Solar Vehicles - Pushing the Bounds of Technology and Design

Mechanical Bike 
I've been doing a lot of work on my sister's bike recently and pretty much merged the parts of my older bike into it. After replacing a few parts and several failed attempts to tune the brakes, I finished today and went on a much anticipated victory lap around our neighborhood. Now, I put a lot of effort into this Frankenstein of a bike just to get it moving (and stopping) well, so I have much respect for a guy that can make a bike run on the sun. That's right, a solar bike!

Solar Electric Bike
Hama Zero's Fujin is an electric bike which can charge it's batteries using sunlight. It runs up to 45mph, which is suitable for most roads and should be able to complete a 30-mi trip with just a 9-hour bath in the sun. In the video below, the creator of the bike, Mr. Yamawaki, discusses the bike and the inspiration for reducing it's rolling friction.



The reason such technology is so interesting to me is more than just amazement at the workmanship that it takes, but also it's influence on and statement about the current industry of solar energy: On The Go!

Mobile Energy Sparks Imagination
It seems that everywhere you look, solar energy is taking to the streets, the skies, and even in space! There seems to be a general shift in the design paradigm at the fringes of engineering and technology. While the production industry is focused on improved efficiency and lowering costs, the design side is looking to meet non-traditional needs to renew excitement about the technology. Sure when we hear news about full scale photovoltaic plants being built, concentrating solar power generators and even government rebates for home installations, we get excited. But what really ignites the imagination is news about solar briefcases for third-world healthcare and stuff like this: Solar power on a bike. Wow!


Solar On The Move
I don't know why such technology strikes a deep harmonious tune with me. Maybe it's the stark contrast to oil spills, atmospheric pollution and exploding oil rigs. It could also be the faint dream of perpetually available, free energy - a beautiful, though fanciful dream indeed. Nontheless, I chose to put together a quick mock-up of solar vehicles that I have heard about recently in the news:

Solar Motorcycle - Fujin
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/05/hama-zeros-solar-bike-fujin-runs-thanks-to-the-sun-not-on-it/
I would give anything to get my hands on this thing!

Solar Car - Infinium

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/07/30/students-go-sun-day-drive

Solar car's are not brand new, but a nod from the White House gives the impression that these achievements are nothing to be sneezed at. 

Solar Plane - Solar Impulse

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10550430 [+VIDEO]
Heard about this guy, Bertrand Piccard, and his plan to fly without fuel sometime last year, so it was almost surreal when I heard his plane completed a 26-hour flight! Flying through day and night without a single drop of fuel is the amazing brand of inspiration that can effect a true paradigm shift regarding solar power.

Solar Satellite - IKAROS

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/solar-sail-spacecraft-100902.html
Solar panels have indeed been used in space for decades now, but never has the power of the sun been harnessed to provide thrust anywhere. IKAROS, a Japanese probe, recently demonstrated that it has actually gained thrust from the incidence of light from the sun alone. That, is AWESOME!  So, not only can you utilize sunlight in photovoltaics and solar thermal applications, you can also propel a craft with sunlight using a solar sail.

It seems that though it is difficult to predict the realistic potential for solar energy to expand in the energy market without financial incentives (carbon tax, etc), the imaginative potential for it's use is vast and seemingly limitless. 

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I'm sorry if the collection of articles seems somewhat incongruent. I did not go hunting for these articles, I just ran across them through my regular news consumption (various blogs and podcast references).

Anxiously Awaiting AUDI TTS Pikes Peak Climb (Autonomous Vehicle)

As the much-anticipated Pikes Peak Challenge for the autonomous vehicle by Stanford University approaches, I decided to take a look back at Odin and some research I did on the Victor Tango team and the DARPA urban challenge.

The Challenge
The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency is an arm of USDOD which has been birthplace for some of the greatest developments in technology of the late 20th Century, including the internet! DARPA had the first Grand Challenge in 2004 which featured a 150-mile road race with the most successful competitor reaching 7.38 mi. The second competition, held in 2005 featured a 132-mile off-road race was finished by five competitors and paved way for the Urban Challenge which was held in 2007.

Awesome-O
Last year, for my Introduction to Robotics course, my partner and I were tasked to research an application of robotics of our choice. Being an autonomous vehicle fanatic, I essentially did all the research myself and let him take care of compiling the presentation. After selecting to study the third-place finalist, Odin, I shot an e-mail over to the professor in charge of the project who replied with two papers: one about navigation, the other about  driving. I had previously learned a lot about path-following and simple algorithms from our very own autonomous vehicle:

Awesome-O - Our maze-solving robot

However, the two papers that I read exposed me to an impressively familiar combination of hardware and software tools used to produce an hierarchy of functionality that was much more reliable and drove full-scale vehicles.

Odin | Boss
The Victor Tango team of Virginia Tech utilized a slew of LabVIEW and NI software and interfaces to work with the many sensors, controllers and other instruments to achieve autonomy. The navigation paper describes a state machine architecture which identifies objects, sets goals and maneuvers around obstacles to reach a set destination. The following video from Wired provides an idea of what it takes for the competition champion,  Boss (Tartan Racing), although I'm not sure what the flux capacitor is used for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lULl63ERek0

How can you get a car to drive all by itself?
Basically, the vehicle first receives instructions about where it needs to go and possibly how it should get there. It is also supplied with information regarding where it can or cannot go including some areas where some behaviors are restricted i.e. passing. By utilizing various combinations of instruments (LIDAR, RADAR, Differential GPS, INS, and various Optical Cameras), they are able to create a very accurate model of where the vehicle is and what is in its immediate (and sometimes distant) environment. From there, the software is able to 'make decisions' about how to behave and what exactly to do. Once an action decision is made, it is then carried out usually through drive-by-wire interface to the throttle, steering, shifting, and braking systems. The end result is an autonomous, driverless vehicle which can robustly reach a set destination irregardless of obstacles and the behavior of other vehicles. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts:



Commercialization
The Urban Challenge was in 2007 and a lot really has happened since then. Most notable might be the commercial adoption of several autonomous features for parking and accident avoidance in luxury vehicles although this trend began way back in 1999 with the Japanese Nissan Cima. However, these commercial vehicles certainly have their limitations as well:



Shelley to Speed up Pikes Peak!
After winning the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with Stanley and placing second in the 2007 Urban Challenge with Junior, the Stanford Racing Team is betting against all the odds and limitations to brave the arduous Pikes Peak race next month (September 2010) with Shelley, an Audi TTS, named after "Michèle Mouton, the first female driver to win the uphill climb." - http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/february1/shelley-pikes-peak-020310.html

"Unlike Stanley and Junior, who sense the road with radars and cameras, Shelley will follow a GPS trail from start to finish. The trick will be to stay on the road at race speeds while sliding around the corners."

Although the vehicle is not quite as autonomous as its predecessor, it is facing a daunting challenge and intends on doing so at ridiculous speeds. "If anything goes wrong on the summit, someone on the team can flip the "kill switch," Shelley's only remote control feature."


Excitement and Anticipation
I can't wait to see this car in action! Nerves are already on edge, media is starting to get excited and it's going to be a true spectacle to behold! If I can, I will try to go see it live. However, I still can't find a source which states the exact date in September that the timed race will be held. Now, if you're like me and can't wait, check out Shelley as she makes final preparations for the race:








Further reading:


Check out the August 12 Scientific American article - 

Automatic Auto: A Car That Drives Itself

February 3, 2010 Stanford University News article - 

Stanford's robotic Audi to brave Pikes Peak without a driver

If you would like a copy of the technical Virginia Tech publications, send me a message @fadeyifemi and I will connect you to my source.


Thanks for reading, hope this contributed a little to your Engineering Genius. Interested in more tech news, check out the T3CH H3LP blog I came across a little while back.

BP's Unnatural Disaster in the Gulf

After much consternation and mayhem, it seems that public attention and media coverage on the gulf coast has finally waned somewhat. However, one of the scientists I work with asked me: As an engineer, what do you think of the whole situation with the oil spill? Now, talk about a loaded question. Luckily, I had read through the SPE and ASME releases and had been fairly updated on the situation due to the incessant media coverage through TV, blogs, podcasts and more.

Avoiding the Blowout

My very limited understanding of the situation is that the blowout preventers may have malfunctioned for several different reasons and it is likely that it is not just the result of a single fault.

Taken from Mechanical Engineering magazine by ASME

Oil and natural gas in formation are under a lot of pressure. Well drilling operations will usually stop short of puncturing the reservoir and instead the well is cemented until production. In the case of an overpressurefrom reservoir forcing fluid up the pipe during drilling, blowout preventers are installed in order to seal off the drill pipe. Blowout preventers are hydraulic-powered shear rams which are meant to crush the drill pipe and form a seal.

In the Macondo blowout, the 450-ton, ten-year-old Cameron blowout preventer valves failed to function properly. The blowout preventer’s shear rams designed to cut through the drill pipe and seal it also failed to function. As a result, large volumes of oil and gas reached the rig floor and resulted in an explosion, loss of life, and sinking of the drilling rig. The continued escape of large volumes of hydrocarbons has created the massive oil spill that began hit the Louisiana coast in mid-May. 

The possible reasons for this failure are numerous, but the few listed in Mechanical Engineering magazine include:

1. Age - Although not a specific failure mode, ageing may contribute to wear and tear that may have not been identified during maintenance but lead to catastrophic failure.
2. Modifications - I don't understand what modifications were done, but these may have introduced elements that do not have a predictable effect on system safety.
3. Valve-failure - leakage of hydraulic fluid may have been sufficient to cause failure
4. Drill Pipe - thicker than standard drill pipe required for use at such depths under water may have been beyond the power of the blowout preventer shear rams.

Such issues are ultimately preventable but it was the combination of failures in critical systems that doomed the Deepwater Horizon. 

Spilling Blame

Now, just as the Mechanical Engineering article suggests, I agree that it is much too early to parcel out blame for the gulf disaster. However, when pressed to make the judgement call I had to provide a somewhat reasonable assessment.

I feel that ultimately, BP owns the well and essentially is responsible for the entire operation, although, separate components of the project were contracted to Transocean (drilling) and Halliburton (cementing). The faulty blowout preventer was likely a product under the supervision Transocean which faults them directly for the failure of the device. Such failure, however, is bound to happen when the predominant atmosphere regarding safety is lax and the focus has shifted to profitability.

Taken from Mechanical Engineering magazine by ASME

Large oil companies, in order to meet unwavering consumer demand for their products, are driven economically to produce and do so with minimal delays, especially when bureaucratic delays plague efforts to drill off the coast of the US. In meeting these challenges however, oil companies seem to have blatantly chosen to abandon safety in favor of the bottom line: Some continually push for access to greater drilling resources behind a ruse that it can be done safely and and reliably. Meanwhile, countless offshore rigs and wells continuously leak oil into the ocean at a mind-blowing rate although most can be prevented with better management, maintenance and replacement of aged equipment. What this disaster has shown me is that though the technology behind finding and producing oil and gas is growing at an amazing rate, it is ultimately the individuals and the cultures surrounding the technology that will chart the course for safety in the future.

1. There needs to be vigilant dedication to safety in all industries and at all levels
2. Industry-leaders need to consider the global implications of each project in addressing operational strategies and in selecting contractors
3. Public relations is a relationship, not just multi-million dollar ad campaigns. It is a dedication to safety in the product or service that is provided. It should start with engineering, not marketing.

So, this is not a time for blame. It is a time to remember that lives were lost as a result of ultimately preventable failures. It is a call to action and a call to change. This disaster has revealed major weaknesses in the strategies and technologies of the oil and gas industry. Action must be taken to improve awareness and dedication to safety and changes must be made to address the weaknesses in technology and response strategies  in order to restore public confidence in off-shore drilling and petroleum engineering.

If you are interested in finding out more about deepwater drilling and the Macondo well blowout, download the TechStuff Oil Drilling podcast, and read the Avoiding the Blowout feature in Mechanical Engineering and the somewhat superfluous FAQ on drilling and the spill from SPE. To find the Oil drilling podcast online, in the widget below, click Podcasts then select Oil Drilling Tech from the list.

ENGENIUS CHALLENGE

The answer to last week's riddle: What am I?

     A Snowflake!

Yeah, not a very tough riddle, but it's an original! I might try to write another someday soon.

For this week's challenge, head over to Fantastic Contraption and see how far you can get! I got to level 8 and could go further with more time. It is a really fun game but they have recently added ad-support which you will need to skip and live with - I wish they hadn't added so many ads.