#penn engineering

Penn Engineers’ New Chip Poised to Enable Hand-Held Microwave Imaging

Penn Engineering researchers have developed a new microwave imager chip that could one day enable low-cost handheld microwave imagers, or cameras. Because microwaves can travel through certain opaque objects, the new imagers could be useful for imaging through walls or detecting tumors through tissue in the body.

In a study led by Firooz Aflatouni, Skirkanich Assistant Professor in the…

Penn Engineers’ New Topological Insulator Can Reroute Photonic ‘Traffic’ On the Fly, Making for Faster Chips

Topological insulators are a game-changing class of materials; charged particles can flow freely on their edges and route themselves around defects, but can’t pass through their interiors. This perfect surface conduction holds promise for fast and efficient electronic circuits, though engineers must contend with the fact that the interiors of such materials are effectively wasted space.

Now,…

Making Waves with a Hammer and a 3D Printer

For Jordan Raney, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, cutting-edge science sometimes involves whacking a rubber disc with a hammer.

In a recent experiment, he and Chengyang Mo, a graduate student in Raney’s Architected Materials Laboratory, used a 3D-printer to make this unusual, Frisbee-sized structure. It consists of hundreds of connected…

Robot Zoo, Robot Revolution, The Franklin Institute, March 11, 2017

Kod*lab family of robots portrait 

Back row, left to right: Penn Jerboa, Delta Hopper, RHex.  Front row, left to right: Minitaur, Inu.

Join us Saturday, March 11th, 2017 at the Robot Zoo for Robot Revolution exhibition at The Franklin Institute! What affects springiness of animal legs? Why would robots want springy legs? Springy legs let legged robots get back some of the energy they put into every step, making it easier to run. Learn how Kod*lab uses ideas about springiness from nature to make robots run better and how that's important to our desert research.