Layers of polymer material build into a battery stack

The quest for lightweight, compact batteries in power supplies and in electric vehicle is unrelenting, but researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT in Oberhausen, have developed a flexible and thin bipolar plate material for batteries which do not require sealing, which makes them vulnerable to leakage, and which can ...

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Cobots to integrate vision systems

Ahead of the Hannover Fair (1 to 5 April 2019), Omron announced that it is collaborating with Taiwanese robotic company, Techman, to develop cobots (collaborative robots) with integrated vision systems. Designed as an autonomous system, the TM cobot will combine sensors and a vision system allowing it to judge pieces on production lines and which ...

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3D printing flexible resilient piezolelectrics

Tough flexible piezoelectric materials can be 3D printed to convert movement, impact and stress to electrical energy for monitoring or energy harvesting, according to Virginia Tech. The materials are elastomeric and, via a set of printable topologies, the technique allows the creation of materials generating electric charge in response to incoming forces and vibrations from ...

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Warwick centre will study electric vehicle battery re-use

An innovation hub at the University of Warwick will research future automotive supply chains, the challenges of vehicle electrification, and using and reusing resources for as long as possible. It is a partnership between WMG, a University department once known as the Warwick Manufacturing Group, and European automotive logistics firm Gefco. GEFCO today, and is ...

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Need a better network? Ask tree frogs

Male Japanese tree frogs communicate with sound, using an internally orchestrated system that lets information get through while also permitting collective choruses and time to rest, according to researchers from Osaka University and University of Tsukuba, and borrowing the technique could reduce packet collisions and power consumption in data networks. The team listened to calling ...

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Workers of the world, relax: robotics encourage creativity

In this current period of economic uncertainty, stoked by international trade deals and the spectre of Brexit, Jurgen Von Hollen has some words of encouragement. He believes that at a time when CEOs cannot forecast 12mths ahead, the only constant is a need for a company to be flexible and creative, and this can be ...

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Prince’s Trust shuns Huawei

The Prince of Wales’ Prince’s Trust has stopped accepting donations from Huawei as part of the global shunning of the Chinese telecom maker. “At present, we are not accepting new donations from Huawei in light of public concerns,” says the  Trust, “future donations will continue to be reviewed by our Ethical Fundraising Committee.” The Trust ...

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Tin dioxide could increase perovskite solar cell life

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are efficient, rapidly getting more efficient, and are likely to be cheap to mass-produce, but have a lemming-like tendency for self-destruction. Now scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) think that have found one of the causes of early demise – the use of titanium dioxide ...

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Europeans are increasingly sceptical about robots

It seems that Europeans are relatively positive about robots as long as they have a more or less theoretical concept in mind, but are increasingly critically when the robot is specified and personal interactions appear imminent – robots were evaluated more negatively in 2017 than five years before. This has been extracted from a survey ...

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