Archive

The shortages of personal protective equipment are increasing the pressure on the healthcare system in the fight against COVID-19. In collaboration with Pieter van der Staay, FLEX/design, Delmic, Star-shl diagnostic centres and Scala Scientific, a team of TU Delft students have developed a smart shielding wall that relieves care providers of time-consuming and complicated cleaning protocols.

For the first time, the 3mE Faculty is hosting the special international Reconfigurable Mechanisms Conference (ReMAR). From 20 until 22 June, scientists and engineers from all over the world involved in the area of mechanisms will come to the 3mE Faculty to reveal their theories, prototypes and designs.

This month the unique advanced iRASPA app has been launched. This app visualizes molecular structures of various types of porous materials with which material research can be facilitated and improved. In addition, it can help teachers with their explanation to students. The development of the iRASPA is done by a team of computational chemists: Dr David Dubbeldam (University of Amsterdam, Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences), Sofia Calero (Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville, Spain) and Thijs Vlugt, Professor of Engineering Thermodynamics at the Process & Energy (3mE).

The new MARCH III by TU Delft student team Project MARCH has won the Cybathlon Experience in Düsseldorf, the international obstacle race for exoskeletons. Entrants from several countries competed in the test of robotic harnesses for people with paraplegia, ending on 29 September. Together with ‘pilot’ Sjaan Quirijns, who has had paraplegia since 2000, MARCH III achieved the fastest time and the highest number of points. Thanks to improvements to the suit and intensive training of its wearer, the team successfully completed a four-obstacle course in just under 9.5 minutes. Project MARCH gained particular plaudits for the independent functioning of its device.

Cyclist Lieke de Cock won the world championship for cycling in the Nevada desert in the US with a speed of 120 km/h.

In the Keuzegids Universities 2024, the bachelor's programme Clinical Technology has been labelled top programme for the second time. This study programme is a collaboration between TU Delft, LUMC and Erasmus MC.

An advanced test area of 10 x 10 nautical miles (= about 185 football pitches) is planned for off the coast of The Hague, just outside the port of Scheveningen. This area is unique in the world. It is within this ‘smartest stretch of the North Sea’ that the likes of Delft Data Science (DDS) researchers Anna Vilanova and Elmar Eisemann will get the chance to further their research.

The first fully-automated demo of AVATARs - autonomous emission-free waterways vessels - took place on the pond in front of the 3mE building. Three model-scaled vessels neatly demonstrated their manoeuvrability, precision controlled turning and steering capabilities thanks to long-range Wi-Fi and 4G communications and newly-developed AI directed collision-avoidance technology.

The ‘mechanical octopus’, a steerable laparoscopic instrument used for minimally invasive surgery in the abdominal cavity, has been used for the first time in an operating room.

TU Delft is launching a new research programme on 31 October to explore the possibilities of wind-assisted propulsion for cargo vessels. The aim is to reduce fuel consumption by 30%.

On Friday 15 June NWO will organise the 2018 edition of Bessensap. Around 400 journalists, press officers and researchers will meet at De Rode Hoed in Amsterdam to network with colleagues and exchange knowledge on the latest developments in science and its communication.

This week, under the leadership of Director of Studies for Technical Medicine Professor Jaap Harlaar, a group of Master’s students in Technical Medicine launched the OperationAIR initiative with the objective of developing a simple and relatively inexpensive ventilator as quickly as possible.

Scientists from the e-Refinery initiative, launched last year by Delft University of Technology, are working on a radical adjustment of the chemical industry, currently still based on fossil raw materials, towards electricity-based sustainable production of chemicals and fuels.

The increasing miniaturisation of electrical components in industry requires a new imaging technique at the nanometre scale. Delft researcher Gerard Verbiest and ASML have developed a first proof-of-concept method that they now plan to further develop.

An international team from TU Delft and the Czech Technical University (CTU) based in Prague have won the Taxify Self-driving Fleet Optimisation Challenge. Representatives from TU Delft included researchers Javier Alonso Mora and Michal Cap, who work at the Department of Cognitive Robotics (CoR) at the Automated Mobility-on-Demand with Ride-sharing (AMR) research group. The aim of the challenge was to optimise the operation of a fleet of self-driving passenger service vehicles, for example taxis in an urban environment.

On Thursday 6 June, TU Delft and TNO will launch the Dutch Ocean Technology Centre (DOTC). Driven by the energy transition in the maritime and offshore sector, this centre pools manpower, knowledge and infrastructure to increase the efficiency of the approach to mission-driven research in the maritime sector. In this initiative, TU Delft and TNO aim to accelerate the implementation of sustainable shipping.

Oil and gas shortages are not only pushing up the prices of gas and petrol, but also plastics, medicines and cosmetics. To make our society less dependent on fossil fuels and combat climate change, the chemical industry needs to change radically. In recent years, TU Delft and TNO have laid the foundation for cleaner production processes in the chemical industry. The new e-Chem partnership is now taking this a step further by actually constructing a clean factory of the future.

Now it is time for trucks to join the transition to zero emission, and uptime is key to make this a success. In a new research project with the Volvo Group, Riccardo Ferrari of the Delft Centre for Systems and Control is looking to improve service life through predictive analytics.

TU Delft is launching – in collaboration with infrastructure specialist Firan, the City of Amsterdam and the AMS Institute – the ‘Digital Heat’ project in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA). The goal is to develop a future-proof low temperature heat network in Amstel III Zuid using residual heat from a nearby data centre.

A team of researchers from TU Delft managed to design one of the world’s most precise microchip sensors; the device can function at room temperature – a ‘holy grail’ for quantum technologies and sensing.

Een algoritme dat voor een hogere energieopbrengst van windparken zorgt én een onderzoek waaruit blijkt dat niet alleen brandstofverbruik maar ook seizoenseffecten een belangrijke rol spelen bij het optimaliseren van vliegroutes en vlieghoogtes. Dit zijn – in één zin samengevat – de twee grote winnende publicaties van de Beste Climate & Energy Paper Award. De awardceremonie, die woensdag 15 maart plaatsvond op de TU Delft, stond volledig in het teken van grote en kleine innovaties die een bijdrage leveren aan het versnellen van de energietransitie en het beteugelen van klimaatverandering.

A large consortium led by TU Delft is going to provide ‘brains’ to buildings. The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy has allocated 6.9 million euro to the Brains 4 Buildings project.

Together with Renault, Delft robot engineers developed the Proactive Eco Mode, a new system that enables drivers to reach the desired speed faster, based on predictions of the future, while maintaining the eco fuel benefits. They have successfully demonstrated the system on French roads.

Going by the name H2 Coach Boat, TU Delft is joining a consortium consisting of maritime companies, the Sailing Innovation Centre and the Watersportverbond (Water Sports Federation) to develop a clean coach boat for the sport of sailing, with propulsion based on hydrogen in combination with electricity. The aim is to drastically reduce carbon emissions in the sport of sailing. Klaas Visser, researcher in Marine Engineering at TU Delft is leading the research team of maritime students who have completed a feasibility study, among other things, in cooperation with several companies from the marine sector and who are focusing on reducing boat emissions.

We’re all familiar with the step tracker these days. Now there’s something new: the stumble tracker. This invention by TU Delft is helping a trauma surgeon at Erasmus MC to measure whether people using a new kind of prosthetic leg stumble less frequently. ‘This partnership has a bright future.’

A major challenge in the energy transition is the efficient and flexible storage and transportation of renewable energy. Batteries will play an important role in this. However, much research and innovation are still required. In order to encourage this, on Thursday 11 May 2023 TU Delft will be launching e4BatteryDelft: a brand-new platform that will focus on electrochemical storage of renewable energy – with respect for the world around us, in a way that is affordable and also totally European.

If it is up to the European Commission, all the energy used will come from renewable sources by 2050. Achieving this goal will require the large-scale use of floating wind turbines, says Axelle Viré, wind expert at TU Delft. ‘Although the technology is still in its infancy, it has enormous potential,’ she explains. ‘To capitalise on this potential, TU Delft is launching the Floating Renewables Lab: a lab facility that will tie together all the elements of the development chain for floating wind turbines and other offshore renewables with the help of numerical models and AI.’

NWO has awarded almost 6 million euros to nine proposals in the ‘Blue Route’ programme in the Water & Maritime top sector. Six of the nine grants are going to TU Delft, at the Department of Maritime and Transport Technology.

Arjo Loeve and his research colleagues at TU Delft’s Department of BioMechanical Engineering are working with the Jeroen Bosch Hospital and the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences on a new pulse oximeter that is easy and inexpensive to produce. The pulse oximeter is a crucial measurement tool that monitors the heartbeat and amount of oxygen in the blood while COVID-19 patients are being treated. The aim of the research is to counteract the impending shortage of this tool.

Today marks a significant milestone as TU Delft officially joins EBRAINS, a state-of-the-art digital research infrastructure developed by the EU-funded Human Brain Project, which serves as a comprehensive hub for brain-related data and tools.

How do you install a wind turbine far out at sea when high waves and strong winds make its installation virtually impossible? With this question in mind, a team of researchers from TU Delft, in collaboration with Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) and DOT B.V., boarded the world's largest crane vessel this week: Heerema's Sleipnir. As part of a major pioneering project, the FOX project, they are exploring floating wind turbine installation.

Wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger and the wind speed is never the same on every part of the rotor – the rotating part of a wind turbine. That is why it is important to carry out experiments using non-uniform wind fields: fields in which the wind speed is not the same everywhere. With the opening of TU Delft’s Wind AI Lab – a globally unique wind tunnel – this will become possible.

How enviromentally friendly is yacht building actually? Can you compare one yacht to another? And how can we ensure that all yacht builders take the same approach, so that we can ultimately reduce the footprint of yachts?

Today, 29 October 2021, Delft University Fund announced the eight TU Delft Best Graduates 2021. Each year, TU Delft’s eight faculties nominate their Best Graduate. On 11 November, during the TU Delft Best Graduate Award Ceremony 2021, one of these eight nominees will receive the prestigious title TU Delft Best Graduate 2021.