Day: December 11, 2018

The Rivian R1T “adventure vehicle” made headlines and dropped jaws when it was revealed at the 2018 LA Auto Show last month, namely because nobody has ever really tried to make an all-electric pickup for the US market before. Much less one with more than a 400-mile range. That capability is due to the vehicle’s gargantuan power pack with capacities up to 180 kWh — 80 percent larger than today’s biggest batteries.

Building the biggest battery on the market and making it rugged enough to handle the rigors of offroading is no mean feat, argues Richard Farquahr, Rivian’s VP of Propulsion. The company employs a team of more than two dozen battery and energy storage engineers to figure out how to pack as much power into those cells and release it as fast as possible.

“We’re giving our customers as much energy and range as possible,” Farquahr told Engadget. “That was where we started, what we want to give our customers, in terms of experience.”

To that end, the design team focused on maximizing the battery’s volumetric energy density. Each module consists of two layers of tightly packed, cylindrical cells separated by a dedicated “cold plate.” These packs are individually wrapped in a non-metallic lightweight material and the cells within are bonded together using structural adhesives, “so that it’s strong, but it’s lightweight in the directions that we need it,” Farquahr explained.

Gallery: Rivian R1T electric truck | 14 Photos

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The 105 and 135 kWh power plants each use nine modules, the 180 kWh utilizes a total of 12. This design has resulted in Rivian’s batteries being able to hold 25 percent more energy per unit volume than its nearest competitor, the Tesla Model X, according to the VP.

To keep the system from overheating, especially under heavy driving conditions, the vehicles require significant cooling capabilities. As such, each of those aluminum cold plates in between the cell layers runs on the same water-glycol solution that you’d find in a vehicle’s radiator. “The flow has been optimized to make sure the maximum temperature difference between the hottest and coldest cell of the pack is less than three degrees,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe told Wired in November.

In fact, the overall structure of the battery is cast from aluminum, which provides superior energy absorption to better protect the battery system, Farquahr said. What’s more, the battery system has its own dedicated cooling system, which operates independently of the other two cooling systems for the powertrain and passenger compartment.

And, as anyone who’s tried to start their car in sub-freezing temperatures can attest, extreme cold can be just as bad for batteries as high temperatures. Luckily, the R1T utilizes its cloud-based machine learning capabilities to monitor and adjust the vehicle’s performance and efficiency on the fly, it can also sense the surrounding environmental temperature. When the mercury drops too far, the system activates its onboard heating elements to preserve the cells’ remaining charge.

“We know that there is an optimum temperature for the cell to have most efficient use of energy to get range, and to optimize the life, the energy throughput, the life of the cell,” Farquahr explained. “With the heater and chiller in the battery dedicated circuit, we can maintain the optimum temperature no matter where we are in the world, so that the vehicle will have optimum performance.”

Beyond keeping the battery from slagging itself while you smoke every car off the stop line, Rivian’s engineering team also had to take into consideration the R1T’s primary intended use: off-roading. Because the last thing you want while bouldering is for a tire to slip and smash the full weight of the vehicle down on top of the battery pack, which is situated along the bottom of the skateboard-style frame, potentially puncturing it.

This is why the bottom of the battery is lined with a ballistic sheet. “It’s a protection against those impacts, if they were to come along from underneath,” Farquahr said. Additionally, the battery casing is lined with a waterproof material, which keeps the cells safe when fording up to a meter of river.

Perhaps the only drawback of the Rivian’s all-electric nature is that there is no way to recharge the vehicle while in the backcountry. Sure the R1T is DC Fast Charge compatible, but that doesn’t do you any good when you’re 70 miles as the crow flies from the nearest charging station. And while you can easily carry a couple extra emergency gallons when driving an internal combustion vehicle, no equivalent backup currently exists for EVs — I don’t care what you saw on that one episode of Breaking Bad. Fingers crossed that future models come with optional, deployable solar panels to give the vehicle at least enough juice to get back to the interstate.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

December 11, 2018 at 12:12PM

Copying one of Mother Nature’s designs is a clever shortcut when building robots that need to navigate our complex world. But those designs aren’t always adaptable—a fish can’t do much when it’s out of the water. Adding some human ingenuity, however, results in the best of both worlds; a robot that swims like a fish, but can also use its fins to get around on land.

A lot of robotics research today focuses on making automatons that can assist with tasks that are simply too dangerous for humans to perform. That can include search and rescue missions in areas that have been devastated by war or weather, or inspecting facilities like nuclear reactors that have suffered incidents making them too radioactive for humans to enter. Because both possibilities are fraught with unknowns, these robots have to be engineered to handle all types of terrains and obstacles.

The Velox robot, designed and built by an engineering firm called Pliant Energy Systems, is reminiscent of Festo’s BionicFinWave robot that was first revealed back in June. Festo’s creation emulates the movements of undersea creatures like cuttlefish using a pair of long, undulating silicone fins powered by just two servo motors. The BionicFinWave robot can deftly maneuver underwater without any cords or tethers, but that’s the only environment it was designed for.

Velox appears to share a lot of design and engineering elements as Festo’s BionicFinWave robot, including the use of two long, flexible fins that power its motions. But instead of just two servo motors, those fine are each powered by eight actuators that increase its strength and rigidity as needed. When underwater, Velox can gracefully swim like a fish, but on land it can also pivot those fins so they instead serve as a series of makeshift legs allowing it to move around like a millipede.

On less rigid surfaces, like snow or sand, the Velox robot can actually use a combination of its two propulsion methods to ‘swim’ through the small particles, making it suitable for even muddy situations where four-legged autonomous robots might find themselves quickly getting stuck.

For the time being, Velox serves as a proof-of-concept for its technology and novel drivetrain system, and Pliant Energy Systems has no plans to start churning them out for rescue personnel to add to their toolset. But its unique design shows that robots could effectively be employed to the coldest and most inhospitable places on Earth, without the risk of them getting trapped in snow, or just slipping and falling on ice and damaging hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of technology in the process.

[Pliant Energy Systems via New Atlas]

A small Massachusetts town has rejected an offer from Comcast, and instead plans to build a municipal fiber broadband network.

Comcast offered to bring cable Internet to up to 96 percent of households in Charlemont in exchange for the town paying $462,123 plus interest toward infrastructure costs over 15 years. But Charlemont residents rejected the Comcast offer in a vote at a special town meeting Thursday.

“The Comcast proposal would have saved the town about $1 million, but it would not be a town-owned broadband network,” the Greenfield Recorder reported Friday. “The defeated measure means that Charlemont will likely go forward with a $1.4 million municipal town network, as was approved by annual town meeting voters in 2015.”

About 160 residents voted, with 56 percent rejecting the Comcast offer, according to news reports.

Charlemont has about 1,300 residents and covers about 26 square miles in northwest Massachusetts. Town officials estimate that building a municipal fiber network reaching 100 percent of homes would cost $1,466,972 plus interest over 20 years.

An increase in property taxes would cover the construction cost. But the town would also bring in revenue from selling broadband service, and potentially break even, making the project less expensive than Comcast’s offer.

“With 59 percent of households taking broadband service, the tax hike would be 29 cents [per $1,000 of assessed home value], similar to that for Comcast,” a Recorder article last month said. “But if 72 percent or more of households subscribe to the municipal-owned network, there is no tax impact, because subscriber fees would pay for it.”

Currently, Comcast covers about 9.5 percent of Charlemont, while Verizon DSL is available in about 88 percent, according to estimates by BroadbandNow.

The town plans to charge $79 a month for standalone Internet service with gigabit download and upload speeds and no data caps, though the price could rise to $99 a month if fewer than 40 percent of households buy the service. The town also plans to offer phone and TV service at rates cheaper than Comcast’s.

Pros and cons

A document distributed to town meeting voters listed the estimated prices as well pros and cons for both the Comcast proposal and the municipal fiber option.

Pros for going with Comcast included “no risk to the town from potential future competition,” “less town borrowing,” a fixed cost to the town, Comcast’s promotional pricing, and a $10-per-month, 15Mbps Internet package for people with low incomes. Comcast cons were as follows:

• Monopoly service provider
• Uses older, slower HFC [hybrid fiber-coaxial] technology
• Limited control over network buildout
• No control over future pricing
• Customer service record
• Speed caps and potential to slow down competitive content (over­-the-­top TV)

The cons of building a municipal network included higher up-front borrowing, the fact that the town would be responsible for the network and need volunteers to run a board, and “potential competitive risk from less expensive solutions.”

But Charlemont officials listed these benefits of the town-run approach:

• 100% fiber-to-the-home technology (faster than HFC technology)
• Town-owned and controlled
• At take rates above 40% generates revenue that will reduce the tax burden
• Not­-for-­profit to keep prices as low as possible
• Transparent billing and marketing
• No extra taxes/fees except government-mandated phone taxes
• Same speed for all subscribers and content

Charlemont is one of about 20 small towns in western Massachusetts that are working on broadband plans with Westfield Gas & Electric. Charlemont also received a $960,000 stage grant to design the municipal network.

“Working with [Westfield Gas & Electric], the town has already completed the design for the municipal network,” Charlemont Broadband Committee Chairman Robert Handsaker said, according to The Recorder. “The design work included mapping of all utility poles, design of the fiber distribution network and preliminary designs and cost estimates for the individual connection to each home.”

Leading up to the special town meeting, the town Broadband Committee opposed the Comcast offer while the town Finance Committee supported the Comcast offer. But town meeting voters had the final say.

“The fiber network project has been on hold for the last several months, awaiting a town vote on the Comcast proposal,” Handsaker said.