Engineering Newswire: Submarine-Hunting Surface Drone

This Engineering Newswire looks at christening a submarine-hunting surface drone, taking a ride in a fleet of self-parking office chairs and 3D printing a transplantable human ear.

Submarine-Hunting Surface Drone

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has announced that it will christen its 139 ft. long Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) on April 9 at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon.

Also known as Sea Hunter, the sub-hunting surface drone is designed to track potentially hostile diesel electric submarines for months at a time without a crew on board.

Fleet of Self-Parking Office Chairs

Innovative technology is designed to make our lives easier, which often means it’s making us lazier. The folks at Nissan are proving this point with their newly unveiled self-parking office chairs.

The chair technology, which was actually inspired by the company’s self-parking car tech, is able to make 360-degree turns, zero in on a target, and put itself away.  

3D Printed Transplantable Human Ear

After almost 10 years in development, a research team led by Anthony Atala from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has unveiled an Integrated Tissue-Organ Printer.

The 3D bioprinter is capable of generating replacement tissue that’s strong enough to withstand transplantation. In fact, to show its innovative printing capabilities, the scientists have already printed a jaw bone, muscle, and cartilage structures, as well as a human ear.  

More in Industry 4.0