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82 The PCB Magazine • November 2015 batteries and electrical systems add hundreds of pounds to the vehicle. More electronics add another problem that needs to be addressed: electromagnetic interfer- ence (EMI). Conductive resins will play an ever increasing role in the lightweighting industry. Certain companies are fighting automobile obe- sity by utilizing conductive hybrid plastics as EMI shielding solutions. Integral Technology's patented material utilizes long fiber technology shields high-voltage components and has also developed numerous applications for connec- tors, covers, and enclosures. Other measures are the joint development of shielded cable with Delphi Automotive. We are able to provide the same shield effectiveness as the aluminum or cast aluminum parts while providing on aver- age a 60% weight savings. Who says you can't have your Bluetooth cake and eat it too? Evangelos Simoudis, managing director at Trident Capital, in an article on Enterprise Ir- regulars, states that "in the next 10 years we will create more innovations that will impact the automotive industry than we have created in the previous 100" and that these "disruptive innovations are coming from companies out- side the traditional automotive ecosystem. The car as a computer on wheels is disruptive and enables the emergence of a completely new eco- system and value chain." Disruptive innovation creates new markets, disrupts existing markets and replaces prior technology, thereby enabling existing markets to be productive, sustaining and value-driven. While new technology disrupts the status quo, technology can never be too disruptive. As Pres- ident Obama said, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." PCB CAn TeCHnoLoGy Be Too DISrUPTIVe? ArTiCle Doug Bathauer is ceo of Integral technologies. a study by engineers at oregon State univer- sity suggests that they have achieved the most realistic robotic implementation of human walk- ing dynamics that has ever been done, which may ultimately allow human-like versatility and performance. the system is based on a concept called "spring-mass" walking that was theorized less than a decade ago, and combines passive dynam - ics of a mechanical system with computer control. It provides the ability to blindly react to rough terrain, maintain balance, retain an efficiency of motion and es- sentially walk like humans do. as such, this approach to ro- bots that can walk and run like humans opens the door to entire new indus- tries, jobs and mechanized systems that do not today exist. the findings on spring-mass walking have been reported for the first time in Ieee transac- tions on robotics, by engineers from oSu and germany. the work has been supported by the national Science Foundation, the Defense ad- vanced research Projects agency and the hu- man Frontier Science Program. the technologies developed at oSu have evolved from intense studies of both human and animal walking and running, to learn how ani- mals achieve a fluidity of motion with a high degree of energy efficiency. animals combine a sensory input from nerves, vi- sion, muscles and tendons to create locomotion that research- ers have now translated into a working robotic system. Walking Robot Developed at Oregon State University