Engineers Develop Safer, Blast-Resistant Glass
To protect from potential terrorist attacks, federal buildings and other critical infrastructures are made with special windows that contain blast-resistant glass. However, the glass is thick and expensive. Currently, University of Missouri researchers are developing and testing a new type of blast-resistant glass that will be thinner, lighter and less vulnerable to small-scale explosions.
“Currently, blast-resistant window glass is more than 1 inch thick, which is much thicker than standard window glass that is only one-fourth of an inch thick and hurricane-protected window glass that is one-half of an inch thick,” said Sanjeev Khanna, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the MU College of Engineering. “The glass we are developing is less than one-half of an inch thick. Because the glass panel will be thinner, it will use less material and be cheaper than what is currently being used.” (more…)
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Robotic Ferret Will Detect Hidden Drugs, Weapons and Human Trafficking
A new type of robot being developed will make it easier to detect drugs, weapons, explosives and illegal immigrants concealed in cargo containers.
Dubbed the ‘cargo-screening ferret’ and designed for use at seaports and airports, the device is being worked on at the University of Sheffield with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The idea for the project emerged from an event organised by EPSRC, the British Home Office Scientific Development Branch and the UK Borders Agency.
The ferret will be the world’s first cargo-screening device able to pinpoint all kinds of illicit substances and the first designed to operate inside standard freight containers, according to a news release issued today. (more…)
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Improved Sensor Technology For Surveillance Drones Under Development
Photo: Current controls for MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial drone. (U.S. Air Force photo.)
Scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology are designing a new kind of optical sensor to fly in unmanned air vehicles, or surveillance drones, tracking suspects on foot or traveling in vehicles identified as a threat.
“The Air Force has clearly recognized the change in the threat that we have,” says John Kerekes, associate professor in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. “I think we all understand that our military has a paradigm shift. We’re no longer fighting tanks in the open desert; we’re fighting terrorists in small groups, asymmetric threats.”
Kerekes won a $1 million Discovery Challenge Thrust grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to design efficient sensors using multiple imaging techniques to track an individual or a vehicle. (more…)
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