Cranfield University

Helicopters regularly have to get their rotor blades inspected, so they can be replaced if they're wearing out. Using the BladeSense system, however, the aircraft would be able to monitor the condition of their blades in real time, while in flight.

As most fans of the leathery fruit can attest, telling when an avocado is of perfect ripeness can be a guessing game, but a new testing technique could eliminate the margin for error by measuring the firmness of individual specimens using lasers.

There is an arm of science focused on revealing insights about public health by analyzing the contents of our sewage. And now one of the scientists on its cutting edge wants to use the technology to help monitor outbreaks of COVID-19.

In a way it seems so obvious: find out what kinds of things people are putting into their bodies by studying what comes out the other end. These do sound like muddy waters, but some see a very bright future for this dark corner of science.

Cranfield Aerospace has received a £9-million (US$11.6-million) grant to convert a Britten-Norman (B-N) Islander into a hybrid-electric aircraft using an environmentally friendly propulsion kit that can be retrofitted.

​Currently, when aircraft need to be inspected for structural damage, people perform the task manually. While this does provide them with employment, it's also time-consuming, costly, and subject to human error. For this reason, a fuselage-climbing robot is being developed to do the job.

​There are already drones that take off and land vertically, but switch to faster, more efficient fixed-wing flight once airborne. Working with students from Britain's Cranfield University, BAE Systems engineers have taken that idea and put a whole new spin on it – quite literally.

The pizzicato knee-joint energy harvester is an experimental wearable device, that generates electricity via the bending of the wearer's knees as they walk.

A new type of aircraft has been unveiled which can launch vertically, hover perfectly still, move in any direction, is almost silent, has the dynamic stability to enter buildings, handles rough weather, flies fast and can carry very heavy loads

An unmanned aerial vehicle named DEMON is able to maneuver using air jets instead of traditional wing flaps.

A newly-developed plastic has been shown to keep bacteria from causing infections, by limiting their ability to communicate with one another.

Automotive engineering facilities in the UK have joined forces to design a system which allows conventional delivery vans to be cheaply converted to run in a zero-emissions, all-electric mode for urban use