By Mariah Chuprinski and Ashley WennersHerron
To become truly wireless, wearable technology has one more cord to cut: the charger. A Penn State-led team made the first slash, using asymmetric copper arches to develop a 3D antenna system that wirelessly harvests radio frequency energy and converts it to electrical energy to power itself and on-board sensors.
By Matthew Carroll
Inspired by the structure of muscles, an innovative new strategy for creating fiber actuators could lead to advances in robotics, prosthetics, and smart clothing, according to a Penn State led team of scientists who discovered the process.
By Mary Fetzer
The skin of cephalopods, such as octopuses, squids and cuttlefish, is stretchy and smart, contributing to these creatures’ ability to sense and respond to their surroundings. A Penn State-led collaboration has harnessed these properties to create an artificial skin that mimics both the elasticity and the neurologic functions of cephalopod skin, with potential applications for neurorobotics, skin prosthetics, artificial organs and more.
On any given day, one in 31 hospital patients is diagnosed with an infection that developed as a result of care during their hospital stay, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medical devices such as catheters, stents, heart valves and pacemakers, whose surfaces can become covered with harmful bacterial films, account for about a quarter of such infections.