Hardware, VR World

Soft Sensors in Exosuit Turn Soldiers into $6 Million Men

Instead of implants under the skin that turned Steve Austin into the $6 million man, the Soft Exosuit fits outside the user’s body. It boosts a soldier’s ability to walk longer distances carrying heavy gear with less fatigue and improved resistance to injury. Exosuits are a new class of applications for soft robotics. Soft, elastic sensors in an adjustable suit made of nylon, polyester, and spandex provide well-timed bursts of power intended to reduce the energy a soldier uses to walk. The suit mimics the action of the wearer’s leg muscles and tendons. Sensors embedded in the insoles of a boot send a signal to

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Hardware, Mobile Computing, VR World

RoboBee Could Save Mankind from Starvation

RoboBee

Harvard University researchers are busy improving RoboBee, a substitute robotic method of pollination, because honey bees aren’t doing the job they used to. Bees that have always pollinated plants are disappearing. Without pollination, crops will also disappear leaving our dinner plates empty. Many food producing plants depend on bees flitting from blossom to blossom collecting and depositing pollen which causes the plant to fruit. Without this transfer, there would be fewer crops to harvest. One third of what we eat, including apples, pumpkins, carrots, sunflowers, blueberries, avocados, and almonds need bees to survive. Pesticides, disease and parasites have all been blamed for the bee’s demise,

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