Alexander Blömeke and colleagues investigate the conditions under which the balancing resistors in battery systems can be used for impedance measurements. This helps to improve state estimation and results in safer and more sustainable battery systems.

Sonnemann and colleagues use Bayesian inference to obtain seabed geoacoustic properties. Their method allows resolving up to 10 cm thin sediment layers over wide areas.

Md Nasful Huda Prince and colleagues propose a tissue imaging system with isotropic sub-micron resolution. The method intelligently delineates tissue borders and captures images faster and with enhanced signal quality.

Hichem Guerboukha and colleagues present a reliable high-data-rate THz communications system when the line of sight between the transmitter and receiver is blocked. They design the near-field wavefront to generate a curved trajectory.

Robin Neuder and colleagues investigate liquid crystals for phase tuning in reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on defected delay lines. This approach enables liquid crystal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces that can be optimized towards wide bandwidth, low loss, and fast response time simultaneously.

Yushen Zhang and colleagues report an open source, interactive software platform for the efficient and convenient design of 3D printable microfluidic devices. The approach incorporates a design-for-manufacturing function, facilitating device fabrication using commercial consumer-grade printers.

Yixiong Zhao and co-authors present a passive refractive index sensor based on the sub-terahertz photonic crystal resonator. It serves as a non-electronic, compact, and low-cost solution for distributed remote sensing, applicable in monitoring airborne pathogens for pre-infection detection.

Syed Tariq Shah and colleagues use multi-antenna reconfigurable surfaces to maximise the accuracy of wireless indoor localisation. They study the achievable performance improvement using pre-trained machine learning techniques.

Leendert-Jan W. Ligtenberg and colleagues report an X-ray guided platform for the wireless teleoperation of hemocompatible, untethered magnetic robots. The approach will enable clinicians to reach and treat vascular diseases within the body where alternative tethered flexible surgical instruments offer more limited control.

Yibo Dong et al. implement a compact and robust diffractive neural network chip with a virtually unlimited lifetime for optical inference. The chip demonstrates high accuracy and high stability even after high temperature aging, aiming at applications in extreme environments.

Daniel Perez Lopez is Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at iPronics, a company dedicated to the development and commercialization of integrated programmable photonic circuits. His company focuses both on hardware advances for novel circuit and component architectures as well as software advances leading to the creation of fault-tolerant automated routines enabling advanced optical networking and processing, specially for AI infrastructure and intra-datacenter communications. As a young entrepreneur, Daniel shares with us his experiences and insights of the academia-industry transition and building a spin-out company from his university research.

A recent publication in Nature Communications describes the use of cameras on hovering drones to detect submillimetre displacements of bridge spans.

Learning from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Sequence offers valuable insights into disaster recovery. Carmine Galasso and Eyitayo Opabola delve into the intricacies of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) concept, underscoring the importance of recovery and reconstruction efforts toward a future that is not only more resilient but also more sustainable and equitable.

Recent high-profile concrete material failures, including the collapse of parts of public buildings in the UK, have highlighted the need for a greater understanding of the durability of concrete. Here, John Provis explores the need to recognise the complexity of concrete when planning both the research and application of this key construction material.

Nanomaterial solutions to sustainable development goals are hindered in their path to commercialisation by an early-stage reliance on single metric optimisation. Here we formulate the PSEC challenge (Performance, Scalability, Environment and Cost) to integrate broader sustainability thinking with precise technical solutions and so enable successful commercialisation of these advanced materials.

On International Women in Engineering Day, we outline the ways that Communications Engineering supports the equitable inclusion of women in our publishing activities. We also suggest ways in which researchers can be supporters of diversity and inclusion when publishing their own research.