10 Amazing AFOSR Research Projects for 2022
Let’s Count Down the New Year with 10 Amazing Air force office OF science Research (afosr) Projects
2022 AFRL/AFOSR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The Air Force Research Laboratory accomplished a ton in 2022. As the year comes to a close we wanted to highlight some of that work at AFOSR. As a component of AFRL, AFOSR’s mission focuses on investing in basic research efforts for the Air Force in relevant scientific areas to support the Air Force goals of control and maximum utilization of air, space, and cyberspace. AFOSR works with the academic community to support their basic research and its development for industry. Let us send off 2022 with 10 research efforts from AFOSR that are worth celebrating.
1. Squid Skin-inspired Cup Cozy
- Nothing says the holidays more than a warm cup of eggnog or hot chocolate to kickstart the new year. Engineers at the University of California, Irvine looked at a squid-skin-inspired cup cozy’s, or covering’s that will keep your hands cool and your drinks hot. Drawing inspiration from cephalopod skin, engineers at the UCI invented an adaptive composite material that can insulate beverage cups, restaurant to-go bags parcel boxes and even shipping containers.
- https://news.uci.edu/2022/03/28/squid-skin-inspired-cup-cozy-will-keep-your-hands-cool-and-your-coffee-hot/
2. Brains On Board
- Robots may soon walk amongst us, in a miniature state. A collaborative effort has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots 100 to 250 micrometers in size, smaller than an ant’s head, so they can walk autonomously without being externally controlled.
- https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/09/brains-board-smart-microrobots-walk-autonomously
3. Machine Learning Helps Scientists Peer into the Future
- The future may be forecasted as researchers at the Ohio State University have recently found a new way to predict changes in Earth’s weather. A new machine learning method called next-generation reservoir computing can help predict weather patterns.
- https://news.osu.edu/machine-learning-helps-scientists-peer-a-second-into-the-future/
4. AI that Mimics the Human Eye
- Seeing is believing as researchers from the University of Central Florida have developed a device for artificial intelligence that mimics the eye’s retina. The development could lead to advanced AI that can instantly recognize what it sees, like automatic descriptions of pictures taken by a camera or phone. The technology also has applications in self-driving vehicles and robotics.
- https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-researchers-develop-technology-for-ai-that-mimics-the-human-eye/
5. An Edible QR Code Takes a Shot at Fake Whiskey
- Did you ever wonder if your drink at the bar is worth the shot? A team of biomedical engineers from Purdue University and South Korea has created a QR Code on an edible silk tag that manufacturers can place in whiskey bottles. Because some medicines contain alcohol and the new rise to online pharmacy’s consumers can use a smartphone app to confirm both their whiskey and eventually medicines authenticity.
- https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2022/Q2/an-edible-qr-code-takes-a-shot-at-fake-whiskey.html
6. Robot Detects Damage and Heals Itself
- Robots of the future may not just fix you. The Organic Robotics Lab at Cornell University combined optical sensors with a composite material to create a soft robot that can detect when and where it was damaged and heal itself on the spot.
- https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/12/soft-robot-detects-damage-and-heals-itself
7. The “Secret Sauce” of New Quantum Material
- As Quantomania continues to grow ever closer, MIT physicists have discovered the reason for the unique properties of the material known as a Kagome metal, known for its exotic properties, including superconductivity. They hope to build a rich platform for discovering other quantum materials through this discovery.
- https://physics.mit.edu/news/physicists-discover-secret-sauce-behind-exotic-properties-of-new-quantum-material/
8. New Lightweight Material is Stronger than Steel
- In the future, we may have buildings made of plastic as MIT chemical engineers have created a new material stronger than steel, as light as plastic, and easily manufactured in large quantities. The new material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which form one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains.
- https://news.mit.edu/2022/polymer-lightweight-material-2d-0202
9. Tiny Battery-free Devices Float in the Wind Like Dandelion Seeds
- Built to monitor agricultural changes in farmlands and forests, a team from the University of Washington has developed a tiny sensor-carrying device that the wind can blow as it tumbles toward the ground. This system is about 30 times as heavy as a 1-milligram dandelion seed but can still travel up to 100 meters in a moderate breeze, about the length of a football field, from where a drone released it.
- https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/03/16/battery-free-devices-float-in-wind-like-dandelion-seeds/
10. Researchers Set Record by Preserving Quantum States for More than 5 Seconds
- We may all end up in the Quantum Realm as a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago have achieved two breakthroughs to overcome these common challenges for quantum systems. They could read out their qubit on demand and then keep the quantum state intact for over five seconds, a new record for this class of devices.
- https://www.anl.gov/article/researchers-set-record-by-preserving-quantum-states-for-more-than-5-seconds