Limitless Magazine Spring 2021

When the company announced that he would become its next leader, Reuters called Arvind Krishna “IBM’s surprise CEO.” But with 30 years at the company, including time running IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI business, others knew it made all the sense in the world.

Smoke jumpers parachute in to fight forest fires. Miners work hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet below ground under dangerous conditions. Disaster relief workers and first responders face the threat of explosions, radiation, or building collapse. They bravely assure us it’s all in a day’s work. But scientists and sci-fi writers alike have often asked “Can we use robots instead?”

Grainger Engineering hires nine new faculty in autonomy and robotics, as the Center for Autonomy drives the safe, assured systems that will revolutionize the way we live, work, and play.

Over the summer of 2020, the University of Illinois was frequently conducting about 20 percent of all COVID-19 tests performed on a given day in the state of Illinois – or between one and two percent of all tests performed across the US.

There are beautiful days in central Illinois in mid-October. Days when the sun’s shining and the air’s just crisp enough to remind you it’s Fall. Football weather. Bonfire weather. Trip to the orchard weather. Or – if you’re a Grainger Engineer and you’ve already done your apple picking for the season – weather that’s perfect for visiting an autonomous farm.

New center combines campus’ areas of expertise in engineering and agriculture to cement Illinois’ position as an innovator in this emerging field of agricultural technology and develop solutions to agricultural problems that use digital technology.

The TRIGA Reactor went critical ­– began operating at stable power – on August 16, 1960, during some of the tensest years of the cold war.

Safer Illinois app – custom built by University of Illinois developers, researchers, and students – is a crucial element of the campus’ COVID-19 response.

When NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon spacecraft launched on November 15, 2020, Grainger Engineering alumnus Mike Hopkins was in the commander’s seat.

A new climate model that makes projections specific to urban areas predicts that by the end of this century, average warming across global cities will increase by 1.9 degrees Celsius to 4.4 C, depending on the rate of emissions.

The Kavita and Lalit Bahl Smart Bridge, planned for completion in summer 2021, will connect Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory with the newly constructed addition to the Hydrosystems Laboratory.

Robots rolling through fields of corn or soybeans taking out the weeds without chemicals or physical labor? It may sound like a dream for family farmers. However, the impact will be felt far and wide in both geography and industry.

A multidisciplinary group that studies the physical and chemical properties of insect wings has demonstrated the ability to reproduce the nanostructures that help cicada wings repel water and prevent bacteria from establishing on the surface.