Hundreds of small robots can work in a team to create biology-inspired shapes without an underlying master plan, purely based on local communication and movement. To achieve this, the biological principles of self-organization were introduced to swarm robotics. The only information installed in the coin-sized robots was basic rules on how to interact with neighbors. The robots in the swarm were specifically programmed to act similarly to cells in a tissue. Those genetic rules mimic the system responsible for patterns seen in nature, like the arrangement of fingers on a hand or the spots on a leopard. The robots rely on infrared messaging to communicate with neighbors within a 10-centimeter range. This makes the robots similar to biological cells, as they can only directly communicate with other cells physically close to them.

This software fits trajectory ephemerides and thrust profiles with a Chebyshev polynomial representation, and stores this fit in data files suitable for upload to a spacecraft. In addition, a number of utility modules are provided to assist with inspection and diagnosis of issues with data products. The software produces the various data products that are specific to onboard spacecraft navigation and control.

Liquid droplets are used in many applications, from printing ink on paper to creating microcapsules for drug delivery. Inkjet printing is the most common technique used to pattern liquid droplets, but it's only suitable for liquids that are roughly ten times more viscous than water. Many fluids of interest to researchers are far more viscous; for example, biopolymer and cell-laden solutions that are vital for biopharmaceuticals and bioprinting are at least 100 times more viscous than water. Some sugar-based biopolymers could be as viscous as honey, which is 25,000 times more viscous than water. The viscosity of these fluids also changes dramatically with temperature and composition, making it more difficult to optimize printing parameters to control droplet sizes.

State-of-the-art electronic and optoelectronic devices require electronic materials with specialized properties that cannot be characterized with standard methods, or that must be characterized with extra precision. As a result of this research, the following new materials characterization methods have been developed:

Airbus Helicopters Marignane Cedex, France +33 (0)4 42 85 60 51

Lateral nozzle forces are known to cause severe structural damage during testing of any new rocket engine configuration under development. While three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology has been demonstrated to describe major side-load physics on rigid nozzles, actual hot-fire tests often show nozzle structure non-rigid flexing behavior during major side-load events. This can lead to structural damage.

Double Shoot Ramat Gan, Israel +972-52-9208000

When choosing materials to make something, tradeoffs need to be made among properties such as thickness, stiffness, and weight. A new material called nanocardboard was developed that is made out of an aluminum oxide film with a thickness of tens of nanometers, forming a hollow plate with a height of tens of microns. Its sandwich structure, similar to that of corrugated cardboard, makes it more than 10,000 times as stiff as a solid plate of the same mass.