Road Train Test

Back in January of last year, I posted a note here about some work being done by Volvo to develop the technology for “road trains”.  Using a variety of technologies, including cameras, radar, and laser tracking systems, along with wireless networking, the idea is that a group of specially equipped vehicles can travel together as an ensemble.  One “lead” vehicle, with a skilled driver, will lead the way, and the other will follow along using automated controls.  The motivation is that a road train system could reduce fuel consumption, increase safety, and possibly even relieve congestion, by allowing cars to travel safely in closer proximity.   The work is part of a European Union project, SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment).

A recent article at the Register (a UK-based technology news site) reports that the first tests of the system have now taken place on public roads: 200 km [~ 125 miles] of Spanish motorways.

Three cars have successfully driven themselves by automatically following a lorry [truck] for 125 miles on a public motorway in the presence of other, normal road users.

The average speed during the trip was slightly more than 50 mph.  The three cars stayed in line behind the lead truck, with an average separation of 6 m [~19.6 feet].   Considering that the speed (50 mph) is 70+ feet per second, this spacing would be dangerously close for human drivers; if these results hold up, there would seem to be some validity in the claim of closer proximity travel via this “platooning”.

As with Google’s “self-driving” cars, I think this technology has the potential to make auto travel safer and more efficient.  Both these technologies will also require some changes to traffic laws and people’s attitudes.

Update Tuesday, 29 May, 23:05 EDT

The “Autopia” blog at Wired also has a report on this test, which gives a bit more detail.

Living with Driverless Cars

A couple of days ago, I posted a note on Google’s receiving approval to test its driverless cars in Nevada.  If the technology proves successful, and is adopted to any significant extent, it will probably change how we drive, and how we think about driving, possibly in unexpected ways.

The BBC News Magazine has an article on how some of those changes might play out.  Some of the changes would very likely be positive.  An automated driver will not be talking or texting on a cell phone,  sightseeing, or otherwise diverting its attention to something other than driving.  It will not be sleepy or intoxicated, and will have faster reaction times than a human driver.  That should mean fewer crashes.  Automated driving might also allow more traffic to be carried on the same roadway, because cars could travel closer together, particularly if vehicles are able to communicate with each other, as in the “road train” experiments.  The automated driver can also be programmed to avoid human drivers’ dangerous behavior.

When the car is on self-driving mode, it doesn’t speed, it doesn’t cut you off, it doesn’t tailgate.

Some of the changes suggested in the article seem to me a bit more problematic.  It suggests that the technology might make auto use available to people who currently, because of physical infirmities, cannot drive, such as the elderly, or people with epilepsy.  The article also suggests that a self-driving car could, in effect, run errands on its own.

A car could take the children to school early in the morning, then return home on its own to pick up the parents for their commute.

After a late-night carouse, a drinker could find and reserve a hire car on their phone, then have it pick them up and drive them home.

I’m sure that, properly used, the technology could make driving safer, and allow some people to drive who would otherwise be only marginally capable.  But the idea of having the vehicle operate without at least one competent adult along, in case of emergency, strikes me as ill-advised; I hope that we will require a lot of evidence of the technology’s reliability before we begin that experiment.

Slightly Less Rare Earths

Toward the end of 2010, we saw several items in the news about a potential shortage of the chemical elements known collectively as rare earths.  (The rare earths are the elements that lie in the periodic table from Lanthanum [La], atomic number 57, to Lutetium [Lu], atomic number 71, plus Scandium [Sc], atomic number 21, and Yttrium [Y], atomic number 39. )   These are used, typically in relatively small quantities, in a variety of technologies, including wind turbines, DC electric motors, and solar cells.

Up until the 1980s, there were a number of places where rare earths were mined, with the United States and South Africa being the largest suppliers.  China then commenced a major push into the market, offering lower prices because of its lower labor costs, and its lax-to-nonexistent environmental regulations — producing rare earths is a a dirty business.  The Chinese eventually came to supply 95+% of the market.

There was a certain amount of alarmist talk at the time about the strategic threat posed by China’s control of the supply of these elements.  I wrote at the time that I thought these fears were a bit overblown, since there were other sources, which had fallen out of favor only because of China’s cheap prices.

…  it seems likely that the main risk is a short-to-medium term run-up in prices, until alternative sources are fully operational.

As it happens, there also some alternative technologies, some quite mature, that can be used as substitutes for newer tech requiring rare earths.

An article posted on the “Wired Science” blog at Wired provides an update on the situation with the rare earths supply at present.  The US, the EU, and Japan have filed a joint complaint with the World Trade Organization against China, alleging manipulation of mineral prices.

Foreign companies buying rare earths from China must now pay more than twice the rate paid by companies inside China. The tiered pricing encourages companies to move factories and jobs to China, where they can be sure of supply and lower prices. Beyond the extra economic boost for China, this has made it easier for Chinese companies to steal foreign intellectual property.

As expected, there has also been some considerable progress in developing alternative sources of supply.  Molycorp Minerals has re-opened its mine in Mountain Pass, California, once the largest source of rare earths in the world; another new mine is being opened in Malaysia.  So it seems likely that, within a few years, we will return to a world of competing suppliers, in which no one can completely control the market.

“In five years there will be rare earths produced all over the world and China will lose its edge,” said mining analyst John Kaiser, editor of Kaiser Research Online. “Molycorp is part of that equation. They’re putting back into production what was once the largest rare-earth mine in the world.”

It is also heartening that, at least in the US, the revitalized facilities seem to be making progress in addressing some of their nastier environmental side effects.

Building the Analytical Engine

I’ve written here before about the project, launched by John Graham-Cumming, a British writer and programmer, to build a working model of the Analytical Engine, designed in the 19th century by the British mathematician, Charles Babbage.  The Engine, which has a fair claim to being the world’s first design for a stored-program computer, was never built, owing to its size (about the same as a steam locomotive) and complexity.  Lord Byron’s daughter Ada, Lady Lovelace, for whom the Ada programming language is named, wrote a program for the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers, and was possibly the world’s first programmer.

Last fall, the Science Museum in London undertook the digitization of Babbage’s various designs for the Engine (he was an inveterate tinkerer), with the aim of coming to a final design for the proposed replica.

There is now a video available of a TED talk that Mr. Graham-Cumming gave at Imperial College, London, on the Analytical Engine project, in which he discusses the design of the Engine and how the project is proceeding.  Although it’s not a comprehensive description, it’s an entertaining overview of the problem.

Another Look at DC Power

Back in December, I posted a note about the resurgence of interest in DC power distribution systems, especially within data centers.  Although large scale electricity distribution systems (such as regional or national grids) have used AC for years, since the resolution of the “War of the Currents“,and obviously constitute a workable solution — I am, after all, writing this at about 10:00 PM — the data center environment differs in some significant ways from that of the average utility customer.  The electronic devices themselves almost all work on DC power  (converted from the AC supplied by the grid; backup power supplies for emergencies almost always use batteries, which supply DC.   As I noted in that earlier post, the use of DC distribution in large data centers could potentially produce significant increases in energy efficiency.

Technology Review has a new article that discusses the possible use of DC power distribution on a larger scale.   According to Greg Reed, director of the Power & Energy Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh, the growth in the use of electronic devices, especially consumer electronic devices, has meant that a larger amount of the total demand for power is, ultimately, for DC.  Currently, this DC power is supplied by the battery chargers, power supplies, and “wall warts” of our PCs, smart phones, flat-screen TVs, and other gadgets.  Reed thinks that this trend will continue.

“Within the next 20 years we could definitely see as much as 50 percent of our total loads be made up of DC consumption,” he [Reed] says. “It’s accelerating even more than we’d expected.”

He goes on to argue that a “DC takeover” of the grid is “inevitable”, due to improvements in efficiency, from eliminating AC/DC conversions, and to the increased use of consumer electronics, solar panels, and LED lighting, all of which are more “at home” in a DC-powered world.

It is certainly true that there is technology today, unavailable in Edison’s time, that makes high-voltage DC transmission over significant distances feasible.  I expect this type of distribution will be used more in the future for installations where it makes sense.  I also think that the use of DC power distribution in data centers will increase; moreover, this kind of local grid installation probably makes sense in a number of other contexts, like large commercial buildings.  Electric vehicles, too, use batteries that are recharged with DC power, so there is probably a role for local DC grids there.

Dragan Maksimovic, an expert in power electronics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, estimates that solar-powered vehicle chargers his group is developing should cut power losses from 10 percent of what the panels produce to just 2 percent.

So, I think there is a pretty good case for deployment of DC power distribution on the local scale.  In a data center, it makes little sense to have a large number of servers, each with its own power supply, taking AC from the local utility and turning it into, say, 24 volt DC.  However, I very much doubt that we will see any wholesale switch to DC power distribution on a large scale.  The US power grid represents a huge capital investment, and it does work.

Raspberry Pi Delivered

Back in late February, I wrote about the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s bare-bones, low cost (ca. $35) single-board Linux computer.    The idea behind the Raspberry Pi is to provide a cheap computer that can be used in quantity, particularly in educational settings.

The first offering, the Model B board,  mounts a 700 Mhz ARM CPU, a GPU, 256 MB of memory, audio, HDMI, and RCA video outputs. an Ethernet connection, and two USB ports; there is also a slot for an SD memory card.   The initial stock of Model B units sold out within a few hours of the launch in February; delivery has been somewhat delayed by initial manufacturing glitches, and the need to get a “CE” certification that the unit meets European regulatory standards.

According to an article at Ars Technica, the certification has now been completed, and the first Model Bs have been delivered to distributors for shipment to end users.

The Raspberry Pi foundation has started shipping units of the much-anticipated $35 Linux computer. The organization has already started handing out the first units and conducting educational seminars with students.

The Foundation says that routine manufacturing has been started, so that any backlogs should be cleared soon, and that the reaction so far from students has been very positive.