Stanford's "gecko gripper", a robotic mechanical attachment with gecko inspired adhesive, developed by Mark Cutkosky and Marco Pavone's labs was tested this April in the International Space Station on one of the station's free-flying Astrobee robots to see how it performs in a microgravity environment.
Stanford researchers have developed an optical device that changes and fine-tunes the frequencies of each individual photon in a stream of light to virtually any mixture of colors. This new photonic architecture could transform fields ranging from digital communications and artificial intelligence to cutting-edge quantum computing.
Stanford engineering, climate and geophysics experts discuss why climate change resiliency is at the center of federal infrastructure plans, how it could affect underserved communities and where to target investment for maximum impact. President Biden's American Jobs Plan is a wide-ranging infrastructure initiative to rebuild highways, airports, water systems and more to "prevent, reduce and withstand the impacts of the climate crisis."
Stanford is expecting to achieve 80% reduction in emissions from campus operations by 2022 when a new solar facility comes online. Now, Stanford is beginning to measure Scope 3 emissions, the indirect emissions from such things as growing and transporting food, travel, investments and producing the goods we buy. Sally Benson, professor of energy resources engineering and graduate student, Rebecca Grekin, are working on a tool to make quantifying Scope 3 emissions easier.
In this Future of Everything podcast, grid expert Ram Rajagopal, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, discusses going from an "infrastructure-centric" model to a "human-centric" one. In order to move to a smarter, more inclusive, adaptable grid, new sensors and algorithms are needed to provide more data about who, how and when people are using power, says Rajagopal.
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program has funded two Stanford researchers for Phase I projects described as high-risk, high-reward ideas that may seem technologically out there but would have a huge impact on space exploration should they succeed. One project led by Marco Pavone, is a robot that extends its arms to climb in Martian caverns and grasp objects. The ReachBot uses extendable booms that can be rolled up and unrolled to anchor the bot or push off of surfaces like a leg.
Scientists at Stanford and SLAC have taken an atomic-scale look at how lithium-metal batteries lose charge during a process called "calendar aging". Lithium metal batteries have anodes which are much lighter and store more energy for a given volume and weight. For this study, the researchers tested a variety of electrolytes with different chemical makeups to get a general idea of how lithium-metal anodes age.
In a research collaboration with Stanford, SLAC, MIT and Toyota Research Institute, researchers applied an approach known as "scientific machine learning" to battery cycling. The goal is the bring together foundational research and industry know-how to develop a long-lived electric vehicle battery that can be charged in 10 minutes.
The defense authorization bill passed by Congress on Jan 1, includes provisions to handle the opportunities and risks of AI along with a new White House office to coordinate AI research across government agencies. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence had a role in shaping a national research cloud to give researchers access to world-class computing power, and data with the goal of opening up AI to a larger and more diverse array of academic researchers.
Planning for Stanford's new school for climate and sustainability has continued through the fall and winter by a 30-member faculty Blueprint Advisory Committee to design the new school's structure, education programs, themed initiatives and engagement activities.
