Posts Tagged ‘Cornell’
Chip-Sized Particle Accelerators Could Lead to Cancer-Fighting Ray Guns
OK, so it can’t reach the energies produced at the LHC or Tevatron, but this is still pretty impressive. Engineers at a micro-electro mechanical systems conference last week unveiled this tiny cyclotron device, which can speed argon ions down a 5-millimeter accelerator track.
The ions have 1.5 kiloelectron volts of energy and pick up another 30 electronvolts when they whiz around a 90-degree turn, as IEEE Spectrum explains. That is peanuts compared to the 3.5 teraelectron volts currently experienced at the LHC, but hey, this chip is several orders of magnitude smaller than that massive series of tubes.
Unlike most other accelerators, this device skips magnets and instead uses an electrical field to accelerate and steer its particles through a pair of electrodes.
The goal is a suitcase-sized accelerator capable of producing 1 MeV, which would make it powerful enough for a wide range of uses, according to the chip’s creators at Cornell University. Such a device could be used to make smaller scanning electron microscopes or portable ray guns to fight cancer, rather than installing particle accelerators inside hospitals, for instance: “Think of a scalpel with a proton beam coming out of it,” said Amit Lal, who worked with chip-builder Yue Shi and leads Cornell’s SonicMEMS Laboratory.
A few hurdles remain, including a more efficient way to grab ions from the 75-micrometer-wide beam. Lots of ions are lost in the transition, Shi said. But the device at least proves the concept that you don’t need humongous frozen magnets and cavernous spaces to speed up some particles.
DARPA is funding the work, which is ongoing at Cornell.
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Cornell’s Ranger Robot Power-Walks into the Record Books With 14.3-Mile Stroll
Ranger, developed by Cornell’s Biorobotics and Locomotion Lab, made 108.5 laps around the running track at roughly 700 feet per lap, logging something like 70,000 steps on a single charge. The untethered ‘bot was controlled remotely by human handlers using a simple toy remote control.
For Ranger, the record-breaking performance spelled redemption. Ranger set a record of 5.6 miles in 2008 only to see Boston Dynamics’ somewhat frightening and much larger more than double the record shortly thereafter, setting the new standard at 12.8 miles.
But it’s also about energy efficiency; while BigDog can climb hills, , and terrify children, Ranger walks with an efficient gate that emulates human walking, swinging its legs to take advantage of gravity and forward momentum. An understanding of the biomechanical tricks that allow robots to increase their efficiency should lead not only to breakthroughs in robotic design, but also in human prosthetics and rehabilitation.
The video below is a bit old, but it does show off the smooth gait that is the key to Ranger's walking prowess.
Sustained, self-contained locomotion is a major component in developing an all-in-one humanoid robot. You can read more on the sole American effort to do just that in our .
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