2025-05-31 22:00:03
As a mere earthling, I remember watching in fascination as Sojourner sent back photos of the Martian surface during the summer of 1997. I was not alone. The servers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab slowed to a crawl when they got more than 47 million hits (a record number!) from people attempting to download those early images of the Red Planet. To be fair, it was the late 1990s, the Internet was still young, and most people were using dial-up modems. By the end of the 83-day mission, Sojourner had sent back 550 photos and performed more than 15 chemical analyses of Martian rocks and soil.
Sojourner, of course, remains on Mars. Pictured here is Marie Curie, its twin. Functionally identical, either one of the rovers could have made the voyage to Mars, but one of them was bound to become the famous face of the mission, while the other was destined to be left behind in obscurity. Did I write this piece because I feel a little bad for Marie Curie? Maybe. But it also gave me a chance to revisit this pioneering Mars mission, which established that robots could effectively explore the surface of planets and captivate the public imagination.
On 4 July 1997, the Mars Pathfinder parachuted through the Martian atmosphere and bounced about 15 times on glorified airbags before finally coming to a rest. The lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, carried precious cargo stowed inside. The next day, after the airbags retracted, the solar-powered Sojourner eased its way down the ramp, the first human-made vehicle to roll around on the surface of another planet. (It wasn’t the first extraterrestrial body, though. The Soviet Lunokhod rovers conducted two successful missions on the moon in 1970 and 1973. The Soviets had also landed a rover on Mars back in 1971, but communication was lost before the PROP-M ever deployed.)
This giant sandbox at JPL provided Marie Curie with an approximation of Martian terrain. Mike Nelson/AFP/Getty Images
The six-wheeled, 10.6-kilogram, microwave-oven-size Sojourner was equipped with three low-resolution cameras (two on the front for black-and-white images and a color camera on the rear), a laser hazard–avoidance system, an alpha-proton X-ray spectrometer, experiments for testing wheel abrasion and material adherence, and several accelerometers. The robot also demonstrated the value of the six-wheeled “rocker-bogie” suspension system that became NASA’s go-to design for all later Mars rovers. Sojourner never roamed more than about 12 meters from the lander due to the limited range of its radio.
Pathfinder had landed in Ares Vallis, an assumed ancient floodplain chosen because of the wide variety of rocks present. Scientists hoped to confirm the past existence of water on the surface of Mars. Sojourner did discover rounded pebbles that suggested running water, and later missions confirmed it.
A highlight of Sojourner’s 83-day mission on Mars was its encounter with a rock nicknamed Barnacle Bill [to the rover’s left]. JPL/NASA
As its first act of exploration, Sojourner rolled forward 36 centimeters and encountered a rock, dubbed Barnacle Bill due to its rough surface. The rover spent about 10 hours analyzing the rock, using its spectrometer to determine the elemental composition. Over the next few weeks, while the lander collected atmospheric information and took photos, the rover studied rocks in detail and tested the Martian soil.
Meanwhile back on Earth, engineers at JPL used Marie Curie to mimic Sojourner’s movements in a Mars-like setting. During the original design and testing of the rovers, the team had set up giant sandboxes, each holding thousands of kilograms of playground sand, in the Space Flight Operations Facility at JPL. They exhaustively practiced the remote operation of Sojourner, including an 11-minute delay in communications between Mars and Earth. (The actual delay can vary from 7 to 20 minutes.) Even after Sojourner landed, Marie Curie continued to help them strategize.
Initially, Sojourner was remotely operated from Earth, which was tricky given the lengthy communication delay. Mike Nelson/AFP/Getty Images
During its first few days on Mars, Sojourner was maneuvered by an Earth-based operator wearing 3D goggles and using a funky input device called a Spaceball 2003. Images pieced together from both the lander and the rover guided the operator. It was like a very, very slow video game—the rover sometimes moved only a few centimeters a day. NASA then turned on Sojourner’s hazard-avoidance system, which allowed the rover some autonomy to explore its world. A human would suggest a path for that day’s exploration, and then the rover had to autonomously avoid any obstacles in its way, such as a big rock, a cliff, or a steep slope.
JPL designed Sojourner to operate for a week. But the little rover that could kept chugging along for 83 Martian days before NASA finally lost contact, on 7 October 1997. The lander had conked out on 27 September. In all, the mission collected 1.2 gigabytes of data (which at the time was a lot) and sent back 10,000 images of the planet’s surface.
NASA held on to Marie Curie with the hopes of sending it on another mission to Mars. For a while, it was slated to be part of the Mars 2001 set of missions, but that didn’t happen. In 2015, JPL transferred the rover to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
The Pathfinder mission was the second one in NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin’s Discovery Program, which embodied his “faster, better, cheaper” philosophy of making NASA more nimble and efficient. (The first Discovery mission was to the asteroid Eros.) In the financial climate of the early 1990s, the space agency couldn’t risk a billion-dollar loss if a major mission failed. Goldin opted for smaller projects; the Pathfinder mission’s overall budget, including flight and operations, was capped at US $300 million.
In his 2014 book Curiosity: An Inside Look at the Mars Rover Mission and the People Who Made It Happen (Prometheus), science writer Rod Pyle interviews Rob Manning, chief engineer for the Pathfinder mission and subsequent Mars rovers. Manning recalled that one of the best things about the mission was its relatively minimal requirements. The team was responsible for landing on Mars, delivering the rover, and transmitting images—technically challenging, to be sure, but beyond that the team had no constraints.
Sojourner was succeeded by the rovers Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. Shown here are four mission spares, including Marie Curie [foreground]. JPL-Caltech/NASA
The real mission was to prove to Congress and the American public that NASA could do groundbreaking work more efficiently. Behind the scenes, there was a little bit of accounting magic happening, with the “faster, better, cheaper” missions often being silently underwritten by larger, older projects. For example, the radioisotope heater units that kept Sojourner’s electronics warm enough to operate were leftover spares from the Galileo mission to Jupiter, so they were “free.”
Not only was the Pathfinder mission successful but it captured the hearts of Americans and reinvigorated an interest in exploring Mars. In the process, it set the foundation for the future missions that allowed the rovers Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity (which, incredibly, is still operating nearly 13 years after it landed) to explore even more of the Red Planet.
To name its first Mars rovers, NASA launched a student contest in March 1994, with the specific guidance of choosing a “heroine.” Entry essays were judged on their quality and creativity, the appropriateness of the name for a rover, and the student’s knowledge of the woman to be honored as well as the mission’s goals. Students from all over the world entered.
Twelve-year-old Valerie Ambroise of Bridgeport, Conn., won for her essay on Sojourner Truth, while 18-year-old Deepti Rohatgi of Rockville, Md., came in second for hers on Marie Curie. Truth was a Black woman born into slavery at the end of the 18th century. She escaped with her infant daughter and two years later won freedom for her son through legal action. She became a vocal advocate for civil rights, women’s rights, and alcohol temperance. Curie was a Polish-French physicist and chemist famous for her studies of radioactivity, a term she coined. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, as well as the first person to win a second Nobel.
NASA subsequently recognized several other women with named structures. One of the last women to be so honored was Nancy Grace Roman, the space agency’s first chief of astronomy. In May 2020, NASA announced it would name the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope after Roman; the space telescope is set to launch as early as October 2026, although the Trump administration has repeatedly said it wants to cancel the project.
These days, NASA tries to avoid naming its major projects after people. It quietly changed its naming policy in December 2022 after allegations came to light that James Webb, for whom the James Webb Space Telescope is named, had fired LGBTQ+ employees at NASA and, before that, the State Department. A NASA investigation couldn’t substantiate the allegations, and so the telescope retained Webb’s name. But the bar is now much higher for NASA projects to memorialize anyone, deserving or otherwise. (The agency did allow the hopping lunar robot IM-2 Micro Nova Hopper, built by Intuitive Machines, to be named for computer-software pioneer Grace Hopper.)
And so Marie Curie and Sojourner will remain part of a rarefied clique. Sojourner, inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003, will always be the celebrity of the pair. And Marie Curie will always remain on the sidelines. But think about it this way: Marie Curie is now on exhibit at one of the most popular museums in the world, where millions of visitors can see the rover up close. That’s not too shabby a legacy either.
Part of a continuing series looking at historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.
An abridged version of this article appears in the June 2025 print issue.
Curator Matthew Shindell of the National Air and Space Museum first suggested I feature Marie Curie. I found additional information from the museum’s collections website, an article by David Kindy in Smithsonian magazine, and the book After Sputnik: 50 Years of the Space Age (Smithsonian Books/HarperCollins, 2007) by Smithsonian curator Martin Collins.
NASA has numerous resources documenting the Mars Pathfinder mission, such as the mission website, fact sheet, and many lovely photos (including some of Barnacle Bill and a composite of Marie Curie during a prelaunch test).
Curiosity: An Inside Look at the Mars Rover Mission and the People Who Made It Happen (Prometheus, 2014) by Rod Pyle and Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet (Hyperion, 2005) by planetary scientist Steve Squyres are both about later Mars missions and their rovers, but they include foundational information about Sojourner.
2025-05-31 02:00:04
Aishwarya Bandla tries to center her work around passion, people, and purpose, following the Japanese concept of ikigai, or a sense of purpose.
For the IEEE senior member, that involves transforming patient care through innovative health technology. Bandla is developing a means to help prevent nerve damage in cancer patients resulting from chemotherapy treatment, a condition known as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy
Chemotherapy is known to cause a variety of side effects including nausea, fatigue, and hair loss, according to the American Cancer Society. But one lesser-known effect is neuropathy, Bandla says.
Employer:
Paxman Coolers of Huddersfield, England
Title:
Clinical innovation manager
Member grade:
Senior member
Alma maters:
Anna University in Chennai, India, and the National University of Singapore in Queenstown
Peripheral neuropathy nerve damage—which also can stem from diabetes, vitamin deficiencies, and other causes—affects mostly the tips of the patient’s hands and feet. Symptoms range from persistent tingling to excruciating pain. Currently there are no approved preventative measures for the condition; cancer patients try to manage it with painkillers or, in severe cases, reducing or stopping their chemotherapy, Bandla says.
Bandla is the clinical innovation manager at Paxman Coolers, a medical equipment manufacturer headquartered in Huddersfield, England. She is developing a wearable device that cools a person’s limbs. Called the Paxman limb cryocompression system (PLCS), it’s designed to help prevent nerve damage from certain types of intravenous chemotherapy drugs. The cold temperature slows blood flow to the area, allowing less of the injected medication to reach the nerves there.
Bandla, who is based in Singapore, is also a principal investigator at the N.1 Institute for Health, the National University of Singapore (NUS), and at the National University Cancer Institute of Singapore.
An active IEEE volunteer, she follows ikigai in her work with the organization, she says, and she encourages other young professionals to do the same. She has overseen the launch of several career development and mentorship programs for IEEE Women in Engineering Singapore, IEEE Region 10 Women in Engineering, and IEEE Region 10 Young Professionals.
“Being an IEEE member,” she says, “has helped me nurture my purpose in rallying my efforts toward creating meaningful impact.”
For “her leadership in patient-centric health technology innovation and inspiring IEEE Young Professionals to drive meaningful change,” she is the recipient of this year’s IEEE Theodore W. Hissey Outstanding Young Professional Award. The award is sponsored by the IEEE Photonics and IEEE Power & Energy societies, as well as IEEE Young Professionals.
“This recognition fuels me to continue the work IEEE is doing globally to make the world a better place,” she says.
Bandla had a difficult time deciding whether to pursue medicine or engineering as a career, she says, but she chose the latter because it’s “a superpower that can help you create things to make life better.”
After earning her bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering in 2009 from Anna University, in Chennai, India, she joined software engineering company Infosys in Mysuru, India, as a technical consultant. She left three years later after being accepted into the neurotechnology doctoral program at NUS in Queenstown. Neurotechnology encompasses ways of directly engaging with the human brain and nervous system, including brain-computer interfaces, magnetic resonance imaging, and brain-wave monitors.
Bandla conducted her research under biomedical engineer Nitish V. Thakor, who specializes in developing brain-monitoring technologies and neuroprostheses. The IEEE Life Fellow is a professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. He also is director of the Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology, SINAPSE, a collaboration among six research universities including Johns Hopkins, NUS, and the University of Patras, in Greece.
Under Thakor’s tutelage, Bandla began her work in developing the technology she is involved with today.
In 2012 Bandla and other researchers from Thakor’s lab met with neurologist Einar Wilder Smith and oncologist Raghav Sundar from National University Hospital in Kent Ridge, Singapore, to explore how the technology could help cancer patients with peripheral neuropathy.
During chemotherapy, patients are injected with an individualized drug mixture that kills fast-dividing cells or prevents them from multiplying by damaging the cells’ DNA. But the mixture also can attack healthy cells and damage nervous-system structures, causing pain and sensitivity in the patient’s hands and feet, as explained in an article published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
In the meeting, the team learned about a scalp-cooling technology that helps prevent a different side effect: hair loss. A special cap is placed on the patient’s head to cool the scalp.
Inspired by that cold cap, the team set out to develop similar technology for the hands and feet. But first, in 2014, the SINAPSE lab conducted a clinical trial with National University Hospital to see if cooling the limbs would help patients with peripheral neuropathy. Existing localized cryotherapy machines used for sports therapy—which circulate ice-cooled liquid to cool an area on the body, were tested on 15 chemotherapy patients at the hospital. The team found that patients could not comfortably tolerate temperatures below 22 °C during the three-hour treatment, Bandla says.
“Being an IEEE member has helped me nurture my purpose in rallying my efforts toward creating meaningful impact.”
She suggested conducting another clinical trial, this time testing cryocompression tools rather than cryotherapy ones. Cryocompression is used for sports therapy and rehab. It combines cooling and compression—which helps reduce swelling. In the second trial, the team found that patients could tolerate temperatures as low as 11 °C for three hours, Bandla says.
The second trial ended in 2017. Bandla earned her Ph.D. that year but continued to work on the project as a SINAPSE research fellow.
In 2018 the team members began another clinical study, testing if they could safely cool a patient’s scalp and limbs simultaneously to prevent multiple side effects at once.
Throughout the five-year trial period, Bandla collected data to understand the best way to deliver cooling therapy that was safe, comfortable, and effective. The feedback she received from patients, caregivers, and the medical staff demonstrated a clear need for a device to use in the chemotherapy suite.
After the pilot trials ended in 2019, the team began designing a device alongside Richard Paxman and his team at Paxman Coolers, who leveraged their expertise in cryotherapy for side-effect management.
The portable PLCS connects to four insulated wraps, each containing a bladder filled with coolant. The wraps cover a patient’s forearms, hands, shins, and feet and include velcro flaps that can be adjusted for a better fit. The PLCS circulates the coolant through the wraps and powers the compression. It also keeps the coolant temperature at 11 °C.
During every chemotherapy cycle, 30 minutes before the medication is administered, the wraps are placed on the patient’s forearms and shins to begin the cooling process. After the session ends, the device is used on the patient for 30 more minutes, Bandla says.
The team was granted two U.S. patents for the PLCS.
In 2022 Bandla joined Paxman as a research and development manager, and she was promoted to clinical innovation manager two years later.
The impact her work has had keeps her motivated to continue, she says.
The PLCS is being tested in a large-scale clinical trial in 25 U.S. hospitals in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute.
Two years ago Bandla attended a social innovation camp for school students in India.Aishwarya Bandla
Thakor introduced Bandla to IEEE. An active member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, he encourages his students to participate in its conferences and to publish papers in its journals.
Bandla says volunteering with IEEE was a no-brainer for her. Her volunteerism began in 2012 with IEEE Women in Engineering Singapore. In 2019 she became its chair and launched the WIE Singapore Networking Night to help build camaraderie between the IEEE Singapore Section and technologists in industry, academia, and government. The annual event includes panel discussions.
In 2021 Bandla joined the IEEE Region 10 Women in Engineering committee as the technical and Young Professionals lead. There she helped launch MentorHer, an eight-week program in which experts help their mentees design and implement a professional development plan. Bandla created the program’s framework.
“After the pilot program was completed in 2021, we received nice feedback from participants,” she says. “Many people said they interacted with people they wouldn’t normally work with and enjoyed the experience.”
In 2020 Bandla began participating in virtual events and conferences held by Region 10’s Young Professionals group as a speaker and panel moderator. Last year she became the chair.
Volunteering for the YP group is special to her, she says, because she has been able to “build a community and help other young professionals become well-rounded leaders and decision-makers.”
She helped develop the Career and Leadership Aid Program (CLAP) at the Region 10 Students, Young Professionals,Women in Engineering,Life Members Congress held in August in Tokyo.
She introduced the concept of ikigai to young professionals by centering the event around it. The congress included what she calls a “human library” session. Ten IEEE members from different engineering fields were positioned around the meeting room, and attendees had an hour to learn about each of the “human books.”
The group received positive feedback, with participants saying they enjoyed the focus on professional and leadership development. They said they liked how extraordinary the event was, in particular the “human library” session.
Based on the success of the CLAP event, the team is building an IEEE Hive. The immersive professional development program is available for students and early career professionals at technical conferences and congresses around the world.
The ability to make an impact, build a community, and connect with people resonates with her, Bandla says.
“Volunteering with IEEE gives me so much energy!” she says.
2025-05-30 23:30:03
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Enjoy today’s videos!
For a humanoid robot to be successful and generalizable in a factory, warehouse, or even at home requires a comprehensive understanding of the world around it—both the shape and the context of the objects and environments the robot interacts with. To do those tasks with agility and adaptability, Atlas needs an equally agile and adaptable perception system.
What happens when a bipedal robot is placed in the back of a moving cargo truck without any support? LimX Dynamics explored this idea in a real-world test. During the test, TRON 1 was positioned in the compartment of a medium-sized truck. The vehicle carried out a series of demanding maneuvers—sudden stops, rapid acceleration, sharp turns, and lane changes. With no external support, TRON 1 had to rely entirely on its onboard control system to stay upright, presenting a real challenge for dynamic stability.
Thanks, Jinyan!
We present a quiet, smooth-walking controller for quadruped guide robots, addressing key challenges for blind and low-vision (BLV) users. Unlike conventional controllers, which produce distracting noise and jerky motion, ours enables slow, stable, and human-speed walking—even on stairs. Through interviews and user studies with BLV individuals, we show that our controller reduces noise by half and significantly improves user acceptance, making quadruped robots a more viable mobility aid.
[University of Massachusetts Amherst]
Thanks, Julia!
RIVR, the leader in physical AI and robotics, is partnering with Veho to pilot our delivery robots in the heart of Austin, Texas. Designed to solve the “last-100-yard” challenge, our wheeled-legged robots navigate stairs, gates, and real-world terrain to deliver parcels directly to the doorstep—working alongside human drivers, not replacing them.
[RIVR]
We will have more on this robot shortly, but for now, this is all you need to know.
Some pretty awesome quadruped parkour here—haven’t seen the wall running before.
[Paper] via [Science Robotics]
This is fun, and also useful, because it’s all about recovering from unpredictable and forceful impacts.
What is that move at 0:06, though?! Wow.
[Unitree]
Maybe an option for all of those social robots that are now not social?
Oh, good, another robot I want nowhere near me.
[SDU Biorobotics Lab, University of Southern Denmark]
While this “has become the first humanoid robot to skillfully use chopsticks,” I’m pretty skeptical of the implied autonomy. Also, those chopsticks are cheaters.
[ROBOTERA]
Looks like Westwood Robotics had a fun time at ICRA!
Tessa Lau, CEO and co-founder of Dusty Robotics, delivered a plenary session (keynote) at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA) in May 2025.
2025-05-30 04:00:11
As drones evolve into critical agents across defense, disaster response, and infrastructure inspection, they must become more adaptive, secure, and resilient. Traditional AI methods fall short in real-world unpredictability. This whitepaper from the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) explores how Embodied AI – AI that integrates perception, action, memory, and learning in dynamic environments, can revolutionize drone operations. Drawing from innovations in GenAI, Physical AI, and zero-trust frameworks, TII outlines a future where drones can perceive threats, adapt to change, and collaborate safely in real time. The result: smarter, safer, and more secure autonomous aerial systems.
2025-05-29 22:00:04
When the platform for a prototype floating offshore wind turbine arrived at a dock in Searsport, Maine, on April 11, engineers at the University of Maine were ready to add a tower and a turbine and set it afloat in the Gulf of Maine. The prototype, called the VolturnUS+, was a 1:4 scale model of a 15-megawatt version, and its deployment would mark only the second wind turbine to float in U.S. waters.
But on the very same day, university officials received a letter from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) saying it was “suspending all activity” remaining on the project’s $12.6 million grant. The move left the university’s 375-tonne concrete hull tied up dockside and its creators scrambling to resolve the situation.
VolturnUS+ is one of many offshore wind projects that have been delayed or killed in the United States since President Trump’s second inauguration. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order freezing all permitting of offshore wind projects, impacting nearly all that were not yet under construction. And in an unprecedented move, the President on April 16 froze work on one offshore wind farm that was already being built off of New York’s coast, before withdrawing the order last week.
In response, wind developers are pulling back on U.S. projects. Multinational wind giant RWE paused work on its entire 6-gigawatt U.S. portfolio, citing “the political environment.”
The turmoil may prove particularly devastating for floating wind projects like VolturnUS+. Floating turbines are designed to function farther offshore in waters too deep to anchor turbine towers to the sea floor, and the fledgling industry has yet to install a single commercial-scale turbine in U.S. waters.
Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Corporation in March paused work on what could have been a U.S. first: a 12-turbine, 144-MW floating ”research array” planned for a spot 50 kilometers east of Portland, Maine. The company cited “recent shifts in the energy landscape that have, in particular, caused uncertainty in the offshore wind industry.”
Maine policymakers have been counting on Mitsubishi’s research array to jump-start development in floating wind and thus secure the state’s energy transition and bolster coastal economies. These small floating arrays serve as testbeds to help de-risk gigawatt-scale projects to come and provide an opportunity to engage with stakeholders. “It’s important because the technology is still relatively immature,” says Steve Clemmer, director of energy research at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “You’ve got to start somewhere demonstrating the technology, researching impacts on the fishing industry and wildlife, especially related to the mooring systems,” he says.
Indeed, developers of a California floating demonstration project, Cademo, had also been closely watching Maine’s progress. Floating turbines are the U.S. Pacific Coast’s only offshore wind option due to its deeper waters.
In response to federal opposition to wind development, proponents of floating technology are taking a variety of strategies. For the VolturnUS+ team, leaving their massive concrete platform tied to a dock would have been unsafe and financially ruinous, says Habib Dagher, executive director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures & Composites Center in Orono and VolturnUS+ co-director. “You’re going to destroy the pier if you get weather. And we were paying fees to stay at the pier—fees that we can’t even afford,” he says.
Blocked from accessing more than $3 million remaining in their ARPA-E grant, Dagher’s team cobbled together enough cash from industry partners and state funds to do what needed to be done: mate the tower and turbine to the platform and then tow the package to its planned test site about 600 meters off the coast of Castine, Maine. It was the only viable option, says Dagher. “We had no choice but to find emergency funds to get it out of there,” he says.
It was the only viable option, says Dagher. “We had no choice but to find emergency funds to get it out of there.”
For Mitsubishi, the challenges appear more widespread than the U.S. political climate, and the international conglomerate is responding by hitting the pause button. In February it paused three conventional offshore wind projects in Japan, citing “material changes in the macroeconomic environment,” including the war in Ukraine, depreciation of the yen, and tight supply chains.
California, however, is pressing on. In February, California governor Gavin Newsom proposed a $228 million investment to prepare ports for major offshore wind farm construction expected in the next decade. And in March, the state of California awarded $20 million to the Port of Long Beach and $18 million to the Port of Humboldt to foster public engagement and conduct studies required for permit filings.
“They’re not pulling back money that was previously allocated for offshore wind. They’re sticking to the course,” says Matt Simmons, climate attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center, an Arcata, Calif.–based nonprofit.
Of course, California can only do so much without federal cooperation. The Cademo demonstration on California’s Central Coast hopes to sell its power to the nearby Vandenberg Space Force Base. They also need a green light from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which designated a National Marine Sanctuary in October that spans Cademo’s site.
Maine’s VolturnUS+ floating turbine is a follow-on to its much smaller VolturnUS test turbine, which was a semi-submersible assemblage of pontoon beams and flotation columns. In making the VolturnUS+, the University of Maine streamlined the design to lower cost—it’s essentially a barge that sits atop the water. On their own, barges are less stable, but Dagher says his team made the design workable by taking inspiration from the mass-dampers that sway in high-rise buildings to counteract earthquakes. “You negate some of the earthquake motions by moving the mass back and forth to oppose the motions of the earthquake,” he explains.
In the case of VolturnUS+, mass shifting within each of the hull’s crossed arms counteracts tilting forces from winds and waves. Based on a 2023 patent filing, that mass could be seawater. The resulting stability reduced the size of the float required. Combined with the relative ease of construction, the design changes cut the platform costs by 20 to 30 percent, Dagher says.
ARPA-E’s suspension letter to the University of Maine alleged a “failure to comply with one or more” federal policies. When asked for comment on the matter, a spokesperson for ARPA-E referred Spectrum to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the DOE did not respond to Spectrum‘s inquiry. The university says it is “compliant with all state and federal laws, and the conditions of its federal grants and contracts.”
Thanks to the emergency funds, the completed VolturnUS+ test rig is now moored in 21 meters of water. The next step for the project’s leaders is to install a power cable that connects the turbine to the onshore grid—a project they hope to complete in the next two to three months. Dagher says the turbine will operate for 18 months, as planned, to evaluate the platform’s stability. But, in a statement provided to Spectrum, the university says that, without resumption of the ARPA-E funds, researchers will have less ability to analyze results and to craft a commercialization plan.
The University of Maine announced in mid-May that it would lay off nine people at Dagher’s Advanced Structures & Composites Center, citing “unexpected pauses and delays in federal funding.”
2025-05-29 03:51:34
Last week, the federal government terminated hundreds of research grants to Harvard University professors from a broad range of fields of study. This comes on the heels of a conflict between Harvard, among other universities, and the Trump administration.
To recap: The Trump administration has accused Harvard of not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism on its campus and made a series of demands to the university. Harvard has refused to comply, claiming that the demands violate the First Amendment and amount to a government takeover of the institution. The Trump administration retaliated by terminating grants to Harvard from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and others.
Yesterday, the administration foreshadowed cutting all remaining federal funds to Harvard.
Vijay Janapa Reddi is an associate professor of engineering and applied science at Harvard who specializes in computer architecture, specifically edge devices such as smartwatches, smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and more. His team focuses on making edge computing more sustainable by rethinking how these systems are designed and deployed in the real world. He’s also an IEEE member.
Last week, while his group was working hard to meet the abstract submission deadline for the prestigious NeurIPS conference, Janapa Reddi learned that three of his grants had been terminated. IEEE Spectrum caught up with him about his experience and how the Trump administration’s actions will affect his field of study.
How and when did you find out your grants were getting terminated?
Vijay Janapa Reddi: It was around 10 p.m. when internal emails went out listing which grants were being cut. We were deep in submission mode for the NeurIPS deadline, so it felt surreal. At first I tried to stay focused, doing business as usual. But as the news sank in the next day, the scale of the disruption became clear.
What’s most jarring is trying to hold both realities at once: pushing forward with your work, while also watching the foundation beneath it begin to crumble. That cognitive dissonance is hard to carry.
What work were you doing under those grants?
Janapa Reddi: One grant was focused on sustainability at the extreme edge, where computing must operate in settings with strict limits on power, cost, and available materials. These systems are deployed in places like food supply chains, agricultural fields, environmental sensors, and health care diagnostics in underserved areas. In such environments, computing can’t simply be an add-on. It must be reimagined to fit within the constraints of the setting while still delivering meaningful impact.
For instance, monitoring food spoilage is not just about attaching an everyday computer chip to a box of apples to monitor food deterioration. In many cases, the cost of that chip would exceed the value of the food itself. The deeper question is how to fundamentally redesign computing to be practical, scalable, and sustainable in resource-constrained contexts. This challenge led us to explore new types of hardware, including flexible, non-silicon microprocessors based on the open RISC-V instruction set. These systems are programmable, low cost, and suited to real-world applications where traditional computing models fall short. The work is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and seeks to bring technological innovation to places where it’s needed most.
Another project we were working on was through MLCommons, a nonprofit organization where I serve as vice president. MLCommons helped establish some of the original industry benchmarks for machine learning, promoting shared evaluation standards across the field. One of our recent research initiatives focuses on supporting the development of foundation models for scientific applications. We have been working on building an open-source ecosystem that enables contributions from the broader community, while also curating a set of benchmarks tailored to AI for science.
The other grant was intended to support a community workshop we were organizing to bring researchers together around shared challenges and opportunities. This effort was part of our broader commitment to education and public engagement, which aligns with the National Science Foundation’s mission to ensure that research advances knowledge and reaches and benefits a wider audience.
What effect does this have on your research?
Janapa Reddi: The immediate impact is clear: I have to pause or scale down without funding. The deeper concern is what happens next. Research doesn’t ramp down like a switch; for all of us, it unwinds slowly and takes time to regain the lost momentum. It’s a bit like stopping a freight train. You can’t bring it to a halt instantly, and once it has stopped, getting it moving again takes even more energy and time. Research is the same. It depends on people, planning, and long-term vision, none of which can be restarted overnight.
What do you see as the longer-term effects of these cuts?
Janapa Reddi: I still believe in the strength of the American higher education and research ecosystem. It has a long history of rising to challenges, of turning constraints into catalysts for innovation. But moments like this test our resilience. The global perception of U.S. research is at risk. Disruptions like these send a concerning message to the next generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators around the world. That is troubling because what makes American research exceptional is not just the level of funding but the steady influx of talent, the diversity of thought, and the culture of open competition and collaboration.
Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that the research itself is almost secondary. It starts with people. If you look at any company with a trillion-dollar market value and ask what drives that long-term technology roadmap, it’s not an AI agent mapping it out. It’s the people behind it, the ones building, questioning, imagining, and creating. If we’re not investing in training those people to the highest caliber, then where is the next wave of innovation going to come from?
What would you like to see going forward?
Janapa Reddi: The silence from those who have benefited from higher education is the most deafening—the people who earned their degrees, built their lives on that foundation, and know just how many doors it can open. If we want our kids to have the same chances we did, we cannot take those opportunities for granted. As beneficiaries of that system, we have a responsibility not just to protect it but to renew it, so that a decade from now, those doors are still open and continue to lead to even greater possibilities.
That’s especially true in areas like sustainable computing, where the challenges are urgent and the impact is tangible. Whether it is reducing food waste or building energy-efficient AI systems for science, these efforts cannot be paused indefinitely. As we submitted our work to NeurIPS last week, it reminded me why this matters. We are not just writing papers. We are trying to build a future that is smarter, more sustainable, and more just. To do that, we need a system that still believes in investing in the future.