Recent Warfare Technologies

[Antoine]

For hardcore Geeks  8)

Adrian Cho, Quantum Cryptography Hits the Fast Lane, ScienceNow, April 19, 2010

Didn't take time to be cracked:

Zeeya Merali , Quantum crack in cryptographic armour, Nature, Published online 20 May 2010

www.nature.com/news/2010/100520/full/news.2010.256.html

A commercial quantum encryption system has been fully hacked for the first time.

Quantum cryptography isn't as invincible as many researchers thought: a commercial quantum key has been fully hacked for the first time.

In theory, quantum cryptography — the use of quantum systems to encrypt information securely — is perfectly secure. It exploits the fact that it is impossible to make measurements of a quantum system without disturbing it in some way. So, if two people — Alice and Bob, say — produce a shared quantum key to encode their messages, they can be safe in the knowledge that no third party can eavesdrop without introducing errors that will show up when they compare their keys, setting off warning bells.
In practice, however, no quantum cryptographic system is perfect and errors will creep in owing to mundane environmental noise. Quantum physicists have calculated that as long as the mismatch between Alice's and Bob's keys is below a threshold of 20%, then security has not been breached. Now, however, quantum physicist Hoi-Kwong Lo and his colleagues at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, have hacked a commercial system released by ID Quantique (IDQ) in Geneva, Switzerland, while remaining below the 20% threshold.
"Even with a relatively simple attack, the hacker can get the complete key, and nobody would know anything about it," says Lo.
Lo's hack works by intercepting the bits that Alice sends to Bob while creating the key, and resending a slightly modified version to Bob. In standard quantum cryptographic techniques, Alice encodes each bit using the polarization of photons. When she sends these bits out, the polarization should be perfectly oriented in one of four directions, separated by 45 degrees (north, northeast, east or southeast).
In a perfect world, any hacking attempt would disturb a significant fraction of the bits' orientations, introducing errors just above the threshold. However, in practice, Alice cannot switch orientations for successive bits instantaneously — each time she wants to send a bit with a new orientation, she has to change the voltage applied to the photon to shift its orientation. This gives the hacker time to swoop in and hijack the bit before it is sent out to Bob, measure it, and then send it on its way again.
However, if the hacker simply sends the bit to Bob along one of the four orientations that Alice originally defined, the hacker's presence will be discovered because his measurements will introduce random errors into the system that exceed the 20% limit. But Lo's team has now demonstrated that if the hacker sneakily sends the bits along slightly different directions, the errors introduced by his interference will fall just under the 20% threshold at 19.7%1.
Hack attack
"This is not the first time that researchers have claimed to hack quantum cryptographic systems, and it won't be the last," says Grégoire Ribordy, chief executive of IDQ. Lo's group performed a partial hack on the IDQ system in 20082, and other researchers have also demonstrated ways to hack quantum cryptographic systems3.
However, Ribordy argues that Lo's hack does not threaten the security of IDQ's commercial product, which contains extra alarms above those included in the version that was sold to Lo's group a few years ago. For instance, the current commercial release aborts if errors exceed just 8%.
Ribordy also notes that an additional alarm would be triggered when the hacker joins the line, momentarily perturbing the system far beyond the 20% threshold. However, Lo argues that such a heavily alarmed system would be accidentally triggered too often to be practical. "Even a passing heavy truck would trigger a false alarm," he says.
Quantum hacker Vadim Makarov, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, agrees that the hack does not threaten IDQ's current security. As Lo and his team did not alert IDQ of the hack in advance, Makarov adds that Lo's team must be careful not to breach the hackers' unwritten code of ethics, which prescribes that hackers should alert the company to any flaws in its systems before making them public. "This prevents the bad guys out there from exploiting the published loophole before the vendor has a chance to patch it, or at least alert the users," he says.
Lo, however, does not agree that publishing his demonstration before contacting the company was unethical, because his group originally published the theory behind the hack in 20074. "People have known about this idea for a long time, we have just put it into action," he says. "But we haven't done anything destructive to the company — these flaws are very simple to fix."
In the long run, Lo believes that his work will strengthen quantum cryptography. "Each time we find a new loophole, it is fairly easy for companies to close them," he says. "But we've shown that all assumptions about security need to be carefully tested."
Nicolas Gisin, a physicist who is on the board of directors at IDQ, agrees that hackers at research institutes can play an important part in identifying unexpected flaws, which companies can then address before they can be exploited maliciously. "The success of [quantum cryptography] and of IDQ make it inevitable — and actually profitable — to see the emergence of a new community of quantum hackers," he says.

 

[Antoine]

Didn't take time to be cracked

and better:

Zeeya Merali , Hackers blind quantum cryptographers, Nature, Published online 29 August 2010

www.nature.com/news/2010/100829/full/news.2010.436.html

Lasers crack commercial encryption systems, leaving no trace.

Quantum hackers have performed the first 'invisible' attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission — they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack.
Quantum cryptography is often touted as being perfectly secure. It is based on the principle that you cannot make measurements of a quantum system without disturbing it. So, in theory, it is impossible for an eavesdropper to intercept a quantum encryption key without disrupting it in a noticeable way, triggering alarm bells.
Vadim Makarov at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and his colleagues have now cracked it. "Our hack gave 100% knowledge of the key, with zero disturbance to the system," he says.
In standard quantum cryptographic techniques, the sender — called 'Alice' for convenience — generates a secret key by encoding classical bit values of 0 and 1 using two different quantum states of photons, or particles of light. The receiver, 'Bob', reads off these bit values using a detector that measures the quantum state of incoming photons. In theory, an eavesdropper, 'Eve', will disturb the properties of these photons before they reach Bob, so that if Alice and Bob compare parts of their key, they will notice a mismatch.
In Makarov and colleagues' hack, Eve gets round this constraint by 'blinding' Bob's detector — shining a continuous, 1-milliwatt laser at it. While Bob's detector is thus disabled, Eve can then intercept Alice's signal. The research is published online in Nature Photonics today1.
Breaking the rules
The cunning part is that while blinded, Bob's detector cannot function as a 'quantum detector' that distinguishes between different quantum states of incoming light. However, it does still work as a 'classical detector' — recording a bit value of 1 if it is hit by an additional bright light pulse, regardless of the quantum properties of that pulse.
That means that every time Eve intercepts a bit value of 1 from Alice, she can send a bright pulse to Bob, so that he also receives the correct signal, and is entirely unaware that his detector has been sabotaged. There is no mismatch between Eve and Bob's readings because Eve sends Bob a classical signal, not a quantum one. As quantum cryptographic rules no longer apply, no alarm bells are triggered, says Makarov.
"We have exploited a purely technological loophole that turns a quantum cryptographic system into a classical system, without anyone noticing," says Makarov.
Makarov and his team have demonstrated that the hack works on two commercially available systems: one sold by ID Quantique (IDQ), based in Geneva, Switzerland, and one by MagiQ Technologies, based in Boston, Massachusetts. "Once I had the systems in the lab, it took only about two months to develop a working hack," says Makarov.
This is the latest in a line of quantum hacks. Earlier this year, a group led by Hoi-Kwong Lo at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, also showed that an IDQ commercial system could be fully hacked. However, in that case, the eavesdropper did introduce some noticeable errors in the quantum key2.
Grégoire Ribordy, chief executive of IDQ, says that the hack of Makarov and his group is "far more practical to implement and goes further than anything that has gone before".
Both IDQ and MagiQ welcome the hack for exposing potential vulnerabilities in their systems. Makorov informed both companies of the details of the hack before publishing, so that patches could made, avoiding any possible security risk.
"We provide open systems for researchers to play with and we are glad they are doing it," says Anton Zavriyev, director of research and development at MagiQ.
Ribordy and Zavriyev stress that the open versions of their systems that are sold to university researchers are not the same as those sold for security purposes, which contain extra layers of protection. For instance, the fully commercial versions of IDQ's system also use classical cryptographic techniques as a safety net, says Ribordy.
Makarov agrees that the hack should not make people lose confidence in quantum cryptography. "Our work will ultimately make these systems stronger," he says. "If you want state-of-the-art security, quantum cryptography is still the best place to go."

 

[a_majoor]

Portable high res mapping:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/portable-laser-backpack-revolutionizes.html#more

Portable Laser Backpack Revolutionizes 3D Mapping

by Maria Callier
Air Force Office of Scientific Research

9/7/2010 - ARLINGTON, Va. -- A portable, laser backpack for 3D mapping has been developed at the University of California, Berkeley, where it is being hailed as a breakthrough technology capable of producing fast, automatic and realistic 3D mapping of difficult interior environments.

Research leading to the development of the reconnoitering backpack, was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Army Research Office under the guidance of program managers, Dr. Jon Sjogren (AFOSR) and Dr. John Lavery (ARO).

The backpack is the first of a series of similar systems to work without being strapped to a robot or attached to a cart. At the same time, its data acquisition speed is very fast, as it collects the data while the human operator is walking; this is in contrast with existing systems in which the data is painstakingly collected in a stop and go fashion, resulting in days and weeks of data acquisition time.

Using this technology, Air Force personnel will be able to collectively view the interior of modeled buildings and interact over a network in order to achieve military goals like mission planning.

Under the direction of Dr. Avideh Zakhor, lead researcher and UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering, the scientists have been able to use this more portable method of mapping by way of sensors or lightweight (less than eight ounces) laser scanners.

"We have also developed novel sensor fusion algorithms that use cameras, lasers range finders and inertial measurement units to generate a textured, photo-realistic, 3D model that can operate without GPS input and that is a big challenge," said Zakhor.

There are many basic research issues to achieve a working system, including calibration, sensor registration and localization. Using multiple sensors facilitates the modeling process, though the data from various sensors do need to be registered and precisely fused with each other in order to result in coherent, aligned, and textured 3D models. Localization is another technical challenge since without it; it is not possible to line up scans from laser scanners in order to build the 3D point cloud, which is the first step in the modeling process.

"It is fair to say that embarking on such a hands-on project, to make indoor 3D modeling a matter of routine, a number of research questions of a fundamental nature came up," said Sjogren. "It is typical of the work that Prof. Zakhor has done for AFOSR/Air Force Research Laboratory over the years, that she meets these challenges head-on, and in most cases solves the problem sufficient to demonstrate a prototype system."

Sjogren noted that what is left for others is to examine the approach that was taken, and extend the techniques that were brought in, to a wider context.

"We are gratified to see how technology can drive science in a domain of critical relevance to practical defense implementations," he said.

Even though they don't have all the answers yet, the scientists are boldly looking ahead to how this technology can be used in the future when they plan to model entire buildings and develop interactive viewers that allow users to virtually walk through buildings before they are there in person.

In the meantime, the cutting-edge technology is being successfully implemented on campus.

"We have already generated 3D models of two stories of the electrical engineering building at UC Berkeley, including the stairway and that is a first," said Zakhor.

ABOUT AFOSR:
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), located in Arlington, Virginia, continues to expand the horizon of scientific knowledge through its leadership and management of the Air Force's basic research program. As a vital component of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), AFOSR's mission is to discover, shape and champion basic science that profoundly impacts the future Air Force.

 

[a_majoor]

Uh oh:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/deleting-gene-rgs14-removes-limit-to.html#more

Deleting gene RGS14 removes a limit to learning and memory

Deleting a gene removes a limit to learning and memory in mice. RGS14 appears to hold mice back mentally, John Hepler, PhD, professor of pharmacology at Emory University School of Medicine, says he and his colleagues have been jokingly calling it the "Homer Simpson gene." RGS14 is also found in humans.

 

[a_majoor]

Exoskeletons have been developed for military use (think Starship Troopers or the Forever War as fictional developments of the trope), and I have personally seen one at the AUSA exhibition in Washington DC in 2006 powered by a couple of Li-ion batteries from a laptop. The demonstrator challenged us to load his backpack with 175lbs of barbell plates, then proceeded to run down the hall....

Now a more sophisticated development (with more peaceful applications)

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/26328/?p1=A1&a=f

Personal Exoskeletons for Paraplegics
A mobile device helps patients with spinal cord injuries walk.
By Kristina Grifantini

Exoskeletons--wearable, motorized machines that can assist a person's movements--have largely been confined to movies or military use, but recent advances might soon bring the devices to the homes of people with paralysis.

So far, exoskeletons have been used to augment the strength of soldiers or to help hospitalized stroke patients relearn how to walk. Now researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated an exoskeleton that is portable and lets paraplegics walk in a relatively natural gait with minimal training. That could be an improvement for people with spinal-cord injuries who spend a lot of time in wheelchairs, which can cause sores or bone deterioration.

Existing medical exoskeletons for patients who have lost function in their lower extremities have either not been equipped with power sources or have been designed for tethered use in rehabilitation facilities, to correct and condition a patient's gait.

In contrast, the Berkeley exoskeleton combines "the freedom of not being tethered with a natural gait," says Katherine Strausser, PhD candidate and one of the lead researchers of the Berkeley project. Last week at the 2010 ASME Dynamic System and Control Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Strausser presented experimental results from four paraplegics who used the exoskeleton.

Other mobile exoskeletons--like those developed by companies such as Rex Bionics or Cyberdene--don't try to emulate a natural gait, Strausser says. Because walking is a dynamic motion that is essentially falling forward, Strausser says, many designs opt for a shuffle instead of a natural gait, because "it's safer and a lot easier." However, emulating a natural gait mimics the efficiency of natural walking and doesn't strain the hips, Strausser says.

The Berkeley device, which houses a computer and battery pack, straps onto a user's back like a backpack and can run six to eight hours on one charge. Pumps drive hydraulic fluid to move the hip and knees at the same time, so that the hip swings through a step as one knee bends. The device plans walking trajectories based on data (about limb angles, knee flexing, and toe clearance) gathered from people's natural gaits. Pressure sensors in each heel and foot make sure both feet aren't leaving the ground at the same time.

The Berkeley program was successful. The four paraplegics described in Strausser's talk, three of whom had been in wheelchairs for years, were able to walk with the device after only two hours of training. "It's very easy to walk in," says Strausser. "It moves your leg exactly like you would in your normal gait." To begin a step, the exoskeleton requires a user to press a button on a remote control; the team is working on a more intuitive interface.

When designing the medical exoskeleton--which uses parts from two military exoskeletons--the team needed controllers and a design that takes into account the user's lack of strength. While military exoskeletons work with a soldier's motion to add strength, medical exoskeletons do the opposite, fighting against incorrect gaits or performing the gait, explains Strausser. "The biggest problem is holding a person into the 'exo' safely and securely," she says. After field testing at the University of Virginia's Clinical Motion Analysis and Motor Performance Laboratory last year, the group developed a proprietary design that keeps users from sliding out of the exoskeleton and distributes the weight of the 80-pound machine. The group plans to make the device lighter and to make a low-cost version that patients can use in their homes. (The research group is affiliated with a company, Berkeley Bionics, that plans to begin selling a form of the technology.)

"Overall I think it's a very good device," says Panagiotis Artemiadis, an MIT researcher who heard Strausser's talk. He is developing an exoskeleton called the MIT-SkyWalker that helps stroke patients practice walking on a machine that resembles a treadmill. He says he can picture the Berkeley device being used by patients in their homes, particularly if the researchers reduce the weight.

Other mobile exoskeletons to help paralyzed people are just starting to come to market. German company Argo Medical Technologies is releasing its first product, a 100,000-euro exoskeleton intended for use in rehab centers, in October. The company plans to release a home version soon after for about half the price. Unlike the Berkeley exoskeleton, this one, dubbed ReWalk, takes the user a few weeks to learn. "It's like getting a driver's license," says John Frijters, vice president of business development for Argo. ReWalk is customizable, able to tailor the sensitivity of the sensors, step length, and stride depending on how the user feels. It weighs about 45 pounds and runs eight to 10 hours on a charge, according to Frijters.

While ReWalk doesn't yet have data to share on the advantages of using exoskeletons, "dozens" of patients have tested ReWalk, and "they all enjoy the benefit of being active," says Frijters. "They have the opportunity to get up from the wheelchair and walk again. It's very emotional."

 

[a_majoor]

More about exoskeletons. Starship Troopers may be many years away (yet), but some form of exoskeleton may well be in the future of younger members:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/classification-of-exoskeletons-and.html#more

Classification of Exoskeletons and Orthoses

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation (JNER) - Exoskeletons and orthoses: classification, design challenges and future directions by Hugh Herr

Hugh Herr was involved in making a motorless exoskeleton that was quasi-passive yet able to bear 80 pounds of weight



    For over a century, technologists and scientists have actively sought the development of exoskeletons and orthoses designed to augment human economy, strength, and endurance. While there are still many challenges associated with exoskeletal and orthotic design that have yet to be perfected, the advances in the field have been truly impressive. In this commentary, I first classify exoskeletons and orthoses into devices that act in series and in parallel to a human limb, providing a few examples within each category. This classification is then followed by a discussion of major design challenges and future research directions critical to the field of exoskeletons and orthoses.

    I classify exoskeletons and orthoses into four categories and provide design examples within each of these. I discuss devices that act in series with a human limb to increase limb length and displacement, and devices that act in parallel with a human limb to increase human locomotory economy, augment joint strength, and increase endurance or strength.

    Exoskeletons and orthoses are defined as mechanical devices that are essentially anthropomorphic in nature, are 'worn' by an operator and fit closely to the body, and work in concert with the operator's movements. In general, the term 'exoskeleton' is used to describe a device that augments the performance of an able-bodied wearer, whereas the term 'orthosis' is typically used to describe a device that is used to assist a person with a limb pathology.



1. Series-limb exoskeletons - like Springwalker and Powerskip

with an in-series leg exoskeleton device, the ground reaction forces are still borne by the human leg. In contrast, with a parallel mechanism, body weight could be transferred through the exoskeleton directly to the ground, decreasing the loads borne by the biological limbs and lowering the metabolic demands to walk, run, and hop. Furthermore, such a parallel exoskeleton would not increase limb length, thereby not increasing the overall energetic demand to stabilize movement.

2. Parallel-limb exoskeletons for load transfer

Examples are Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) and HULC.

BLEEX can reportedly support a load of up to 75 kg while walking at 0.9 m/s, and can walk at speeds of up to 1.3 m/s without the load. A second generation of the Berkeley exoskeleton is currently in testing. The new device is approximately half the weight of the original exoskeleton (~14 kg), in part due to the implementation of electric actuation with a hydraulic transmission system.


3. Parallel-limb exoskeletons for torque and work augmentation

Here we discuss exoskeletons that act in parallel with the human joint(s) for torque and work augmentation. Many parallel-limb exoskeletons have been developed to augment joint torque and work. In distinction to the load-carrying exoskeletons mentioned in the last section, this type of exoskeletal and orthotic device does not transfer substantial load to the ground, but simply augments joint torque and work. This type of leg exoskeleton could improve walking and running metabolic economy, or might be used to reduce joint pain or increase joint strength in paralyzed or weak joints.

The Japanese HAL 5 suit is a prime example.

4. Parallel-limb exoskeletons that increase human endurance

A crutch was constructed with an orthotic elbow spring to maximize the endurance of physically challenged persons in climbing stairs and slopes. When the crutch user flexes both elbows to place the crutch tips onto the next stair tread, orthotic elbow springs compress and store energy. This stored energy then assists the crutch user during elbow extension, helping to lift the body up the next step, and delaying the onset of bicep and tricep muscle fatigue. In future developments, robotic exoskeletons and powered orthoses could be put forth that actively vary impedance to optimally redistribute the body's work load over a greater muscle volume, maximizing the efficiency with which the body is able to perform mechanical work and significantly augmenting human endurance.

Future Directions and Challenges

    There are many factors that continue to limit the performance of exoskeletons and orthoses. Today's powered devices are often heavy with limited torque and power, making the wearer's movements difficult to augment. Current devices are often both unnatural in shape and noisy, factors that negatively influence device cosmesis. Given current limitations in actuator technology, continued research and development in artificial muscle actuators is of critical importance to the field of wearable devices. Electroactive polymers have shown considerable promise as artificial muscles, but technical challenges still remain for their implementation

    Another factor limiting today's exoskeletons and orthoses is the lack of direct information exchange between the human wearer's nervous system and the wearable device. Continued advancements in neural technology will be of critical importance to the field of wearable robotics. Peripheral sensors placed inside muscle to measure the electromyographic signal, or centrally-placed sensors into the motor cortex, may be used to assess motor intent by future exoskeletal control systems. Neural implants may have the potential to be used for sensory feedback to the nerves or brain, thus allowing the exoskeletal wearer to have some form of kinetic and kinematic sensory information from the wearable device.

    Today's interface designs often cause discomfort to the wearer, limiting the length of time that a device can be worn. A proposed solution is 3D body scans and custom fitting. An exoskeleton, customized to fit the wearer's outer anatomical features and physiological demands, would then be designed as a 'second skin'. Such a skin would be made compliant in body regions having bony protuberances, and more rigid in areas of high tissue compliance. The exoskeletal skin would be so intimate with the human body that external shear forces applied to the exoskeleton would not produce relative movement between the exoskeletal inner surface and the wearer's own skin, eliminating skin sores resulting from device rubbing. Compliant artificial muscles, sensors, electronics and power supply would be embedded within the three dimensional construct, offering full protection of these components from environmental disturbances such as dust and moisture. Once designed, device construction would unite additive and subtractive fabrication processes to deposit materials with varied properties (stiffness and density variations) across the entire exoskeletal volume using large scale 3-D printers and robotic arms.

 

[a_majoor]

Swarms of micro UAV's to establish comms networks. Extending this concept would include swarms of UAV's with cameras/night vision and thermal imaging optics, and ones that carry weapons:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/smarms-of-uavs.html#more

Swarms of UAVs

The SMAVNET project aims at developing swarms of flying robots that can be deployed in disaster areas to rapidly create communication networks for rescuers. Flying robots are interesting for such applications because they are fast, can easily overcome difficult terrain, and benefit from line-of-sight communication.

    From a software perspective, controllers allow flying robots to work together. For swarming, robots react to wireless communication with neighboring robots or rescuers (communication-based behaviors). Using communication as a sensor is interesting because most flying robots are generally equipped with off-the-shelf radio modules that are low-cost, light-weight and relatively long-range. Furthermore, this strategy alleviates the need for position which is required for all existing aerial swarm algorithms and typically requires using sensors that depend on the environment (GPS, cameras) or are expensive and heavy (lasers, radars).

    Flying Robots were specifically designed for safe, inexpensive and fast prototyping of aerial swarm experiments.

    They are light weight (420 g, 80 cm wingspan) and built out of Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) with an electric motor mounted at the back and two control surfaces serving as elevons (combined ailerons and elevator). The robots runs on a LiPo battery and have an autonomy of 30 min. They are equipped with an autopilot for the control of altitude, airspeed and turn rate. Embedded in the autopilot is a micro-controller that runs a minimalist control strategy based on input from only 3 sensors: one gyroscope and two pressure sensors.

    Swarm controllers are implemented on a Toradex Colibri PXA270 CPU board running Linux, connected to an off-the-shelf USB WiFi dongle. The output of these controllers, namely a desired turn rate, speed or altitude, is sent as control command to the autopilot.

    In order to log flight trajectories, the robot is further equipped with a u-blox LEA-5H GPS module and a ZigBee (XBee PRO) transmitter.

 

[a_majoor]

Making spare parts on demand rather than stockpiling them in a warehouse somewhere:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/10/us-military-has-project-to-develop.html#more

US Military Has Project to Develop Additive Manufacturing to Make Parts for Military Equipment for in-theater repairs

Instead of a part breakdown causing a nearly two day outage, the equipment could be working again in about 14 hours

When the military needs a critical piece of equipment for a repair in-theater that isn't readily available, the missing parts could jeopardize an important mission. To get the missing pieces, one traditional solution involves using strategically placed warehouses stocked with replacement gear. Another method is to pay a contractor to make a batch of parts on demand. There is a MITRE research project called MakeOne that would use 3D printing as its core, and which could cut days off getting critical parts to the field. Depending on its use, a part could be made to specifications that are "good enough" for temporary use, or made to more rigid specs for a permanent replacement.

The US military for more timely spare parts and the previously mentioned Airbus effort to develop the ability to print an airplane show that there are deep pocketed efforts to scale up additive manufacturing.

The other effort for large scale printing is the Caterpillar funding of concrete inkjet systems for constructing buildings. There are also European competitors in the print a building space.

    A better idea is using a process called additive manufacturing—sometimes called 3D printing—to quickly make replacement parts. Additive manufacturing produces parts by building up layers of a part's cross sections rather than removing material, as with conventional machining operation such as milling, boring, and drilling. A single additive manufacturing machine can produce an extremely wide range of parts—it just needs the computer-aided design (CAD) data to make any given part. Depending on the specific process and materials, the parts can be simple plastic objects, or intricate metal parts for cars and aircraft.

The Vision

* a soldier or logistics officer at a strategic parts depot clicking a computer key to select a replacement part from a catalog displayed on a terminal. The soldier pulls a secure computer file for making the part from Materiel Command Headquarters in the United States and downloads it to a 3D printer close by. A plastic part is printed by a plastics-based printer, or a high-grade metal part is printed by a system using electron beam melting.

A part breaks in the field (1). A request for the part goes to the local parts depot (2). If none are on hand, the request goes to the Materiel Command (3). The secure parts database shows the part by model number or keyword and verifies that it's correct (4). The file downloads to a 3D printer—either a plastic-based printer (5a) or a metal-based printer (5b), depending on the strength and application required for the part.

Cargo carrying UAV drones could be used to deliver finished parts.

The team members have completed a catalog of machines and materials for additive manufacturing. They also created a semantic data model that includes materials, physical properties, test methods, modeling software, and how these things relate to one another. In addition, the team assembled three small machines from kits that are used for experimental work. MakeOne research will continue on a number of fronts, including standards development with ASTM, machine and material locations, logistics, and parts databases. The team's next major thrust is to see what can be done with open source hardware. For fiscal year 2011, the Operation & Maintenance portion of the DoD's total budget request comprises $283.1 billion.

Types of Additive Manufacturing

One form of additive manufacturing uses a machine similar to an ink jet printer. The printer deposits a layer of resin on a support table according to a computer-directed design. An ultraviolet light cures the resin into a thin solid layer about as thick as copy paper. Successive layers are added by lowering the support table and printing a new cross-section layer until the part is complete in three dimensions. Other types of additive manufacturing include:

* sintering—heating powdered metal below its melting point until it forms a solid mass
* melting— fusing particles together with heat
* spray deposition—building solid objects with layers of finely sprayed molten metal
* stereolithography—three-dimensional printing process that makes a solid object from a computer image by using a computer-controlled laser to draw the shape of the object onto the surface of liquid plastic
* lamination—bonding solid layers together as with plywood

 

[Antoine]

Super yarn in works for space suits, bulletproof vests: Material is made from extremely thin carbon tubes

By Charles Q. Choi, TechNewsDaily

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39525066/ns/technology_and_science-innovation

Super-strong, highly conductive yarns made from extraordinarily thin carbon tubes could one day find use in spacesuits, bulletproof vests and radiation suits, researchers now suggest.
Carbon nanotubes are hollow pipes just nanometers or billionths of a meter in diameter — dozens to hundreds of times thinner than a wavelength of visible light. They can possess a range of extraordinary physical and electrical properties, such as being roughly 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight.
Scientists have feverishly explored ways to make textiles from carbon nanotubes for years. However, yarns made from these nanotubes lacked the attractive properties seen in lone fibers. The problem is rooted in how the nanotubes are typically about 200 to 400 millimeters long.
When these get woven together into a yarn, the connections between the nanotubes act as gaps that weaken the yarn's overall conductivity, and these connections are not as strong as the tubes themselves, explained researcher Kai Liu at the Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center in Beijing.
Simultaneously enhancing both the strength and conductivity of yarns made from these nanotubes has proven difficult. Additives that increased the strength of these yarns often inadvertently left behind poorly conductive residues that reduced the overall conductivity of the yarn. On the other hand, treatments with super-acids that boosted the conductivity of these yarns by adding oxygen-containing molecules also weakened the yarns by introducing physical defects.
Now scientists in China reveal they have made composite yarns from carbon nanotubes and plastic that are both very strong and electrically conductive.
The researchers first wove pure carbon nanotube yarns as free of physical defects as possible, to ensure it had good electrical conductivity. They next impregnated a strengthening plastic into the empty spaces inside this yarn, using a solvent that did not leave any leftovers behind that would detract from the yarn's electrical properties.
The strength of these new yarns — up to about five times stronger than steel — combined with their flexibility makes them attractive for protective fabrics such as bulletproof vests. At the same time, the fact they are so electrically conductive means they could be easily heated, making them valuable for use in super-cold environments such as outer space. In addition, since carbon nanotubes can absorb a wide range of electromagnetic waves, "this kind of woven fabric is also expected to be used in radiation protection suits," Liu told TechNewsDaily.
Future yarns could have more potential applications, "especially in biology and medicine," Liu added.
The scientists detailed their findings online September 10 in the journal ACS Nano.
    * Scientists Discover New Way to Generate Electricity
    * Iron Man Technology Has Real-Life Analogs
    * New Acoustic Fibers Can 'Sing' and Hear Sounds

© 2010 TechNewsDaily

 

[DominikEthier]

Wow that stuff could prove to be really usefull, but can Canada manufacture it aswell or just Japan?

 

[OneMissionataTime]

Probably Japan, Unless we bought the rights to manufacture it. Japan would definitely keep that stuff on the lock down, if it proves to be useful.

 

[DominikEthier]

Makes sense, but dang how do the Japanese keep making all these new technologies. I sense life cheat codes, just sayin' ;D

 

[a_majoor]

Flexible displays:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/10/army-evals-dick-tracy-watches.html#more

Army evals Dick Tracy watches

The U.S. Army is evaluating full-color flexible displays that can be worn on the wrist

The U.S. Army is testing a prototype "watch" that's lightweight and thin and has a full-color display. This display is built on flexible materials encased in a rugged plastic case and can be worn on a wristband to display streaming video and other information. It uses newly developed phosphorescent materials that are efficient at converting electricity into red, blue, and green light, which means the display needs less power to work

For consumers, flexible OLEDs promise portable electronics with beautiful screens that don't drain battery life and won't shatter when dropped. But so far, no companies have developed economically viable manufacturing methods for producing flexible OLEDs with long enough lifetimes and consistent quality. The U.S. military has been funding development with the aim of providing soldiers with rugged, thin communications devices that can display maps and video without adding too much weight to their load.

The new display prototypes use efficient OLED materials developed by Universal Display of Ewing, New Jersey, and are built on foil-backed electronic controls developed by LG Display, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. The devices were designed by L-3 Display Systems of Alpharetta, Georgia. The display is 4.3 inches. As part of military demonstration tests, the device has been used to stream real-time video from unmanned air vehicles.

The first generation of OLED materials, used today in glass-backed cell-phone displays and some small TVs, can convert only 25 percent of electrical current into light; the rest is lost as heat. Universal Display is designing and developing materials that work by a different mechanism and that have a theoretical efficiency of 100 percent. The prototypes for the Army use a full set of phosphorescent materials; the companies have not released specifications about power consumption, but Mahon says displays made with these materials use one-fourth the power of a conventional OLED.

 

[a_majoor]

More tricks to use the radio spectrum. Agile radios will also be harder to jam:

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/26581/page1/

A Cell-Phone Network without a License
A trial system offers calling, texting, and data by weaving signals around the chatter of baby monitors and cordless phones.
By Tom Simonite

A trial cell-phone network in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, gets by without something every other wireless carrier needs: its own chunk of the airwaves. Instead, xG Technology, which made the network, uses base stations and handsets of its own design that steer signals through the unrestricted 900-megahertz band used by cordless phones and other short-range devices.

It's a technique called "cognitive" radio, and it has the potential to make efficient use of an increasingly limited resource: the wireless spectrum. By demonstrating the first cellular network that uses the technique, xG hopes to show that it could help wireless carriers facing growing demand but a relatively fixed supply of spectrum.

Its cognitive radios are built into both the base stations of the trial network, dubbed xMax, and handsets made for it. Every radio scans for clear spectrum 33 times a second. If another signal is detected, the handset and base station retune to avoid the other signal, keeping the connection alive. Each of the six base stations in xG's network can serve devices in a 2.5-mile radius, comparable to an average cell-phone tower.

"In Fort Lauderdale, our network covers an urban area with around 110,000 people, and so we're seeing wireless security cameras, baby monitors, and cordless phones all using that band," says Rick Rotondo, a vice president with xG, which is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. "Because our radios are so agile, though, we can deliver the experience of a licensed cellular network in that unlicensed band."

While most radios can only use frequencies that are completely clear, xG's radios can unlock more free space by analyzing channels whose use varies over time, Rotondo says. Signals can then be inserted in between bursts of activity from a device using that channel.

"Where a more conventional radio would see a wall of signals, we are able to put our packets in between them and move around between those gaps," he explains. "Using that method, we find that even in an urban area, the 900-megahertz band is really only around 15 percent occupied at any time."

The company recently won a contract to install an xMax network to cover a large chunk of the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss training base in New Mexico. "They're interested in the possibility of one day being able to create cellular networks for use on their bases for everything we use cell networks for: voice, texting, e-mail, and data access," Rotondo says, "or rapidly deploying a version on the battlefield."

Craig Mathias, an analyst with the Farpoint Group, which specializes in the wireless industry, has inspected the Fort Lauderdale network. "It really is just like using a regular cellular system, even though the technology is so different," he says.

The potential for cognitive radio to make better use of spectrum has motivated many companies and academic labs to work on the technology in recent years, says Mathias. "The real advance of xG's system is that it can be deployed in exactly the same way as a conventional cell-phone network," he says. But exactly how xG will bring the technology to market is unclear. "One option may be for a carrier to use this in an area or market where they don't have spectrum, or to serve rural areas without coverage."

Rotondo says that xG wants to offer its approach as a complement to existing networks. "We are interested in having devices able to dynamically access different areas of spectrum--both licensed and unlicensed," he says. Wireless carriers like AT&T are turning to Wi-Fi hot spots to offload some of the load on their licensed spectrum, he points out. Being able to have devices switch to the 900-megahertz band at times of high load could be an attractive option, because it can perform much more like a cell network. The radios developed by xG could be built into commercial phone handsets, says Rotondo.

Alternatively, the system could augment emerging networks that operate in the unlicensed "white spaces" recently freed up by the end of analog TV broadcasts, Rotondo says. A recent study by University of California-Berkeley academics revealed how the density of TV stations in metropolitan areas could reduce the availability of white spaces in such areas.

Copyright Technology Review 2010.

 

[a_majoor]

And yet more ways to get access to satellites and other platforms:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/10/virtual-satellite-dish-using-energy.html#more

Virtual Satellite Dish using energy efficient special DSP chips and no satellite dish

Satellite TV without having to set up a receiver dish. Digital radio on your mobile phone without your batteries quickly running flat. The advanced calculations needed for these future applications are made possible by a microchip with relatively simple processors that can interact and communicate flexibly. These are among the findings of research at the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology of the University of Twente carried out by Marcel van de Burgwal, who obtained his PhD on 15 October.

Soon it will be possible to receive satellite signals without a satellite dish, but also using stationary antennae arrays made up of grids of simple, fixed, almost flat antennae that can fit on the roof of a car, for example. The antennae then no longer need to be carefully aimed: the grid of antennae forms a 'virtual dish'. That is a great advantage, especially for mobile applications such as satellite TV on the move. The aiming of the virtual dish is actually carried out by the entire grid. It is comparable with the LOFAR project, in which countless simple antennae laid out on the heathland of Drenthe in the north east Netherlands together form a huge dish for radiotelescopy. This too calls for large numbers of calculations and fast communications.

Conventional microprocessors are less suitable for these calculations, because they are highly overdimensioned and use large amounts of energy. The remedy is a combination of smaller, simple processors on a single microchip that can carry out tasks flexibly and be switched off when they are not needed. In this way a complete computer network can be constructed that takes up just a few square millimetres. To achieve this, Van de Burgwal makes use of an efficient infrastructure based on a miniature network, where a TV or radio receiver is defined by software instead of the classic coils and crystals. "Software-defined radio may seem much more complex, but we can pack so much computing power into the space taken up by, for example, a coil that it more than repays the effort", says Van de Burgwal.

The same type of microchip also turns out to be suitable for a completely different application: digital radio reception on a smartphone, where the main criterion is minimizing energy use. In his doctoral thesis Van de Burgwal shows that major gains can also be made here by using new methods of communication between the different processors. The multi-processor chip that he uses is based on the Montium processor - appropriately named after a chameleon - that was developed at the University of Twente. The processor is being further developed and marketed by the spinoff business Recore Systems.

The Moon is a family of versatile, low power digital radio/TV receiver chips based on our state-of-the-art reconfigurable Montium® DSP core. Moon natively demodulates any combination of DAB, DAB+, DMB and FM and decodes and plays digital audio/video content. Based on the Moon, module manufacturers can quickly build a complete, cost-effective radio/TV module with a low bill of materials (BOM) in a range of designs from a standard radio to a high-end TV.

 

[a_majoor]

Help is on the way for replacement organs:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/10/miniature-livers-grown-in-lab-using.html#more

Miniature livers 'grown in lab' using stem cells

Scientists have managed to produce a small-scale version of a human liver in the laboratory using stem cells. They are the first to use human liver cells to successfully engineer miniature livers that function – at least in a laboratory setting – like human livers. The next step is to see if the livers will continue to function after transplantation in an animal model.

The engineered livers, which are about an inch in diameter and weigh about .20 ounces, would have to weigh about one pound to meet the minimum needs of the human body, said the scientists. Even at this larger size, the organs wouldn’t be as large as human livers, but would likely provide enough function. Research has shown that human livers functioning at 30 percent of capacity are able to sustain the human body

    To engineer the organs, the scientists used animal livers that were treated with a mild detergent to remove all cells (a process called decellularization), leaving only the collagen “skeleton” or support structure. They then replaced the original cells with two types of human cells: immature liver cells known as progenitors, and endothelial cells that line blood vessels.

    The cells were introduced into the liver skeleton through a large vessel that feeds a system of smaller vessels in the liver. This network of vessels remains intact after the decellularization process. The liver was next placed in a bioreactor, special equipment that provides a constant flow of nutrients and oxygen throughout the organ.

    After a week in the bioreactor system, the scientists documented the progressive formation of human liver tissue, as well as liver-associated function. They observed widespread cell growth inside the bioengineered organ.

    The ability to engineer a liver with animal cells had been demonstrated previously. However, the possibility of generating a functional human liver was still in question.

    The researchers said the current study suggests a new approach to whole-organ bioengineering that might prove to be critical not only for treating liver disease, but for growing organs such as the kidney and pancreas. Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are working on these projects, as well as many other tissues and organs, and also working to develop cell therapies to restore organ function.

    Bioengineered livers could also be useful for evaluating the safety of new drugs. “This would more closely mimic drug metabolism in the human liver, something that can be difficult to reproduce in animal models," said Baptista.

    Co-researchers were Dipen Vyas, B.Pharm., M.S., Zhan Wang, M.D., Ph.D. and Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the institute.

 

[a_majoor]

More bandwidth. Military communications satellites will probably be built along these lines to provide data trunks:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/11/us-satellite-carrying-biggest.html#more

US satellite carrying the biggest commercial antenna reflector will support 4G for smartphones

BBC News reports the launch of a new 4G communication satellite. The mesh structure on the Skyterra-1 spacecraft is 22m (72ft) across. It will relay signals for a new 4G-LTE mobile phone and data system for North America run by Lightsquared. Callers whose networks are tied into the system will be automatically switched to a satellite if they are out of range of a terrestrial mast.

Two previous ventures ran into financial problems. Both Terrestar and DBSD North America had to seek legal protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules while they sought to restructure enormous debts built up as they rolled out their systems. LightSquared has promised a different approach. It says its business will be wholesale only. It will be selling capacity to carriers who wish to offer go-anywhere connectivity to their consumers, be they phone or data users

Boeing has more information.

    When operational, SkyTerra 1 will combine with ground-based beam-forming (GBBF) equipment and ground stations to form LightSquared’s first Space-Based Network (SBN), which will enable faster service and broader access to smaller mobile devices for millions of users in the United States. The Boeing-built SBN will benefit from the satellite's 22-meter L-band reflector, which reduces the need for larger antennas and battery-draining receivers inside mobile handsets.

    LightSquared's SBN will combine with a ground network of more than 40,000 base stations built to offer ground coverage, satellite coverage or a combination of the two. LightSquared plans to begin rolling out its nationwide wholesale 4G LTE wireless network in the first four markets in the second half of 2011.

    LightSquared's ground network of terrestrial stations in place is to serve 90% of the US population by the end of 2015.

    The 22m-antenna on Skyterra-1 should be deployed by the end of the month. A second satellite, Skyterra-2, will follow in 2011.
[/quote]

 

[a_majoor]

Molecular computing devices (catchy name) would be orders of magnitude smaller and less power hungry than current devices. Radios, sights, tablet computers, fire control systems and so on will pretty much vanish from sight, being "painted" on the back of a mirror or a solid substrate, and only needing power from a very small battery:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/11/singapore-and-eu-working-to-create.html

Technical details of the molecular chip project funded by Singapore and the EU

A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) partners 10 EU research organisations to work on the groundbreaking €10 million ATMOL project that lays the foundation for creating and testing a molecular-sized processor chip. They are pursuing Planar multiple interconnect Atom Technology.

    A*STAR’s IMRE and 10 EU research organisations are working together to build what is essentially a single molecule processor chip. As a comparison, a thousand of such molecular chips could fit into one of today’s microchips, the core device that determines computational speed. The ambitious project, termed Atomic Scale and Single Molecule Logic Gate Technologies (ATMOL), will establish a new process for making a complete molecular chip. This means that computing power can be increased significantly but take up only a small fraction of the space that is required by today’s standards.

    The fabrication process involves the use of three unique ultra high vacuum (UHV) atomic scale interconnection machines which build the chip atom-by-atom. These machines physically move atoms into place one at a time at cryogenic temperatures. One of these machines is located in A*STAR’s IMRE.


It seems like this is building off of the work of the Picoinside project Christian Joachim has had an EU project since 2005, to create an Atomic Scale Technology. It is now a necessity for any uni-molecular device and machine in molecular electronics, molecular mechanics, molecular transducers and for laboratory scale experiments on one molecule.

12 page conclusion of the Pico Inside roadmap report




    There are 3 ways of designing a logic gate at the atomic scale:

    (1) The use of surface missing atom to fabricate an atomic scale circuit mimicking the topology of a macroscopic electronic circuit. Those surfaces are generally
    passivated semi-conductor surface with a relatively large gap. Atoms are extracted one at a time to create a specific surface electronic structure in the electronic surface gap. This new electronic structure will form the surface atomic circuit. The STM vertical manipulation of the single surface atoms can be automated and
    proceed in parallel.

    (2) The full molecule, instead of the surface can be the electronic circuit. In this case,it is the π system of such an extended molecule which will define the circuit and the σ skeleton will ensure the full chemical stability of the molecular architecture. Such a molecule will have to be directly chemisorbed to the required number of nanometallic pads or in a very dedicated approach to surface atomic wires more able to interact with specific part of the π molecular orbitals.

    (3) Molecular orbitals (from a large molecule or defined from a specific surface atomic circuit) can be manipulated by chemically bonding on the π conjugated computing board specific chemical groups able to shift the corresponding molecular states. Switchable lateral group can be very active playing donor or acceptor group to modify very locally the nodes distribution of a give molecular orbital. Such an effect can be used to design single molecule logic gate without forcing the molecule to have the topology of an electrical circuit.

    Solutions (1) and (2) have been proposed long ago but are not very compatible with the quantum level where those atom circuits or molecule logic gate are supposed to work. For solution (3), a quantum Hamiltonian design of AND, NOR and even halfas
    adder logic gates have been designed followed by proposal of chemical structure functioning on the manipulation of molecular orbitals


    “The UHV interconnection machine at IMRE is the only one in the entire project that can study the performance of a single molecule logic gate and surface atom circuit logic gate at the moment”, added Prof Joachim, who is the Head of Molecular Nanoscience and Picotechnology at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and a Visiting Investigator at IMRE. Prof Joachim’s team in IMRE is one of the pioneers in atom technology, having built the world’s first controllable molecular gear.



    The first mono-molecular nanoICT Working Group seminar (Dec, 2008) was the occasion to cluster in a very Cartesian way all the 4 major issues under grounded in the monomolecular approach of molecular electronics which were worked out during the 42 month of the Pico-Inside project. In all areas of technology, the construction of a complex system by assembling elementary pieces or devices leads to a Moore’s law like trend when analyzing the complexity growth of the system per year, a trend which appears threatened in the near future for microelectronics. The mono-molecular approach of molecular electronics with its compulsory atomic scale technology offers way to push past possible limitations in miniaturization, and to gain further increases in computing power by orders of magnitude by relying of a full development of an atom or molecule based technology for both electronics and machines. To reach this stage, each of the 4 issues illustrated in this concluding paper will require a specific discussion and more than that a specific research and technological development program.

    Meeting the atom technology challenge for ICTs requires new understanding in four now well identified fields of science and technology:

    1. Learning the kinds of architectures for molecule-machines (or atom surface
    circuits) which will permit to perform for example complex logic operations stabilized at the surface of a solid where the required interconnection will be constructed.

    2. Creating a surface multi-pads interconnection technology with a picometer
    precision, respecting the atomic order of the surface which is supporting the nano-system assemblage.

    3. Cultivating molecular surface science accompanied with molecule synthesis (respectively atom by atom UHV-STM fabrication on a surface).

    4. Creating a packaging technology able to protect a functioning atom-technologybased machine, while at the same time insuring its portability.

 

[a_majoor]

Lots of interesting new developments. Here is a system which claims to use far less energy than a ROWPU, but is also suited for large scale water purification. (I had posted on a far different system a while ago, but no longer remember the thread. That system was also efficient but did not seem to be as scalable):

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/12/forward-osmosis-could-make-water.html#more

Forward Osmosis could make water desalination cheaper and more energy efficient

MIT Technology Review - The Oasys forward osmosis desalination system requires just one-tenth as much electricity as a reverse-osmosis system because water doesn't have to be forced through a membrane at high pressure. That's a crucial source of savings, since electricity can account for nearly half the cost of reverse-osmosis technology. Not working with pressurized water also decreases the cost of building the plant—there is no need for expensive pipes that can withstand high pressures. The combination of lower power consumption and cheaper equipment results in lower overall costs.

Oasys Water has been demonstrating commercial-scale components of its system in recent months, plans to begin testing a complete system early next year and to start selling the systems by the end of 2011.

The system uses far less energy than thermal desalination because the draw solution has to be heated only to 40 to 50 °C, McGinnis says, whereas thermal systems heat water to 70 to 100 °C. These low temperatures can be achieved using waste heat from power plants. Thermal-desalination plants are often located at power plants now, but it takes extra fuel to generate enough heat for them. The new system, on the other hand, could run on heat that otherwise would have been released into the atmosphere.

Currently, desalination is done mainly in one of two ways: water is either heated until it evaporates (called a thermal process) or forced through a membrane that allows water molecules but not salt ions to pass (known as reverse osmosis). Oasys's method uses a combination of ordinary (or forward) osmosis and heat to turn sea water into drinking water.

On one side of a membrane is sea water; on the other is a solution containing high concentrations of carbon dioxide and ammonia. Water naturally moves toward this more concentrated "draw" solution, and the membrane blocks salt and other impurities as it does so. The resulting mixture is then heated, causing the carbon dioxide and ammonia to evaporate. Fresh water is left behind, and the ammonia and carbon dioxide are captured and reused.

Oasys says the technology could make desalination economically attractive not only in arid regions where there are no alternatives to desalination, but also in places where fresh water must be transported long distances.

* The cost will be low enough to make aqueduct and dam projects look expensive in comparison.

* The fuel consumption and carbon emissions will be lower than those of almost any other water source besides a local lake or aquifer.

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/21934/?mod=related

A Low-Energy Water Purifier

A Yale spinoff hopes to solve the big problem with desalination.

    * Thursday, January 8, 2009
    * By Lee Bruno

Access to clean water is severely limited in many parts of the world, and while desalination plants can separate freshwater from sea and brackish water, they typically require large amounts of electricity or heat to do so. This has prevented desalination from being economically viable in many poorer cities and countries.

A Yale University spinoff called Oasys is driving one effort to change all this. Professor Menachem Elimelech and graduate students Robert McGinnis and Jeffrey McCutcheon have developed a novel desalination device that reduces the energy needed to purify water to one-tenth of that required by conventional systems.

In many parts of the world, freshwater supplies are strained due to population growth and increasing agricultural, industrial, commercial, and domestic demand. Goldman Sachs estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, and in 2008, the total worldwide water market was worth $522 billion, according to the analyst firm Lux Research.

The most common approach to desalination is currently reverse osmosis, and the market for this technology is expected to grow at a rate of 10 percent per year. Reverse osmosis involves forcing a solution through a semipermeable membrane using hydraulic pressure or thermal evaporation. The energy required to do this has spawned new thinking and innovation on lower-energy purification technologies. "The primary driver behind this technology is to get at the heart of the problem of energy cost," says Aaron Mandell, CEO of Oasys.
Advertisement

The company is using what it calls engineered osmosis. Unlike conventional desalination systems, the Oasys system establishes an osmotic pressure gradient instead of using pressure or heat to force water through a purifying membrane. The approach exploits the fact that water naturally flows from a dilute region to one that's more concentrated when the two solutions are separated by a semipermeable material, thereby saving the energy normally needed to drive the process.

In Oasys's system, a "draw solution" is added on one side of the membrane to extract clean water from dirty water. The solution used by Oasys is designed to have a high osmotic pressure and be easy to remove through heating.

"Forward osmosis is not a new technology, but trying to find the optimal draw solution to make it efficient and create the proper balance of ammonia and chlorine is critical," says Michael LoCascio, senior analyst with Lux Research.

The biggest challenge, according to Mandell, was identifying a concentrated solution that could be removed efficiently and entirely. Details of Oasys's draw solution are a company secret, but it uses ammonia and carbon-dioxide gases dissolved in water in specific proportions. Crucially, the solution can be reused after being removed from clean water, and the membrane required is also nearly identical to those already used in reverse osmosis. While other companies are doing forward osmosis, Oasys claims that its draw solution makes its technology much more efficient.

Reverse osmosis currently produces water at a cost of about $0.68 to $0.90 per cubic meter. Oasys estimates that engineered osmosis will cost just $0.37 to $0.44 per cubic meter once fully scaled up. The startup has so far established a pilot-scale plant to test the technology by producing one cubic meter of water per day. Mandell says that it is raising venture financing that will be put toward scaling to around 1,000 to 10,000 cubic meters of water per day. However, this is still well below the scale of many commercial desalination plants.

Oasys says that the first market it will focus on will be wastewater reuse. The second will be reprocessing wastewater produced by the oil and gas industries. Instead of having to pay to haul this water away, companies would treat it on-site using the Oasys system.

edit to add link

 

[a_majoor]

And back to soldier gear:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/23/darpa_computational_cameras/

DARPA working on eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head hat
'Full Sphere Awareness' to use software mini-cameras
By Lewis Page

Posted in Developer, 23rd December 2010 13:01 GMT

Maverick Pentagon boffins have decided to build a miraculous gadget – perhaps as small and lightweight as a pair of sunglasses – which will endow the user with zoom vision, various forms of nightsight, and act as a heads-up display besides. Perhaps best of all, the proposed kit would also offer "full sphere awareness" – that is, eyes in the back of your head.

All this is to be achieved, according to the specifications for the new project, by the use of "computational cameras". These are a radical new approach to camera design, which will shift much of the burden of forming images – which is handled optically in today's cameras – into software.


According to the Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras (SCENICC) project documents:

The task of image formation may be more equitably shared among the optical and electronic/algorithmic elements of the camera system. The computational imaging paradigm seeks to exploit this realization in order to gain access to an entirely new region of camera design space.
The military researchers' ultimate goal is a miracle lightweight device which would provide all-around spherical vision out to 1km in high resolution and at a high framerate across the visual spectrum and well into the infrared bands used by thermal imagers and nightsights. However they might be willing to accept as a first step kit which merely improves hugely on that now on offer.

As an example, they give the current US issue M-22 binoculars, which are bulky, heavy and offer limited field-of-view and only 7x magnification. They say:

A preferred solution would operate hands-free, provide similar or better magnification on-demand, while providing FOV equal to that of the unaided eye, and incur [size, weight and power] cost comparable to that of current protective eyewear.

The miracle binocular-specs are referred to later on as Hands Free Zoom, which "aims to provide switchable stereoscopic telephoto vision in a compact form factor". It will be joined by Computer Enhanced Vision, which will allow a user to use any combination of ordinary vision, nightsight or thermal imagery and overlay this with weapon gunsights or other information. Finally, the SCENICC kit is to offer Full Sphere Awareness "providing automatic threat detection and cueing along with cross platform integration of novel visual information".

The radical new Computational Camera equipment – which will achieve all this without making a soldier's helmet too heavy to wear – will be much less optical and much more software driven. There are to be "soldier-specific software agents", "task-specific and/or adaptive processing", "optimal allocation of algorithmic functionality between focal plane and traditional computational resources", and "low power multi-core computation suitable for portable imaging applications".

As ever with this type of story, one should note that the funding agency is DARPA and thus chances of full success are small – DARPA's mission is to undertake high-risk projects. The famously extramurally-prandial* government boffins probably won't succeed in building their miracle eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head hat or headset; but one does note that DARPA was instrumental in producing the first ordinary night-vision kit. They may be similarly successful here.

The full SCENICC solicitation is here in pdf [1]. ®

*Out to lunch

Links
https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=9ea25216fa7c951e0c30ac01221d4cbb

I can sort of visualize a series of lenses spaced around a helmet feeding into a set of goggles which is the display (the real heavy lifting is the stuff between the lenses and the display). It will be interesting to see how this works out.