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Category: transportation – Page 322

A Clever Robot Spies on Creatures in the Oceans Twilight Zone

But now a spy swims among them: Mesobot. Today in the journal Science Robotics, a team of engineers and oceanographers describes how they got a new autonomous underwater vehicle to lock onto movements of organisms and follow them around the ocean’s “twilight zone,” a chronically understudied band between 650 feet and 3200 feet deep, which scientists also refer to as mid-water. Thanks to some clever engineering, the researchers did so without flustering these highly sensitive animals, making Mesobot a groundbreaking new tool for oceanographers.

“It’s super cool from an engineering standpoint,” says Northeastern University roboticist Hanumant Singh, who develops ocean robots but wasn’t involved in this research. “It’s really an amazing piece of work, in terms of looking at an area that’s unexplored in the ocean.”

Mesobot looks like a giant yellow-and-black AirPods case, only it’s rather more waterproof and weighs 550 pounds. It can operate with a fiber-optic tether attached to a research vessel at the surface, or it can swim around freely.

Prototype EV powered by radio frequency transmission demonstrated

Circa 2014 o,.o.

Two issues preventing the widespread uptake of electric vehicles are recharging time and lack of range. Now, scientists have shown one potential means of negating these issues. Their demonstration of electric power transfer via the car-wheel is claimed as the world’s first.

Electric vehicles can already be powered via infrastructure in the road. The South Korean city of Gumi uses a means of electromagnetic induction to power some of its buses. This newly-demonstrated method, however, uses radio frequency transmission.

The concept has been developed by Masahiro Hanazawa of Toyota Central R&D Labs and Takashi Ohira of Toyohashi University of Technology. It avoids the need for potentially dangerous contact conductivity devices by up-converting energy from power lines into radio frequency using high-speed inverters.

GM Reveals New Ultium Batteries and a Flexible Global Platform to Rapidly Grow its EV Portfolio

WARREN, Mich. – Starting today, General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is gathering hundreds of employees, dealers, investors, analysts, media and policymakers to share details of its strategy to grow the company’s electric vehicle (EV) sales quickly, efficiently and profitably.

“Our team accepted the challenge to transform product development at GM and position our company for an all-electric future,” said Mary Barra, GM chairman and CEO. “What we have done is build a multi-brand, multi-segment EV strategy with economies of scale that rival our full-size truck business with much less complexity and even more flexibility.”

The heart of GM’s strategy is a modular propulsion system and a highly flexible, third-generation global EV platform powered by proprietary Ultium batteries. They will allow the company to compete for nearly every customer in the market today, whether they are looking for affordable transportation, a luxury experience, work trucks or a high-performance machine.

Southwest Airlines cancels 500 flights after second technology issue in two days

Southwest Airlines canceled 500 flights, 15% of its schedule, Tuesday as it struggled with connectivity issues, a day after technical problem with a weather data supplier delayed hundreds of flights.

The Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued a nationwide ground stop for Southwest, which prevents its flights from taking off to avoid overwhelming destinations.

More than 1690 Southwest flights were delayed on Tuesday, close to half of the carrier’s schedule, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. The airline said operations were returning to normal by Tuesday afternoon.

Inventor of the graphite anode – key Li-ion battery tech – says he can now charge an electric car in 10 minutes

Morocco-born Dr Rachid Yazami has lived all over the world, thanks to an invention he made in his first year as a PhD student – the graphite anode – which is one of the key components that make lithium-ion batteries perform so well.

With electric vehicles on the rise, he believes the invention will soon take you everywhere, too.

Yazami’s story starts in the mid-1970s when scientists knew that graphite could help to form molten or powdered lithium into a usable energy storage material but struggled to turn it into a product. In 1983 Yazami and co-author Ph. Touzain cracked the problem by using a solid polymer electrolyte.

This Bonkers Tri-Wing Jumbo Jet Concept Reduces Fuel Consumption by 70%

The high-lift wing shapes are more aerodynamic than conventional aircraft, giving the SE200 more efficiency and shorter takeoff and landing capabilities. Courtesy SE Aeronautics.

SE points to its integrated monocoque structure as a breakthrough for performance and safety. The company notes aircraft manufacturers bolt together large sections called “barrels,” in order to maximize production. “This is usually where fuselages break apart in an accident,” SE says. “SE will build a single-piece, tough composite fuselage.”

The monocoque design and composite materials will make the aircraft the most efficient ever built, claims the company, with a 50-year service life. “We will also be able to build these aircraft in less than half the time it takes to normally build an aircraft of its size,” it says.

You Can Gas Up Your Car With Garbage, If Its The 2015 Chevrolet Impala Bi-Fuel

Circa 2015

With the 2015 Chevrolet Impala Bi-Fuel, drivers can top off their tank with waste byproducts, almost like Dr. Emmett Brown — aka “Doc” — did with his time-traveling DeLorean in the movie “Back to the Future.”

But instead of dumping banana peels and backwash from a beer can directly into the DeLorean’s “Mr. Fusion” reactor (see the video clip below), Impala Bi-Fuel owners simply fill up on natural gas, some of which comes from biogas, Chevy points out in its announcement about the new full-size sedan arriving in dealerships soon.

Biogas is derived from the methane that microrganisms emit after breaking down organic waste material in an oxygen-less environment. The process is called anaerobic digestion.