable logic controls (PLCs) to shut down water valves, increase or decrease the amount of chemicals used to treat water, and churn out false readings.
According to the researchers, simulations were conducted to highlight the vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure. This research comes at a time when cyber security concerns have reached a high point in light of recent cyber attacking and hacking attempts across the globe.
Cyber attacks go far beyond the acquisition of emails and corruption of websites. Any establishment with PLCs is, in theory, vulnerable to hacking. This could range from water infrastructure, as demonstrated here, to electrical dependency.
While most car companies are investing research efforts into electric and autonomous vehicles, Uber – the highly popular ride-sharing service – is attempting to stick out in the crowd of auto giants by developing a flying car.
According to reports from Bloomberg, the company just took that goal one step further by hiring NASA veteran Mark Moore to work on company’s flying car project.
In less than a decade, Uber has changed the way many individuals think about transportation. Now, the company is looking to do that again. In October 2016, Uber announced plans for the “Elevate” network, which is set to function as a fleet of on-demand, electric aircrafts that take off and land vertically. Uber looks to implement Elevate within a decade.
Much like electric vehicles, the idea of the flying car is not new. In 1926, the concept even landed the cover of Popular Science. Still, there has never been a feasible technology to make this goal an actuality.
