Technology Trends

After several years of research, engineers from the University of Hawaii are now testing the first autonomous robotic vehicle for deep-ocean work in the U.S. This robot is called SAUVIM, short for Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions. It’s roughly the size of an SUV and it is designed to operate to a depth of about 4 miles. With its computers, its sensors, and a 5-foot, 150-pound autonomous manipulator, or robotic arm, it will be able to move towards a specific target, such as a wrecked pipe laying on the ocean floor — and maybe fix it. Right now, this robot has an autonomy of about eight hours, but this range should soon be extended when the researchers move from batteries to fuel cells to power the undersea vehicle.

Here is the introduction of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin article, which shows that it’s not always easy to move from a lab to real life.

A sensor failed to work, causing a glitch in the performance of the group’s Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention during a demonstration Friday at the UH Marine Center at Snug Harbor, Sand Island. But industry and Navy research officials were enthusiastic about the unique vehicle’s potential.

This project has received about $12 million from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) since 1997 and is led by Song K. Choi, who leads the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the Center for Underwater Robotic Technology (CURT).

Song Choi also founded the Marine Autonomous Systems Engineering to commercialize this robotic undersea vehicle (web site ‘under construction’).

But now, it’s time to look at some images of the SAUVIM — by the way, how did these researchers find such an unappealing name?

For more information, here are two links to the SAUVIM project page and to a short simulation movie from 2003 (41 seconds, 7.65 MB)

Now, what kind of help can we expect from this autonomous robot?

Choi said there is no underwater vehicle with the capabilities of the semiautonomous underwater vehicle. “We’d be the first ones to do it.”

Choi said 99 percent of the vehicle’s system is autonomous, with 1 percent semiautonomous for a communications link for safety. A signal could be sent to the vehicle to stop and return if necessary, he said.

It will be able to go to a target automatically, and the arm will deploy to do a task with no humans involved, Choi said. “The ultimate goal is to leave it in the water, and it will come back when the batteries are down. Safety-wise, it can’t get better.”

Future versions of this autonomous undersea robots should be able to work continuously for several days when batteries are replaced by fuel cells.

Sources: Helen Altonn, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Hawaii, July 19, 2005; and various web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Engineering
  
  
• Military Applications
  
  
• Robotics
  
  
• Sensors
  

Once again, man is imitating nature for the best. A team of Dutch physicists has created artificial cricket hairs, which are among the most sensitive sound detectors on Earth. These artificial sensory hair systems will help to develop sensor arrays useful for a variety of applications. For example, these sensor arrays could be used to visualize airflow on surfaces, such as an aircraft fuselage. But more importantly, this “could lead to a new generation of cochlear implants, for people with severe hearing problems.” Even if it doesn’t happen overnight, the low energy consumption and costs of fabrication are excellent news for deaf people. Read more…

First, let’s look at how real crickets are using their hairs.

Crickets spend most of their lives on the ground, making them vulnerable to wandering and flying predators. Species such as the wood cricket Nemobius sylvestris have developed a pair of hairy appendages at the abdominal end of their body called cerci, which are incredibly good at detecting small fluctuations in air currents — the kind that might be caused by the beating of a wasp’s wings or the jump of an attacking spider.

On the figure below, you can see the sensory hairs of the cricket (Credit: University of Twente, The Netherlands).

The sensory hairs of the cricket are situated on the back of the cricket’s body on appendices called cerci. [...] Each hair is lodged in a socket, guiding the hair to move in a preferred direction. The hair is held in its socket by an elastic material surrounding the base. Airflow causes a neuron to be fired, by rotation of the hair base. The cricket is able to pinpoint low-frequency sound from any given direction, by using the combined neural information of all sensory hairs.

Now, let’s focus on how these Dutch physicists have created artificial cricket hairs.

Physicists at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have now succeeded in building artificial sensory hair systems, which they hope will enable them to unravel the underlying process and develop sensor arrays with a variety of important applications.

The Twente team built a mechanical array with up to a few hundred artificial hairs using technologies often referred to as MEMS technology. The sensors are made by depositing and structuring various thin layers of electrically insulating and conducting materials, creating structured electrodes on a suspended membrane. The structured electrodes form two capacitors with the underlying substrate.

Below is a picture of an array of spiral-suspended sensory hairs, obtained through “a relatively simple fabrication process” (Credit: University of Twente, The Netherlands).

The news release gives some more details, but for more information, the research work has been published on June 20, 2005 by the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering under the name “Artificial sensory hairs based on the flow sensitive receptor hairs of crickets.” Here is a link to the abstract.

This paper presents the modelling, design, fabrication and characterization of flow sensors based on the wind-receptor hairs of crickets. Cricket sensory hairs are highly sensitive to drag-forces exerted on the hair shaft. Artificial sensory hairs have been realized in SU-8 on suspended Si_xN_y membranes. The movement of the membranes is detected capacitively. Capacitance versus voltage, frequency dependence and directional sensitivity measurements have been successfully carried out on fabricated sensor arrays, showing the viability of the concept.

And if you’re a registered member of the Institute of Physics, here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 7 pages, 686 KB) (you can register for free from the abstract link). The above illustrations were extracted from this paper.

Finally, you can find other technical information on the CICADA project page at the University of Twente — CICADA standing for ” Cricket Inspired perCeption and Autonomous Decision Automata.”

Sources: Institute of Physics news release, June 20, 2005; and various web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Engineering
  


• Medicine
  


• Nature
  


• Physics
  


• Sensors
  

According to Reuters, a Canadian company, Zarlink Semiconductor, has developed a wireless chip for medical implants to be used for in-body communication systems. With such a chip, a pacemaker could wirelessly be monitored by a doctor or an hospital several miles away. The company thinks there are many other applications for the chip, such as in implanted blood glucose meters, which control insulin for diabetics. This is possible because the chip is sleeping most of the time, waiting for wake-up calls from a base station located far away. This allows the chip to use only 20% of the power needed by previous systems while sending much more data when awake. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs from the Reuters article.

Zarlink Semiconductor Inc. unveiled a ground-breaking chip for medical devices on Tuesday that it says could let doctors monitor a patient’s pacemaker or even control a diabetic’s insulin dosage from miles away using wireless technology.

The Ottawa-based company said it has the world’s first chip designed specifically for in-body communication systems, which wirelessly links implanted devices via base stations to a doctor or hospital.

“Baby boomers are getting older and they require pacemakers and defibrillators and various other devices,” said Steve Swift, general manager of Zarlink’s ultra low-power communications unit.

This diagram shows how the Zarlink’s in-body communications system works. It comes from “Wireless Revolution” (PDF format, 2 pages, 671 KB), in which Henry Higgins of Zarlink Semiconductor discusses the latest in radio frequency technology and in-body communications systems.

Some implants will require an almost constant two-way link, while others only require occasional communication initiated by a base station. Data can be stored in memory and transmitted in bursts on request from the base station. This means the implant can be put into sleep mode between data transmissions to save battery power and allow a longer operating time, with the base station sending a “wake-up” signal to the implant before data is transmitted.

Reuters adds that because the chip is sleeping almost all the time, it consumes only 20% of the power of rival products, while transmitting ten times more data to a distance up to two meters.

For more information about these in-body communications systems, you also should read “The Ultra-Low-Power Wireless Medical Device Revolution” published by Medical Electronics Manufacturing in April 2005. Here is the conclusion of this well-documented article written by Peter Bradley, who is a project engineer and system architect with Zarlink Semiconductor’s ultra-low-power communications division.

The design considerations for implantable radio-frequency (RF) communication systems require careful consideration of transceiver design, power consumption, and data integrity. Moreover, when designing an implantable RF communication system, it is essential to consider the issues related to remote management of these devices via the MICS band. The transceiver IC discussed in this article uses an architecture that provides the basic concepts of achieving low power and high data integrity.

These concepts will lead the way to high-performance, low-power RF communication. Such transceiver technology will facilitate clinically significant improvements in healthcare for the development of next generation of medical implants.

Now, a question remains. Who will license this promising new technology?

Sources: Susan Taylor, Reuters, May 31, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Chips
  


• Medicine
  


• Sensors
  


• Wireless
  

Scientists and the military often share a common quality: imagination. For example, in “US military ‘rocks’ spy world,” the Financial Times reports that the U.S. military is developing RFID sensors that will be installed in fake little rocks. These ‘rocks’ which will be the size of golf balls, will be sent from an aircraft and will detect enemies by ‘listening’ to them from 20 to 30 meters. These sensors should be operational within 18 months and they should be cheap enough to leave them on the battlefield after they completed their tasks. Read more…

RFID is being developed into many areas of use. RFID technology is slowly taking over the use of barcodes in many instances. However, there is still something to be said for using barcodes. Many businesses still utilize barcode printers and barcode readers as a way to manage their inventory. Is using RFID scanners better than barcode scanners? Perhaps, but that is something that has to be decided by the individual.

Here is some information picked from the short Financial Times article.

The devices, which would be no larger than a golf ball, could be ready for use in about 18 months. They use tiny silicon chips and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology that is so sensitive that it can detect the sound of a human footfall at 20ft to 30ft. The project is being carried out by scientists at North Dakota State University, which has licensed nano-technology processes from Alien Technology, a California-based commercial manufacturer of RFID tags for supermarkets.

It is an example of the increasing desire for the US military to co-operate with civilian industry and academic institutions in the development of battlefield technology that will reduce the risks to soldiers’ lives. Greg McCarthy, associate vice president at the university’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering, said: “The military wants better sensing capability. People are being killed because someone’s sneaking up on a tent and blowing them up.”

The military don’t distribute many images of future technologies. This picture of RFID sensors hidden inside fake rocks comes from this page on Sci-Tech Today (Credit: unknown).

For — slightly — more information about this project, you can look at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) site at North Dakota State University (NDSU), and especially to this page about MicroSensor Systems. Here is the introduction.

The MicroSensor Systems program (aka Ultra-Low Power Battlefield Sensor Communication Systems, ULPBSCS), is a Department of Defense funded program. This program built a Center of Excellence (COE) at NDSU devoted to wireless microsensor system research and development and to the production of wireless microsensor systems for dual (military and commercial) needs. A central component of the program is advanced rapid microelectronics fabrication technology transferred to the university from Alien Technology Corporation, for the purpose of microsensor fabrication.

I’m feeling somewhat frustrated not being able to give you more details or illustrations about this interesting concept. So, if you have more information about this project, please post your comments below. Thanks.

Sources: Jeremy Grant, Financial Times, May 26, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Military Applications
  
  
• Nanotechnology
  
  
• RFID
  
  
• Sensors
  

In 2006, NASA plans to send in space the first prototypes of a ‘black box’ named Re-entry Breakup Recorder (REBR). These black boxes, conceptually similar to commercial aviation black boxes, are expendable and weigh about one kilogram according to Small Times. These micro spacecrafts will be attached to a main spacecraft and will separate from it when it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere. The nanosensors, which will weigh only a few grams, will collect data, such as temperature or pressure and other data, and validate thermal protection systems for human missions. NASA plans to put similar nanosensors in the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), NASA’s future replacement for the shuttle. And if everything goes fine, nanosensors will be used for explorations of the moon and might go to Mars around 2025. Read more…

Here is the introduction from Small Times.

A joint project of NASA and El Segundo, Calif.-based Aerospace Corp. will develop a “black box” that uses nanosensors weighing a few grams. The nanosensors will be used to gather data about flight vehicles re-entering the earth’s atmosphere from space. After the perilous high-speed part of re-entry, the black box will “phone home” and relay data by satellite prior to impact with land or sea. The black box will be especially useful in the event of what NASA scientists call an “uncontrolled re-entry.”

And here are some of the reasons why NASA is looking at nanotechnology.

“The black box is a companion spacecraft that is attached to the main spacecraft and there could be more than one,” said Dan Rasky, a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. “It’s designed with a heat shield to be able to survive a re-entry and take data of interest at re-entry, such as vehicle position or temperature.”

Nanotechnology offers advantages critical to next-generation space travel, Rasky said. “The challenges we have with a small spacecraft are power and mass,” Rasky explained. Nanotechnology solutions are lightweight and low power. “There are a number of nanotechnology uses involving batteries with greatly improved performance and duty cycles.”

Below is a diagram of the Reentry Breakup Recorder, also known as the Black box. (Credit: The Aerospace Corporation)

And below is another diagram showing the packaging concept of the Black box. (Credit: The Aerospace Corporation)

You’ll find larger images of these diagrams (in Powerpoint format) on this page.

At the end of April 2005, NASA issued a press release which contains many more details, “Micro Spacecraft to Pave the Way for Future Space Exploration.”

NASA and its partner [, The Aerospace Corporation,] recently agreed to develop the first ‘black box’ for spacecraft and test a prototype of this device that will be based on technology that Aerospace has been working on for several years. The ‘black box’ is actually a very small ‘micro spacecraft’ that would be attached to larger space vehicles. A joint program between NASA and Aerospace will develop the black box micro spacecraft, among many other low-cost, miniature space systems, under the terms of a NASA-Aerospace agreement.

NASA also looks at the future of these micro spacecrafts.

Scientists additionally envision using micro spacecraft to do systematic studies of Mars, and sample returns from the moon, Mercury and Venus. Micro spacecraft may also conduct “on location” studies of Venus. Because they can be less expensive than other, more complicated spacecraft, a great number of micro probes could be sent to many more places in the solar system to gather data, researchers suggest. The gas giant planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune offer countless opportunities for micro spacecraft to study ‘volatiles’ - water vapor, ammonia, various isotopes and winds.

Small Times, as well as NASA, are using extensively the word ‘nanotechnology.’ But here is the first paragraph of this news release from the Aerospace Corporation from February 2005.

The Aerospace Corporation and NASA Ames Research Center have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the development of new small, lightweight, low-cost reentry systems and related nano and pico spacecraft technologies, including miniature sensor systems.

Pico spacecraft technologies? WOW!!!

Anyway, without more details from NASA, it seems to me that these nanosensors belong more to the microscale than to the nanoscale dimension.

Sources: Richard Acello, Small Times, May 23, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• NASA
  
  
• Nanotechnology
  
  
• Sensors
  
  
• Space
  

The U.S. Army is increasingly using battlefield sensors these days, from static ones which detect ground movements to unmanned aerial drones. This means that field commanders are overwhelmed by too much information. So the military started the BrUte Force Fusion (BUFF) program, which uses server and visualization systems from SGI, according to Military Information Technology. In a lab located at Fort Huachuca, AZ, BUFF analyses 170,000 hourly intelligence reports or about 3 terabytes of data each day. The goal of the BUFF program is to reach the Level II of the data fusion hierarchy — Level I occurs when a sensor is able to detect the movement of an object in a battle space while Level II blends data from multiple sensors. Many scientists believe that reaching Level II will take two decades, but promoters of the BUFF program think they can do better. Read more…

Here is the introduction of the article from Military Information Technology.

The Battle Command Battle Lab at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, is evaluating ways to fuse intelligence data from multiple sources into a cohesive combat picture in order to put more complete and actionable battlefield knowledge in the hands of field commanders. Experts there are using a variety of advanced technologies, including new server and visualization systems from Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI).

The new systems are deployed as part of the military’s Brute Force Fusion (BUFF) program, which is evaluating methods for achieving a clear understanding of current battlefield conditions. BUFF is focused on what is known as Level II fusion, which merges data from a growing array of intelligence sensors to create a picture of what is happening on the battlefield now.

With some 170,000 hourly intelligence reports generating three terabytes of data a day, BUFF’s research is also focused on assembling the data into actionable intelligence for specific field commanders or troop leaders.

In “Get BUFF,” GovExec.com gives some additional details about the program.

Jason Denno, the Battle Lab’s deputy director and a self-described “deviant” thinker, is leading the BrUte Force Fusion Program, a daring and potentially fruitless attempt to conquer the data deluge by wrestling it to the ground. (The muscular approach prompted the program’s acronym, “BUFF,” which was Denno’s idea.)

Denno hopes that, with BUFF, the military could produce level II fusion tools within the next few years. “We have a sea of information at this point,” Denno says. Buried in it, somewhere, could be the telltale clue that lets analysts know whether they’re looking at a few tanks moving across the desert, or the point of a much larger force, backed up by devastating artillery power.

Denno thinks that ‘traditional’ military analysts have not looked at enough information, probably because of a lack of computing power.

They have looked at the most current set of facts and assessed what was happening at that moment. When they have to make another assessment - probably a few minutes or a few days later — they look at the freshest data obtained since the last set.

The problem, Denno says, is analysts’ views frequently are based only on the most recent data; they might not account for historic trends. BUFF, however, would base each assessment on all the data that has been collected. Of course, that means the data set grows exponentially with each new assessment. The mound of data becomes a mountain and then a mountain range.

And here is Denno’s conclusion.

“Sometimes, you just need a sledgehammer,” Denno says of his all-or-nothing concept. “We were the first ones to use a sledgehammer instead of a pickle fork.”

For slightly different information, you also can read this SGI press release from February 15, 2005.

[Disclaimer: I worked for SGI between 1996 and 2001, but I don't have any more ties with this company.]

Sources: Harrison Donnelly, Military Information Technology, April 24, 2005; Shane Harris, GovExec.com, April 15, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Computers
  


• IT
  


• MilitaryApplications
  


• Sensors
  

Laser lights can be used for optical sensing applications, for example to identify unknown gases emitted by an engine. And as these unknown substances react differently to different wavelengths, researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have developed unique wavelength-agile lasers. And I’m amazed by the beauty and the simplicity of their idea. They’re using white lasers which produce all colors simultaneously — but with a twist. The white laser light goes through a 20-kilometers long optical fiber before reaching its target. And because different colors ‘travel’ at different speeds, this produces independent results for the different wavelengths. The researchers are using spectral resolutions smaller than a thousandth of a nanometer and they are able to get all the results within a millionth of a second. This method could be used to design cleaner engines or data storage applications in a few years. Read More…

Let’s start with some technical explanations about this technology developed by Professor Scott Sanders in his labs.

Sanders’ laser builds on a phenomenon known as supercontinuum generation, in which researchers convert single-color lasers, such as a green or a red laser, into a multicolored beam using a special kind of optical fiber. Photonic crystal fibers enable them to generate this “white” laser beam, says Sanders.

While that method produces a range of laser colors-and thus, a large amount of information-the drawback is that the white laser delivers all of the colors simultaneously, says Sanders. Rather, researchers want to measure rapidly their subjects’ responses to individual colors.

So by directing the laser through an additional optical fiber about 20 kilometers long, Sanders created what he calls a “color-dependent speed limit.” Although all of colors leave the white laser at the same time, red travels through the fiber more quickly, while blue brings up the rear, and the rest of the colors fall somewhere in the middle. In photographs, they look like a continuous stream; in reality, each color exits the long fiber one after the other, like drops from a faucet. The entire laser scan occurs in a couple of millionths of a second.

Below is a photo showing how UW-Madison engine researchers gather useful data about the gases they study by using these wavelength agile lasers (Credit: UW-Madison College of Engineering).

Here is a link to a higher quality of this picture (3,264 x 2,448 pixels, 5.04 MB).

This research work about ‘rainbow’ lasers is making the cover story of Optics and Photonics News in its May 2005 issue. Full access to the paper (PDF format, 6 pages, 446 KB) is available via this page about “Wavelength-Agile Lasers.”

The figure below, which shows the evolution of wavelength-agile lasers within the author’s laboratory, has been extracted from this article (Credits: UW-Madison College of Engineering and Optics and Photonics News).

These colorful lasers should soon be used in such applications as spectroscopy or high-speed scanning.

Sources: University of Wisconsin at Madison, April 28, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Engineering
  
  
• Nanotechnology
  
  
• Optics
  
  
• Photonics
  
  
• Sensors
  

I’m sure that almost all of you have used a fountain pen. But imagine a pen drawing lines only 40 nanometers in width. Now, it can be done with the Nanofountain Probe (NFP) developed by scientists at Northwestern University. This innovative fountain pen “employs a volcano-like dispensing tip and capillary fed solutions to enable sub-100 nanometer molecular writing.” But it needs to be mounted on an atomic force microscope (AFM) to be useful, so it probably is something you’ll not find at your local drugstore for a while. However, this nanofountain probe could have applications for nanosensors, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Read more…

Here is the description of the Nanofountain Probe.

The Nanofountain Probe (NFP) developed by Horacio D. Espinosa, professor of mechanical engineering, and his colleagues employs a volcano-like dispensing tip and capillary fed solutions to enable sub-100 nanometer molecular writing. The NFP was microfabricated on a chip to be mounted on commercially available AFMs.

The device consists of an on-chip reservoir, microchannels and a volcano-like dispensing tip. The microchannels are embedded in the AFM cantilevers of the chip and the volcano dispensing tip has an annular aperture to guide ink dispensing. The ink on the reservoir is driven through the microchannel via capillary action to reach the dispensing tip. At present, the smallest feature width achieved with the device is 40 nanometers.

Below are two images illustrating the technology, with associated comments from the researchers.

High-speed patterning over large areas with the resolution of dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) is the goal of this research by both removing the need for repeated dipping as in the DPN technique and by parallelizing the writing. Our strategy is to combine continuous ink feeding with the DPN technique using micromachining technology.

A novel AFM cantilever integrated with microchannels has been designed and microfabricated. Ink is supplied and stored in an on-chip reservoir, and subsequently fed through the microchannels by capillarity to reach a volcano-shape dispensing tip attached at the end of the cantilever. Batch-fabricated chips can be mounted into commercial atomic force microscopes.

The images above and their legends belong to Espinosa’s Micro & Nanomechanics Laboratory and come from this page about the Nano Fountain Active Probe (NFAP).

But what will be able to do with these probes?

The standard microfabrication techniques used for the NFP chip — an important feature of this development — provides scalability to massively parallel arrays of probes and reservoirs for high throughput patterning with multiple molecular inks.

“The writing capability of such NFP arrays with chemical and bimolecular inks in fountain-pen mode is unique,” said Espinosa. “We believe the technology will likely lead to many high-impact applications in the field of nanosensors, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.”

The research work has been published by Small, a new scientific journal from the Wiley & Sons group, under the name “A Nanofountain Probe with Sub-100 nm Molecular Writing Resolution.”

Here are two links to the (empty) abstract and to the full paper (PDF format, 4 pages, 176 KB). It also contains other images illustrating the technology.

Here is the conclusion of the paper.

In summary, sub-100 nm molecular patterning has been achieved in fountain-pen writing mode with an AFM probe integrated with a volcano tip, microchannels, and a reservoir. The volcano tip has experimentally shown controlled transport of ink to avoid molecular flooding of substrates, ensuring high-resolution patterning. Standard microfabrication techniques were used, which allow the fabrication of massively parallel fountain probe arrays and integration of multiple reservoirs for sub-100 nm patterning over large areas with multiple inks. The devices have application in the fields of nanolithography, combinatorial nanochemistry, biosensors, nanodevices, and beyond.

Finally, if you want to become a partner of Northwestern University to develop such applications, please check their Technology Transfer Program about the High Speed Nano Fountain Pen.

Sources: Northwestern University news release, April 26, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Biotechnology
  


• Engineering
  


• Nanotechnology
  


• Sensors
  

Even if researchers are routinely building all kinds of nanodevices in their labs, the current production process of nanowires or nanosensors is similar to the car manufacturing process before Henry Ford. These nanostructures are almost handmade. Now, researchers at University of California Davis (UC Davis) have adapted a technology developed for Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. And they came with two new ways to massively produce nanowires of precise length. Their ‘nanobridges’ and ‘nanocolonnades’ are totally compatible with existing microelectronics fabrication processes. This opens the way for to a wide range of industrial-strength applications, such as bio-chemical sensing, nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, memory and logic devices for future computing. Read more…

First, let’s look at how most nanostructures are produced today.

Nanotechnology, the ability to create and work with structures and materials on an atomic scale, holds the promise of extreme miniaturization for electronics, chemical sensors and medical devices. But while researchers have created tiny silicon wires and connected them together one at a time, these methods cannot easily be scaled up.

“It takes weeks to make one or two, and you end up with different sizes and characteristics,” said M. Saif Islam, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, who joined UC Davis from Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in 2004.

Saif Islam and his Integrated Nanodevices and Systems Research (inano) group decided to adapt a technology developed for Hewlett-Packard.

While working at the Quantum Science Research group of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Islam and colleagues came up with a new approach. Silicon wafers used for building microcircuits are usually polished at one specific angle to the atomic planes of silicon. Instead, the group used a wafer that was polished at a different angle, changing the orientation of silicon atomic planes to the surface. Using a chemical vapor deposition technique, they could then grow identical, perpendicular columns of silicon.

The researchers have used this method to grow “nanobridges” across a gap between two vertical silicon electrodes. The nanobridges are strong, chemically stable and show better electrical properties than previous approaches, Islam said. They could be used for nanosized transistors, chemical sensors or lasers.

The research work about these ‘nanobridges’ has been published by Applied Physics A, in a special issue on nanotechnology. Here is a link to the abstract of this paper named “A novel interconnection technique for manufacturing nanowire devices” (Volume 80, Number 6, Pages 1133-1140, March 2005).

This paper reviews a novel bridging technique that connects a large number of highly directional metal-catalyzed nanowires between pre-fabricated electrodes and extends the technique to an electrically isolated structure that allows conduction through the nanowires to be measured.

Two opposing vertical and electrically isolated semiconductor surfaces are fabricated using coarse optical lithography, along with wet and dry etching. Lateral nanowires are then grown from one surface by metal-catalyst-assisted chemical vapor deposition; nanowires connect to the other vertical surface during growth, forming mechanically robust nanobridges.

By forming the structure on a silicon-on-insulator substrate, electrical isolation is achieved. Electrical measurements indicate that dopant added during nanowire growth is electrically active and of the same magnitude as in planar epitaxial layers.

Meanwhile, the research about ‘nanocolonnades’ was presented at the spring meeting of the Materials Research Society in San Francisco on April 1, 2005 under the name “Nano-Colonnades: A Novel Technique for Integration of Nanowire Devices.” Here is a link to the program of the symposium where this technology was described.

Finally, I was unable to find any pictures of these ‘nanobridges’ or ‘nanocolonnades.’ If anyone knows about such images, please send me a pointer and I’ll update this entry. Thank you in advance.

Sources: UC Davis News, April 7, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Innovation
  


• Nanotechnology
  


• Sensors
  

Some students are luckier than others — or have more fun. For example, this Stanford University report says that some of the students there may have some hard and physical work to do: dancing. But in exchange, they’re working with sensors, cameras and computers to study how a dancer of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is moving. This must be exhilarating, especially after finding — and confirming — that he acts as a ‘biomechanical rebel.’

Here is the experience of Jonah Bokaer, a dancer from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, who was enrolled in the program.

The test subject danced wearing only blue shorts and the 50 silver balls the size of marbles that stuck to his skin, mapping out his physique.

“I know what I think my body is doing. But is it really doing that? I don’t really know, but I’d like to,” he said during a break in the afternoon session at the Motion and Gait Analysis Laboratory at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

A member of the Merce Cunningham modern dance company, Jonah Bokaer said he couldn’t wait to see the results — a digital record of his skeleton’s behavior as it undulates, spins and leaps.

His moves are monitored by students of the Anatomy of Movement class which is now in its second year.

“We’re looking upside down, inside out, at the human body,” said course director Amy Ladd, MD, professor of orthopedic surgery. “It’s not the way any single discipline would frame the study of movement.”

Ladd added, “Each project reflects an integration of disciplines spanning the humanities and sciences to portray human movement.” The exercise was part of an extensive series of interdisciplinary art projects that were tied to Cunningham’s performances on campus last week.

So what methods are using these students to analyze a dancer’s movements?

Eight cameras in the lab tracked the motion of the silvery balls on their test subjects: Cunningham dancers Frank and Bokaer and course director Ladd, who also happens to be a trained ballet dancer.

“We thought that the study needed a comparison, and analyzing someone in pointe shoes would be a good contrast,” said Ladd, who has studied ballet for years. “So I reluctantly agreed.”

The cameras sent the data to a computer, operated by motion analysis lab’s engineer Erin Butler. The output includes motion capture of dancers as well as quantitative information.

But what do you learn from such interdisciplinary projects?

Projects like this, mixing science with art, are challenging to conceptualize, said Ladd. “We’re looking for projects that merge science and art. No one really knows how to do this well yet. It’s a difficult mix. It calls for a philosophical paradigm shift for people who have been trained to think in one realm or the other.”

Here is a link to the other projects at the Anatomy of Movement.

And as a conclusion, it’s not the first time that Stanford University is mixing several disciplines, such as arts, sports and science. Check for example this article from Technology Research News, “Sensors track martial arts blows.”

Sources: Rosanne Spector, Stanford University Report, March 16, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Arts
  
  
• Computers
  
  
• Education
  
  
• Human Computer Interface
  
  
• Sensors
  

Today, we’ll look at nanotechnology under an unusual angle: the impact on the jewelry industry. In this long article, “The Weird World of Precious Metal Nanotechnology,” published by AJM Magazine (The Authority on Jewelry Manufacturing), Michael Cortie, professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, explains why gold is often used by nanotechnologists. Not only gold exhibits very interesting properties at the nanoscale level, but it’s also a bargain when compared to current prices of carbon nanotubes. And gold — and silver — nanoparticles can offer a range of unusual colors, suitable for fine jewelry or luxurious coatings. Finally, Cortie envisions smart jewelry made possible through the use of nanotechnology, such as a pendant that could include cell phone capabilities.

Please read the whole article for many more details about the birth of nanotechnology and let’s jump to the section explaining why gold is so often used by nanotechnologists. Here are two important paragraphs.

Thousands of technologists have independently arrived at this conclusion. As a result, gold particles, wires, and surfaces are at the heart of much of nanotechnology. At this scale, the inherent softness of pure gold is not an issue, nor is its high intrinsic value. In addition to resistance to corrosion, gold’s electrical conductivity and special affinity for sulfur-containing organic molecules are also particularly attractive features. These properties allow chemists to design molecules that can stick onto the gold in a controlled fashion, and then be probed by electrical currents. This permits the bottom-up assembly of quite interesting and promising structures, such as ultra-sensitive biosensors.

It is important to note that the relatively high value of gold is not expected to impede its penetration into the high tech markets. The value of the tiny amounts of gold used in existing or anticipated nanotech products is completely swamped by the overall added value of the product. Manufacturers will use gold when it provides the best technological performance, and they will not be overly concerned by its price. A $20 medical test kit or sensor might contain gold worth only 50 cents, yet it may be this critical ingredient that makes the whole device possible. In any case, gold is far cheaper than the highly touted carbon nanotube, the other material frequently associated with nanotechnology. Single-wall carbon nanotubes cost $400 per gram when in reasonable purity. The cost increases to $1,500 per gram or $46,000 per troy ounce for highly processed carbon nanotubes. Gold is a bargain compared to this.

Now, it’s time to look at the unusual colors exhibited by gold nanoparticles.

After the images, here is an explanation.

One of the features of gold and silver nanoparticles is that they possess a range of quite unusual colors. Bulk gold has a familiar yellow color, which is caused by a reduction in the reflectivity of light at the blue end of the spectrum. However, if we subdivide the gold into smaller and smaller particles, there comes a point at which the particle size becomes smaller than the wavelength of incident light. New modes of interaction between the radiation and the gold become prominent, in particular interactions involving electronic oscillations called surface plasmons. When the particles of gold are small enough, they are ruby red in color. This coloration is due to the gold particles’ strong absorption of green light, corresponding to the frequency at which a resonance occurs with the gold.

Will these unusual colors be used for real jewels one day?

The jury is still out on this question. Certainly, to be of value in fine jewelry, the karatage of the colored gold should be high. This probably excludes many of the commonly prepared colored glasses as possible materials from which to produce a piece of jewelry. But it is worth noting that, in theory, interesting colors are possible up to about 23 karats. This is because of the high density of gold relative to the various candidate transparent matrix materials. The trick will be to find a matrix to hold the precious metal nanoparticles. However, the availability of gold gilding pastes and paints of very high metal content shows that there is no theoretical limitation that prevents this possibility.

Finally, Cortie looks at a future where we could carry ’smart’ jewels.

Will there be a general trend toward integrating some technological devices into items of jewelry? It is certainly becoming possible. Candidate functionalities include bracelets that could record their owner’s blood pressure and heartbeat, or a pendant that could include cell phone capabilities. There are problems of hallmarking, of course, and no doubt many would see such items as tawdry. However, a small market already exists for color-change and other novelty jewelry, so it is possible, for example, that an integration of electronic “smarts” with a gold nanoparticle color change functionality might appeal to some markets.

For more information, an extended — and more technical — version of Cortie’s work has been published in June 2004 by Gold Bulletin under the title “The Weird World of Nanoscale Gold” (PDF format, 8 pages with diagrams, 120 KB).

Source: Michael Cortie, for AJM Magazine (The Authority on Jewelry Manufacturing), March 2005

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Fashion
  
  
• Materials
  
  
• Nanotechnology
  
  
• Sensors
  
  
• Technology
  

A Japanese designer has developed a mannequin robot, Palette, which can adapt its movements to the shoppers passing in front of it, according to this article from Agence France-Presse (AFP), “Striking a robotic pose.” Using motion-capture technology, Palette will be able to act as a supermodel. And with its specialized sensors and software, it also will be able to identify the sex and age of shoppers before transmitting them to store owners for marketing purposes. The price has not been set yet, but Palette should go on sale in 2005 in two versions: a body without legs to showcase clothings, and a torso model for jewelry. Read more…

Here is a short description of Palette.

“Mannequins have been static but this will pose for the nearest person by sensing his or her position,” robot designer Tatsuya Matsui told a news conference.

“It makes the product the mannequin wears look more attractive, increasing consumers’ appetite to buy,” said Matsui, who heads Flower Robotics Inc.

The female robot, code-named Palette, can draw inspiration from the world’s most beautiful women, using motion-capture technology to replay the movements of supermodels.

Palette will not only be a mannequin, it will be a spying marketing tool.

Palette will double up as an industrial spy, with the maker planning to program it to judge the age and sex of shoppers and even identify the bags they are carrying and pass along the information to stores for marketing purposes.

Matsui developed Palette with software company SGI Japan Ltd. and aim to start selling it this year for the fashion and service industries.

The price has not been set yet but SGI wants to make it “as close as possible to that of conventional mannequins,” said Hiroshi Otsuka, who is in charge of new business promotion at SGI Japan.

[Disclaimer: I worked in the past for SGI, but right now, I don't have any ties with this company.]

From what you can see in the above image, Palette has no human face, but it’s intentional.

“Consumer attention would be diverted to the face if there were one,” said Matsui, the designer, noting he wanted customers to focus on the clothes or jewellery the mannequin wears.

And as noted above, Palette will initially come in two versions, but Matsui might introduce other models in the future, such as male or child versions.

Sources: Agence France-Presse, via Independent Online, South Africa, February 28, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Ecommerce
  
  
• Fashion
  
  
• Innovation
  
  
• Networking
  
  
• Robotics
  
  
• Sensors
  

A vast majority of long-term patients in the world don’t take their medication in time, intentionally or not. In the U.S. alone, this represents an additional $100 billion yearly expense due to unexpected emergency hospital admissions. It is therefore crucial to gather accurately patient medical data in real time. For this purpose, a team at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory has developed a mobile health toolkit to perform this task. With this toolkit consisting of a Java-based middleware and Bluetooth-enabled sensors, all the medical patient data can be wirelessly exported to a doctor’s office via a PC or a cell phone. Read more…

Here are some facts to start with.

About 55% of all long-term patients in the US and in Europe, it is estimated, do not take their medication (either not taking the prescribed medication at all or more than 14 hours late) Around 12% of all hospital admissions in the UK are due to this non-compliance, the damage to the US taxpayer is an estimated USD 100 billion a year. Most of the patients that do not comply are simply forgetful (about 10% deliberately do not want to take the medication).

So how can we solve this problem?

Gathering current patient medical data promptly and accurately is vital to proper health care. The usefulness of electronic data capture (EDC) has been demonstrated in applications such as the home monitoring of at-risk heart patients via devices that transmit blood pressure from the home to a central database. Removing transcription effort (and associated inaccuracies) alone is worth the institution of EDC; but the side benefit of timeliness offers the hope of identifying and responding to trends as they occur, perhaps preventing a dangerous event, instead of simply allowing its diagnosis after the danger has manifest.

This is why IBM has developed its mobile health toolkit, “for gathering measurement data from a range of devices, and present it to management software via a well defined, and easily implemented interface.”

This illustration shows various devices, such as “a Bluetooth attached blood pressure cuff (left) and pill box (right) sending data to the mobile phone via Bluetooth. The mobile hub software integrated into the mobile phone (center) forwards the data to a care centre for monitoring (screen in the back) and returns reminders or alarms in an emergency.” (Credits: IBM and a former article in ERCIM News, “Remote Monitoring of Health Conditions.”)

Here are some details about this toolkit.

The IBM mobile health toolkit provides a Java-based middleware — using J2ME MIDP 2.0 (Java Mobile Information Device Profile) and JSR 082 (Java APIs for Bluetooth) — running on a personal (mobile) hub device to which sensors can connect wirelessly. We can perform local processing on the data, and forward the result to one or more fixed network connections. Data-handling modules can easily be added to the MIDlet suite (application suite compliant with Java Mobile Information Device Profile) on the hub, as can drivers for new sensor devices.

Using a wireless link from the hub to the devices allows the hub to be placed in an unobtrusive location, saves the user from fiddling with cables, and saves the sensor manufacturer the trouble of finding an acceptable case location for the data connector. By requiring only Bluetooth, MIDP support, and a network connection from the hub, the range of suitable hardware choices for the hub extends from full PCs, through OSGi home gateway units, all the way to cellular phones.

For more information, you can visit the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory website, and more specifically, the IBM Mobile Health Toolkit page, which states the following.

Solutions based on the IBM mobile health toolkit can improve the quality of patient monitoring while reducing overall healthcare costs. Moreover, it ensures that more timely information is available to medical caregivers. Medication-compliance systems can leverage the toolkit as a basis for intelligent reminders. For example, patients can be prompted to take their medication if the system detects that it is overdue.

Finally, for a more relaxed tone — say, less corporate –, you can check the site of one of the IBM researchers involved in this project, Dirk Husemann.

Sources: Dirk Husemann and Michael Nidd, IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, in ERCIM News No. 60, January 2005; and other IBM web pages

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• IBM
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
• Networking
  
  
• Pervasive Computing
  
  
• Sensors
  
  
• Wireless
  

After a patient has been hospitalized for a surgical intervention, he usually wants to return to his normal life. But doctors would like to monitor him to be sure that the operation was successful. How can they manage this without being too intrusive? In “Health Care Monitoring of Mobile Patients,” Italian researchers offer a three-layer networking solution. First, a body area sensor network would continuously record your cardiac activity or your body temperature. A second level would involve a home sensor network, including for example a PC wirelessly receiving this information. Finally, this home network would be able to alert an hospital network if needed. Right now, this whole idea is at the proof-of-concept level, but it really looks promising. Read more…

How can you monitor patients without asking them to come back weekly at the hospital after a cardiac surgery? The answer of the researchers from two different institutes of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa, the Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica (IFC) and the Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI) is to integrate several networks, from one located next to the patient, to remote ones, in hospitals which might be located in another part of the country.

The inner layer which provides monitoring support is organized as a body area sensor network. This network, hosted by the patient, combines the patient’s physiological data with information from the outer layers to support (basic) early diagnosis and produce (basic) alerts.

The outer layer (for example the patient’s domotic network) may include an environmental sensor network and one or more powerful nodes. Examples of such nodes could be an electrocardiograph offering diagnostic information or a PC receiving all the data and managing an advanced monitoring and alert detection service.

This layer interacts with outermost layer (the hospital network) to exchange physiological data, alerts and patient-related data. Wireless connections should be used where possible to support mobility and adaptability at the various levels of the network.

The system has been designed to minimize the burden of sensors on the patients and to optimize the amount of data to be transmitted over the different networks.

Of course, transmitting such sensitive data on public networks needs secure protocols. And the researchers are working on it.

Future work includes the study of dependable and secure communication protocols to connect the body area sensor network with domotic and hospital networks. These protocols should ensure confidentiality and protection against the transmission of malicious queries.

What do you think of this idea?

Source: Giuseppe Amato, Stefano Chessa, Fabrizio Conforti, Alberto Macerata and Carlo Marchesi, ERCIM News No. 60, January 2005

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Medicine
  


• Networking
  


• Pervasive Computing
  


• Sensors
  


• Wireless
  

In this short article, eWEEK writes that the next generation of biosensors will consist of small holograms costing only fractions of a cent. Prototypes developed by a U.K. company, aptly named Smart Holograms, include contact lenses that monitor glucose levels or thin badges that detect alcohol levels. Not only these holograms used as sensors will be cheap to produce, they’ll also require less training for nurses or police officers. This is because these holograms can be designed to show results graphically, such as morphing into an image of a green car if someone subjected to breath analysis is sober and can drive. Read more…

Here are selected quotes from the eWEEK article.

Prototypes have already been made for contact lenses that monitor glucose levels, thin badges that detect alcohol levels, and sticks that can tell, instantly, if milk has spoiled or become contaminated. The technology promises to be quicker and cheaper than tests used today. It will also require less training, because the hologram itself can be designed to show results graphically.

A test showing that fuel has been contaminated with trace amounts of water reads “dry” or “wet.” In a breath alcohol test intended for police offices, suspects breathe onto tiny cards that either show a green automobile or a red X, establishing whether a person is sober enough to drive.

This technology looks cheap and promising, according to Chris Lowe, a professor at Cambridge University, and co-founder of Smart Holograms.

One advantage of the technology is that each hologram costs only a fraction of a cent to produce. Another is the wide applicability. The holograms can detect pH to four decimal places and chemical concentrations of hormones and other biologically important substances. The samples tested do not need to be pure: The holograms can work in milk or even in stool samples from newborns, said Lowe.

Now, let’s turn to the company itself to see how holograms can be turned into biosensors. Here are some explanations provided on this page whose title is “Creating a Sensor Hologram.”

Sensors that rely on the ability of “smart” polymers to swell or contract when in contact with specific biological reagents, chemicals or physical forces, sometimes called volume holograms, are of significant interest. For example, bright wavelength changes produced by holograms fabricated in hydrophilic polymers offer immediate advantages as a facile and reliable means of measuring volume changes. Hologram gratings capable of exhibiting spectral effects from volume changes need to be of the so-called “Denisyuk” type.

For more information about Yuri Denisyuk, you can read this brief history of the holography.

[The figure above] illustrates the experimental set-up used to create Denisyuk-type holograms. Laser light returning from a plane mirror creates a classical standing wave pattern of nodes and antinodes or interference fringes spaced half a wavelength apart. The standing wave pattern is recorded in the polymer matrix that has been coated on a plastic substrate or glass microscope slide. After a conventional photographic development step, the fringe pattern is represented as a distribution of ultrafine (<20 nm diameter) grains of silver.

Is this technology as accurate as told by its promoters? We’ll see. However, it really seems it has a serious cost advantage over current technologies, so it has the potential to become widely used in a few years.

Sources: M.L. Baker, eWEEK, February 19, 2005; Smart Holograms website

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Biotechnology
  
  
• Holograms
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
• Nanotechnology
  
  
• Police
  
  
• Sensors