Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire in Hertfordshire, England, have recently discovered that people choose robot companions in accordance with their own personality type.

The researchers are developing human-style robots that may one day help human companions in a number of ways. As part of their study, the research team looked for patterns in people's choices of robotic companions.

The research team has found a tendency among extroverts to choose human-looking robots that have a face and a human-like voice. Introverts, on the other hand, tend to prefer mechanical-looking robots, more like a box on wheels with a metal head, said Kerstin Dautenhahn. He's a professor in the university's school of computer science and a researcher on the robot-human interaction project.

Another team member, Mick Walters, looks at how people perceive robots and interact with them.

"Our research allowed us to identify two broad demographics of people who have preferences," Walters said. "It seems that there are those who prefer an unobtrusive robot and then others who want a cheerier presence."

A developer of hybrid electric and electric powertrains for commercial vehicles, Azure Dynamics Corp. of Oak Park, Mich., has signed a supply agreement with Utilimaster Corp. for the assembly, hybridization, and manufacturing engineering of Azure's P1 hybrid electric commercial delivery vans and shuttle buses. Utilimaster is a builder of step vans, commercial truck bodies, and utility vehicles.

Under terms of the agreement, Azure will provide Utilimaster with its P1 hybrid electric powertrains, which Utilimaster will integrate into Ford Motor Co.'s E-Series commercial chassis at Utilimaster's manufacturing facilities in Wakarusa, Ind.

The U.S. National Academy of Engineering recently unveiled its 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. The challenges fall into four areas: sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and technologies that enhance living.

The challenges were picked by a blue-ribbon panel established in 2006. It included 18 engineers, scientists, and others, ranging from inventor Dean Kamen and Google co-founder Larry Page to former Secretary of Defense William Perry (who holds a Ph.D. in mathematics), and geneticist J. Craig Venter.

The panel sought public comment and had its conclusions reviewed by 50 subject-matter experts.

Engineering's 14 Grand Challenges Sustainability + Make solar energy affordable + Commercialize fusion energy + Develop carbon sequestration + Manage the nitrogen cycle Health + Provide access to clean water + Restore/improve urban infrastructure + Advance health informatics + Engineer better medicines + Reverse-engineer the brain Reduced Vulnerability + Prevent nuclear terror + Secure cyberspace Improved Living + Enhance virtual reality + Advance personalized learning + Engineer tools for scientific discovery

According to the National Academy of Engineering's president, Charles Vest, the committee was asked to pick important, visionary challenges that could be solved by engineering combined with science and medicine.

Many of the challenges involve more than just pure engineering "In the past century, scientists discovered, engineers created, and doctors healed," Vest said. "In the 21st century, these skills will be blended together because 21st-century engineering will not be a static undertaking. It will change in unexpected and rapid ways."

The Academy commissioned the study for two reasons, Vest said. First, it hoped to use the results to help set policy, and to explain to politicians that "world leadership in the 21st century will profoundly depend on advancing and utilizing the tools of science, engineering, and medicine."

Second, and perhaps equally important, Vest sees the study as a way to inspire young men and women to study engineering and "help engineer a path toward a more desirable and sustainable future."

According to Vest, engineers have done a poor job of promoting their profession and explaining what it does. "The public has a reasonable understanding of what science is," he said. "But we seem to have dropped the word 'engineering' from our vocabulary and started using the word 'technology' instead, and the public automatically fills in the word 'information' before 'technology.' "

The point was underscored by Vest's choice of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the press conference. While the organization has some engineering seminars, its decided emphasis on science draws several hundred reporters. No engineering conference in the world receives similar coverage.

San Jose, Calif.-based Atmel Corp. now has a new family of AVR 8-bit microcontrollers dedicated to motor control applications for automotive use. The manufacturer claims that the ATmega16M1 and ATmega32M1 are the first devices developed for the control of sensor and sensorless brushless dc motors for automotive applications.

With an increasing number of motors inside a car, auto manufacturers need smaller and lighter motors with higher torque than brush motors. They are now moving to brushless dc motors that require more sophisticated electronic devices to precisely control speed and torque, Atmel said. This brings new challenges, among them high temperature—150°C—for some applications under the hood.

Atmel designs and manufactures microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory, and radio frequency components.

Duke Energy of Charlotte, N.C., has received confirmation from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that its combined construction and operating license application for the proposed William States Lee III Nuclear Station has been approved and docketed for the next stage of review.

"Our nuclear development project team spent more than 21 months working on this application to ensure quality information was provided for both the safety and environmental aspects of the project," said Bryan Dolan, Duke Energy's vice president of nuclear plant development. "The NRC's acceptance of our license application confirms that, based on an initial review, it is technically sufficient for the NRC's more comprehensive review."

Duke Energy submitted the 8,000-page construction and operating license application for the Cherokee County, S.C., site in December 2007.

The Lee Nuclear COL application will now enter the detailed NRC review process, which includes requests for additional information, visits to the proposed plant site, and opportunities for public comment as the NRC prepares an environmental impact statement and safety evaluation report.

The NRC will publish its review schedule within 30 days.

Duke Energy's Carolinas operations include nuclear, coal-fired, natural gas, and hydroelectric generation. That diverse fuel mix provides nearly 21,000 megawatts of electricity to more than 2.3 million electric customers in a 24,000-square-mile service area of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Relying on a clever use of thermal expansion, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Falmouth, Mass., have built a robotic vehicle powered entirely by the warmth of ocean water. In an initial test of the vehicle, the submersible plied the waters between St. Croix and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands for more than a month, propelling itself without a conventional power system.

This autonomous underwater vehicle is propelled by the force of wax that expands when melted.

Marine researchers value autonomous underwater vehicles for their ability to continuously monitor areas of the ocean for long stretches of time. One type of vehicle, known as a glider, mimics the way that some sea creatures move through the depths: A battery-powered pump moves oil from inside the vehicle's pressure vessel to the outside. This changes its displacement—and thus its buoyancy—enabling it to rise and fall through the water. Wing-like fins on the side of the vehicle allow the craft to move forward through the water without a propeller.

But these gliders are only as good as their batteries: Once the power supply is drained, the pump stops and the robot is dead in the water.

Looking to find a longer-lasting power supply, former WHOI researcher Doug Webb realized the ocean itself could power the glider. The idea is simplicity itself: Warm water at the surface melts a tube of wax, which expands and pushes oil from an interior bladder, causing the vehicle to sink. At depth, the vehicle cools, the wax shrinks and solidifies, and oil re-enters the bladder, which increases the vehicle's buoyancy.

The system is so efficient that the robot vehicle's life is now limited by the durability of the batteries that power its monitoring and communications equipment. The designers hope to find a way to power that equipment through thermal differences so that the entire craft can run autonomously for years at a time.

The Woods Hole researchers plan to have a fleet of these vehicles ready in the next few years to study currents in the North Atlantic that may be disrupted by freshwater from melting glaciers in Greenland.

To provide enhanced service and support for customers in Korea and Asia, SABIC Innovative Plastics is opening a major production line at its facility in Chung-Ju, Korea. The new line will produce LNP Verton long glass fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites, which are widely used across the burgeoning automotive, telecommunications, and appliance industries in Asia.

The company's continued investment in new production facilities such as the LNP Verton composite line is designed to provide customers with a local source of innovative product solutions and technological expertise.

By giving customers local production and resources, SABIC Innovative Plastics aims to reduce delivery times for LNP Verton composite grades. Local material production can help customers reduce time to market for a competitive advantage, especially in the fast-moving telecommunications and electronics sectors.

The operator of the Rainbow Dam hydroelectric plant on the Missouri River near Great Falls, Mont., says it plans almost to double the plant's electric generating capacity by constructing a new powerhouse with a 60-megawatt turbine. According to the company, PPL Montana, the turbine has an improved, fish-friendly design.

Starting in spring 2009, PPL Montana, based in Helena, will begin construction of a new powerhouse. All eight of the smaller existing units at Rainbow Dam, which have a combined capacity of 35 megawatts, will eventually be replaced with a single 60-megawatt unit—big enough to power approximately 45,000 homes.

The new larger turbine offers a significantly more fish-friendly design than the current small turbine configuration, including wider flow passages, fewer rotating surfaces, and improvements to the turbine intake screens.

As part of the project, a new powerhouse will be built on the hillside about 200 feet downstream of the existing powerhouse, which will be shut down upon completion of the project.

Subject to receiving federal, state and local approvals, construction would begin in the first quarter of 2009. The facility is targeted to be in service by spring of 2011.

Driven by growing European demand for turbochargers, BorgWarner of Auburn Hills, Mich., has expanded its facility in Oroszlany, Hungary, about 80 km from Budapest.

A new 4,650-square-meter building will provide added manufacturing, training, development, and administrative space. With an area now totaling over 13,500 square meters, the four-building campus employs about 600 people who produce turbochargers that equip more than 50 car models for customers in Europe, China, India, and Mexico.

BorgWarner expects increased demand for its advanced turbocharging technologies as automobile manufacturers around the world work to achieve lower emissions, better fuel efficiency, and improved performance. Since the plant in Hungary opened, the operation has increased annual production from 40,000 units in 2000 to 1.5 million units in 2007.

An independent manufacturer of forged parts for the North American automotive industry, Hephaestus Holdings Inc., will acquire substantially all the non-cash assets primarily used in Delphi Corp.'s North American bearings business. Kyklos entered into the agreement after it was declared the winning bidder in an auction conducted as part of a sale process under Section 363 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, and will acquire the bearings business free of substantially all liens, claims, encumbrances, and interests.

Kyklos is acquiring substantially all of the bearings business's inventory, intellectual property, machinery, and equipment, including a manufacturing and engineering facility in Sandusky, Ohio. Kyklos said it will offer employment to all the bearings business's employees and is expecting to assume all customer and supplier contracts.

The supplier of superconductive wire said that a new, advanced cable has been successfully connected in a section of the electric grid at Albany, N.Y.

National Grid has been operating a three-phase cable made from high-temperature superconductors between the Riverside and Menands substations at Albany since June 2006. It has replaced a 30-meter segment with cable using the new type of wire.

The manufacturer of the wire, SuperPower Inc. of Schenectady, N.Y., said the product, which it calls 2G, for second generation, is based on yttrium and uses less silver than earlier forms of superconductive wire. The 2G wire is still experimental and has not reached a market cost. SuperPower has predicted that 2G wire may be competitive with copper by 2010 or 2011.

According to Jon Moscovic, a reliability engineer with National Grid, the cable is chilled using liquid nitrogen to keep it in the range of 75 to 77 kelvin.

The Timken Co. of Canton, Ohio, has completed the acquisition of Boring Specialties Inc., a Houston-based supplier of precision deep-hole oil and gas drilling and extraction products and services. Timken will operate the business as Timken Boring Specialties LLC.

Lockheed Martin says it has successfully completed acoustic testing of the first Advanced Extremely High Frequency military communications satellite. The Advanced EHF system will provide protected, global communications for U.S. armed forces.

Computational Engineering International of Apex, N.C., is shipping its latest version of EnSight, the company's visualization software. The release is called EnSight 2008 Winter.

Design Prototyping Technologies, a provider of rapid prototyping and low-volume manufacturing services headquartered in Syracuse, N.Y., has published A Practical Guide to Prototyping. The guide is a quick reference tool for industrial designers and manufacturing engineers who outsource rapid prototyping services, the company said.

CAE of Montreal has signed contracts to design and manufacture four full-flight simulators and associated CAE Simfinity training devices valued at $52 million Canadian at list prices. The contracts are with Lufthansa Flight Training and Xiamen Airlines, and bring the total full-flight simulator sales that CAE has announced to date in fiscal 2008 to 35.

The U.S. Army has awarded General Dynamics Robotic Systems a contract with a total potential value of $40 million for production of the robotic Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System (MDARS). General Dynamics Robotic Systems will manufacture the semi-autonomous security vehicles and provide spare parts, training, and technical services for a five-year period. The work will be done at its Westminster, Md., production facility.

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