Mapping

Automotive

MapLite may take self-driving cars off the beaten path

You might think that with all their cameras and other sensors, self-driving cars can handle any road in any location. That actually isn't the case, although it soon may be, thanks to MIT's new MapLite system.

Traditionally-traced roads, as they appear on Google Maps

Science

Better-performing mapping system searches the streets

When it comes to making city maps based on aerial photos, manually tracing all the roads can be quite the hassle. As a result, we're now seeing computer programs that do so automatically. Scientists at MIT have developed a program of their own, that is promised to be even better at the job.

A new light-sensitive protein can be embedded into neuron membranes, where it emits a fluorescent light that could help neuroscientists understand how neurons connect and communicate inside the brain

Science

MIT imaging technique sheds light on the brain's electrical activity

Researchers at MIT have developed an imaging technique that will help study exactly how electrical signals propagate through the brain, in an advance that could help us better understand Alzheimer's, epilepsy, and other brain disorders, as well as how thoughts and feelings are formed.

Render of the sensor-backed blimp being deployed to explore inaccessible areas of an ancient building or monument

Robotics

Hidden places to be explored by minimal impact blimp

French researchers and the ScanPyramids project have joined forces to develop a new robot exploration platform. The current focus is on developing a two robot platform capable of looking into and mapping inaccessible areas of ancient buildings without blowing through doors and walls to do so.

Space

Google Street View docks at the International Space Station

Google Street View can take you to the some of the most remote regions of our planet, but the developers of the first-person mapping service see no reason to stop there. Starting today, you can use the tool to explore the ISS, the first time Street View has ventured beyond the Earth's surface.

The Elektra One Solar flew autonomously on a predetermined path over Landshut while carrying a complex payload of sensors, cameras and high speed data links which transmitted the data to a ground station.

Aircraft

Elektra One Solar demonstrates 3D town mapping capabilities

Elektra Solar demonstrated the capabilities of the company's Elektra One Solar aircraft earlier this month by mapping an historic German town in 3D. The low cost, low noise electric-solar aircraft was able to circulate silently just 300 meters over the town while it scanning the landscape below.

The Google Street View vehicles gathered more than three million unique pollution measurements

Environment

Google's Street View cars offer block-by-block pollution readings

Tracking air pollution in a city can be an inexact science but researchers have now explored a way to offer block-by-block, highly localized data, and it involves fitting out Google Street View vehicles with air pollution monitors as they roam around town.

The path of the Moon's shadow moving across the United States during the during this year's total solar eclipse, also known as the path of totality, has been visualized using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Earth-based topography information

Space

NASA plots 2017 solar eclipse path with best accuracy yet

Combining elevation data gathered by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with Earth topography data, NASA researchers have produced the most accurate map ever created for the path of totality of the total solar eclipse that will be seen across a large swath of the United States later this year.

S.L.A.M.dunk can be latched onto a Linux-based drone and connected by 3.5 mm jack and/or USB

Drones

Parrot turns enabler with S.L.A.M.dunk kit for drone developers

Parrot's newly-announced S.L.A.M.dunk is a development kit for drones equipped with hardware that suggests a particular focus on obstacle avoidance and navigation, but doubles as a desktop computer as well.

This is one slice through the map of the large-scale structure of the universe from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and its Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, with each dot indicating the position of a galaxy 6 billion years into the past

Space

Massive 3D map of the universe tracks dark energy like never before

Astronomers say they've made the most precise measurements to date of dark energy, while pinpointing the positions of 1.2 million galaxies in the largest ever 3D map of the universe. The map covers over a quarter of the sky, spanning a volume of 650 cubic billion light years.

The researchers tested out the technology on a system with a small depth camera attached to a lightweight manipulator arm

Robotics

Hand-mounted cameras make robots better at mapping their environments

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have come up with a novel way of improving robots' inspection and manipulation skills. The team fitted a small camera to the hand of the machine, allowing it to quickly track its environment and the position of the hand in real time.

Still from the newly-relseased topographical map of Mercury

Space

MESSENGER spacecraft provides first global topographical model of Mercury

Using data captured by NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, a team of scientists has constructed the first complete digital elevation model (DEM) of the planet Mercury.