Devices & inventions

Meet Blue, the low-cost, human-friendly AI robot

04/09/19 — Blue uses advances in artificial intelligence and deep reinforcement learning to master intricate human tasks, while remaining affordable and safe enough that every AI researcher - and eventually every home - could have one.

Mass-producing biomaterials

04/08/19 — Researchers have developed a device that allows living tissue, bone, blood vessels and even whole organs to be printed on demand.

AI could identify you and your health history from your step tracker

01/29/19 USA Today — Manufacturers say data stripped of identifying information is no privacy risk. But UC Berkeley's Anil Aswani and UCSF's Yoshimi Fukuoka found that artificial intelligence can overcome that. Time to update health privacy laws.

Clever clumsiness: Self-taught walking robot

01/09/19 Wired — Researchers from the Berkeley AI Research Lab and Google Brain have taught a robot to teach itself how to walk, through trial and error, in just two hours; the results "are as awkward as they are magical."

Illustration of the proposed WAND device, with two of the new chips embedded in a chassis located outside the head.

Wireless ‘pacemaker for the brain’

12/31/18 — A new neurostimulator developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can listen to and stimulate electric current in the brain at the same time, potentially delivering fine-tuned treatments to patients with diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's.

Ion drive flight test points to radically different future for aviation

12/05/18 Forbes — Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have conducted a successful 8-second flight test of an aircraft with an ion drive propulsion system, a larger version of the same cutting-edge technology that Berkeley engineers are using to fly centimeter-scale microrobots.

New quantum material could take computers beyond semiconductors

12/03/18 — Researchers from Intel Corp. and UC Berkeley's MSE are looking beyond current transistor technology and preparing the way for a new type of memory and logic circuit that could someday be in every computer on the planet.

Illustration of a football player running with a ball

A collision of talent

11/14/18 — A course at Berkeley teams STEM students with athletes to develop sports-related technology.

Magnified image of ciscuits printed on flexible mesh

Origami electronics

11/14/18 — Scientists have fabricated electronic switches and sensors directly onto paper, where folding it can switch circuits on and off.

Illustration showing how waste heat could be used to generate energy

From waste heat to energy

11/14/18 — Researchers have developed a thin-film device that converts waste heat to energy, using pyroelectric energy conversion.

Blood-oxygen sensor made of an alternating array of printed light-emitting diodes and photodetectors

Skinlike sensor maps blood-oxygen levels anywhere in the body

11/07/18 — A new flexible sensor developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can map blood-oxygen levels over large areas of skin, tissue and organs, potentially giving doctors a new way to monitor healing wounds in real time.

Berkeley undergrads holding examples of their tiny SpinorSats

A tiny step into the final frontier

10/15/18 Medium — Six undergrad engineers are developing "SpinorSats" - each less than 10 grams, about the size of an Apple Watch - that they hope will be the smallest maneuverable satellites in space.

Tara deBoer holding synthetic urine samples being tested with DETECT solution

New test rapidly identifies antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’

10/15/18 — A new test dubbed DETECT, co-developed by Berkeley bioengineers, can diagnose patients with antibiotic-resistant infections in a matter of minutes and help limit the spread of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” which kill as many as 700,000 people worldwide each year.

Discarded cup carried to storm drain by runoff water

Engineered sand zaps storm water pollutants

08/30/18 — Berkeley engineers have created a new way to remove contaminants from storm water using mineral-coated sand, potentially addressing the needs of water-stressed communities that are searching for ways to tap the abundant and yet underused source of fresh drinking water.

Calling out fake photos on the web

08/21/18 Wired — Fake photos are the bane of internet junkies. SurfSafe, a browser plugin from RoBhat Labs (computer science undergrads Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte), can warn users that they're viewing a Photoshopped fake in real time - like an antivirus for photos.