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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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Aerospace

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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Energy

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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Propulsion

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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Sensors/Data Acquisition

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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Test & Measurement

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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Electronics & Computers

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...

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Electronics & Computers

WCX17: Vehicle Connectivity Brings Privacy, Redundancy Issues

Connectivity promises to bring a wealth of information to drivers, but it also poses vexing privacy issues. Figuring out where to store all the data related to connectivity is...

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Connectivity

WCX17: Cybersecurity Fears Soar as Connectivity Escalates

For security experts, connectivity is the gift that keeps on giving. The number of threats will increase rapidly as more vehicles are connected, and vulnerabilities on older vehicles...

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RF & Microwave Electronics

As V2I Evolves, Costs, Maintenance Concerns Emerge

The National Traffic & Highway Safety Administration hasn’t yet mandated vehicle to infrastructure communications (V2I), but proponents are pressing forward in a technology that they...

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RF & Microwave Electronics

WCX17: Former Transportation Secretary Warns Against Potential CAFE Pullback

Anthony Foxx, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, told an audience at the SAE WCX17 conference that regressing from the current Corporate Average Fuel Economy...

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Aerospace

WCX17: Freudenberg Retools R&D, Plans for Next 35 Years

Rather than limit itself to three-year product planning cycles, Freudenberg is also looking 35 years into the future to further drive its R&D work.

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Green Design & Manufacturing

WCX17: College Students Participate in EV Car Sharing Study

A car sharing study involving college student participants is providing Denso with feedback that could help the supplier develop new products.

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Imaging

WCX17: 3M Enabling Machine Vision for Self-Driving Vehicles

3M is leveraging its 78-year history in lane markings and retroreflective traffic sign material to develop products for the automated driving environment.

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