Universidad Politecnica de Madrid

​If you've ever watched a speedboat slamming its way across the waves, you may have thought "That can't be good for its hull" … and you'd be right. A new invention from Spain's Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), however, could help keep those boats intact.

​​If you're going to place a robot among fish to learn about water quality, what better form for it to take than a fish itself? The latest example of this is an autonomous vehicle designed specifically to track pH levels in aquaculture settings to help keep inhabitants fit and healthy.​

A team of researchers from Madrid is developing a thermal energy storage system that uses molten silicon to store up to 10 times more energy than existing thermal storage options and could form the basis for a new generation of low-cost solar thermal stations to store solar energy in urban centers.

The Robotics and Cybernetics Research Group at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) is developing Rosphere, a spherical robot that rolls like a ball and may one day be rolling up for work in fields to monitor and tend crops.

Drywall boards containing paraffin microcapsules can reportedly reduce a building’s energy consumption by up to 40 percent.