Exterior view of the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research

The US military has built a 50,000 square foot Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Reeasrch (LASR) in Washington, D.C. at the Naval Research Laboratory. It will be used to observe and enhance human interactions and real world deployment scenarios for air and ground autonomous robots. The lab will use motion capture video systems  to track up to 50 objects for gathering high-accuracy data, and also eye trackers to gauge interaction between human subjects and the robots. It will also sport an audio system for projecting directional sound into the environment to add to the realism of the artificial environment.

The Tropical High Bay, part of the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research, is a 60' by 40' greenhouse that contains a re-creation of a southeast Asian rain forest. In the Tropical High Bay, temperatures average 80 degrees with 80 percent humidity year round. (Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

The Littoral High Bay, part of the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research, features a 45' x 25' x 5.5' deep pool. This pool will have a 16-channel wave generator, allowing researchers to create directional waves (Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

SPS-ALPHA Credit: John Mankins

With funding from NASA, John Mankins, has developed a new approach to generate electricity to help support our energy needs. A solar power satellite. The satellite would use thin-filmed mirrors to direct sunlight towards photovoltaic cells, then using microwave-power transmission panels, the satellite would create and transmit radio frequency energy back to earth. Mankins claims the design has the potential to produce ten to thousands of megawatts of energy.

Source: Space.com

Toy tin robot in the show. Boston MA United States. Picture taken by Jonathan McIntosh, 2003.

Researchers at the Biologically Inspired Neural & Dynamical Systems Laboratory (BINDS), led by Hava Siegelmann, are attempting to advance the way machines learn. By approving upon Alan Turing’s “Turing Machine“, Hava has develop what she is calling “Super-Turing”.

“This model is inspired by the brain. [...] Each time a Super-Turing machine gets input it literally becomes a different machine, you don’t want this for your PC. They are fine and fast calculators and we need them to do that. But if you want a robot to accompany a blind person to the grocery store, you’d like one that can navigate in a dynamic environment. If you want a machine to interact successfully with a human partner, you’d like one that can adapt to idiosyncratic speech, recognize facial patterns and allow interactions between partners to evolve just like we do. That’s what this model can offer.”

Furthermore, the possible behaviors of the Super-Turing computational model are virtually infinite she explains,

“If the Turing machine had 300 behaviors, the Super-Turing would have 2^300, more than the number of atoms in the observable universe”

Hava Siegelmann along with two others, have been recently received grants to build a Super Turing computer.

More on the subject here.

6.002x: Circuits and Electronics

The course introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent and dependent sources; switches and MOS transistors; digital abstraction; amplifiers; energy storage elements; dynamics of first- and second-order networks; design in the time and frequency domains; and analog and digital circuits and applications. Design and lab exercises are also significant components of the course. You should expect to spend approximately 10 hours per week on the course.

Requirements for the class ask that you have an AP level understanding of physics in electricity and magnetism (which they conveniently host a free video course online), basic calculus and linear algebra and have some background in differential equations. Not to fear, the Circuits and Electronics course itself will have brush up material as well just in case your math is a little rusty.

The course begains March 5th and will conclude on June 8th. Upon succesful completion of the course you will recive a “Electronic Certificate of Accomplishment” from MITx. The Course is avalibe worldwide, and you too can enroll at https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/.

From the article:

“Typically, a solar cell generates a single electron for each photon captured. However, by adding pentacene, an organic semiconductor, the solar cells can generate two electrons for every photon from the blue light spectrum. This could enable the cells to capture 44% of the incoming solar energy.

The study is being funded by a $1.4 million dollar grant from the Department of Defense, in the hopes of developing better care for wounded soldiers.

“For many young soldiers, their mental health becomes a real issue when they are confined to a bed for three to six months after an injury,” said Steve Stice. “This discovery may allow them to be up and moving as fast as days afterward.”

Read the full article here.

From the article:

Nuclear fusion is an attempt to reproduce the energy of the Sun in an Earth-based reactor system. When gas is heated to several million degrees, it becomes plasma. Sometimes in the plasma, an instability will appear and grow large enough to perturb the plasma, making it vibrate despite the presence of the magnetic field in which it is contained. If the plasma touches the walls of the reactor, it will cool rapidly and create large electromagnetic forces within the structure of the machine. By adjusting an antenna that emits electromagnetic radiation, Jonathan Graves and his colleagues from EPFL’s Center for Research in Plasma Physics were able to quench the instabilities when they appear, in the precise region where they are forming, and without perturbing the rest of the installation.

As promising as these developments are, more research needs to be done to develop the ability to overcome and sustain these instabilities in real time. That being said, its exhilarating to know we’re one step closer the the holy grail of energy.

“Axons and dendrites are the basis of neuron-to-neuron communication, and when they are lost, neuron function is lost,” said UTMB professor Ping Wu, lead author of a paper on the research appearing in the Journal of Neurotrauma. “In this study, we found that our stem cell transplantation both prevents further axonal injury and promotes axonal regrowth, through a number of previously unknown molecular mechanisms.”

The research thus far has only be preformed on laboratory rats, and computer simulations, but is seen as promising. You can read the full article here, on the UTMB website.