Drone registrations are on the rise. Citing a report from the Federal Aviation Administration, Fortune noted that more than 670,000 unmanned aerial vehicles were registered with the government agency this year, as both hobbyists and corporations look to leverage the advantages of flight. According to Cornell University, there's another potential use of UAVs on the horizon: climate change drones are designed to capture and relay critical data about the rate and severity of climate shifts. Now, scientists are warming up to the idea of drone-filled skies. Here's why. Reflective Reasoning The rate and risk of climate change are tied to albedo: a measure of how much solar energy is absorbed, or reflected, by surfaces on the Earth. For example, snow-covered areas reflect sunlight and decrease overall warmth, while surfaces such as grass or asphalt better absorb heat. The Cornell study noted that albedo is currently measured using satellite imagery and sensor towers, but these options are non-mobile, making local comparisons impossible. At Cornell, doctoral candidate Charlotte Levy and her team overcame the characteristic weight restrictions on the drone by using only a downward-facing sensor on the vehicle itself and placing the upward-facing sensor in a nearby field. The results? Mobile climate change measurements and the ability to discover where proactive forest planting could have positive impacts on the local environment by reducing heat loss and carbon capture. Learning More  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. And that's not all drones are doing. As noted by AG Web, after a climate change innovation grant announcement last year, software developer Pix4D and drone manufacturer Parrot received more than 250 research proposals. Some of those selected are now using aerial vehicles to detect variations in grassland phenology, modulate wildlife extinctions in the African drylands and monitor the impact of insects in Mediterranean forests. The big advantage here? These climate change drones can gather data with minimal disruption to the natural environment, limiting the chance of corrupted or human-influenced data. Consider the work being done on Antarctic mosses. The Conversation reported that these plants are sensitive to even minor changes in their local environment, making them an excellent predictor of emerging climate shifts. But monitoring these mosses is difficult, since their remote location requires human researchers to traverse, and potentially disturb, miles of difficult terrain. Drones, meanwhile, can fly in to get the data they need without causing undue environmental impact. In addition, the use of drones expands mapping and data collection areas while reducing the total cost and potential risk to researchers. Developing Drones Unmanned aerial vehicles occupy a key intersection between autonomous device and human interference. While they're ultimately operated by human beings, they limit the overall impact on sensitive ecosystems and return critical data about environmental adaptations. These climate change drones are a natural next step, given the increasing focus on Earth-based science; NASA already operates a high-altitude, long-duration aerial science vessel known as the Global Hawk, and scientists remain on the ground in far-flung research outputs gathering and analyzing climate data. Custom-built drones provide a way to quickly collect data, make local comparisons and limit the impact on natural flora and fauna. The market for drones is shifting as online enterprises look to leverage corporate potential and private users take to the skies. The next generation of scientists, meanwhile, are developing ways to make drones fly farther and faster and find key data to mitigate the effects of long-term climate change.

Warming Up? Climate Change Drones Offer Environmental Insight

U.S. and allied defense industry leaders recognize that a digital transformation of the military is critical to maintaining a decisive advantage over adversaries who are trying to win the information race. The victors of future wars will gather and secure trusted information while denying it to the enemy. military exercises Adversaries know this and many are spending more on systems that deny information than on building bigger arsenals. That's why the U.S. and its allies must invest in game-changing multifunction mission systems that can sense, interpret and understand information in the battle space faster than an adversary. To help develop and learn how to fight these systems across domains, military exercises are playing a more important role than ever. In fact, these exercises provide an important backdrop for trials and experimentation and help establish a clear understanding of requirements. Earlier this year, the U.S. military conducted Northern Edge 2017 (NE17), a biennial, U.S. Pacific Command-sponsored air combat exercise at the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex. The exercise, led by Alaska Command, involved nearly 6,000 airmen, Marines, sailors and soldiers, more than 200 aircraft, and Navy and commercial vessels. During the exercise, defense company Northrop Grumman rolled out numerous cutting-edge digital technologies for the military brass, including next-generation air dominance, fifth- to fourth-generation communications, advanced self-protection electronic warfare (EW) and cognitive (artificial intelligence) applications to EW. "Participation in NE17 enabled us to demonstrate emerging technologies and operating concepts in one of the most complex and operationally relevant environments currently available, allowing us to highlight 'art of the possible' capabilities to our warfighting customers," said Jack Forsythe, director of airborne C4ISR mission engagement at Northrop Grumman. NE17 enabled the defense company to accomplish several first-ever successes in key airborne capabilities. Northrop Grumman paired fire control radars with advanced imaging to develop unique kill-chain capabilities. Second, Northrop Grumman demonstrated the ability of fifth-gen aircraft to communicate with fourth-gen aircraft by simultaneously receiving F-22 and F-35 data-link messages and then re-transmitting them to fourth-gen fighters through Link-16. Finally, the company's advanced EW team confirmed for the first time that their system blinded "enemy" threat radars using a new multi-function resource manager.  "Northern Edge is an incredible opportunity for the military and its defense partners," said Steve Bryant, vice president of advanced strike and mission enablers, Northrop Grumman. "It provides us insight into our systems from more of the warfighter's perspective and enables us to develop capabilities more efficiently and cost-effectively for them." "Northern Edge allows us to operate our sensors in a representative combat environment that our warfighters could face in a high-end scenario," said Tom Jones, vice president and general manager, airborne C4ISR, Northrop Grumman. "Participants learned what it's like to succeed in complex air warfare scenarios." NE17, and other military exercises like it, enable the participants to collect and examine data in innovative ways so allied partners can gain the decisive advantage they need to win the information race. 

Military Exercises Provide Proving Ground for Winning the Information Race

Over the last 20 years, anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zones have entered the global military strategy conversation in a big way. Although A2/AD methods have been around since antiquity, recent technology advances have catapulted them to center stage. Non-Western players like Russia and China are growing their resources to use A2/AD to their advantage, according to Defense One. The Chinese investment in ballistic missiles, submarines and air defense implies that they are focusing on preventing access to their shores. At the same time, Russia is growing their capabilities to advance their agenda and test the waters in Eastern Europe. The abundance of A2/AD technology strengthens their ability to control who can enter certain areas via normal transportation methods. Using their advanced air systems, Russia can hold a region hostage by controlling or monitoring an area's railroads, airports and ports, according to Defense One. While these A2/AD arsenals are expanding, the U.S. military has a dire need to meet the challenges this new world poses. The Air Force Needs a Stealth Upgrade Currently, only 12 percent of the U.S. Air Force fleet can operate in anti-access/area denial zones, according to National Defense Magazine. This poses a problem for the U.S., not only in terms of national security and protecting our fleet, but also when it comes to protecting our place in the world as a leader in military technology. In early 2017, the Air Force tasked Northrop Grumman with building a new stealth fighter called the B-21 Raider. According to National Defense Magazine, the B-21 Raider "is expected to give the Pentagon a new long-range strike system that can carry nuclear or conventional weapons deep into well-defended enemy airspace and not get shot down ... Pentagon officials have said ... they expect the aircraft to achieve initial operating capability in the mid-2020s." Another potential win for the Air Force would be adapting current A2/AD capabilities to meet modern-day challenges. While the B-21 is in production, the B-2 fighters are testing modifications to their Defense Management System, which uses sensors, software and other radar-evading technology to preserve and expand their stealth abilities. The upgrades would integrate new technology and modernize the fleet, said Military.com. Meeting the Challenge Ideally, counterinsurgency methods like working with international partners to expand areas of operations and gathering intelligence to develop strategies would be at the forefront of any plan of action, according to The Royal Swedish Academy of Air Sciences. At the same time, mainstream counterinsurgency isn't enough; defense systems and stealth technology need upgrades to match the threatening parties' technology so that both tactics can work together in the fight against aggressors. Meeting the challenges A2/AD zones provide is a long game, one that needs smart technology to counteract the actions being taken by other players. While we grow our arsenals and expand our own capabilities, it's important to keep a watchful eye on the growth and advancements of other countries' assets and how they are using them to wield power.

Combating Area Denial Zones: US Air Force Stealth Fleet Needs Upgrade

Let the tale of poor James Howells and his lost cryptocurrency serve as a warning. In 2013, the Welsh information technology worker sold an old laptop he had once used to mine bitcoin and accidentally threw out the hard drive that held his coins. Fast forward to today — bitcoin has been pushing record highs, and Howells has found that, as of the time that the Wired article was written, he threw away more than $75 million. He wants to dig for the drive in a landfill at Newport, South Wales, but it could be sitting under 200,000 tons of trash. And the city council won't allow it due to the hazards involved, said Wired. "'It's a little like looking at your bank account containing millions of dollars but not being able to spend it,'" Howells told Wired. The Tragedy of Lost Cryptocurrency Howells' story isn't unique. Wired also published the tale of Mark Frauenfelder — director of research at the Institute of the Future's Blockchain Futures Lab — who nearly lost a fortune. He bought 7.4 bitcoins in early 2016, stored the bitcoin keys in an encrypted drive and then forgot the PIN. It took him many tries and a lot of hacking to recover it, and now he's exponentially richer. A recent study by Chainalysis found that between 2.7 million and 3.7 million bitcoins — about 17 percent to 23 percent of the total supply — have been lost forever, according to Fortune. At the current bitcoin exchange rate at the time this article was written, with one bitcoin worth about $16,200, that represents $43.7 to 59.9 billion of lost value. Lost cryptocurrency isn't limited to bitcoin, either. Earlier this year, an unlucky user accidentally destroyed more than $300 million worth of Ether — the currency used for the decentralized platform Ethereum. The developer Parity revealed that it had tried to fix a bug that allowed hackers to steal $32 million from digital wallets, but inadvertently created a second bug that let one user become the owner of all the digital wallets. In an attempt to fix this mistake, the assets were effectively locked with no feasible way to access them.    Safeguarding Digital Assets Digital currency users face several threats, but a common mistake is not protecting cryptocurrency from hackers. That's not surprising considering large-scale hacks, such as the disappearance of what was nearly half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin from Mt. Gox in 2014. Losing access to your cryptocurrency is a potential threat as well. It's important to realize that you're responsible for the security of your digital assets. To avoid the scenario of lost cryptocurrency, here are some do's and dont's to consider, some of which came from the technology-focused website Di9it:  Don't keep a large volume of coins on an exchange you don't actively trade on, as that could expose you to the danger of theft. The same applies to digital wallets on your phone or computer. Don't ever share your private key with anyone or store it on an unencrypted device. Do use a cold wallet, such as a USB drive or other storage, to maintain a reserve of your currency offline. Do keep a copy of your PIN — as well as reminder words and numbers in case you lose the PIN — in a safe place. You should also consider keeping a backup copy in a fireproof safe or other storage. Do encrypt your laptop, phone and other mobile devices containing personal information, especially passwords related to your assets. Losing them could be disastrous. Do exercise caution with little-known cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings and messages soliciting investment. Taking a few basic steps like these can improve your digital hygiene and go a long way to making the cryptocurrency ecosystem a safer place. By sharing best practices, we can make cryptocurrency a secure store of value.

Lost Cryptocurrency? How to Prevent your Digital Cash from Disappearing

Getting a full-body health scan sounds like a great way to detect potential problems before they become too serious. After all, early detection is the rationale behind blood tests for high cholesterol, mammograms for breast cancer, colonoscopies for colon cancer, and blood tests for other cancers. Companies such as Prenuvo offer a full-body health scan that can detect hundreds of different health conditions in the early stages, such as tumors and aneurysms (weakened arteries). So if you have the money and are concerned about your health, why wouldn't you spend $500 for a full-body CT scan or $2500 for a full-body MRI? Well, there are actually some good reasons not to do so, and some reasons why it could be a good idea. Benefits and Risks At the outset, there's simply no evidence that the benefits of an MRI or CT scan outweigh the risks for people who show no signs of illness, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notes. This benefit versus risk calculation is also why the American Cancer Society only recommends mammograms for women over 40, unless they are at increased risk. Mammograms use X-rays to detect breast cancer, and X-rays cause DNA damage that can increase the risk of developing cancer.  CT scans also use X-rays combined with computer technology to produce image "slices" of the inside of the body. When a CT scan is used as a whole-body scanner, it results in more X-ray exposure than a typical mammogram. For patients who are showing symptoms, CT scans can be used to detect various cancers and determine whether they have spread to other parts of the body. They can also detect a buildup of calcium in the arteries of the heart, blood clots and other abnormalities. The most detailed images may require patients to ingest special dyes or radioactive material, according to Choosing Wisely. CT scans are also used on trauma patients to detect broken bones or other internal injuries quickly. Another type of body scanner is the MRI, which uses harmless magnetic fields and radio waves instead of X-rays, so there's no increased cancer risk. This makes MRIs the preferred choice for people who need frequent imaging, according to the Cleveland Clinic. MRIs are also better than CT scans for providing clear images of soft tissues, such as the heart, liver, kidneys, spleen, brain, spinal cord, nerves, muscles, ligaments and tendons. While MRIs pose less risk than CT scans, there's still the very real possibility of finding something unexpected that's not causing any harm, which could lead to additional tests, biopsies and unnecessary treatments. The Results Have Been Significant A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported on 2000 healthy volunteers between the ages of 45 and 97 who each underwent an MRI of the brain. A whopping 7.2% of participants showed evidence of a stroke, 1.8% had cerebral aneurysms (a weak spot in a brain artery), and 1.6% had non-cancerous tumors. None of these volunteers were showing any symptoms, and most would continue to be unaffected by anything detected in the MRI. It's up for debate whether these MRIs provided any information that could benefit these patients. In a similar study, the British Medical Journal reported on 600 emergency room patients and found that one-third had abnormalities detected by CT scan that were unrelated to their emergency room visit.  MRI or CT scans may be beneficial for individuals at high risk of developing certain diseases. Studies are currently underway for patients at high risk of lung cancer or colon cancer, according to the FDA. For some women at high risk for breast cancer, MRIs are recommended in addition to mammograms. Reputable healthcare institutions do offer total-body CT scanning for high-risk patients working closely with knowledgeable physicians. For example, the Cleveland Clinic offers total-body CT scanning to analyze three major areas of the body: the lungs (to detect potentially malignant nodules), the heart (to detect aortic aneurysms and calcium deposits within the coronary arteries) and the abdomen/pelvis (to detect kidney stones, cysts, enlarged lymph nodes, large abdominal/pelvic masses, fatty liver). So while full-body health scans aren't recommended for everyone, anyone at high risk or with worrisome symptoms should — as always — contact a healthcare professional. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

A Full-Body Health Scan Could Be in Our Future

Japan's population is aging at an unprecedented rate. One in five people are currently over age 65, and by 2030, that ratio will shift to one in three. For a country ranked as the world's third largest economy, Japan must find ways to bolster its aging workforce, while also fortifying national security and attending to its elderly. Autonomous systems designed with advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and other digital innovations could replace or enhance human labor. According to analysts at McKinsey & Company, Japan's potential for automation exceeds that of other countries, such as Germany and South Korea, where aging populations are also growing rapidly. Labor-intensive work (i.e. construction) and tedious, repetitive work (i.e. data collecting and machine operation) top the list of occupations that could be replaced by autonomous systems. That would put the available workforce into more flexible jobs that require more creativity and higher levels of thinking, which could allow companies to lower costs and boost productivity, researchers say. Construction Only about 10% of construction workers in Japan are below the age of 30, as the Japan Times reports. Nonetheless, construction projects are booming in the country. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched a stimulus program, known as Abenomics, partially aimed at ramping up infrastructure projects ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, which was slated for 2020 but rescheduled for 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the tight labor market, construction companies such as Shimizu Corp., headquartered in Tokyo, have invested billions to develop robots that can build materials, weld steel, inspect premises, install ceilings and more. Equipped with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, cameras and sensors, Shimizu's Robo-Welder and Robo-Buddy can weld and bolt for hours without tiring. In Mie Prefecture, on the southeast coast of Japan's main island, robots are building a concrete dam. Huge, crane-like equipment from Tokyo-based Obayashi stacks enormous slabs of concrete, each about 15 square yards. The layers are made by remote-controlled tower cranes that pour concrete into molds onsite, according to Asia Nikkei. The 275-feet-high dam is scheduled for completion in March 2023. Dam building requires many of the repetitive actions robotic technology has already honed in factory-based assembly — but robotic bricklayers need bricks. Enter Tokyo-based Kajima, which is developing robots to clear the way and also deliver materials. The company has self-driving bulldozers and dump trucks that use sensors like LIDAR and GPS to "see" the environment. They can excavate, deliver and dump 24 hours a day, if needed. National Security Japan is currently ranked as one of the most peaceful countries in the world, according to the 2020 Global Peace Index. However, its close proximity to China, Russia and North Korea make the island nation vulnerable to military posturing. Japan's Self Defense Force, established in the 1950s, stands guard and patrols more than 18,000 miles of coastline. According to CNN, in 2019, a report from Japan's Ministry of Defense said its Air Defense Force scrambled jets more than 900 times that year to intercept potential incursions into Japanese airspace from Chinese and Russian aircraft. An aging workforce has reduced the pool of available pilots, though. Unmanned autonomous aircraft could step in. In June 2020, the US Air Force deployed an RQ-4 Global Hawk to help patrol the air space over Japan. It flies at altitudes up to 65,000-feet high and can stay aloft for 30 hours at a time. "An autonomous system such as Global Hawk does not get tired, does not need to return to base for more than a day at a time and can patrol huge swaths of area from a very high altitude," said Om Prakash, Northrop Grumman Japan, in a press release in November 2020. Onboard sensors support a broad range of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. In 2015, Japan agreed to purchase three Global Hawks to be delivered in 2022 and supplement its surveillance portfolio, which includes earth-orbiting satellites, sea- and land-based radars, manned patrol planes and reconnaissance pods on supersonic fighters. Global Hawk could also aid during times of national emergencies. In the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, which caused catastrophic failure at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk flew above the plant to help assess atmospheric radiation. "That operation proved that Global Hawk could be effective even in disaster," said Prakash. Patient and Eldercare Robots in Japan can be big and tough, building bridges and securing borders. But some robots have a tender side. Paro, which looks like a furry baby seal, can be found at elderly care facilities helping to calm residents who have dementia or other cognitive disorders. Developed by researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Paro has five sensors that detect sound, light, touch, heat and posture. Its software learns from the sensory data to recognize people and adapt to a user's preferences. Some studies have shown that Paro reduces reliance on drugs, improves blood pressure and oxygenation levels and stirs up emotions in patients who may not have expressed them for a long time, reports Wired. Companion and "care bots" like Paro are rising in popularity in Japan, where the government predicts a shortage of more than 300,000 healthcare workers by 2025. Healthcare spending is also ticking upward and is expected to go from $98,000 per year for inpatient nursing care to $235,000 per year by 2030, as strategy + business reports. Adding robots to the staff could help to keep costs down. Some robots have more specialized capabilities. Telenoid, a baby-sized device with no legs and tiny arms, can emit sounds, words or songs coming from a distant caregiver or family member. Robear, from RIKEN-SRK Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research and Sumitomo Riko Company, lifts patients out of beds and into wheelchairs and can assist a person with standing. Mira Robotics created a robotic butler named Ugo that can wash dishes, fold clothes and vacuum. It's clear that Japan's aging society will put pressure on the government as well as technology firms to find solutions for an aging workforce and rising healthcare costs. Technology alone can't deal with these challenges. But as autonomous systems advance, they can free up how much time humans spend on repetitive tasks, as well as augment security portfolios and even reduce loneliness. Are you interested in science and innovation? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Autonomous Systems to Bolster Japan's Aging Workforce

 Humans are obsessed with technology. According to CNN, 80 percent of teens now check their phones hourly for updates and 72 percent feel the need to immediately respond if they receive a text. More than half of adults put themselves at risk by checking phones while they're driving and almost as many make regular efforts to "cut down" the amount of time they spend on their device. Meanwhile, advances in future technologies like VR and augmented reality make it easier than ever for users to lose themselves in virtual worlds or change their perception of reality. So it's worth considering: What's the next step? Here's a look at five technologies from season three of terrifying sci-fi series "Black Mirror" — could they really exist, and what's the potential public impact?1) "San Junipero": Eternal Life Let's start with arguably the most hopeful episode of the series: San Junipero. It's simple: The titular town is actually a VR construct which houses the consciousness of the dead or dying and allows them to enjoy a kind of eternal life as their younger selves. The living are allowed to "visit" five hours per week and those on their deathbed can choose an upload to San Junipero or a natural demise. Could it happen in real life? Possibly. MMOs (or Massively Multiplayer Online) are massively popular and advancements in VR now make it possible to see, hear and feel in virtual space. Neurological progress is also being made — for example, researchers may have discovered a way to give amputees direct control over artificial limbs with better neuron readings. Simply put, don't expect to see eternal life advertised next week but don't rule it out. Potential problems? People ending their lives early to enjoy paradise, or a server failure that "crashes" eternal life consciousness.2) "Nosedive": Continual Person-to-Person Ratings What if social media had bigger teeth? That's the idea behind the future technologies in "Nosedive," which imagines a world where everyone rates everyone else and these ratings directly inform social status, allowing highly rated people access to medical treatments and better living conditions. In reality, this tech already has legs: Consider controversial app Peeple, which lets users write "reviews" of other human beings. Not surprisingly, the creation of the app caused an online ratings backlash for the creator — who was oddly surprised by this effect — and already there's talk of letting people pay to access everything that has been written about them. The potential impact? Social judgment on an entirely new scale.3) "Hated in the Nation": Artificial Bees With the bee population at critical levels, an episode involving artificial insects was timely. But the problem didn't stem from pollination — instead, the bees were given kill-commands using facial-recognition technology to seek out "hated" targets as judged by social media. While current robotics don't match this level of sophistication, the notion of co-opting cybernetic devices for nefarious purposes isn't new and big companies like Google are shoveling money into better facial recognition.4) "Men Against Fire": Augmented Reality In "Men Against Fire" soldiers have their strength, speed and senses enhanced with a device called the MASS. As it turns out, the device changes the way they see potential targets, making regular humans seem like monsters and therefore easier to attack. Military desensitization training isn't exactly new, but consider the social implications: Already, tech like Snapchat and its Spectacles let you apply filters to faces in real time; what if this became commonplace, allowing users to see who and what they wanted to see, when they wanted to see it? Not only could this make for some awkward interactions — but if devices were hacked, the results could be disastrous.5) "White Christmas": The Z-Eye It's not from season 3 but it deserves a mention on the list of future technologies — the Z-Eye tech from "White Christmas" which lets users "block" others and appear as nothing more than white static. It works in a few different ways: as a kind of restraining order which prevents one of the main characters from seeing his estranged girlfriend or their daughter, and a government-imposed whiteout for another "peeping tom" who sees everyone as white static while they see him as red. Sure, mandatory implants aren't on the docket just yet but wearables are on the way up and given the connection obsession prevalent worldwide, it's not hard to imagine a world where social tech is used to restrict interaction based on personal preference or as punishment for crimes. The concern? Extremes — for instance, what happens in the case of a wrongful conviction or device malfunction? Whiteouts seem harmless enough but what happens when being part of an overly social world means you're entirely alone? Technology isn't inherently good or evil. As evidenced by "Black Mirror," it's our interpretation and implementation of new devices which ultimately determines their public impact.

5 Future Technologies From Black Mirror and Their Potential Public Impact

In science fiction they go by a variety of names — shields, screens and deflectors being among the most popular — while the expression "force field" is more often used to describe the underlying principle, rather than specific defensive installations protecting spaceships, cities or entire planets in a science fiction story. As science writer Ella Alderson at Medium notes, force field defenses are so well established in science fiction that authors and scriptwriters hardly need to explain them. Readers and viewers are so up to speed on what they are that it's generally enough for the captain in the scene to order "Full deflectors!" or the chief engineer to warn, "The screens canna take much more!" This is good news for the creative community, because unlike many science fiction technologies, force field defenses have not yet made their debut in the real world, and the science around them is uncertain enough that an explanation would be tough to write, even in fiction. But are they possible off the screen and page? Fields All Around Us On the level of pure science, the answer is a resounding Yes. Not only are they possible, but they are actually all around us. If you go out and buy one of those little horseshoe magnets, you can have your own force field generator that will lift up a steel needle, overcoming another force field, Earth's gravity. Alas, what it won't do is stop a phaser beam, or even an old-fashioned bullet. The four basic forces that govern our universe — gravity, electromagnetism, and "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces — are all associated with fields that could certainly be called force fields, and some of these can provide protective shielding. Earth's magnetic field protects us all (including all present-day astronauts) from dangerous high-energy solar and cosmic particle radiation. Indeed, as USRA reports, NASA has seriously examined electromagnetic shielding for prolonged deep space missions as an alternative to massive physical shielding. Unfortunately, at our current state of technology, the required field generator would be even heavier than the shielding it would replace, so a lot of development work has to be done before force field protection against deep space radiation becomes viable. On the bright side, a lot of development work means exactly that: work to be done, which is quite different from impossible. How To Stop a Shockwave There are ongoing projects aimed at bringing us closer to classic science fiction-style force field defenses. One defense contractor has even patented a technology to protect vehicles from destructive shockwaves produced by explosions. A combination of electric arcs and lasers would be used to flash a wall of air into plasma — atoms so superheated that nuclei and electrons go their separate ways, making the plasma controllable by magnetic fields. Such plasma can deflect and therefore effectively absorb an oncoming shockwave, protecting the vehicle. One limitation is that while plasma readily deflects shockwaves, physical objects (such as shells or missiles) can pass through the plasma wall unimpeded, so other defenses would be required against these threats. As an additional caution, Mic.com notes that technology companies patent many ideas to protect their intellectual property, but not all of them end up being developed. Meanwhile, at TheDrive.com, Brett Tingley describes yet another ongoing project by the Air Force that uses ultra-high-power lasers to produce a force field capable of destroying or disabling incoming warheads or other weapons. The article notes that existing (experimental) laser defenses can actually knock out drones in tests by enveloping them in brief, localized force fields. According to Jeremy Murray-Krezan of the Air Force Research Laboratory, directed energy (DE) "is uniquely suited for an area of growing importance, nondestructive but damaging, disruptive, and denial of operations." Modern combat, it seems, is already a more complex environment than what we typically see in science fiction. Are Force Fields Possible? We are still a long way from the force field defenses that are popular in science fiction — protection that functions like the armor on a World War era battleship, stopping incoming attacks without needing to be aimed at specific threats. Our current understanding of physics suggests that such preclusive defense against modern weapons would be difficult to achieve without dramatic technological advances that we cannot yet confidently foresee. Still, active research is opening new possibilities for defenses and protection, suggesting that if force fields do become part of our defensive arsenal, they may take a different form from the shields and screens made popular in science fiction. Are you interested in science and innovation? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Force Fields — Searching for the Ultimate Defense

Mosquitoes are the world's deadliest animal. Infectious diseases, including malaria, are transmitted through female mosquitoes, which need a blood meal to produce eggs. According to the World Health Organization, there were an estimated 241 million cases of malaria in 2020, which resulted in 627,000 deaths. While nearly half of the world's population is as at risk of being infected with malaria, an estimated 96% of associated deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Children under 5 years old are the most vulnerable, accounting for 80% of these deaths.Targeting Mosquitos With TechnologyWealthy countries can spray their way out of the problem. For example, Manatee County in Florida has an annual budget of $5.5 million for mosquito control, according to YourObserver.com. With about 400,000 residents, that's $14 per person per year. That money pays for helicopters and pilots that fly over neighborhoods at night to spray insecticides. The goal is to spray female mosquitos as they buzz through the air looking for a blood meal. As a result of these efforts, mosquitos are mostly just a nuisance in Manatee County, although there have been recent outbreaks of mosquito-transmitted encephalitis, West Nile virus, and Zika virus. Wealthy countries also have more resources for treating malaria and other diseases.In sub-Saharan Africa, a more economical approach is needed. One method that is proving to be effective is the use of drones — like the ones used by backyard hobbyists — connected to a smartphone app that identifies sites where mosquitos lay their eggs. Those same drones can be equipped to dispense insecticides quite precisely. By treating these sites before the mosquitos can mature and fly away, small amounts of insecticide can prevent the transmission of infectious diseases. This reduces the cost, the environmental impact, and the likelihood that the mosquitos become resistant to the insecticide. One recent study published in the American Journal of Entomology tested this approach in Uganda, where the GDP is about $800 per person per year.Identifying Larval HabitatsMalaria is transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, which lay their eggs in stagnant water and typically take 10 to 14 days to develop from egg to larva to adult, according to the CDC. Some larval habitats are essentially permanent and easy to identify, such as marshes, mangrove swamps, and rice patties. Other larval habitats are temporary and small, such as rain pools at construction sites, in hoof prints, and in tire tracks on unpaved roads. There may be thousands of these sites within an acre of land after a heavy rain. Identifying and treating these sites would be very labor intensive for a human, but ideal work for a drone.The research team designed a smartphone app that uses high-resolution video and artificial intelligence to identify potential larval sites, and it integrates that information with satellite data to produce a detailed map in real time. The smartphone app was first trained on known larval sites for Anopheles mosquitoes. The algorithm works by identifying the unique "fingerprint" of larval sites, which depends on characteristics such as whether the water is turbid or clean, stagnant or running, sunlit or shaded. This was done by determining the spectral "signature" of larval sites based on how it reflects or emits light of different wavelengths — including red, green, blue, near infrared and mid-infrared. Once the app has been trained on known larval sites, the drone can be flown at a higher altitude to survey a larger area and create a spatial map of where mosquitoes are likely to lay their eggs. The system can easily be adapted for different mosquito species that prefer to lay their eggs in different habitats.Reducing the Burden of Infectious DiseasesThe goal of the research team was to not only identify larval sites but also effectively treat the sites and reduce the burden of disease. The operation was dubbed Seek and Destroy. The test site was in the Gulu district of Northern Uganda, where 90% of the population engages in subsistence agriculture. Malaria infection occurs year-round, with peaks in June through July and September through October. Preventative measures include sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets and regularly spraying indoor areas with insecticides. Members of the community who may be infected are tested for malaria and treated if any infection is detected. Treating malaria in the early stages reduces the possibility of serious complications.In January 2021 — just before Seek and Destroy was initiated — 2,459 people in the community were tested for malaria, and 1,984 people tested positive and were treated. Larval sites were identified and treated in February and March, and weekly surveillance and treatment were conducted in April and May. By June, only 533 community members required testing for malaria, and just 2 people tested positive. June normally coincides with a peak in malaria infections. The number of adult female Anopheles mosquitos detected in 120 randomly selected homes was also reduced from hundreds to zero.Different Species, Same StrategyThe strategy of killing eggs and larvae is the same regardless of the type of mosquito, where they live, or the disease they may carry. Other viral diseases transmitted by mosquitos include dengue fever, chikungunya fever, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis, as the World Health Organization explains.It's currently unclear whether this smartphone and drone approach can be effective against other disease-spreading insects. According to the University of Southern Florida newsroom, the technology used in Uganda is being adapted for black fly larvae, which can transmit a parasitic disease that causes blindness. However, what is clear is that innovative engineering and clever problem solving is spurring leaps forward in how we tackle worldwide medical problems.Are you interested in science and innovation? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

App-Enabled Drones Could Help Stop the Spread of Infectious Diseases

Key Takeaways Commercial drone delivery service to your house or neighborhood is an increasingly popular way to order goods. In-flight safety and collision avoidance, especially over populated areas, are more important features than drone tech advances. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is collaborating with drone operators to create a safe air traffic management system for drone flights.Don't look up now, but drone delivery service is landing a different future in your front yard, one that will keep your pizza hot, save you a late-night trip to the pharmacy or even help you save a life with emergency medical supplies.On the RunwayIn recent years, several well-known companies, such as Walmart and Amazon, have been launching commercial drone-based delivery solutions and taking serious steps toward making delivery by drone a feasible option on the mass market.The government has also been involved in making this a reality: In March 2020, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized UPS and drone maker Matternet to begin using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to deliver medical supplies. Since then, UPS has also embarked on commercial home deliveries in California, according to Commercial UAV News, and Google spinoff Wing Aviation received the FAA's first certification in 2020 for a commercial drone delivery service.Safety FirstHovering amid this new enthusiasm for drone-based delivery services, however, are questions about air traffic safety, particularly for densely populated areas."The FAA is responsible for the safety and security of all aircraft in the National Airspace System," said an FAA spokesperson. "Our long-term goal is to integrate drones safely into that system so our society can reap the full benefits of drone technology."Integration ChallengesRecently, drone technology has greatly improved, but integration into airspace remains challenging, explained Doug Davis, director of airworthiness and airspace integration for Northrop Grumman, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems."If you're going to operate new aircraft, you need to operate them within the same framework of operational risk and requirements that apply to all aircraft operating in domestic airspace," he said.Davis's concern is not technical maturity but rather flights over populated areas."Many of these new operators are coming into the field from a purely business perspective, with no aviation background at all," he explained. "They often don't understand what's in the air with them."His fears, compounded by the limited ability of drones to avoid collisions in flight, are shared by the FAA."Several companies have developed technology to automatically detect and avoid other aircraft, but it's still maturing," admitted the FAA spokesperson. "Solving that challenge would allow longer flights beyond a pilot's visual line of sight and help enable routine drone delivery."A review published in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems highlights that research into this potential hazard is ongoing.Encouraging InnovationTo create an air traffic safety environment for public safety and drone delivery service success, the FAA is working closely with drone operators to define new regulations for safety and innovation."For drones, we're focusing on the top-level safety performance we expect rather than dictating a detailed aircraft design," explained the FAA spokesperson.This approach encourages drone operators to meet overall safety and operational requirements while not discouraging new, more innovative ways to deliver products and services, the spokesperson added.Flying ForwardUPS is also building public confidence in drone-based services."UPS has conducted numerous public drone demonstrations for urgent commercial and non-urgent residential deliveries," said Kyle Peterson, a UPS spokesperson. "We also partner with GAVI and Zipline to deliver blood products by drone to remote locations in Africa. These efforts help shape and inform evolving drone policy in the U.S."Current FAA safety regulations prohibit drones from operating over populated areas or beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) without an FAA waiver. Since August 2023, UPS has been cleared to fly BVLOS, as reported by Popular Science.Managing the FutureAny drone for package delivery must obtain an FAA airworthiness certificate. The FAA recognizes, however, that it is operating in a dynamic, technology-driven environment, where the pressure to integrate drones safely and efficiently into the national airspace is increasing every day.Working with NASA's Ames Research Center and other federal agencies, the FAA developed the Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) system. The project wrapped in May 2021, laying the initial groundwork for a "safe, well-connected sky.""The UTM system is an automated, machine-to-machine system that does not rely on air traffic controllers," said NASA Ames's Marcus Johnson, deputy project manager for NASA's UTM program. "It relies instead on drones to self-report their positions and flight activities to a group of federated UAS service suppliers on the ground."Reality CheckAccording to Johnson, UTM testing revealed that drone operations remain vulnerable to "microclimates" and radio frequency (RF) interference."If you operate a drone in dense urban environments, you're likely to encounter a diverse set of small, localized weather patterns," Johnson said. "These microclimates can really challenge your situational awareness of current flight conditions, particularly if you're operating the drone BVLOS."Urban density may also limit an operator's options for landing a drone quickly and safely. And RF interference poses a threat."For command and control, drone operators often use the same unlicensed frequency bands — 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz — used by residential or commercial Wi-Fi routers," explained Johnson. If a drone flies too close to an office building where such routers are in use, it can experience a sudden loss of communication with its operator, creating safety hazards for people on the ground. RF interference is also found in common building materials.Writing a New ChapterThe final step in integrating drones safely into the national airspace is the transition to the UTM rules of engagement. The FAA continues to explore UTM as a way to collaboratively move forward, evaluating industry proposals in early 2023. An evaluation project comprising a consortium of industry operators is taking place in North Texas, with participants exploring multiple drone services with overlapping BVLOS operations.For its part, the FAA is cautiously optimistic about the future of commercial drone operations."Societal acceptance of drones will be predicated on the public's expectation for safety, just as in the airline industry," said the FAA spokesperson. "Working together, we can accelerate the development of the UTM ecosystem and usher in the necessary social transformation. It's an exciting challenge as we integrate unmanned aircraft into our nation's airspace and help write a new chapter in aviation history."Northrop Grumman is a recognized leader in autonomous systems; learn how our solutions help customers meet a growing number of missions.

Is Drone Delivery Service Safe Enough for Takeoff?

Fictional tech comedy "Silicon Valley" garnered accolades for its mostly accurate portrayal of California's IT culture. But it's also a goldmine for new ideas — in some cases the show draws on existing trends, in others it blazes the trail. This season the Pied Piper gang tackles the concept of decentralized internet, which is generating buzz in of its own in the real world. But is this type of open-source technology viable, and what is open source? What problems could this new web solve? Is it even a good idea? Let's find out. Why Bother? What's the impetus for another internet iteration? Proponents of the decentralized model cite two main problems: lack of consumer choice and eroding data protections. There is a lack of choice, noted Recode, because just three top interent service providers (ISPs) supply the vast majority of users in the U.S. It's also difficult for smaller ISPs to compete in the market because bigger players own the necessary infrastructure and have unfettered access to the internet backbone. In addition, recent federal motions have all but eliminated net neutrality protections, which prevented ISPs from throttling speeds, limiting access to specific content and more intrusively mining consumer data. Without the defense of net neutrality, consumers could find themselves paying a great deal for sub-par service that won't defend their personal data. Demystifying "Decentralized" Internet What is the decentralized internet that "Silicon Valley" proposes, and how does it help solve current internet issues? According to Tech.co, it's about changing the way internet is delivered to users. Existing "centralized" internet relies on large servers that can be hacked or taken offline. Decentralized alternatives use a peer-to-peer model; users would effectively provide internet for each other and data would be spread out across hundreds of nodes and devices, making it almost impossible for the internet to crash. One key component of decentralized alternatives is blockchain technology, which enables secure transactions across distributed networks without the need for intermediaries or brokers. Opting for Open Source Crucial to the decentralized plan? Open-source software. Open source code isn't owned and maintained by a single company but is instead public property — users and companies can leverage and modify the code as they like to suit specific purposes. For any peer-to-peer network to avoid the pitfalls of existing ISP control, open-source code is a necessity. Current Iterations When "Silicon Valley" wanted to create a decentralized web storyline, the show reached out to Scottish firm Maidsafe, which is working on its own peer-to-peer internet solution. As noted by the IEEE Spectrum, Maidsafe works by leveraging user-provided bandwidth and storage space; data is broken into chunks, encrypted and then sent across existing internet wires but with a different addressing system. Not only does this improve security, but Maidsafe COO Nick Lambert says the only way to prevent users from access their data would be shutting down the internet. Another option is Anonymouse, developed at the University of Michigan by Robert Dick, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science. His version has data "hopping" from phone to phone, allowing users to create microblogs which include images and text. The more users, the better — 80 percent of 100 current testers typically receive Anonymouse messages daily, but as the network grows, so does reliability, said IEEE Spectrum. A Corporate Cure-All? The notion of decentralized internet isn't new. As noted by Bitcoin Magazine, the internet was originally conceived as a decentralized network that had multiple providers offering different services to the public at large. But economies of scale have changed the game, making it more cost-effective for ISPs to own infrastructure and dominate the market. Decentralized options based on open-source code offer the potential for users to sidestep existing ISPs. Instead, they could buy internet from someone down the street or become their own mini-ISP and sell to other users. According to Hackernoon, that's the idea behind startup Althea, which lets users deploy their own decentralized networks and take payments in cryptocurrency. Catch-22 The biggest challenge to decentralized internet? Users. Here's why: The fewer users on a network, the fewer nodes are available to deliver content, in turn impacting the quality and speed of the experience. More users means better internet, but most users aren't willing to switch until networks are stable and speedy. In addition, the use of high-volume, high-power servers by traditional ISPs means faster web loading times than decentralized options. Another issue: Many users don't have the tech savvy needed to maintain and upgrade internet nodes. Silicon Solutions The bottom line is it's not just good TV — decentralized internet is possible, and already in development. The caveat? It's not a cure-all; until data privacy and throttling issues drive widespread adoption, decentralized solutions won't have the user base necessary to deliver comparable service.

Decentralized Internet: TV Technobabble or Problem-Solver?

Discoveries in science usually begin with something in the world around us that we would like to understand. The phenomenon comes first, then we work out a theory to explain it. But as the American Association for the Advancement of Science reports, sometimes the discovery process goes the other way. A theory may successfully explain one phenomenon — but the same theory also implies the existence of other phenomena that no one has ever yet observed or perhaps even imagined. In the late 1800s, a German physicist named Heinrich Hertz confronted a challenge of just this sort. Some years earlier, in 1865, British physicist James Clerk Maxwell had set forth a theory that linked electricity and magnetism. These early discoveries would lead their successors to creating some of the technologies we rely on every day. A Hidden Surprise in Maxwell's Equations Maxwell's theory was the first of what are now called field theories. It not only showed that electricity and magnetism were related; it also demonstrated that light waves resulted from an interplay of electric and magnetic fields. It was the first big step from the billiards-ball universe of Sir Isaac Newton to the universe of fields as we understand it today. But Heinrich Hertz had an additional insight. He realized that Maxwell's theory didn't just explain familiar visible light. The theory also implied that a similar interplay of electric and magnetic fields — what we now call electromagnetic radiation — should take place on other scales, producing waves of electromagnetic radiation that would be vastly longer than light waves. With only Maxwell's equations to guide him, Hertz came up with a simple device, combining an electrical induction coil and a Leyden jar (an early form of capacitor) that — in theory — could produce invisible electromagnetic waves. He paired this with another simple device, two brass spheres with a spark gap between them, to detect the waves. And they worked! As Hertz wrote in his 1889 report of his discovery, the sparks "are microscopically short, scarcely a hundredth of a millimeter; they last only about a millionth of a second. It almost seems absurd and impossible that they should be visible; but in a perfectly dark room they are visible to an eye which has been well rested in the dark." Heinrich Hertz had built the world's first radio transmitter and a receiver to pick up its signal. Physicists were, well â€¦ electrified by his achievement, which not only confirmed Maxwell's theory but also showed that light was only one small portion of a much broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Wireless Telegraphy and a Night to Remember At first, to the wider world, Heinrich Hertz's work was simply a cool scientific discovery with no practical applications. But in the early 1890s, per Columbia University, "Hertzian waves" as they were then called, caught the attention of a technology-minded young Italian, Guglielmo Marconi. For decades, people had been looking for some technology that would allow a telegraph link without wires — avoiding the cost of stringing lines and the constraint of fixed routes. But none of the early attempts at "wireless" communications worked out. By 1894, Marconi had improved on Hertz's purely experimental apparatus — and by the next year, he could send and receive signals across a distance of more than a mile, even with a hill in the way. Two years later, he applied for a British patent and demonstrated his technology to officials from the British post office and observers from the military. In 1897 Marconi launched a company called the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company. Communication from and to ships at sea was one of the first applications Marconi pursued, and a Marconi device was used as early as 1899 to summon rescue after a ship collision. Then, in 1912, the Titanic disaster showed the world the critical role that wireless communications could play in rescue at sea. Beyond Communications So, what are radio waves used for? The most common use is for communication. From the pioneering wireless telegraph to the cell phone, sending and receiving messages has been the most widespread and familiar application of radio-frequency technology. But other uses were also soon found for radio-frequency (RF) waves. All electromagnetic waves, including RF waves, carry energy and can be used to heat materials. For example, microwave ovens are an offshoot of radar technology, but according to the book Manufacturing Techniques for Polymer Matrix Composites (PMCs), the idea of radio-frequency heating has been used for resin and composite curing since the early 1900s. Radio waves can also be used for direction finding, a technique closely tied to Marconi's early insight about radio and maritime safety. Radio waves, like visible light, stream outward from a source — and with the right type of receiver, you can determine what direction they are coming from. Thus, radio beacons can serve as the equivalent of lighthouses but are detectable through fog. Since the 1920s, radio direction-finding has been particularly important in aviation. But today, a variant technique — using precise timing of satellite transmissions rather than direction of the transmission — is the basis for GPS location technology. Enter Radar If a radio transmitter can function as the equivalent of a lighthouse, it can also function as the equivalent of a spotlight. Per the National Weather Service, Heinrich Hertz himself had found that objects could reflect the electromagnetic waves he detected. In 1904, a German inventor even patented a method for ships to radio-detect hazards to navigation, though his device did not prove usable enough for service. In 1922, experimenters at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory near Washington D.C. found that passing ships on the Potomac and Anacostia rivers disrupted transmissions from their experimental high-frequency radio equipment. The research team recognized that the same principle might be used to detect enemy ships. Incremental but steady progress continued in the years that followed, and in 1937, the British government began development of the world's first radar early warning system. A high-power transmitter technology, called the magnetron, provided a crucial element of the system, which would be decisive in the Battle of Britain. Radar was the most dramatic wartime application of RF technology, but World War II gave an enormous boost to every aspect of the technology. The sheer amount of RF equipment built and used was impressive. Unsurprisingly, new RF technologies such as television — still semi-experimental before the war — took off in the postwar era. RF Technology Enters the Space Age The American Physical Society reports that, as researchers in the early 1930s were exploring the technology that would become radar, an engineer at Bell Labs was assigned to track down the sources of static that sometimes interfered with radio transmissions. The engineer, Karl Jansky, found that one major source of static was thunderstorms. But another source of static was more elusive, though curiously rhythmic. It slid across the sky every day and showed subtle shifts in the course of a year. Jansky finally determined that the signal came from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius — the same direction as the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We now know that the static Jansky detected is produced by turbulent gas swirling around the black hole at the center of our galaxy. From this, a new branch of science had been launched: radio astronomy. It would come fully into its own in the postwar years, powered by the new generation of ultra-sensitive receivers originally developed for wartime use. Another postwar development, the transistor, allowed development of far more compact RF equipment of all sorts. This also allowed high-powered and sophisticated radio and radar systems to be packed into missile nose cones and satellites. In time, the transistor would also make RF technology far more reliable and cheaper, setting the stage for the enormous proliferation of RF devices of all sorts, including smartphones and RFID tags for identifying lost pets. In spite of all this progress, there was a time in the late 20th century when RF technology seemed to be falling a bit out of fashion, at least in the popular culture. Broadcast TV networks were losing viewers to cable, while music tapes, CDs and wired internet downloads encroached on the popularity of radio. Even on the defense applications side, the hottest topic was what might be called "anti-RF" technology — better known as stealth technology, at the heart of which are shapes and materials that make aircraft and other vehicles less visible to enemy radar. The outward sidelining of RF technology was more about pop-culture image than reality, but it had some real consequences. Technology-minded kids were more likely to fiddle with computer equipment than radio equipment, as kids in the midcentury era had done. The downstream consequence was a shortage of RF engineers once RF technology became "in" again. "Wireless" Makes a Comeback In the last couple of decades, the apparent sidelining of RF technology has turned around in a big way. The most obvious sign of this is our phones. Mobile radiotelephones have existed for many decades, but earlier models were fairly bulky and expensive, and remained specialty devices. But cellphones were small, cheap and handy, and then compact computer technology turned them into smartphones. Suddenly wireless, which had over time become an archaic word for "radio," became the hottest thing going. While the sheer number and variety of RF devices used in everyday life has continued to proliferate, the defense sector also remains a leader in pushing the RF technology frontier. This has been the case since the dawn of the technology, when British army and navy observers witnessed Marconi's demonstration of radio in 1896. In a crisis or in combat, timely and reliable information is always precious. Highly mobile modern warfare has made the wireless information battlefield more critical than ever, while posing the toughest challenges for technology systems as well as their operators. At the same time, defense research is exploring entirely new RF technologies. Every RF receiver since Heinrich Hertz's experimental rig, for example, has used some form of antenna to pick up the signal. But recent works with quantum effects that produce vastly bloated "Rydberg atoms," highly sensitive to RF frequencies, could provide an entirely new way to detect RF signals, from radar beams to radio transmissions, with capabilities no conventional antenna system can match. Conventional antennas, for example, must be scaled in proportion to the RF waves they detect, meaning that low-frequency signals can only be detected by bulky antennas. Quantum RF technology, however, allows compact scanners to detect even long-wave signals — denying a spectrum "hiding place" for hostile transmissions. At the same time, quantum technology can allow friendly forces to stay a jump ahead of enemy attempts to jam their communications. Between the proliferation of RF applications and the development of entirely new technologies, the great pioneering age of RF engineering, it seems, may still lie ahead of us. <p class="Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

From Heinrich Hertz to WiFi: Tripping the Light Fantastic

Some organizations have a history of being innovative; others do not. Younger organizations are more open to change and more likely to innovate as they are not constrained by long-standing and established practices. However, younger firms are at a disadvantage with respect to innovation compared to more established companies that have stronger relationships with customers, more manufacturing experience in reducing costs and more experienced employees with a larger knowledge base, all of which can improve the company's ability to generate innovation.[1] But many successful large firms can experience structural inertia (rigidity of organizations' practices and specifications) and become bureaucratic, which stifles their ability to innovate. Thus, the paradox for the modern industrial corporation is that, in order to grow, or even to survive, it is necessary to undertake technological change — change that is disruptive to its stable state. Innovative Attributes What are the characteristics of a highly innovative company? Flourishing innovation can be attributed to corporate structural arrangements[2][3][4] (for example, organizational adaptability, matrix organizations, job rotation programs and innovation banks) that enable an enterprise of effective social networks, such as integrated communication channels, communities of practice, internal expos and forums, employee culture publications and access to distinguished scientists. These types of organizations also tend to cultivate supporting cultural attributes for innovation — entrepreneurial values, calculated risk taking, tolerance of failure, collaboration and employee recognition and rewards — that facilitate working together to incorporate technical change for the corporation. Enabling the Innovation Process We can think of the innovation process as having three major phases: creativity, prototype design and testing, and diffusion to adopters. Previous case studies on advanced materials at Northrop Grumman provide strong evidence of the influences of organizational arrangements and an effective social enterprise in developing and advancing game-changing technologies throughout these phases.[5][6] In addition, champions (such as creative scientists, entrepreneurial project managers, executive sponsors and end-user adopters) will typically emerge throughout the three phases of the innovation process to promote and advance innovative technology. The Creative Phase: Several structural and social factors within organizations have a major influence in sparking the creativity of individual scientists. Organizational structures that provide interpersonal communication channels and a corporate climate marked by collaboration across levels promote creativity. Matrix organizations, in which mid-level employees report to both a project manager and a functional manager, force cross-area communication.[7] Organizations with internally recognized and accessible senior technical staff members, such as subject matter experts and fellows, will facilitate social networking and technical discussions that create new ideas and increase the innovation rate. This informal organization, not generally shown on org charts, consists of ad hoc problem-solving teams of employees from different functions who exchange information and provide support for innovation. Prototype Design and Testing Phase: Unlocking the value of creative ideas often requires a new design and testing a new prototype.[8] Typically, the program manager or the corporate "intrapreneur"[9] will assemble a working team and procure funds to convert the creative idea into working prototypes to verify its value. However, the intrapreneur's success in building the innovation tends to be as much a function of how well external relations are handled as of the technical feasibility of the idea itself. It's critically important to keep supporters up to date on the project and its success, protect the group from outside interference and handle any subtle threats or opposition that could jeopardize the project. Hence, in practice — contrary to popular narratives about innovation being the result of an extraordinary, heroic inventor — innovation is a social enterprise. There is no "I" in innovation.[10] The Diffusion Phase: The culmination of innovation is the transfer of a product value to the potential adopters who will exploit the innovation and incorporate it as an ongoing organization practice. This is the most critical phase of the innovation process. Studies have indicated that, again, social practices make the principal difference, even more than the technical value of the innovation.[11][12] Because of perceived risks or entrenched ideas and/or specifications, the innovation might be seen as controversial, and the target adopters might even refuse to use it.

The Sociology of Innovation at a Large Corporation

Imagine bringing home a piece of "some-assembly-required" furniture from IKEA and discovering, to your utter delight, that your new table or stereo console actually assembles itself. Or that those new shades for your home windows autonomously close themselves at night and open themselves in the morning. Both of these fantasies may be coming soon to a city near you, thanks to 4D printing technology. And both may be part of a new paradigm of smart city technology.   Paradigm Shift   4D printing was first defined on the TED stage in 2013 by Skylar Tibbits, an assistant professor of design research at MIT and founder of the school's Self Assembly Lab.    "4D printing is multi-material 3D printing plus a new capability called transformation," Tibbits explained. "We program 3D materials to transform their shape, properties or even their function autonomously in response to external stimuli such as heat, moisture, light, vibration or electromagnetic energy." These new materials, he added, can actually build themselves.   Tibbits emphasized, however, that 4D printing — the fourth dimension is time — is no longer strictly about printing. It includes many types of production techniques such as printing, lamination, injection molding and even knitting.   "The unifying concept is that we are integrating materials that change their behavior in response to external stimuli," Tibbits said.   Material Differences   Tibbits is careful to distinguish the 4D work being done in his Self Assembly Lab from traditional smart city technology.   "The conventional approach to building 'smart' cars, 'smart' shoes, or 'smart' buildings has been to add a bunch of robotics — sensors, actuators, processors — to that application," he said. "What we are proposing is eliminating all of the robotics, making the same 'smart' product, but doing it strictly through materials." Eliminating those traditional electronics can reduce a product's weight and cost, simplify its design and improve its reliability, he added.   Promising Apps   To date, Tibbits and his team have explored multiple applications of 4D printing to future smart cities, primarily in the areas of building materials, transportation and adaptable infrastructure.   For example, they developed a new paradigm for water delivery in which pipes — sans pumps or valves — can expand or contract on their own to change capacity or flow rate or even undulate to move water themselves. For cars, they have developed self-morphing skins that adapt their aerodynamic shape in response to increased airflow, air pressure, etc. And for coastal cities dealing with beach erosion caused by rising sea levels, they are working with researchers in the tropical island nation of Maldives to develop a system of underwater structures that use wave energy to create sand accumulation in strategic locations. This technology could be used to literally grow new islands or to rebuild beaches.   Industry Resistance   Unfortunately, 4D work remains largely a laboratory demonstration science. Its biggest limiting factor, as Tibbits sees it, is human adaptation, not the technology itself.   "4D printing is really just a different way of designing and making things," he said. Historically, engineers have been focused on making things that do NOT move. By contrast, Tibbits' team is focused on making highly active garments, buildings, cars and planes that are always moving, always transforming, always morphing and adapting to their environment.   "The limitation is not about the fundamental technology or material performance. It's more about getting people to understand what's possible," said Tibbits.   Physics First   The notion of using 4D materials to protect buildings from earthquakes — imagine stiff structural materials that transform into resilient, shock-absorbing materials in response to vibration — remains tantalizing. The reality, however, is that the technology is still constrained by physics.   "4D objects need to be made from relatively soft materials such as polymers that can change shape rapidly in response to external stimuli," explained Jerry Qi, professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. "Unfortunately, these softer materials do not perform well in applications such as buildings or highway structures that have to support a lot of weight."   Stiffer materials such as stainless steel, concrete or iron are more practical for structural applications, he continued, but they generally do not respond quickly enough to external stimuli, which limits their usefulness as 4D materials.   A more achievable, near-term application in tomorrow's smart city, suggests Qi, might be to embed 4D printed sensors in the exterior shell of electronic devices. "With 4D printing, you could integrate a thermometer, for example, in your bedside clock radio in a simple, elegant way while making that device more adaptive to its environment," he said.   Scale Matters   Other issues to consider, said Howon Lee, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers University, are the scale of the object being produced and the capabilities of the 3D printing device. The key factor here is called resolution, i.e. the smallest feature you can print in detail.   "The larger the object you hope to print," he explained, "the larger your smallest feature size will be." Larger feature size means that molecules have to travel farther within the material to effect the desired transformation, which limits a 4D object's ability to change quickly.   "If the length or thickness of a 4D object becomes 10 times larger, for example, its response time will become 100 times slower," said Lee.   He equated this dilemma to trying to print a large-scale photograph using a digital file that contains only a small number of pixels, a situation that produces a coarse and "out-of-focus" image. The best approach is either to limit the size of your 4D printed object or to use a 3D printer that can print features with higher resolution.   Lee and his research team at Rutgers are trying to resolve this size limitation of 4D objects by decoupling the overall response time of 4D objects from their underlying physics. One way, he suggests, is to embed a series of smaller 4D objects with a characteristically shorter response time within a larger object. By placing these smaller objects strategically, Lee believes they can create larger objects that morph on the faster time scale of the smaller objects.   Fad or Future?   So will 4D printing become a ubiquitous part of the future or languish as a passing fad?   "The most important property for moving any research out of the lab into commercially viable products is reliability," said Lee. "A product has to be proven to be functional, durable, and reliable for the long haul. If it is not reliable, no one will buy it." Proving that reliability, he adds, will fall on the shoulders of investors and third-party testers.   Even more important to the future, however, will be industry awareness. For most people, it remains a very new concept.   "People tend to think of solutions to a problem only in terms of what they know," said Lee. "Once they become aware of 4D printing, they realize that their problem could be solved easily with this technology. Our challenge, therefore, is to disseminate knowledge about the technology, get more people involved in the field, and encourage them to collaborate with 4D industry and university experts to discover smart solutions to their most urgent problems."   If you'd like to add a new dimension to your career, please check out the latest opportunities at www.careers.northropgrumman.com. 

4D Printing Promises Smarter Cities

The Rydberg sensor is a technology rooted in the fundamental structure of nature on the smallest scales that points to a complete revolution in the detection of radio waves. And it may be coming soon to that cell phone in your hand.
The current cell phone radio frequency network is an engineering marvel that most of us never think twice (or even once) about — except when a call gets dropped and we find ourselves talking into dead air. The engineers who designed and operate the cellular network work very hard to maintain it, but let's take a look at this new technology and how it may change cell service forever.
Switching Heavy Traffic
As outlined by UCSB, a cellular handset (aka your phone) contains a compact, low-powered two-way radio, with sufficient range to connect to a nearby "base station" mounted on a cellular tower. The base station, in turn, uses higher-powered long-range equipment to connect to broader regional and global networks.
The whole point of this system is to enable users to move around freely, including moving from one base station's reception area to another's. According to Dr. Sid Ghosh of Northrop Grumman, the normal sequence of operations when making a phone call on the move is as follows:

    You make a call and your phone connects to and communicates with the nearest cell tower.
    If you move, you step out of the range of the first tower.
    Your phone seamlessly connects to another nearby tower.
    You continue your call completely unaware that this just happened.

All of this works impressively well, says Ghosh, and a call being dropped during handoff is "quite rare." But mobility does put challenging demands on cell phone radio frequency technology. "When you are driving or on a train," explains Ghosh, "the handovers tend to get tricky since the user may not be optimally located for cell tower coverage."
Even if dropped calls are rare, multiply the basic technology challenge by the number of calls being made, and the problem of dropped calls and generally poor cell phone reception becomes serious — especially when it's your call that gets dropped or garbled.
The Antenna Fiddling Challenge
A key component of any radio frequency detector is the antenna that picks up the signal. This is, in principle, simply a length of wire. If the wire is the right length and oriented in the right direction, the electric field of passing radio waves will trigger an electric current in the wire, which can be detected and amplified.
This has been the principle of every standard radio receiver since, as noted by the AAAS, Heinrich Hertz first demonstrated and reported on the existence of radio waves in 1889. But it is not ideal for rapid and frequent handoffs from one cell phone radio frequency base station to the next. The thing about antennas is that their ability to pick up a signal depends on the antenna's physical size and geometry, which need to be adjusted to pick up a signal well.
Anyone who's moved a radio around to improve reception or fiddled with old-fashioned TV rabbit ears will appreciate that this can be tricky. But as Ghosh explains, quantum physics now provides an entirely different way of detecting radio waves that can revolutionize cell phone reception.
Giant Atoms and a Tiny Detector
Under the right circumstances and hit with the right frequency of laser light, atoms of rare alkaline metals, such as cesium and rubidium, can swell up enormously to a diameter of about 1/25,000 of an inch — still submicroscopic but about 10,000 times the size of ordinary atoms.
This atomic bloat is an effect of quantum mechanics. The atomic nucleus is unchanged, but the orbits of its outermost electrons are "pumped up" by the laser and pushed outward to the atom's far outer envelope, where they are only tenuously bound to the nucleus. This loose binding makes these outer electrons extremely sensitive to electric fields, such as those produced by radio waves.
In effect, the radio signal's fluctuating signal "jiggles" the loosely bound outer electrons, producing changes in the optical spectrum of the Rydberg atoms, and an optical sensor can detect these spectrum changes. It adds up to a nifty physics bank shot: radio waves jiggle the outer electrons of Rydberg atoms, producing spectrum changes in the (vastly shorter wavelength) optical band.
Moving Beyond the Antenna
What makes this one weird physics trick so important to radio technology is that — unlike any conventional radio antenna — Rydberg atoms do not need to be arranged in a particular length or pointing in a particular direction to pick up a signal. The only thing that needs to be adjusted is the frequency of laser light used to pump up the Rydberg atoms. This property drew the particular interest of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), most famous for having developed the internet.
Changing a laser frequency is a much faster and simpler process than physically adjusting the size and orientation of an antenna, particularly when the receiver is on the move and must continually switch frequency as it passes from base station to base station. Size also matters when it comes to mobile radio devices. Conventional antennas need to be proportionate in size to the radio waves they are intended to detect — a major constraint on the available radio frequency spectrum when it comes to devices, like cell phones, that must be physically compact.
In contrast, explains Ghosh, "Rydberg atoms can act as electrically small antennas and detect the modulation of a carrier wave. They can detect and demodulate AM, FM and phase modulation over a broad range of carrier frequencies, making them a promising platform for advanced communication receivers."
Moreover, he adds, "the Rydberg receiver is frequency agnostic over a wide range of operating frequencies, and thus, the size of a Rydberg receiver does not need to scale with operating frequency to maintain optimal performance." The current standard for Rydberg sensor elements, notes Ghosh, is that the sensor must fit inside one cubic centimeter. This is far more compact than most conventional antennas.
The Future of Rydberg Sensors
The Rydberg sensor technology is currently still in its research and development stage in the Quantum Apertures program. But as Ghosh outlines, the gas cell technology for producing Rydberg atoms is maturing rapidly, while similar rapid development is taking place in "adjacent peripheral technology development … in the commercial optical communication domain that's helping move the concept of a Rydberg receiver toward a viable product that can operate over a wide range of frequencies in various application scenarios."
As reported by EE Times, the wide scope of capabilities offered by Rydberg sensor technology has drawn the interest of NASA as well as DARPA, pointing toward space-based as well as ground-based applications. The possible range of applications is enormous, but few are more ubiquitous than the cell phone network, which makes it likely that people will soon be holding Rydberg sensor technology in their hands. But with improved reliability and performance, they'll probably spend even less time thinking about the technological marvel they're holding than they do now.
 
Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Learn more about life at Northrop Grumman, and check out our career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology and engineering. 

Transforming Cell Phone Radio Frequency

Laser technology is a staple of science fiction and our daily lives. This 60-year-old technology continues to improve, and engineers are still developing brand new applications for lasers. "Lasers are really hot right now," says Carly Wright, an optical engineer who works in the laser engineering group at Northrop Grumman. Lasers are used in medical procedures, beauty treatments, telecommunications, industrial applications, robotics, autonomous vehicles, toys, scientific research and more. Due to their power and precision, lasers are also being developed for military use. "There's a lot of interest in putting lasers on a wide variety of platforms to defeat a really wide variety of targets," says Wright. How Do Lasers Work? Although the term "laser" is widely understood today, it was originally an acronym for light amplification by a simulated emission of radiation. A laser produces a very narrow beam of light, but it's not just any light. So, how do lasers work? First, you have to understand the fundamentals of light. Each color of light has a different wavelength on electromagnetic spectrum. Sunlight looks like white light, but it actually includes a mixture of all the different colors, or wavelengths of light. Lasers are different, NASA explains, because they produce a narrow beam of light in which all of the light waves have very similar wavelengths. This alignment of waves makes laser beams narrow, bright and extremely precise. Think of a flashlight versus a laser pointer. A beam of light from a standard flashlight spreads out, but a laser pointer stays focused wherever you aim it. These properties mean laser beams can travel very long distances and concentrate their energy on a very small area. A Brief History of Lasers Today's laser technology is made possible because of the fundamental principles of modern physics that Max Planck and Albert Einstein and their peers discovered in the early 1900s. According to Interesting Engineering, at the turn of the century, Planck figured out the relationship between energy and the frequency of radiation. He described that energy couldn't just be transferred in any amount (as presumed by classical physics). Instead, energy is emitted or absorbed in discrete packets, which we now call quanta. Einstein then expanded on Planck's insight and proposed that "electrons could be stimulated into emitting light of a particular wavelength." Although they weren't specifically looking to define what is a laser, scientists continued to experiment with light over the next few decades, with the invention of holography in 1948, and the first proof of Einstein's principles in action in 1954, with the MASER (Microwave Amplification of Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Laser technology truly took off in the early 1960s. During this time period, the term laser was created, and the first practical laser was prototyped and patented. Scientists developed several types of lasers, including the first continuous-beam laser, the solid-state (semiconductor injection) laser, and the carbon dioxide laser. In 1961, lasers were used for medical treatment for the first time, in an optical surgery that was faster and more comfortable than conventional treatments. Today, lasers are such a common medical tool that they are used to remove everything from tumors to unwanted hair. They're also used in endless other facets of our lives, including telecommunications, consumer electronics, law enforcement, entertainment, manufacturing and military equipment. Lasers in Real Life When laser weapons are portrayed in science fiction, there's often a bright flash of light that shoots opponents with a "pew, pew!" sound. In reality, Wright explains that lasers are stealthier than the ray gun you might be imagining. As an optical engineer, she spends most of her time working in a lab experimenting with the laser source of a direct energy (DE) weapon. Not only are lasers silent, but some are also invisible. "The lasers that we work with, are not visible to the eye," she says. "So when you think of laser weapons, you think of a red laser shooting through space. That's not the case. It doesn't make a sound."  Make no mistake: Light, especially when concentrated in a laser, is hot and dangerous. Wright has watched a laser drill a precise hole through a brick. She works in a class 1,000 clean room, wearing a full "bunny suit" of protective gear including a mask, gown, booties, gloves and laser goggles. In addition to their precision and power to zap objects with heat, lasers have another property that makes them a powerful weapon. Wright says, "As long as you have electricity or fuel, you can use your lasers, and there's not a finite number of shots that you can take." That's particularly valuable for the naval battle space, where refueling at sea is challenging. Despite all the awesome new technology that scientists and engineers are developing today, lasers remain a hot topic.

The Future of Laser Technology (Hint: It's Bright)

These days, data is easy to collect, but harder to interpret. With the Internet of Things and digitization of information, there are billions of data points that can lead to effective solutions for a wide variety of industries. But what use is all this unstructured data? Such massive quantities can be overwhelming, and the value gets diluted. Computer science techniques, such as machine learning and blockchain, can help make sense of the data by finding patterns that can predict future behaviors. Predictive analytics allow people to make advanced predictions about unknown future events based on data from the past. Not Just for Marketers Businesses can use predictive analytics to understand their customers and forecast sales, and now a wide range of organizations are using data to forecast trends and behaviors, according to CIO. It's not only about predicting future revenue, but also getting specific enough to have the right inventory in the right places. For example, a car company can analyze data to predict which models and colors will sell at each dealership. Another more traditional way to use data for marketing is for targeting advertising and offering discounts to customers who are likely to buy something. Retail companies track customer browsing and purchasing patterns, and algorithms generate customer segments so companies can offer discounts or adjust prices in a precise, targeted way. But similar techniques can provide insight into different fields, such as manufacturing, healthcare and energy. Aerospace companies, medical researchers, financial firms and logistics companies have all found effective solutions derived from predictive analytics. Healthcare While marketers may use big data to predict potential customers' behavior, healthcare providers use data to understand their patients and diseases. For example, predictive analytics can inform scientists on which strains to include in a vaccine like the flu shot. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the viruses in the flu vaccine are selected each year based on surveillance data that indicates which viruses are currently circulating and forecasts which viruses are most likely to circulate during the coming season. Recent studies have shown that algorithms can predict and diagnose diseases such as cardiovascular illnesses and cancer with incredible accuracy. In a study published in Nature, deep learning models used 46,864,534,945 data points from electronic health records to predict patient outcomes. The algorithms were highly accurate at predicting whether patients would die in the hospital; if patients would need to be hospitalized again in the next month; "prolonged length of stay ... and all of a patient's final discharge diagnoses." Predictive Maintenance Mechanical failures are bad for any business, but predicting problems before they occur can save time and money. That's why, according to CIO, manufacturing companies are starting to analyze data to optimize raw material delivery and predict when different machines will fail so operators can be proactive and keep manufacturing supply chains moving. Commercial airlines are especially interested in predictive analytics. In aerospace, predictive maintenance can help avoid flight delays, and algorithms can help pilots with fuel efficiency. In an industry where timeliness is essential, and fuel is one of the biggest business expenses, sifting through data can quickly pay off, said Aviation Today. Aircraft are already equipped with avionics that collect data. The next step is to analyze all that data to find patterns that reveal inefficiencies. Aviation Today reported that Qantas Airways uses a data analytics platform based on 10 billion data points to provide automated updates that "identify fuel efficiency gains and offer operational insights" to help pilots reduce fuel burn and emissions. Pilots can see a visual representation of their performance (and that of other pilots) at different times throughout a flight to see where and when they could be saving fuel. Similarly, China Airlines used a fleet-planning platform that "led to a 10% increase in line management process efficiencies," which resulted in an annual cost savings of $560,000. The airline also "achieved an average reduction of 30 days layover in scheduled aircraft maintenance, resulting in a savings of $1.3 million," Aviation Today reported.  Distributing Resources  UPS is using 1 billion data points per day to cross-reference with historical delivery trends to predict future demand, according to the Wall Street Journal. By analyzing details like package volumes and routes, logistics companies can direct resources so that the right number of trucks are available at the locations where demand will be the highest at any given time. Energy companies use algorithms to forecast "long-term price and demand ratios," as well as to "determine the impact of weather events, equipment failure, regulations and other variables on service costs," according to CIO. Retail and manufacturing industries also use similar techniques to make sure they don't tie up their money in unnecessary inventory. Ultimately, an entire smart city can use data to improve quality of life for its citizens.

Predictive Analytics Provides Effective Solutions in Surprising Industries

 Advertising is all about finding the connection between people and the products, brands or adventures they love or may not realize they've been missing in their life. Beyond the idealized version of marketing found on television, advertisers are being challenged in new and exciting ways to find that story. Machine learning is being embraced for its diversity and power. In some cases, the tech is capable of being more human than human by understanding our needs before we even thought about lunch. Smarter Advertising The same machine learning that's causing an artificial intelligence revolution across various industries is also creating a huge impact in the world of advertising by powering decisions at an enormous scale. The sheer amount of data that's now available, and improves over time, lets advertisers make better informed decisions leading to campaigns that are better tailored to an individual. Whether it's called machine learning or artificial intelligence, AI is a powerful tool being implemented in a lot of fascinating ways. Object detection and facial recognition in photos is one such example.  Over time, the tool gets honed through new parameters that refine the process to the point where the algorithm can not only detect faces but also identify friends and family members. Recognizing a brother or a mother adds another layer of personalization to future advertising. If an algorithm identifies a seasonal family outing, appropriate campaigns can be developed highlighting perfect choices for that summer cruise or the fall camping trip. In advertising, algorithms are being used to identify customers and their behavior to create better targeted campaigns. The technology is also a way to glimpse into the future without a crystal ball through predictive choices backed by millions of data points. Learn what each app may be collecting and how searches affect what you see. Follow that up with an experiment where you try to identify ads or other personalized marketing as you browse the web.Better Marketing Customer segmentation uses algorithms to continuously improve content, emails and website offerings based on user habits. Every action performed by an individual is considered a data point that AI can use to adapt and refine its approach. Because a computer can go through billions of these data points, there can now be a greater population of individuals with the same behavior, income, geographic region and preferences. Advertisers are now basing marketing campaigns on hundreds, or thousands, of examples of behavior that's similar to your own. For advertisers, there's a greater confidence that what they are sending is actually going to the right audience. The future of AI in advertising is going to be all about you. Advertising has always struggled with personalizing campaigns, but now the consumer is doing the work for them through data. A smarter smartphone assistant in the future can monitor your calendar and identify how you've worked two years straight without a vacation. The assistant could create an alert and, based on the apps on your phone, suggest potential itineraries. Additionally, a preliminary shopping list could be created for the trip. Those principles could be applied to your favorite clothing brand sending you an offer based on the last time you purchased a shirt or a pair of jeans. A faded shirt in a photo on social media could prompt an alert. Even what you watch after a long day at work could be tailored through AI based on social media posts and calendar invites.Behavior, such as time spent on particular websites or what sites you most frequent, can be tracked; brands can learn how to connect with an audience using predictive analytics. Algorithms are capable of creating a best guess for what a user will do next because the model has so much information on what the individual has done in the past. It's a way to develop future campaigns with better accuracy, which is a huge sigh of relief for any marketer at the beginning of their next big launch or sale. Machine learning is rapidly transforming many industries, from marketing to insurance, because of its versatility and unprecedented scale. But behind every great program or technology are engineers, developers and programmers: the real brains behind any artificial intelligence.

How Machine Learning Makes Advertising More Human

Facial recognition technology has come a long way. But how does this form of identification work? How accurate is the process, and what's next for this face-first function? How Does Facial Recognition Work? Facial recognition tools often show up in movies, but they're rarely depicted correctly. On film, the process is easy: The heroes find a blurry image of a crowd that contains their potential bad guy, then they use facial recognition software to "enhance" the image. This almost instantly returns a host of information about the subject, from their name and date of birth to their address, favorite color, and complete Spotify playlist. In practice, it's not quite so simple. So how does facial recognition work? First, facial detection software scans an image for characteristics that indicate a human face — eyes, noses, ears, mouth, etc. Then, facial recognition tools convert faces in the image into a string of digital numbers of points, sometimes called a "faceprint." Finally, deep learning algorithms compare the generated faceprint with hundreds or thousands of other faceprints in a database to determine their similarity. If one (or more) matches are found, they're reported by the system along with "similarity scores" that indicate their level of likeness to the digital faceprint. The use of deep learning algorithms is critical here; they allow facial recognition systems to become more accurate over time as more information is stored and processed. When it comes to accuracy, facial recognition has seen marked improvements. In 2014, the most accurate algorithm had an error rate of 4.1%. By 2020, this number fell to just 0.08%. It's worth noting, however, that positive matches aren't guaranteed even with better technology. A 2019 study of algorithms found they were 10 to 100 times more likely to return false positives for women and people of color while recent research found that facial alterations due to plastic surgery can significantly affect the efficacy of facial recognition. What's Next for Facial Recognition Technology? While challenges such as privacy concerns remain a roadblock to the adoption of facial recognition frameworks at scale, the technology does offer the potential for advancement in other areas. Consider the use of facial recognition in advertising. A system implemented at the Piccadilly Circus lights in London leveraged facial recognition technology to pinpoint the age, gender and mood of shoppers passing by and then tailor advertisements based on this information. While the initiative faced pushback from privacy groups over the use of this data without consent, the concept sets the stage for more targeted facial advertising — so long as users are provided with details about how their faceprint will be used and are given the chance to opt-in. Automakers are also looking to leverage facial recognition as a way to personalize driving experiences. At the CES convention in Las Vegas, several car companies demonstrated facial recognition systems capable of recognizing vehicle owners and unlocking car doors as they approach. These systems could also be used to customize seat and mirror positions and even provide audible signals if they detect facial movements that suggest drivers are falling asleep. There's also a growing market for the use of facial recognition in autonomous vehicles; cars may be in charge of the driving, but owners don't want anyone just taking off on a joyride. Robust facial identification could offer a measure of security for autonomous vehicle owners while also making it easy for them to get on the road ASAP. Another application for facial recognition is health care. By analyzing a patient's face, algorithms can look for specific features that indicate the presence of rare diseases, in turn allowing patients to seek treatment or doctors to take targeted action. This is more than just speculation: In 2018, medical geneticist Omar Abdul-Rahman used a face recognition app to help confirm a case of Mowat-Wilson syndrome in a 3-year-old boy. The disease often presents with deep-set eyes, uplifted earlobes and a rounded nose, but it is so rare that many doctors have never seen a case. Using the Face2Gene diagnostic app for rare genetic disorders returned a potential match for Mowat-Wilson, and the parents of the boy agreed to a test, which came back positive. While these applications will never eliminate the need for in-person examination by doctors, they offer the potential to help confirm diagnoses or provide insight for individuals via telehealth connections. Putting Your Best Face Forward Like it or not, facial recognition is here to stay. From a consumer perspective, expect this technology to come with increasing controls around informed user consent even as automakers and other manufacturers look to leverage facial recognition as a way to provide customized user experiences. When it comes to health care, meanwhile, the future of facial recognition could help improve diagnostic accuracy, streamline symptom identification and shorten the time required for effective treatment. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology, and engineering.

About Face: The Future of Facial Recognition Technology

Infrastructure is designed to last many years, but what happens when roads crumble, bridges crack and new research presents better options for electric grids and water systems? Infrastructure technology — like self-healing concrete, embedded sensors, high-speed rail and alternative energy sources — is available, but introducing it to a busy city is complicated and expensive. With our world becoming highly technological, there are tons of instances where we see modernization occurring with old infrastructures. Transportation technology and synthetic biology could change the way cities operate, but is it better to slowly chip away and replace, or just start anew? Out With the Old As infrastructure technology evolves, old infrastructures can either be repaired or replaced entirely. Any improvement is likely to disrupt the lives of the people around the infrastructure, especially massive projects such as a highway overhaul. Take Boston's Big Dig project, for example.  The goal of the Big Dig was to revamp the city's traffic flow in an ambitious attempt to modernize streets that were not originally designed for automobiles. In the end, according to the Boston Globe, the project was eight years behind schedule, billions of dollars over budget and included infamous mistakes such as design flaws, faulty concrete and a ceiling collapse that killed a car passenger in one of the new tunnels. Despite these colossal failures, the Globe concludes that there is a "grudging appreciation" for the Big Dig, which eventually wrangled traffic and created some of the most "valuable urban real estate" in the nation. Several infrastructure overhauls are in progress today all around the world. Business Insider described the newly expanded Panama Canal, whose construction tripled the capacity of the waterway 102 years after it was built. London is upgrading its underground system with the Crossrail project, the largest construction project ever undertaken in Europe. Business Insider reports, "In 2026, an Iraqi skyscraper known as 'The Bride' will feature a 'veil' of solar panels and produce as much energy as it consumes. It'll be 3,779 feet tall and contain parks, offices, restaurants, and a rail system." In With the New Every year, U.S. roads and highways handle more than 4.3 trillion passenger miles, according to Transportation Creates Jobs. Highway upgrades could pose a serious issue for travelers. This is where technology comes in. Instead of tearing out an entirely new highway, for example, older sections of the road could be replaced with self-healing concrete. According to CNN, researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands created bioconcrete, which is mixed just like regular concrete but also includes a special healing agent. Concrete is the world's most popular building material, but it will eventually crack and let water inside, which can lead to a collapse. This new concrete includes bacteria. When it gets wet, the bacteria will germinate and produce limestone which conveniently closes up the cracks. Infrastructure for Smart Cities Another gradual modernization option is adding sensors to existing structures. According to Mashable, cities such as Atlanta and San Diego are already adding sensors to bridges and street lights, which can be used to monitor things like traffic, air quality and bridge stability. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our current national infrastructure a score of D+, but says plans for improvements include a smart grid for water, which puts sensors under manhole covers that can tell information about pressure, and placing sensors on customers' faucets to capture information about water quality. At the moment, our cities are already filled with sensors. According to The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), although there are already as many as 100+ million sensors in smartphones, cars, and homes in a major city, these do not form an infrastructure because the sensors are unrelated. If a system is created for sharing data, those individual sensing points could work together to provide a truly modern infrastructure for a smart city. 

Sensors, Sensors Everywhere: Infrastructure Technology

 May is National Inventors Month, celebrating the drive and determination of forward thinkers who go beyond the expected to create new and disruptive technologies. And while it's always beneficial to look forward and consider "what's next" for innovation, it's also worth considering what's current (and what's come before) — here's a look at seven inventions changing our world for the better.1) The Wheel (Asia) Every list has to start somewhere, and what better place to kick off a list of influential inventions than with the foundation of them all, the wheel. Credit goes to the Mesopotamians around 3500 B.C., who figured out that round was better than square when it came to — well, just about everything. Today it's almost impossible to find technologies that haven't been influenced by this circular design, from vehicle tires and spinning gears to the fans and moving parts needed to empower modern tech advancements.2) Plant-powered Lighting (South America) Jumping to present day, consider the work of Universidad de Ingenieria y Tecnologia (UTEC). This Peruvian institution of higher learning created the Plantalamparas, a lamp that captures the electrons produced when plant waste decomposes in soil, then stores them in batteries and uses them to power LED bulbs. In a country where 42 percent of rural households don't have electricity, this is a huge step forward.3) The Frazier Lens (Australia) This one comes from our friends Down Under — Australian inventor Jim Frazier created a deep-focus lens that allowed both the subject and background to be in focus at the same time. Before Frazier's invention, moviemakers had to pick one or the other, but his contribution offered the best of both worlds. He won an Academy Award for his invention in 1998, and the lens is still used around the world for film and television projects. 4) Illness-detecting Jackets (Africa) In Uganda, 27,000 children under age 5 die of pneumonia every year. Part of the problem? Many cases are misdiagnosed as malaria, causing proper treatment to be delayed or never administered. But Ugandan engineer Brian Turyabagye developed a solution, known as the Mamaope jacket. It works like this: An app-connected stethoscope is put into a vest and used to record the patient's temperature and breathing rate. Then, audio files are analyzed for telltale signs of pneumonia, yielding diagnosis rates three to four times faster than typical examinations and significantly reducing human error.5) The Internet (North America) In the 1960s, researchers working for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) developed ARPANET, an internal communications network that used the concept of "packet switching" to transmit information. The rest is history — ARPANET was the predecessor of the modern internet, which now serves as the backbone of global communication and information transfer and is driving the adoption of new innovations such as the Internet of Things (IoT).6) Paper Transistors (Europe) Transistors are made of silicon, right? Portuguese scientists Elvira Fortunato and Rodrigo Martins have another idea: cheap, disposable paper-based transistors for electronic devices. The transistors use biodegradable, flexible paper as their foundation, and Fortunato's team has rebuilt an ink-jet printer to print out new transistors for solar cells, displays and biosensors. Not only does paper allow for cheap and rapid production but there's minimal waste when products reach end of life.7) Particles FROM BEYOND (Antarctica) Antarctica isn't known for its inventions, but there have been a number of remarkable discoveries made near the South Pole. As noted by the National Science Foundation, the "IceCube" detection tool confirmed the existence of high-energy neutrinos, which likely originated from outside the solar system, thanks to the uniquely undisturbed nature of the Antarctic environment. The takeaway? Great inventions have no boundaries. And while necessity remains the mother of invention, the unique combination of human creativity and the drive to create a better world provides ample room for new discoveries, new innovation and new global impact. If you are looking for a company that'll let you be a part of the next great invention, check out these careers.

International Innovations: 7 Inventions Changing Our World

Increasingly, operators of vehicle fleets such as shared electric scooters, delivery trucks and school buses are turning to a technology called geofencing to ensure safe, efficient and appropriate use of their vehicles. The shrinking cost of the technology is also enabling smaller vehicles and professional assets to be tracked and managed cost-effectively.What Is Geofencing?According to Dev Bhatia, chief marketing officer for Momentum IoT, a geofence is a virtual border drawn around a location or area on a map. The perimeter of that border is set and managed typically by a fleet manager, using either a handheld or desktop computer application."To set up a geofence platform," he explains, "you need three things: a small 'edge' device that can establish the GPS location of an asset, a connection from that device to a cloud server, and a connection from the server to an application on a smartphone or desktop computer."Geofencing devices, which are attached to a vehicle or other asset for tracking, are usually about the size of a cellphone and enabled by a GPS chipset, adds Bhatia. They can be plugged into the power system of a vehicle or use small, portable batteries. The devices are usually leased to fleet operators for a few dollars per month, per vehicle.Thinking Outside the FenceThe benefits of geofencing are as varied as its applications. The edge devices are often paired with accelerometers, for example, to allow fleet managers to know not only where their vehicles are, but also when they stop and start moving.Operators of school bus fleets, for example, can use geofencing to ensure that bus drivers are not exceeding designated speed limits, leaving their designated routes or lingering too long in any one location, all of which can add expense and liability to a school district ledger. Geofencing can also help fleet managers monitor and verify the driving behavior of their bus operators should it ever be questioned by the local community.According to Bhatia, geofencing can also help fleet operators of utility trucks or plumbing trucks optimize their routing, which can enhance both operational efficiency and cash flow for the business."An operator of service trucks can drop a location pin at each job site, then create a geofence around each pin," he explains. "With a geofencing app, the fleet manager can then monitor when vehicles enter and exit those service locations and make real-time decisions about which truck is closest and most available to go to the next job site."Ensuring Safe, Responsible RidingMicromobility startup Superpedestrian uses geofencing to monitor the behavior of its LINK e-scooter riders.According to Lou Alejo, a company software engineer, Superpedestrian has recently introduced a new application called Pedestrian Defense that monitors both the speed and location of its scooter fleet at all times. This data helps ensure the safety of LINK riders and compliance with local city ordinances."Pedestrian Defense uses a combination of GPS data, scooter sensor data and machine learning to determine a scooter's location with pinpoint accuracy," says Alejo. "It then maps that data against rules for geofenced areas to ensure riders follow the local rules at all times."In cities where sidewalk riding of e-scooters is not allowed, for example, the app brings the LINK scooter to a full stop within seconds of a rider trying to ride it on the sidewalk. It also detects and prevents wrong-way riding and aggressive swerving. And at the end of a ride, it enforces safe parking of the scooter.Taking Care of BusinessAs the cost of producing and leasing geofencing technology has come down, observes Bhatia, so too has the size of objects and assets that can now be tracked with geofencing technology.His company offers a beacon-like device called a Toolie that can be attached to individual tools. A geofence set up around a GPS-enabled device on the truck carrying these tools can help a construction manager know, for example, if tools are no longer within the geofence and that they may have been left behind."Geofencing coupled with Toolies can definitely help fleet managers keep track of smaller, less expensive assets without the need for lots of real-time phone calls between the manager and his workers," observes Bhatia.Increasingly, he adds, geofences are also used to provide security for construction assets or other equipment assigned to a fixed location for a fixed period of time."We can set a geofence around an asset such as a light tower or a porta potty," Bhatia suggests. "If that equipment moves outside the geofence we have to assume either it's been stolen or an unauthorized person is messing with our equipment. This technology can definitely help manage costs for 'fleets' of stationary and mobile equipment alike."Adding Automation and FlexibilityGeofencing technology is also becoming more automated and hence better able to support dynamic urban requirements, notes Alejo."It used to be that geofences were either on all the time or off all the time for a given geographic location," he says. "We could change their status and the requirements for that zone, but that required a lot of manual technician time."Scheduled geofencing, which Alejo helped develop at Superpedestrian, changed all that.Now, he continues, a city can set up dynamic geofences around areas such as major league ballparks or schools. With scheduled geofencing, scooter riding might be allowed during non-school hours or on weekends, or in a city during the baseball offseason. Scheduling information loaded on the scooter, however, would enforce lower speed limits during school hours, or prevent any riding at all at times before, during and after games when pedestrian baseball fans might be entering or leaving a stadium."Scheduled geofencing definitely helps ensure safety for riders and pedestrians alike, and it helps cities feel like they've got greater control over the flow of traffic within their boundaries," says Alejo.Geofencing scheduling information is uploaded to LINK scooters on a regular or as-needed basis, he adds.Tracking What's NextIn Bhatia's estimation, geofencing technology will continue to get smaller, cheaper and more capable. And as that happens, the size and value of assets tracked and managed by geofences will also continue to shrink."People traditionally have associated geofencing technology with long-haul trucks, but as the costs and size of the technology shrink, we're just as likely to use it to manage fleets of golf carts or jackhammers," he suggests.So what is geofencing going to look like in the future? If the history of technology is any indicator, Bhatia says, humans will continue to come up with new and more innovative ways to apply geofencing technology."We're nowhere near the endpoint of use cases for geofencing technology in terms of size, cost or capability," he claims. "I can't wait to see what's next."Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Geofencing Technology Unleashes the Imagination of Fleet Operators

Will voice command technology replace keyboards? As voice search becomes more widely used, many futurists have theorized that soon we won't need keyboards, computer mice or buttons on devices. Instead, computer input could come exclusively from voice commands.  But some aren't so convinced. The mass extinction of a staple technology like a keyboard will likely be more gradual.  Predictions for Voice  While it might not be as extreme as a brain-computer interface, voice technology is eliminating the barriers between people and computers.  "What's clear to me today is that the keyboard in five years will be gone as an input device," Mark Tluszcz, a venture capitalist with a track record for successfully predicting technology, told CNBC.  Other tech experts have a more moderate outlook. According to The Conversation, voice interfaces still have limitations that can't be solved by better technology. Noise pollution is a challenge — voice assistants are getting better at ignoring background noise, but anyone who has attempted voice commands in a noisy environment will attest that it's not worth the hassle. Noise pollution goes both ways, because talking to your device in a public setting is creating noise that didn't exist just a few years ago.  The Conversation also points out that voice commands can be distracting. Researchers have found that voice commands derail your train of thought more than typing. While this is only a minor nuisance in most circumstances, it can be dangerous for driving. Recent studies found that when drivers used voice commands, they were distracted for nearly half a minute.  Popular Applications for Voice Command Technology  Cars  Many of today's vehicles are equipped with speech recognition controls that could improve safety by helping drivers keep their eyes on the road. Instead of texting or turning a radio nob while driving, you can tell your car what to do. According to language technology firm Globalme, your car's speech system could also tell you important messages. It could let you know when your car's gas tank or battery is low, and it could give you directions to the nearest gas station.  Military Technology  While we often consider voice commands for consumer goods, they are also improving military technology. The F-35 fighter aircraft is equipped with a speech recognition system that enables pilots to give the aircraft voice commands. Military Machine points out that this lets pilots focus on other mission-critical tasks instead of scrolling through the instrument panel.  Voice Assistants  Devices such as our cell phones and speakers are now equipped with voice search assistants such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. These tech giants already have hundreds of millions of pre-existing users, and the latest voice technology can be integrated into their devices with a simple software update, according to Globalme. With these updates, we can play music, look up a recipe and follow directions — all without lifting a finger.  Learning and Disability Assistance  Voice command technology can help people who are learning a new language practice pronunciation. Most importantly, according to The Conversation, voice interfaces help users with disabilities such as motor impairments, repetitive stress injuries (such as carpal tunnel) or dyslexia.  Future Applications: TBD  Even Tluszcz, the investor who is convinced that voice will soon replace typing, suggests that the future of voice command technology isn't guaranteed. He told CNBC that voice could either be "a nice add-on" for companies or a "cataclysmic change to the user experience." There's no doubt that voice recognition is growing, but we can't be certain how the growth will continue in the future.  The Conversation suggests that voice interfaces won't take over entirely, but they will be useful tools in our cars and as voice assistants through devices such as smart speakers.  There are so many ways that voice recognition is already being used, and likely many more applications in the future. But just like other technology overhauls such as word processors, smartphones and the internet, change won't happen overnight. How will voice search be used in the future? There are likely many applications we can't even imagine in the context of today. 

What Will Voice Command Technology Do Next?

Population studies for personalized medicine. Particle physics collisions. The internet of things, driven by omnipresent 24/7 smart devices. The exploding levels of data available across the globe makes data visualization a necessity. Only the data we can "see," after all, has value. But it's not all line graphs and bar charts. Many artists and even scientists themselves use creativity and imagination to reach new audiences. From an artist who explains flow dynamics through landscape sculpture to a tropical-disease researcher making an impact through sand art, data visualization brings the numbers alive. Why Visualize? Maybe you remember your first thrilling encounter with Excel, where a few clicks created "art" in the shape of graphs, pie charts and box-and-whisker plots. Suddenly the columns of numbers came to life and made sense. You can see this power amplified in infographics, such as this one on assistive technology: More eye-catching than lists of numbers, graphics help the viewer interpret and digest information intuitively. Fluid Dynamics in Motion What's more meaningful to you, a mathematical theorem    or a walk among the fountains in Alnwick Castle's Serpent Garden? Torricelli's equation shows that the speed of water leaving a container is a function of the height of the fluid above its exit point. Sculptor William Pye's Torricelli fountain in the Serpent Garden shows water jets falling in step with the columns of water that feed them. Both illustrate Torricelli's theorem of fluid dynamics, but only Pye's fountain shows data visualization at work. The equation explains what factors affect the magnitude of the jets. The fountain shows that shorter columns make smaller jets with fluid dynamics in action.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. Put On a Show Performances can also make data come to life. Medical researcher Shelly Xie learned all she could about sand art to teach people about schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease with as much global impact and burden as malaria. For her piece "Neglected: A Story of Schistosomiasis Infection in Ghana," Xie built a light table on which she could project images of sand being manipulated with her hands in a real-time animation that took her audience beyond medical textbooks and health statistics and into daily life in the schistosomiasis zone. Creating shapes and images in sand brought audiences face to face with the inevitability of disease in endemic areas in a way that raw data never could. Digital animation similarly helps visualize data. For example, while it's difficult to explain the complexity of cancer and how cells escape control as they grow, digital artists Ben Fry and Casey Reas capture the complexity of malignant transformation using algorithms to display protein signaling among cancer cells. Generated from clinical research lab data, growing webforms vividly depict how protein signaling changes, becoming more dysfunctional and more "cancerous." Entertainment, Education, Information It's not all about entertainment, though. Data visualization translates information into more accessible forms. University of Toronto astrophysicists translated data from the Cassini spacecraft's unique mission into a tactile woodcarving of Saturn's ring structure for visually impaired people. They also made music by boosting the natural frequencies of Saturn's moons and rings system. This created a musical score that illustrates Cassini's final descent through the rings towards the planet. Even CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research's massive underground facility, uses music. Software translates Large Hadron Collider event data into sounds that represent the different particles emitted during collisions.  As the term itself suggests, data visualization helps us "see" data. Artist Johannes Girardoni's installations rebroadcast the impact gallery visitors make on their surroundings to highlight the data we're surrounded with every day. Since you can't "see" the data generated by simply walking through an art gallery, art and technology collide as his pieces pick up subtle signals. Microprocessors translate sound, movement and light disturbances from visitors, replaying it back as noises and light or color changes within the piece of art. By confronting the viewer with all the data they generate, Girardoni hopes to inspire reflection on the amount of data that influences us in our daily lives. Value in Visualization Increasing data's value through visualization helps researchers, too. When bioinformatics researchers set protein folding data to a musical score, they found that reviewers quickly matched the sounds to structural conformation and molecular properties. Simply listening to the data helped pattern recognition. Combining visual analysis with listening could boost research into diseases driven by altered protein function, like Alzheimer's. Data visualization also untangles big data problems. Health information systems often rely on different data streams for proactive public health management. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Zika virus response, for example, depends on data streams from a number of sources, including disease surveillance and mosquito activity reports. Combining the streams into a meaningful and easily read display makes sense for a faster response. 

Data Visualization Brings the Numbers to Life

When art and technology come together, how do you react? Does it inspire, or do you find it controversial? Or maybe you're surprised, realizing that the combination challenges you as the viewer. Am I part of the art if the light installation reacts when I approach it? Can the stealthy curve of composites into a wing leading edge be aesthetic as well as functional?Disruptive Tech Innovates ArtWorking with new technology is disruptive for both the viewer and the artist. Just as non-traditional materials might be uncomfortable viewing for an audience more familiar with traditional paint and canvas, they also affect an artist's creative practice.For example, sculptor and installation artist Johannes Girardoni finds that he needs a more deliberate and critical approach when using new technology to explore the intersection between light and material. Forcing himself to consider the role and function of technology in an art piece avoids seduction by the "newness" of it all. Although the creative idea comes first, technology helps with its execution and allows him to ask new questions.Working first with beeswax and pigment before moving to resin as a material, Girardoni now incorporates sensors and light-emitting diodes within his work. These sensors pick up data from the surroundings of the installation, from viewer actions such as movement and its effect on light. Algorithms then analyze these data, transforming and re-presenting them back to the viewer as light and sound (spectro-sonic refrequencing). As Girardoni describes it, "The viewer is presented with a rearticulated version of themselves."Artists as InnovatorsUsing new materials to make art is nothing new. Artists have been innovating throughout history to explore perception, and how we view ourselves and the world around us. Whether grinding rocks into pigments or molding sticky mud into shapes, artists are early adopters, constantly exploring the potential for expression and interpretation of the world around them. It is not surprising that they find that plastics, nanomaterials and lasers communicate creatively just as well as (or perhaps better than) traditional media such as paint, clay and stone.When is a color not a color? Kate Nichols, current artist in residence at the Alivisatos Lab at UC Berkeley, explores nanomaterials to recreate the morpho butterfly's "absence of color" wing patterns. The brilliant blue in this species' wings comes not from actual pigments but from how they handle light. Wing scales interact with light waves, absorbing some wavelengths and reflecting back others, using diffraction and interference to boost signal strength back at the viewer. Your eye "sees" blue, but there is no blue pigment present; it's a trick of the light.Nichols, who suggests that artists were early materials scientists, notes that new technology in art is often not that new; silver mirroring, stained glass and ceramic lusters are skills from bygone eras that exploit nanomaterial science for aesthetic effect.Social CommentaryGirardoni also notes that questions of perception, on how we view the external environment and ourselves, can often be addressed with established basic technology; however, he also suggests that using new technology in art brings relevance in current context.In reference to the explosion of data and data-gathering taking place 24/7 in daily life, he points out that "as humans, we are no longer the only ones sensing," a concept that he explores in his current practice.In the large-scale immersive sculpture, Metaspace V2, an elliptical aluminum shell mirrors its environment via sensors before presenting it back to the viewer. Seated within its shell, the viewer "senses themselves seeing" — experiencing this personal data collection in real time through changes in light and sound. Furthermore, since the viewer is part of the installation, they also contribute through motion and other responses, influencing the re-presentation. A relationship thus develops between artwork and viewer, establishing a continual feedback loop or dialogue that Girardoni suggests mirrors our current daily life.We're constantly bombarded with an influx of data gathered from us and thus constantly influenced by it, affecting our behavior and interactions — "New tech affects everybody all the time — so [the] art is a conceptual reflection of our life."Although it's difficult to pin down an absolute definition and there are many different interpretations available, this one from Merriam Webster neatly encapsulates what art is and explains how new technology might advance it: "something that [...] expresses important ideas or feelings."Both art and technology innovate and disrupt; in combination as conversation starters, they are rarely dull.With thanks to Johannes Girardoni and his studio manager, Heidi Girardoni, for contributing to this article.

Art and Technology: When Worlds Collide

Virtual reality (VR) is transforming the remote work world and opening up new possibilities for employers and employees alike — employers now have a bigger pool of possible candidates, and employees receive a better work/life balance.
One of the significant advantages of a virtual work environment is that employees can now simulate a shared physical space that emulates a real-life office, despite being miles apart. This sense of community helps remote workers collaborate more effectively and feel less disconnected from their colleagues. Meanwhile, employees still reap the benefits of remote work, including flexibility, cost savings, time savings, and more.
Calling on the Metaverse
That's where the metaverse — that brave new immersive, digital world of augmented reality (AR), VR, graphical whimsy and video — might come in handy. Writing in Entrepreneur magazine, David Nelson, COO of web content provider WordAgents, suggests that the metaverse could fundamentally transform the way remote workers live, work and collaborate. It could also help them and their employers regain the sense of team connectedness that's been blunted by pandemic-induced protocols."
"The metaverse will allow its users to work, play and stay connected with friends through everything from concerts and conferences to virtual trips across the globe," he predicts.
AR for Work
So who owns this virtual work environment and how does it work?
Innovative technology companies such as Spatial have developed 3D AR software tools that allow companies to design, build and customize their own virtual work environments. Remote employees will be able to "meet" and collaborate in real-time with colleagues in this new workspace, just as if they were all sitting around a conference table. All they need is a powerful personal computer — think high-performance graphics card and lots of memory — and the relevant software.
For a truly immersive experience, each employee could also wear an AR or VR headset, which would allow them to "see," manipulate and present in real-time other graphical or video elements "stored" in the work environment. Remote workers will also be able to create and personalize an avatar to represent how they look and move in this environment to add a more personal touch to their virtual interactions with others.
More Engagement, Better Training
Clearly, VR tools can support real-time collaboration among remote workers.
David Roe reports in the online journal Reworked that remote workers are now using VR tools to collaborate on projects from different parts of the world. VR also enables remote teams to better communicate ideas to clients, using three-dimensional drawings for example.
The immersive technology of VR enhances all of the benefits of remote work by creating a digital environment free of distractions that better allows colleagues to connect.
Keeping it Real
A virtual work environment also promises to be an effective way, for remote workers and companies alike, to recreate the logistic and emotional benefits of offsite team-building exercises.
Writing in Forbes magazine, Vestigo CEO and founder Marshall Mosher notes that cultivating workplace culture, maintaining team morale and enhancing collaboration among remote teams require real, connective experiences that are just as powerful as the in-person team development opportunities that defined the pre-pandemic workplace.
He imagines, for example, a virtual ropes-course-style challenge that empowers team collaboration and communication to solve complicated physical challenges despite everyone present being physically disconnected across the world. In this way, VR will allow teams to transcend their comfort zones, spur innovation and pursue collective growth.
"VR can help you build better connections by allowing your teams to register both an experience and the emotion of that experience, creating psychological effects that are vastly more memorable and impactful," Mosher observes.
In other words, explains Nelson, immersive, team-oriented VR experiences can also increase collaboration and team cohesion.
"In my experience," he says, "individuals who are part of a cohesive team tend to focus on the entire group more than themselves. They are more motivated to work toward team goals."
Trusting the Process
Ultimately, the virtual office environment is a powerful concept, but one that is still evolving as a reality for remote workers. Technologically, it promises a quantum redefinition of what we call work — how it's done, when it's done and where it's done. VR promises to help unlock growth, collaboration and innovation for hybrid teams in this brave new world of remote work.
 
Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.


How VR Is Boosting Team Collaboration and Cohesion in the Virtual Work Environment

 The military has used electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensors for decades to track stationary and moving targets. Now, these sensor technologies are being combined with artificial intelligence for a variety of military and commercial applications. Using artificial intelligence to handle visual processing allows these systems to do a better and faster job of image recognition.Cutting-edge AI Here are some cutting-edge examples of how AI is being used for visual processing: At Stockholm's Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, researchers have combined artificial intelligence with image processing to create technology that can determine the best radiotherapy treatment plan for an individual patient, according to DOTmed News. At Stanford, computer scientists have combined deep learning, a form of AI, and visual processing to create an algorithm that could diagnose skin cancers as accurately as board-certified dermatologists could. They hope to create an app that would provide people who can't travel with remote diagnoses. Neurala, a startup with the tagline "brains for bots," has already used AI to process images from low-end cameras to help a Mars rover explore the red planet, according to IEEE Spectrum. Now it wants to bring that same technology to home robots, toys and self-driving cars. EditEdit Military applications have expanded beyond acquiring and tracking weapons targets, according to Military & Aerospace Electronics. Naval experts, for example, are looking to EO/IR sensors to provide situational awareness. Different assets in the field can transmit what they're seeing to a central command; then, that consolidated view can be broadcast back out to the field. The U.S. Navy currently has an experimental Situational Awareness System that uses two EO/IR sensors placed at the front and back of an aircraft carrier's deck, as well as video cameras and a laptop-based controller. In the same vein, Northrop Grumman's LITENING G4 combines sensors, laser imaging and advanced image processing to provide combat ID, range recognition and situational awareness. Smarter Vision In these examples and in general, artificial intelligence is necessary to make sense of multiple inputs and/or lower-resolution images. While the optics and sensors used in these implementations are impressive, it's the software that makes sense of all the incoming data. Many multisensor systems rely on a process called sensor fusion to gain a complete view of the surroundings, and that situational awareness is crucial for military operations. As All About Circuits explains, many sensing technologies besides EO/IR can help create an accurate view of surroundings. LiDAR, radar, sonar, GPS and physical sensors such as accelerometers can fill in for each other. For example, cameras don't work well in low-light or bad-weather conditions, while LiDAR emits its own light. LiDAR, however, is expensive, so developers of autonomous vehicles use both, along with an array of other devices.Sensor Fusion Fusing all these inputs together is no simple feat. For one thing, different sensors may provide conflicting data, while occasionally a sensor may fail. So a sensor fusion system must have enough intelligence to determine which inputs to trust in a split second. Unguided equipment, such as autonomous cars or unmanned aircraft systems such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk, must be able to avoid obstacles and respond almost instantly to changing conditions. For example, the automated driving solution from Delphi and Mobileye combines cameras, real-time mapping, radars and LiDAR, according to Auto Connected Car News. However, instead of using a database of driving rules for guidance, the system employs artificial intelligence that actually can learn to drive better with experience. Computer-vision systems that combine multiple sensors with a layer of intelligence mimic the way the human body takes in information from the sensory organs and processes it in the brain. Will these systems ever be as good as the human body and brain? In 2015, software beat humans in an image classification test, according to the Computer Vision Foundation. And Tech Times says Google's self-driving cars are safer than human-piloted cars. In other words, they're already better.

Image Processing Gets a Boost with Sensor Tech and AI

"Disruptive technology" is a buzzword, but it's actually become the norm within the tech sector. As Wired points out, "tech disruptors today have unchallenged access, funding, and regulatory support (or at least acquiescence)" — they're anything but the underdog. Disruption has become the accepted, mainstream way we innovate and move forward.   However, just because it's accepted at this point doesn't mean it's easy. Disruption does just that — takes on the status quo, which hasn't changed for years or even decades. Here are four examples of disruptive technology over the past decade or two that changed the way we live in 2022.   3D Printing Transforms Multiple Industries   Many of us aren't aware of how much 3D printing has changed our everyday lives, and yet this disruptive technology has done just that. While 3D printing is actually decades old, Redshift notes, it started really gaining traction in 2010. Also called "additive manufacturing," it has exploded over the past decade and transformed many industries, from manufacturing to medicine.   The automotive company Ford has become so accustomed to using 3D printers in its manufacturing process that they now operate autonomously in its factories. Rocket Lab uses additive manufacturing to produce rocket engines, reports MIT Technology Review, while doctors and scientists are testing out how to 3D print skin, per a study in Sensors International, and other organs, according to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. This is one of many examples of disruptive technology that has affected nearly every industry, and it's clear that the possibilities are endless for what 3D printing can do.   All Hail Ride-Sharing Apps   Remember hailing a cab? That feels so 2000s. Uber went live in San Francisco in 2010, and transportation hasn't been the same since. The company hasn't been without its problems — from workplace harassment, reports NPR, to poor treatment of drivers, per The Guardian — but it's hard to argue that Uber and competitors like Lyft have changed the way we live and get around.   This disruptive tech has become so mainstream that cab companies — who rallied against rideshare apps for years — are now signing on. Starting this summer, New Yorkers will actually be able to hail a yellow cab through the Uber app, thanks to the feature Uber Taxi.   The Rise of Streaming Video   It seems like every week, a new online streaming service debuts, yet it's easy for most of us to remember a time when they didn't exist. Netflix launched in 1997 as a mail-by-DVD service that changed the way we watched movies. But it didn't stop there; in 2007, the same year it delivered its billionth DVD, the company announced it was launching a streaming service.   Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in 2010, and people have predicted the death of Netflix again and again — in 2007, The New York Times said, "while Netflix's DVD rental business has thrived in part because of the company's superior logistics, that competitive edge will not mean much in the world of digital distribution." Yet Netflix has utterly transformed the way we watch movies and television, induced the phenomenon of binge-watching (which, according to Netflix PR, 73% of people feel good about) and set an example for the rest of the industry.   Forget Hotels, Book an Airbnb   When did hotels become so last decade? It turns out it was right around the beginning of the 2010s when Airbnb launched for the third time and finally secured funding, according to Business Insider. It took the company three years to gain a foothold within the lodging and travel industries, but by 2011, Airbnb was operating in 89 countries.   The digital platform for renting out your space has become so successful that it's been directly tied to housing crunches in major cities: A Harvard Business Review study shows a link between rising rental prices and local increases in Airbnb listings. In 2022, there were more Airbnb listings in New York City than actual apartments available for rent, notes Curbed. Airbnb has disrupted the lodging industry so much that metropolitan areas are pushing back, regulating short-term rentals, as DCist explains, and cracking down on empty apartments, according to Vice.   Disruptive technologies may become the norm in the ever-changing tech world, especially as these technologies become cheaper and easier to distribute. In tomorrow's tech world, "disruptive" will become synonymous with "new."   Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.  

4 Examples of Disruptive Technology That Have Changed Our Lives

The first Drone Racing League (DRL) series was announced by ESPN last fall. Complete with crashes and tricked-out courses, the competitions are built to entertain fans. The events combine cutting-edge aerial vehicle technology with Hollywood-quality courses to deliver races packed with speed ... and crashes.Viewers are taken along for a ride thanks to onboard cameras that provide first-person views (FPV) that allow pilots the freedom to push the limits of the devices.FPV is unique in that it provides a viewpoint that is otherwise unachievable. Racing drones can perform maneuvers that would render a human pilot unconscious and, thanks to their size, they are able to operate in places where manned vehicles simply cannot.A Sporty ApproachAutonomous aerial systems have been around for a few decades but the launch of competitions is bound to drive further innovation. Sport and competition is what has driven vehicle innovation for more than a century, since the first automobile races of the late 1800s.The DRL series is driven by strict regulations and requirements. This is not unlike the design specifications adhered to by aerospace companies. Each has unique operating environments and vehicles are packed with carbon-fiber bodies, efficient motor control systems and low-latency, high-precision control mechanisms.The agility and precision control software it takes to get a drone through a series of checkpoints is an accessible display of technology. Measuring about 10 inches across and weighing in just under a pound, an official DRL vehicle can reach speeds of up to 120 mph.Speed and Agility RequiredThe vehicles you see on ESPN are designed for, as the DRL puts it, "speed, agility, and durability." Airing drone racing makes it accessible to the masses but aerospace companies have been doing that for years, and they take durability and range seriously.Take the U.S. Navy's MQ-8C Fire Scout. The Northrop Grumman-designed Fire Scout is nearly 50 times larger (41.4 feet) and 6,000 times heavier than its model counterpart, but is also able to carry a 500-pound payload and hit top speeds of more than 150 mph.Northrop Grumman also took on a monumental challenge of engineering, precision and control while becoming the first to land and launch an autonomous aerial system from an aircraft carrier, with the U.S. Navy's X-47B UCAS-D in 2013.In 2016, DARPA announced Northrop Grumman as the winner of a nearly $100-million contract to develop a new form of autonomous aerial system. Most of that development is still top secret, but it'll make drone racing devices look like the toys that they are.Seeing Is BelievingWe may not all be fighter pilots, but getting a ride in the cockpit is still the best way to experience what is happening in the industry. Enthusiasts in the San Diego area, a hotbed of aviation activity, were treated to a fierce, team-based competition of autonomous aerial systems working in concert at the Northrop Grumman-hosted Quad Cup in August.Everyone who wants to see autonomous aerial systems continue development should be pushing to have more people experience that thrill. One of the leading makers of FPV drones, Lumenier, is quoted as saying their main marketing channel is to sponsor pilots in drone racing events.The FAA does not regularly release data on how many operators there are out there, but as of May 2016, there were reports of more than 500,000 registered drones in the United States. Add in the recent holiday season and that number will soon approach a million.What's next for drone racing? As the commercial and military markets leap forward with innovation, the push towards truly trusted cognitive autonomy may result in flying robots that make their own decisions, untethered by the limits of the joystick.

A Sporty Approach to Drone Racing

In the United States, annual healthcare waste — from failure of care delivery to overtreatment — ranged from $760 to $935 billion, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. But wearable healthcare technology is poised to overturn these trends. New laws that allow doctors to embrace innovations in wearable diagnostic and assistive devices could help usher in a new era precision medicine that reduces medical costs and saves thousands of lives. "Studies have shown that folks using these types of devices are more engaged in their own health than those that are aren't," says Michael Wittman, program manager at Northrop Grumman Information Systems in McLean, Virginia. Fitness Trackers Grow Up  Today's wearable healthcare technology has its origins in old-school pedometers that could count the number of steps a person took each day. Activity trackers began to crop up in the late 2000s, like wristbands that wirelessly connected to a smartphone app. In addition to tracking steps, most of these consumer devices were capable of sensing heart rate, sleep patterns and flights of stairs climbed. The data they collected was informative, but it wasn't detailed enough to feed a medical diagnosis. Things started to shake up in 2018. Apple introduced its Series 4 Watch, which had the ability to take an FDA-approved electrocardiogram (ECG) and share it with a doctor. The medical diagnosis door was cracking open for wearable healthcare technology, but one detail stuck. Even if a doctor could receive medical-quality data, they weren't able to bill an insurance company for any service related to it. The situation would be similar to a doctor making a medical recommendation based on the result of an MRI, but not being able to bill for it. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) saw the problem and enacted changes in January 2019, says Pete Ianace, senior vice president of corporate development at VitalTech in Dallas, Texas. They released a handful of insurance codes doctors could use to bill Medicare for services tied to wearable diagnostic and assistive devices. For instance, says Ianace, if a doctor writes a prescription for a Medicare advantage patient to wear a health monitoring band, Medicare will pay the doctor $65/month for as long as the patient wears the device. If the doctor or a nurse in that office spends 20 minutes per month reading the data, the doctor can bill $54. If the patient sends a photograph of, for instance, a rash that could be a side effect of medication, the doctor can bill $13. The list goes on because starting in January 2020, CMS is adding more codes. "The doctor today who is burned out now has the ability to do remote care, from telehealth to remote monitoring, and essentially add a million dollars of revenue per year to a single practice — and, by the way, end up with better patient health outcomes," says Ianace. Precision Medicine in the Making Wearable medical devices being developed not only track activity, including heart rate, steps and calories burned but also have sensors that pick up vital signs, such as respiration rate, blood-oxygen levels and irregular heartbeats. At-risk patients, such as elderly people with diabetes, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart irregularities have a lot to gain from these wearables. A medical-quality gadget can be programmed with a patient's baseline biometrics as well as their prescription regime and send regular updates to a doctor automatically. If a patient's usual activity or biometric indicators move outside normal ranges, the system can send an alert to a phone app owned by the patient or to a family member. Healthcare technology advances will improve disease treatment and prevention by taking into consideration an individual's medical history, environment and lifestyle. If a person with diabetes has a blood-sugar level that gets too high, for instance, a medical device can issue a warning that they need to adjust their medication. If air quality is poor on a hot summer day, the device could warn a patient with asthma to take precautions or stay inside. Healthcare wearables can remind people to take specific medication at specific times, detect falls and serve as panic alerts that connect users to immediate assistance. In response to the potential of wearable healthcare technology, the market is exploding. According to Wareable, market analysts from Gartner have estimated that spending on wearable products, including smartwatches, will rise from $41 billion in 2019 to $52 billion in 2020. That trend is already underway. At the end of October 2019, Optum, a division of the insurance giant United Healthcare, acquired Vivify Health, a patient-monitoring platform, reported CNBC. And just a few short days later, Google announced that it had purchased Fitbit, the health fitness wearable. Use With Caution As with any emerging field, especially one that impacts the health and well-being of a patient, there will be challenges. In an essay published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, physicians from Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Massachusetts General Hospital offer a word of caution about healthcare technology advances with wearable devices. In a summary provided by the American Medical Association, the study's authors write that although insurance companies have begun to reward policy holders for healthier activity, calorie intake, blood pressure and weight tracked by wearable devices, these companies could begin to penalize less healthy people with higher premiums because there are no regulations to stop them. The physicians also warn that inaccurate data collection could unintentionally result in penalties or harmful treatment. For instance, if a device records activity levels much lower than the person produced, the numbers could reduce insurance premium rewards. Or, if a device yields false-positive readings, doctors could potentially recommend treatments that are harmful. They also point that patients who cannot afford wearable devices and who aren't covered by Medicare may not be able to participate in incentive programs. They would miss out on insurance rewards, and more importantly, health benefits that the technology offers. Lastly, the physicians write that the data from digital health devices could be intercepted by third parties and used in inappropriate ways. Data collected by a wearable device is not protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the physicians said. Wittman says that in order to increase adoption and to be able to use the technology from a clinical standpoint, tech companies have to make devices that produce medically relevant data. Strong guidance from the FDA can help make medical wearables reliable and accurate. But it may simply take some time. "I think you're going to see more and more devices approved for home use as the technology matures," says Wittman.

Advancing Precision Medicine With Wearable Healthcare Technology

 Most buildings in which we spend our lives are not as green as they could be. Their construction can generate lots of waste; once they're up and running, inefficient use of energy and water could unnecessarily tax environmental resources, or even make human inhabitants sick. As humanity seeks to reduce its impact on the planet, innovators are turning to new technology to create more sustainable green buildings. The resulting cities might be better — not only for the environment but also for the humans that inhabit them.LEED Standards Today, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards are among the most popular worldwide to help homes and businesses use resources more efficiently. These standards outline how much energy and water should be used in the building and what kinds of materials use the fewest possible toxic chemicals. Building designers then get creative about how to fit the needs of the building within these parameters. They can make the building more efficient by careful selection of construction materials, good insulation and window placement to keep the interior warm during the winter and cool in the summer. Then they can add on technology to reduce the building's footprint, heating the building with natural gas or incorporating efficient fixtures like water-conserving toilets and energy-efficient light bulbs. As more LEED-certified buildings are constructed, their impact could be huge. Green building is expected to add 3.9 million jobs to the economy by 2018, according to a 2015 report from the U.S. Green Building Council. A separate report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that LEED-certified buildings can revitalize neighborhoods; people who work in green buildings are less likely to skip work and tend to be healthier, too, as they are exposed to fewer pollutants. Environmentally conscious companies are leading the way by constructing a growing number of facilities according to LEED standards — Northrop Grumman, for example, has eight LEED-certified facilities across the United States. Companies like these understand that green buildings benefit more than just the environment and communities — they make businesses more competitive.Smart Systems Another way engineers are looking to reduce the environmental impact of individual buildings is by creating sophisticated systems to monitor energy use. That way, they'll know what kinds of interventions can cut down on the amount of energy being used in the building. Data collected by internet-connected sensors and processed by artificial intelligence systems will make individual buildings more efficient. Companies such as ON World are developing smart lighting systems that can automatically adjust lighting based on occupancy and the time of day; others, such as Verdigris, are targeting manufacturing to reduce wasted energy. Many of these systems also incorporate sophisticated thermostats to save on energy used in heating and cooling; researchers from MIT have created a system called "Local Warming" that only heats spaces when they are occupied.Smart Grid Instead of focusing on individual buildings, some engineers are looking at cities overall in order to reduce the use of resources. One big push is to make better use of a city's electricity through a "smart grid." More homes and businesses are generating their own renewable power on-site, using techniques such as solar panels — two of Northrop Grumman's operating facilities, for example, were recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for their energy-efficient equipment and building-systems design, according to NGC's forthcoming Corporate Responsibility Report. As the cost of this technology drops, more buildings are expected to do the same in the future. Any unused energy can be diverted to the larger electrical grid, creating a profit for the building owner and more efficient energy use citywide. In order for smart grids to become widespread and profitable for those involved, better technology is needed. Ideally, these systems could efficiently send electricity to the buildings that need it. Several companies, such as Tendril and Groom Energy, have designed software that measures how much electricity the building is using and how much can be contributed to the grid. Partnership between private industry and government will further facilitate more efficient energy use; according to a U.S. Department of Energy webpage: "To move forward, we need a new kind of electric grid, one that is built from the bottom up to handle the groundswell of digital and computerized equipment and technology dependent on it — and one that can automate and manage the increasing complexity and needs of electricity in the 21st century."Smart Money Green buildings clearly have many benefits, but some prospective builders choose not to build them because they assume they would be more expensive. In fact, studies have found that, in the long term, green buildings cost about the same as their traditional counterparts. They may seem to cost more up front, as more efficient building materials and installations may be more expensive, but ultimately these reduce operating costs. Green building owners save on electricity, water and heating bills — they could even make some extra money selling energy back to the grid. As more of the world's population moves to cities, and as resources like energy and water are put under greater strain, green buildings will become even more important. You might be working in a smart building — or even living in a smart city — sooner than you think. And chances are, your life will be enriched from it.

How Green Buildings Could Change Cities

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan are being touted as the most futuristic yet, with predictions for driverless cars, sustainable biofuels, robotics-based customer service and even a space simulator. As a unique marketing opportunity, it would be easy to dismiss 2020 Olympics technology as a gimmick, but the innovations under way could set the stage for meaningful advances in science and research. Shooting Stars on Demand Fireworks and the Olympics go hand-in-hand, but why not take it to the next level and produce shooting stars on demand? Sky Canvas aims to do just that, lighting up the skies for the opening ceremony with on-demand displays of artificial shooting stars. The Japan Times describes the project from Japanese tech company ALE as one of the most amazing, out-of-this-world experiences predicted for visitors to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Shooting stars occur when space debris hits Earth's atmosphere. As space dust and particles fall, friction with the air makes them heat up and glow, and they vaporize before they reach the ground. We see these as streaks of light across the night sky. ALE Founder and astronomer Lena Okajima and her team are working on a programmable microsatellite system and the artificial shooting star pellets it will deliver into the atmosphere. The company plans to launch 50-cubic-centimeter microsatellites into orbit, each packed with a payload of around 1,000 pellets. According to a BBC video interview, the pellet formulations are engineered to burn brightly through our atmosphere. As they fall at around 8 km per second (17895.5 mph), each formulation burns in a different color, creating a display visible over a 200-km range on the ground. Although artificial shooting stars may seem frivolous, ALE sees them as a path to upper atmosphere research. Using these tiny man-made celestial bodies as a space simulator, scientists could study how to manipulate objects in the skies above our heads. Data gained from setting up a sparkly light display might one day guide obsolete satellites into atmospheric burn out before they hit the planet.  Athletes in Your Living Room? As well as a space simulator for the opening ceremony fireworks show, 2020 Olympics technology could also bring the athletics excitement much closer — practically into your living room. According to Inquisitr, Japanese telecom company NTT is working on a holographic capture and display service, Kirari! For Arena. Described as an "immersive telepresence" by NTT, the system will pluck the Olympic action from the stadium to deliver it in 3D elsewhere. Reuters described the system as an advance on current technology. Instead of athletes wearing sensors to register movement and location, multiple cameras track the action. Viewers will be able to follow the holographic event from all sides, giving a much more authentic experience, almost like being at the games in person. Japan Today noted that more immersive tech is also promised, with a drone-based, 5G-enabled 8K virtual reality (VR) innovation from NTT DoCoMo Inc. that "allows viewers to feel as if they are actually at the venue." Mitsubishi Electric is planning free-floating holograms, as described by the Financial Times — no headset required. Even if you don't have access to an immersive experience, viewing the games remotely is still set to be a high-definition experience. The Verge noted that both Sony and Panasonic are bringing out 8K TV screen technology in time for Japan 2020. Beyond the Arena It's not all to benefit just the games. As described in official planning documents, Japan sees 2020 Olympics technology benefits extending out of the arena and into the future. Legacy goals include accessibility and enhanced communication as well as sustainability and robotics advancement. Advances in holographic projection, VR and high-resolution imaging could help telemedicine, giving remotely located clinicians access to specialty medicine and referral services. Other 2020 Olympics technology could benefit everyday life beyond mere entertainment value as well. Remote access could bring these kinds of events to many who are unable to attend, improving inclusion and accessibility. The Japan Times described misting systems that will cool an area within an "air curtain" without wetting clothes or paper, while the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Commission) reports on paving the marathon route so that it reduce temperatures by up to 8 degrees C, or 46 degrees F. These kinds of advanced cooling and misting solutions, coupled with heat-blocking road and walkway surfaces, could be valuable tools for urban planners to mitigate climate change. Business Insider noted that ticketless entry combined with face recognition for crowds will be in use; enhanced surveillance technology could have immediate benefit for security and anti-terrorism measures. There's certainly more to 2020 Olympics technology than just games. Tech innovation for fun can still bring big benefits. If you're interested in innovation with purpose, check out our career page.

Let the Games Begin: 2020 Olympics Technology

There's still a lot we don't know about the universe around us. One way scientists and researchers gain new information about the vast cosmos and our place within it is by taking an image of the galaxy. The Hubble Deep Field images are some of the most popular examples of this type of work.  The first of these extraordinary pictures was taken by pointing Hubble at one part of space for 10 consecutive days to see how far the telescope could see. Over the course of 100-plus exposure hours, it took 342 separate images, which became the first Hubble Deep Field picture. Thanks to Deep Field, scientists have been able to look at the most distant galaxies we've ever been able to see.  More recently, scientists using the German-Russian eROSITA telescope took X-rays of the sky, peering deeper into the cosmos than any other similar images before it. Rather than looking deep into one part of space, like Hubble Deep Field, the eROSITA X-ray is a full sweep of the entire sky, and it uncovers quite a bit we didn't know previously about the nature of the hot, energetic universe around us.  How eROSITA Took This Amazing Photograph  eROSITA is a space-based X-ray telescope that's part of the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) mission, which is located at the L2 Lagrange point in space — close enough to maintain contact with Earth but far enough away to provide a deep, clear view into space, as NASA explains. This full-sky survey of X-rays was taken over the course of six months and completed on June 11, 2020. It's the first of eight sky surveys planned for the eROSITA telescope.  To ensure the exposures would be even, the telescope was rotated constantly. Researchers then projected the data that eROSITA sent back about the sky, around 165 gigabytes so far, onto an ellipse, with the center of our galaxy in the middle of the image and the Milky Way's body across the horizontal plane.  Decoding eROSITA's Image of the Galaxy  These incredible X-rays from eROSITA have already changed the way scientists view the galaxy. The image of the galaxy uncovered 1.1 million sources of X-ray within the known universe, which doubled what scientists previously had on record, according to Science News. Researchers color-coded the image according to the amount of energy produced: Blue indicates the highest-energy areas, then green, then yellow and, finally, red.  "This all-sky image completely changes the way we look at the energetic universe," said Peter Predehl, principal investigator of eROSITA, in a Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) press release. "We see such a wealth of detail — the beauty of the images is really stunning."  One discovery that the eROSITA X-rays have already made is the presence of mysterious giant bubbles that seem to be coming from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, Space reports. These bubbles are similar to the Fermi bubbles, which are formed of hot, highly energized gamma rays. However, the eROSITA bubbles are comparatively less energetic and less hot. This is just one of the cosmological mysteries scientists can now decode thanks to the light eROSITA has shed on the universe's phenomena.  The eROSITA image isn't just limited to our galaxy, though; scientists are able to see supermassive black holes at the center of other galaxies (the highest, most active energies that eROSITA was able to detect) that are up to a billion light-years away. Studying extremely distant galaxies is a chance to peer back in time and see how our early universe looked.  Where Do We Go From Here?  According to MPE, eROSITA will be studying the sky for at least the next three and a half years (hopefully longer) in the pursuit of scientists understanding dark energy, the invisible force that's driving our universe's expansion.  "The SRG Observatory is now starting its second all-sky survey, which will be completed by the end of this year," said Rashid Sunyaev, lead scientist of the Russian SRG team, in the MPE press release. "Overall, during the next 3.5 years, we plan to get 7 maps similar to the one seen in this beautiful image. Their combined sensitivity will be a factor of 5 better and will be used by astrophysicists and cosmologists for decades."  Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.  

An X-Ray of the Sky Shows Us More Than Ever

Like all great science fiction writers, Philip K. Dick inspired a generation to imagine the future. His sci-fi books and short stories, published in the 1950s and 60s, centered on technological advances that didn't yet exist. There are emotional robots, crime-predicting mutants, manipulated memories and more. Frequently in Dick's stories, the protagonists struggle with their own sense of humanity and sometimes question reality. Filmmakers, caught up by the dramatic arcs of these personal journeys, created movie blockbusters based on them, such as "Blade Runner," "Minority Report" and "Total Recall."   Today, some of the innovations at the heart of Dick's sci-fi books have been made real. Artificial intelligence, metamaterials, predictive algorithms, genetic engineering, virtual reality and more drive modern society. This March marks the 27th anniversary of Philip K. Dick's death — and is an opportunity to examine the technologies he imagined and how their contemporary counterparts hold up.   Emotional Robots   In the 1968 short story, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the main character, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter in search of renegade androids. (The story was adapted for the screen and released as "Blade Runner" in 1982; a follow-up film was released in 2017.) A questionnaire called the Voigt-Kampff test is designed to elicit empathetic responses from individuals to determine whether they're human or android. But Deckard soon realizes that empathy is a bad measure, since some humans lack it too. As he becomes romantically attracted to the android Rachel Rosen, the lines between robot and human begin to blur.   Scientists have yet to develop a robot that feels emotions. But there is a test similar to the Voigt-Kampff that's designed to evaluate a robot's intelligence. It's called the Turing Test, and it was conceived by the English mathematician Alan Turing in the 1950s to determine whether a computer could think. For the test, an actual human interrogates both a computer and a human, without knowing which one is which. The computer's goal is to provide human-like answers that fool the judge into thinking it's human. In 2014, a machine posing as a 13-year boy beat the test, according to Tech Times. But plenty of scientists have been critical of the Turing Test, and passing it doesn't guarantee that a machine has so-called "artificial general intelligence," which is as adaptable as the human brain, according to ZDNet.   Prominent American inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted in 2006 that modern society would reach a so-called "singularity" by 2045, in which artificial intelligence matched human intelligence. But even before that happens, people have demonstrated that feeling attached to a robot doesn't require that it have emotions. Companion robots have become more popular, reports Wired, ideally suited for assisting the elderly. Philip K. Dick had it right: Human emotions are complicated.   Predicting Crime   In the 1956 short story, "The Minority Report," Dick presents a world in which police solve crimes based on the reports of three psychic mutants, called pre-cogs. (The story was adapted for the screen and released in 2002 as "Minority Report.") The main character, John Allison Anderton, must face the paradox of a system that arrests individuals for crimes that they have not yet committed. When the pre-cogs predict that he will commit a crime, Anderton's life begins to unravel.   Mutant pre-cogs do not exist in real life, but scientists have developed software that can predict crime. Some of these programs produce risk assessments for individuals already arrested and are used to help members of the criminal justice system make decisions about such things as assigning bond amounts or the length of a jail sentence. Other programs are designed to predict where and when criminal activity has a high probability of occurring. They do this by analyzing the type, location and time of crimes that have happened in the past and then combining these details with other information, including data about a neighborhood's socioeconomic status. The information can help police departments allocate resources, such as deploying officers to specific locations.   But these risk assessment and crime prediction programs have their limitations, according to a 2016 investigation from ProPublica, which found that the some data is biased against minorities. For instance, algorithms based on arrest data could reflect the bias of the arresting officers.    Manipulating Memories   In the 1966 story, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" the main character, Douglas Quail, is obsessed with visiting Mars. Unfortunately, his wife discourages him from going. When he finds a company that specializes in memory implants, Quail pays a fee to have the memory of Mars implanted in his brain. The plot takes off from there, leading the reader through a story of political intrigue and assassination. The story was adapted twice for the screen, once in 1990 and again in 2012, for movies titled "Total Recall."   In recent years, scientists have begun to uncover clues about how memory works. What they're finding could one day give doctors the ability to rewrite memories of trauma and addiction. For instance, a neural-stimulation technique called optogenetics has been used on lab mice to erase, stimulate or even create new memories. The method uses a light to stimulate neurons in the brain known to be associated with memory. Some of the first scientists who used this technique, such as a team from Harvard University, were able to erase memories and even install false ones in mice. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology later showed that the technique could be harnessed to retrieve lost memories in mice, and another team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona demonstrated that the method could increase a mouse's ability to remember where danger lurks.   But what about humans? In 2017, scientists from the University of Southern California published a study showing that they could use a brain implant to improve human memory. The volunteers for the study were patients already scheduled to have brain electrodes implanted for the treatment of epilepsy. The scientists first collected data on the patients' brain activity, and then figured out which brain pattern was associated with optimal memory performance. Lastly, they used the electrodes to stimulate the brain to follow that pattern. Short-term memory was improved by 15 percent and working memory by about 25 percent.   When Philip K. Dick wrote his stories, the television remote control and the microchip were just beginning to emerge as innovations. From his imagination emerged worlds yet to be discovered. Although he could not have predicted everything to come, his visions of the future tapped into the complicated relationship people have with technology. That connection, forever two-sided, will always lie at the center of great science fiction.    

How Philip K. Dick's Fiction Lived Up to Modern Science

The future of 3D holograms holds endless possibilities. Although we see real holograms all around us on items like our credit and debit cards, holography has a multitude of applications that don't directly involve the 3-D visual effect. For example, holographic computer memory devices can be read more rapidly than any present memory device. But let's be honest. What you really want to know is whether genuine 3D images — true holograms — will be coming soon to a movie theater or concert venue near you.  Visualizing 3D and the Theater of Illusion In a way, theater arts are all about optical illusions — actors only seem to fall in love, and characters killed off in the third act come out to take a bow at the end. On a similar note, what may appear to be a 3D hologram is often not.  According to holographer Fernando Catta-Preta, there are multiple ways to create a 3D effect for the human eye. Some — such as Pepper's Ghost, a special effects technique for creating ghostly images — are time-honored tricks of the illusionist's trade. These remain popular, for example, at Disney World. They are also common in the stage tricks that make Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley appear onstage with Tupac Shakur.  Others, such as the familiar movie effect produced by 3D glasses, rely on the fact that what we see is a creation of our optic nerves, not just our eyes. Show a slightly different image to each eye, and the mind will integrate them into a single 3D image.  Bringing Real Images Onstage  But a hologram is an actual image — not an illusion.  Oddly enough, the realness of a hologram makes its future something of a challenge for Hollywood. The audience sits in their seats, looking up at a screen where events take place. But if a genuine 3D image is projected into the theater, audience members would see it from different angles depending on where they are sitting. People in the front row might need to turn around to even see anything.  This is not a problem with today's 3D movies, because the 3D glasses produce a subtle optical illusion rather than an actual image.  Holographic movies would be different. Similar to stage plays where the action onstage sometimes spills out into the aisles, images could be projected into the theater to intermingle with the audience. Of course, in the case of holographic movies, the film prints would have to allow adjustment so that the filmed aisles aligned correctly with the actual aisles of the theater where the film is being shown.  Complications like this suggest that the first widespread use of holograms in popular entertainment will likely be at concerts, not in theatrical films. These holograms would not be illusions of former entertainers — as they are now — but actual images of performers, perhaps playing live at another venue. 3D holograms may also find a home on the live stage, allowing actors to directly interact with holographic images. Such interactions could include walking through each other, something that could not be done with Pepper's Ghost or other forms of optical illusions.  More work needs to be done, technologically and artistically, before the full potential of the holographic medium can be expressed in popular entertainment. Still, the future of holograms is bright — and likely to surprise us.

The Future of 3D Holograms Looks Bright

What if a robot chef could take over the cooking? It sounds a bit sci-fi, but it's now within the realm of possibility thanks to advancements like a robotic chef that's capable of "tasting" foods during the preparation process. Designed by researchers from the University of Cambridge and underpinned by physical frameworks from appliance manufacturer Beko, this chef of the future could help usher in a new era of cooking where we buy the ingredients and let the robots follow the recipe. Over the Lips and Past the Gums Eating is intrinsic for humans, but while food is key to our survival, that doesn't mean it has to taste bland. As NPR notes, there's evidence that European hunter-gatherers flavored their food with garlic mustard seeds to improve the flavor. Analysis of pottery shards dating from 6,000 years ago found embedded, microscopic mustard seeds that would have provided negligible nutritional value but added a hot, wasabi-type flavor to food. It therefore seems likely that these seeds were included in ancient recipes primarily for their flavor. So began our love affair with combining, seasoning and cooking foods. By the 1800s, the French (unsurprisingly) coined the terms "gourmand" and "chef," in turn driving the development of specialized food preparers who would push the envelope for taste and texture. Advancements such as preservation via canning and appliances such as the microwave made cooking easier, while more recent trends have once again focused on making food as "natural" as possible. As robotic capabilities increase, cooking with robots may offer the best of both worlds. Taste as You Go The results of the University of Cambridge project were reported in a recent Frontiers in Robotics and AI paper entitled "Mastication-Enhanced Taste-Based Classification of Multi-Ingredient Dishes for Robotic Cooking." If you think that's a mouthful, you're right — both literally and figuratively. In plain language, the team attached a conductance probe to the robot's arm which acted as a salinity sensor, allowing the digital chef to "taste" the food it was preparing. To simulate the change in texture and the ensuing change in taste when food is chewed, the Cambridge team put food into a blender and had the robot measure again. The result was the creation of "taste maps," which allowed the robot to pinpoint areas of higher or lower salt content. Still, this chef of the future isn't ready for prime time just yet. Right now it can only measure the saltiness of foods and has limited capabilities in preparing dishes for picky human eaters. Subsequent versions of this robotic foodie will include the ability to taste sweet, oily and other key indicators to help it make food that's better suited to the human palate. The use of deep and machine learning algorithms, meanwhile, should make it possible for electric eating experts to adjust their cooking styles to match the preferences of individual human users. A Recipe for Success While the potential rise of robot chefs comes with the same question that's always asked about automated employees in factories and manufacturing plants — will they replace human workers? — an answer in the affirmative is actually preferred. Why? Because as the Harvard Business Review notes, 90% of Americans don't actually enjoy cooking. Forty-five percent are lukewarm about it, 45% loathe it, and just 10% say they love it. It makes sense. Not only are we struggling to balance work, kids and other responsibilities, but the actual act of cooking isn't always enjoyable. Watching top-tier chefs work their magic on television can leave everyday cookers feeling like their creations might never measure up, and it's hard to justify spending an hour cooking (and another cleaning) just to make a meal that isn't particularly enjoyable. Most of us would be more than happy to welcome robotic chefs into the kitchen, and some companies are already on the brink of bringing them to market. Robotics firm Moley has developed the Moley Robotics Kitchen, which can make more than 5,000 recipes and clean up the mess after it's done cooking. While the technology has come a long way — in 2017 the Moley could only make crab bisque — there are still some limitations. This tech can't taste your food, and you need to do some of the prep work, such as peeling and cutting potatoes, before the robot can get cooking. You'll also have to pay anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 to have one installed in your home. Still, there's something to be said for sitting back and (mostly) relaxing while your personal, digital chef whips up a dish. And who knows? If mastication mechanics improve with the next generation of robot chef research, we might soon see a fully fledged gigabyte gourmand ready to make whatever you want, whenever you want it. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology and engineering.

The Robotic Chef: A Taste of the Future?

Alarmist news reporting warns of robots eventually replacing human employees. There isn't cause to worry just yet, so banish all thoughts of Rossum's Universal Robots rising up against their human overlords. It's not all doom and gloom. From companionship to pizza delivery, robots can handle lots of simple and not-so-simple tasks that demonstrate how they can help humans. Robotic Assistance When considering the potential benefits of robots, start by thinking through your daily routine. Is there anything you would gladly let a robot take over? Though they're relatively small in size, there are robots making a big impact in areas of everyday life. Gardening: If you enjoy watching your Roomba trundle around after dust bunnies, just think how awesome it would be to have an outdoor robot that kills weeds in your garden. Franklin Robotics' Tertill uses solar power and four-wheel drive to wage war on your weeds on a daily basis. This waterproof garden tank rumbles around rain or shine. Pizza: Maybe you'll use the time you saved in the garden to pick up a pizza. Or maybe not; Domino's customers in Hamburg, Germany, have the option of getting one delivered by robot. The six-wheeled, curb-climbing Starship Technologies vehicles trundle along sidewalks at around 4 mph with a payload of around four pizzas. According to Wired, onboard sensors allow the unit to avoid both foot and auto traffic as it crosses streets and navigates routes up to a mile from the pizzeria. While other companies are using drone technology for deliveries, Starship Technologies says it has tested the system in 6 countries and 59 cities and states that there are advantages to keeping robots on the ground, such as "No high-speed crashes, no tangling with the FAA for regulatory approval, no reliance on technology that's still in development or overly expensive." Need a Hand? Venom Extraction: Do you have a tank full of scorpions to milk? There's a robot for that. According to The Society for Experimental Biology, a research team in Morocco has a lightweight and portable scorpion-milking robot that is gentle with both the insect and the human handler. While SEB notes that scorpion venom is beneficial for "immunosuppressants, anti-malarial drugs and cancer research," they also state that "the extraction process can be potentially life-threatening." Hopefully, this invention will decrease life-threatening risks, making electrical shock or accidental envenomation a thing of the past. Travel and Telecommuting: Robots can now stand in for you at conferences, as described by Wired. Tired of commuting to work? This Oculus Rift-based VR project from MIT gives you the option to control robots remotely via telecommuting.  Music: What about how robots can help humans in the arts? Lonely musicians should take note of Nigel Stanford's automated bandmates. At Robotic Arm's Length Along with helping with daily tasks, robots can also keep you out of danger. As well as unmanned systems removing land mines, there are other robots designed for danger zones. For example, the University of Nevada, Reno, has aerial robots designed to fly around toxic environments like the abandoned Manhattan Project sites, mapping hazards for eventual cleanup, as described by Unmanned Aerial Systems Magazine. Instead of exposing operatives to radiation, chemical hazards and extreme environments, remote operation places robots at the sharp end of disasters. How about robot security guards patrolling the neighborhood? Business Insider suggests that Silicon Valley firms may soon be patrolled by security guards that never need a bathroom break. These robots are not built to tackle but to scan; through an array of sensors, the mechanical guards monitor the environment. When challenged with unusual activity, they sound the alarm to deter intruders or bring help.  Will robots ultimately replace the need for human labor, or will they enhance our lives in ways we never imagined? It remains to be seen, but the possibilities seem endless.

Benefits of Robots in Modern Life — Humans Need Not Apply

  Manufacturing industries are in the middle of the largest technology revolution to hit the factory floor since Henry Ford introduced the automotive assembly line more than a hundred years ago. In fact, a strong case could be made that today's manufacturing revolution is even more sweeping than the changes that gave birth to the now-traditional assembly line. The mass production factories of the 1920s were merely the culmination of manufacturing trends that had been developing for generations. In contrast, the "mass customization" factories of the 2020s and beyond will combine multiple new technologies to completely reshape how we think about making stuff. Meanwhile, at Manufacturing Business Technology, Mark Dohnalek takes a deep dive into five ways that new technologies — and new ways of thinking — are set to transform the factory starting this year and into the next decade. 3-D Printing and the Art of the Prototype  At first glance, so-called 3-D printing technology seems to aim not at transforming factories but at making them disappear entirely, by allowing people to print up any manufactured product at home. But real life is not quite that simple. An optimized facility, staffed by production experts — in other words, a factory — will always have advantages over do-it-yourself home printing. Inside the factory, 3-D printing may revolutionize many processes, but its first big impact is on prototyping, making samples of a new product. This is always necessary, because (for example) you can never be quite sure how an object will fit in your hand until you hold it. With 3-D printing, production teams can make a prototype, evaluate it and make an improved model in less time than it formerly took to make a single prototype. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Like 3-D printing, these technologies play their biggest part in the product development stage. They allow development and production team members, in effect, to walk around and through blueprints, ensuring, for example, that components that are supposed to be accessible for maintenance really are accessible. Even more important in the long run than helping the design and production team to prototype and visualize a product is helping to ensure that it meets the needs of the eventual users. These end users may well be military service members in the field, whose lives depend on the product working correctly, first time and every time. Accelerated Product Life Cycles This sounds a bit like jargon, and it is, but it makes a fundamental point. Advanced technologies are fast moving, and those service members in the field can't wait for next year's improved model. If improvements are available, they are needed as soon as possible — tomorrow, if not today. This is related to the largest way that tomorrow's factories differ from yesterday's. Instead of producing thousands or millions of identical products, "mass customization" requires the modern factory to turn out endless variations on products, tailored to specific users and specific needs. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Intelligence Keeping track of all these variations — and helping production teams develop them — ultimately relies on human intelligence, which alone can make final decisions on what suits the needs of human users. But AI can help smart people keep up with a sheer workload of innovations and variations that would otherwise be overwhelming. For example, AIs are good at instantly spotting possible manufacturing errors, so that production teams can jump on the problem at once, instead of having to wait until possibly thousands of defective products have been manufactured, with resulting waste and delay. Sustainable Manufacturing In a nutshell, waste is wasteful. People have always known this ("waste not, want not"), but older limited technologies made a good deal of waste unavoidable. Technology progress along multiple fronts, from improved prototyping to a host of specific manufacturing technologies, is allowing us to eliminate wasteful processes, producing both environmental benefits and greater production efficiencies. The traditional production-line factory made cars, computers and a host of other products affordable for the first time. But this came at the price of constraints such as uniformity and standardization. The new manufacturing era is breaking through these old constraints, making it possible for tomorrow's factories — and even today's — to turn out a vastly wider range of customized products able to meet users' exact needs, in ways previously undreamed of.

5 Ways Factories are Tooling Up for the 2020s

 Light's ubiquitous nature means we can take optics, the science of light, for granted. After all, we know it's responsible for illuminating homes while sensors developed to detect light are used in everything from cameras to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a powerful window into the early universe. But, there's something extraordinary happening in nanophotonics: the observation of light on the smallest scale possible. While slight, the applications could help revolutionize science and technology.Light on the Smallest Scale Size does matter. That's definitely true with technology. When size shrinks, power and efficiency increases. There's less resistance, faster transmission speeds and better usage of power. That's why we have powerful computers that fit in the palm of our hand. Photonics, the study of photons, is following a similar trajectory. Fiber optics, lasers and solar panels are just a few examples of photonics we use every day. While solar panels are getting better at capturing and converting the sun's rays into energy, they are still too large to install in most homes. For city dwellers, you can forget about having a solar farm powering all your needs. Internet speeds up to a gigabit are a dream for most people, but cheaper fiber-optic cables could make that a reality. Instead of companies citing the astronomical cost of replacing copper wires with fiber, startups could offer a viable solution to slow downloads. Nanophotonics can help change that by exploring the interactions of light and objects on a wavelength or subwavelength scale. That same thinking is being applied across various technologies and could even change how we power homes or treat cancer.David Yeaton-Massey, a research scientist at Northrop Grumman, comments: "In addition to exploring how light and matter behave at these tiny sizes (the nanoscale), we're also exploring what happens at the smallest power scales possible; we want to explore how we can read and write information using individual photons." The Versatility of Optics Solar power, while great for the environment, is anything but efficient. Silicon-based solar panels are hovering around a 20 percent efficiency, with thinner solar films around 12 percent. When the sun's rays hit solar panels, most of the potential energy is reflected or diffused, thus reducing energy conversion. Nanophotonics can help solve the main issues with solar panels. Nanostructures can be created that better absorb the light. Another method involves guiding the light along the surface of the panel to reduce scatter. These nanostructures would reduce the size of solar panels, which would drastically reduce the cost while increasing efficiency. That's a win-win situation for consumers and the environment. Microscopes are also benefiting from nanophotonics. Manipulating light on the smallest level lets scientists develop new techniques to observe nanostructures or the inner workings of cells. Nanophotonics could make cancer treatments more specific, which would help reduce tumors and the negative effects of radiation therapy. A course of treatment could involve doctors injecting gold nanorods, developed to bond with specific cancer-related cells, into a patient. These nanorods would latch onto cancerous cells while ignoring healthy cells. The other advantage would involve the type of radiation used for treatment. Gold nanorods are great at absorbing near-infrared light while healthy human cells only absorb a small amount of this type of radiation. Doctors could use near-infrared lasers to reduce tumors with minimal damage to surrounding healthy cells. Even the old-fashioned light bulb, tossed aside in favor of more efficient LED bulbs, could stage a comeback courtesy of nanophotonics. As Yeaton-Massey suggests, there seems to be endless opportunities when it comes to the study of light on even the tiniest of scales. Perhaps you're the one who'll break new ground in the study of nanophotonics. Perhaps you can find such an opportunity at Northrop Grumman.

Nanophotonics: Small Scale, Big Impact

The power semiconductor is undergoing a subtle revolution. Gallium nitride (GaN), a hard crystalline compound, is being heralded as a solution to meet the demands of high-performance power transistors. This material is faster and more efficient than other high-power semiconductor materials but, until recently, was more not as technically mature.GaN is as versatile as it is efficient. Technology companies like Northrop Grumman are at the forefront in developing and commercializing the compound for many applications. "[GaN] technology will enable the next generation of wideband communications, radar, electronic warfare, and navigation," says Mike Wojtowicz, Northrop Grumman Fellow. "It has no equal when it comes to superior transmission and conversion of electromagnetic energy."Say Hello to Gallium NitrideAlthough GaN may have only just stepped into the mainstream spotlight, the material has long been a favorite for high-energy electronics. It is efficient and durable, making it perfect to power radar and communications satellites. For Northrop Grumman radar, that means better tracking and better threat detection.According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gallium nitride has many advantages over other semiconductors: less resistance, higher efficiency and faster switching capability.Those advantages are ideal for use in power amplifiers and equipment that needs to survive in the harshest of elements. Point-to-multipoint radio systems, satellite communications terminals and aerospace components all benefit from GaN.GaN technology also uses less power. The widespread adoption of GaN could help reduce energy consumption, which is an important consideration as the world becomes increasingly digital. The only disadvantage of GaN has been its price, but that has changed recently as new production processes have made GaN usage in consumer products more feasible.GaN You See the Future?If you look around your home, chances are you have replaced the standard incandescent light bulb with an energy-efficient LED bulb. Unlike traditional bulbs, LEDs are a semiconductor material that light up when an electrical current passes through them. The white light is actually the combination of multiple colors and a phosphor material that converts amber, red, blue and green into that bright, white light that illuminates our homes.LED is still an expensive option to light one's home, but new LED using GaN grown on silicon wafers, instead of more costly sapphire wafers, with another buffer material to compensate for thermal expansion can make LED bulbs cheaper and more efficient. The impact of GaN is even more powerful if you consider all the fluorescent bulbs used in large retail stores or offices that could be replaced by LED bulbs.Data centers demand a massive amount of energy. The tech giants of the world require huge data centers, but the adoption of GaN will make these costly necessities more energy efficient, according to MIT.Even the cumbersome laptop adapter could be a thing of the past with GaN transistors. Instead of a brick attached to the power cord, adapters could be built within the laptop itself.We're still far away from flying cars, but electric cars and autonomous car development would benefit greatly from GaN. While the electric minivan may not be as exciting as the electric hot rod, there are only a few select models of the former currently available due to the current limitations in powering these larger vehicles. The introduction of GaN can create more efficient power cells to fuel electric car growth, according to VentureBeat. GaN can also improve the electronics in autonomous cars, such as laser-tracking systems, to increase accuracy and safety.In a world where technology is increasingly demanding more energy and better efficiency, it's good to have GaN around.

Say Hello to Gallium Nitride, the Future of High Energy

High speed and faster data are the watchwords for 5G applications coming to an IoT (Internet of Things) device near you in the very near future. But apart from downloading an HD movie in a heartbeat or powering very chatty IoT interactions, what will the future look like once 4G is replaced? What exactly is fixed wireless, and how will it fit into our lives? Faster Data, Faster Communications 5G promises speed. It also promises capacity; CNET forecasts communications 100 times faster than current cellular connections and more bandwidth for a greater number of users. It will be more responsive, with less lag time or latency to stall operations. Many cell carriers, including Verizon and AT&T, are working on rolling out 5G applications to customers this year to avoid overloads in the LTE network, says PC Magazine. 5G will run on three different spectrum bands rather than just one. Digital Trends lists these as low (<1GHz), mid (<6GHz) and high-band (>6GHz), and each brings a different benefit. For example, the mid-band brings greater speeds, at an estimated 1Gb per second at peak, with lower latency. High-band 5G, also referred to as mmWave or millimeter wave technology, will bring speeds up to around 10Gb per second. Faster speed means faster data transfer, and more capacity increases the number of users or services that a network supports. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) forecasts that 5G will enable "high data-rate instantaneous communications, low latency, and massive connectivity." Unifying Connectivity for IoT, Sensors and Sharing Data  SDX Central describes the new 5G wireless applications as a "unifying connectivity fabric" that brings together a whole population of IoT devices, mobile networks and services. With improvements in speed and reduction in latency, the potential for real-time communication between devices could finally be realized. For example, fast data uploads from sensors will boost health tracking via wearable medical devices to allow seniors to remain in their homes. CNET notes lag-less 5G could also be good for operations from afar, bringing medical care to remote areas via robotic surgery. The new technology will connect massive machine-type communications between mobile-enabled, remote sensors from a variety of devices such as buildings security systems and on-board instruments in unmanned vehicles. 5G applications could drive improvements in autonomous vehicle control. One result of this is "platooning." The Washington Post describes how the city of Columbus is using a U.S. Department of Transportation grant to investigate connectivity for road users. By enabling sensor-to-sensor communication, your car might know before you do when the vehicle ahead slams on its brakes. With reduced latency, it should also be possible to remotely operate heavy equipment. Digital Trends suggests that remotely controlling machinery in hazardous conditions keeps an operator out of harms way. Scenarios could include operating during disaster relief and keeping an eye on wildfires. Cut the Cable With 5G FWA Another key feature of 5G could help bring the internet to a wider population; fixed wireless access (FWA) could replace landlines, replacing cable with wireless broadband access especially in remote or rural areas. Instead of laying expensive cable, users will be able to connect wirelessly, thus reducing last mile costs and tackling broadband disparity. Digital Trends describes how a fixed antenna, like a satellite dish, on each house will connect up to internet access from nearby wireless towers. FWA will use mmWave tech and also beamforming, where tightly focused beams improve performance for users according to an article on 5g.co.uk. The article also proposes that with improvements in speed, FWA will also compete with existing cable broadband. With competition in mind, existing mobile providers are already heavily invested in 5G. Telecoms.com notes that Verizon has launched in four cities; residents in Houston, Indianapolis, Sacramento and Los Angeles should have faster bragging rights as the first in the U.S. to get 5G wireless broadband in their homes.

Fast Forward Into the Future With 5G Applications

 Preventing fraud in a world of data breaches requires more than a handful of observant humans verifying each transaction. Machine learning is a powerful tool for fraud prevention and detection. Considering fraud's impact on finance, e-commerce and insurance, advanced algorithms capable of scaling large pools of data are an increasing necessity for industries and consumers looking to thwart scammers.The Power of Machines Who Can Learn As the name implies, machine learning is a way for computers to learn without the need to regularly input new programs or updates. It's a type of artificial intelligence using algorithms to sift through massive amounts of data. We take for granted email spam filters, but that's a type of AI that prevents bad emails, from unverified accounts or untrustworthy actors, from ever reaching your inbox. These filters look for links that may lead to unsafe websites, email addresses that differ from known accounts of a company and language from the message itself to determine if it's spam. Similar algorithms can also be used as part of conversational AI systems. Northrop Grumman's Synthetic Adaptable Intelligent Entity, or SAdIE, processes data on different topics to provide answers to any inquiry naturally. Applying that same principle, algorithms are developed to detect potential fraud. You may have had a purchase flagged because it was for an amount, or from a location, that does not match your pattern of spending or history. That's machine learning applied on a personal level and represents what's happening across various industries on a much larger scale.Preventing Fraud Credit fraud alone cost consumers $16 billion in 2016. That impact is even greater for industries who lose on goods lost or sold, associated fees and loss of consumer trust. The Target credit-card breach of 2013, for example, affected 40 million customers. Target estimates the breach cost the company $252 million, although that number drops to $105 million after insurance reimbursements and tax deductions. After the breach, Target also paid $19 million to those affected by the hack. As hacking and fraud becomes more sophisticated, so too must the systems in place to detect and prevent such attacks. Financial institutions, instead of just focusing on an individual's history and behavior, can use a vast history of transactions to flag something as fraudulent. That same pattern recognition can be used for insurance claims. Supervised machine learning requires training using different models. A linear-regression classification approach includes a set of data used to reach a "true" or "false" decision. Banks could flag any purchase over a certain value, the number of times a card was used outside of its country of origin or any other value to determine the probability of a fraudulent transaction. Companies have to train this model by using previous examples of fraud so the computer can learn how to detect these types of transactions in the future. While a linear approach will work for the majority of fraud detection, neural networks can be applied when there are billions of transactions across hundreds of countries and millions of customers. Neural networks, or deep learning, closely mimic how the human brain makes decisions. PayPal uses multiple machine-learning methods, including neural networks, to weigh thousands of features and create models along with potential outcomes to determine the trustworthiness of a customer. All of this is happening within seconds, which helps create a seamless transaction for a consumer while generating enough obstacles to flag a would-be fraudster. As data breaches become seemingly more commonplace, AI can help even the playing field in the ever-evolving world of fraud.

Machine Learning at the Cutting Edge of Fraud Prevention

In 2016 the world reached a digital milestone: One zettabyte of internet traffic. It's a big number — a ridiculously huge number, in fact — but what does it mean? What's next for the future of the internet and digital technology? Welcome to the Zetta Zone So what's a zettabyte? Easy! It's one trillion gigabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. It took a while to reach this mark — large-scale commercial use of the internet didn't start until the 1980s and it took a decade more for consumer applications to catch up. The widespread adoption of mobile phones and wireless broadband networks increased the pace of information creation, and in 2016 the world finally crossed the one-zettabyte threshold, heralding a new era for (very) big data. But as noted by IT Pro Portal, we didn't stop there: Current predictions suggest that by 2022 there will be more than 12 billion connected devices worldwide generating 4.8 zettabytes of data per year. And that's just for starters — according to a recent IDC report, the "global datasphere" will grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025. While that number seems absurd on paper, it makes sense in context: The development of 5G mobile networks, fiber optic connections, peer-to-peer internet connections and the uptick in mobile device use has conspired to create a massive data deluge. Big Numbers — What's the Big Deal? From the perspective of companies or individual users, there's little change to their connected experience as data numbers ramp up. Sure, files load faster and streaming data plays with fewer interruptions but there's little sense of data scope and impact. At scale, however, the zettabyte era comes with bigger implications. As noted by Tech Native, big data means a big market for cloud computing and other distributed internet services — a trillion-dollar market, in fact. According to Forbes, this huge information pool offers potential to help solve problems around population, food production and global mobility as companies learn to better leverage the data they own and access. But concerns are also emerging. As The Hill points out, every internet interaction generates data. When users log on to social media feeds, access online banking, use in-car mapping data or talk to their home smart speaker, data is created. Some of this data is stored — most isn't — and some is monetized to create improved marketing profiles or analyze consumer trends. Much of this data, however, isn't accessible to those who created it in the first place, leading to an uptick in legislation, such as GDPR which mandates how companies can access, store and use data, and also requires organizations to delete user data upon request. Other countries — and states such as California, Maine and Nevada — are now drafting their own laws to manage data and protect consumer privacy. Ultimately, this raises the question of effective use: With massive amounts of data to discover, how much is relevant, how much is redundant and how much is simply lost? That's a Yotta Zeros According to Tech Republic, experts anticipate that by 2022 there will be 4.8 billion internet users worldwide on 28.5 billion devices accessing the internet at 75.4 mbps on average with 82% of all traffic used to view or create videos. The result? Yottabytes. So what's a yottabyte? A yot more than a zettabyte, that's for sure. It's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 bytes, and, as noted by the IEEE, humankind will start generating yottabytes within the decade as data fidelity, transfer speed and usage rates rapidly increase. Worth noting? The highest prefix in the international system of units (SI) is yotta, meaning once we've rocketed past the yotta years we'll need an entirely new way to describe data. Maybe uberbytes? Incredo-bytes? Gargunta-bytes? The potential is endless. Bottom line? We've arrived at — and rapidly overshot — the zettabyte era. Next up are yottabytes, promising both the potential to address human-created problems with human-created data but carrying the caveat that making more information, more quickly isn't the future of the internet and digital technology — only its foundation.

Zipping Past the Zettabyte Era: What's Next for the Internet and Digital Technology?

The human exoskeleton, an invention that arose in the 1960s, is finally coming into its own. Designed for medical, military and industrial applications, these wearable machines assist persons with limited mobility, augment human strength and endurance, and reduce the risk of worker injury. By transferring weight and load forces from a person's body to an external, motorized frame, a human exoskeleton makes light work of heavy-duty tasks. And while the idea of augmenting humans with metallic frames may conjure images of fictional villains and mechanical superheroes, in reality, these devices are being developed to improve the lives of everyday people. Here's how. Better Than a Wheelchair In the United States, about 288,000 people live with a spinal cord injury, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Not only can the medical costs from such injuries run into the millions over a person's lifetime, pain and limited mobility can bring about feelings of hopelessness. Between 11% and 37% of people who suffer from spinal cord injuries experience depression, reports the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center. To help them, research labs working on the future of robotics are developing assistive exoskeletons that give people a new way to get around. Homayoon Kazerooni, director of the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory and also the cofounder and CEO of suitX says that to assist people who cannot otherwise walk on their own, a human exoskeleton needs to do four things: help a person stand up, start walking, stop walking and sit down. "These four things provide greater independence. They can move around, they can work, they can sit in front of a computer, they can work inside of a kitchen," says Kazerooni. Wheelchairs can't do that. But the Ekso GT and the Phoenix at suitX, both designed under Kazerooni, can. Each is basically a pair of wearable robotic legs — a mix of rigid and soft parts — that a patient puts on by placing their feet into footplates and then strapping the external frames to each leg. Using crutches for stability, they shift their weight slightly side-to-side to engage electronic motors in the frame. Mechanical joints at the hips and knees bend and move forward to produce a walking motion. At first, the machine may do all of the work. But depending on the injury, the repetitive motion can, over time, reengage the patient's muscles and nervous system. Sensors in the frame and motor monitor the progress and display the information on a screen for a physical therapist. If the therapist sees that the patient is getting stronger, he can reduce the power, encouraging muscles to work a little harder. In the last few years, the Food and Drug Administration has approved several exoskeletons for walking assistance and rehabilitation, including suitX's Phoenix, the Ekso GT, Cyberdyne's Medical HAL, ReWalk Robotics and Parker Hannifin's Indego. And in 2019, the health insurance provider Cigna announced it would change its policy to consider exoskeleton devices for individuals on a case-by-case basis. Give Me Strength Millennials are currently the talk of the town. But by 2035, adults age 65 and older will outnumber children under 18 for the first time in American history, according to a report from the Gerontological Society of America. It's not just Americans that are getting older, either. Populations in Japan, Germany, France, Singapore and the United Kingdom will soon also see more elderly than young. At the same time, occupations that require strength, endurance or repetition, such as those in manufacturing, healthcare and the skilled trades, are facing job shortages, according to CBS News. "You want to keep people working longer, but they can't be put into these physically demanding positions — not without help," says Eugene Demaitre, Senior Editor of the Robot Report. That help could come from a human exoskeleton. According to the analyst firm ABI Research, shipments of industrial exoskeletons will grow from 7,000 units in 2018 to 301,000 by 2028, reaching a revenue of $5.8 billion by 2028. Assistive machines designed for the lower half of a person's body can reduce the strain and fatigue of repetitive bending and lifting as well as protect knees and lower backs from injury. Those designed for the upper body protect the shoulders, neck and back. Car manufacturers appear to be early adopters of this technology. Audi, for instance, has been testing startup Noonee's Chairless Chair, a passive, wearable seat for workers who stand for hours on end. Hyundai Motor Group developed a similar device called the Chairless Exoskeleton (H-CEX) to reduce strain on knee joints, and the Hyundai Vest Exoskeleton (H-VEX) makes it possible for a worker to hold an extra 132 pounds overhead without effort. In 2018, Ford announced it had partnered with Ekso Bionics to add wearable EksoVests to 15 assembly plants across seven countries. Some workers in these factories lift their arms overhead on average of 4,600 times per day. The EksoVest reduces fatigue and the possibility of injury by elevating and supporting a worker's arms as they assemble parts that are chest height or higher. The vest fits workers between 5' 2" tall to 6' 4" tall and provides lift assistance from 5 lbs to 15 lbs per arm. SuitX, which has sold 1,200 industrial exoskeletons internationally, entered into an agreement to implement exoskeleton technologies in Siemens' factories around the globe. Kazerooni says that although discussion around the future of robotics suggests people will be supplanted by machines, it hasn't happened yet. "At least for now, we can combine them," he says. March on Metal Warriors For all the medical and industrial progress human exoskeletons promise, their origin lies in a military machine named Hardiman. Designed by General Electric engineer, Ralph S. Mosher, Hardiman was a hulking 1,500-pound wearable machine developed as a joint Army-Navy project. It had a force feedback system to sense the environment and 30 different joints that helped amplify human strength by a factor of 25. Although the prototype represented an engineering breakthrough, its weight, lack of stability and extraordinary power needs ultimately did it in. But the Department of Defense still wants exoskeletons. Two of most advanced military machines being tested today are full-body, autonomously powered robotic exoskeletons from Sarcos. The Guardian XO and XO Max are rigid, hefty suits that can be put on and taken off in about 30 seconds. Unlike other exoskeletons that augment human strength, these machines bear it all. The XO can lift and support 80 lbs of weight for four hours at a time, while the XO Max can handle 200 lbs for up to eight hours. Both can walk at three miles per hour (Hardiman walked 2.5 mph). The military has shown great interest. In 2019, the U.S. Special Operations Command contracted Sarcos to deliver a Guardian XO; in that same year the company announced a partnership with the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to evaluate the exoskeleton. Previously, the U.S. Air Force had also signed contracts with Sarcos for the XO. But although the original intention behind military exoskeletons has been to increase the strength, endurance, protection and tactical awareness of battlefield soldiers, these machines have yet to fulfill that vision. Earlier this year, Sarcos retired its futuristic Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, saying that the large, relatively heavy machine wasn't ready for the close, person-to-person environment of combat, reports Defense One. U.S. military units are currently operating in parts of the world, such as the Middle East, that are warm, mountainous and dusty, where agility and comfort are going to be big factors, says Demaitre of the Robot Report. "A full-body battle suit is still the stuff of science fiction," he says. For now, the military exoskeletons will be used mainly for industrial purposes, to load and unload materials, for instance.  Despite some limitations, human exoskeletons remain an important part of the future of robotics. Although originally conceived for battle, these machines will instead infiltrate healthcare and manufacturing to offer bodily support, rehabilitate injuries and bring mobility to people who cannot walk on their own. The future of robotics is just around the corner, but these machines are already making impacts in patient care, industrial labor and military performance. As the technology advances and demand for these devices grow, exoskeletons may be more common than wheelchairs. 

The Human Exoskeleton Comes of Age

 3-D printed objects are no longer mere curiosities. As the technology continues to improve and fall in price, more consumers use them to create everything from soap holders to piggy banks to customized hooks. That's just the beginning. It's been half a decade since Wired's Chris Anderson predicted that 3-D printing would usher in a new industrial revolution. Since then, technologies like wearables and artificial intelligence have overshadowed 3-D printing, at least in the press. However, the industry has been quietly building. The 3-D printing industry surpassed $5 billion in 2015 as consumers purchased 278,000 desktop printers worldwide. The industry as a whole grew 25.9 percent. Gartner predicts that by 2019, additive manufacturing, as it's also known, will be a $14.6 billion business. The growth has been impressive on the business side as well. Manufacturers like GE, Ford and Nissan are now using additive manufacturing. A 2016 survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers found 71 percent of manufacturers were using 3-D printing for prototyping and final products.Prototyping and Replacing, Not Mass Production Those firms are mostly using additive manufacturing to create prototypes. The idea of 3-D printing cars or even car parts on an assembly line is years off. How many years, though? That PricewaterhouseCoopers survey showed that 52 percent of manufacturers said that they thought 3-D printing would be used for high-volume production within three to five years. At this point, printers are far too slow to produce at volume. The 3-D printed objects that most manufacturers are producing are prototypes. Making a prototype in a traditional factory is an arduous process that requires remaking molds and then flowing in liquid plastics or metals. 3-D printing is a much easier way to create such prototypes. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and entrepreneur Jim McKelvey created the first prototype for Square, the credit-card swiper, with a 3-D printer. Another use for 3-D printing is to create replacement parts. A far-flung satellite office, for instance, could use its own 3-D printer to produce a broken machine part rather than waiting for headquarters to recreate and send the part. Daimler AG, the world's largest truck manufacturer, is using additive manufacturing to create replacement parts.Medical Miracles? Another segment that's creating 3-D printed objects is medicine and health care. 3-D printers can already create prosthetic devices, like a mechanical hand for a Sudanese refugee. They have also been used to create splints to be used in operations on newborns. Doctors have used 3-D printers to replace skull parts. A Massachusetts company called Conformis prints hundreds of knee implants every year.Makers These use cases are occurring as small companies using 3-D printers appear ready to give traditional manufacturers some new competition. The Brooklyn-based Voodoo Manufacturing, for instance, uses 160 printers that cost $2,000 each to print up to 160 items at the same time. The company says it can undercut traditional factories producing runs of 10,000 pieces. The company hopes to cut its costs by 90 percent during the next few years as printers get cheaper and more efficient. While such upstarts have an opportunity to disrupt manufacturing, most business leaders are aware of the threat. They've also lived through the past few years in which "digital disruption" has become a fact of daily life. Most likely, manufacturers will use 3-D printing to create disruption themselves and bring down costs for everyone.

3-D Printed Objects Usher in a New Industrial Revolution

More than 700 Earth observing satellites orbit the globe. Flying miles above the planet, the spacecraft use remote sensing instruments, such as cameras, radar, lidar and radio receivers to monitor a wide range of weather and environmental conditions as well as radio communications. Some sensing systems already collect gigabytes and even terabytes of data per hour. And because each sensor type has its own unique way of analyzing information, the world can be surveyed for abundant reasons in details as small as 10 inches, reports MIT Technology Review. "The progress we have seen is stunning," says Anne Hale Miglarese, founder and CEO of Radiant Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization creating training data libraries of satellite imagery that can be used to improve machine learning algorithms meant to support research around agriculture, conservation and climate change. Soon researchers will be able to build a digital twin of the Earth on a daily basis. "We'll see buildings going up, ships crossing the sea, and we will be able to monitor the physical footprint of climate change," says Miglarese. Scientists armed with sensing data — from ocean temperatures, storm system, snow cover, vegetation, pollution, artificial lights and more — gain a deeper understanding of global events and processes so expansive they cannot be studied easily from the ground. Not only that, researchers can uncover hidden worlds obscured by tropical jungles or sheets of ice. Here are five discoveries made by Earth observing satellites flying high in the sky. Ancient Ruins Space archaeologist Sarah Parcak, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, uses satellites orbiting high above Earth to discover clues to ancient civilizations. Her most memorable find occurred in 2010, while looking at satellite images of Egypt. The region was normally an unremarkable region of sandy soil, but in these particular images, which were taken during a wet time of the year, Parcak noticed the outlines of buildings and streets of what turned out to be the 3,000-year-old city of Tanis. The ancient ruins stood out in the photos because rain had soaked into mud bricks, making them easy to distinguish from the sandy ground, Parcak told The Guardian. Since, then Parcak has discovered 18 new pyramids and thousands of new tombs and has scoured satellite images looking for evidence of ancient civilizations, including the Vikings and the Romans. In 2016, she won a $1 million TED Prize, which she used to build the citizen science platform, GlobalXplorer. It allows any person to search high-resolution images for hints of archaeological sites. "We've had about 90,000 users find almost 20,000 previously unrecorded potential sites there, 700 of which we think are of major archaeological importance," Parcak told The Guardian. Invasive Species Around the world, invasive plants and animals, introduced more often than not by humans, crowd out native species. They decrease biodiversity and degrade wildlife, pushing parts toward extinction, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the fragile ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands, for instance, the quinine tree, Cuban cedar, blackberry, guava and others threaten indigenous plants, reports The Darwin Foundation. The organization, which was founded to ensure the conservation of the environment and biodiversity of the archipelago, is currently collaborating with universities to use remote sensing imagery from satellites to locate a variety of invasive plant species in order to eradicate them. In a project with Brown University, researchers from the Darwin Foundation are analyzing images donated by the commercial satellite company Maxar (formerly DigitalGlobe). Their network of spacecraft collects high-resolution images of the planet daily, capturing photos in a wide spectrum of light, including infrared. Multi-spectral images pick up different concentrations of chlorophyll in plants and can be used to characterize specific species. By combining data from these images with camera data taken with low-flying drones, researchers trained a computer model to find invasive plants in satellite images alone. They have created maps of the most dominant invasive plants on Santa Cruz island, namely blackberry, guava and Cuban cedar, and are working on the maps for the islands of Floreana and Santiago. Lost Continents Not all Earth observing satellites turn cameras on our planet. A satellite from the European Space Agency named GOCE (for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) had an incredibly sensitive instrument designed to measure Earth's gravity, which changes across the globe, depending on the topography and the density of material below the surface. GOCE orbited Earth from 2009 to 2013, gathering data and transmitting it back to Europe. Eventually it finished its mission and plummeted into the atmosphere, where it burned up. Scientists kept studying the remote sensing data it had collected, though. In 2018, researchers from Kiel University in Germany combined the information from GOCE with data from a different satellite to digitally strip the ice from Antarctica and peer beneath. In the bedrock they found remnants of ancient continents beneath Antarctica, reports Live Science. East Antarctica's crust has a very old mix of features called cratons, cores of continents that came before Antarctica. They also found orogens, crumpled-up regions where ancient continents would have rammed together and created mountains. "This observation leads back to the break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana and the link of Antarctica to the surrounding continents," the study's leader Jé¶rg Ebbing told Live Science. Illegal Fishing Boats High crimes run rampant on the high seas. Up to one in five fish sold in the world is caught illegally, according to Pew research. Large-scale illegal fishing damages ecosystems and depletes fish stocks and is linked to arms and wildlife smuggling, drug trafficking, human rights abuses and slavery. A patchwork of fishing policies, lax enforcement and the impossibility of policing the open ocean only exacerbates, reports Pew. How to combat it? The answer lies in satellite technology. Some satellites are equipped with receivers that receive radio signals from a ship's Automatic Identification System, or AIS. The signal is analogous to a plane's air traffic control data and contains information about the ship's identity, position, course and speed. They're automatically generated and sent every two to 180 seconds from vessels more than 120 feet long as a way to prevent collisions and allows authorities to monitor vessel activities. Researchers around the word are beginning to analyze this and other data to piece together the otherwise unseen happenings in commercial fishing. One project, Global Fishing Watch, a nonprofit launched in 2016 and funded by Oceana, Google and SkyTruth, leverages satellite data and machine learning to track, visualize and share data about global fishing activity in near-real time and for free. To date, the platform has tracked approximately 65,000 commercial fishing vessels globally, an effort that has improved transparency and enforcement. Migrating Animals In the United States, big game species such as deer, elk, antelope, mountain goats and wild sheep draw lucrative amounts of hunting revenue to local economies. But human development, increased road traffic and expanded oil and gas drilling is adversely impacting wildlife. In Wyoming, for instance, mule deer herds have declined by 40% over 15 years in regions where oil and gas extraction has boomed, reports the Center for American Progress. Not only do shrinking herds reduce biodiversity, but they negatively impact Western state economies, where hunters and outdoor enthusiasts spend hundreds of billions of dollars Recently Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and New Mexico have begun ramping up funding and research efforts to study animal migration in an effort to improve wildlife management and conservation. Most scientists have turned to GPS collars and satellite tracking technology. Advancements in the technology have made it possible to not only accurately locate animals but do so every hour, reports Smithsonian. Scientists can reprogram a collar remotely, too, setting up so-called "geo-fences" that send out a notification if a group of animals leaves a predetermined border. Although studies have found that migration patterns change, species have unique pathways and timing. The majority of herds travel to the same summer ranges and return to the same winter ranges, year after year, reports Smithsonian. Knowing those routes can help conservation efforts. Research from the University of Wyoming, for instance, found that 4,000 to 5,000 pronghorn used a migration route that passed through the small town of Pinedale, Wyoming, situated in a valley between two large peaks. Preventing the development of private land there was critical to keeping the herds flowing through unimpeded. Another study from the University of Wyoming that used GPS collars on mule deer found that the animals "have a cognitive map of their migration routes and seasonal ranges, which helps them navigate tens to hundreds of miles between seasonal ranges," assistant professor, Jerod Merkle said in a press statement. "Because landscape memory so strongly underlies mule deer migratory behavior, the loss of a migratory population also will destroy the herd's collective mental map of how to move within a landscape, making it very difficult to restore lost migration routes," the researchers say. The view of Earth from miles above is expanding our understanding of the world and our place on it. And although there are more than 700 Earth observing satellites circling the globe, more are coming online. According to MarketWatch, the global commercial satellite imaging market is expected to grow more than 10% by 2023. It's only a matter of time before other hidden mysteries are laid bare.

5 Mysteries Earth Observing Satellites See From Space

Back in the day, urgent deliveries by UPS, Amazon or even the local pizza parlor arrived at your door on four wheels in the hands of a two-legged human. Don't look up now, but drone delivery companies are working to land a different type of future in your front yard, one that will keep your pizza hot, save you a late-night trip to the pharmacy or even help you save a life with emergency medical supplies. Poised for Takeoff In recent months, reports Wired, several well-known companies including UPS and Google have taken serious steps toward launching commercial drone-based delivery services. In March, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized UPS and drone maker Matternet to begin using drones, or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), to deliver medical specimens across North Carolina-based WakeMed's medical campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. In April, Google spinoff Wing Aviation received the FAA's first certification for a commercial drone delivery service. And Forbes reports that the FAA has authorized Amazon to conduct a year of drone research, testing and pilot training in authorized flight areas, but not to conduct deliveries yet. Drone delivery companies tout reduced carbon emissions and quicker delivery times — drones use electric motors and avoid local road congestion — as the key benefits of using drones to make time-sensitive deliveries. Drone operators are also taking advantage of rapid growth in the maturity, availability and reliability of drone technology. Safety First Hovering amid this new enthusiasm for drone-based delivery services, however, are questions about how best to ensure air traffic safety, particularly for drones operating in densely populated areas. "The Federal Aviation Administration is responsible for the safety and security of all aircraft in the National Airspace System," said an FAA spokesperson. "Our long-term goal is to integrate drones safely into that system so that our society can reap the full benefits of drone technology." Integration Challenges The designs and reliability of drones have greatly improved in recent years but the integration of drones into local and national airspace remains challenging, explains Doug Davis, director of airworthiness and airspace integration for Northrop Grumman, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems. "If you're going to operate new aircraft, which is what drones are considered, you need to operate them within the same framework of operational risk and requirements that apply to all aircraft operating in the domestic airspace of the United States," he said.  Davis' real concern is not the technical maturity of drones — over the past 15 years the number incidents of operators losing control of their drones has dropped dramatically — but rather, the high potential density of drones above populated areas, and an inadequate knowledge of the aviation environment by a new generation of delivery drone operators. "Many of these new operators are coming into the field from a purely business perspective, with no aviation background at all," he explained. "They often just don't understand what's in the air with them." His fears are compounded, he added, by the current limited ability of drones to avoid collisions with other objects in their path, whether it's a bird, a building, or another drone. The FAA shares Davis' concern. "Several companies have developed technology intended to automatically detect and avoid other aircraft but the technology is still maturing," admitted the FAA spokesperson. "Solving that challenge would allow longer flights beyond a pilot's visual line of sight and help enable routine drone delivery." Encouraging Innovation  To create an air traffic safety environment where the public is safe and drone delivery service companies can succeed, the FAA is working closely with drone operators such as UPS to define new regulations that support both safety and innovation. "For drones, we're focusing on the top-level safety performance we expect rather than dictating a detailed aircraft design that will meet that safety guideline," explained the FAA spokesperson. This approach encourages drone operators to meet overall safety and operational requirements while not discouraging them from exploring new, more innovative ways to deliver products and services, the spokesperson added. Flying Forward For its part, UPS is trying to build public confidence in drone-based services by simply delivering on its promises: "UPS has conducted numerous public drone demonstrations for urgent commercial and non-urgent residential deliveries," said Kyle Peterson, a spokesperson for UPS. "We also partner with GAVI and Zipline to use drones to deliver blood products to remote locations in Africa. These efforts help shape and inform the evolving drone policy in the U.S." In July, reports Reuters, UPS announced the creation of a drone delivery subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward, and revealed that it has applied for FAA certification to expand the business. Managing the Future Current FAA safety regulations prohibit drones from operating over populated areas or beyond line of sight without an FAA waiver. Any drone to be used for package delivery must obtain an FAA airworthiness certificate. And drones are not allowed to operate at night. The FAA recognizes, however, that it is operating in a dynamic, technology-driven environment where the pressure to integrate drones safely and efficiently into the national airspace is increasing every day. To that end, the agency is working with NASA's Ames Research Center and other federal agencies to develop an Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) system analogous to the current air traffic management system for manned aircraft. "The UTM system is an automated, machine-to-machine system that does not rely on air traffic controllers," said NASA Ames' Marcus Johnson, deputy project manager for NASA's UTM program. "It relies instead on drones to self-report their positions and flight activities to a group of federated UAS service suppliers on the ground." The service suppliers, Johnson adds, share information with each other about the drones' proposed flight activities, and help deconflict those activities from other operations occurring in the same air space. The service suppliers also communicate with the FAA through a flight information management system. Since 2016, the UTM program has undergone four phases of testing to demonstrate drones' ability to operate safely in increasingly dense and challenging traffic environments. NASA reports that the most recent testing was completed in August 2019 and "focused on UAS operations in higher-density urban areas for tasks such as newsgathering and package delivery." Reality Check According to Johnson, the UTM testing revealed that drone operations remain potentially vulnerable to "microclimates" and radio frequency (RF) interference. "If you operate a drone in dense urban environments, you're likely to encounter a diverse set of small, localized weather patterns," Johnson said. "These microclimates can really challenge your situational awareness of current flight conditions, particularly if you're operating the drone beyond visual line of sight." In such a situation, Johnson adds, the urban density may also limit an operator's options for landing a drone quickly and safely. RF interference also poses a greater potential threat to drone operations than most delivery service companies realize, he added. "For command and control, drone operators often use the same unlicensed frequency bands — 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz — used by residential or commercial Wi-Fi routers," explained Johnson. If a drone flies too close to an office building where such routers are in use, it can experience a sudden "loss of link," i.e. a loss of communication with its operator, which can create safety hazards for the drone and people on the ground. RF interference can also be caused by steel-reinforced concrete and other building materials found commonly in the urban environment. Writing a New Chapter The final step in integrating drones safely into the national airspace will be to transition the UTM rules of engagement into practice and to gain acceptance for commercial drone operations from all potential stakeholders. The FAA's UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP),created in late 2017, aims to create that harmony. It has brought UAS operators and manufacturers together with state, local and tribal governments to test and validate advanced drone operations in various beyond-line-of-sight applications including infrastructure monitoring, border protection and package delivery. According to Johnson, the technologies demonstrated by the UTM program have accelerated the delivery industry's readiness to begin using drones more regularly while helping to inform the FAA's current drone policy and rulemaking activities. For its part, the FAA is cautiously optimistic about the future of commercial drone operations. "Societal acceptance of drones will be predicated on the public's expectation for safety, just as in the airline industry," said the FAA spokesperson. "Working together, we can accelerate the development of the UTM ecosystem and usher in the necessary social transformation. It's an exciting challenge as we integrate unmanned aircraft into our nation's airspace and help write a new chapter in aviation history." If you're eager to see your career in autonomous aircraft systems take off, please visit us at www.careers.northropgrumman.com.

Are Drone Delivery Services Safe Enough for Takeoff?

Establishing partnerships between startups and large companies can be awkward and complicated. Bureaucracy at large companies often results in slow discovery processes, complicated vetting and legal requirements that can drag on for months. Startups don't have the time or the personnel to deal with these lengthy processes that distract from the core mission of the company. Yet both sides are incentivized to work together. Startups need market reach, customer relationships and the scale large businesses offer. Large businesses need access to leading edge innovation, intellectual property and agility that startups thrive on. Moving Fast Northrop Grumman has been experimenting with new techniques aimed at expediting the establishment of partnerships. Quickly bringing the latest technology to the warfighter is becoming extremely critical. With the enormous and widening gap between commercial R&D and defense R&D, it is incumbent upon the defense prime contractors like Northrop Grumman to tap into adjacent technologies. In recent years, the company has teamed up with smaller ventures; for example, the company worked with Not Impossible Labs to create and distribute vaccines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2019, the large aerospace firm teamed up with smaller manufacturer Rocket Lab to launch a satellite from a remote spot in New Zealand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiyPDYlYpGk&feature=youtu.be <strong>A Hackathon and a Sprint More recently, Northrop Grumman held a hackathon with Deepwave Digital, the creator of a software-defined radio optimized to execute deep learning algorithms for signal processing and signal identification applications. Last summer, forty Northrop Grumman engineers sat in rapt attention as John Ferguson, CEO of Deepwave Digital, delivered a lecture about radio frequency (RF) machine learning. Twelve hours later, the engineers demonstrated their neural networks tackling a real world problem while running on Deepwave hardware in their own labs. The time from initial meeting to hackathon was only about 30 days. That's light speed in the world of defense technology. In the following months, a productive relationship was solidified. Exposing Northrop Grumman engineers to the Deepwave Digital development environment, by actually using it, translated to immediate benefits to the startup. Putting together the demos and curriculum for the hackathon forced Deepwave to put together a user experience that they now can share at other venues and accelerate adoption. Ferguson says, "Training and deploying RF machine learning as algorithms is complex, and the Northrop Grumman engineers had a wide variety of expertise. This forced us to put together a streamlined experience where we can enable newcomers to get relevant, first-hand experience with our product." Everyone Benefits The larger company benefited as well. Now, Northrop Grumman and its Applied Autonomy group have a new tool with which to develop solutions to some of its customers' hard problems. "We're really looking forward to some collaborative work with them in the coming year," says Dr. Mark Milam, Northrop Grumman Fellow. Relationships like these enable Northrop Grumman engineers to gain access to discriminating, cutting-edge technology fast and apply it to national defense problems. This will soon become second nature. Northrop Grumman has job openings working on exciting partnerships like this one.

Tech Giants and Startups: Combining Resource with Speed

Imagine the battlespace of the future. Autonomous airplanes soar overhead, ever watching, sending vital intelligence back to ground stations on the other side of the world. Sailors and airmen offshore and in the air jam enemy signals to protect allied forces from land-based missiles. Further inland, soldiers use satellite communications to receive the latest orders as they muster into position while cyber units look for opportunities to exploit enemy networks. In this scenario, all services and coalition forces are working together across a common digital network to deter aggression or ensure the US and its allies prevail in a conflict should hostilities begin. This is closer to the reality of today than you might realize. But what separates today's high tech battlespace from the truly joint future of science fiction is how difficult it is for today's cutting edge technologies to interact. As warfare leans more heavily on digital signals, often coming from multiple branches of the military operating in every military domain at once, it's becoming increasingly important to find better ways to integrate these technologies into a seamless battlefield management system. Integrated Strengths Speaking at the annual gathering of the Air Force Association in September 2019, then-Chief of Staff of the Air Force General David Goldfein illustrated the imperative of developing a system of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). "Victory in future combat will depend less on individual capabilities and more on the integrated strengths of a connected network available for coalition leaders to employ," said Goldfein. "What I'm talking about is a fully networked force where each platform's sensors and operators are connected." The Toaster In El Segundo, California, Northrop Grumman's Distributed Autonomy/Responsive Control (DA/RC) team has been charged with engineering a solution that controls a wide range of the connected sensors and operators. Under the bright red lights of a command and control room known as The Toaster, the El Segundo team — along with their colleagues in San Diego — are showing just how to control a wide range of systems as part of an integrated battle management network. The DA/RC team's working prototype can control systems, platforms and software across military services and domains (land, air, sea, space and cyber), and is part of the company-wide effort to provide JADC2 solutions to the US and its allies. "We are working toward connecting the battlespace because we know our technology will help save lives," said Bryan Lima, business lead for Northrop Grumman's company-wide JADC2 efforts. "The women and men who work on Northrop Grumman's enabling JADC2 technologies know how important this effort is and how challenging and important this work is. We've developed a mix of platforms and applications that enable us to uniquely address the threat called out in the National Defense Strategy. Connecting the battlespace and enabling battle management in the contested battlespace in ways nobody has thought of is what we are working to achieve." 24/7 Coverage Enabling all existing and future systems to work together is critical. That powerful joint force will act as a deterrent against future conflicts with other powerful nationsâ€•often referred to as peer-to-peer conflictâ€• and it will also help ensure victory if military action does eventuate. The question for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) right now is how it can leverage existing and emerging technology to connect dozens, or even hundreds, of autonomous and manned platforms across huge swaths of terrain and domains. And, how can those platforms be controlled to ensure 24/7 coverage of a highly contested battlespace? Goldfein went on to say in his Air Force Association speech that, "The goal is to combine to produce multiple dilemmas for our adversaries in a way that will overwhelm them. An even better outcome is to refine to the point where it produces so many dilemmas for our adversaries that they choose not to take us on in the first place." Northrop Grumman's DA/RC prototype demonstrates JADC2 in a range of battlefield environments and does so utilizing multi-domain systems to enable 24/7 battlespace control. By controlling a large number of manned and unmanned assets with an integrated battle management approach for prolonged periods of time, companies like Northrop Grumman are helping DoD realize their fully networked future. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology, and engineering.

The Future of Defense

Activities conducted using spacecraft have become a ubiquitous part of our society. From monitoring hurricanes to measuring the ozone layer, U.S. government agencies today rely heavily on satellites and aerospace technology to conduct their day-to-day activities. But how are satellites conceived, designed, produced and deployed? NASA describes a spacecraft as "a vehicle or device designed for travel or operation outside the Earth's atmosphere." A satellite is described as "a type of spacecraft that orbits the Earth, the moon or another celestial body." In this series, we will use the terms spacecraft and satellite interchangeably. * * * One of the most challenging aspects of spacecraft development, and indeed the activity that underpins the success of a satellite mission, is an iterative process called systems engineering. Through this process, a spacecraft developer such as Northrop Grumman decides how best to design, launch and support a satellite system that meets a customer's mission requirements for cost, schedule, performance and reliability. Systems engineering begins during a company's earliest discussions with a customer about a new system, then continues on through the study, proposal and detailed design phases of satellite development. It never really stops, in fact, until the design for the satellite system has been formally approved for production by the customer.  Breaking Down the Mission "One of the first things we do is to perform a functional decomposition of a satellite mission," said Erin Shaw, systems engineering lead for Northrop Grumman's Spacecraft Resiliency and Rapid Prototyping Division. "We break it down into functions to perform the mission, functions to maintain the health and safety of the space vehicle, and functions to provide communications, and command and control between the satellite and the ground." Out of this process comes a top-level set of requirements that the systems engineers allocate or "flow down" to the major segments of the mission: the space vehicle, which carries the mission payload(s); the ground system, which manages command and control of the satellite; and the launch vehicle, which carries the satellite to orbit. In a typical satellite development program, systems engineers are sprinkled throughout the organization. They serve primarily as referees, working to resolve issues between and within mission segments. Their goal is to ensure that all requirements are accounted for, and that the satellite system meets the customer's expectations. Building the Architecture In concert with a mission's functional decomposition, explained Shaw, systems engineers use "block diagrams" to identify the physical and functional pieces required in each segment, and to define the interfaces required between segments. The diagrams help the engineers outline the main satellite architecture and bridge the gap between functional descriptions and physical reality. "The systems engineers are absolutely talking to the hardware folks at this point," she said. "We need to assure ourselves that the proposed system can actually get built and that all of the units shown in the physical block diagram can actually talk to each other." Shaw has also learned to include space vehicle integration and test (I&T) specialists in those early conversations. "I&T comes much later in a program," Shaw said, "but you don't want them to walk in, see all the parts on the floor, and tell you that your satellite can't be built the way you've designed it, or that the equipment they'll need to test it is not compatible with the satellite design." Studying the Options At the heart of every discussion between systems engineers and other spacecraft engineers is a process called trade studies. Through trade studies, team members weigh the benefits and risks of using one technical approach versus another. For example, a team might consider using a smaller, more expensive processor with higher performance instead of a heavier, more mature, but less expensive unit. Or they might compare the costs and mission benefits of processing satellite sensor data in space versus on the ground. Mission reliability is also a frequent factor in trade studies. "If your customer asks you to design a satellite for a Class A mission that absolutely cannot fail, you can't afford to use parts that are risky or unproven," explained Mike Ciffone, a director of programs in Northrop Grumman's Strategic Space Division. "On the other hand, if you're doing a Class D mission, which is more of a demonstration, you might be able to use components that are less proven but offer a higher potential payoff for the mission." Creating Balance After the systems engineering team assigns requirements to the main mission segments, each segment team can take a more detailed look at how to implement its portion of the mission. The first order of business for space vehicle systems engineers, for example, is to perform basic "sizing" calculations on the satellite's expected mass (weight), power consumption and power generating capabilities. "Satellite design is all about creating a balance between mission requirements and the fundamental characteristics and capabilities of the satellite," explained Ciffone. Typically, his engineering team lists out all the components required to do the mission, totals up the mass and power consumption of those components, then compares those figures to the lift capacity of the proposed launch vehicle and the power generation budget of the satellite. The goal is to get the satellite to orbit and remain "power positive," i.e., be able to generate the power its payload and support subsystems need throughout the mission. If that goal is met, Ciffone's designers will start producing detailed schematic drawings of the space vehicle's main structure and its key subsystems, including electrical power, propulsion, thermal, attitude control, and command and data handling. If, however, the space vehicle budgets don't "add up" to an achievable satellite system, cautioned Ciffone, "the systems engineering team will recommend adjustments to the size, power, performance, and cost of the mission payload and the space vehicle's major subsystems."  Negotiating Changes Perhaps nowhere is the role of systems engineers more important than in helping to "referee" proposed changes in design within or between mission segments. "One of the big problems that programs face during these early phases of design and development is managing the baseline and keeping everyone on the same page," emphasized Shaw. In other words, everything potentially affects everything. "We use a process called an engineering review board (ERB) to serve as a forum for anyone who's considering making a change to the design of a satellite subsystem or interface," she said. When changes are proposed, every major group on the satellite team gets to review the changes, then explain to the ERB how those changes might affect the team's ability to produce the satellite or satisfy its mission requirements. Convergence This iterative design process continues through the study phase of spacecraft development with a core team of perhaps a dozen systems engineers, satellite designers, payload specialists and integration and test experts. Their collaboration produces a satellite concept that can meet, to first approximation, the customer's requirements. In fact, by the time the customer finalizes their mission requirements, secures the required funding and issues a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) to potential bidders, much of the thinking about the satellite's design, and how it will be built and launched has been done. But no matter how much a satellite developer thinks they know what the customer wants, the draft RFP always produces surprises. "When we get a draft RFP, the most important task is to look at section M, the evaluation criteria, to find out what formally matters most to a customer," said Greg Davidson, Northrop Grumman's director of capture and proposal excellence. "The big question is always how much do they care about performance that exceeds requirements, and how much do they care about cost." If the customer indicates that they will not award "extra credit" for exceeding requirements, and is intent on obtaining adequate performance at the lowest possible cost, it's time to start looking for ways to reduce costs while providing the desired level of performance, added Davidson. Reducing Risks One way to reduce cost without sacrificing performance is to use units that have flown in space before, or that can be obtained more quickly. By eliminating the need to space qualify units, or by shortening a spacecraft's integration and test schedule, one can effectively reduce program cost. Another smart way to reduce development cost, advised Davidson, is to consider the real costs of spacecraft integration and test. "More often than not, schedule drives your overall cost," he said, "You can sometimes avoid risk in schedule by selecting hardware that does not require time-consuming or expensive integration and test procedures." The draft RFP period typically lasts about two months. During this period, satellite teams "scrub" their design to make sure it still complies with the latest requirements. They will also use the time to get clarifications from the customer about requirements, or to propose modifications to those requirements. Generally, a customer will take bidders' comments and suggestions into consideration before issuing the final RFP. Bidders typically receive about 45 days to prepare and submit their final proposals for the spacecraft system. Getting to "Yes" If a company wins the satellite production contract, the systems engineering process kicks back in, this time to verify that all of the requirements presented in the original RFP still pertain. "What the customer asked for 10 months or a year ago (during early phases of the competition) may not be precisely what they want now that you're on contract," explained Davidson. The typical sequence of events following contract award is a system requirements review (SRR) to make sure contractor and customer agree on the top-level system requirements; a preliminary design review (PDR), which produces a design with nearly all subsystem level requirements defined, and finally, the critical design review (CDR), which implies zero undefined requirements. "Passing CDR means 'okay, you can start cutting metal and fabricating real hardware,'" said Ciffone. "You have now officially transitioned from design into pure production. From that point on, the systems engineering team focuses mainly on verifying and validating that design."   # # # Part III of this series will focus on how satellites are assembled, integrated and tested.

How Spacecraft Are Designed: Balancing Requirements With Reality

Imagine a paralysis treatment that uses a wireless router device on your brain to move your limbs. That's only a few steps beyond how Cleveland resident Bill Kochevar regained the use of his right hand following a bicycle accident that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. New Brain Prosthetics Earlier this year, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Brown University published a study in The Lancet that described the new technology, an example of a neuroprosthetic. Kochevar, 53, had two tiny recording devices — smaller than postage stamps — implanted in the motor cortex region of his brain. These microelectrode arrays, known as a brain—computer interface (BCI), are equipped with dozens of tiny metal probes that can listen to neural activity. This is decoded and transmitted to a network of 36 implanted electrodes in the patient's upper and lower right arm that function like a pacemaker, stimulating the muscles in his hand, shoulder and elbow to restore movement. With the help of a flexible, supportive armrest, Kochevar is now able to grasp and move objects, such as feeding himself and bringing a mug to his lips to drink. The researchers wrote that the study "represents a major advance, with a clear translational path for clinically viable neuroprostheses for restoration of reaching and grasping after paralysis." Cochlear Implants Show the Way Scientists have been working on paralysis treatment technologies for decades, trying everything from motorized leg braces to cellular transplants; BCIs have been helping patients since 1998. The significant feature of the Kochevar experiment is that it bypasses the damaged spinal cord to directly connect the brain with target muscles. According to The Mayo Clinic, the technology isn't unlike cochlear implants, which use an external microphone and transmitter to send radio signals to an implanted unit that can receive them and stimulate electrodes inserted into the cochlea, skipping parts of the middle ear where damage has caused deafness. There are hopes of using similar know-how to treat blindness and even restore memories eroded by Alzheimer's disease. Kochevar's newfound movement is the result of two surgeries, physiological training and a lot of engineering. The patient had to train by first watching a virtual representation of his arm doing certain movements. When he tried moving his arm the same way, the resulting brain activity was recorded. The recording served as the basis for a decoding system that would translate his intentions into commands for his arm electrodes.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. Wi-Fi for the Body While Kochevar has a wired connection from his brain implants, study coauthor John Donoghue, Ph.D., head of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering at Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland, is working on a wireless link between the brain and muscle groups to help people with paralysis, according to MIT Technology Review. Made of titanium and roughly the size of a matchbox, the device could gather information from the brain at internet speeds. "A radio inside your head" and "the most sophisticated brain communicator in the world" was how Donoghue described it to the news source. That device is also in the early stages of development. While paralysis treatment experts hailed the Kochevar experiment as a breakthrough and the first of its kind in the world, they noted the resulting movements were rudimentary and cautioned that the technology was far from being ready to go from lab bench to widespread clinical use. "We actually have a handle on everything that we need. There are no significant novel discoveries we need to make for the system," Abidemi Bolu Ajiboye, Ph.D., lead author of the study, told CNN. "There were no significant adverse events, the system is safe, so as far as the clinical trial endpoint goes, he has met those." Reversing paralysis is a long-term, complex challenge that requires a combination of medicine, technology and the body's innate power to heal and adapt. If the success of cochlear implants is any guide, BCIs could help restore movement and improve quality of life for countless people. The continued development of these technologies will help people in similar situations and open doors for cures and assistance we once never thought possible.

Paralysis Treatment Set to Be Revolutionized With Neuroprosthetics

Luke Skywalker's landspeeder in "Star Wars: A New Hope" didn't sell for much — just 2,000 credits thanks to a newer model on the market — but it captured the interest of science fiction fans everywhere. Speeder bikes featured during the "Return of the Jedi" chase scene on Endor only upped the ante: What would it be like to use this type of hovercraft technology to discover the joy of flying? Sure, it's no Millennium Falcon, but it's a good start. With May the 4th — "Star Wars" Day — just around the corner, it's worth taking a look at hover tech: Our obsession with the idea, what innovative technology is currently on the market and what the science says about "real" anti-gravity options. Floating on Air Humanity's interest in hovering vehicles started long before Luke swung a lightsaber. As noted by the BBC, the first hovercraft was developed by Sir Christopher Cockerell in 1959. It used a cushion of air to hover just above ground or water and avoid the common pitfalls of uneven surfaces. Until October 2000, hovercraft were used to ferry people and cars across the English Channel when competition from the Channel Tunnel and traditional ferry boats made the service obsolete. According to Popular Mechanics, commercial hovercraft have experienced a sharp decline from their heyday in the 1970s due to large fuel and maintenance costs combined with a lack of creature comforts. The landspeeder is a solid hovercraft analog: Both are slightly unwieldy and keep a low profile relative to the ground. While in the "Star Wars" universe newer models supplanted Luke's X-34, our version of slow-speed, low-riding hovercraft are largely confined to the footnotes of history. Taking Flight What about speeder bikes? These motorcycle-like danger sticks were seen whizzing at top speed through the forests of Endor — and were responsible for more than one unexpected stormtrooper—tree trunk collision. Fast and agile, repulsorlift-driven jumpspeeders offered an inherent "wow" factor, inherent awesomeness and (hopefully) hazard pay for Empire employees. While we haven't created anything quite so cool, companies are starting to roll out "hoverbikes" that do a decent speeder impression. As noted by Science Alert, it's now possible to preorder an FAA-approved hoverbike for $150,000. Using four battery-powered rotor blades, the bike can reach speeds of 60 miles per hour and heights of 16 feet. A single charge nets between 10-25 minutes of flying time if the weather cooperates. Strong winds — and rider weight — also impact flight time. Put simply, this nails two out of three: The bike hovers just like the ones in the movies and can zip along at breakneck speeds. The problem? Battery life. The chase scene on Endor would have been far less exciting if the Empire had to find charging stations every half an hour to keep up their search for the rebels. This may be a temporary setback, however — as noted by Nature, new research on potassium-air batteries with organic anodes could pave the way for significant storage increases. Coming Back Down to Earth It's one thing to mimic "Star Wars" innovative technology; it's another to actually create vehicles using repulsor-type solutions. The concept isn't new to science fiction: Other big franchises such as "Star Trek" regularly use anti-gravity tech to solve problems. But is it actually feasible to create repulsive force rather than simply blowing ever-larger volumes of air at the ground? According to a recent Forbes piece, probably not. Why? Because unlike electric force — which has both positive and negative charges — gravitational force has only one charge governed by mass and energy: Attractive. As a result, it's not possible to create a "gravitational conductor" which would effectively trap gravity outside and set up a gravity-free area inside. For that to happen, we'd need negative gravitation mass, or anti-mass, which would fall up instead of down when exposed to gravitational forces.  Although theories using anti-mass exist, such as the Alcubierre solution for warping space-time, scientists haven't discovered any evidence that anti-mass exists. One potential candidate is anti-matter, but even though anti-matter particles have been observed to have electric charges and spin opposite their normal-mass counterparts, their interaction with gravity should be the same as normal mass: They should fall down. If scientists do manage to discover a naturally-occurring source of anti-mass or create an artificial version, it then becomes possible to create both small- and large-scale gravitational conductors and capacitors. In space, this means giving ships and stations their own gravity fields independent of the surrounding mass. On Earth, it means equipping hovercraft and hoverbikes with the repulsive technology necessary to circumvent the law of gravity and provide a truly authentic "Star Wars" experience. Once they've got that solved, could our best and brightest please get to work on lightsabers? Next "Star Wars " Day is soon enough. No hurry on the carbonite freezing, though. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Hovercraft Technology: The Force (of Gravity) Is Strong With This One

 Technology plays a critical role in art. Historically, the role has been one of silent supporter — new paint formulations, artificial brush bristles and the evolution of digital photography have changed the way both artists and viewers approach and interact with creative pieces. Advancements in computing, printing and AI, however, are reimagining the intersection of art and technology. Let's take a look at four tech advancements changing the face of artistic evolution. Pollution Pieces Consider the work of Dmitry Morozov, a Russian media artist who discovered a way to turn air quality data from Moscow into art. The city offered unique opportunities; liberal regulations regarding gasoline composition and the burning of material results in ever-changing air concentrations of CO, CO2, HCHO and CH4. Morozov built a small machine equipped with sensors to capture pollution data — an Arduino open-source computer to analyze the information and translate it into multicolored shapes — then leveraged a small printer to produce small pictures of current air composition. Of note? "The more pollution I get, the more beautiful the images are," says Morozov. "It's a little bit ironic."  Robot Writers Or consider the work of artists Julian Adenauer and Michael Haas: a robot known as the Vertwalker. Currently on display in a Berlin art gallery, the pair's "Rising Colorspace" piece leverages the Vertwalker — a round, nearly flat, wall-climbing robot — to continuously create art using one of eight colors. Following a software pattern to determine its movements, the Vertwalker glides up and down walls for three hours at a time, then it's off for a recharge and time to start over. But the wall is never scrubbed clean, making Vertwalker's piece an ever-evolving installation. Haas puts it simply — "the process of creation is ideally endless."  Futuristic Failure Is art supposed to be permanent, standing the test of time to inform and intrigue future generations, or decay as years grind by to yield new forms and creations? For example, portions of the once-functional Roman aqueducts survive and are now considered "art," while the rise of quick-produced 3-D prints and materials drives art and technology culture more focused on creation than consistency. As noted by the Financial Times, some artists — such as California's Anya Gallaccio — are using high-performance 3-D printing processes to create sculptures which naturally decay over time. By choosing clay rather than plastic or metal, Gallaccio is able to create detailed reproductions of natural landmarks which come with material-based inconsistencies and will eventually self-destruct. It's a meeting of artist and machine to inform a new kind of balance between nature and the "unnatural." Memorable Math Math and art have a long-standing relationship: Many concepts and mathematical constructs produce beautiful shapes when rendered in the real world. That's the aim of workshops such as "Illustrating Mathematics," which leverages 3-D printing to create unique visualizations of specific math functions. For example, mathematician John Sullivan used visualization techniques to create his "Borromean Rings," a set of three linked rings which offer both a pleasing shape and will naturally fall apart if any of the rings is cut. Or consider the work of Fabienne Serriere, who purchased and then hacked an industrial knitting machine to create custom-knit scarves which demonstrate cellular automata patterns. There's also the Twitter Bot that animates a new symmetric curve from complex Fourier series every single day. The future of art? Technology. From pollution-printing computers to robot writers, decomposing 3-D prints and malleable math images, the conflux of art and technology allows creators to both simplify their process and enhance the end results, while simultaneously embracing the promise — and potential pitfalls — of tech-based artistic automation.

Art and Technology: A Conflux of Creative Genius?

 Automation is becoming more a part of our daily lives. We bark orders at Alexa or Siri, deposit our checks at ATMs and order flowers via a bot from 1-800-Flowers.com. But the change isn't just occurring on the consumer side. Industries ranging from automotive to manufacturing to fast food are automating to various degrees. In some cases, "cobots" are empowering existing workers by removing manual labor and letting them focus on the more creative and high-touch aspects of the job. No one knows how this change is likely to affect the future job market. One possibility is that automation will eliminate manual labor and allow human workers to be more creative. It's also likely that the new technology will create jobs that we can't imagine today. For instance, titles like "chief listening officer" and "social media manager" didn't exist 15 years ago. Who knows what jobs will be available in 2032? Here's how automation is already occurring at various industries: Automobiles: No industry uses more robots than the auto industry. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFRA), the industry uses close to 100,000 robots. Between 2010 and 2015, robot sales to the auto industry rose 20 percent on average per year. There's little mystery why: A human welder in a U.S. factory costs $25 an hour, including benefits, according to a 2015 Boston Consulting Group study. Comparatively, a robot costs $8 per hour over a five-year period, including installation, maintenance and operating costs. By 2030, that figure could drop to $2, according to the study. Electronics: Computers create robots, of course, but now robots are creating computers as well. The IFRA reports that this segment's spend on robotics spiked 41 percent in 2015 to 64,600 units. That's more than double the amount in 2010. Manufacturing: There are many ways that automated factories are more efficient. Internet-connected factories can gauge when maintenance is needed and avoid downtime. Sensors can also provide real-time insights and track data that let manufacturers use resources more efficiently. For instance, a sensor could figure out which parts of the process are using the most energy and transfer or limit that energy use. Food: The food industry has used robots for manual labor like lifting and packing. However, they have recently begun moving to the production line. Robots are outfitted with food-compatible lubricants and stainless steel parts to handle food in very cold environments where humans couldn't work. Robots have also recently begun preparing food as well. In March 2017, CaliBurger in California introduced Flippy, a burger-flipping bot. In addition, robotic process automation is hitting industries like insurance, accounting and finance. The long-term implications of such changes are that jobs that involve manual processing — mental or physical — have a good chance of being automated. Those preparing for the workforce of tomorrow would be wise to focus on doing what machines can't do — like think creatively, synthesize ideas and perform "high-touch" jobs like nursing, physical therapy and sales. Of course, someone will also need to create and keep track of these machines, as well. At the moment, nobody really knows how all of this will evolve, not even Alexa.

The Automation Revolution Is Here

Key takeaways Virtual reality in education is changing the way students experience the classroom, especially in STEM fields. Virtual reality and learning can help improve student comprehension. VR is inspiring the next generation of STEM enthusiasts.When used in education, virtual reality (VR) allows students to gain many types of experiences they wouldn't normally have access to in their classrooms. VR allows students to take virtual field trips to places as unusual as the inside of a computer, a fusion reactor and even the moon or Mars.The type of immersive experiences that VR in education can provide to students, especially in STEM fields, is often more exciting and stimulating than what they'd have access to in a conventional learning environment. Another advantage of virtual reality and learning is that it can be effective with children of all ages. That's because VR provides students an opportunity to learn hands-on and may be attractive to students who might not otherwise be interested in STEM. Additionally, VR simulations broaden the assortment of real-world uses students can investigate.Technology to Promote Better Student ComprehensionVR science education can place students in situations that, in a standard classroom, might be difficult to visualize. For example, VR can give students the opportunity to get hands-on experience with especially large sets of data, which are common in STEM subjects such as astronomy, genetics and climate science. It also gives students a sense of already being in real-world work situations.For example, the Simmons School of Education and Human Development uses a chemistry mobile app to help students learn chemistry by allowing them to manipulate physical blocks to create elements. The virtual classroom looks similar to a video game, with student collaborators as the "players." Students learn about geometric shapes and about how angle, speed and gravity impact projectile motion. Similar technology from Google allows students to experience VR expeditions, such as landing on Mars or exploring the inside of a carbon capture lab.This type of technology also provides many learning benefits, such as increased focus, engagement and learner involvement. For example, VR science education makes exploring a coral reef, flying through the bloodstream to learn about cells or testing an engineering prototype easier for students to understand. Students can also experience simulations in fields such as natural history, computer programming, aeronautical engineering or astrophysics. By actually exploring these virtual science worlds, they can gain a greater retention of STEM fundamentals.Since virtual reality and learning use interactive features to help students connect with the curriculum, it has the potential to improve their learning experience and memory, according to research published in Frontiers in Psychology. This is because the immersive nature of the virtual reality experience increases both cognitive and behavioral engagement, so students are better able to understand and remember what they learned in greater depth, which is critical to positive learning outcomes. The type of interactive features that VR in the classroom provides can also increase the ability of students to grasp and retain STEM subjects, and this, in turn, can help build life skills that will prepare them for future professions in STEM.Next Generation STEMAs outlined by Accelerate Learning, another benefit of VR in the classroom is that it supports a wide range of learning styles and impairments with features such as text-to-speech and closed captioning, enabling more students to succeed.In addition to making STEM fun, virtual reality in education encourages analytical and critical thinking and can enhance students' problem-solving abilities. It can also foster more collaboration. With VR, students in different locations can work together on experiments, design solutions with one another or problem-solve as a team.But why isn't VR in all classrooms yet? Namely, costs. One major drawback of using VR in STEM classrooms is the upfront cost of headgear, software and content. STEM teachers also need to be trained on the best practices of how to incorporate VR and learning. There are currently several workshops, classes and events that supply educators with the technical knowledge and skills they need to utilize VR equipment and software in their classrooms. The investment in VR is a long-term commitment to STEM education.Since it's highly likely VR will continue to transform the way students interact with STEM subjects, it will be increasingly important for educators and educational policymakers to supply teachers with the support they need so all students can embrace the full potential of VR in education.Find out more about how engineers at Northrop Grumman are using virtual reality to help visualize what's possible.

Virtual Reality and Learning: How VR Is Changing STEM Education

The world around us is full of colors — like green grass, yellow corn and blue water — but human vision falls short in providing the whole picture. Color cameras record images in a limited color range, leaving much of our world invisible to us. There's so much more color around us than what the human eye can see, which is where hyperspectral applications come in.  Hyperspectral imaging combines the power of digital imaging with spectroscopy, which is the study of how light interacts with matter. This developing science is changing the way we see practically anything — from plant seeds to the surface of the Earth. How Hyperspectral Imaging Works Instead of recording just three wavelengths of light, hyperspectral technology uses specialized sensors that capture the full spectrum of light for each pixel in the image. The sensors divide the light spectrum into a range of contiguous bands — most of which are beyond human visual perception. For example, using hyperspectral applications, doctors can better understand cells, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Each band is recorded, and hyperspectral applications combine the bands to produce multicolored images in the shape of a cube that contains three dimensions of information about the subject. The image captures a spectral signature for every pixel, which is compared to a database of known image signatures to identify materials, according to researchers at Stanford University. Think of an aerial scan of a forest. It may be difficult to distinguish between different plant and tree species with similar colors. Northrop Grumman helped resolve this problem with the invention of the Hyperspectral Airborne Terrestrial Imager, which can see more than 700 spectral bands and can accurately depict the solar spectrum ranges of any environment. A hyperspectral imager can "discriminate a maple from an oak, wheat from alfalfa, and is sensitive enough to separate healthy from unhealthy growth." Hyperspectral Imaging Captures the Micro and the Macro From microscopes to satellites and the International Space Station, hyperspectral applications can be deployed just about anywhere. With the systems onboard the ISS, NASA is monitoring cotton crops in California's San Joaquin Valley and working with the U.S. Forest Service to measure the health and size of forests. With satellite and aerial images, researchers can spot vegetation and crops under stress due to subtle variations in leaf colors. As the NCBI states, "Diseases can result in changes of transpiration rate, morphology, leaf color and crop density, which in turn affect the optical properties of the plants." In the food industry, hyperspectral applications track food quality; they can detect contamination and help identify the source. Pharmaceutical manufacturers have adopted the technique to analyze production quality, detect counterfeit and foreign material, and ensure packaging integrity. Seeds can also be examined to determine whether or not they will successfully sprout, Grind GIS reports. When someone says, "There's more to this than meets the eye," they are telling the truth. By giving us a more powerful way of seeing, hyperspectral imaging can change the game for climate research, population studies, manufacturing, ecosystems monitoring and natural disaster response. 

Hyperspectral Applications Reshape How We See the World

 It's called the "2nd Offset" and it happened in the late 1990s during US military operations in Kosovo. The term refers to an evolution of airborne warfare which saw the use of new technological advancements to significantly increase accuracy; in this case, the global positioning system (GPS). Now both civilian and military navigation system technologies rely on GPS to guide travelers, identify targets and pinpoint locations. The problem? GPS isn't perfect since it's possible to jam satellite signals or encounter locations on earth where these signals simply don't reach. As a result, agencies like DARPA, teams of scientific researchers and the US military are looking for new ways to solve a very old problem: finding our way around.The GPS Evolution As noted by PC World, original GPS receivers built in the 1970s were sometimes described as "50-pound manpacks," making them impractical for everyday use. Two decades later, they were the size of current smartphones — now, they're small enough that virtually every mobile device comes with an integrated GPS. Problem solved, right? Not quite. As GPS technology has developed, so have methods to block or confuse satellite signals — sometimes for law enforcement purposes and sometimes for criminal activity. It's now possible to purchase stand-alone jamming gadgets which interfere with any radio signals in a certain radius, buy "spoofing" tools which override actual signals to provide a fake location, or leverage the old-fashioned method of wrapping GPS-enabled devices in a metal sleeve to block the satellite signal.What's Old Is New Again? To enhance GPS functionality, other navigation system technologies have come a long way, allowing manufacturers to design standalone products which not only measure satellite position but also elevation and azimuth and then transmit this data wirelessly as required. But that's just the beginning. DARPA has shifted resources into designing self-contained instruments which can track position for long periods without relying on any external data: In theory, so long as a user's original position is known (via GPS or another method), a combination of high-precision clocks, gyroscopes and accelerometers could precisely mark out location independent of satellite services. Or consider the work of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, who developed a way to exploit "signals of opportunity" (SOP) to enable accurate navigation. Rather than the satellite signals, SOP technology uses existing communication signals such as cellular transmissions, radio and television waves or Wi-Fi signals to determine accurate position. Military navigation tech is also changing: According to Naval Technology, the Naval Academy has now returned to teaching celestial navigation (CelNav) to ensure that even if GPS signals are interrupted, ships and sailors can still make their way home or locate their objective. And while the move back to CelNav speaks to the inherent weakness of GPS, there's a case to be made for more long-term applications: Although stars do shift over time, they're essentially fixed for the purposes of human navigation. Developing devices which use a combination of traditional satellite technology and can also "see" celestial way points could not only add an extra layer of location legitimacy but also improve overall precision. Roll in SOPs and self-contained instruments and there's a huge market of opportunity to move beyond GPS and develop new ways to discover exactly where we are. "The art of navigation has always advanced through the synthesis of the old and the new, and this has been shown to be true even in the age of GPS," said Charles Volk, director of Advanced Technologies and Products at Northrop Grumman, on the unique combination of old and new developments in navigating. GPS technology prompted a revolution in navigation technology. And true to Volk's word, the sky's the limit as both new initiatives and old-school methods empower location services.

Sky's the Limit? Navigation System Technology Goes Old School for New Ideas

 "Where we're going, we don't need roads." It's a classic line from "Back to the Future" — Doc Brown has returned from the future and the iconic DeLorean can now fly. Companies like Uber and Toyota are spending big on research for flying cars. This begs the question: Where's the fact, what's the fiction and how far are we from getting these cars off the ground? Promising Potential The first "true" gasoline-powered automobile was created in 1885; the first manned flight took place less than 20 years later. And for the past century, humankind has been looking for ways to combine these types of transportation — often with limited success. As noted by the Washington Post, key advancements — such as the use of non-metal body structures and electric power rather than heavy gasoline engines — have helped jump-start flying-car efforts, encouraging both investment and innovation. A recent Forbes piece suggests that this could be a "breakthrough year" for flying vehicles, with some companies planning to deploy market-ready models by 2019. Single Purpose or Multifunction? What does a flying car look like? Several designs have emerged over the past few years — for example, Toyota is backing a three-wheeled, one-person vehicle which uses four sets of propellers to take flight. Other companies envision flying cars which mimic traditional vehicles in terms of carrying capacity and aesthetic. Uber, meanwhile, wants to create a fleet of VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) taxis which will shuttle passengers between designated landing pads. Ultimately, flying-car function comes down to a simple question: Are these vehicles single-purpose or do they need to perform equally well on ground and in flight? Given the dual challenges of urban density and federal airspace regulation, the most likely outcome here is vehicles which can drive to designated air strips or landing pads and then safely take to the skies. Engineering Efficiency Beyond form, however, there's the challenge of getting these cars into the sky — and keeping them there. One of the biggest setbacks of previous flying-car efforts was weight; consider the development of micro-lattice materials, which are 100 times lighter than styrofoam and have the strength of conventional metals. These and other materials could be used to build lighter batteries, cockpits and motor parts. And as noted by Singularity Hub, motors are another critical factor. All-electric aircraft such as the Lilium use multiple motors to get off the ground — this multiplicity functions as a fail-safe if one motor stops working. As to powering new airborne vehicles, think green: Batteries and electricity are the likely choice since gas-powered engines are simply too heavy. Achieving sustained flight, however, will require both bigger battery storage and potentially the inclusion of small solar panels to charge vehicles in-flight. Law of the Skies Innovators have created viable flying-car forms, while evolving power sources and materials make it possible to achieve liftoff. This leads to a critical question: What does traffic look like when no one's on the road? Ideally, more flying cars means fewer vehicles on highways, but how do governments regulate airborne automobiles? One option is the creation of designated "highways" for flying cars, reducing the chance of accidental injury or property damage. As noted by the Forbes piece, that's part of the discussion currently underway at Amazon as the online giant looks to roll out drone-based delivery. There's also the problem of actually "driving" these vehicles, since most operators may not be licensed pilots. One solution is the Uber model, where riders don't own the vehicle and drivers are trained aviators. This dovetails nicely with the potential cost of these vehicles — north of $1 million — but that could change if economies of scale catch up with flying-car markets. In a personally owned flying-car scenario, the more likely option is computer-controlled navigation to prevent airborne collisions and ensure safe routes are followed. Safety is also a concern; what happens when flying cars experience technical issues or unexpected motor failure? Parachutes might save onboard occupants, but what about collateral damage? Ultimately, federal agencies like the FAA will be looking for much more rigorous testing, retesting and independent evaluation before flying vehicles gain widespread approval. Flying cars aren't that far off — expect the next five years to showcase both viable market options and uncover significant adoptive challenges on the path to personal flight.

Flying Cars: Fact, Fiction and the Road to Manufacturing

 Since then-President Obama's announcement in early 2015, precision medicine has been an even bigger buzzword in medical research. It's one of those terms you hear frequently, but what exactly is it? And what makes it so important for future health care?  Precision or Personalized?  It's both, but definitely not average. The term replaces the older description, personalized medicine. Although they mean roughly the same thing, precision medicine is the preferred term for "developing treatment and preventive medicine for individuals based on genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors." In translation: instead of a one-size-fits-all approach for an average patient, the precision approach looks at individual variability when mapping out the treatment plan that has the best chance of success. Doctors base the drug choices on the individual patient's genetics. Precision for Cancer Treatment  So, apart from maximizing success, what makes precision medicine so important?  Consider cancer, one of the short-term goals outlined in Mr. Obama's 2015 initiative. Characterizing a patient's cancer helps clinicians design an effective treatment plan. Tissue profiling reveals cell markers that are useful when choosing chemotherapeutic drugs. For example, breast cancers that overexpress the HER2 receptor respond very well to trastuzumab (Herceptin) treatment, whereas those with abundant estrogen receptors respond better to hormone therapy. This kind of approach can also customize treatment for other conditions. Enter the Omics Gang  How do doctors know what works?  Omics is shorthand for a suite of biotechnologies devoted to uncovering the secrets of the genome (DNA), the proteome (proteins), the transcriptome (how genes translate into proteins) and more. Essentially, omics researchers study the basic machinery of the cell and how growth, aging, disease and nutrition affect it. These technologies underpin most research into precision medicine. By studying thousands of individuals, researchers build a picture of health, disease and risk.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Cataloging the genomic information from thousands of individuals in large population cohorts, and then matching it up with health, environmental and lifestyle records shows genes associated with specific diseases. In tumors, it shows how sensitive they are to chemotherapy. The Data Effect  Omics technology is advancing very rapidly and generating vast amounts of data. Sequencing a person's genome first took almost 10 years and $3 billion; current next generation sequencing (NGS) instruments will whiz through around 18,000 individuals or more in a year. Proteomics technology is catching up rapidly.  One genome generates around 780 MB of data out of around 30 terabytes of raw NGS data; typical proteome datasets run into many gigabytes in size. Studying thousands of individuals for population studies generates terabytes of data — approximately 40, according to one article. And that takes a lot of processing power to analyze for clinically relevant results — more than can be done manually, so biomathematicians develop algorithms and other software tools to tease the answers from the digital soup. Bioinformatics for storing and accessing electronic health records is vital for precision medicine research. Furthermore, IT systems such as the Northrop Grumman-supported MedDRA initiative encode health information consistently ensure that data banks can talk to each other, with advances in cybersecurity ensuring patient privacy despite the cross talk.  ... Is This Where the Robots Come In?  Yes. Just think of where all that data comes from.  Population studies are as big as they sound; the Million Veteran Program collects biosamples from U.S. veterans, around 400,000 so far. It aims to generate omics data that — in conjunction with information on health, lifestyle and environment — will translate into clinical practice. That's a lot of samples to handle, store and analyze.  Furthermore, microelectronics advances mean that omics instruments handle more samples at a faster rate. Next-generation sequencers such as the Illumina HiSeq and the Thermo Fisher Ion Torrent use chip-based and semiconductor technology to decode genomic materials. A simple flash of fluorescence or change in pH zaps DNA base pair information into a digital format much faster than old-school gel-based Sanger sequencing.  In order to exploit the speed of these tools, robotic handling manages everything from sample aliquots for biobank storage, to 384-well plate assay wrangling. Their speed and automation bring faster results with fewer errors.  Robotic or automated workflows are also important for nanotechnology and microfluidics where the miniaturization that reduces instrument footprint and sample volume also precludes manual input. Even though they will benefit from precision medicine, our clumsy fingers and thumbs are not as welcome in the lab as they once were.

Precision Medicine, Nanotechnology and the Rise of the Robot

Tech trends come and go, but a handy annual forecast from the IEEE Computer Society outlines those the organization thinks will make the biggest impact and see broad adoption over the coming year. While last year saw advances in quantum computing power, 3D printing and lattice cryptography for enhanced security, this year's forecast suggests we should get ready for more personal interconnectedness to the Internet of Things (IoT).   Internet of Bodies (IoB)   IoT might be on everyone's lips, but how about the IoB? With IoB or Internet of Medical Technology (IoMT), connected medicine won't stop at your fingertips or reside in a device in your back pocket.   Although the BBC reported that work on Verily's glucose-monitoring contact lenses has stopped, smart lens technology still shows promise. Tech in a wearable lens could help correct vision problems after cataract surgery, for example. Moreover, research and development on miniaturization will benefit other micro-sized projects.   Ingestible sensors already bring medical imaging into the gut less invasively than traditional scoping; clinicians follow the diagnostics with regular Bluetooth uploads. The Engineer noted that using radio waves to communicate with these devices deep within the body could see this kind of connected medicine deliver drugs or treatments directly.   The Medical Device Network reported that wearable sensors for remote and constant health surveillance could allow medical consultants to follow a patient in real time. For elusive conditions such as cardiac arrythmias, or chronic conditions such as diabetes mellitus, where a quick response to change in symptoms is vital, this could be helpful.   Social Credit   Another type of continuous surveillance also made it to the IEEE Computer Society's top 10 list. Social credit ranks users according to performance and "likability." There's a similar system at work when you hail an Uber ride; driver and passenger rankings alert users on both sides of the transaction to potential quality or service issues.    Increased interconnectedness through novel tech trends, advances in facial recognition systems and social media use make it relatively easy to rank users for reward while also highlighting bad behavior. Wired reported that China already has a number of social credit systems in place, with plans by the government for full implementation of a mandatory national system by 2020. The all-encompassing system plans to make "use of aggregated data for analysis of behavior," spotting antisocial behaviors like jaywalking, for example. Its aim, as noted by Vox, is to "ensure a model society in which 'sincerity and trustworthiness become conscious norms of action among all the people.'" Positive scores promise upgrades and discounts to reward sincere and trustworthy citizens.   Smarter Materials and Devices   Advances in smart materials and devices could also increase interconnectedness. For example, a major obstacle to IoT medical imaging tech is energy. Sensors might be small enough to swallow, but do they have enough power to navigate 30 feet of gut? Wired described how batteries running on gastric acid could power a sensor for early detection of gastrointestinal bleeds.    Smart materials also help deliver therapeutics precisely; targeted nanobots that release a drug load only when inside a cancer already show success in animal studies. Ingestible sensors could report pulse, body temperature, cancer biomarkers and even drug compliance in real time.   Another exciting new tech trend is the foldable screen. Lighter, smaller and more resistant to damage, Techgenix thinks the slimmer, less bulky devices offer many advantages to consumers. The Verge noted that since glass is not foldable, manufacturers are working on new polymer materials to create flexible and tough layers for screens that will not stress or crack when folded and unfolded multiple times.    As the best new tech, consumers could be getting much more in their devices. A back pocket smartphone could easily unfold into a tablet-sized display. A roll-up 55-inch TV screen may not be far away either. 

Tech Trends for the Best New Tech in 2019

In October of 2017, the first 3D printed bridge bore a group of hard-hat-wearing city officials on bicycles as they wobbled across a canal in the city of Gemert in the Netherlands. Officials and locals celebrated the opening of the 26-foot (8 meters) bridge that connects two roads over a small water-filled canal, said Phys.org. This structure represents a milestone for 3D printing of large-scale objects. Printing the bridge's 800 layers took about three months. The designers say the reinforced, pre-stressed concrete can handle loads equivalent to the weight of 40 trucks. In Amsterdam, Dutch startup MX3D is printing components for a stainless steel bridge to span a canal, according to Phys.org. Manufacturing Disruption 3D printing is coming into its own as a manufacturing process for large-scale objects. Also called additive manufacturing, 3D printing is based on building up layers of materials into three-dimensional objects. It works on the same principle as an inkjet printer, but instead of ink, the printer lays down layers of plastic, metals, ceramics and more, according to How Stuff Works. A 3D printed bridge is just the latest concept to come to life. Several 3D printed houses and offices have popped up around the world; the Washington Post has covered 3D printed houses in China, and Inhabitat has reported on a 3D printed office building in Dubai. San Francisco-based startup Apis Cor printed a concrete home in Russia within 24 hours. A large 3D printer laid down the 400-square-feet (about 37 square meters) house's walls and partitions, and workers finished the roof, wiring and insulation, according to Engadget.   

 Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  In Amsterdam, The Canal House is taking shape as part of a three-year research project. Designed to resemble a traditional canal house, the project is showcasing the advantages of 3D printing for large projects, including flexibility and customization, according to 3D Print Canal House.  This technology also holds incredible potential for the creation of small homes or shelters, quickly giving people a dry, safe place to stay in the wake of natural disasters, said 3DPrint.com. The automotive industry has welcomed 3D printing as well. In addition to rapid prototyping and other design uses, a printed car has taken to the highway. Start-up Local Motors printed a small two-seater to demonstrate the feasibility of printing large automotive structures. For the first prototypes, it took about 40 hours for the carbon-reinforced plastic body to take shape. If it were to get crunched in a fender bender, the owner could remove the drive train, seats and any undamaged parts and bolt them to a new body. The technology could make transportation more affordable in developing countries. And people could design their own one-off cars and have them printed to their specifications, according to Popular Mechanics. The Shape of Things to Come The tale of the first ratchet wrench NASA astronauts printed on the International Space Station could forecast the future of manufacturing. Not only was the ratchet printed in space, it was created from a computer file emailed from the ground. "This technology may change how NASA completes exploration missions and even the way science is conducted on the station," said NASA. Northrop Grumman is part of a group developing the Archinaut, a robotic assembly system supporting the Made In Space initiative that will manufacture parts to combine with prefabricated components on the space station. The goal will be to control the system from Earth, minimizing the need for astronauts to interact with it. A similar principle could be used to manufacture complex objects without the need for engineers or scientists on site. The 3D printer can manufacture components or sections of objects much larger than itself. The Axiom Space Station, which is the first privately owned space station, will be an orbital manufacturing hub that uses 3D printing, said 3DPrint.com. As 3D manufacturing matures, it's clear the technology could bring vital products to remote areas to decentralize and democratize the means of manufacturing.      

A 3D Printed Bridge Gives New Shape to Large-Scale Manufacturing

To suffer a blistering sunburn, watch your favorite movie or scroll social media, is to surf the waves of the electromagnetic spectrum. Sure, you may know about microwaves and ultraviolet rays, but what about terahertz (THz) waves?
Tucked between radio waves and infrared frequencies, these lesser-known waves have unique powers that make them especially useful for a wide range of applications, from communications to medical imaging and space exploration.
Still largely yet to be developed for everyday use, THz waves and the technologies that harness them are already changing the world, according to Mona Jarrahi, an electrical and computer engineering professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Northrop Grumman Endowed Chair holder.
A Hidden Corner of the Spectrum
The electromagnetic spectrum ranges from low-frequency radio waves (think: Wi-Fi and cellphones) to high-frequency gamma rays (e.g., nuclear explosions or the area around black holes). At the lower end of the spectrum, radio frequencies enable communication, while higher frequencies, like visible light and infrared, enable us to see and photograph the world around us. Even higher frequencies, such as X-rays, enable detailed medical imaging.
However, the region between radio frequency and infrared — where THz frequencies lie — is still largely underdeveloped due to the inherent difficulty in developing electronics and gadgets that can effectively operate within this range. According to Jarrahi, "The challenge lies not in physical limitations but in making these types of devices cost-effective, compact and integrated."
Those barriers are expected to crumble in the coming decades.
The Promise of THz Waves
THz waves offer several advantages that enable groundbreaking technologies. For one, they have a special ability to obtain chemical information. Many molecules and chemicals respond uniquely to THz waves, which can help determine chemical composition. The waves make up some 98% of all photons, meaning they can also help reveal valuable information about far-flung galaxies.
In addition to chemical analysis, THz waves can travel through non-transparent materials, making them ideal for eventual use in security scanners to deliver much more detailed images. They also allow for higher data rates in communication systems, which could equate to significantly faster cellular data networks someday.
THz waves are non-ionizing and non-destructive in nature. In other words, they are safe for use in sensitive areas, such as medical imaging and diagnostics. In fact, THz waves are already being used in some clinics for burn wound imaging and quality testing in other industries, such as in the automotive, aerospace and pharmaceuticals spaces.
The Challenges and Future of THz Technology
Despite the unique powers of THz waves, the technology to harness them is still in its infancy. Most THz devices today are bulky, complex and expensive, limiting their use to research laboratories, space missions and factories.
But odds are THz waves will impact our everyday lives in the years ahead. As fabrication and material processing technologies advance, building out THz technology into a compact, affordable form is becoming increasingly possible. "The scope of possible applications for THz technology is vast and exciting," Jarrahi said.
What might that look like in practice? It could result in everything from point-of-care diagnostics through breath analysis and quality control in medical implants to even having a portable tool handy at the supermarket to determine the exact freshness of fruits and vegetables.
These future devices will ultimately use THz waves in the same way that spectrometers in space do today to analyze the makeup of planets and galaxies. While that process typically requires cold temperatures, Jarrahi's research group recently discovered a way to do so at room temperature. "That excites us because it brings us much closer to practical use with a much cheaper, portable and high-performance type of device," she said.
The transition to THz technologies is likely to be gradual — like cellphones or microprocessors to start — but the impact will be vast. Think of it as one of the next massive waves in technology.


Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Unlocking the Remarkable Power of Terahertz Waves

Immersive technology known as extended reality (XR) is driving benefits in the design and manufacturing industry. XR solutions encompass virtual, augmented and mixed reality technology, but how could the manufacturing sector utilize extended reality practically?
Here are some of the most realistic ways XR is being used today to transform the industry.
Simplifying Design, Testing and Development
The earlier engineers can catch an issue with a design, the better. Traditionally, engineers review computer-aided design models on their computer screens and then build physical prototypes for design iteration. Now, they can use a Highly Immersive Virtual Environment (HIVE) to test and develop their designs.
Azad Kupelian, systems engineering manager and chair of a Northrop Grumman committee called the XR Community of Practice, explains why this matters: “XR allows us to make those design discoveries earlier and make the changes while everything is still a digital model before anything physical is built.”
The main purpose of HIVE is to study human factors, such as ergonomics and safety. A design can appear perfect on paper (or more likely, in digital form), but the true test comes when humans interact with it. HIVE uses mixed reality — a combination of the physical world and a digital model (e.g., of a spacecraft, rocket engine, satellite, etc.) — to identify design issues before physical prototyping.
It uses a combination of 3D models, which are updated continuously throughout the design cycle, along with Hollywood-style motion capture technology (i.e., computer-generated imagery) to allow people to interact with digital twins of the designs.
“We can put a technician inside of a spacecraft,” says Remy Verdeille, a Northrop Grumman test engineer working on a classified spacecraft nicknamed Sagittarius. “It allows us to get into the virtual world with our spacecraft and then step through some of the operations we’re planning to perform in the future.”
Streamlining the Supply Chain
XR can help connect the teams responsible for components and subsystems, too. As Kupelian says, “It allows the downstream teams to simulate and discover problems in time to influence the design and the upstream teams and give them feedback.”
Traditionally, engineers have to wait for suppliers to deliver subsystems before they can do the testing and integration. Then, if they discover any issues, they have to disassemble everything and start over. But with XR, they can work out any flaws while the design is still in progress, which can help them make decisions without wasting time or physical resources.
The same idea applies to internal teams. Typically, the various teams — from systems engineers and design engineers to manufacturing engineers and beyond — work separately. Doing so can create challenges because design engineers are focused on the program’s requirements, such as weight, size and heat dispersion, while the manufacturing team has to figure out how to assemble it. With XR, any gaps between manufacturing and design can be worked out in a simulation far in advance of the actual assembly of the product.
Accelerating Assembly and Integration
Engineering Manager Oscar Castillo believes the key to digital transformation is creating better work instructions. He explains that, while consumer assembly instructions (for items like IKEA furniture and LEGO sets) use visual aids to explain how to put things together, manufacturing instructions are different. Not only is the end product much more complex, but the designs are also more dynamic and can change at the last minute. As such, instructions are typically just a block of text.
“We can use a digital thread to start and then augmented reality for visual aids,” Castillo says. “Then, when changes are made in the design, it’s updated automatically — and your instructions are updated, as well. That way, you get the best of both worlds: You get the assurance that you’re working with the most up-to-date information, but you’re also getting the right visual aids to do your work correctly and efficiently.”
Extended reality can also help with the integration and test side of manufacturing by enabling engineers to work remotely alongside technicians in hard-to-reach places. The team that built the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), for example, used augmented reality headsets.
“We had to do operations inside the middle of Webb, where we could only fit one person at a time,” says Verdeille. He adds, “A lot of our processes involve having someone witness what the technician is doing and verify that he’s done it correctly before moving forward.”
The technician dropped into the center of the nearly 70-foot telescope while wearing an AR headset with a camera and voice capability. It was as if the design engineer and quality assurance person were with the technician throughout the entire procedure to verify the work.
Reimagining Manufacturing
How could the manufacturing sector utilize extended reality? There are endless ways. Varying degrees of immersion can achieve different goals; whenever a physical product is involved, XR can help. Extended reality also supports a larger industry initiative: digital transformation.
“Company-wide, we’re trying to do everything digitally with a single model of the system,” says Kupelian. This just goes to show the impact ER is already having — and will continue to have — on manufacturing as a whole.


Are you interested in all things related to virtual and augmented reality? We are, too. Learn more about life at Northrop Grumman, and check out our career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology and engineering. 

How Extended Reality Technology Is Transforming Manufacturing

Warehouse logistics problems are becoming a thing of the past, thanks to smart technology. Just as digital thermostats and security systems have reoriented life at home, and wearables have transformed healthcare, these technologies have great potential to improve the storage and delivery of goods. A smart warehouse uses IoT and autonomous technologies to better manage inventory and enable companies to reduce costs and improve customer service. A company that integrates smart logistics technology into its warehouse and overall supply chain won't have to worry about promising delivery of a product and then scrambling to get it there on time. By modernizing warehouse processes, a company can be nimble and efficient; it knows exactly what's in stock and just when it can be delivered to a customer's home or headquarters. Smartness Leads to Efficiency and Less Waste People shopping with B2C companies and organizations that purchase in the B2B space expect merchandise now. Credit Amazon with harnessing digital technology early in the game and making retail hyper-fast and responsive. The retail giant knows precisely where merchandise is in the supply chain and how long it will take to deliver. Companies recognize that a smart warehouse and supply chain are not the exclusive domain of Amazon. That's because anything connected to the internet — whether it's a tag on a package or a sensor on a conveyor belt — is technically part of IoT, or the Internet of Things. By implementing IoT-connected sensors, RFID tags, wearables and other technologies, and with AI driving the analytics of data from those connected items, companies can shine a light on every inch of every warehouse and manage supply chain logistics with precision. Warehouse technologies that capture data can increase inventory accuracy by up to 95%, according to SupplyChainBrain. Knowing what's on hand in one warehouse, or even hundreds of warehouses, stops companies from blindly overstocking goods in case demand increases. When linked with the supply chain, the inventory of a connected warehouse enables companies to order and store only what is necessary. Warehouse inventories that reflect true supply and demand not only save money, but they also affect the beginning stages of production. With companies placing exact orders for products, manufacturers can create only what's necessary and reduce global waste. Companies can thus help curb the glut of unsold merchandise that finds its way into landfills. Such efforts could also halt the waste of food. Each year, 1.6 billion tons of food, worth about $1.2 trillion, is wasted annually across the globe, but supply chain efficiencies could reduce that loss by $150 billion annually, according to Boston Consulting Group. This degree of certitude allows companies to be nimble in many ways. A true understanding of products and their final destinations lets companies determine which warehouses will store specific items. A warehouse in Seattle, for instance, might have more need for bulk stock than one in Tacoma, based on supply chain and warehouse data. Knowing what's coming and going in a week's or month's time also allows warehouse managers to place inventory in the best spots within a facility to help employees retrieve items more efficiently. Evaluate and Then Implement New Warehouse Tech Now, don't expect every company to deliver like Amazon right away. For one, some companies are hesitating on the shift to smartness. According to SupplyChainDive, companies that rent warehouses can't agree with building owners on who should foot the bill for modernizing, which can cost as much as $200 per square foot, or 20 times the square footage expense of traditional space. Still, getting smart doesn't have to be difficult. As TechTarget detailed, slapping IoT and smart technologies on everything in the supply chain and warehouse doesn't guarantee insight and intelligence. A company first needs to evaluate which smart technologies best fit their processes and where they would help. After an evaluation, SupplyChain247 recommends first grabbing the low-hanging fruit of process automation. This means implementing technologies such as mobile barcode scanners, handheld devices and wireless printers. From there, a company can review data and take actions that make each warehouse floor efficient, whether it's by reconfiguring shelving or retraining employees. Once the basics are in place and a company has a firm handle on its warehouse data, it can start to scale. This isn't to imply that warehouses without advanced technologies are "dumb." But by implementing logistics technology, companies can smartly answer the real-time, on-demand needs of customers and ensure a package really does arrive when promised.

A Smart Warehouse Enhances the Supply Chain

As we ring in a new year and dream about all it may bring, let's take stock of the remarkable new technology we saw in 2018. These discoveries are still changing the world — and solar system — we live in. There were plenty of advances to choose from, ranging from biology to artificial intelligence to space travel. Here are five innovative technology stories that caught our eye. Artificial Embryos Until 2018, the only way to produce an embryo in the laboratory was the old-fashioned natural way, starting with a sperm cell and an egg cell. All of that changed when, as Science Daily reported, a team at Britain's University of Cambridge succeeded in producing mouse embryos using only stem cells, along with a molecular scaffolding structure. Lead researcher Magdalena ZernickaÂ­-Goetz noted that the "artificial embryos underwent the most important event in life in the culture dish," a process called gastrulation in which the body structure starts to take form. "They are now extremely close to real embryos," she added. Quantum Computing Quantum computing has been in the works for decades. According to MIT Technology Review, quantum computing prototype devices are now being tested and further developed. What is quantum computing? The short answer is mind-boggling. The longer answer would take a textbook on quantum physics, but you can look up "Schré¶dinger's cat" for a teaser. Suffice to say that quantum computing can make difficult computing tasks easy, and permit some computations that are impossible with today's technology. Lattice Cryptography  Computer security experts are concerned that quantum computing technology could render existing encryption technology all too easy to "crack." But the coolest new technology in 2018 also includes the defense that cybersecurity experts have been looking for. As ZDNet reported, complex algebraic structures called lattices can be used to produce encryption so robust that even still-theoretical quantum computers could not crack the encryption. Lattice cryptography may even allow computation on encrypted data without decrypting it — eliminating the biggest vulnerability of all existing encryption technologies. 3-D Metal Printing For years, people have used 3-D printing to create objects or structures out of plastic, but there is a limit to what plastic can do. Now, Inc. magazine says that 3-D printing is using a new medium — metal. 3-D printing of metal can not only make fabrication of specialized parts much easier and cheaper, it can allow fabrication of metal parts shaped in ways that would not be practical at all without this innovative technology. All of which may change metal manufacturing in ways we can hardly even guess. Parker Solar Probe  No list of truly cool new technology in 2018, or any year, can be complete without something that Goes Really Fast. And NASA's Parker Solar Probe, launched in August, fits the bill perfectly. The probe earned the year's top innovation billing from Popular Science for passing the 153,454 mph mark on its way to a blazing top speed of 430,000 mph — yes, you read that right! — en route to a close encounter with the sun. When it gets there, it will also endure blazing heat — 2,500 degrees F — on a specially designed heat shield that will keep the probe's instruments at a mild 85 degrees F. Northrop Grumman built the third stage engine that will give the Parker Solar Probe the final punch up to record-breaking speed. If the prospect of working on the cutting edge of new technology excites you, check out our career opportunities.

The Coolest New Technology in 2018

Manufacturing is supposed to be "over." To many people, the very word has had a bittersweet flavor, calling up images of rusting, padlocked factories.    The Factory of the Future, however, is gearing up for full production, and the freshly painted — or perhaps, digitized — sign by the gates declares Now Hiring!   Behind those factory gates, transformation is being driven by a convergence of technologies — information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and the Internet of Things (IoT), and others. The future of manufacturing is here.    The Factory of the Future   As Larry Korak reports at Industry Week (part one), the new age of industrial production goes by various names: the Factory of the Future, Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and the Digital Enterprise, among others.   Some technologies driving this revolution, such as computer-assisted design (CAD) and computer-assisted manufacturing (CAM), have been around for a while. Others, notably cloud computing and mobile, are more recent. Just about to take off are the Internet of Things and additive manufacturing for production.   The bottom line of these technologies? For the enterprise, more than four out of five early adopters (82 percent) report achieving increased efficiency. Nearly half have also seen fewer product defects (49 percent) and greater customer satisfaction (45 percent).   For communities, the Factory of the Future is creating new jobs: 900,000 new U.S. jobs since February of 2010.   Automated Agility   Continuing his discussion at Industry Week (part two), Korak outlines some key requirements for the Factory of the Future. The old days of undifferentiated mass production are truly over. Henry Ford's then-revolutionary Model T was reputedly available in "any color you want, so long as it is black." But agility, responsiveness and differentiation are the strategic keys to the new manufacturing.   The strategy encompasses training, processes, tools and facilities. Rapid prototyping, increased additive manufacturing, highly integrated and automated assembly lines, more advanced modeling and sim tools, executing design with manufacturing so they are almost simultaneous — these are just some of the ways the shop floor of today is being transformed. These changes are in turn being powered by social media, big data analytics, the IoT and the power of collaboration, both between the enterprise and its customers and on the shop floor itself.   Even automation is taking on a new shape. The old science-fiction robots were going to take our jobs (if they didn't enslave us). But the more we learn about artificial intelligence (AI), the more we are discovering that it is a tool, amplifying the power of the mind the way power tools amplify the power of the hand.   Everything Old Is New Again   The old factory jobs, like the products that traditional factory workers built, emphasized the standardized and routine. But the age of agility and differentiation is transforming factory work as well as the factory itself and its products. Engineers and production workers are putting heads and hands together to understand the job and the product from all angles.   "Accelerated change and heightened complexity means we must continuously innovate," says Todd Szallay, Director, Advanced Manufacturing and Technology, at Northrop Grumman. "The Factory of the Future is a digital factory where the virtual and physical world are fully integrated across not just the manufacturing process but the entire life of a product. Building stuff has never been more high-tech."  And as a result, new craft skills are taking form in the Factory of the Future, for tasks such as creating a 3D model of a product, then transforming it into the real, physical thing. Apprenticeships will play a growing role, but many of these skills cannot be taught in a classroom; they can only be mastered on the factory floor itself.      From the days of biplanes a century ago, aviation and aerospace have always been at the cutting edge of manufacturing technology. No other product line has such demanding specifications. The performance demands of a new generation of aircraft have already brought about a transformation of the assembly line, exemplified by Northrop Grumman's Integrated Assembly Line (IAL) in Palmdale, California.   As Austin Weber writes at Assembly magazine, the IAL earned the trade journal's 2013 Assembly Plant of the Year award. According to Northrop Grumman's Brian Chappel, "the IAL design uses a system-engineering approach to integrate tooling and structure transport, system automation, automated drilling cells, and tooling mechanization coordinated across multiple build centers."   The end result will not only halve the time needed to assemble high performance airframes; it will transform the way we think about manufacturing. The future of manufacturing is here. 

The Future of Manufacturing

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, time counts.From the opening scene of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster movie Dunkirk the pressure of time is omnipresent. The sound of a ticking watch... tick-tock, tick-tock, grabs you in the chest, and it quickens your heart. Through the movie's remaining 107 minutes, the sound of the ticking watch subsides at points, but listen very closely and it's still there. Accompanying Hans Zimmer's score the persistent tick-tock of passing time is everywhere — it's the driving beat. It's the ever-present reminder that in battle, time is always in command.Zimmer accentuated the endless tick-tock with a Shepard Tone, a musical illusion representing a constantly ascending pitch. It reminds our subconscious selves that not only is time the driving force, but it's winnowing and getting more critical by the minute, the step, and the note.Time was running out at Dunkirk in 1940 when the German war machine threatened to tighten its grip around the desperate forces of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and France.Time was just as pivotal two years later when the US Navy took on the Japanese Imperial Fleet at the Battle of Midway in the most significant battle of the War in the Pacific.Both Dunkirk and Midway are telling illustrations of the impact of time in conflict. At Dunkirk, the Germans chose to halt their advance on the port for three days to consolidate, to avoid an Allied breakout. That precious time made it possible for the remarkable exploits portrayed so evocatively in Dunkirk.At the Battle of Midway it was technology, rather than a hesitation, that gave the US Navy the elixir of time. For example, newly developed radar gave the US aircraft carriers the ability to see 100 miles in all weather conditions compared to the older binoculars used by the Japanese that had a range of 20 miles, and only in the best of weather. That early radar technology gave the USN precious extra time to prepare for incoming aircraft. This, and other technological advances, coupled with—first and foremost—the military exploits of USN servicemen, resulted in the loss of four Japanese aircraft carriers. The Imperial Navy would never recover from that blow.Leap forward 75 years and in 2017 digital transformation is making speed and time more important still.To win in the digital battle space, our forces must act at a faster tempo than their adversaries; as US military strategist John Boyd has suggested, they must get inside their adversaries' Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop. Doing so will make the US and its allies unpredictable, it will generate confusion and disorder among adversaries. Northrop Grumman (NG) is committed to ensuring our forces maintain a decisive advantage by providing them with mission systems that harness the disruptive force of digital transformation. The engineers at NG are developing advanced software-defined, hardware enabled mission systems that operate at previously unimaginable speeds. These integrated, agile and interoperable C4ISR systems will provide critical decision-making intelligence and allow defense forces to sense, share, collaborate, and act with greater speed and confidence.The three heart-quickening stories told in Dunkirk operate on time scales of a week, a day and an hour. In the stories told of future conflict those will seem like luxuriously relaxed paces. Tomorrow's battles will be won and lost in seconds, microseconds and nanoseconds. Tomorrow's digital battles will be fought in the now cavernous space between tick and tock. Learn how you can be apart of them!

How 'Dunkirk' Started the Digital Transformation of Warfare

Future transportation could include bullet trains, supersonic air travel or even flying cars, but Gulu Gambhir, vice president, CTO of Northrop Grumman Technology Services, believes the biggest change is already underway: automation for vehicles. Self-driving cars, a.k.a. autonomous vehicles, are essentially robots that transport passengers. They are revolutionizing commuting — a huge part of life as a working professional. Transportation Technology Needs an Upgrade As transportation technology continues to progress, cities could upgrade public transit systems to modern versions that rely on electric vehicles, integrate ride-sharing services like Uber, or even some combination of subway systems, autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure. Harvard Business Review estimates that by embracing innovative mobility technology by 2030, densely populated cities in developing economies could save $600 million annually, and advanced cities could save $2.5 billion per year. With these compelling figures, it seems that we are on the verge of a revolution in transportation technology. Ride-sharing apps have already disrupted rental cars and the taxi industry. "For the first time, more people are using Uber in New York than the city's fabled yellow cab," reported The New York Times. Automation Is Inevitable New cars are equipped with automated features such as autopilot for highway driving, and several cars with full automation — no driver needed — are being tested in the United States and around the world. Perhaps in the near future, we won't have to choose between investing in an expensive car and fighting traffic, or being restricted to a crowded train's schedule to get to work each day. Instead, a whole new model for transportation could emerge. We typically use our cars for commuting to work, and then they sit idly in a parking spot all day. "For most of us, the duty cycle that our cars use is pretty modest, less than 10 percent of the time on an annual basis," said Gambhir. Integrating Systems Thinking and Transportation Gambhir envisions future transportation models where you can summon a car on demand that is personalized and reliable. If you don't need a driver, he says, you don't even need a seat for the driver. Instead of a limousine with a passenger compartment in the back, a car could have a handful of individual compartments for riders. It would be similar to taking a bus, but in a more comfortable and customized way. "The vehicle could pick you up at your home and you could get into a compartment that's only yours, and have this personalized, almost limo-like experience," he said. The car might stop and pick up other passengers along the way, but automated routes would still save time overall, and you would be spending your commute in comfort. At Northrop Grumman, Gambhir's team focuses on systems thinking, which means thinking about not just the initial implications of a change of a system or a process, but also the second order and third order changes that will follow. Applying systems thinking to future transportation, he wondered, "What are the implications for vehicle design in this model where you don't have a driver and you don't even want to own the asset but you still want that kind of personalized experience?"  He suggested that in the future, instead of owning cars, people could have their own passenger compartments that a vehicle could pick up and transport to the destination. This change would have widespread effects. Will Roads Be Safer? According to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 94 percent of serious crashes are due to human error, and an estimated 35,092 people died in motor vehicle-related crashes in the U.S. in 2015. If self-driving cars can eliminate human error, they could save tens of thousands of lives each year. "If the algorithms are better than people and won't make those human mistakes, and in general they make fewer mistakes, what are the implications of that?" Gambhir mused. "Car insurance as we know it today should fundamentally change. With reduced accidents, there may be fewer body shops in the future," he added. Many of the familiar features of today's infrastructure could become obsolete. Road to the Future In a future where commuters subscribe to car services instead of owning cars, we won't need nearly as many parking garages or parking spots on the street, and that space could be used for other purposes. Street lights, for example, would be useless and replaced with sensors.  "In the future, if we're really talking about an autonomous system, a car isn't going to need to read a street sign or a speed limit sign ... If it has a good up-to-date database of the roadways, it will know how to go from point A to B optimally and safely," Gambhir said.

Transportation Technology Is Changing the Future of Commuting

Key Takeaways  Now widely-used, GPS systems were first developed for precision military navigation. Digital imaging technologies developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were used to create modern CAT scanners. More than 2,000 "spinoff" products have been developed using NASA data — but they don't include Tang or Velcro.The Cold War that followed World War II as the United States and the Soviet Union competed for global dominance changed the world forever, and the technology from the space race continues to influence everyday life. That race began in earnest in the 1950s as both nations feverishly developed nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to carry them, according to Air Force Global Strike. The resulting advancements in rocket technology enabled the early exploration of space, leading up to the Soviet Union successfully orbiting the first artificial satellite in 1957 and putting the first human in orbit in 1961. The competition peaked when the United States successfully landed the first humans on the moon in 1969. The legacy of the Cold War and the early space race is not just about global tension and conflict: It also yielded the birth of the modern technological age.The 50th Anniversary of ApolloWith the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and subsequent lunar missions, many events and activities were planned around the United States, including a gala hosted by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in July 2019. The film First Man tells the story of Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong at a very personal level. We can now take a look back and see how the technological know-how required to support the space race essentially built the modern world as we know it today. Life would be unimaginable without these many advancements that we now take for granted.How Space Has ChangedSpace is a different place than it was before the Cold War. For one thing, the Earth is now surrounded by a vast network of satellites, which provide continuous broadband communications and high-definition television, data used for weather reporting, navigation and positioning, and more. This is in addition to the specialized spacecraft that support scientific and military objectives. We also maintain a continuous human presence in space on board the International Space Station, in partnership with a number of countries.Space Technology in Everyday LifeHow has space technology helped us down here on Earth? Here is just a sampling of the many "spinoff" technologies, as NASA refers to them, resulting from space research and development that we now use in everyday life.The global positioning system (GPS) was originally developed by the military for precision navigation and weapon targeting purposes. The GPS developers probably did not foresee how this technology would transform almost every industry, as well as day-to-day life, on a global scale. Using maps and travel atlases and stopping to ask for directions are now largely anachronisms. GPS has enabled ride-hailing services, as well as package tracking and delivery. It has improved our fitness by tracking our workouts and our safety by quickly providing our location in emergency situations. GPS will be there in the future to facilitate emerging technologies such as self-driving cars and package deliveries by drone.Infrared ear thermometers — a NASA-derived advancement — measure the amount of energy emitted by the eardrum in the same way the temperature of stars and planets is measured, using infrared astronomy technology. Artificial limbs have drastically improved using advanced space program shock absorbing materials and robotics. Deep space exploration missions depend on excellent digital image processing technology developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL adapted this technology to help create modern CAT scanners and radiography. The list of technology from the space race goes on. Consumer products like wireless headsets, LED lighting, portable cordless vacuums, freeze-dried foods, memory foam, scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses and many other familiar products have all benefited from space technology research and development. Modern laptop computers are direct descendants of The Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer (SPOC), which was developed in the early 1980s for the space shuttle program.Keeping It SafeTechnology from the space race has also been applied to directly improve public safety and reduce the risk of accident and injury. Anti-icing systems allow aircraft to safely fly in cold weather. Safety grooving, which first was used to reduce aircraft accidents on wet runways, is now also used on our roadways to prevent car accidents. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were first developed for the NASA Skylab program in the 1970s. Modern firefighting equipment widely used throughout the United States is based on NASA-developed lightweight fireproof materials.One of the most important spinoff technologies is in the area of food safety. NASA was faced with the problem of feeding astronauts in confined environments under weightless conditions. They also could not tolerate potentially disastrous crumbs, bacteria or toxins. NASA teamed with the Pillsbury Company to develop the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) concept. HACCP is designed to prevent food safety problems during production, rather than catching them after they have occurred. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has used HACCP guidelines for the safe handling of seafood, juice and dairy products since the early 1990s.Spin It OffFor more than half a century, the NASA Technology Transfer Program has provided private industry with a connection to its vast resources to support commercial product improvement development. To date, NASA says that about 2,000 "spinoff" commercial products have been successfully developed in many fields. But, despite what you might have heard, NASA didn't invent Tang, Velcro or Teflon frying pans.NASA continues to push the boundaries of technology on advanced programs such as the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST is being developed in collaboration with an innovative team of institutional, academic and industry partners. One can't help but wonder what amazing new spinoffs await us.From making space history to exploring new frontiers, see how Northrop Grumman is expanding human horizons. 

How Technology From the Space Race Changed the World

X-rays are an important medical tool, but as useful as they are, they have one serious complication: X-rays involve exposure to potentially dangerous high-energy radiation. This poses a problem for patients who cannot risk radiation exposure. X-ray alternative technologies include ultrasounds, visible light techniques and terahertz radiation. Ultrasound As the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) explains, X-rays allow medical professionals to "look through" the human body. Soft body tissues allow X-rays to pass through freely and appear dark on exposed X-ray films. Dense portions of the body, such as bones and teeth, block X-rays and show up as white on X-ray films. Pregnant women are at risk of X-ray dangers and are almost never given X-rays because of the vulnerability of fetal tissues to radiation, says NCBI. While a small amount of radiation may not cause harm, Mayo Clinic notes, "If you received a large number of abdominal X-rays over a short period before you were aware of your pregnancy, your baby could be affected." Instead, ultrasounds — the most familiar X-ray alternative — are used in pregnancy examinations. But the usefulness of ultrasound is not limited to expectant mothers. A study recorded in Emergency Nurse found ultrasound to be as effective as X-rays for detecting minor bone fractures. Ultrasounds can be used without the restrictions that apply to X-rays. Moreover, operators do not require as much specialized (and costly) training, says TechRadar. While ultrasound is the most established and widespread X-ray alternative, other technologies are also showing promise, ranging from ordinary visible light to so-called terahertz radiation, intermediate between radio and infrared light. Visible Light We think of opaque materials, such as human tissue, as simply blocking all ordinary light, but as Engadget reports, this is not entirely true. Light can indeed penetrate human tissue. (You can see a hint of this by holding your hand close — but not too close — to a bright light bulb.) The problem is that light passing through human tissue is so scattered that it is useless for creating an ordinary photographic image. But scientists borrowed a technique called adaptive optics from astronomy, where it is used to cancel out the effects of atmospheric turbulence. The borrowed technology, says Engadget, was "surprisingly effective" in imaging tissue, holding out promise for using ordinary light to image the body. Terahertz Radiation Like both X-rays and visible light (but unlike ultrasound) terahertz radiation is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is shorter than microwaves, but longer than infrared light. The Journal of Applied Physics notes that "THz radiation does not ionize molecules, presenting a significant advantage in medical imaging over X-rays, which can cause biological molecules to break down." Science Daily reports that large molecules, of the sort commonly found in drugs, explosives and living tissues, naturally vibrate at about the same rate as terahertz radiation. These molecules show up readily in terahertz spectral analysis, producing "fingerprints" that, as Phys.org notes, can be identified and used for tasks ranging from medical examination to airport baggage inspection. The use of X-rays is unlikely to disappear any time soon. But the range of emerging alternative technologies suggest that new imaging options that avoid X-ray dangers will soon become standard tools in areas ranging from medicine to security.

Interested in a career with Northrop Grumman? Check out our open positions.