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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Ground Drone: MIT's Quadruped Robot Travels up to 10 MPH and Jumps


As reported by The Verge: Did you run this morning? Maybe you'll go for a jog after work. If you're looking to improve your speeds, you should imagine a robotic cheetah bearing down upon you. It's not as far fetched as it may seem. After several years of work, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced today that their prototype robotic cheetah can now run free under its own power, without cables or wires attached. Ostensibly designed with futuristic search-and-rescue missions in mind and funded by the military (DARPA, of course), the robot cheetah has been updated with a new "bounding" algorithm that precisely controls the amount of force each foot exerts when it hits the ground. The cheetah recently took a test run through a field on campus, achieving speeds up to 10 miles per hour and controlled jumps over obstacles taller than a foot high (30 centimeters).



Researchers at MIT's Biomimetics Robotics Lab (that is, a lab dedicated to robots that mimic biological organisms) say that the robot will soon be able to reach speeds of up to 30-miles-per-hour, exceeding the record running speeds of the world's fastest human, Usain Bolt (27.79 miles-per-hour). MIT's robot cheetah is not the first animal-inspired robotic quadruped to run free and into the darkest corner of our psyches. We saw even faster speeds a year ago from the WildCat robot from Boston Dynamics (a company that was founded by former MIT researchers and has since been acquired by Google). The fact that there are now several predatory feline-inspired robots on the prowl may be great for science, but they're not doing anything for our sleep cycles.


Monday, September 15, 2014

Tesla’s Autonomous Tech Coming In Three Years

As reported by Motor Authority: Earlier this week, General Motors Company announced it will launch a Cadillac model for the 2017 model year that will be capable of driving autonomously in certain situations. Of course, many other automakers are planning similar technology, including the new kid on the block, Tesla Motors.

Speaking with Japan’s Nikkei daily, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company was developing its own self-driving technology and expects to have it ready in about three years, roughly when the new Model 3 sedan is scheduled to arrive. The Model 3 will have a starting price of about $35,000 and be capable of driving at least 200 miles on a single charge.

Like rival systems, such as the one promised by GM as well as the Steering Assist system already offered by Mercedes-Benz, Tesla’s self-driving technology will only work in limited situations initially, such as in traffic jams or for highway driving. Eventually, though, Tesla expects to offer a car that is fully autonomous.

"Full auto-pilot capability is going to happen, probably, in the five- or six-year time frame," Musk told the newspaper. "I think in the long term, all Tesla cars will have auto-pilot capability."

During the same interview, Musk hinted at a future collaboration with auto giant Toyota in the area of electric car technology. As a deal to supply battery packs for the Toyota RAV4 EV draws to a close, Musk said the two firms could work on a similar project over the next few years.

3D Printed Car Has Just Taken its First Test Drive

As reported by 3DPrint: When it comes to 3D printing, new breakthroughs and new achievements are being realized almost on a daily basis. From 3D printable human tissue, to a 3D printed life-size castle, and now a 3D printed automobile, the technology never ceases to amaze.

This week, at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago, Arizona-based automobile manufacturer Local Motors stole the show. Over the six day span of the IMTS, the company managed to 3D print, and assemble an entire automobile, called the ‘Strati’, live in front of spectators.

Although the Strati is not the first ever car to be 3D printed, the advancements made by Local Motor with help from Cincinnati Inc, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have produced a vehicle in days rather than months.

Last year, engineer Jim Kor designed the Urbee 2 3D printed car. The vehicle which weighed about half of what a typical automobile would weigh, was as strong as steel. What sets Local Motors’ ‘Strati’ 3D printed car apart from the likes of  the Urbee 2, is the fact that they managed to print and construct the entire vehicle in just six days, whereas the Urbee 2 took 2500 print hours to complete.

 This breakthrough was made possible by a machine produced by Cincinnati Inc., in cooperation with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machine is capable of printing at speeds unheard of on traditional 3D printers. It is unbelievably able to lay down up to 40 pounds of carbon infused ABS plastic per hour, with precise accuracy. After an exciting six days of printing, in front of a live audience, the vehicle is finally complete. The only question that remained was, ‘Does it drive?”

As you can see by some of the Vine clips we have posted within this article, it most certainly does! The car, which features just 40 parts, drove out of McCormick Place in Chicago just moments ago. As to what Local Motors plans to do next with the Strati 3D printed car, now that the vehicle has been printed and drives like a charm, they will seek to launch production-level 3D printed vehicles for sale to the public in the coming months.



This is certainly a big step for all companies involved, as well as the 3D printing industry in general. Let us know your thoughts on this amazing accomplishment in the Local Motors 3D printed car forum thread on 3DPB.com.


Friday, September 12, 2014

SpaceX Vies With Boeing as NASA's Taxi to Space Station

As reported by Bloomberg: Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing Co. (BA) are contending for more than $3 billion in funding to resume U.S. manned spaceflight with the first commercial venture to fly humans into orbit.

The contract to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017 in so-called space taxis would end U.S. reliance on Russian rockets since the space shuttle was retired three years ago. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration set a deadline to announce the award this month.

For Musk, winning would be a pivotal step toward his dream of colonizing Mars, while a Boeing victory would extend its half-century history with the U.S. space program. A third rival, Sierra Nevada Corp., offers a winged, shuttle-type vehicle as it seeks to expand beyond supplying rockets for sub-orbital tourist trips on Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

“Boeing is the safe choice, SpaceX is the exciting choice and Sierra Nevada the interesting choice,” Loren Thompson, an analyst with Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based research group, said in a phone interview.

NASA is charting a new direction 45 years after sending humans to the Moon, looking to private industry for missions near Earth, such as commuting to and from the space station. Commercial operators would develop space tourism while the space agency focuses on distant trips to Mars or asteroids.

Funding History
Boeing and SpaceX probably have the leading concepts, based on the funding NASA provided to refine their designs, and a split contract may be more likely than a winner-take-all decision, said Brian Friel, a government contracts analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence in Washington.


“The odds are higher for a joint award,” Friel said in a telephone interview. NASA has said it might select more than one winner.

Boeing’s proposed CST-100 capsule received $480 million under NASA funding awarded in 2012, compared with $400 million for SpaceX’s Dragon V2 capsule and $219.5 million for Sierra Nevada’s orbiter. Blue Origin, a concept backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, received no funding and continues to hone its design, according to NASA’s website.

Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesman, declined to comment on the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, as the program is formally known.

While both SpaceX and Boeing have designed reusable capsules seating as many as seven people, their business strategies -- and technology -- couldn’t be more different.
Startup Culture

Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who shook up the auto industry with Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)’s battery-powered cars, nurtures a Silicon Valley startup culture at SpaceX. In 11 years, the Hawthorne, California-based company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has earned a reputation for setting audacious goals while evolving from making rockets to becoming the first private cargo hauler to the space station.




The commercial crew contract is a steppingstone to making humanity into a “multiplanetary species,” starting with Mars, according to Musk, who said that desire is one of the reasons he backed off an earlier plan to pursue an initial public offering.

“The reason I haven’t taken SpaceX public is the goals of SpaceX are very long-term, which is to establish a city on Mars,” Musk, 43, told reporters at a Sept. 8 briefing in Tokyo.

Musk declined via e-mail this week to discuss SpaceX’s chances or assess his competitors. The Dragon V2 spacecraft is designed to return to Earth and land vertically under its own power on a launch pad, a break with years of NASA practice of relying on parachutes to cushion an ocean landing.

No ‘Moonshots’
Boeing, the world’s biggest aerospace company, is focused on shareholder value, disciplined execution and avoiding oversize bets on technology leaps that Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney terms “moonshots.”


Boeing’s entry is the only one of the contestants to have met all of the design and integration milestones on the deadlines set by NASA, while SpaceX and Sierra Nevada requested extensions. That should win the aerospace giant points with NASA, said Thompson, whose research group has done work for Boeing and Sierra Nevada.

While the Boeing vehicle’s exterior echoes the Apollo lunar capsules of the 1960s, its interior embodies another McNerney tenet of sharing technology across product lines. The spacecraft borrows the “Sky Interior” lighting Boeing created for its jetliners and seating developed for the 787 Dreamliner cockpit. It would still use parachute recovery.
Space History

“We’ve had this great advantage of reaching across different parts of our company for areas of innovation,” Kelly Kaplan, a spokeswoman for Boeing’s space exploration unit, said in a phone interview. As to putting humans in space, “We’ve been doing it for 50 years.”

Sierra Nevada is no stranger to U.S. contract competitions or spaceflight. Besides making rockets for Branson’s planned venture for quick hops into space, the Sparks, Nevada-based manufacturer launches commercial satellites and was chosen in 2013 to provide light-attack planes for Afghanistan’s military.

Unlike the other entrants, Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser would land like an airplane on any military runway big enough for a narrow-body jet. The orbiter is the only craft nimble enough to repair satellites, among the capabilities that have drawn interest from 21 countries and earned it the nickname SUV, for “space utility vehicle,” Mark Sirangelo, who heads Sierra Nevada’s space systems division, said in a phone interview.

“If Sierra Nevada were to win, it would be because of that design,” said Friel, the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

Shared Award
A shared Boeing-SpaceX award as envisioned by Friel would match NASA’s use of both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) to take cargo to the space station.

Funding two ventures may raise development costs while also fostering competition and giving NASA an alternative if one vehicle encounters technical difficulties, said Marco Caceres, director of space studies with Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant.



Congressional opposition to a similar arrangement for the crew contract has waned as the fraying U.S.-Russia relationship focuses attention on NASA’s dependence on Soyuz rockets to put astronauts into orbit, Caceres said in a telephone interview.

“The Russians have done NASA a favor in terms of funding,” Caceres said.

Solar Storms May Affect GPS Data, Radio Transmissions

As reported by Bloomberg: Two solar storms forecast to strike Earth starting tonight may degrade global position satellite devices and radio transmissions.

The first and smaller of the two coronal mass ejections will arrive later today, Thomas Berger, director of the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center, said in a conference call with reporters. The second one should hit by midday New York time.

“Current forecasting of these events is tricky, so we cannot forecast down to the hour,” Berger said.

Although neither ejection would be considered a major event, scientists are watching closely because they came so close together from the same area, Berger said. Besides the expected effects on GPS data and radio transmissions, they may create an aurora display across the northern U.S.

The geomagnetic storms touched off by the solar action will be strongest tomorrow into this weekend, Berger said. The storms will be G2 or G3 on the center’s five-step scale for geomagnetic events, with G5 the strongest.

The coronal ejections both erupted out of a sunspot complex that also produced two flares this week, Berger said. The spots are big magnetic storms on the sun that darken its surface and can be seen from Earth.

Magnetic Field
“Essentially the sun just shot out a magnet and it is about to interact with another magnet, Earth’s magnet,” said William Murtagh, program coordinator at the center in Boulder, Colorado. Earth’s magnetic field will start fluctuating when the material from the sun arrives, according the center’s website.

Large solar events can prompt aircraft to divert from polar routes because of increased radiation, although that isn’t expected to happen this time. In addition to measuring geomagnetic storms, the space weather center classifies radiation effects of solar events on a similar five-step scale. The current radiation impacts are rated at S1. An S3 or higher is needed to divert airline traffic, Murtagh said.

Berger said U.S. electric power grid operators should be able to handle these events. There also isn’t a concern for electronics on the ground.

The storms won’t match the power of a storm recorded in 1859 by British astronomer Richard Carrington now known as the Carrington Event. It electrified telegraph lines, shocking operators, and created an aurora seen in Cuba and Hawaii, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration website. Another large storm in 2012 missed Earth, Berger said.

Both the Carrington Event and the 2012 storm took about 17 hours to travel from the sun to the earth, Berger said. These two eruptions are taking 40 to 50 hours. The second eruption is more powerful and is catching up to the first, Berger said. Current models say they won’t arrive together.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Penalty for Driving While Texting in Long Island - a Disabled Cell Phone

As reported by Ars Technica: Motorists popped for texting-while-driving violations in Long Island could be mandated to temporarily disable their mobile phones the next time they take to the road.

That's according to Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who says she is moving to mandate that either hardware be installed or apps be activated that disable the mobile phone while behind the wheel. The district attorney likened the texter's punishment to drunk drivers who sometimes are required to breathe into a device before turning on the ignition.

"Like ignition interlock devices, transdermal alcohol monitoring ankle bracelets, and personal breath testing instruments, DA Rice believes that available technologies must be employed in criminal sentences to change behavior and save lives. The cost of each of these devices would be borne by the offender," the prosecutor said in a press release.
She said she hasn't chosen any technology, yet:
Hardware and software solutions that block texting during driving are currently produced by various manufacturers and software developers, and are constantly under development. The DA’s office does not endorse any particular company and is in the process of reviewing specific solutions based on their features and services. Critical features include security measures to make the solutions tamper-proof, and data integrity measures to ensure accurate reporting to courts, law enforcement, parents, and guardians.
Rice's announcement came nearly a week after a Facebook-surfing driver rear-ended a car at 85 mph, killing an 89-year-old great-grandmother. The 20-year-old motorist is being charged with negligent homicide.


Newsday said Rice has already brought 82 texting-while-driving cases.


The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said about 20 percent of motorists text or send e-mail while driving. And Rice noted that Web surfing while driving is at least as dangerous as drunk driving.

"Research suggests that driving while texting can be as dangerous as driving while drunk, and even more pervasive, especially among young people,” Rice said. “It’s well established that the practice robs people of their lives and futures. Tackling this problem will require a concerted effort by numerous sectors of commerce and government."

Across the country, 44 states ban text messaging for drivers. At least 12 states bar drivers from using mobile phones at all.

We Need Electric Buses, Not Just Electric Cars


As reported by Slate: Forget about Tesla and its futuristic new Gigafactory. When it comes to using electricity for transportation, the real action may lie in the polar opposite of the fancy sports car.

Municipal intracity buses may be déclassé, unloved, slow, lumbering behemoths. But they’re the workhorses of America’s transit systems. Last year, according to the American Public Transportation Association, buses hauled 5.36 billion passengers. While usage has fallen in recent years, thanks in part to the growth of light rail and subway systems, buses still account for more rides each year than heavy rail, light rail, and commuter rail combined—and for about half of all public transit trips.

Proterra, a South Carolina-based manufacturer with Silicon Valley ties, thinks it can lead the electric revolution. Fueled by the two forces that are transforming renewable and alternative energy in this country—venture capital and the U.S. government—the company has already put a few dozen electric buses on the road, with the promise of more to come. “Our technology could literally remove every single dirty diesel bus from cities,” said Proterra CEO Ryan Popple.

It's difficult for all-electric vehicles to compete against super-efficient hybrid gas cars like the Prius or the hybrid-model Camry, which already get very good gas mileage. “But we’re competing against the most atrociously inefficient vehicle in the planet,” said Popple, a former finance executive at Tesla. Buses present operators with the painful combination of horrid gas mileage and heavy usage. Nationwide, city buses averaged about 4.71 miles per gallon, according to the National Transit Database. Washington, D.C.’s WMATA reported in 2012 that its buses were getting 3.76 miles per gallon.

And they are driven a lot. A city bus can be driven between 40,000 and 60,000 miles per year, all while spewing unwanted emissions into the air. Swap out oil for electricity, and you reduce fuel costs sharply. Get your electricity from renewable sources, and you've cut the link between fossil fuels and vehicle transportation.

Founded about a decade ago, Proterra originally set out to make buses powered by a different eco-friendly source: fuel cells. But as the hybrid and electric car businesses grew, and the prices of battery packs and electric motors fell, making a purely electric bus became more appealing. Proterra devised a 40-foot bus made of light materials, and then developed a fast-charging docking station that would let buses fuel mid-route in 10 minutes or less.



Unlike Tesla, Proterra didn't receive any Department of Energy loans. It has raised more than $100 million in venture capital money. But the company does depend indirectly on public funding provided by the Obama administration. Its customers, which are all public agencies, have relied on stimulus funds and TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants to purchase the vehicles.

Proterra shipped its first completed vehicle to Foothill Transit, which serves 22 cities in eastern Los Angeles County, in 2010. The agency, which has 350 buses, virtually all of them powered by natural gas (a lower-emission alternative to diesel), used stimulus funds to buy three electric buses and a docking station. In 2011, Silicon Valley venture capital aristocrats Kleiner Perkins invested in Proterra, and the company began to make further sales to small transit agencies: in Tallahassee, Florida; Reno, Nevada; and Worcester, Massachusetts.



Customers I spoke to say the buses largely work as advertised. After its initial purchase, Foothill used Transportation Department funds to buy another 12 Proterra buses. Foothill has put them into service on the 17-mile Line 291 in Pomona, one of the agency’s most trafficked routes. They stop in the middle of the route for about five to 10 minutes to recharge. “The cost of energy per mile is about half what it would be for diesel,” said Doran Barnes, executive director of Foothill Transit.

StarMetro in Tallahassee, which has a fleet of 72 diesel buses, found itself coping with budget problems when the price of diesel spiked in 2007. Fuel is typically the second-highest cost for a transit system, behind labor. StarMetro was Proterra’s third customer, ordering three buses in 2010 and two more in 2011, backed by federal funds. “We put them on our most visible route,” said Ralph Wilder, superintendent of transit maintenance. The buses can easily handle the 18-mile loop, which runs from Tallahassee Community College to the Governor’s Square Mall. On this route, all buses stop for 10 minutes in the middle, to wait for connections, so charging up the electric ones doesn’t add any time to the trips. Recharging takes about 7.5 minutes.

As is the case with electric cars, electric buses are significantly more expensive than their gas-guzzling counterparts. According to the National Transit Database, in 2012, the basic city bus cost $447,000 while hybrid diesel-electric buses cost $593,000. The base price of a Proterra has fallen to $825,000, from about $1 million a few years ago. And purchasers don’t get a tax credit or rebate for buying one. “But we don’t need grant funding to make the business case work,” said Popple. Over the 12-year lifetime of a vehicle, a diesel bus can consume between $500,000 and $600,000 of fuel, while it would consume about $80,000 worth of electricity, based on average industrial electricity rates. At its current price, in other words, the lower-emission Proterra pays for itself over time in the form of lower operating costs.


There are complications, however. The range—up to 30 miles—limits Proterra buses to certain routes, so it’s hard for an agency to go all in. Drivers have to be trained to brake and accelerate differently, and to maneuver into the docking stations. And Doran Barnes of Foothill Transit notes that some of the cost advantage of using electricity instead of diesel can dissipate. Electric cars can be charged at night, when power prices are low. But buses have no choice but to recharge in the middle of the day, when utilities often impose higher peak usage rates.

Not surprisingly for a Silicon Valley veteran, Popple has big, quasi-utopian plans. “The urban transit bus market will go entirely electric,” he proclaimed. But for now, Proterra remains a craft operation in a mass business. There are about 37 of its buses on the road. The company, which employs about 180 people, runs a single shift at its factory in Greenville, South Carolina. It is on a pace to produce about two dozen buses this year. “We’d have to make 50 per year to be profitable,” said Popple.

In other words, all it would take is one large system to embrace the buses on a significant scale. And there may be one out there. King Country Metro Transit, Seattle’s progressive transport operator, has about 1,500 buses and is based in a region that enjoys cheap hydroelectric power. Last month it announced it would use a federal grant to purchase and test two Proterra buses. The deal, Popple noted, has an option for the agency to buy up to 200 more.

An order of a couple of hundred buses doesn’t sound very exciting, especially compared with Elon Musk’s promise of $5 billion factories. But electrifying America’s fleet of transit buses would put a far larger dent in carbon emissions than putting a few hundred thousand Teslas on the road.