US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from human movements.
The adapted knee brace, outlined in the journal Science, can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from one minute of walking.
The first people to benefit could be amputees who are being fitted with increasingly sophisticated prosthetics.
"All of the new developments in prosthetics require large power budgets," Dr Douglas Weber of the University of Pittsburgh, and one of the authors of the paper, told BBC News.
"You need power to run your neural interface; you need it to run your powered joint, and so on.
"Getting that power is going to be really important."
Walk and talk
The new device generates power by a process known as "generative braking", analogous to the braking systems found in hybrid-electric cars such as the Toyota Prius.
 |
"Walking is a lot like stop-and-go driving," explained Dr Max Donelan of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, lead author of the paper.
"Within each stride muscles are continuously accelerating and decelerating the body.
Hybrid electric cars take advantage of stop-and-go driving using so-called "regenerative braking" where the energy normally dissipated as heat is used to drive a generator.
"We have essentially applied the same principle to walking."
Using a series of gears, the knee brace assists the hamstring in slowing the body just before the foot hits the ground, whilst simultaneously generating electricity.
Sensors on the device switch the generator off for the remainder of each step.
In this way, the device puts less strain on the wearer than if it was constantly producing energy.
Tests of the 1.6kg device produced an average of 5 watts of electricity from a slow walk.
"We also explored ways of generating more electricity and found that we can get as much as 13 watts from walking," said Dr Donelan.
"13 watts is enough to power about 30 minutes of talk time on a typical mobile phone from just one minute of walking."
However, to generate this amount of power the generator had to be constantly switched on, which required more effort from the wearer.
Battery pack
The knee brace is the latest development in a field known as "energy harvesting".
 The technology could be used to make "smart prosthetics" |
"I think the early adopters will be people whose lives depend on portable power," he told BBC News.
"On the medical front, portable power is used by those who have amputated limbs to charge their powered prosthetic limbs," he said.
However, Dr Art Kuo at the University of Michigan does not believe it will be simply a case of strapping the device on to an existing prosthetic.
"It would probably involve building a new [prosthetic] knee that uses some existing ideas and then also tries to harvest energy using these principles," he said.
The team also hope the device could be useful for people who have suffered a stroke or spinal cord injury who wear an "exoskeleton" to help them move.
"The current and future emphasis is on powered exoskeletons," said Dr Donelan.
Soldiers may also benefit from wearing the knee brace to power the multitude of devices they now carry ,such as night vision goggles and GPS.
"They treat batteries like they treat food and water - they are so essential to what they do," he said.
Dr Donelan has now set up a spin-out company to exploit the technology and believes it will eventually be possible to develop a small device that can be fitted internally across different joints.
However, in the short term he has his sights set on a light weight, slim-line version of the knee brace.
"That's about 18 months away, so it's not science fiction far in the future stuff," he said.Can we fix it? Yes! Role of the insiders The week ahead
Labels: relatively , technology , University
Graphics chips rev up research results
Saturday, December 1, 2007
 A better graphics card means PC games look more realistic |
Every serious PC gamer knows what a difference a good graphics card can make to the fun they have.
But it is not just hardcore gamers who have recognised the worth of a PC graphics card.
Increasing numbers of research scientists have woken up to their potential too.
But the scientists in question are not using the cards to appreciate the detail in PC games such as The Witcher. Instead they are using them as cheap sources of supercomputer-class processing power.
"They give a phenomenal bang for the buck," said Mike Giles, professor of scientific computing at the University of Oxford.
Prof Giles said the way that graphics cards were built made them very good at the repetitive computational tasks many scientists use to test theories, models and predictions.
Spot checks
Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.
Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.
 Women want scan results as quickly as possible |
Dr Hagness' team is using microwaves to scan tissue and then pumping the results through hardware made by Canadian firm Acceleware which bolts together several graphics cards into a mini computational cluster.
The dedicated hardware meant that results emerged in a matter of hours rather than days, said Dr Hagness.
This was essential when the technique began to be used in a clinical setting, she said.
"Any woman who undergoes screening mammography wants the results straight away."
Hardware helper
Prof Giles, who is using graphics processors to do financial modelling, said the chips were very good at doing the same thing many different times.
By contrast the Intel or AMD chips inside a typical desktop machine were good at doing many different things at the same time.
Graphics cards had far more processing cores - which execute program instructions - than Intel or AMD chips, said Prof Giles, adding that each one of the cores could do one run of the same simple task.
The financial models that Prof Giles is running test the same algorithm on each core but each one gets different random numbers as input.
With the latest graphics processors having more than 100 processing cores that can add up to a lot of number crunching.
 Modelling financial markets helps firms weather stock movements |
"Each core is logically very simple but its floating point capability is the same as an Intel chip," said Prof Giles.
Developments in methods of writing code to handle the processing was also making graphics processors much more attractive, he said.
"In the early days you could only use graphics cards for graphics," said Prof Giles.
In particular, he said, graphics card maker Nvidia had released software tools called Cuda (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that made it much easier to write code.
"For a while there were only hard-to-use shader languages," said Prof Giles, "Cuda is a much more usable development environment."
Flow control
By harnessing that processing power many scientists are getting results from simulations far faster than before.
PhD student Tobias Brandvik and Dr Graham Pullan in the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge engineering department had sped up simulations of turbine blade designs by 40 times by using a few graphics cards.
Each blade, said Dr Pullan, was custom designed for the jet or power plant in which they will be used.
 Tiny improvements in efficiency have big rewards in turbine engines |
But, he said, even with this formidable level of complexity the design process models the turbulent air rather than accurately representing or resolving it.
"With a cluster of graphical processing units, we could hope to use, say, 10 million cells," he said. The simulation run would take the same amount of time as existing models.
"Then, we would resolve some of the larger turbulent eddies," said Dr Pullan. "In general, the more we resolve and the less we model, the more accurate the theory."
An alternative would be to stick with 500,000 cells and try lots more blade designs or include blades upstream and downstream to get a better overall picture of air flowing through a turbine.
Tiny improvements in design can have a huge payoff, said Dr Pullan.
"It's all about making the absolute best efficiency possible," he said.
"Improvements of even 1% in fuel consumption, for jet engines, or 1% in electricity power generated, for steam or gas turbines for power generation, is highly sought after."Damming concern Science icon Bitter memories
Labels: processing , processors , scientists , software , technology , University
Graphics chips rev up research results
Friday, November 23, 2007
| A better graphics card means PC games look more realistic |
Every serious PC gamer knows what a difference a good graphics card can make to the fun they have.
But it is not just hardcore gamers who have recognised the worth of a PC graphics card.
Increasing numbers of research scientists have woken up to their potential too.
But the scientists in question are not using the cards to appreciate the detail in PC games such as The Witcher. Instead they are using them as cheap sources of supercomputer-class processing power.
"They give a phenomenal bang for the buck," said Mike Giles, professor of scientific computing at the University of Oxford.
Prof Giles said the way that graphics cards were built made them very good at the repetitive computational tasks many scientists use to test theories, models and predictions.
Spot checks
Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.
Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.
| Women want scan results as quickly as possible |
Dr Hagness' team is using microwaves to scan tissue and then pumping the results through hardware made by Canadian firm Acceleware which bolts together several graphics cards into a mini computational cluster.
The dedicated hardware meant that results emerged in a matter of hours rather than days, said Dr Hagness.
This was essential when the technique began to be used in a clinical setting, she said.
"Any woman who undergoes screening mammography wants the results straight away."
Hardware helper
Prof Giles, who is using graphics processors to do financial modelling, said the chips were very good at doing the same thing many different times.
By contrast the Intel or AMD chips inside a typical desktop machine were good at doing many different things at the same time.
Graphics cards had far more processing cores - which execute program instructions - than Intel or AMD chips, said Prof Giles, adding that each one of the cores could do one run of the same simple task.
The financial models that Prof Giles is running test the same algorithm on each core but each one gets different random numbers as input.
With the latest graphics processors having more than 100 processing cores that can add up to a lot of number crunching.
| Modelling financial markets helps firms weather stock movements |
"Each core is logically very simple but its floating point capability is the same as an Intel chip," said Prof Giles.
Developments in methods of writing code to handle the processing was also making graphics processors much more attractive, he said.
"In the early days you could only use graphics cards for graphics," said Prof Giles.
In particular, he said, graphics card maker Nvidia had released software tools called Cuda (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that made it much easier to write code.
"For a while there were only hard-to-use shader languages," said Prof Giles, "Cuda is a much more usable development environment."
Flow control
By harnessing that processing power many scientists are getting results from simulations far faster than before.
PhD student Tobias Brandvik and Dr Graham Pullan in the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge engineering department had sped up simulations of turbine blade designs by 40 times by using a few graphics cards.
Each blade, said Dr Pullan, was custom designed for the jet or power plant in which they will be used.
| Tiny improvements in efficiency have big rewards in turbine engines |
But, he said, even with this formidable level of complexity the design process models the turbulent air rather than accurately representing or resolving it.
"With a cluster of graphical processing units, we could hope to use, say, 10 million cells," he said. The simulation run would take the same amount of time as existing models.
"Then, we would resolve some of the larger turbulent eddies," said Dr Pullan. "In general, the more we resolve and the less we model, the more accurate the theory."
An alternative would be to stick with 500,000 cells and try lots more blade designs or include blades upstream and downstream to get a better overall picture of air flowing through a turbine.
Tiny improvements in design can have a huge payoff, said Dr Pullan.
"It's all about making the absolute best efficiency possible," he said.
"Improvements of even 1% in fuel consumption, for jet engines, or 1% in electricity power generated, for steam or gas turbines for power generation, is highly sought after."Luxury living Day in pictures It's quiz time!
Labels: processing , processors , scientists , software , technology , University
Graphics chips rev up research results
Friday, November 16, 2007
| A better graphics card means PC games look more realistic |
Every serious PC gamer knows what a difference a good graphics card can make to the fun they have.
But it is not just hardcore gamers who have recognised the worth of a PC graphics card.
Increasing numbers of research scientists have woken up to their potential too.
But the scientists in question are not using the cards to appreciate the detail in PC games such as The Witcher. Instead they are using them as cheap sources of supercomputer-class processing power.
"They give a phenomenal bang for the buck," said Mike Giles, professor of scientific computing at the University of Oxford.
Prof Giles said the way that graphics cards were built made them very good at the repetitive computational tasks many scientists use to test theories, models and predictions.
Spot checks
Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.
Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.
| Women want scan results as quickly as possible |
Dr Hagness' team is using microwaves to scan tissue and then pumping the results through hardware made by Canadian firm Acceleware which bolts together several graphics cards into a mini computational cluster.
The dedicated hardware meant that results emerged in a matter of hours rather than days, said Dr Hagness.
This was essential when the technique began to be used in a clinical setting, she said.
"Any woman who undergoes screening mammography wants the results straight away."
Hardware helper
Prof Giles, who is using graphics processors to do financial modelling, said the chips were very good at doing the same thing many different times.
By contrast the Intel or AMD chips inside a typical desktop machine were good at doing many different things at the same time.
Graphics cards had far more processing cores - which execute program instructions - than Intel or AMD chips, said Prof Giles, adding that each one of the cores could do one run of the same simple task.
The financial models that Prof Giles is running test the same algorithm on each core but each one gets different random numbers as input.
With the latest graphics processors having more than 100 processing cores that can add up to a lot of number crunching.
| Modelling financial markets helps firms weather stock movements |
"Each core is logically very simple but its floating point capability is the same as an Intel chip," said Prof Giles.
Developments in methods of writing code to handle the processing was also making graphics processors much more attractive, he said.
"In the early days you could only use graphics cards for graphics," said Prof Giles.
In particular, he said, graphics card maker Nvidia had released software tools called Cuda (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that made it much easier to write code.
"For a while there were only hard-to-use shader languages," said Prof Giles, "Cuda is a much more usable development environment."
Flow control
By harnessing that processing power many scientists are getting results from simulations far faster than before.
PhD student Tobias Brandvik and Dr Graham Pullan in the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge engineering department had sped up simulations of turbine blade designs by 40 times by using a few graphics cards.
Each blade, said Dr Pullan, was custom designed for the jet or power plant in which they will be used.
| Tiny improvements in efficiency have big rewards in turbine engines |
But, he said, even with this formidable level of complexity the design process models the turbulent air rather than accurately representing or resolving it.
"With a cluster of graphical processing units, we could hope to use, say, 10 million cells," he said. The simulation run would take the same amount of time as existing models.
"Then, we would resolve some of the larger turbulent eddies," said Dr Pullan. "In general, the more we resolve and the less we model, the more accurate the theory."
An alternative would be to stick with 500,000 cells and try lots more blade designs or include blades upstream and downstream to get a better overall picture of air flowing through a turbine.
Tiny improvements in design can have a huge payoff, said Dr Pullan.
"It's all about making the absolute best efficiency possible," he said.
"Improvements of even 1% in fuel consumption, for jet engines, or 1% in electricity power generated, for steam or gas turbines for power generation, is highly sought after."Day in pictures Russian viewpoints Entente cordiale?
Labels: processing , processors , scientists , software , technology , University
Graphics chips rev up research results
Friday, November 9, 2007
| A better graphics card means PC games look more realistic |
Every serious PC gamer knows what a difference a good graphics card can make to the fun they have.
But it is not just hardcore gamers who have recognised the worth of a PC graphics card.
Increasing numbers of research scientists have woken up to their potential too.
But the scientists in question are not using the cards to appreciate the detail in PC games such as The Witcher. Instead they are using them as cheap sources of supercomputer-class processing power.
"They give a phenomenal bang for the buck," said Mike Giles, professor of scientific computing at the University of Oxford.
Prof Giles said the way that graphics cards were built made them very good at the repetitive computational tasks many scientists use to test theories, models and predictions.
Spot checks
Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.
Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.
| Women want scan results as quickly as possible |
Dr Hagness' team is using microwaves to scan tissue and then pumping the results through hardware made by Canadian firm Acceleware which bolts together several graphics cards into a mini computational cluster.
The dedicated hardware meant that results emerged in a matter of hours rather than days, said Dr Hagness.
This was essential when the technique began to be used in a clinical setting, she said.
"Any woman who undergoes screening mammography wants the results straight away."
Hardware helper
Prof Giles, who is using graphics processors to do financial modelling, said the chips were very good at doing the same thing many different times.
By contrast the Intel or AMD chips inside a typical desktop machine were good at doing many different things at the same time.
Graphics cards had far more processing cores - which execute program instructions - than Intel or AMD chips, said Prof Giles, adding that each one of the cores could do one run of the same simple task.
The financial models that Prof Giles is running test the same algorithm on each core but each one gets different random numbers as input.
With the latest graphics processors having more than 100 processing cores that can add up to a lot of number crunching.
| Modelling financial markets helps firms weather stock movements |
"Each core is logically very simple but its floating point capability is the same as an Intel chip," said Prof Giles.
Developments in methods of writing code to handle the processing was also making graphics processors much more attractive, he said.
"In the early days you could only use graphics cards for graphics," said Prof Giles.
In particular, he said, graphics card maker Nvidia had released software tools called Cuda (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that made it much easier to write code.
"For a while there were only hard-to-use shader languages," said Prof Giles, "Cuda is a much more usable development environment."
Flow control
By harnessing that processing power many scientists are getting results from simulations far faster than before.
PhD student Tobias Brandvik and Dr Graham Pullan in the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge engineering department had sped up simulations of turbine blade designs by 40 times by using a few graphics cards.
Each blade, said Dr Pullan, was custom designed for the jet or power plant in which they will be used.
| Tiny improvements in efficiency have big rewards in turbine engines |
But, he said, even with this formidable level of complexity the design process models the turbulent air rather than accurately representing or resolving it.
"With a cluster of graphical processing units, we could hope to use, say, 10 million cells," he said. The simulation run would take the same amount of time as existing models.
"Then, we would resolve some of the larger turbulent eddies," said Dr Pullan. "In general, the more we resolve and the less we model, the more accurate the theory."
An alternative would be to stick with 500,000 cells and try lots more blade designs or include blades upstream and downstream to get a better overall picture of air flowing through a turbine.
Tiny improvements in design can have a huge payoff, said Dr Pullan.
"It's all about making the absolute best efficiency possible," he said.
"Improvements of even 1% in fuel consumption, for jet engines, or 1% in electricity power generated, for steam or gas turbines for power generation, is highly sought after."Street veteran Delhi's dilemma Crisis defused
Labels: processing , processors , scientists , software , technology , University
Green light for the new A380
Thursday, November 8, 2007
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Airbus' new A380 "superjumbo" hauled its gargantuan frame off the tarmac and into the skies this week and began its 7-hour maiden commercial flight from Changi Airport in Singapore to Sydney International Airport in Australia.
The Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 lands safely in Sydney to complete its maiden commercial flight.
Measuring 73 meters long, 80 meters wide and 24 meters tall, it is the largest commercial airliner in the world, and will carry a maximum of 555 passengers in the standard three class configuration -- first, business and economy.
Undoubtedly the event is a major landmark in aviation history, but does the A380's entry into service mark the beginning of a new cleaner era in air travel? Or is it the final call for the jumbo jet as environmental concerns compel the manufacturers to totally rethink the efficiency and design of air transport?
The airline industry has changed radically in the 13 years it has taken the A380 to get from drawing board to runway. Consumers have seen the price of a flight plummet, and consequently more people are flying than ever before -- passenger numbers have been rising at a steady 5 percent a year since the late 1990's.
So too are the environmental costs of flying -- air travel currently accounts for 12 percent of transport carbon emissions and around 2 percent of all global carbon emissions.
The trend looks set to continue as passenger numbers are expected to triple by 2030. So just how green is the world's newest and biggest passenger plane?
Airbus state on their website that the A380 "burns 17 percent less fuel per seat than today's largest aircraft", and that this represents "the most significant step forward in reducing aircraft fuel burn and resultant emissions in four decades. The CO2 footprint per passenger has never been so small".
The fuel-burn figures are slightly misleading though. Quoted as 2.9 liters of fuel per passenger per 100 kilometer, the calculations are based on the plane having a full house of 555 passengers and don't include the weight of luggage or any cargo which might be on board.
However, noise levels on take-off and landing are unquestionably lower. Based on an internationally defined takeoff and landing procedure, the A380 is also at least four decibels quieter than the Boeing 747-400. This equates to an impressive 50 percent decrease.
And the prospect remains that if enough A380's enter service -- so far only 185 have been purchased by 15 airlines -- its large capacity could reduce or stabilize the growing number of flights, helping to stem the airline industries contribution to carbon dioxide emissions.
Boeing -- who were initially involved in the A380 project in 1994 -- say that their new 787 Dreamliner, which is scheduled to begin commercial flights in 2009, will burn 20 percent less fuel than any other airplane of its size.
Not only are airline manufacturers keen to display their greener credentials, so too are their customers, the airline carriers.
In June this year, one of Europe's largest low-fare airlines Easyjet unveiled a new prototype plane which they say could slash carbon emissions by half. The "Ecojet", as they have dubbed it, is planned to be operational by 2015 and would produce 50 percent less carbon dioxide than planes flying today.
The basic shape of their existing Boeing and Airbus fleet will not change, but will be modified. Open rotor engines situated at the rear of the plane will produce 25 percent less carbon dioxide per passenger.
According to Easyjet, a further 15 percent reduction will be realized by constructing the wings and fuselage out of a lighter aluminum composite material. Another 10 percent will be saved by reducing the flying speed of the adapted aircraft.
Virgin Atlantic boss, Sir Richard Branson announced last year that he would be investing $3 billion in renewable energy technologies through a new business venture Virgin Fuels.
Earlier this month, the 57 year-old entrepreneur announced that he would start testing biofuels in one of Virgin's 747 jets in early 2008.
Whether or not the current efforts of Virgin and Easyjet prove to be environmentally beneficial in the long-term, there is little doubt that making potential customers aware of their commitment to improving the environment make sound commercial sense in the short-term.
What isn't in dispute is that the conventional shape of the world's airlines is a highly successful model. Since they were introduced in the 1960's jets have improved their performance by 70 percent, according to the Nobel Peace Prize winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
According to Dr. Thurai Rahulan from the University of Salford, UK: "The tube and wing design is proving to be extremely difficult to beat," he told CNN.
Dr. Rahulan is someone who knows a thing or two about aeronautical engineering. He has recently supervised a team from University of Salford who designed a new energy efficient plane -- called the "flying wing". What's more he was involved in the design and construction of the Airbus A380's enormous wings.
Dr. Rahulan began his involvement with the A380 in 2001 and worked on the structural stress reduction system. He believes that the A380 is "an incredibly efficient form of transport".
But it is his most recent project that has the potential to make an even greater environmental leap forward.
"One of the things I was looking at with the flying wing," Dr. Rahulan said, "Was to see if it was possible to compress the fuselage and blend it into the wing itself."
The flying wing -- which performed well as a remote-controlled model in tests -- owes its efficiency to the fact that it has no fuselage and therefore a smaller area is exposed to drag from the wind.
"As the design begins to mature we seem to be homing in on a 150-seat configuration. But there are a lot of issues to be addressed. How will passengers be accommodated in such a configuration?
"Secondly, the pressurization. We understand a lot about the traditionally designed aircraft but when you have a blended wing, you have a lot of compartments consisting of strange geometries," he said.
Another problem Dr. Rahulan predicts is the evacuation of passengers in an emergency. "One of the good things about a fuselage is that you have plenty of escape routes down the side of the plane," he said.
Although take-off capability in the flying wing is compromised, due to poor rotation, Dr. Rahulan said, "It has enormous potential for the way people travel. Current aircraft design is pushing the limits of efficiency. The flying wing offers the prospect of a greener future in air travel."
NASA scientists and Boeing have also been working on a design similar to that made by the University of Salford. The blended wing body (BWB) X-48 model, which has engines located at the top rear of the plane, has already passed wind-tunnel tests and in July this year the X48B took its first flight reaching altitudes of 7,500 feet.
Environmental fears are inspiring engineers to come up with increasingly bold aircraft designs. UK based Reaction Engines Limited are working on what might just be the future of air travel.
The Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies (LAPCAT) is a stunning futuristic design powered by liquid hydrogen fuel. Traveling at speeds between Mach 4 and 8, a flight from London to Sydney could be reduced to four hours.
The need for urgent action on climate change was highlighted yet again this week as a new study suggests that global warming will be "stronger than expected and sooner than expected". New data shows that carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than was previously thought.
Scientists put this acceleration down to two factors -- the explosion in Chinese economic growth and a reduction in pollution that's being soaked up by the world's land and oceans.
The upshot is that human carbon emissions will have to be cut more sharply than previously thought and air travel -- a serious and serial offender in the eyes of environmentalists -- looks likely to be in the firing line for the foreseeable future.
Labels: commercial , environmental , NASA , passengers , technology , University
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