The unique Soletair demo plant developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) uses carbon dioxide to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. The pilot plant is coupled to LUT’s solar power plant in Lappeenranta and uses solar energy for CO2 extraction and hydrogen producing.

The aim of the project is to demonstrate the technical performance of the overall process and produce 200 litres of fuels and other hydrocarbons for research purposes. This concerns a one-of-a-kind demo plant in which the entire process chain, from solar power generation to hydrocarbon production, is in the same place.

Boston Dynamics, the global leader in mobile robotics, expanded commercial sales of Spot, the agile robot that climbs stairs and traverses rough terrain with ease, to the European Union, United Kingdom and Canada. This follows the launch of commercial sales of Spot in the U.S., and builds upon a successful Early Adopter Program that saw a number of companies in both Europe and North America integrate the robot into their operations.

^{Photo: (CC) Pixabay}

Author: Qidi Jiang

Machine learning technology is increasingly entering people's daily lives and its application is becoming more extensive, from email filtering and computer vision solutions to forecasting tools and language processing. There are also practical and day-to-day solutions in Latvia that use machine learning methods. Find out what is new in the machine learning industry and interesting solutions for business development at the RIGA COMM Machine Learning Conference on October 15 in Ķīpsala.

“More machine-learning solutions for communication analysis will emerge in the coming years, which will enable everybody to improve daily communication and make brand communication more efficient in any company,” tells Aldis Ērglis, a Machine Learning lab lead at Emergn.

Remote work has become a reality in the wake of the pandemic crisis, so the need for smart technology solutions for human resources (HR) is becoming more and more important. Learn about the latest solutions for efficient personnel management available on the market at the RIGA COMM conference “Smart HR” on 15 October, but in the meantime the organisers offer an insight into some of the solutions developed in Latvia.

Bugatti has stood for innovative, extraordinary and timeless automotive design for more than 110 years. For the French luxury brand, design development is both a key competence and a highly complex task. Bugatti has been intensively working on virtual design processes with photorealistic 3D animations since 2016 in order to master this challenge in the age of digital transformation. The design team under Achim Anscheidt has already digitalized more than 90 percent of the creative model development process and has thus established a paradigm shift in design creation.

On the end of January the University of Tartu and Bolt presented the test car procured for the University of Tartu’s autonomous driving lab. This high-technology vehicle will be used for experiments in several research and development fields. The aim is to conduct test runs in urban traffic this year already.

Arckit, the Irish company behind the award-winning architectural model building kits, dubbed 'architect's Lego', announces the launch of Arckit Sports Volume 1 and Volume 2, The World's First Multi-Stadium Model Building Kits. Construct anything from American Football, Baseball and Soccer stadiums to Basketball, Tennis, Ice Hockey arenas and more.

The Institute of Software Science of Taltech University and startup company Thinnect  are developing technology that can monitor urban air and measure traffic flows via hundreds of sensors powered by solar panels and connected by mesh network.

Sensor hubs are placed to street lighting posts of Tallinn and are connected to a network. Different combinations of sensors can measure noise, sound radars can analyse traffic conditions and microphone arrays can record anything for further scientific research. For example, a student of taltech collected birdsongs and analysed different bird species heard my microphone arrays over the city.

Tallinn University of Technology is signing a co-operation agreement with Florida Polytechnic University on the 10th of April, to join forces for future development and increasing security of automated vehicles (AV).

Self-driving cars and other autonomous systems are one of the most paradigm-changing technological developments in today's world. Transportation is affecting every single person and has a large impact on economic development. There will be huge challenges to solve and international cooperation is crucial here.