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Undergraduate and graduate students teamed up with biologist Robert Full to study how lizards use their tails when leaping. What they found can help design robots that are more stable on uneven terrain and after unexpected falls, which is critical to successful search and rescue operations.
Tag: engineering
Media Advisory: Engineers to toss 100 sensors downriver in Delta field test
May 4, 2012:
UC Berkeley engineers will conduct their inaugural field test of the Floating Sensor Network project on Wednesday, May 9, in Walnut Grove, Calif. They developed floating sensors that can be rapidly deployed in response to emergencies such as levee breaches or oil spills. The fleet includes robotic sensors that can swim around obstacles to target areas of interest and transmit live data to researchers using GPS receivers and mobile phone technology.
Comerio leads national roundtable on integrated disaster recovery
March 19, 2012:
Northern California experts, including UC Berkeley architecture professor Mary Comerio, are heading up a national roundtable on improving responses after major disasters.
Scott Shenker elected to National Academy of Engineering
February 9, 2012:
Engineering professor Scott Shenker joins the ranks of the National Academy of Engineering, bringing to 92 the total number of UC Berkeley faculty members given the prestigious honor.
College of Engineering launches collaboration with Shanghai innovation hub
November 15, 2011:
The College of Engineering announced Nov. 11 a new partnership with the Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, one of China’s top high-tech parks, to develop a platform for expanding industrial and academic research collaborations in Asia and fostering global learning opportunities for UC Berkeley students.
Chancellor Birgeneau visits South Korea on Asia trip
November 8, 2011:
Chancellor Birgeneau and campus faculty experts are on a swing through Asia this week.
Researchers turn viruses into molecular Legos
October 19, 2011:
UC Berkeley researchers have turned a benign virus into building blocks for assembling structures that mimic collagen, one of the most important structural proteins in nature. The “self-templating assembly” process they developed could eventually be used to manufacture materials with tunable optical, biomedical and mechanical properties.
Robotic roach gets wings, sheds light on evolution of flight
October 17, 2011:
When UC Berkeley engineers outfitted a six-legged robotic bug with wings in an effort to improve its mobility, they unexpectedly shed some light on the evolution of flight. The wings nearly doubled the running speed of the 25-gram robot. Find out why that wasn’t good enough for takeoff.
From EECS, an intelligent approach to mobile news
September 15, 2011:
Two grad students in EECS have developed a computer model that makes it easy to read summaries of news articles on smart phones and cell phones.
Ferroelectrics could pave way for ultra-low power computing
September 12, 2011:
UC Berkeley engineers have shown that by using ferroelectric materials, they can pump up the charge accumulated at a capacitor for a given voltage, a phenomenon called negative capacitance. The achievement could reduce the power draw of today’s electronics, and break the bottleneck that has stalled improvements in computer clock speed.
Engineering alum reflects on World Trade Center towers he helped build
September 11, 2011:
Leslie Robertson, a 1952 UC Berkeley civil engineering graduate, was the lead structural engineer of the World Trade Center towers. Ten years after their collapse, Robertson continues to carry with him the suffering of those who died that day.
UC Berkeley robotics expert named among world’s top young innovators
August 23, 2011:
Pieter Abbeel, a UC Berkeley, professor known for his novel work in the field of machine learning in robotics – including robots that can fold laundry – has been named to a prestigious list of 35 of the world’s top young innovators by Technology Review magazine.
Historian of science Roger Hahn dies at 79
August 8, 2011:
Roger Hahn, emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leader in shaping the academic field of the history of science, died unexpectedly on May 30 in New York City.
To catch a speeding bullet
August 1, 2011:
East Palo Alto’s soaring homicide rate in the 1990s prompted EECS alumnus Robert Showen, an acoustics specialist in neighboring Menlo Park, to develop technology that could locate gunfire and tell police where it’s coming from.
Invisibility cloak makes bumps disappear
July 29, 2011:
It can’t quite cover Harry Potter, yet, but an invisibility cloak developed by UC Berkeley engineers was able to bounce visible light waves away from a microscopic object about as big as a red blood cell. The experiment using the reflective silicon oxide and silicon nitride material was described in the journal Nano Letters.
Laundry duty getting you down? Robots to the rescue!
June 29, 2011:
Folding laundry may seem mundane, but for a robot, identifying a 3-D object and manipulating it correctly, it’s an exercise that requires intelligence that humans may take for granted. Pieter Abbeel and his team of engineers are developing increasingly efficient strategies and algorithms to help robots fold towels, forming the foundation for the next generation of robotics that could increase the independence of disabled people, protect soldiers in combat and more.
A pillow fight on auto-pilot
June 13, 2011:
In a recent Pioneers in Engineering competition, local high school engineers scrambled to design and assemble robots destined to pile pillows in a goal. For the Berkeley Engineering honors students behind the contest, it’s a chance to build and teach.
Radical new Intel transistor based on UC Berkeley’s FinFET
May 24, 2011:
In early May, Intel announced a radical new transistor design: a 3D device that will enable the production of integrated-circuit chips that operate faster with less power. The breakthrough has its roots in research begun in 1997 by a team led by Berkeley electrical engineers Chenming Hu, Jeff Bokor and Tsu-Jae King Liu.
Paraplegic student stands tall and walks at commencement
May 14, 2011:
When graduating senior Austin Whitney stood up from his wheelchair at UC Berkeley’s Commencement ceremony today, the crowd of 15,000 people at Edwards Stadium stood up with him – and roared.
Engineers to help paraplegic student walk at graduation
May 12, 2011:
Graduating senior Austin Whitney, in a wheelchair since a 2007 car accident paralyzed him from the waist down, plans to stand and walk at this year’s commencement ceremony. He will be wearing a robotic exoskeleton developed by UC Berkeley engineers to improve mobility for paraplegics.
Graphene optical modulators could lead to ultrafast communications
May 8, 2011:
UC Berkeley researchers have shown that graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of crystallized carbon, can be tuned electrically to modify the amount of photons absorbed. This ability to switch light on and off is the fundamental characteristic of a network modulator, opening the door to optical computing in handheld electronics.
Superstructure rising
March 3, 2011:
Marwan Nader was a Berkeley engineering grad student when the Bay Bridge was crippled in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Two decades later, he is lead design engineer of the pioneering self-anchored suspension bridge that is rising just east of Treasure Island.
CalSol’s newest solar car nears completion
February 22, 2011:
CalSol’s all-volunteer UC Berkeley student pit crew has completed the chassis of “Impulse,” this years’ entry in the World Solar Challenge
Three UC Berkeley faculty members elected to National Academy of Engineering
February 8, 2011:
Three UC Berkeley faculty members have joined the ranks of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. Armen Der Kiureghian, Jitendra Malik and Ramamoorthy Ramesh are among 68 new members and nine foreign associates elected today (Tuesday, Feb. 8).
Festival draws budding scientists, engineers
February 1, 2011:
Last week’s Cal Science & Engineering Festival drew many budding young scientists to experience science in action. (includes slide show)
Uncommon in every way: Engineer athletes
January 3, 2011:
Of 800 Cal athletes in intercollegiate sports, only a handful — fewer than five at any one time — are working toward an engineering degree. The College of Engineering’s Innovations profiles three of the student athletes who have managed to handle this most rare of combinations successfully.
White House honors Alexandre Bayen with early career award
November 18, 2010:
Associate professor Alexandre Bayen was awarded the prestigious 2010 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). His research focuses on designing and implementing algorithms for use in mobile Internet applications.
