This Week in Engineering

Industrial robots and their end effectors have demonstrated a remarkable dexterity, matching and often exceeding that of human hands. Combined with vision systems, many industrial robots can combine high-level dexterity with object recognition for pick and place applications, but most industrial systems, the things that robots manipulate are consistent in size and shape.The food processing industry has a very different problem: individual portions of things like fish fillets are similar, but no two are alike. The technology however is rapidly improving, and modern systems can now handle complex food processing tasks that until recently have resisted automation. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Artificial intelligence is not only widely anticipated but is expected to dramatically change the manufacturing landscape worldwide, forever. The promise is huge, but to deliver on that promise, manufacturers need to develop coherent strategies for implementation, and more importantly, understand where the use cases exist for AI implementation. New research from AI software provider IFS suggests that American firms are sceptical of artificial intelligence in its current form. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

For the 100 years or so of air transport, the form factor of airplanes has been essentially consistent: a fuselage, usually cylindrical, with attached wings and tail. While relatively simple to build, with a good strength to weight ratio, aerodynamically, this form factor is not the most efficient. Eliminating the fuselage and building the aircraft as a flying wing has long been recognized as a path to greater efficiency and performance, and since the late 1940s, multiple flying wing designs have been proposed. Very few have made it into hardware, but a form of hybrid concept, called the blended wing body, appears to be a practical way to reduce drag, and consequently fuel burn, and commercial aircraft. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

If successful, Anduril's new facility may become the prototype for a paradigm shift in armaments design, development, manufacturing and procurement. Swarms of low cost, AI driven and fully autonomous drone weapon systems in the air, on the ground and into the sea, may replace the crewed, highly capable but costly armoured vehicles, aircraft and submarines. Part of conflict in Ukraine may have shown us the way wars will be fought in the future. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Boeing has reacquired their former subsidiary, Spirit AeroSystems, in any $8.3 billion debt plus equity deal. Spirit, maker of 737 fuselage assemblies for the 737 Max program, has been implicated in the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout incidents that caused an emergency depressurization at altitude.The repurchase of some 737 manufacturing assets brings the major part of that program's supply chain back under direct Boeing control, including quality procedures. Spirit AeroSystems also operated foreign plants building components for Boeing's major competitor, Airbus. In a separate agreement, Airbus will acquire assets building for their programs, effectively re-shoring major Airbus component production to Europe. With the disappearance of spirit, a major Tier 1 supplier to the commercial aircraft industry, the global major air-frame duopoly now has fewer points of engineering commonality.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Additive manufacturing has been the hottest topic in part making for years, offering unprecedented design flexibility for engineers. Hollow parts, parts with complex internal support structures, and three-dimensional compound curvature that would be impossible to machine are all available with 3D printing, and the aerospace industry is all in with this technology. But what about the tough applications, in propulsion?Donald Godfrey, gas turbine veteran with decades of experience at companies like Rolls-Royce and Honeywell, is Global Director of Business Development for Aviation and Defense with SLM Solutions and Is a global expert who has written a textbook on the subject.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Sales growth in electric vehicles, led by Tesla and BYD has long suggested the end of gasoline and diesel fuel in the transportation sector. While fuel cells are a viable clean option, lower costs in battery production have made pure electric vehicles the sales leader in green transportation. But can the momentum of early adopters be maintained? Market surveys suggest that EV sales growth is flattening, as MSRP's and a lack of public charging infrastructure dampen demand. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

There are significant changes in how quality control is conducted, especially in the automotive sector. Traditional touch-probing methods have evolved into the use of handheld scanners, which allow for faster, more accurate and more efficient measurement of complex geometries directly on the shop floor. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

In a shocking and wide-ranging scandal, Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha have been implicated in the falsification of crashworthiness data and engine power testing by the Japanese government.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Boeing's entry into NASA's commercial crew program for the International Space Station, has suffered multiple technical delays, but has launched with two astronauts soon. The test flight is critical both for Boeing and for NASA, who need a backup system to guarantee crew access to orbit with two redundant systems. The fourth system besides NASA, Boeing and SpaceX, is the Sierra Space Dream Chaser lifting body vehicle. An uncrewed cargo version is now at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for testing and will be launched by a ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket. Soon, there may be four separate ways to lift humans into orbit from US soil. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Volvo Autonomous Solutions has unveiled Volvo's first-ever production ready autonomous truck at the recent ACT Expo in Las Vegas. The Volvo VNL Autonomous combines Volvo's commercial vehicle expertise with autonomous driving technology from Aurora to create a purpose-designed and purpose-built autonomous truck that will be able to operate on line haul routes across the United States. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Bugatti, the maker of ultra high-performance cars is making what may be the last hypercar internal combustion engine: a monstrous V16 that is expected to generate over thousand horsepower. The car it will power may challenge the current hypercar speed record, which is over 300 mph. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

AI may finally replace pilots in combat aircraft.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Argonne National Laboratory has a plan for big data teamed with artificial intelligence.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Longview Fusion Energy Systems Inc., has signed a memorandum of understanding with civil engineering giant Fluor to build a commercial pilot plant for grid electricity generation, using Longview's solid-state laser driven, inertial confinement technology. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Venerable diesel engine builder Cummins has introduced a fuel agnostic heavy truck engine that uses an interesting modular design to create a single internal combustion powerplant capable of operating on diesel fuel, biodiesel, and gaseous fuels such as hydrogen, biogas or natural gas. Nonetheless, the fuel infrastructure will be dominated by kerosene type liquid fuels for the foreseeable future. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Reducing the carbon footprint of the chemical industry requires a two-pronged strategy: reduction of fossil fuel use as an energy input, and capture and reuse of carbon dioxide generated by chemical processes themselves. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Mojave, California-based Stratolaunch has announced the successful test of an air-launched, hypersonic uncrewed test vehicle, the Talon TA-1. As a private company, Stratolaunch can be contracted to gather specific data in hypersonic flight in support of customer-specific aircraft and missile programs. This proprietary data can form an important and valuable source of intellectual property for air framers and give them a competitive advantage in what will almost certainly be a crowded and lucrative hypersonic market space.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Ocean shipping under sail may be making a comeback. Cargill, a very large global producer of bulk agricultural commodities, has partnered with BAR Technologies and MC shipping to retrofit a large cargo vessel with vertical airfoils to augment propeller propulsion. The ship, Pyxis Ocean, has been retrofitted with what BAR Technologies calls WindWings, and has been under test at sea since August 2023. The 37m tall, solid, steerable sails are deployed electrically from the bridge, and once deployed, onboard sensors adjust the sails for an optimal configuration. The goal is not to replace diesel propulsion, but to supplement it, allowing lower throttle settings to maintain a desired steady-state speed. Under optimum conditions, BAR reports that the Pyxis Ocean achieves fuel savings of 11 tons per day.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

With over 150 countries signing a Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030, tracking will be essential worldwide. A purpose-built satellite, MethaneSAT, has been launched to do just that, with the satellite a project of the Environmental Defense Fund. Data will be available, to everyone, worldwide. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

According to Kelly Blue Book, 2023 was a record year for U.S. electric vehicle sales, with 1.2 million vehicles delivered, resulting in a 7.6% total U.S. market share, up from 5.9% in 2022. Fourth-quarter EV sales were up year-over-year by 40% — big numbers, but lower than the 49% year-over-year gain in the third quarter. Cox automotive predicts that 2024 will see EV market share in the U.S. reach 10% of all vehicles. Growth is slowing and dealer inventories of electric vehicles in America are climbing, and some manufacturers such as Ford have begun offering incentives to move EVs. A fundamental reason in the reduction in electric vehicle sales incentives in America and Europe was a persistently high MSRP of electric vehicles, caused by the high cost of batteries. With high interest rates making the financing of expensive purchases even more expensive, buying with persistent inflation in other consumer goods, but optional electric vehicles worldwide may be slower than predicted.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Two major developments in the Chinese aerospace industry were revealed at the recent Singapore airshow. United Aircraft Group announced a tilt rotor UAV in the six-ton class, capable of carrying cargo and passengers for both civilian and military applications, and the COMAC C919 airliner received another order for 40 aircraft for Tibet Airlines, in a special high-altitude configuration. The C919 is crucial for the success of the Chinese civilian aircraft industry, competing in the most important single aisle market segment in commercial aviation, currently dominated by the Airbus A320 series and the Boeing 737. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Carbon capture technology company Spiritus used a novel adsorbent-based direct air capture technology for CO2 in a unique way: to offset the carbon footprint of Taylor Swift's recent transpacific jet flight from Tokyo to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl. Can it be scaled to keep the internal combustion engine relevant?* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

A joint program by the U.S. Air Force and Xwing Corporation has demonstrated fixed wing cargo carrying capability in a point-to-point flight between two airbases using a specially modified Cessna 208B Grand Caravan. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Beijing-based Betavolt New Energy Technology Company has developed an atomic energy source, miniaturized into a form factor approximately ½ inch square and less than ¼ inch thick. The first production batteries, called BV 100, are expected to have a lifetime of 50 years, delivering 1/10 of a milliwatt of power at 3 Volts. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

In a significant and unexpected move, Ford Motor Company has announced production cuts of the all-electric F150 Lightning, assembled at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan.Light trucks and sport utility vehicles are the most sold, highest margin vehicles in America, and industry analysts attribute slow EV adoption in this segment to several factors. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

NASA's new X-59 supersonic research aircraft is poised to crack the most vexing problem of commercial faster-than-sound travel: Sonic boom. The unique shape of the aircraft manages shockwave formation and is anticipated to reduce the window-rattling noise of sonic booms to a thump no louder than the slamming of a car door. If it works, a new generation of supersonic commercial airliners may be free of current FAA restrictions over supersonic operations over populated areas. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

For a decade after the Wright Brothers' 1903 flight, inventors, dreamers and entrepreneurs operating out of barns and sheds all over the world built radical prototypes to turn aviation from a dangerous hobby into a practical proposition. Today, there's a modern equivalent of that excitement in the electric vertical takeoff and landing space. The eVTOL industry has reached an important milestone, with the first commercial certification of a battery electric VTOL aircraft in China. This summer's Paris Olympics is expected to feature regular eVTOL service between Paris area airports, contingent on European aviation authority certification, which is expected. If successful, this may open the floodgates to low altitude, urban air mobility in cities worldwide. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

In a blockbuster takeover, Nippon Steel has bought the iconic American producer United States Steel in a $14 billion deal. The combined company will have a global steel output of 86 million tons and is part of Nippon Steel's program to achieve 100 million tons of global annual production. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

*This is our last episode of 2023! We'll be back again the week of January 8th.*Stockholm, Sweden based Corpower Ocean has developed a standalone generation source the company calls a Wave Energy Converter, a floating generator unit tethered to a seabed anchor. The converter is essentially a floating bouy, resembling a giant sport fishing float or “bobber”, containing a novel mechanism. As the converter rises and falls relative to its seabed anchor, the vertical motion is converted by a rack and pinion mechanism into rotation, driving generators. The technology has been tested in real-world conditions since 2018 and has little environmental impact on marine life. Ocean wave power resources globally are approximately 500 GW, enough to potentially supply 10% of the world's electricity needs.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

A new set of Biden administration restrictions on foreign sourced EV raw materials and components may constrain production growth just as the need for zero emission vehicles to meet EPA requirements increases. With China controlling several key minerals, the race is on to develop alternate sources, but current tax credit regimes have MSRP restrictions, putting engineers in a classic bind: increased input costs, without the ability to pass those costs on to the consumer. The regulatory regime will be a pivotal factor in the rate of EV adoption in America, and the 2024 election will greatly determine where those EV batteries will be made. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Two Québec, Canada-based companies, Limosa and Airmedic, have announced a partnership to develop an electric VTOL medevac aircraft that combines the benefits of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft for this time critical mission profile. The aircraft, made by Limosa, is called Limomedic and will be operated by medevac service provider Airmedic for emergency services in Québec. Canada has many isolated communities which are difficult to access with fixed wing aircraft and an electric VTOL solution with fixed wing speed could save lives in remote areas. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The rapid, global push toward electric vehicles has put a premium on extraction of several critical minerals. Lithium is the most important, but others such as copper, cobalt, nickel and other metals will be needed in large quantities to facilitate large-scale battery production. Caterpillar and Freeport McMorRan have announced a project to automate the company's fleet of ore hauling heavy equipment at the Baghdad, Arizona copper mine. A first in U.S. mining, the fleet of 33 CAT 793 machines will be converted, with electrification expected in the future. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Numerous government-supported and private launch providers are in the market today, and from a cost perspective, the current leader is SpaceX. But, on November 2nd, China's iSpace launched and landed their Hyperbola-2 test stage in a successful hop that demonstrated the company's throttleable engine technology and precision landing capability.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

NASA is adding a fourth crewed spacecraft for ISS transportation with Sierra Space's Dream Chaser. Why? It's part of a long-range NASA goal to increase competition in the commercial space industry and to provide redundancy to ensure uninterrupted station resupply and operations.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Robotics maker ABB has announced a collaboration with Porsche Consulting to create a pilot project to develop new techniques for modular housing manufacturing. The market is wide open, with construction lagging other engineering sectors in the use of automation. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Blended wing body airframe design has long been known to be a high-performance solution to the traditional limits on payload, range and endurance in large aircraft. The USAF ordered flying wing bombers just after World War II, and while performance benefits were demonstrated, blended wing body designs have not been applied to large transport aircraft. This may be changing, as the USAF are leading a NASA and industry team to develop a blended wing body transport prototype to be built by Long Beach, California based JetZero. 30% improvements in performance are anticipated, and the program will be accelerated, with a projected first flight of 2027.* * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Artificial intelligence algorithms are incredibly complex, needing the enormous power of supercomputers to operate. OpenAI's ChatGPT runs on a Microsoft-built supercomputer powered by 10,000 Nvidia GPU's. It's expensive, and power-hungry, and the company is aiming to improve performance and reduce reliance on a single chip supplier. The result may be a new in-house semiconductor design unit at the company, or possibly an acquisition of an existing chipmaker. OpenAI has also announced that they are open to a collaborative effort with existing suppliers, including Nvidia. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The electrification of aviation is a difficult challenge. The high weight of batteries, and the resulting short range and limited payload that results, have limited applications of electric drive to smaller, propeller-driven general aviation aircraft. But flight training, which typically uses smaller, short range piston powered aircraft, is ideal for electrification. Denver-based Bye Aerospace has created a purpose-built two-seat electric trainer called the eFlyer2, which is in the FAA certification process right now. Four flight training companies have ordered 340 aircraft, a production run that may nucleate the first sustained mass production of electric light aircraft in America. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Critics of the transition from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles point out that many obstacles remain to full adoption. These include high costs, unknown electrical grid capacity and, importantly, access to the critical minerals necessary to create the all-important battery packs. With car battery technology, lithium is the key metal, and like other strategic inputs, most of the world supply is a long way away from America's auto manufacturers. That, however, may be changing, as Albemarle Corporation and Caterpillar have announced a deal to collaborate on zero emissions battery-powered mining equipment for deployment at Albemarle's Kings Mountain North Carolina lithium mine. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

This summer, the legendary Danish toy manufacturer LEGO announced a breakthrough: lasting bricks made from recycled PET, derived from soda bottles. The research project was considerable, requiring a staff of 150 working through 250 different plastic compositions to create a recycled plastic brick that met LEGO's tough quality standards. Although an engineering success, the company announced the suspension of the project, as an analysis of the carbon footprint of the recycling process showed no net benefit compared to oil-derived plastic resin. The company is switching research efforts to versions of resin derived from e-methanol, feedstock made from waste CO2 and hydrogen. Made from hydrogen derived from electrolysis powered by clean energy, this could prove to be truly zero carbon polymer resin. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Wireless optical power relays may revolutionize energy distribution. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The perfection of the internal combustion engine has been sought for almost 150 years. In the process, some innovative and downright odd designs have emerged. Granada, Spain-based INNengine has developed an innovative opposed piston design that does away with crankshafts, replacing them with rotary cam tracks, the pistons functioning in a way similar to roller lifters in pushrod overhead valve engines. Mechanical simplicity and light weight are major advantages, as is a unique advantage offered by the cam system: variable compression ratio. The company has prototypes running now, and is developing engines for both automotive and aviation use. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Space-based Internet connectivity as a retail product was pioneered by Elon Musk's Starlink and players such as Amazon, as well as dedicated space data startups, are clamoring to fill the skies with small sat networks to provide direct-to-home data. Barcelona-based Satelliot plans to take this concept to the next level, with 5G connectivity from orbit that operates seamlessly with existing terrestrial 5G networks currently using cell phone technology. In principle, the system will allow seamless high-speed data access to smart phones and handheld devices using existing carrier companies, Sim cards and the same smart phones in use today. The development of this 5G technology is spurred by autonomous vehicles, which are expected to be widely connected and generate staggering amounts of data: Nokia predicts that autonomous driving will generate data at 4 TB per hour. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Hydrogen fuel cell stacks have been produced commercially since the 1960s, mainly for military and space exploration tasks. Handmade, delicate and expensive, the mass production problem has been a major inhibitor to the widespread adoption of fuel cells as a mass-market power source. U.K.-based Bramble Energy has developed a manufacturing technique for hydrogen fuel cell stacks that uses an existing and well-optimized technology in the electronics industry: printed circuit manufacturing. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The XB-1 will pave the way for commercial supersonic flight, but challenges remain. Regularly scheduled, commercial supersonic flight became a reality half a century ago with Concorde, but the high costs associated with supersonic aircraft technology doomed the project to commercial failure, despite its engineering excellence. Boom Supersonic is moving forward with an 80-seat composite faster-than-sound airliner using proprietary engines. Developing a novel airframe and engine both in-house is ambitious for any startup, but Boom h that is cheap that you help me of the sentence as commitments from three major airlines and has begun construction of a production facility in North Carolina. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

How long does it take to become a major automaker? Vietnam founded and Singapore-based Vinfast has rocketed from a well financed startup in 2017 to a significant producer of electric vehicles. Vinfast has now announced that the company has started construction of a four-billion-dollar US production facility in North Carolina. Production is expected to begin in 2025. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Cluster munitions, frequently called “cluster bombs,” have an engineering history that dates back to World War II, when the German Air Force used the weapon against Allied civilian and military targets. As the name implies, cluster munitions are canisters of anywhere from a handful to several thousand small explosives which are designed to scatter widely and explode over a very large area. Unexploded submunitions, however, may remain dangerous for months or years after a battle. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Cluster munitions, frequently called “cluster bombs,” have an engineering history that dates back to World War II, when the German Air Force used the weapon against Allied civilian and military targets. As the name implies, cluster munitions are canisters of anywhere from a handful to several thousand small explosives which are designed to scatter widely and explode over a very large area. Unexploded submunitions, however, may remain dangerous for months or years after a battle. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The catastrophic loss of OceanGate's Titan submersible with all hands aboard has triggered widespread speculation regarding the cause of the accident. Inadequate design, insufficient testing and the use of carbon fiber as a structural material have all been suggested as contributing factors. Carbon fiber is a well-characterized material that is strong and light, making it a favourite for weight-critical applications in aerospace. Its use in the much less weight-sensitive application of subsea exploration may have more to do with the way composite pressure vessels are built, rather than weight or performance. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Flying taxis are one of the most widely anticipated technologies in aviation, but it's a very difficult problem to solve. Safety, cost, range and environmental considerations have delayed development by decades, but a new generation of e-VTOLs, combined with advanced engineering tools and materials, suggests that this may be changing. At the 2023 Paris Air Show, one of the companies developing this technology, Supernal, announced partnerships designed to develop the aircraft and the technology to mass produce the aircraft concurrently. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.