New Micro Lidar Tech

New Micro Lidar Tech

Lidar is a critical method by which robots and autonomous vehicles sense the world around them, but the lasers and sensors generally take up a considerable amount of space. Not so with Voyant Photonics, which has created a lidar system that you really could...
UCLA Prof Faces Prison for Spying

UCLA Prof Faces Prison for Spying

A California-based electrical engineer has been found guilty of attempting to export sensitive military electronics to China and could face more than two centuries behind bars. Yi-Chi Shih, 64—a part-time professor at the University of California, Los Angeles...
Laser Weapons for Fighters?

Laser Weapons for Fighters?

On April 23, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) tested a fiber-optic laser at the White Sands Test Range in New Mexico that successfully shot down“multiple air-launched missiles in flight.” The Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHIELD), pictured here,...
DARPA Modernizes SBIR Program

DARPA Modernizes SBIR Program

Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) are the principal set-aside programs for small business participation in federal research and development funding, yet the requirements for administering and managing these programs...
Neural Net Learns to Cheat

Neural Net Learns to Cheat

Depending on how paranoid you are, this research from Stanford and Google will be either terrifying or fascinating. A machine learning agent intended to transform aerial images into street maps and back was found to be cheating by hiding information it would need...
Quantum Arms Race?

Quantum Arms Race?

In the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, American military planners began to worry about the threat to US warplanes posed by new, radar-guided missile defenses in the USSR and other nations. In response, engineers at places like US defense giant Lockheed Martin’s...