Category Archives: Newsworthy

Human-Machine Interaction in Automobiles

In automobiles, there is a need to realize sensing of force, proximity, ambient light dimming, and gesture control with digital optoelectronics components. Optoelectronics sensor devices enable HMI or Human-Machine Interaction. This requires sensing user inputs and lighting conditions, allowing drivers to keep their eyes on the road. It is possible to connect most optical sensors nowadays to the central controller via the I2C interface.

By setting the internal settings of ASICs or Application Specific Integrated Circuits, it is possible to adjust and fine-tune sensitivity, driving currents, measurement speed, and other parameters to the specifications of the application. This allows force measurement on a given surface for detection or inputs, proximity, and gesture control on the central console, and contrast regulation for adjusting the screen backlight.

Force sensing is necessary to detect an input or control function requiring a force or pressure, adequately strong, to trigger a function. Force sensing in automobiles can also detect false forces, such as from an accidental brush over a touch screen or button. Proper sensing of force allows expanding on input possibilities, like coupling it with menu selections. Low-profile, AEC-Q101-qualified proximity sensors with high sensitivity can have programmable driver current, adjustable in 10 mA steps, flowing through the internal infrared emitter.

Such sensors are popular in force sensing applications. Such applications typically require fine-tuning of sensor performance depending on the given mechanical setup. Implementation of this function requires placing the sensor underneath a surface where the application of force is likely. The high sensitivity of the sensor within a region of 3-10 mm allows the detection of small changes in the displacement of the surface.

Center displays in vehicles use AEC-Q101-qualified proximity sensors. This allows for both gesture and proximity control. Rather than use an internal emitter, the proximity sensor has three current drivers, each with a designated pin. These can directly drive external infrared emitters without needing additional circuitry. This results in a highly flexible solution, where it is possible to choose a specific external infrared emitter to use and their placement with reference to the sensor.

For detecting gestures, it is typical to use narrow-angle emitters. This allows properly defining the area wherein it is necessary to detect motion. For wide areas, it is customary to use wide-angle emitters, such that the sensor solution can cover a wide area. This allows the sensor to cover a wide area, and allows detection of user input, regardless of the direction of the user’s hand entering the sensor’s field of view.

Furthermore, it is possible to have individual ADCs on each channel to allow differentiation of the direction of detection. For instance, this allows detecting user inputs from the passenger side, without distracting the driver.

While proximity sensors gather information about happenings in front of the display, ambient light sensors help with the dimming of the display. The main challenge in such applications is the increasing use of dark cover material used in the interiors of vehicles. At times, these cover materials allow the passing of less than 1% of visible light. Therefore, it is necessary to use a sensor with high sensitivity.

Dual Board Net Systems in Automobiles

Modern electric vehicles are increasingly using dual board net systems. These contain both a 12 VDC bus and a 48 VDC bus. One of the key building blocks in the architecture of these vehicles is the high-power, bidirectional 48 VDC to 12 VDC converter. Energy flows in either direction between the two batteries—48 V and 12 V. This helps to optimize the overall efficiency of the vehicle. The direction of the energy flow depends on the demands the vehicle’s electrical system places on the batteries and their state of health.

Vishay offers a complete 3 kW 48 V / 12 V buck-boost type DC/DC converter for electrical vehicles. The design has a standard FR-4 controller board mounted on an IMS or Insulated Metal Substrate that sports a heat sink for the power stage. As these converter designs do not operate at maximum efficiency over a wide power range, Vishay has designed them as six modular power stages operating at 500 W each.

It is possible to switch the protection MOSFETs on/off in each stage. This allows the system to activate or deactivate each power stage individually. Vishay uses this topology for maximizing efficiency under various operating conditions. Moreover, this also provides built-in redundancy, preventing a total breakdown in the event of any failure in an individual power stage.

The converter design from Vishay has another important detail—the half-bridge design uses different MOSFETs. As the high-side MOSFET operates at one-fourth the output current, its on-resistance is not essential. Instead, the gate-drain charge and the gate-source charge of the MOSFETs are more significant. Rather than use the regular low-power thick film resistors, Vishay uses thin-film MELF resistors for driving the gates.

Thin-film MELF resistors can handle large pulses, while not drifting over time and temperature. This prevents an increase in switching losses at frequencies of 100-150 kHz. Switching losses are the dominating power-loss factors at these frequencies. To minimize the drain-to-source resistance in the low-side MOSFET, Vishay connects two of them in parallel, as this resistance is the largest factor dominating the power loss.

The DC/DC converter has a primary storage inductor. This inductor must support both the DC output current and the ripple current. The inductance value and the switching frequency determine the ripple current amplitude. Although increasing the inductance value or the switching frequency helps in reducing the ripple current, it is necessary to consider a tradeoff in performance and size. The designer must ensure the inductor rating is adequate for the output current it must handle, without saturation and high self-heating.

Vishay uses IHDM inductors for primary storage. These have a good combination of low core loss (AC), low DC loss, and very good saturation performance. The IHDM series of inductors from Vishay cover a wide range of inductor values, ranging from 0.1 µH to 200  µH. Their current handling capacity ranges from a few amperes to several hundred amperes. The inductor series also comes in several materials, allowing efficient operation when the converter is operating between 100 kHz and 5 MHz.

Developments in Autonomous Robots

The recent COVID pandemic had put a lid on air travel. But that is now slowly lifting, and more people are venturing out. Airports are responding with new robots offering food delivery services.

The International airport in Northern Kentucky is currently using these Ottobots, made by Ottonomy, a robotics company. The Ottobot is a four-wheeled autonomous robot.

At the airport, in the Concourse 8 area, travelers can use a dedicated app to purchase food, beverages, or travel products from select stores. The location of these stores may be anywhere in the airport. Once the travelers have placed their orders, staff, at the store, place the items within the cargo compartment of the Ottobot and send them on their way.

While making its way through the airport, the Ottobot robot uses sensors and a LIDAR module to avoid people and obstacles. Ottonomy has designed a contextual mobility navigation system for the robots to allow them to keep track of their whereabouts. Apart from the contextual mobility navigation system, the robots also use other indoor navigational systems like Bluetooth beacons, readable QR codes, and Wi-Fi signals.

Customers can see the Ottobot on their mobiles, thanks to the app, which alerts them once it reaches their location. The app also has a QR code specific to their order. Once the customer holds their QR code for the robot to scan, it unlocks and opens its cargo compartment lid to allow them to retrieve their purchase. User feedback from a pilot project in the airport helped design the current robotic delivery system.

Not only in airports but there are several urban delivery robots also that use four wheels to move along city sidewalks. The wheels are special, as they can pivot and are mounted on articulated legs.

Delivery robots usually have smart lockable cargo boxes and two sets of powered wheels on their bottom. While autonomously moving along a smooth pathway, this arrangement works fine. However, for moving over curbs, climbing upstairs, or for traversing regular obstacles.

Piezo Sonic, a Japanese robotics company, has developed Mighty, the special delivery robot. They have based their design on a concept for robots exploring the moon:—: it does not have smooth sidewalks.

Mighty has four independently powered wheels. They can point either straight ahead for normal movements, or pivot to point sideways to allow the robot to move sideways in one direction or the other. The four wheels can also pivot part of the way outward or inward, forming a circle for Mighty to spin around on the spot.

Additionally, each wheel has its own hinged leg. Therefore, when the robot moves over an uneven surface, each leg can bend independently to compensate for the difference in height. This helps to keep the main body of the bot level. Mighty can use this feature to climb shallow sets of stairs.

Mighty uses GPS to navigate cities like other delivery robots. It also has cameras and LIDAR sensors for dodging hazards and pedestrians. It can easily carry a 20-kg cargo, climb 15-degree slopes, and step over obstacles up to 15 cm tall, all the while attaining a top speed of 10 km per hour.

What is Multi-Point Bluetooth?

It is certainly advantageous to live a wire-free lifestyle—especially with Bluetooth connectivity. However, there is the experience of having to pair earbuds or headphones to consider. Most of the time, the pairing is difficult, takes up considerable time, and is not intuitive. Multi-point Bluetooth helps with these concerns.

Using multi-point Bluetooth, it is possible to connect one pair of earbuds or headphones to multiple devices at once. It may not be necessary to execute the annoying pairing process. Moreover, it allows telephone calls to come through even when the laptop or tablet is playing music through the headphones.

Regular Bluetooth has its deficiencies. The pairing process is troublesome, and switching between audio sources is an incredibly difficult exercise. That is why most users connect their earbuds and headphones to their phones or laptops once and leave them undisturbed. For them, it is more convenient this way than to pair them anew with another device.

Although the Bluetooth Special Interest Group introduced Bluetooth 4.0 with multi-point capability back in 2010, most earbuds and headphones available today lack multi-point capability. But those available with multi-point capability are superb performers.

For instance, a user wearing wireless earbuds is on a video call on a laptop. As the call ends, they decide to go on a jog, taking their phone with them. They start streaming their workout playlist on the phone. With a multi-point capability, they do not need to go through the Bluetooth pairing process, and they can enjoy the music right away through their earbuds.

What happens if a call comes through? Bluetooth multi-point can interrupt an audio streaming process. It can pause the music while the phone switches automatically. Once the call is over or the user chooses to ignore it, the headphones can switch back to the music.

However, it is not possible to play audio from two devices simultaneously when on multi-point Bluetooth. Although multi-point Bluetooth technology sounds fantastic, it is not yet a perfected technique.

When a device is set up with Bluetooth, it actually connects to a piconet or a tiny network. In practice, a piconet is made up of two devices—a single audio source and a pair of headphones.

The headphones in this piconet act as a leader. It dictates how and when the connection operates, and the audio source, whether the phone or the laptop, behaves only as a follower. The follower listens to any command the leader of the headphones sends—like play or pause—and complies with any rules—such as bitrate constraints or audio codecs—that the headphone sets.

With multi-point Bluetooth, a supporting pair of headphones has a piconet that includes a number of extra followers, or audio sources. But different models of headphones, headsets, or earbuds can have different types of multi-point capability. Typically, four types exist—Simple, Advanced, Triple, and Proprietary.

Most consumer headphones support the Simple multi-point capability, allowing connection with two sources. Business headsets support the Advanced multi-point capability. Although able to connect with two sources, any interrupted call is automatically put on hold. Triple connectivity allows connecting with three sources. Apple AirPods and Galaxy Buds of Samsung typically use the Proprietary capability.

Low Pressure Drop Digital Flow Meters

Sensirion offers low-pressure drop digital flowmeters that are highly accurate and update the readings very fast. These meters are available in fully calibrated form along with built-in temperature compensation.

The SFM3000 sensor is a digital flow meter that Sensirion has designed for applications with high volumes of flow. The flow meter allows measuring with superb accuracy the flow rate of air, oxygen, or other non-aggressive gases. Sensirion has designed the flow channel in a special way so that introduction of the flow meter into a flow system results in a very low-pressure drop. These characteristics of the SFM3000 make it extremely suitable for use in applications that are very demanding, such as in respiratory and medical ventilation systems.

Operating the SFM3000 is very easy, as the flow meter operates off a 5 VDC supply voltage. It also features a 2-wire digital I2C interface for connecting with the controller. Sensirion has designed the flow meter such that it automatically linearizes and temperature compensates all measurement results internally.

A CMOSens sensor technology, patented by Sensirion, is the basis of the outstanding performance of the sensor. They have combined the sensor element, signal processing electronics, and digital calibration within a single microchip. A thermal sensor element measures the flow rate of the gas, and this also ensures that the signal processing is done at a high speed. The innovative measuring technique also makes it possible to make bidirectional measurements, while offering the best-in-class accuracy.

The CMOS technology is well-proven and is a perfectly suited method for high-quality mass production of the SFM3000 flow meter in a demanding and cost-sensitive market. Sensirion offers a variety of custom options for implementing the flow meter for high-volume OEM applications. They offer options like different body form factor, calibration for other gases, custom flow rates, and many more.

Applications of the SFM3000 low-pressure drop digital flow meter include laboratory use, environment monitoring, spectroscopy, fuel cell control, burner control, process automation, and medical use.

Sensirion has used a silicon sensor chip SF05 of the fifth generation in the design of the SFM3000 flow meter. It also has a sensor element to detect the flow of thermal mass. In addition to the two above, there is an amplifier, an analog to digital converter, read-only memory, digital circuitry for signal processing, and the digital I2C interface. Sensirion has achieved significant cost benefits and performance achievements with the seamless integration of the circuitry for acquiring the signal and processing it on a single silicon die.

Users can solder the SFM3000 sensor using standard selective soldering systems. However, they must not use reflow soldering as it may damage the sensor. During soldering, the user must protect the sensor ports from solder splash and flux. As the characteristics of machines for selective soldering may vary, the user must test the soldering arrangement before production use.

For soldering, Sensirion provides the mask drawing of the sensor for a reliable PCB attachment. For a sturdy integration of the sensor, the user must consider using the screw holes of the SFM3000. The fittings of the sensor correspond to the international standard ISO5356-1:2004.

Illuminating Automotive Displays

In recent years, there has been a substantial improvement in automotive displays. Automotive manufacturers now integrate these displays in various applications within the automobile, such as in mirror replacements, central information displays or CIDs, instrument clusters, entertainment displays for the rear seats, and many more. Sometimes, such displays can total up to twelve per vehicle.

Most of these displays use thin-film transistor or TFT driving liquid crystal displays or LCD for enhanced brightness and reliability at reasonable costs. However, there is an increasing need for better picture quality, as the display must also handle real-time video feed from cameras. In addition, an increase in display size is necessary due to the merging of CID and instrument clusters. With these requirements, the displays consume more power, and often, the timing controller or internal power supply source drivers cannot provide this. Therefore, there is a need for a suitable power supply that can handle these high-quality automotive displays.

Although many solutions exist for such TFT-Bias power supply devices, the display panel options are highly variable, and most have an expanded set of feature requirements. This leads to power supply designers considering a few needs for TFT-LCD display systems—high-quality display, source driving, functional safety, EMI mitigation, fast turn-on time, and low total solution cost.

Manufacturers use several TFT technologies for display panel solutions. However, each of them has its own set of benefits, needs, and limitations. For instance, two very common TFT technologies are the Low-Temperature Polysilicon LTPS and the Amorphous Silicon or A-SI panels. While driving an A-Si panel requires a unipolar source driver, the LTPS panels typically require a bipolar source driver.

Manufacturers bond unipolar A-Si source drivers to the edges of the display panel. Multiple digital to analog converters—one for each display column—drive the sources of the TFTs. Depending on the received video signal, the output voltage of the DACs varies, thereby setting the transmissivity of the LC panels. With the common rail for the display backplane set at approximately half the supply voltage, the source driver voltage is free to alternate between zero and full supply voltage.

Using LTPS technology, manufacturers can implement all the necessary circuits, including the bipolar LTPS source driver, directly on the glass of the display panel. This precludes the requirement of a storage capacitor in parallel with the subpixels, The higher carrier mobility in the transistors leads to higher performance in LTPS panels, and subsequently to advanced features.

Optimal display panel performance differentiates the high display quality necessary and requires support from consistent pixel response. However, imperfections in materials and processes often lead to deviations in parameter performance in physical manifestations of display solutions. These imperfections change the electrical characteristics of materials, which the design must account for while stabilizing the performance of the end product. This requires calibration methods where the voltage of the common rail is set.

The common rail voltage must also be compensated for temperature variations. This is because panel characteristics change over temperature, and the common rail voltage must also adjust for the display panel functionality to remain consistent.

Retail Energy Management through IoT

Most people prefer to visit big stores like Walmart and Costco for buying almost everything from iPhones to ice-creams. But running huge stores is not an easy task, and the superstores are always on the lookout for ways to cut costs by streamlining their operations.

With superstores the size of a city block, streamlining operations is not simple. Substantial resources—time and staff—are necessary to keep store lighting, food court ovens, HVAC systems, and digital displays running at maximum efficiency.

The stores may have hundreds of freezers and refrigeration units operating at the same time. Constantly monitoring them for meeting government regulations, while manually adjusting them, can lead to food safety compromises. A breakdown can halt services and food sales, slashing profits and irritating customers. While the retail sector increasingly adopts sophisticated digital solutions, its inefficient management of energy systems can become an anomaly.

With the recent pandemic causing a worldwide worker shortage and subsequent rise in labor costs, retailers would rather not add people for tracking and monitoring their back-end facility.

Traditional energy management systems available on the market operate in two ways. First, system integrators must build from scratch a software program for managing energy consumption to make the effort feasible, but this is too resource-intensive. The other may require purchasing an off-the-shelf system for building management—such as those that office towers and apartment buildings use. But these systems are usually not customizable, and they do not accommodate retailers. This is where a new platform has become necessary.

IBASE and Novakon have created a new platform for managing energy. They have designed the IBASE platform specifically for retailers. The platform, IBASE IoT Energy Management Platform, can monitor and manage refrigerators, freezers, air conditioning, kiosk signs, food court appliances, and lighting. The IoT system connects everything to the Internet, which allows tracking, monitoring, and controlling them possible in real-time.

Therefore, retailers no longer need a staffer to tend to freezers and refrigerators. Instead, they can concentrate on their own activities. The system does the tracking and data recording from multiple sensors that transmit new information all the time.

The new platform allows retailers to review the status of not only the refrigeration system but also the power that all connected devices and appliances consume. Anything going wrong brings up an immediate alert. The same alert also reaches the servicing company, so they can take up repair and maintenance immediately.

Moreover, the IBASE platform also has the capability to automatically turn HVAC and lighting on and off in synchronization with business hours. Retailers can tweak the system to match their special requirements to further save energy and money. Utility companies often offer discounts to businesses that can keep their power consumption below a certain threshold.

The IBASE platform is a real boon for large retailers—they can really save big on resources and energy. For instance, in a retail operation with 250 lighting devices, 36 air conditioners, and 22 power meters, staffers had to monitor each floor with notebooks, noting down appliance information every hour. The IBASE platform has transformed this.

SensorTile Wireless Industrial Node

For testing advanced industrial IoT applications, ST Microelectronics offers a wireless industrial node, which they call the STWIN SensorTile. This development kit from ST amplifies prototyping of applications like predictive maintenance and condition monitoring.

The STWIN SensorTile kit has a core system board, using a microcontroller operating at ultra-low power. The microcontroller can analyze vibrations from motion-sensing data across 9 degrees of freedom. The vibrational data may cover a wide range of frequencies. The spectra can cover very high-frequency audio including ultrasound. It is also capable of monitoring local temperature and environmental conditions at high precision.

The user can also tie up the core system board with a wide range of embedded sensors of industrial-grade type. To aid in speeding up design cycles for providing end-to-end solutions, ST compliments the development kit with a rich set of optimized firmware libraries and software packages.

An on-board module on the kit provides BLE wireless connectivity. Users can connect a special plugin expansion board to get Wi-Fi connectivity. Those who require wired connectivity for their projects can use the onboard RS485 transceiver. ST has a host of daughter boards using the STM32 family. This includes the LTE Cell pack. Users can connect these compatible, small form factor, and low-cost daughter boards to the development kit through an on-board STMod+ connector.

Along with the core system board, the wireless industrial node kit also has a protective plastic case, a Li-Po battery rated for 480 mAh, a programming cable, and a STLINK-V3MINI programmer cum debugger for STM32.

Users can employ a comprehensive range of sensors available with the core system board. ST has specifically designed these sensors to enable and support industry 4.0 applications. The microcontroller has various serial interfaces for communicating with these sensors. The interfaces include SPI for communicating with motion sensors with high data rates, and I2C for communicating with environmental sensors and magnetometers. The microcontroller can directly communicate with analog and digital microphones.

When interfacing with analog microphones, a low-noise opamp amplifies the signal. An internal 12-bit ADC is available in the microcontroller for sampling the output from the opamp. A digital filter manages the signal output from digital microphones. The microcontroller has a Sigma-Delta modulator interface for signals from digital microphones.

The core system has several sensors on the board. These include a digital MEMS microphone of industrial grade, a wideband MEMS analog microphone, an ultra-low-power 3-axis magnetometer, a high-performance ultra-low-power MEMS motion sensor, an ultra-wide-bandwidth MEMS vibrometer up to 5 kHz, a 3D accelerometer and 3D gyro IMU with a core for machine-learning, a high-output current rail-to-rail dual opamp, a digital low-voltage local temperature sensor, a digital absolute pressure sensor, relative humidity and temperature sensor.

The ultra-low-power microcontroller in the STWIN core system board is a part of the STM32L4+ series of MCUs. The series is based on the ARM Cortex-M4 core, which is of the high-performance 32-bit RISC type. The processors operate up to 120 MHz, and the board has 2 MB Flash memory, along with 640 Kb SRAM. The board has several connectivity options of both wired and wireless types.

3-Axis Digital Output Gyroscope

The I3G4250D is a 3-axis gyroscope with a digital output that STMicroelectronics is offering. This low-power, angular rate sensor provides unprecedented stability over time and temperature and unmatched sensitivity at zero-rate levels. Included in the I3G4250D is a sensing element along with a serial digital interface that transfers the measured angular rate to the application. This data transfer happens over a high-speed digital serial peripheral interface. In addition, the gyroscope comes with an I2C interface as well.

ST manufactures the sensing element in the gyroscope with a unique micromachining process. ST has developed this process for producing inertial actuators and sensors on wafers of silicon.

A CMOS IC provides the interface, allowing a high level of design integration necessary for building a dedicated circuit. Then they trim this to specifically match the sensing element’s characteristics. Users can select the full-scale output of the sensor to be ±245, ±500, or ±2000 DPS. Moreover, the user can also select the bandwidth for measuring the rates.

ST offers this gyroscope as a Land Grid Array or LGA package made of plastic. It is capable of operating within an ambient temperature range of -40 °C to +85 °C. The gyroscope has some unique features. It can tolerate a supply voltage variation of 2.4 VDC to 3.6 VDC. With two digital output interfaces of I2C and SPI, the sensor provides data output for rate value at 16 bits, and data output for temperature at 8 bits. For interfacing with outside circuits, the sensor offers two digital output lines—an interrupt and a data-ready output. Users can select the bandwidth of low- and high-pass filters integrated within the IC. The sensor offers exceptionally stable outputs over time and temperature.

With low-voltage compatible Input/Output lines, the IC can interface with digital signals of 1.8 VDC levels. Along with an embedded temperature sensor, the IC also has an embedded FIFO and also embeds power down and sleep modes. The sensor is ECOPACK, Green, and RoHS compliant, and can survive high shocks.

To evaluate the MEMS devices within the I3G4250D family, ST offers an adapter board— the STEVAL-MKI169V1. This adapter board matches a standard DIL socket, offering an effective solution for speedy system prototyping and evaluation of devices that the user is directly applying.

The user can directly plug in the adapter board in a standard DIL socket with 24 pins and take advantage of the complete I3G4250D pin-outs. The adapter board also comes with the necessary decoupling capacitors mounted on the VDD power supply pins.

ST supports this adapter board with its motherboard, the  STEVAL-MKI109V2. The motherboard has a powerful 32-bit microcontroller to act as a bridge between a PC and the sensor. ST also provides a graphical user interface—the Unico GUI— for the PC, which the user can download and use. They also provide dedicated software routines to customize the applications.

ST has targeted the I3G4250D 3-axis gyroscope with a digital output mainly for industrial applications. However, users can use the gyroscope for applications like navigational systems and telematics. The device is also useful in man-machine interfaces like motion control, and for various appliances like robotics.

Phase Change Material with Magnets and Rubber

A research team from the University of Massachusetts is creating a phase change material made of magnets and rubber. They specifically place the magnets for predictable properties. Embedding magnets within the elastic material and coding their poles with different colors allows the team to orient the magnets in different directions. This changes the response of the material so that it can both absorb and release energy.

The magnets and rubber combination can not only drive high-power motion but can also quickly dampen impact-loading events. The material has several promising applications. It boosts the performance of robots, and improves helmets and other protective equipment, enabling them to dissipate energy quickly. The team uses laser cutters to make snug receptacles in the rubber for placing the 3 mm wide magnets, which are commonly available in stores.

Stretching the material causes a phase change, a physical property. By stretching it far enough, it is possible to reach a phase transition, where the material releases substantial potential energy. The team claims that the energy released can power a vehicle.

According to the researchers, the phase transition can store additional energy beyond that going into it mechanically. Therefore, a drone can easily recover this additional energy that the material releases. The excess energy gives the drone an extra boost.

The magnets assist in the phase shift, and this substantially amplifies the quantity of energy the material is releasing or absorbing. The team has discovered a way to use the magnets to fine-tune this phase shift.

The elastic properties of the rubber and the geometry of the holes determine the specific placement of the magnets. The team can tailor the specific response by controlling the elastic properties of the rubber strip, the hole geometry, the magnetic strength, and their placement positions. They claim the phase shift is both predictable and repeatable. They claim they can control the performance of the metamaterial, such as absorbing the energy caused by a large impact or releasing huge amounts of energy for an explosive movement. The team claims this metamaterial has helped them understand high-speed, high-acceleration movements.

The team has taken inspiration from similar fast-moving organisms in nature. This includes the trap-jaw ant and the mantis shrimp. Nature combines several fields to influence the way animals to store energy, including mechanically, chemically, or elastically.

To understand the concept that nature uses, the team combined magnetic fields with elastic forces. They combined them in synthetic materials for use in drones or robots. They claim they can tune the material to be efficient in the use of energy, such as for jumping robots that can transverse various obstacles.

Stretching the metamaterial makes it act just as a regular rubber band or a regular spring would. However, stretching it to a large extent makes the material go through a phase change, allowing it to store more energy than what it is receiving from the stretching. Releasing the material causes it to release the stored energy. A drone can use this extra energy for a boost.