NASA Made an Autonomous Car Too, and it Makes Google’s Look Dull

As reported by SlashGear: Auto makers the world over are scrambling to create cars that can drive themselves, but they're not the only ones interested in such technology. NASA has set its sights on the technology, something we've heard bits and pieces about in the past. Today the space agency decided to show the fruits of its labor, however, posting a video on its YouTube account of the finished product. It is called the Modular Robotic Vehicle, MRV for short, and it can -- among other things -- drive itself when needed.

The car is about the size of a golf cart, and it has many features, not the least of which is both remote and autonomous control — you can see an example of the remote control feature in the video below, where the driver moves over to the passenger seat and is taken for a ride.

The vehicle itself is electric and powered by batteries, and it includes a full drive-by-wire system, as well as redundant fail-operational architecture, and most interestingly, all four of its wheels are independent modules, able to rotate in such ways that the car can out maneuver any average road vehicle.

According to NASA, the MRV shown above has a top speed of 40MPH, but it is currently computer limited to only 15MPH, likely for safety reasons. The curb weight is 2000lbs, and it measures in at 7ft. x 5ft. The propulsion motors in the wheels are cooled with liquid, meanwhile. The MRV was made at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

A highly redundant version with 12 wheels, active suspension, and agile steering.

Amazon Gets Green Light from U.S. Regulators for New Drone Tests

As reported by Reuters:  Amazon.com Inc has won approval from U.S. federal regulators to test a delivery drone outdoors, less than a month after the e-commerce powerhouse blasted regulators for being slow to approve commercial drone testing.

The Federal Aviation Administration had earlier given the green light to an Amazon prototype drone in March, but the company told U.S. lawmakers less than a week later that the prototype had already become obsolete while it waited more than six months for the agency's permission.  

The FAA granted Amazon's request to test delivery drones in a letter dated Wednesday, posted on the agency's website.

Amazon must keep flights at an altitude of no more than 400 feet (120 meters) and no faster than 100 miles per hour (160 km per hour), according to the letter.

Seattle-based Amazon.com has been pursuing its goal of sending packages to customers by air, using small, self-piloted aircraft, even as it faces public concern about safety and privacy.  

The company wants to use drones to deliver packages to its customers over distances of 10 miles (16 km) or more, which would require drones to travel autonomously while equipped with technology to avoid collisions with other aircraft.
  

In February, the FAA proposed long-awaited rules to try to set U.S. guidelines for drones, addressing growing interest from both individual and corporations in using unmanned aerial vehicles.

Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

SpaceX Launch Today: Space Station Supplies and Another Booster Landing Attempt

As reported by Slate: SpaceX is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket today (now rescheduled for Tuesday 04/14/2015) at 20:33 UTC (4:33 p.m. Eastern) from Florida. The primary goal: Send a Dragon capsule loaded with two tons of supplies to the International Space Station. The secondary one: Land the first stage booster on a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

First things first. If you want to watch the launch live, try the SpaceX webcast page, NASA’s Ustream channel, or NASA TV.

I suspect most people will be most interested in the booster landing attempt. The Falcon 9 rocket has two stages. Every kilo you send to orbit means you need fuel to lift it, so many rockets use staging to save fuel; the heavy bottom half is jettisoned at some point, carving a lot of weight off the rocket.

Usually the first stage is discarded; dropping into a watery grave in the ocean or burning up on re-entry. But SpaceX wants to save money by reusing that booster stage. The Falcon 9 booster saves just enough fuel to slow down after the initial launch (and the second stage is safely away). It then drops down, deploys fins on the bottom to help steer it, and—should all go well—lands vertically on a floating platform (technically, the autonomous spaceport drone ship; it has onboard computers that allow it to position itself under the returning booster automatically).

SpaceX tried this in January, with, um, less-than-perfect results. That was due to the fins running out of hydraulic fluid while the booster was still aloft, a shortcoming that has been corrected. This second attempt^* will hopefully go better. Mind you, in that first attempt the booster slowed and descended correctly, the barge positioned itself, and everything went right except for the one (catastrophic) problem. Fixing that should go a long way to a successful landing.

If it works, it will be the first time in history a booster will have been recovered in this way.

Let's hope that it goes better this time.

The main mission is to get a Dragon capsule to ISS. This mission, Commercial Resupply Service 6 (or just CRS-6), will deliver cargo and supplies to the crew on the station. One piece of hardware going up in the Dragon is the Arkyd 3 Reflight, a very small satellite by the company Planetary Resources that will test technology that will be used in future asteroid reconnaissance missions.

Right now, the weather for the afternoon is iffy. If the launch is scrubbed, a second attempt will be made Tuesday at 20:10 UTC (4:10 p.m. Eastern).

Incidentally, SpaceX recently released a bunch of super-hi-res footage of launches and landings from previous missions. It’s pretty cool. This should keep you sated until this next launch.

^*Kinda sorta second, that is; during a February launch the ocean was too rough to land on the barge, so SpaceX landed the booster vertically in the ocean. I consider that a practice run.

Aston Martin is Developing a Plug-in Hybrid and an Electric Vehicle

As reported by Engadget: If you've ever wanted to feel like a more eco-friendly Bond behind the wheel, then Aston Martin is about to make your dreams come true. The automaker has revealed at the New York Auto Show that it's working on both a plug-in and an electric vehicle. That plug-in is none other than the DBX crossover vehicle (pictured above) that we saw in early March as a full electric car. Unlike the concept showcased in Geneva, it will have four doors instead of two; plus, the automaker's still adjusting its overall dimensions to make it roomier inside. While it will debut as a plug-in, CEO Andy Palmer says that if the company proves electric works, then it "would be a nice place to go."

That means the EV currently under development is another model altogether, and according to Palmer, it's an electric version of Aston Martin's four-door, family-friendly Rapide S. The company has recently begun the technical study of a pure-electric Rapide, which it wants to equip with components that will give it a (whopping!) 1,000-horsepower capability. Palmer said the all-electric Rapide S will be available in two years' time, but he didn't mention when the plug-in DBX might come out. He did say that the hybrid will carry a price tag similar to a regular Rapide, so ready your bank accounts, because that's around $200,000. 

Electromagnetic Breakthrough: Scientists Design Antenna ‘on a Chip’

Anechoic test chamber.  University of Cambridge.

As reported by Phys.org: A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge have unraveled one of the mysteries of electromagnetism, which could enable the design of antennas small enough to be integrated into an electronic chip. These ultra-small antennas - the so-called 'last frontier' of semiconductor design - would be a massive leap forward for wireless communications.

WiFi antenna etched on a printed circuit board.

In new results published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers have proposed that electromagnetic waves are generated not only from the acceleration of electrons, but also from a phenomenon known as symmetry breaking. In addition to the implications for wireless communications, the discovery could help identify the points where theories of classical electromagnetism and quantum mechanics overlap.

The phenomenon of radiation due to electron acceleration, first identified more than a century ago, has no counterpart in quantum mechanics, where electrons are assumed to jump from higher to lower energy states. These new observations of radiation resulting from broken symmetry of the electric field may provide some link between the two fields.

Dipole antenna radiation pattern.

The purpose of any antenna, whether in a communications tower or a mobile phone, is to launch energy into free space in the form of electromagnetic or radio waves, and to collect energy from free space to feed into the device. One of the biggest problems in modern electronics, however, is that antennas are still quite big and incompatible with electronic circuits - which are ultra-small and getting smaller all the time.

"Antennas, or aerials, are one of the limiting factors when trying to make smaller and smaller systems, since below a certain size, the losses become too great," said Professor Gehan Amaratunga of Cambridge's Department of Engineering, who led the research. "An aerial's size is determined by the wavelength associated with the transmission frequency of the application, and in most cases it's a matter of finding a compromise between aerial size and the characteristics required for that application."

Another challenge with aerials is that certain physical variables associated with radiation of energy are not well understood. For example, there is still no well-defined mathematical model related to the operation of a practical aerial. Most of what we know about electromagnetic radiation comes from theories first proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century, which state that electromagnetic radiation is generated by accelerating electrons.

However, this theory becomes problematic when dealing with radio wave emission from a dielectric solid, a material which normally acts as an insulator, meaning that electrons are not free to move around. Despite this, dielectric resonators are already used as antennas in mobile phones, for example.

Dialectric patch antennas are already in use by GPS devices.

"In dielectric aerials, the medium has high permittivity, meaning that the velocity of the radio wave decreases as it enters the medium," said Dr Dhiraj Sinha, the paper's lead author. "What hasn't been known is how the dielectric medium results in emission of electromagnetic waves. This mystery has puzzled scientists and engineers for more than 60 years."

Working with researchers from the National Physical Laboratory and Cambridge-based dielectric antenna company Antenova Ltd, the Cambridge team used thin films of piezoelectric materials, a type of insulator which is deformed or vibrated when voltage is applied. They found that at a certain frequency, these materials become not only efficient resonators, but efficient radiators as well, meaning that they can be used as aerials.

The researchers determined that the reason for this phenomenon is due to symmetry breaking of the electric field associated with the electron acceleration. In physics, symmetry is an indication of a constant feature of a particular aspect in a given system. When electronic charges are not in motion, there is symmetry of the electric field.

Micro antenna

Symmetry breaking can also apply in cases such as a pair of parallel wires in which electrons can be accelerated by applying an oscillating electric field. "In aerials, the symmetry of the electric field is broken 'explicitly' which leads to a pattern of electric field lines radiating out from a transmitter, such as a two wire system in which the parallel geometry is 'broken'," said Sinha.

The researchers found that by subjecting the piezoelectric thin films to an asymmetric excitation, the symmetry of the system is similarly broken, resulting in a corresponding symmetry breaking of the electric field, and the generation of electromagnetic radiation.
The electromagnetic radiation emitted from dielectric materials is due to accelerating electrons on the metallic electrodes attached to them, as Maxwell predicted, coupled with explicit symmetry breaking of the electric field.

"If you want to use these materials to transmit energy, you have to break the symmetry as well as have accelerating electrons - this is the missing piece of the puzzle of electromagnetic theory," said Amaratunga. "I'm not suggesting we've come up with some grand unified theory, but these results will aid understanding of how electromagnetism and quantum mechanics cross over and join up. It opens up a whole set of possibilities to explore."

Si doped 4 inch VGF-GaAs crystal grown in HMM

The future applications for this discovery are important, not just for the mobile technology we use every day, but will also aid in the development and implementation of the Internet of Things: ubiquitous computing where almost everything in our homes and offices, from toasters to thermostats, is connected to the internet. For these applications, billions of devices are required, and the ability to fit an ultra-small aerial on an electronic chip would be a massive leap forward.

Piezoelectric materials can be made in thin film forms using materials such as lithium niobate, gallium nitride and gallium arsenide. Gallium arsenide-based amplifiers and filters are already available on the market and this new discovery opens up new ways of integrating antennas on a chip along with other components.

"It's actually a very simple thing, when you boil it down," said Sinha. "We've achieved a real application breakthrough, having gained an understanding of how these devices work."

Metamaterial Radar Lens May Improve Car and Drone Vision

As reported by MIT Technology Review: Radar instruments that can be used that way are normally bulky and extremely expensive. Echodyne is working on a device that is compact and cheap enough to be used widely.  

Radar systems work by sending out radio waves and using the echoes that bounce back to create an image of an object. Some radar systems use electronics to actively steer their outgoing radio waves, instead of just mechanically sweeping a beam in a fixed pattern. This lets them simultaneously scan the sky for objects and track specific ones with high accuracy. But the complex devices normally needed to steer radio waves around, known as phase shifters, make such electronically scanning radar expensive and bulky.

Driscoll’s drone carries an electronically scanning radar instrument that doesn’t have a conventional phase shifter. The outgoing radio waves are steered with a much simpler device, built using techniques borrowed from a relatively new area of research on what are known as metamaterials.  

This drone has an advanced electronically scanning radar on board, equipment usually much too bulky and expensive for such small craft.

Metamaterials provide a way to get around many of the physical limitations that have previously defined how engineers could control radio, light, and sound waves. For example, while conventional lenses need their characteristic shape to bend light rays into focus, a metamaterial lens can bend light the same way while being perfectly flat.

Metamaterials are made from repeating structures that are smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation being manipulated. Echodyne makes its metamaterials by tracing out repeating patterns of copper wiring on an ordinary circuit board.

A board with multiple layers of such wiring can direct radar beams. And applying different voltages to some parts of the wiring makes it possible to actively control the beam as a phase shifter would. “Any printed circuit board manufacturer could produce these,” says Driscoll.

The radar systems used by the military typically start at around $100,000, says Eben Frankenberg, CEO and another cofounder of Echodyne. He says his company hopes to mass produce compact radar systems that cost only thousands of dollars.

Driscoll says that could make scanning radar become a standard sensor for vehicles and robots. Some prototype autonomous cars, including Google’s, use spinning laser sensors (LiDAR) to watch the world around them in 3-D. That technique can map the world in very high resolution, but its range decreases in fog or snow. Radar doesn’t have that limitation, says Driscoll.

Echodyne also plans to offer its systems to the military, and to replace the radar already in use commercially: the spinning dishes seen on ferries and other boats that create simple maps by sweeping a beam around, for example, or the small fixed sensors in some cars that allow an adaptive cruise control system to keep a safe distance from the car ahead.

Echodyne was created by the patent licensing company Intellectual Ventures. In 2013, Intellectual Ventures set up a unit dedicated to building a portfolio of patents for metamaterials, and to figuring out how to commercialize them. Echodyne has also received investment funding from Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, and venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group.

David Smith, a professor at Duke University who researches metamaterials and has worked with Intellectual Ventures, says that Echodyne’s approach provides very flexible ways to control radio waves. The company’s biggest challenge, he says, is to craft complete radar systems that can compete in the market. That means matching the performance of very high-end systems used by the military today to succeed in the defense market, and carefully controlling costs for applications in the car industry.

Genetic Algorithms Have Calculated What the Ultimate U.S. Road Trip Looks Like

As reported by The Washington Post: Who needs an atlas when you have an algorithm? Data tinkerer Randy Olson, who is now known across the internet for developing the optimum search path for Where’s Waldo books, has used this same algorithm to compute the optimal American road trip.

At the urging of Tracy Staedter from Discovery News, Olson set out to find the quickest driving route that would stop at a national natural landmark, national historic site, national park or national monument in all of the lower 48 states. He also included Washington, D.C. and added another stop in California to get to a total of 50 stops.

Calculating the fastest way to drive between all 50 landmarks – 2,500 individual routes – could theoretically take forever by hand, but Olson used the same genetic algorithm he used to find a search pattern for Where’s Waldo. This algorithm starts with a handful of solutions, takes the best one, and then compares that to other solutions until it can’t find a better one. The result is the route you see above, which includes stops at the Grand Canyon, Pikes Peak, the Alamo, Mount Vernon, Graceland, the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and much more. You can start in any state and follow the path in either direction.

If you didn’t sleep, stop or hit traffic, Olson calculates that this would take roughly 9.33 days of driving. In reality, you probably need a good two to three months to do justice to this epic American road trip.

Olson also created a bonus map with a route through popular U.S. cities, which you can see here.