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Defense

Drop of Mock Nuclear Weapon Is First of New Flight Tests

From a distance, the drop of a mock nuclear weapon — containing only non-nuclear components — was a mere puff of dust rising from a dry lake bed at Nevada’s Tonopah Test Range....

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Aerospace

AMRDEC Technologies to Improve Air and Missile Defense

Engineers at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) are working on a trio of technologies to explore improving existing air and missile...

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Sensors/Data Acquisition

Creating the Future: A Better Way to Map Terrain

Mark Skoog, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, led the development of new software that stores terrain data in a more efficient and accurate way. The achievement,...

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Transportation

Tata Motors to Supply Safari Storme 4x4 to Indian Armed Forces

Tata Motors has signed a contract to supply 3192 units of the Tata Safari Storme 4x4 to the Indian Armed Forces under a new category of vehicles known as GS800 (General Service...

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Automotive

Volvo Buses Launches B8R Chassis Globally

Volvo Buses has started the global launch of its latest chassis powered by the 8-L Volvo engine. The Volvo B8R and B8RLE replace the top-selling Volvo B7R and B7RLE, which saw a production run...

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Aerospace

In-Flight, On-Demand Hydrogen Production for Greener Aircraft

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology developed a process that can be used onboard aircraft while in flight to produce hydrogen from water (including wastewater on the plane)...

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Aerospace

New System Assists X-Planes with Super-Fast Data Transmission

A network and communication architecture that can more efficiently move data from research aircraft, while using half the bandwidth of traditional methods, could eventually also...

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Kia Motors Signs Agreement to Build First Manufacturing Plant in India

Kia Motors recently signed a US$1.1 billion investment agreement to build its first manufacturing facility in India. At a late April ceremony, the automaker completed a...

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Software

VW Adds Gesture Control to New Golf

Volkswagen is becoming a company of gestures. In the Virtual Engineering Laboratory (VEL) at its Wolfsburg headquarters, designers use gesture control to modify concepts via augmented reality. Now it can...

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Green Design & Manufacturing

Aurora Flight Sciences Partners with Uber in Contested Airspace

Uber announced in late April a partnership with Aurora Flight Sciences to develop electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for its Uber Elevate Network....

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Imaging

How NASA Tracks the Asteroids Flying by Earth

On Wednesday, April 19, an asteroid missed Earth by 1.1 million miles – a distance closer than you might think. This week, Tech Briefs spoke with NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer about the...

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Robotics, Automation & Control

NASA Tests Robotic Ice Tools

Since 2015, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been developing new technologies for use on future missions to ocean worlds. That includes a subsurface probe that could burrow through...

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Defense

New Robotic System Finds and Destroys Explosive Threats

In combat, land mine and improvised explosive device (IED) clearance is a slow, painstaking, stressful job that physically and mentally drains soldiers and military working dogs....

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Aerospace

Swarms of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles Test New Dogfighting Skills

Aerial dogfighting began more than a century ago in the skies over Europe with propeller-driven fighter aircraft carried aloft on wings of fabric and wood. An event held...

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Propulsion

Medium-Duty Engines, Transmissions Shift Focus to Software

New engines and transmissions for medium-duty truck applications are evolving rapidly in response to ongoing demands for improved fuel consumption. Software is playing a major role...

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Power

VW I.D. CROZZ Makes World Debut at Auto Shanghai 2017

Possibly one of the most significant things to so far come out of Auto Shanghai 2017 was courtesy of Volkswagen with the introduction of the I.D. CROZZ concept—the company’s first...

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Imaging

Heated Concrete Could Pave the Way for Ice-Free Runways

Iowa State University tested slabs of electrically conductive concrete at Des Moines International Airport. The test slabs are made up of 1 percent carbon fiber and a special mix of...

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Aerospace

NASA Puts Dummies to the Test for Airplane Safety

Ten crash test dummies buckled into seats in a cut-out section of a regional jet fuselage will soon help NASA and the FAA develop new crashworthiness guidelines for future airplane designs....

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Automotive

Audi Reveals New A8 Technologies, Tightens Links with Porsche

As Audi recently revealed details of the structural technology—including 14 advanced joining processes—of its all-new A8, Chairman Rupert Stadler and Porsche Chairman Oliver...

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Electronics & Computers

Inner Secrets of the Toyota-Denso Heat Pump Revealed

The loss of winter driving range in electric vehicles equipped with conventional electric heating systems is well-documented—range being reduced by up to 60% and even more in severe...

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Norsk Gives Boeing Manufacturing Edge with First 3D-Printed Titanium Components

Norsk Titanium AS—which has been researching and developing its RPD (rapid plasma deposition) process for over 10 years—says it can produce titanium...

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Aerospace

Report from SPIE 2017: Drones Spot Gas Leaks from the Sky

ANAHEIM, CA. During last week’s SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing 2017 conference, panelists from industry, academia, and government demonstrated how miniaturized sensing platforms,...

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Green Design & Manufacturing

R-744 A/C Refrigerant Tries to Make the OE Grade

Is automotive air conditioning with CO2 as the refrigerant—designated as R-744—an environmental achievement in its infancy, or is it destined to be another unsuccessful attempt to defy...

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Transportation

T-X down to Two Main Contenders

Although the lightweight, supersonic T-38 has been the staple advanced jet trainer for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Naval Test Pilot School for more than 55 years, the dependable aircraft is expected to...

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Transportation

Ford to Make Pursuit-Rated HEV Police Car in 2018

Ford plans to further expand its role in the police-vehicle market with the availability of a new model in 2018: the Police Responder Hybrid, a sedan based on the standard Fusion Hybrid that...

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Test & Measurement

Sandia Labs Takes Modern Approach to Evaluating Nuclear Weapons

Sandia National Laboratories is transforming how it assesses nuclear weapons in a stockpile made up of weapons at different stages in their lifecycles — some systems that have...

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Communications

Next-Generation Fire Support Systems Boost Lethality

Soldiers view live-stream full-motion video from unmanned aerial vehicles via a smartphone. They access 3-D digital maps to send precision target coordinates. Soldiers are now relying on...

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Materials

Navy Chemists Develop Field-Repairable Transparent Armor

Research chemists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have developed and patented a transparent thermoplastic elastomer armor to reduce weight, inherent in most bullet-resistant...

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Software

WCX17: FCA Reveals ‘Hole-Istic” New Lightweighting Approach

Engineers at FCA revealed at the SAE WCX17 conference in Detroit a new simulation and analysis design tool that can earmark nearly any suitable component for a strategic...