A space race lifted off Friday in Southern California, only this one involved elevators.
Powering their laser-controlled robot to climb a 900-meter-long cable, the team from Seattle-based LaserMotive was crowned the winner in NASA's Space Elevator Power-Beaming Challenge game on Friday.
Held at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base in Lancaster, Calif., the challenge pits teams against each other to see whose robotic space elevator can inch up the cable the quickest in under 7.5 minutes. A helicopter holds the steel cable in place as each robotic elevator races to the top. The LaserMotive crew crossed the finish line four times, the fastest time being 3 minutes and 48 seconds.
The goal behind the games is to build a robotic climber that could someday be turned into a space elevator that would carry supplies into orbit without need of a ship. The elevator would rise up a tether that rotates with the Earth and be capable of carrying about 10 tons of payload.
As the winner, LaserMotive will take home a check of $900,000 from the sponsor, Spaceward Foundation. If the team had been able to climb the entire tether in three minutes or less at a speed of at least 5 meters per second, it could have won the top prize of $2 million.
The other two teams, the Kansas City Space Pirates and the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST), both ran into technical troubles, preventing them from reaching the top of the cable in any of their attempts.
NASA's Space Elevator race has seen its ups and downs for the past few years, with contestants coming close but not quite attaining the grand prize.
An additional $1.1 million in prize money is still available, according to the Spaceward Foundation, so another challenge will be held in the future to see if any team can win the race at 5 meters per second.
The Rex is designed to take a huge load off of foot soldiers' shoulders.
(Credit: Israel Aerospace Industries)"Fetch" and "heel" may be the latest commands to join the military lexicon, with the arrival of Rex, a small, six-wheel-drive load-bearing robotic vehicle designed to follow squad-size units in response to voice commands.
Envisioned as a robotic "beast of burden" for the modern soldier, Rex can carry more than 400 pounds, a typical load for groups of 3 to 10 ground soldiers, for 72 hours at a time without refueling, according to developer Israel Aerospace Industries.
"The robotic vehicle follows the lead soldier from a given distance, utilizing technology developed and patented by IAI. Using simple commands (one might give his pet dog), including 'stop,' 'fetch,' and 'heel,' the lead soldier controls the robot without being distracted from the mission at hand," IAI's Ofer Glazer said. "Controlling the robot in this way allows for intuitive interaction and rapid integration of the product on the field within a short time frame."
IAI says it developed the platform in response to "an urgent operational need," estimating that military and civil demand could amount to tens of thousands of orders, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
"The Rex platform is unique in its state-of-the-art operational capabilities and its user-friendly interface, both of which are central to the platform's superior performance," Glazer boasted.
Rex is but one of the robocaddies appearing on the military market. Aimed at infantryman, it's unclear whether these present-day pack mules may take a load off the grunt or just end up as more junk to haul--and ultimately leave behind.
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(Credit:
Nissan)
Nissan has developed a mini robotic car that can move autonomously in groups while avoiding crashing into obstacles (including other cars).
The Eporo, Nissan says, is the first robot car designed to move in a group by sharing its position and other information. The aim is to incorporate the technology into passenger cars to reduce accidents and traffic jams.
Although a group of Eporos may look like a gang of cybernetic Jawa, Nissan says the cars' design was inspired by the way fish move in schools.
An evolution of the bumblebee-inspired BR23C robot car unveiled last year, the Eporo uses Nissan's collision avoidance technology to travel in groups. Check out BR23C trying to get away from a Japanese lady in this video.
Eporo can dodge obstacles just like fish.
(Credit: Nissan)The automaker studied how large schools of fish can move without colliding. It says Eporo imitates three rules of fish movement: avoiding crashes, traveling side by side, and keeping close to other members of the school.
The robots use laser range finders and ultra-wideband radio to determine distance to obstacles. They also communicate with each other to form the most efficient group formation to maneuver through tight spots.
Eporo stands for "Episode O (Zero) Robot." That zinger of a mouthful means zero episodes, as in zero accidents and zero emissions.
Nissan intends to show off Eporo at the Ceatec trade show next week in Tokyo.
The Oshkosh M-ATV will be replacing up-armored Humvees in Afghanistan.
(Credit: Oshkosh Defense)U.S. troops in Afghanistan are now starting to receive the first of thousands of a new vehicle intended for treacherous mountain roads and tight urban lanes.
The Defense Department said Wednesday that it had loaded seven M-ATVs (for "mine-resistant, ambush-protected all-terrain vehicles") onto a pair of aircraft for deployment to Afghanistan. Over the course of the next year, the military expects to field more than 6,600 of the vehicles (Click for a PDF of the M-ATV's brochure).
The M-ATV fits into a middle ground between up-armored Humvees, which it will be replacing in Afghanistan, and the hulking MRAP mine-resistant vehicles that the Pentagon has been sending in large numbers to Iraq over the last couple of years. While MRAPs have proved effective in protecting passengers against improvised explosive devices, they are often too large and too heavy for the roadways soldiers often need to patrol. And they're not exactly designed for off-roading.
Mine-resistant vehicles are characterized in part by their intrinsic armoring and by a V-shaped hull that helps to deflect the force of explosions at ground level. Humvees, meanwhile, weren't originally designed with IEDs in mind and have had to use add-on armor to gain some measure of protection.
The Oshkosh M-ATV weighs in at about 11 tons, which is only half as heavy as the average MRAP, and 5 tons lighter than the lightest MRAP. (Humvees are in the range of 5 tons apiece.) It can carry four passengers plus a gunner, and can handle a payload of 4,000 pounds.
A pair of M-ATVs are strapped down in a C-17 aircraft on Wednesday, awaiting shipment to Afghanistan.
(Credit: U.S. Air Force photo/James M. Bowman)The new vehicle is powered by a 370-horsepower Caterpillar C7 engine, with an Allison 3500 SP transmission. It's built on Oshkosh's TAK-4 independent suspension system, which the company says has been used already on more than 10,000 Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements (MTVRs) supplied to the Marines and Seabees.
In the field, the M-ATV is expected to support small-unit combat operations in challenging rural, mountainous, and urban environments.
Through the end of the year, when transport by sea is scheduled to begin, the U.S. Air Force expects to airlift between 300 and 500 M-ATVs per month from Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. The 437th Aerial Port Squadron there has already dispatched more than 3,700 MRAPs overseas.
Oshkosh received its initial delivery order from the Pentagon at the end of June. The deal was valued at $1.05 billion for 2,244 of the M-ATVs.
Update, 1:18 p.m. PDT: Oshkosh said Thursday that to date it has received orders valued at $2.3 billion for 4,296 M-ATVs, including spare parts and support services.
As America continues to face roller coaster prices at the gas pumps and a constant reliance on foreign oil, will that pave the road for hybrid electric cars? It could, if a new survey is accurate.
Around 48 percent of American consumers asked said they would be extremely or very interested in buying a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), according to a new Pike Research survey.
(Credit:
Pike Research)
PHEVs promise better fuel mileage, lower carbon emissions, and less oil dependence than cars that use gasoline exclusively.
These hybrids can typically reach a distance of around 40 miles on a single charge. But that fits well within the needs of many drivers. Around 82 percent of those questioned in the "Electric Vehicle Consumer Survey" drive 40 miles or less per day, and on average travel only around 27 miles daily.
Citing the benefits of electric hybrids, 85 percent of consumers said greater fuel efficiency would be important when picking their next car. Pike estimates that the cost of electricity to charge hybrids would equal around 75 cents per gallon of gas.
Around 65 percent of respondents said they'd be willing to pay a premium price for a hybrid, on average close to 12 percent over the cost of a standard gas-powered car.
The survey found that 79 percent would buy a fast-charging electrical outlet for their homes. But many also expressed the need for charging stations at work and at public places.
Younger people and those with higher levels of education did express a somewhat greater desire for hybrids than did other groups. But overall, interest didn't differ much among age, gender, income, or education, leading Pike to believe the vehicles should appeal to the mass market.
Among those not interested in plug-in hybrids, 45 percent said they'd want to wait until the technology is more proven, while 33 percent said 40 miles on a single charge would not meet their needs.
(Credit:
Peak Research)
Following their market introduction next year, more than 600,000 PHEVs will be sold in the U.S. by 2015, forecasts Pike. A number of auto companies will soon debut hybrids that can drive a certain distance using only battery power, then switch to gas when the battery is drained.
The research firm gathered its findings from a Web-based survey of 1,041 U.S. consumers during the second quarter of 2009.
Other surveys have uncovered similar results. Last year, a JD Power survey found high consumer interest in hybrids, even with their premium price tags.
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The British Steam Car spouts off as it gets ready to make a run at a 103-year-old land speed record.
(Credit: The British Steam Car Challenge)The Stanley Steamer may have finally been dethroned.
After holding onto its land speed record for 103 years, the homegrown Stanley automobile from the early days of motoring has been overtaken by a late-model import. The British Steam Car team said Tuesday that, earlier in the day, in the two runs required to be considered for the record, the Steam Car averaged 139.843 mph over a measured mile.
Charles Burnett III behind the wheel of the Steam Car.
(Credit: The British Steam Car Challenge)Tuesday's achievement still awaits official confirmation from the certifying agency, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile.
The steam-powered mark to beat was 127 mph, set in 1906 by Fred Marriott, driving that Stanley Steamer at Daytona Beach, Fla. (According to the FIA, the overall World Land Speed Record is 763 mph, a supersonic speed reached in 1997 by a jet-powered car, the ThrustSSC.)
The British Steam Car, a project 10 years in the making, is no jet, but it does have its share of modern trappings, including carbon-fiber construction. The 3-ton, 25-foot-long vehicle has 12 boilers, and its steam gets superheated to 400 degrees Celsius before being injected into the turbine.
In each of its runs, the Steam Car, driven by Charles Burnett III, actually traveled more than 6 miles on a dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. On either side of the measured mile, it requires a 2.5-mile stretch for acceleration and deceleration. In going for the record, the vehicle had to make the second run within an hour of the first--the steam team says it made the turnaround Tuesday in 52 minutes.
The vehicle's peak speed in the first run was 136.103 mph, and in the second, 151.085 mph.
In this day and age, it's hard to imagine that there might be an automotive speed record left that's only slightly north of 100 miles per hour. Heck, I've been passed by Audis on the autobahn that seemed to be going twice that fast.
But then, we've grown accustomed to cars with internal combustion engines. The record in question, which could finally fall this month after standing for more than a century, is held by a Stanley Steamer. In 1906, a gent named Fred Marriott drove a cigar-shaped steamer at Daytona Beach, Fla., to the then amazing speed of 127 mph.
Now along comes a 21st-century contender called the British Steam Car, which looks about as much like a Stanley-built vehicle as an F-16 looks like a Sopwith Camel. Looking for a catchier point of reference, the car's backers have taken to calling the 3-ton contraption, in at least one press release, "the fastest kettle in the world."
It's been a long road already this year to get the Brit-mobile ready for a record run, now set for sometime between August 18-22 after a postponement or two and some technical and logistical challenges. But just today, the steam team proudly proclaimed that in test runs on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, their vehicle had--unofficially--bested the record, hitting a not-street-legal 131 mph.
Will they be cooking with, um, gas later this month when officials of the record-vetting Federation Internationale de l'Automobile join them in the desert? We'll know soon enough.
After a six-year effort, the prototype of a new solar-powered aircraft was unveiled at a Swiss airfield on Friday by its future pilots and promoters Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg.
Dubbed the Solar Impluse HB-SIA, the airplane is designed to fly both day and night without the need for fuel and will begin test flights by year's end.
Despite a wingspan equal to that of a Boeing 747, the Solar Impulse weighs only around 1.7 tons, about the same as an average car. More than 12,000 solar cells mounted on the wing supply renewable solar energy to the four 10-horsepower electric motors. During the day, the solar panels charge the plane's lithium polymer batteries, allowing it to fly at night.
At a press conference at the plane's Duebendorf airfield near Zurich, Piccard made clear the goal of the aircraft is to prove the business viability and profitability of renewable energy.
"If an aircraft is able to fly day and night without fuel, propelled solely by solar energy, let no one come and claim that is impossible to do the same thing for motor vehicles, heating and air conditioning systems ,and computers," Piccard said.
After this year's initial test flight, a night flight is scheduled for 2010 to see if the plane can stay in the air for 36 hours.
On the horizon in 2012, Piccard and Borschberg plan to fly the next generation of the Solar Impulse, the HB-SIB, around the world in five legs over the course of four to six days. That will make another global trip for adventurer Piccard, who in 1990 piloted the first round-the-world hot-air balloon flight with his Orbiter 3.
"Through this project we are proclaiming our conviction that a pioneering spirit and political vision can together change society and put an end to fossil fuel dependency," said Piccard.
The Solar Impulse joins the ranks of other solar-powered airplanes, including Qinetiq's Zephyr and NASA's Helios.
The famous Paris International Air Show opened Monday amidst troubled times for the airline industry with plummeting sales, employee layoffs, canceled orders, rising oil prices, and the recent as-yet unexplained crash of Air France Flight 447.
Against the cloudy backdrop, key airline manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus expressed optimism at the show. Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing's commercial aircraft division, told reporters on Monday that he believes the recessionary downturn in the commercial aircraft market has hit bottom.
"Are we down in the dumps about the status of this industry? Have we allowed the current economic situation to overwhelm us and discourage us from the path ahead? The answer is absolutely no," said Carson. "At this point it appears to us that the economic conditions have bottomed. If they have bottomed and a recovery comes next year, I think we have a shot at getting through."
Boeing has been hard at work prepping its new 787 Dreamliner airline. The new plane had been hit by severe delays over the past year but seems to be on the launch pad for an upcoming test flight. Hopes were high at the air show that visitors might be the first to witness the 787 in action. But Boeing didn't want to rush things.
"If you were expecting the 787 to fly during the air show you will be disappointed," said Carson. "If it had happened during the air show, it would have been great, but it was never our intention. The airplane will fly when it is completely ready."
Meanwhile, France's Airbus has reason to pop the champagne. In one of the show's few orders for commercial aircraft, Qatar Airways said on Monday it would buy 24 of Airbus' top-selling A320 planes for $1.9 billion. This is an increase in Qatar's order of four A321 airlines announced last year.
Airbus had already expressed a positive tone at a press conference ahead of the show on Saturday. Hit by 21 canceled orders so far this year, Airbus chief executive officer Tom Enders said the cancellations are helping to trim the company's order backlog of 3,500 airliners that it must still deliver.
"The weak sisters have left the backlog," noted Enders. "I'm quite happy that some of the order backlog is melting down."
Enders believes Airbus will still deliver the same number of aircraft this year as it did last year, a record 483, and now an amount helped by Qatar's A320 order.
The Paris International Air Show is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. The show runs every two years, and organizers expect close to 300,000 visitors this year, around the same as in 2007. More than 2,000 companies are exhibiting.
Here is a mock-up of the EyeStop bus shelter.
(Credit: MIT Senseable City Lab)High-tech bus stops so cool they might actually entice you to take a ride will be installed next year in Florence, Italy.
The urban fixtures have been designed by a group of researchers led by Carlo Ratti, head of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The EyeStop is a touch-screen bus shelter that monitors environmental conditions and real-time bus movement and also provides information and communication tools that can interact with your cell phone.
The EyeStop, which has touch sensitive e-Ink screens as well as LEDs, features a bus map plotting locations in real-time, e-mail and Web access, tools for planning a best route and getting directions, a community bulletin board, and, of course, a place for silent video advertisements. It will also use sensors to monitor and display local air quality.
Riders can choose to have their local EyeStop bus stop sync with their cell phone. The EyeStop you normally frequent, for example, could twitter you that your usual bus is running late that morning.
Intended for tourists as well as locals, the EyeStop tools will be accessible in several languages.
About 1,000 EyeStop bus poles will be installed in Florence, Italy, in 2010.
(Credit: MIT Senseable City Lab)A bus pole version of the EyeStop with similar mapping, info, and communication tools will also be introduced. It glows brighter as the next bus nears the stop to signal pedestrians from afar.
The design for the EyeStop was unveiled this week at the Genio Fiorentino festival in Florence, and a prototype will soon follow.
Florence residents will start testing the high-tech bus stop's usefulness, durability, and limitations in October. Following that, about 200 bus shelters and 1,000 bus poles are expected to be installed next year. The EyeStop was developed by Ratti's project team, in collaborartion with the Province of Florence and Florence's local transportation authority.
The bus shelter and bus pole versions of the EyeStop will power themselves with solar energy, but they won't be one-size-fits-all.
Each EyeStop will be customized by a computer program that takes into account the stop's immediate surroundings. As a result, each can be built to fit into the existing space using steel, glass, and gray stone local to Florence. The software also considers maximum sunlight exposure for the location to determine power generation needs.
But is it graffiti proof?
"We have looked into special glass surfaces that are self-cleaning and graffiti proof," Ratti said in an e-mail. "However, we will perform some real tests before building the prototype in October."
This is EyeStop bus shelter with an imaginary user.
(Credit: MIT Senseable City Lab)
