Flying Capacitor Multilevel Converters (FCMLCs) are widely used in high-power applications, but they present significant control challenges, particularly in maintaining stable and balanced voltages across the numerous flying capacitors while achieving continuous and fast output voltage regulation. This innovation, developed by UC Berkeley researchers, discloses a novel current-programmed modulator with smooth bin transitions that inherently addresses these challenges. The modulator achieves continuous full-range output voltage regulation and, critically, fast flying-capacitor voltage-balancing dynamics . By programming the current and ensuring smooth transitions between the modulator's operational bins, the technology overcomes the limitations of traditional control methods, resulting in a more reliable, efficient, and robust converter topology suitable for demanding high-power applications.

Achieving a balance between high toughness and elasticity in polymer science is traditionally difficult, as increasing one property often compromises the other. To overcome this limitation, researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a method using crystalline woven and interlocked covalent organic frameworks (COFs) as structural additives. By incorporating these molecularly "woven" frameworks into polymer matrices, the resulting composite materials benefit from the unique mechanical energy dissipation provided by the interlocked COF threads. This molecular weaving approach allows for the creation of advanced materials that possess exceptional strength and flexibility, far surpassing the mechanical performance of standard polymers.

The field of autonomous transportation is rapidly evolving to operate in diverse settings and conditions. However, as the number of autonomous vehicles on the road increases the complexity of the computations needed to safely operate all of the autonomous vehicles grows rapidly. across multiple vehicles, this creates a very large volume of computations that must be performed very quickly (e.g., in real or near-real time).   Thus, treating each autonomous vehicle as an independent entity may result in inefficient use of computing resources, as many redundant data collections and computations may be performed (e.g., two vehicles in close proximity may be performing computations related to the same detected object). To address this issue, researches at UC Berkeley proposed algorithms for the management and exchange of shared information across nearby and distant vehicles.According to the proposed arrangement, autonomous vehicles may share data collected by their respective sensor systems with other autonomous vehicles and adjust their operations accordingly in a manner that is more computationally efficient. This can not only increase safety but at the same time reduce computational load required by each individual vehicle.

The field of autonomous transportation is rapidly evolving to operate in diverse settings and conditions.  Critical to the performance of autonomous vehicles is the ability to detect other objects in the autonomous vehicle’s vicinity and adjust accordingly. To do so, many autonomous vehicles utilize a variety of sensors, including sonar. Although these sensor systems have been shown to improve the safety of autonomous vehicles by reducing collisions, the sensor systems tend to be computationally inefficient.  For instance, the sensor systems may generate large volumes of data that must be processed quickly (e.g., in real or near-real time).  The performance of excessive computations may delay the identification and deployment of necessary resources and actions and/or increase the cost of hardware on the vehicle making it less financially appealing to the consumer. Researches at UC Berkeley proposed algorithms for temporally and spectrally adaptive sonar systems for autonomous vehicles. These allow utilization of existing sonar system in an adaptive manner and in interface with existence hardware/software employed on autonomous vehicles. 

Capacitive-gap transduced micromechanical resonators routinely post Q several times higher than piezoelectric counterparts, making them the preferred platform for HF and low-VHF (e.g. 60-MHz) timing oscillators, as well as very narrowband (e.g. channel-select) low-loss filters. However, the small electromechanical coupling (as gauged by the resonator's motion-to-static capacitance ratio, Cx/Co) of these resonators at higher frequency prevents sub-mW GSM reference oscillators and complicates the realization of wider bandwidth filters. To address this situation, researchers at UC Berkeley developed a capacitive-gap transduced radial mode disk resonator with reduced mass and stiffness. This novel Berkeley disk resonator has a measured electromechanical coupling strength (Cx/Co) of 0.56% at 123 MHz without electrode-to-resonator gap scaling. This is an electromechanical coupling strength improvement of more than 5x compared with a conventional radial contour-mode disk at the same frequency. This increase should help improve the passbands of channel-select filters targeted for low power wireless transceivers and lower the power of MEMS-based oscillators.  

There are many applications that require the storage of a high density of gas molecules. The driving range of vehicles powered by natural gas or hydrogen, for instance, is determined by the maximum density of gas that can be stored inside a fuel tank and delivered to the engine or fuel cell. In certain situations, it is desirable to lower the pressure or raise the temperature needed to store a given amount of gas through the use of an adsorbent. Developments in next-generation adsorbents, such as metal-organic frameworks and activated carbons, have shown certain weaknesses in terms of the amount of gas that can be delivered when an application has a minimum desorption pressure greater than zero and when a significant amount of heat is released during adsorption or cooling occurs during desorption. To help solve these problems, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a next generation of materials using novel porous metal-organic frameworks that demonstrate unprecedented deliverable gas capacities. These engineered adsorbents maximize the amount of gas delivered during each adsorption/desorption cycle. This shows promise in developing next generation gas storage materials for applications with a wide range of operating conditions.