Technion engineers develop virtual periscope that doesn’t have to get wet

Tekumah, a Dolphin-class submarine, is capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Photo: REUTERS
 

Jerusalem Post - Prof. Yoav Schechner, of the Technion’s electrical engineering department, and colleagues developed the virtual periscope.


‘Up periscope!” may become an outdated order thanks to a team of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers who have developed a new technology for viewing objects above the water’s surface without the need for a periscope poking its head above the waves. The researchers modeled their virtual periscope on technology used by astronomers to counter blurring and distortion caused by layers of atmosphere when viewing stars.


The technology behind a submerged “virtual periscope” was introduced in a presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography, held in California earlier this month. Prof. Yoav Schechner, of the Technion’s electrical engineering department, and colleagues developed the virtual periscope, which is called “Stella Maris” (Stellar Marine Refractive Imaging Sensor).


The heart of the underwater imaging system is a camera – a pinhole array to admit light (a thin metal sheet with precise, laser-cut holes), a glass diffuser and mirrors. 

The rays of the sun are projected through the pinholes to the diffuser, which is imaged by the camera, beside the distorted object of interest. The image is then corrected for distortion.   Read More

MIT Engineers Design Fog-Free, Water-Repellent, Anti-Glare Glass

Perfect Bead Blue-dyed water droplets sitting on a transparent nanotaper surface (left) and on flat glass (right), each placed on top of printed black letters. The insets are top views of the same two surfaces. Hyungryul Choi and Kyoo-Chul Park

A new type of nano-structured glass can bounce water and dirt off its surface, cleaning itself and preventing fogging, according to MIT researchers. It eliminates glare, too, allowing light to penetrate with pure clarity. It could be used for anything from solar panels to future car windshields to new gadget screens.

The superhydrophobic glass shares some properties with the super-waterproof fabric coating we learned about this week, and it, too, is a feat of nano-engineering. But instead of a waterproof coating, it earns its special properties through a special etching process. Kyoo-Chul Park, Hyungryul Choi and colleagues drew inspiration from nature, including zebra plants, which contain conical structures that repel water. They developed a method to embed an array of steeply angled cones on the surface of glass.     More