When Malaysia Air Flight 370 disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014, it had flown far beyond radar range. Under a new space-based air tracking system, no plane would ever be off the grid that way — and it is possible thanks in part to a collaboration with NASA, starting with a reconfigurable radio NASA uses to communicate with its satellites, rovers, and astronauts.

A survey of more than two hundred aerospace manufacturing professionals demonstrated a lack of understanding about cadmium, a highly toxic metal that is still being used frequently in the U.S. aerospace industry.

A new compressed form of glassy carbon opens up possibilities for applications requiring low weight and high strength — from aerospace parts to football helmets.

NASA has conducted a series of flights investigating the benefits of twistable, flexible wing flaps to improve flight efficiency. The Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE II) flights investigated the ability of shape-changing surfaces to determine if advanced flexible trailing-edge wing flaps can both improve aircraft aerodynamic efficiency, and reduce airport-area noise generated during takeoffs and landings.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) screens nearly one million people every day and secures and manages 328 ports of entry all over the country, including in remote areas. Verifying the identity of every single person entering the United States is a vital step in halting human trafficking, drug trafficking, and other smuggling attempts at the border. In addition, security screening prevents criminals and terrorists from entering the country. Imposter detection crosscuts the entire Homeland Security Enterprise, as well as state, local, and tribal law enforcement and even front-line soldiers in our military. All of these frontline operators execute this task as part of their respective missions and they must be able to accurately and efficiently verify identification of individuals to thwart imposters.

Cornell University researchers are developing a system to enable teams of robots to share information as they move around, and if necessary, interpret what they see. This would allow the robots to conduct surveillance as a single entity with many eyes. Beyond surveillance, the new technology could enable teams of robots to relieve humans of dangerous jobs such as disposing of landmines, cleaning up after a nuclear meltdown or surveying the damage after a flood or hurricane. The project, called “Convolutional-Features Analysis and Control for Mobile Visual Scene Perception,” is supported by a four-year, $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

A novel technology called "Tactical Augmented Reality," or TAR, is now helping soldiers precisely locate their positions, as well as the locations of friends and foes. It even enables them to see in the dark, all with a heads-up display device that looks like night-vision goggles (NVG). In essence, TAR replaces NVG, GPS, plus it does much more.

Kinematically ground polygonal shapes have been used as drive connections for more than 45 years. What is now referred to as Polygon Systems was developed by Fortunawerke, Stuttgart, West Germany, who patented a grinding machine capable of producing matched polygonal shaft and bore diameters.

Interest in 3D printing is remaking the manufacturing landscape. Consulting firm IDC says global spending on 3D printers, both desktop and industrial, hit about $11 billion in 2015 and is forecast to reach $27 billion by 2019. Another research company (MarketsandMarkets) is saying 3D printing will experience 30% compound annual growth and reach $30 billion by 2022. In its April 2016 study, “3D Printing Comes of Age in US Industrial Manufacturing,” Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) says compared to two years ago, more manufacturers (52% this year compared to 38% in 2014) expect 3D printing to be used in high-volume production in the next three to five years.

On-Line UPS Family

Falcon Electric, Inc., (Irwindale, CA) announced the addition of tower models to its on-line rackmount SC UPS family. The new 700VA to 3kVA tower-configured SC UPS protects IT/IoT equipment, telecommunications, servers, security systems, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and other power-sensitive electronic systems against costly power disruptions.