Show 10 May 2024
Story 1: This genius ‘vampire drone’ is designed to fly forever – The drones feed on electricity from power lines to ensure they can keep flying.
Source: Fast Company Story by Jesus Diaz
Link: https://www.fastcompany.com/91089861/this-genius-vampire-drone-is-designed-to-fly-forever
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5FFx8VXjGw
- Engineers from the University of Southern Denmark have developed an ingenious technology that enables a drone to fly practically forever, without ever having to return to the ground.
- Thanks to a docking mechanism, its sensors, and artificial intelligence system, the drone can recognize a power line every time it needs to recharge its batteries. The drone can approach a high-voltage cable, and cling to it from below, sucking electricity like some kind of electric vampire.
- The development team explained, “The drones would be able to essentially live on the grid and operate completely autonomously for extended periods of time with no need for human interaction.”
- The concept of using power lines to charge drones originated in 2017, when Emad Ebeid—a professor at the University of Southern Denmark—was exploring drone applications and found power line inspection to be an area of interest.
- Ebeid noted that the current power line inspection process, which relied on helicopters and ground personnel, was both costly and inefficient. He thought of drones as the natural alternative to this very expensive maintenance effort. These flying machines can be remotely controlled or even fly autonomously to watch over the power lines.
- Here’s how the University of Southern Denmark drone works:
- The researchers outfitted the drone with grippers, basically an insulated clamp that grabs the power line without conducting electricity to the drone itself.
- The grabbing mechanism doesn’t require motors to work.
- The drone’s software recognizes when the gripper is in the right place and activates an electromagnetic mechanism that snaps together, securely attaching the system.
- This motorless design is important because the designers didn’t want to add more weight or additional points of failure to the system. When the drone batteries are full, a circuit cuts the current, the magnet stops working, and the grip opens freeing up the drone to fly again.
- “The charging is done inductively and thus only relies on the current, not the voltage, of the power line,” the team explains. This induces a current in the drone’s energy harvester, a metal coil that works very much like your phone’s wireless charger. The current is then used to charge the drone’s battery. Depending on the cable’s voltage, a 9.4-pound drone will need to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to six hours on a power line.
- Finally, after seven years of development, they got it all working. When the drone detects that its battery is close to its lowest level, it goes into “search and capture” mode. Its camera activates and identifies the nearest power line, maneuvering under the cable and slowly ascending. A cable guide engages and begins to move to make contact.
- When the guide contacts the cable, it directs the drone upward in such a way that the open gripper aligns perfectly with the power-line cable. As it ascends, the gripper closes with the two sides of the clamp closing over the high-tension cable.
- After connection to the power line, the magnetic control circuit is activated to close the clamp safely. It is at this point the “electric vampire” begins to suck energy using the inductive charger the University of Southern Denmark team invented.
Story 2: World’s largest electric cargo ship sets sail.
Source: Interesting Engineering Story by Prabhat Ranjan Mishra
See also: https://www.electrive.com/2024/05/02/worlds-largest-electric-container-ship-launches-in-china/
- Greenwater 01, the world’s largest electric container ship, has started regular service between China’s Shanghai and Nanjing. Developed by China Ocean Shipping Group (Cosco), the ship is expected to save 3,900kg (8,600 pounds) of fuel for every 100 nautical miles it sails.
- The ship is equipped with a main battery box of more than 50,000 kilowatt-hours.
- To increase travel range additional battery boxes [each with 1,600 kilowatt-hours of electricity] can be added. And each box is about the size of a standard 20-foot shipping container.
- With 24 battery boxes, the 394-foot (120 meter) long and 78-foot (24 meter) wide vessel can complete a trip that consumes 80,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. While any other non-electric ship would consume over 15 tons of fuel for the same journey.
- The vessel carries an intelligent ship system for navigation and energy efficiency.
- The ship’s battery-powered propulsion offers a maximum speed of 12 mph (19.4 km/h).
- It is expected that the ship can reduce carbon dioxide emissions of 2,918 tonnes, equivalent to 2,035 family cars a year, or 160,000 trees.
Story 3: Space-based solar power may be one step closer to reality, thanks to this key test.
Source: Space.com Story by Tereza Pultarova
Link: https://www.space.com/space-based-solar-power-technology-demonstration
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCnvhwVdiFo&t=2s
- A recent, first-of-its-kind lab demonstration shows how solar power transmission from space could work.
- The demonstration, carried out by U.K.-based startup Space Solar, tested a special beaming device that can wirelessly transmit power 360 degrees around. That would be important for a potential future space-based power station, as its position toward the sun and Earth would change over the course of each day due to our planet’s rotation.
- The lab proof-of-concept demonstrator is a key component of the CASSIOPeiA space-based solar power plant concept that is being developed by Space Solar. The company envisions that CASSIOPeiA could be in space within a decade, providing gigawatts of clean energy much more efficiently than solar plants on Earth.
- CASSIOPeiA would be placed in geostationary orbit, a path about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth.
- While the lab demonstrator used in the lab experiment was only 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) wide, CASSIOPeiA would ultimately be a vast modular structure some 1.1 miles (1.7 kilometers) across. The plant, consisting of large, lightweight solar panels and a set of mirrors collecting sunlight, would be assembled in orbit by robots, and would require 68 launches of SpaceX’s next-gen Starship megarocket to deliver all its components to space.
- The recently tested lab component will ensure that the giant satellite has a constant view of both Earth and the sun in order to provide clean energy 24/7, unlike solar plants on Earth, which only work during daytime and get affected by bad weather.
- Electrical power generated by CASSIOPeiA would be converted into high-frequency radio waves, which would be beamed down to Earth, where they would be transformed back into electrical power. The demonstration also tested a precision pointing system that would ensure the waves don’t pose any safety risk to humans living around the receiving station.
- A single CASSIOPeiA plant could power more than a million homes, researchers estimate. Solar power plants in space, although difficult to build, would produce energy 13 times more efficiently as compared to those on Earth, as their view of the sun is not obscured by atmospheric gases.
Story 4: Scientists Make Breakthrough in Chronic Pain Treatment
Source: Newsweek Story by Pandora Dewan
Link: https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-breakthrough-chronic-pain-treatment-1894614
See also: Electrochemically actuated microelectrodes for minimally invasive peripheral nerve interfaces.
- Scientists at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering have developed tiny robotic nerve “cuffs” to diagnose and treat neurological disorders. The flexible devices offer a safer, minimally invasive alternative to today’s diagnostics and could also be used by amputees to control prosthetic limbs.
- Today, many neurological disorders are diagnosed and treated using outdated, bulky electrode arrays that carry a high risk of nerve injury.
- “Nerves are small and highly delicate, so anytime you put something large, like an electrode, in contact with them, it represents a danger to the nerves,” said George Malliaras, a professor at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering and leader of this research.
- To overcome these difficulties, Malliaras and his colleagues at the British university used modern soft robotics technology to create small, flexible “cuffs” that can wrap around the nerves without the need for surgical sutures and glue. In fact, all they need is a tiny amount of voltage to change shape and form a self-closing loop around the target nerve cells.
- “What’s even more significant is that these cuffs can change shape in both directions and be reprogrammed,” said one of the co-authors of the University’s statement about the research. “This means surgeons can adjust how tightly the device fits around a nerve until they get the best results for recording and stimulating the nerve.”
- The devices have so far been demonstrated in rats, with the results being published in the journal Nature Materials, but the team plans to perform further testing of the devices in animal models.
Honorable Mentions:
Story: NASA launches solar sailing mission
Source: NASA Story by Tara Friesen
Link: https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-next-generation-solar-sail-boom-technology-ready-for-launch/
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfYLnbw7iu8
- Sailing through space might sound like something out of science fiction, but the concept is no longer limited to books or the big screen. In April, a next-generation solar sail technology – known as the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System – will launch aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand. The technology could advance future space travel and expand our understanding of our Sun and solar system.
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Story: Scientists developed a sheet of gold that’s just one atom thick
Source: ScienceNews.org Story by Skyler Ware
Link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/goldene-sheet-gold-one-atom-thick
- Meet graphene’s newest metallic cousin, goldene. For the first time, researchers have created a free-standing sheet of gold that’s just one atom thick.
- The development, reported in the April 16 Nature Synthesis, could someday allow scientists to use less gold in electronics and chemical reactions, says materials physicist Lars Hultman of Linköping University in Sweden. The gold sheet may also exhibit exotic properties like those found in other two-dimensional materials (SN: 10/2/19).
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Story: New quantum material promises up to 190% quantum efficiency in solar cells
Source: Tech Xplore Story by Science X staff
- Researchers from Lehigh University have developed a material that demonstrates the potential for drastically increasing the efficiency of solar panels.
- A prototype using the material as the active layer in a solar cell exhibits an average photovoltaic absorption of 80%, a high generation rate of photoexcited carriers, and an external quantum efficiency (EQE) up to an unprecedented 190%—a measure that far exceeds the theoretical Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit for silicon-based materials and pushes the field of quantum materials for photovoltaics to new heights.
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Story: Scientists at the Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan make breakthrough in production of salt-based battery technology: ‘This process makes it easier’
Source: The Cool Down Story by Rick Kazmer
- Sodium just gained some ground in the race to replace lithium as the crucial material in batteries.
- That’s because experts at Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan announced a key process to make salt-based batteries, potentially opening the door for mass production.
- At issue is costly and hard-to-gather lithium, the reliable, incumbent battery metal that helps to power electric vehicles and most other tech. More common materials are being developed as substitutes for power pack chemistry in labs around the world. The innovations are part of efforts that could lower the cost of EVs, helping to increase market share for the cleaner rides.