Sensors

3 Questions: Why sensing, why now, what next?

Brian Anthony, co-leader of SENSE.nano, discusses sensing for augmented and virtual reality and for advanced manufacturing.

September 20, 2019

MIT’s fleet of robotic boats has been updated with new capabilities to “shapeshift,” by autonomously disconnecting and reassembling into different configurations to form various floating platforms in the canals of Amsterdam. In experiments in a pool, the boats rearranged themselves from a connected straight line into an “L” (shown here) and other shapes.

MIT’s fleet of autonomous boats can now shapeshift

New capabilities allow “roboats” to change configurations to form pop-up bridges, stages, and other structures.

August 29, 2019

A battery-free underwater “piezoelectric” sensor invented by MIT researchers transmits data by absorbing or reflecting sound waves back to a receiver, where a reflected wave decodes a 1 bit and an absorbed wave decodes a 0 bit — and simultaneously stores energy.

A battery-free sensor for underwater exploration

Submerged system uses the vibration of “piezoelectric” materials to generate power and send and receive data.

August 20, 2019

Artemis searches the Northern Hemisphere sky for exoplanets.

3Q: Julien de Wit on searching for red worlds in the northern skies

MIT has completed the installation of its newest exoplanet-hunting telescope, Artemis, in the Canary Islands, joining the SPECULOOS network.

June 20, 2019

Just 10 taxis typically cover one-third of Manhattan’s streets in a day.

Taking a city’s pulse with moveable sensors

Study quantifies how much of Manhattan 10 taxis cover in a day — to better measure air pollution, traffic, and more.

June 11, 2019

MIT researchers have given their fleet of autonomous “roboats” the ability to automatically target and clasp onto each other — and keep trying if they fail. The roboats are being designed to transport people, collect trash, and self-assemble into floating structures in the canals of Amsterdam.

Autonomous boats can target and latch onto each other

Fleet of “roboats” could collect garbage or self-assemble into floating structures in Amsterdam’s many canals.

June 5, 2019

RoCycle can detect if an object is paper, metal, or plastic. CSAIL researchers say that such a system could potentially help enable the convenience of single-stream recycling with lower contamination rates that confirm to China's new recycling standards.

Robots that can sort recycling

CSAIL’s "RoCycle" system uses in-hand sensors to detect if an object is paper, metal or plastic.

April 16, 2019

Visitors wear virtual reality headsets in the MIT.nano Immersion Lab.

The power of play

Video game developer NCSOFT joins with MIT.nano to apply the language of gaming to technology research and education.

April 3, 2019

Researchers have developed computationally simple robots, called particles, that cluster and form a single “particle robot” that moves around, transports objects, and completes other tasks. The work hails from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Columbia University, and elsewhere.

“Particle robot” works as a cluster of simple units

Loosely connected disc-shaped “particles” can push and pull one another, moving en masse to transport objects.

March 20, 2019

The experimental setup used by the researchers to test their magnetic sensor system, using green laser light for confocal microscopy.

Quantum sensing method measures minuscule magnetic fields

MIT researchers find a new way to make nanoscale measurements of fields in more than one dimension.

March 15, 2019

MIT Media Lab researchers are using RFID tags to help robots home in on moving objects with unprecedented speed and accuracy, potentially enabling greater collaboration in robotic packaging and assembly and among swarms of drones.

Robots track moving objects with unprecedented precision

System uses RFID tags to home in on targets; could benefit robotic manufacturing, collaborative drones, and other applications.

February 18, 2019

EAPS Assistant Professor Brent Minchew (right) with former Vice President Al Gore in 2001.

From the Marines to MIT

Brent Minchew has flown presidents and foreign dignitaries on Marine One. Today he studies how ice sheets evolve and respond to changing climate.

February 8, 2019

Postdoc Ben Crawford installs a volcanic air pollution sensor at an elementary school on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Eruption spurs creation of real-time air pollution network

Low-cost sensors on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano provide an educational resource and give insight into air quality across Big Island.

January 30, 2019

The ingestible hydrogel device as a small pill can swell to a large soft sphere, and deswell to a floppy membrane.

Ingestible, expanding pill monitors the stomach for up to a month

Soft, squishy device could potentially track ulcers, cancers, and other GI conditions over the long term.

January 30, 2019

MIT Media Lab researchers have developed a wireless system that leverages the cheap RFID tags already on hundreds of billions of products to sense potential food contamination.

Putting food-safety detection in the hands of consumers

Simple, scalable wireless system uses the RFID tags on billions of products to sense contamination.

November 14, 2018

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Browse By

Topics

Departments

Centers, Labs, & Programs

Schools

Topic