A solar farm in Spain has commissioned a series of iron-flow batteries to store excess energy. This could be the beginning of the end for lithium-ion.
Honda builds much more than cars and trucks — power equipment, solar cells, industrial robotics, alternative fuel engines and even aircraft are all part of the company’s production capacity. On Thursday, Honda announced that it is working to further expand its manufacturing portfolio to include Avatar-style remote telepresence robots and electric VTOLs for inter-and intracity commutes before turning its ambitions to building a fuel-cell driven power generation system for the lunar surface.
For its eVTOL, Honda plans to leverage not only the lithium battery technology it’s developed for its EV and PHEV vehicles but also a gas turbine hybrid power unit to give the future aircraft enough range to handle regional inter-city flights as well. Honda foresees air taxis as a ubiquitous part of tomorrow’s transportation landscape, seamlessly integrating with both autonomous ground vehicles and traditional airliners (though they could soon be flown by robots as well). Obviously, the program is still very much in the early research phase and will likely remain so until at least the second half of this decade. The company anticipates having prototype units available for testing and certification by the 2030s and a full commercial rollout sometime around 2040.
Honda will have plenty of competition if and when it does get its eVTOLs off the ground. Cadillac showed off its single-seater aircar earlier this year, while Joby (in partnership with NASA) already has full-scale mockups flying. In June, Slovakian transportation startup, Klein Vision, flew from Nitra and to the Bratislava airport in its inaugural inter-city flight — and then drove home after the event. But building a fleet of flying taxis is no easy feat — just ask Bell helicopters — and we’re sure to see more companies drop out of the sector before eVTOLs become commonplace.
Last year, computer engineers from Northwestern University and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) introduced the world’s first battery-free Game Boy, which harvests both solar energy and the user’s kinetic energy from button mashing to power an unlimited lifetime of game play.
The same team now introduces a new platform that enables makers, hobbyists and novice programmers to build their own battery-free electronic devices that run with intermittent, harvested energy.
Continue reading “Now everyone can build battery-free electronic devices” »
Circa 2018
Researchers at the University of Michigan just created the world’s smallest computer (again). Their previous micro-computer, the Michigan Micro Mote, measured 2x2x4mm. It was a complete, functioning system powered by solar cell batteries. But in March this year, IBM announced a new, smaller computer, which measured 1×1 mm, and was smaller than a grain of salt. It “raised a few eyebrows at the University of Michigan.”
After all, it’s unclear if the IBM computer even count as an actual microcomputer. The IBM device lost all its programming and data as soon as it turns off, unlike the Michigan Micro Mote, which retained its programming even when it wasn’t externally powered. “It’s more of a matter of opinion whether they have the minimum functionality required,” said David Blaauw, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of Michigan who helped develop the University of Michigan’s newest tiny device. If the IBM machine constituted a computer, then University of Michigan would work to gain back their title: their latest microdevice measures 0.3mm per side (1/10th the size of IBM’s computer), and is smaller than a grain of rice.
Continue reading “The Smallest Computer in the World Fits On a Grain of Rice” »
The low-slung drone-ship catamaran is equipped with solar panels, various antennae, and camera systems.
I recently set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion.
While we at Electrek often tend to focus on electric vehicles taking over roads, it’s important to remember that our inevitable abandonment of fossil fuels stems to all modes of transportation, whether it’s by land, air, or even the sea. I recently had the opportunity to set sail on Sunwater Marine’s Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion. It’s one of the only vessels of its kind on the West Coast.
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has received $100 million in funding for their Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP), which is developing technology capable of generating solar power in space and beaming it back to Earth.
Caltech describes the project as “collecting solar power in space and transmitting the energy wirelessly to Earth through microwaves enables terrestrial power availability unaffected by weather or time of day. Solar power could be continuously available anywhere on Earth.”
The Space-based Solar Power Project has been underway since at least 2013 when the first donation arrived from Donald and Brigitte Bren. The gift is now being disclosed as SSPP nears a significant milestone: a test launch of multifunctional technology-demonstrator prototypes that collect sunlight and convert it to electrical energy, transfer energy wirelessly in free-space using radio frequency (RF) electrical power, and deploy ultralight structures that will be used to integrate them.
The device offers a far simpler way of monitoring how various chemical compounds form during reactions than the methods currently available to scientists, and the team that built the “camera” says it’s already using it to improve the technology behind solar cells.
Controlling the specific order and process of molecular assembly is notoriously difficult, especially at such tiny scales. Thankfully, the scientists realized that they merely had to plunk its components into room-temperature water — along with whatever molecules they wanted to study — and it would piece itself together automatically.
“We were surprised how powerful this new tool is, considering how straightforward it is to assemble,” first study author and Cambridge chemist Kamil Sokolowski said in a press release.
Called SolFlex, the frameless panel is based on 22%-efficient solar cells and is designed for high, one-sided heat load. The standard product measures 100x100x2.9cm, weighs in at 3.4kg, and has a power output of 170 W.
China has shown off the prototype of its “Mars cruise drone” designed for surveillance work on future Mars missions, following the historic landing of a robotic rover on the Red Planet a few months ago.
The prototype of the miniature helicopter successfully passed the final acceptance, China’s National Space Science Center (CNNSC) announced on Wednesday. In the images shared by the science center, the prototype looks similar in appearance to NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, developed for its Perseverance mission this year.
The Chinese prototype sports two rotor blades, a sensor-and-camera base, and four thin legs, but there is no solar panel at the top like Ingenuity.
