Energy Future – Reinventing the Power Company

It seems trite to say it, but the world around us is changing quickly and in some unanticipated ways.  The venerable electric power companies invented by Thomas Edison over a hundred years ago are going through some tough times.  In a seeming contradiction, demand for electricity continues to rise, but revenues and profits are declining as more alternative energy projects are coming on line.

As a former resident of Colorado, the Public Service company provided electricity and natural gas throughout the region.  In Texas there are many power companies, Austin Energy being the company in the area where I live.  In both cases the State Legislatures run the utility companies.  So there is a strange mixture of a commercial enterprise selling a product in a broad commoditized market, with the assumed objective of making a profit.  Utility companies used to be considered very secure investments, if somewhat low return.

But being a government run enterprise, they are subject to legislative regulation, and in recent times the mandated goals and  balancing the books appears to be in conflict.  Both Colorado and Texas have passed legislation requiring that the utility companies put up wind farms and solar projects.  In spite of studies that reported the cost for alternative energy would be greater than the cost of coal fired electricity. In addition, the legislators have required that the utility company pay customers rebates to help underwrite the cost of solar installations.  And the utility companies are required to buy the excess generated electricity from the customer.  How are the utility companies supposed to survive under these conditions?

The cash squeeze got so bad that Austin Energy had to notify over 150 customers with solar projects that were already approved that they didn’t have the money to pay for them.  And further, the utility company said it projected a need to increase rates over the next few years as the cost of wind power and solar power projects that were being added to the electric power mix are coming on line.  Exactly as predicted by the industry consultants.

Utility companies are in the business of providing reliable, low cost energy.  Utility companies are not typically in the business of developing new power generation technology.  This has lead some several companies to look at their opportunity to fulfil the operation and management role across all the power technologies available.  And initial projections support the idea that this is a direction that will sustain the role of the utility.

Our standard of living and our manufacturing base depends to a certain extent on a low cost of electricity, just as transportation costs are dependent on the cost of fuel.  Maintaining good supplies of both and keeping costs low are foundational to a strong economy.

Step Motor Helps Robot Capture Images in 3D

Michael Comberiate, who manages the Special Projects Initiatives at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and his team of graduate and undergraduate engineering students build robotic vehicles that are used to test flight avionics, instruments, communications protocols, and approaches for planetary exploration. One project involves developing new communication protocols suitable for the delays encountered in space travel. This research involves the transmission of commands and images between the flight center on Earth and exploratory vehicles roaming various planets. The team works with a robot named Nanook that is outfitted with an imaging system that uses a step motor to help it collect data for 3D images. If Comberiate’s research proves successful, the communication protocols will be used in projects like the Mars Rover explorations, but they could also help solve communication problems here on Earth.

The robotic mothership undergoes testing in Anartica and Alaska while being operational from Maryland.  The current test system runs around $30,000 while the final rover that will be sent to Mars can exceed $100 million.

The Internet, for example, is not suited to a transmission delay of more than 3 seconds. When sending data from say Mars, line of sight transmission can still experience delays of five to ten minutes. Without line of sight, the delay is even longer, often hours.

When a communication protocol experiences a transmission delay, the usual procedure is to try to send the transmission again, from the beginning. This process is not suitable for planetary exploration, thus, the need for a new communication protocol that can handle long delays.

In their research, Comberiate and his team developed a robot that is being tested at the arctic and that could wind up in the Mars Rover mission. Communicating between their offices in Maryland and the robot at the South Pole is similar to communicating to a roving robot on Mars. The engineers experience satellite synchronization issues with volumes of data as the robot takes digital dot-matrix pictures of objects it finds, similar to what they will experience when transmitting with equipment on another planet. The images are sent to the engineers, who then decide what objects require a closer look. Dot matrix is used because it will transmit faster than a digital camera image.

The robot uses laser-based guidance known as LADAR (Laser Detection and Ranging) to find and take images of objects. It is semi-autonomous and has 3D scanning capability with image stitching.

The laser has a spinning mirror inside that sweeps the beam from left to right, measuring the time it takes to return a pulsed beam of infrared light from an object. The mirror spins four times on each horizontal line and then a step motor raises it up ¼ of a degree in the vertical axis. The laser spins again along the horizontal line, building the image one line at a time. “We scan with a ¼ degree of accuracy left and right, and ¼ degree of accuracy up and down,” noted Comberiate, “which gives us a 3D image. The colors show a low resolution of the distance to every point in the scan, but the computer onboard has about 1000 times more data than shown in the images. These images convey the critical information to the operators on Earth, but take 1000 times less time to send than a typical photograph.”

The 3D scanning provided by the mothership brings back images that show depth of field plus azimuth plus elevation.  The different colors shown in the images depict varying distances from the mothership.

Previous imaging systems could not deliver the needed resolution and the pictures displayed considerable distortion. “We chose the Lin Engineering step motor because it could handle the arctic conditions of -40 below 0 and still deliver smooth motion and hold position,” said Comberiate. “It gives us excellent remote control over the size of each step.”

In the rugged environments, the robot must operate off batteries. “We direct the heat from the electronics to where it is needed throughout the robot and to the batteries to keep them warm. Any motor we choose must be able to handle such environmental conditions.” Comberiate and his team will be continuing their research at the arctic in January 2010.

Discuss this on the Engineering Exchange:

Lin Engineering
www.linengineering.com

Humanoid Robot Will Teach Software Classes

Classrooms in Japan may soon welcome a new 4-foot-tall educational humanoid robot unveiled byNippon INstitute of Technology and other groups.

It will be used to teach software programming and hardware engineering to students, but will also be demonstrated in elementary schools and nursing homes. It will act as a “teacher” in class along with a human teacher.

As explained in Japanese in the video below, the kid-size bot doesn’t have a name yet. With its boyish voice, the robot can be heard asking people to give it a “cool name.” It then does some dancing and balancing on one leg.

But some details are available. It tips the scales at 33 pounds and has 21 degrees of mechanical freedom. It’s equipped with sensing devices including a camera, accelerometers, and gyroscopes, and has a small projector in its head. It can be programmed with Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio.

The price tag is about $132,000, according to Robot Watch.

Its body was engineered by Tokyo robot firm ZMP, known for its small but stylish Nuvo bot. The underlying e-nuvo Humanoid platform is intended for education and research, and is priced around $77,000. The exterior was designed by Znug Design studio.

“Shady” Robot Climbs Windows, Blocks Shade

When you’re an MIT researcher and your laboratory’s windows let in too much sunlight, obviously the only thing to do is to build a robot to solve your problem. Whence Shady, a window-climbing robot that unfurls a shade to block sunlight and glare.

If you’ve ever visited MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial intelligence Lab, you’ll know the Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center has some seriously strange architectural features. Among these are huge floor-to-ceiling windows installed on an incline and shiny metal roofing. Researchers in Daniela Rus’s laboratory became annoyed at the sunlight reflecting off the roof and creating glare on their computer monitors throughout the afternoon. When they discovered that blinds for the custom windows were prohibitively expensive, they turned to what they knew best: robots.

Shady is a relatively simple robot that communicates with an operator computer via Bluetooth. Right now, there’s not much that’s autonomous about Shady, so the operator clicks on a graphic representation of the windows and Shady heads over to it. It uses grippers to grip the framing between windows and swings itself up and over to where it needs to be. Once it’s reached its destination, it unfurls a piece of reflective material that shades the operator from direct sunlight or bad glare off the roof.

Shady itself is pretty whimsical, but the locomotion via rotating gripper is really interesting. The developers pointed out that this “truss-climbing” method of getting around is useful on things like scaffolding, or power line towers which need to be inspected and painted. I love what can come out of solving a simple problem.

web.mit.edu

Jobs 2.0

As a former Colorado resident I was aware of the growing wind industry resources in the area.  North of Denver near an old regional airport there is a lot of land that is “underdeveloped” and some of it is being used for testing wind turbines.  Which is a pretty tricky business because of the massive scale of current wind turbines.  Propeller blades of gargantuan proportions, huge bearing systems, wind tunnel testing.  It’s impressive.

And as I recently reported in this blog site, the American Solar Energy Association, which happens to be headquartered in Boulder Colorado, did a widely quoted report which claims (among other things) that the State of Colorado increased employment by 10,000 jobs in the Green Energy sector.  It’s not coincidence that the report focused in some detail on the activity in Colorado, since, being in Boulder, there is direct access to information   Denver also has a major National Renewable Energy Laboratory campus where thousands of people are employed, many of whom work on solar , wind and many green related technologies.  So there is a lot of local activity that ASEA is aware of directly.

The State of Colorado had mandated the use of wind and solar power in the energy mix of the local power utility.  And there is a fairly significant wind farm being built in Northern Colorado.  So for several years, while the wind farm is under construction, there will be quite a few hundred workers involved in that construction project.  But like all projects, it will be completed in a couple of years and those jobs will have to move on.

But the 10,000 jobs number included government workers hired by NREL and temporary construction jobs on the wind farm. The actual private sector estimate is less than half of the 10,000.  Worse is that the private sector estimate includes guys who put insulation into your attic, and a percentage of all appliance industry workers on the basis that some fraction of that labor is focused on energy efficiency.  So this gets to be a very difficult number to pin down.

The bigger problem is putting the green jobs, however many, in proper context.  The State of Colorado is currently trying to help 120,000 unemployed people with unemployment assistance.  And Colorado is in relatively good shape compared to other parts of the country which are much harder hit.  Based on some recent editorial commentary, the national unemployment numbers may be under reported because of manipulation of the reporting basis, and that government claims about the impact of green energy on the economy are similarly exaggerated.  And that is bad news all around.

But what I find shocking in the Colorado situation is that two years ago several major Oil & Gas companies were “shovel ready” to mine and refine shale oil resources in remote parts of the state which would have had a significant impact leading to thousands of new jobs.  But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (D), a Colorado Senator and resident, decided that permitting shale oil recovery would be inconsistent with the goals of land management.  Maybe it wasn’t “green” enough.

But right now, we could sure use the business.

Robot Lowers Costs for Packagers

“Packaging manufacturers are finding the global market place increasingly competitive, which has spawned a new metric adherence within production and packaging environments,” said John Dulchinos, president and CEO of Adept Technology, Inc. “Companies are now closely examining Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Cost-Per-Pick (CPP) when they invest in new lines and automation equipment.”

The Adept Quattro s650H offers a blend of high-speed production capability with the flexibility of robotic automation. The system simultaneously addresses both ends of the production continuum.

The parallel robot handles high-speed manufacturing, packaging, material handling, and assembly applications. It features a four-arm rotational platform, which delivers maximum speed and acceleration across the entire work envelope. Compact controls and embedded amplifiers ease installation and reduce workspace requirements.

The Adept ACE PackXpert™ software programs the robot to stack and sort product. Designed specifically for packaging applications, the all-in-one program is flexible, enabling manufacturers to respond quickly to part changes without lengthy reprogramming. An easy-to-use intuitive graphic interface and 3D workspace display the system operation including physical and conceptual objects.

Adept Technology, Inc.
www.adept.com

Could This Be The Wheel of the Future?

Most typical males constantly worry about our cars.  “Is my oil low?”, “what is that ‘clunk’ing noise?”, “Did my wife put premium unleaded in this like I told her?”, “Why is my ‘check engine’ light on again?”.  They even occasionally check the tires to see if they look low on air, and make sure to change them to studded tires for brutal winters.  But what if you didn’t have to ever change the tire again dependent on the weather? What if you could buy one tire that would be designed to change  to the weather?  Yes, there may be a new kid in town in terms of cars and transportation; the Pumplon wheel could be tire of the future.

The Pumplon wheel, which resembles the shape of a pumpkin, or even a melon depending on its shape (hence the name Pumplon), is designed to change shape to whatever the road conditions call for through a rotary mechanism.

Living in a climate where you get to experience the four seasons to their extreme, you can get wet & rainy springs, 100-plus degree summers, chilly and colorful falls, and blistering cold winters.  If you were to install the Pumplon on your car, according to Pumplon, you would not need to change them for any weather reason or road condition.  Say for instance it was spring-time and there was a heavy rainstorm, by switching the Pumplons to the skinnier shape, it would increase contact pressure, cutting through the water on the road, allowing you to more safely arrive at your destination.  Or if the road is flooded, switch the tires to the widest setting to make the car amphibious.  In the summer, one may just want to hit the highway and cruise with the top down and feel the find in their hair, and for that they would change the Pumplon to the normal, or “ball”-look setting.  For the fall and winter, when you may be trudging through mud or snow (intentionally or not), you will need as much surface area out of my tires as possible.  You would consequently set the tire to its “melon” shape to get as much grip and surface area as possible, hopefully getting yourself unstuck in the mountain, or get you through the snow-packed roads to grandma’s house for Christmas.

With the world “going green”, it has brought about some rather interesting, very innovative ideas and concepts, and this one is no exception. The green benefits can be very numerous, from reducing travel times to increasing fuel efficiency.

The Pumplon wheel is the creation of Osmar Vicente Rodriguez, a native of Brazil, also a professor of industrial design at RCA Innovation.  His intention for creating the Pumplon was primarily for solving transportation problems for farmers in developing countries where the majority of roads are either unkempt and in very bad condition.

How does it work, you may ask?  The secret to the Pumplon is a steel shaft that can expand and retract by means of a rotary mechanism, pneumatic or hydraulic, adjusting rings which makes the wheel deformation wider or narrower.

The material of the tires has been the subject of special consideration. According to Rodriguez, “initially they were steel, but we replaced it with a thermoplastic material, which is easier to produce, lighter and cheaper, and is recyclable. The cover is of vulcanized rubber, similar to that used in tires conventionally, but more flexible to allow changes in size.”

Magnets aren’t US anymore

The permanent magnetic is a quiet, unobtrusive work horse in so many applications that it, like many things that are mechatronics related, is mind bogglingly (is that a word?) pervasive.  Magnets are the key material technology to enable high efficiency and power dense electric motors.  And electric motors are everywhere.

The particular magentic material that has enabled the CD, DVD, Hard Disk Drive, high performance speakers, magnetic resonance imaging and many other technical wonders, is Neodymium Iron Boron.  Based on General Motors research on magnet materials (in the 1980’s), scientists found a particular molecule of these materials which exhibited extremely high magnetic strength.  And, of course, one of the immediate benefits would be reducing the size of starter motors in cars by 30% and the weight of the motors by even more.  Great stuff!

But making the molecule wasn’t exactly a picnic.  Alloying was easy, but it turned out you had to cool the material down suddenly in order to get just the right molecule to form in a powder and then sinter and magnetize the result.  A whole new process had to be developed, called spin casting, to cool the material quickly enough to generate high quality raw material for NeFeB magnets.   I’m sure there are a lot more technical details, but I don’t remember much from my tour of the GM Magnequench facility in Indiana.  It’s been several years.

NeFeB alloy has been dramatically improved and as demand has increased, fortunately, the price has dropped from the extremely high levels during it’s introduction.  As prices have declined it is estimated that 16,571 tons of Neodymium were used in magnet making in 2009 and 24,635 tons will be used by the year 2014.  That’s an increase of 48% in five years.  That’s huge.

The reason for all the increase is the fact that NeFeB magnets make really efficient motors.  So the new generation of appliance motors and air conditioning compressort that include NeFeB magnetics to increase the flux of the rotor combined with electric and hybrid car motors are driving demand more more magnets.  And now some emerging technology in the wind power marketplace, direct drive generators, will require many tons of additional material.

But what about our friends at GM Magnequench?  They’re gone!  The great future, full of potential for a US manufacturing company, lost to the sale of the company and closing the manufacturing facility.  GM sold the company to New Materials Technology in Toronto which is owned by China.  But the new owners couldn’t run the US factory at a profit.  Even at $20/hour for labor.  All the manufacturing jobs, gone.

There is currently no NeFeB magnet manufacturing in the US.  Which is kind of crazy when you think of all the applications we have for the stuff.  Even worse is the fact that a lot of advanced military hardware is dependent upon the magnets for guidance motors on missiles and a host of other applications.  And according to one source China now owns 97% of the world’s Rare Earth Elements sources.    Which is why there are now hundreds of companies in China selling magnets.

On the positive side, this has lead to overall declining prices for these magnets.  But will that continue to be the case?  The Chinese government is expecting to decrease their exports of magnets by 34% next year.  This could spell trouble for many companies.

But there is hope. The USGS has reported that the Mountain Pass Mine in Southern California is one of the largest and richest deposits of Rare Earths, including Neodymium, in the world.  And Molycorp is ramping up to fill the gap with new mining and manufacturing capacity.  Go get ‘em guys! Free enterprise at work.

Real-Life Avatar Robot

The Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST) held an open house Technology Exhibit, where some of their latest research and development projects were showcased . . . Mahru III, a humanoid robot co-developed by KIST and Samsung, copies the movements of a human wearing a special suit which senses muscle movements.

Motion and Software

Rockwell Automation recently had it’s Automation Fair during which a number of new product announcement were made.  The company has announced a collaboration with Dassault Software Systems to create a suite of tools that deal with various applications of industrial automation and manufacturing on the plant floor.  Of particular interest to the mechatronics world is coordination between Solidworks modeling software and Rockwell’s Motion Analyzer.  In addition, Rockwell has made an important ease-of-use connection between the Motion Analyzer which has traditionally been used for sizing motors, and the control system software.

As an experienced user of early version of the Motion Analyzer, I used the software as a tool to analyze tradeoffs between time, torque and inertia to optimize customer machinery and processes in motion control applications.  Good motion control starts with good mechanical design, and there are so many variables and tradeoffs, that it’s often difficult to navigate your way to the best solution.  A good motion analysis tool automates the process so that you can examine an axis requirement and explore several options for how the axis can be optimized.

The results of the Motion Analyzer can be directly integrated into the PLC editor RSLogix.  This is usually an area where there is a major duplication of effort, since everything that you have to program in the control system is data that you have worked with in the Motion Analyzer.  So kudos to the Rockwell team for getting this feature added to the RSLogix suite.

The Motion Analyzer uses information about the Rockwell Automation motors and amplifiers to match inertias to loads and duty cycle requirements to the thermal capability of the equipment.  This is an often overlooked subltety of the equipment, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the amount of heat you can get rid of.  And the duty cycle contains all the critical information about how much energy you need, when you need it, and how long you have to dissipate it.  In addition, I have found that everyone’s idea of thermal modeling is different.  So it pays to do the simulation work at the front end of the design.

But, we always used to joke that we were doing solid modeling anyway.  Everything was a cylindrical object of a certain diameter, length, material density, etc.  So it stands to reason that integration with a 3D modeling system would make sense.  After all, a little step up in capability could lead to a lot better design work from the start. And the ability to link mechanical design at the earliest part of the design cycle, directly to the output at the motor and control system, makes for better outcomes every time.

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