Monthly Archives: February 2017

Many studies have been done on the potential effects of semi trucks being able to travel in platoons. It could be more fuel-efficient, it could be safer, it could be easier on the drivers. And now, it could be coming to a highway near you. Peloton Technology has partnered with Omnitracs, a fleet management company, to provide platooning technology this year.

Peloton is going to fill pre-orders for its Class 8 truck platooning system in 2017. This will enable two semi trucks to platoon using V2V communications and radar, with one leading and one following. The system is like radar-based cruise control on steroids, with the trucks themselves sharing basic positional and driving information.

Not that the trucks are driving themselves; this is not autonomous technology. The driver is still in charge of steering and will still need to pay attention to the road. This system will work like adaptive cruise control with automatic emergency braking, but the V2V layer enables the follow truck to engage that automatic braking within a tenth of a second of the lead truck hitting the brakes. This, according to Peloton Technology, meets the SAE definition for Level 1 autonomy.

Each platoon is so far limited to two trucks, so you wont run into huge convoys of linked trucks taking up miles of roadway. And the cloud-based system further limits the use of platooning to specified roads in safe driving conditions. As with all semi-autonomous systems available today, when things get tricky, the human has to take over.

The most immediate benefit, according to Peloton Technologys calculations, is the fuel efficiency. The lead truck in one of these platooning pairs will see 4.5 percent fuel savings, and the follow truck will see 10 percent. Omnitracs customers who have the Peloton system fitted to their trucks will be able to route pelotoning pairs as often as possible.

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Trucks will talk to each other using Peloton Technology - TechCrunch

Enlarge / Making tea with the sun in Tibet.

While our recent look at residential solarmay lead you to believe harnessing that power is a newer initiative, humans have been exploiting solar energy for thousands of years to heat their homes, cook, and produce hot water. Some of the earliest written references to technology consciously designed to capturethe Suns rays come from ancient Greece. Socrates himself said, in houses that look toward the south, the sun penetrates the portico in winter, while in summer the path of the sun is right over our heads and above the roof, so that there is shade. He is describing how Greek architecture exploited the different paths of the Sun through the sky at different times of the year.

Technologies for harnessing the thermal energy in sunlight have only continued to grow over time. Colonists in New England borrowed the ancient Greek homebuilding techniques to keep warm in the harsh winters. Simple passive solar water heaters, little more than a black-painted barrel, were sold commercially in the United States in the late 19th century. And more elaborate solar heating systems were developed to pipe water through absorbing and/or focusing panels. The hot water is stored in an insulated tank until needed. In climates subject to freezing, a two-fluid system is used, where the Sun heats a water/antifreeze mixture that passes through coils embedded in the storage tank, which does double-duty as a heat exchanger.

These days, a variety of sophisticated commercial systems are available for water and space heating in the home. Solar thermal systems are deployed throughout the world, with the largest installed base per capita found in Austria, Cyprus, and Israel.

But modern solar truly starts in 1954 with the discovery of a practical way to make electricity from light: Bell Labs uncovered the fact that silicon could make a photovoltaic material. This finding createdthe foundation for today's solar cells (essentially the devices converting light energy into electricity) and ushered in a new era of solar power. Aided by intense research ever since, it's an era that continues today as solar appears poisedto become the dominant source of power in the future.

The most common type of solar cell is a semiconductor device made from silicona cousin of the solid-state diode. The familiar solar panels are made from a number of solar cells wired together to create the desired output voltage and current. Those cells are surrounded by a protective package and topped with a glass window.

Solar cells generate electrical power using the photovoltaic effect, a fact that didn't come from Bell Labs. Instead, this wasfirst discovered in 1839 by French physicist Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (son of physicist Antoine Cesar Becquerel and father of physics Nobelist Henri Becquerel, the discoverer of radioactivity). A little more than a century later, Bell Labs had its solar cell breakthrough,providing the foundation of the most common solar cells.

In the language of solid state physics, a solar cell is formed from a p-n junction in a silicon crystal. The junction is made by doping different areas of the crystal with small amounts of different impurities; the interface between these regions is the junction. The n side is a conductor with electrons as the carriers of current, and the p side has holes, or areas with missing electrons that act as current carriers within the crystal. In the region near the interface, the diffusion of charges creates a local built-in voltage across the interface. When a photon enters the crystal, if it has enough energy, it may dislodge an electron from an atom, creating a new electron-hole pair.

By Bhpaak / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The energy required to transform a bound electron into a free one is called the band gap. Its the key to understanding why photovoltaic (PV) cells have an intrinsic limit on efficiency. The band gap is a fixed property of the crystal material and its dopants. Those dopants are adjusted so that solar cells have a band gap close to the energy of a photon in the visible region of the spectrum. This is a practical choice, because visible light isnt absorbed by the atmosphere (phrased differently, we humans have evolved to see in the most common wavelengths).

Photons come in fixed amounts of energy, which means their energy is quantized. That also means a photon with energy less than the band gap (say, one in the infrared part of the spectrum) wont create a charge carrier. It will simply heat the panel. Two infrared photons together will do no better, even if their combined energy would be enough to bridge the gap. A photon with excess energy (an ultraviolet photon, for example) will knock an electron loose, but the excess energy will also be wasted.

Since efficiency is defined as the ratio of light energy striking the panel divided by electrical energy extractedand since much of this light energy will necessarily be wastedthe efficiency can not be 100 percent.

The band gap of a silicon PV solar cell is 1.1 electron volts (eV). As can be seen from the diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum reproduced here, the visible spectrum lies just above this, so visible light of any color will produce electrical power. But this also means that for each photon absorbed, excess energy is wasted and converted into heat.

The upshot is that even if the PV panel is flawlessly manufactured and conditions are ideal, the theoretical maximum efficiency is about 33 percent. Commercially available solar panels typically achieve about 20 percent efficiency.

Most of the solar panels commercially deployed are made from the silicon cells described above. But research into other materials and strategies is underway in laboratories around the world.

Some of the most promising recent research for silicon alternatives has involved materials called perovskites. The mineral perovskite (CaTiO3) was named in 1839 in honor of Count Lev Aleksevich Perovski (1792-1856), a Russian mineralogist. It can be found on every continent and in the clouds of at least one exoplanet. The word perovskite is also used for synthetic compounds that have the same orthorhombic crystal structure as the naturally occurring mineral (or a closely related one) and share a structurally similar chemical formula.

Crystal structure of natural perovskite.

Solid state | CC BY-SA 3.0

Depending on which elements are used, perovskites can display a wide variety of useful properties, such as superconductivity, giant magnetoresistance, and photovoltaic activity. Their use in PV cells has generated a great deal of optimism, as they have shown an unprecedented increase in efficiency from 3.8 percent to 20.1 percent in the past seven years of laboratory research. This rapid rate of progress inspires confidence that further gains are likely, especially as the factors limiting efficiency are becoming clearer.

Listing image by NASA

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The future of solar power technology is bright - Ars Technica

Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a printable OLED circuit within a stretchable material, potentially paving the way for smart fabrics or truly foldable displays.

Chuan Wang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MSU, is credited with the development of the OLED fabric, which flexes and stretches. If it can be commercialized, designers could take the techniology in several directions, including phones or tablets whose displays could be stretched, as well as the development of smart fabrics for banners, clothes, or other uses.

Right now, Wang and his team have createdthe elastic material, the circuit, and the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED. The next step is to combine those elements into a working pixel, the foundation for a flexible display. That process will probably take one to two years.

In the meantime, Wang said that he and his team are currently working on actual stretchable OLEDs and displays. We will have another paper out soon on that topic, he said in an email.

Why this matters: Its not really clear whether consumers have embraced curved TVs. But flexible displays are one of those technologies with a large number of potential uses: smartphones, tablets, wearables with a greater degree of flexibility. Of course, this is still in the research stage, and important questions about whether the tech can be manufactured at scale and cost-effectively still need to be answered. Nevertheless, its a cool concept.

MSU engineer Chuan Wang and colleagues have created a stretchable light-emitting material that is produced entirely on an inkjet printer.

In addition to simply being stretchable, Wangs material can be printed with an ordinary inkjet printer, helping to keep manufacturing costs down. Its a composite of several materials fabricated from nanomaterials and organic compounds, MSU said.Thecompounds are dissolved in solution to produce different electronic inks which can be placed inside of an inkjet printer and printed to form the stretchable circuits.

It's an important development for a display industry that has long chased the idea of curved, bendable, and even foldable displays. Curved televisions and PC monitors are now being sold, but they are nevertheless static shapes; same goes for the curved display on Samsungs Galaxy Edge smartphones. Displays that can actually be bent or deformed while playing back video may be the next step, similar to those demonstrated byJapans Semiconductor Energy Laboratory in 2014.

The drawback of the Japan SELs demonstration, however, was that the display technology could only be moderately reshaped, much like ripples moving through water. Instead, smartphone makers appear to be more interested in next-generation foldable or creaseable displays, which can be radically transformed to save space.

So far, those attemps have had mixed success. In 2010Sony demonstrated a prototypethat could be rolled around a pencil, though it apparently never panned out. Samsungs display business also published a 2011 paper on folding displays. In addition,Samsung as well as Microsoft have published similar patents that call for smartphones built upon displays that could be folded back upon themselves.

MSUs technology appears to be a bit different. According to Wang, Samsungs foldable OLED was still built upon inelastic materials, whereas his teams work isnt. MSU and Wang said that his smart fabric, which is stretchable, could be folded and placed in apocket without breaking. But the display itself could also be stretched if needed, taking the notion of flexible displays in an entirely new direction.

Our reported stretchable ICs are made entirely using elastic materials, therefore they are certainly foldable, Wang said in an email. The strain it can withstand (up to 100 percent) way exceeds the requirement for folding.

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Stretchy OLED technology could pave way for new smart fabrics, wearables, even tablets - PCWorld

The PGA Tour is teeing up virtual reality experiences to drive fans and tech savvy, potential fans, greenside at PGA Tournaments.

The Tour wants to keep pace with sports leagues such as the NBA, which offers weekly VR broadcasts. But PGA officials say VR experiences need to be special, not just an immersive version of the same old broadcast.

The trick is creating an experience that people want to have the headset on for more than five minutes, Scott Gutterman, PGA Tour VP, digital operations, told Fox News. Wed like for people to interact with the stream, if there are stats they want, to choose themselves, slide the leaderboard in and out (of their view).

The PGA Tour and Intel Sports Groups Voke virtual reality unit tested the technology on the famous 10th hole at storied Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles ahead of the Genesis Open that teed off Thursday.

The Intel unit has produced VR for the NFL and last years NCAA Final 4 basketball games. It makes custom experiences for clients across VR platforms.

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We think golf is one of the hidden treasures to produce and create experiences in virtual reality, said David Aufhauser, managing director, strategy and product, Intel Sports Group. You can create experiences fans just cant get, even if theyre there. You can bring in stats and data and other visual components that can complement the video part of it.

While a few pro golf tournaments have been produced in VR, the game has presented technological hurdles that make it more difficult to produce in virtual reality than sports such as basketball. Golf balls are smaller and tracking their flight can be trickier than the larger brown basketballs or footballs, plus there is a lot more space to be covered on a golf course than a fixed playing area. Resolution can be an issue when subjects are farther away from cameras, especially on the more popular but less powerful mobile-powered headsets.

Going Green

Gutterman pointed to Vokes three large pods of cameras triangulating the putting surface, capturing a 180 degree panorama, and says their size and lack of mobility will keep VR a largely tee or green experience in the early going, although the technology will eventually have its own produced broadcast.

The elevated camera pods feature six pairs of cameras that stream video, which is stitched together by producers. And the lenses can be changed depending on the sport or to capture different shots.

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Gutterman notes: We really like Vokes stereoscopic cameras; they provide a different level of enhancement we want to capture.

Vokes founder Sankar Jayaram told Fox News: The way we designed our system, we can actually zoom in. One challenge is in VR the cameras are far from the action. We can use different lenses and take you closer to the actionits one of the unique features we have, so you can get depth.

View to a Thrill

A demo provided for Fox News delivered depth of field and a crisp view arguably better than some spectators had standing a few yards away from the action. The VR stream showed undulations on the putting surface and brought into view the severe slope the pros fear when their balls roll off this greens backside. Even in HD broadcasts the greens tend to flatten out.

The Voke experience lets the user switch views for different camera angles. It was powered on a Samsung Gear headset and Galaxy G7 phone and was just as sharp as commercial broadcast VR streams.

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Newly installed PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan liked what he saw. After walking off the 10th green in the Pro-Am round alongside Jordan Spieth, Monahan looked into the headset at his own demo and said simply, Wow! Thats amazing.

Despite that apparent endorsement from the boss, Gutterman says its unclear whether the PLAYERS Championship will be live streamed in VR in May. He said the VR test was positive and encouraging and no further testing would be required.

Intel Sports Groups Aufhauser says theres growing demand, Fans want to experience new ways to connect with sports and players that they love in wholly immersive experience. We see a lot of growth.

Adam Scott, who won the PGAs L.A. event in 2005, admits he has limited VR experience, but recognizes its potential. I think thats huge for the fans. Another way to interact with us, or the game in any way, is a good thing. Certainly weve got to move with the times. I havent really used it for my benefit, but maybe in the future.

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PGA Tour taps Intel technology to drive golf into virtual reality - Fox News

Forbes

Mr. President: The Office Of Science & Technology Policy Is Important Forbes Progress, innovation and technology stop for no one. But here we are, three weeks into the Presidency of Donald Trump, and he has yet to appoint any leadership for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). Yes, the President needs ...

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Mr. President: The Office Of Science & Technology Policy Is Important - Forbes