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Category: transportation – Page 591

The legendary hacker George Hotz, known by his nom de guerre “geohot,” who first came to public attention by hacking Apple’s (AAPL) first iPhone, spoke this morning at the South by Southwest conference about taking on Tesla’s (TSLA) self-driving car initiatives with his own garage efforts, a talk titled “I built a better self-driving car than Tesla.”

By the end of the talk, it was clear he had numerous targets, including Alphabet’s (GOOGL) self-driving car efforts, despite mighty respect for the search giant.

Hotz’s achievement, rigging up home made parts to an Acura ILX to make it self-driving, first came to prominence with an article in mid-December by Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance.

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This is extremely interesting and innovating to me. Why? Just imagine if your car (even a self driving car) your car breaks down on a road somewhere 10 to 25 miles away from the nearest gas station or town. And, you have a backup system that alerts you in the car that it has to switch over to tow mode, and engages a robotic pull system and set your flashers on then tows you to the nearest gas station or police station; etc.? No more tow bills, no more fears to the elderly or others being exposed on the side of the road. BTW — the car engine keeps the car microbot/s charged up.

A team of tiny robot ants pull a car that is thousands of times their weight as part of an experiment at Stanford University.

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Next to Quantum and Biocomputing, this is one of my favorites. Cloak material to avoid radar. Unfortunatley, we cannot have access to the material for our autos; but it would be nice to have on my car sometimes when I am running late and having to drive quickly somewhere.

Two separate teams of engineers, both conducting research into meta-materials (composites not found in nature) with the intent of developing a flexible, stretchable and tunable meta-skin, are sharing their discoveries with the world. Although the two developments revolve around the same premise—manipulating electromagnetic waves so that the surface that banquets an object becomes invisible—a few exciting differences between the teams’ approaches sets their research apart.

meta-materials

Engineers at Iowa State University are developing meta-skins which suppresses radar detection, meaning that this version can be seen by the naked eye, but not by cameras. The implications of such a device are many, particularly for covert operations and security, hiding sensitive layouts of electronic components and advancing the development of optical computers.

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“Dirk Ahlborn, chief executive officer of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), announced on Thursday that HTT has reached an agreement with the Slovakian government to explore building a local Hyperloop system. A transport system capable of speeds of up to 760mph (1,223kph).

According to Ahlborn, the next steps will include identifying a route that could connect Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, with Vienna and Budapest.”

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Stanford’s μTug minibots are on a roll lately.

The latest battery of experiments at Stanford’s Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab dealt with harnessing the power of ants in robot form— specifically, researchers hoped to replicate ants’ ability to work together to haul very heavy objects. In the experiments, robots that jump or walk with a quick, jerky force were quickly determined to be inefficient in groups, while the μTugs won out due to the longer duration of pulling force they were able to create with their tiny winches. If you’ve ever played tug of war than this strategy already makes intrinsic sense. Not only could the μTug smimc ants through teamwork, but they anchored themselves to the ground with an adhesive borrowed from gecko toes.

To prove just how powerful the robots are, scientists took a group of six μTugs—which can pull up to 52 pounds each —and had them move a full-sized car with a passenger inside. Did we mention the passenger was the author of the research paper? When those things start self-replicating, he’s going to be the first one they come after.

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Researchers in the US have proposed a new form of wind power: small, artificial, mechanical trees capable of producing energy from their vibrations. Working with the natural breeze, or small movements caused by other factors, the scientists hope that new forms of renewable energy can be developed in the future.

The idea is to create a device that can convert random forces – whether that’s from the footfall of pedestrians on a bridge, or a passing gust of wind – into electricity that can be used to power devices. And the researchers have found that tree-like structures made from electromechanical materials are perfect for the task.

“Buildings sway ever so slightly in the wind, bridges oscillate when we drive on them and car suspensions absorb bumps in the road,” said project leader Ryan Harne from Ohio State University. “In fact, there’s a massive amount of kinetic energy associated with those motions that is otherwise lost. We want to recover and recycle some of that energy.”

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