MIT’s M-Blocks: A New Class Of Robot Cubes That Self Assemble

What if robots could reassemble themselves at will? The liquid metal cyborg in Terminator was terrifyingly useful. It could look like anyone, repair shotgun blasts, even turn its hand into a murderous icepick. And then of course, you've got Transformers, wherein alien robots morph from cars and trucks into giant humanoid fighting machines.

It isn't liquid metal nor is it extraterrestrial, but MIT's John Romanishin, Daniela Rus, and Kyle Gilpin think they’ve found a promising precursor to a similar technology.

By building simple, independent modules that can separate and recombine at will, you can design a robot of flexible functionality. Such modular robots have been around for a long time. Indeed, we’ve covered plentyin the past. But none are as simple as MIT's M-Blocks, and it’s that simplicity that’s got folks excited.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aZbJS6LZbs]

The first thing you’ll notice about M-Blocks is how they move. All locomotion is self-contained—there are no external moving parts. Each block contains a 20,000 RPM flywheel which imparts angular momentum to each cube. They can move across the floor, roll over each other, and even leap about like a Mexican jumping bean.

The result is a system of discrete components capable of joining together to form a shape and then breaking apart and reassembling into another shape.

M-Blocks are distinct from other modular robots because, instead of being in control throughout the assembly process, there are moments of chaos, where the blocks' location isn't precisely regulated. That would be a problem for self-assembling robots that require certain external components to match up perfectly to unite.

What makes this chaos acceptable in M-Blocks? Magnets. When they are close to one another, the magnets on the cubes’ edges passively align their poles and straighten the cube, allowing the face magnets to snap together.

Because there is no special orientation required—for connectors to meet up, for example—any side will do.

These edge magnets also allow the cubes to pivot around each other. Because the magnets are chamfered, the magnets touch when they pivot, and the bond is strengthened.

In the future, the team envisions equipping special blocks with more horsepower to pull weaker blocks along or battery packs for extra juice. Eventually, some blocks might carry cameras, lights, or grippers to maneuver objects or handle tools. At the current scale, the team thinks advanced versions of M-Blocks might be used to repair infrastructure, build and reconfigure scaffolding, or assemble furniture or heavy equipment.

But it’s taking the design smaller that really sparks the imagination.

Reduced to nanoscale, swarms of M-Blocks might become the voxels of self-assembling macro-bots. The smaller the block—the higher the robot’s voxel resolution. Or made compatible with human biology, they could be used to attack tumors or repair organs.

M-Blocks make such dreams ever so slightly more realistic because of their simplicity. The simpler the constituent parts, the cheaper and easier they are to make, control, and miniaturize. Complexity can arise in how they come together and in which configurations—not unlike cells in living things.

But of course, all that’s a long, uncertain way off, and technology has a way of surprising even our dearest held dreams. These early prototypes aren't autonomous, and they are only capable of forming shapes, not functioning tools or infrastructure.

For now, the team is focused on improving their design. They’re building 100 new M-Blocks for further experimentation. Whereas the current blocks are individually controlled by their handlers, the new blocks have enough processing power onboard to do some things autonomously. The team is also working on new software to control them.

Ideally, a human using M-Blocks would give a general instruction to form a particular shape, and the blocks would figure out how to do it on their own.

Romanishin told MIT news, “We want hundreds of cubes, scattered randomly across the floor, to be able to identify each other, coalesce, and autonomously transform into a chair, or a ladder, or a desk, on demand."

Image Credit: MIT News/YouTube

New MIT algorithms help robots combat uncertainty

In today’s installation of “Exactly how the robots will certainly someday eliminate all human beings,” we have a job from MIT taking care of robotic partnership. Allow’s state you set one robotic to do a specific job, and also one more to do something associated. Exactly how do you maintain them from entering each various other’s method? A more concept would certainly be a method to obtain the robots operating in the exact same area while integrating their activities in genuine time. That’s exactly what the MIT group is dealing with.

The research study handles a kind of robot automation called Decentralized Partly Observable Markov Choice Processes (Dec-POMDPs). These are mathematical designs that explain the method a multi-agent system acts– it’s not simply for robots, as any type of independent networked system would use. The issue the MIT scientists are looking for to fix is among uncertainty: The even more representatives in a system, the much more complicated as well as susceptible|susceptible so that complicated to failure it is. There’s constantly a specific quantity of mistake in the sensing unit information each robotic utilizes to remain on track, which amounts to make complicated activities tough to strategy.

Last summertime a various MIT group released a paper revealing Dec-POMDPs can be utilized to combine alreadying existing robot command systems to achieve jobs en masse. The mathematics made good sense, however just now have they really placed the strategy right into activity, as well as they doinged this with remote-control helicopters. It’s a restricted take on exactly how you would certainly handle an automatic drone distribution solution like the one Amazon.com has actually suggested.

The examination utilized to assess the precision of the Dec-POMDP algorithms included a variety of base terminals spread throughout a space. Close-by were bundle distribution places. The helicopters would certainly have to go across each various other’s courses to make all the “distribution,” so exactly how do you make that occur without creating an accident? Prior to the robots begin flying available, there’s an offline preparation stage where each representative draws up the approximate course– an academic method of achieving the job. From there, it depends on the charts.

The circumstance is destroyed down right into 2 charts by the algorithms. One produces a collection of prospective micro-actions, and also the various other stands for shifts in between macro-actions due to monitorings from all the networked representatives. The preparation formula runs different beginning states with so that appoints worths to all the micro-actions. The outcome is a chart of the possibility that a representative (robots, keep in mind) ought to carry out a specific activity at a specific time.

This procedure is duplicated for every activity up until all the drones have actually made it securely where they have to go. Preventing accidents is a fairly basic issue, however the exact same principal might be utilized to automatic much more complicated situations in the future. A complex situation like eliminating all human beings, for instance.

ExtremeTech| In today’s installation of “Exactly how the robots will certainly one day eliminate all human beings,” we have a job from MIT dealing with robotic partnership. Allow’s state you set one robotic to do a specific job, so that one more to do something associated. These are mathematical designs that explain the method a multi-agent system acts– it’s not simply for robots, as any kind of independent networked system would use.

In today’s installation of “Exactly how the robots will certainly one day eliminate all human beings,” we have a job from MIT dealing with robotic partnership. Allow’s state you set one robotic to do a specific job, as well as one more to do something associated. These are mathematical designs that explain the method a multi-agent system acts– it’s not simply for robots, as any kind of independent networked system would use. Prior to the robots begin flying available, there’s an offline preparation stage where each representative maps out the approximate course– an academic method of achieving the job.

For One Second, a Supercomputer Mimicked the Human Brain

Comparing the human brain to the fastest and most powerful computers in the world is a good way to fathom just how huge and complex it is. And the latest research shows, yet again, that even the most badass supercomputers can't hold a candle to the fleshy masses inside our skulls.
On the other hand, they’re coming closer than ever before. This month computer scientists from Japan and Germany were able to simulate one percent of human brain activity for a single second using 82,000 processors from the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world, Japan’s K computer.
Here are the numbers: The computer scientists  recreated 1.73 billion virtual nerve cells and 10.4 trillion synapses, each of which contained 24 bytes of memory. The simulation took 40 minutes of real, "biological" time to produce one virtual second.
Billions and trillions of simulated neurons and synapses is nothing to sneeze at, but keep in mind how that equates to only one percent of what's going on in our noggins. The brain, by comparison, consists of about 200 86 billion neurons linked together by trillions of synapses, making for a total of hundreds of trillions of different pathways that brain signals travel through. That’s a lot of electrical impulses shooting through the brain at once, which means a hellova lot of machine power.
The K computer held the crown for world's fastest computer in 2011, but was recently dethroned by China's Tianhe-2, also known as the MilkyWay-2. The brain simulation was run by the popular open-source NEST software at the RIKEN program for Computational Life Sciences.
For artificial intelligence enthusiasts, the experiment should be encouraging. "If petascale computers like the K computer are capable of representing 1 percent of the network of a human brain today, then we know that simulating the whole brain at the level of the individual nerve cell and its synapses will be possible with exascale computers, hopefully available within the next decade," lead researcher Markus Diesmann said in a news release.
For some perspective, a petascale computer has the combined memory power of about 250,000 regular PCs; an exascale machine would be a thousand times faster than that.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html
Attempting to replicate the entire brain is so ambitious it's controversial, though that’s not stopping Henry Markram, the man behind the $1.3 billion Human Brain Project funded by the European Union. Markram is using the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, one of the world's fastest, though he says a full-scale simulation of the brain will require a computer 100,000 times faster. It also calls for a comprehensive, if theoretical, “connectome” map of the 100 trillion neural connections—and that’s something we don’t have, though some audacious neuroscientists are working on creating one.
What’s more, simulating something as complex as the human brain will take more than just sheer processing power. The brain's architecture is nuanced and mysterious, and computer scientists have a long way to go to model its function with a machine.
So, the singularity may not be around the corner, but there are still reasons to be interested in creating a model of the brain. Down the road, it could help neuroscience researchers better understand mental diseases. As of now, the supercomputer simulations aren’t providing any new understanding into how the brain thinks, but it's a sign of what's possible in the future.
"It's a bit like building a super-connected motorway network, populated with simulated cars, but not yet looking at how that road network reacts to the holiday road rush," wrote brain researcher Peter Mcowan on Medical Xpress. "But there's no doubt that such giant scale simulations will soon yield answers to mysteries about how our brains operate, how we learn, how we perceive, and perhaps even how we feel."

 Via MOTHERBOARD.VICE

ARM-based chip can run for ‘decades’ on one set of batteries

Even if you pay attention to the CPU industry, Atmel isn’t likely to be a company you’re familiar with. But its low-power processors could change the way we interact with devices and the burgeoning Internet of Things. Founded in 1984, the company focuses on embedded computing, microcontrollers, and automotive processors — precisely the kind of hardware that powers the equipment we interact with on a daily basis, without ever realizing it contains a microprocessor or three. Atmel is making waves at present for its new Smart SAM L21 family of processors, which draw so little power they can reportedly run for decades and be powered by energy harvested from body motion.
First, the basics: The L21 family is based on ARM’s Cortex-M0+ microprocessor series. The M0+ is an embedded chip and a fairly modest one — it’s an optimized version of the Cortex-M0, with one fewer pipeline stages to reduce power consumption and a few features of the more capable Cortex-M3 and M4 families.

What sets the Atmel SAM L21 family apart is that they’ve been designed to use ridiculously low amounts of power — just 35 microamps per MHz when active, and 200 nanoamps of electricity when in sleep mode. With power consumption that low, an Atmel L21 core that didn’t wake up very often could conceivably run for decades off a battery. Even more interestingly, Atmel claims the microcontroller can be powered simply by human energy capture.
“Atmel is committed to providing the industry’s lowest power technologies for the rapidly growing IoT market and beyond for battery-powered devices,” said Reza Kazerounian, senior vice president and general manager for the company’s microcontroller business unit. “Developers for IoT edge nodes are no longer just interested in expanding the life of a battery to one year, but are looking for technologies that will increase the life of a battery to a decade or longer. Doing just that, the new 32-bit MCU platform in the Atmel | SMART family integrating our proprietary picoPower technologies are the perfect MCUs for IoT edge nodes.”

Atmel isn’t revealing which process technology its L21 core uses, possibly because these types of processors tend to be built on older nodes and focus on minimum cost rather than top-notch performance. Instead of relying on a cutting-edge 14nm or 16nm process, the company has emphasized sophisticated power gating methods that aren’t much different from what we’ve seen companies like Intel and AMD adopt. Each area of the chip is designed to be power gated, and the core aggressively shuts off segments of the die that aren’t in use.
In larger chips, we’ve seen this approach adopted to avoid blowing power budgets and ensure that mobile battery life is maximized when the CPU is doing relatively simple tasks. The Cortex-M0+ isn’t powerful enough to run even a device like a smartwatch today. But the fact that Atmel adopted such sophisticated power gating methods shows how technologies adopted to preserve battery life at the high end of the market trickle down into much cheaper, simpler parts.
The ability to charge electronics via human power is an old dream, and partly limited by battery technology as much as by circuit design. Simply advancing microcontroller design won’t solve all those problems, but it does simplify one key technological challenge.

New Zealand Man 3D Prints the World’s Smallest Working Drill — Just 7.5mm Wide

3D printing has shown that it is the perfect technology to use when wishing to create something unique, whether it is a piece of jewelry, a keepsake, or even a house or car. The technology, unlike that of more traditional means of manufacturing, is an affordable way of creating one-of-a-kind products, and is one of the reasons I love covering the industry. There is always something new to report on, and today is no different.

Lance Abernethy is an ordinary man from Auckland, New Zealand. He works as a maintenance engineer, fixing machinery in a factory. However, the idea that recently popped into his head was not ordinary at all.

“I have always liked small things and have created small items since I was a little kid,” Abernethy tells 3DPrint.com. “I was with my work colleagues and was talking about mythical stories about one country making a twist drill and sending it to another. The other country returned it with a hole through the middle. Things like this easily challenge me and my idea was born.”

The 3D Printed Drill

That idea was to create the world’s smallest working drill, and he would do this using hisUltimaker 2 3D printer. To start off, he used a CAD software package calledOnshape 3D. He drew the outer shell of the drill, using his “normal” size drill as a reference.

“I wanted to make it as small as possible so I cramped all my parts as tight as possible,” Abernethy tells us.

Once he had the design just the way he wanted it, he 3D printed it on his Ultimaker 2, using a 0.25mm nozzle and a 0.04mm layer height. He also set his printer to print very slowly, at just 10mm per second. Printed without any support, the 3-piece drill took about 25 minutes to completely print out. The drill consists of two halves plus a 3D printed chuck which is pressed onto the motor shaft. Abernethy uses a hearing aid battery for power, a small button, and a miniature motor. For wiring, he stripped out a headphone cable. While 3D printing was really quite easy, assembling the drill was another story.

“It took me 3 hours to solder and try and squeeze [all the parts] in,” he tells us. “The wires kept breaking off when I was trying to connect them and it was a nightmare trying to hold them in place and try to not short the battery.”

When complete, the drill — which measures just 17mm tall, 7.5mm wide, and 13mm long — holds a 0.5mm twist drill and can drill through soft objects.

“I have seen claims of the world’s smallest cordless drill and I know mine is smaller but it’s not a confirmed claim,” Abernethy tells us.

What’s next for Abernethy? He wants to make an even smaller drill, using a smaller battery that he has already found. It should be interesting to see how small he can get it. What do you think about this incredibly small 3D printed drill? Discuss in the 3D printed drill forumthread on 3DPB.com. Check out the video of the drill below.

Via [3DPrint]

Mystic Radio — Icelandic Runes and Schematic Symbols

Jake von Slatt was invited by Hendrick’s Gin to participate in their “Curate-a-Box” contest. He decided to create an electronics-themed box, which combines Iceland’s ancient runic characters with the magic of radio, evoked by the mysterious glyphs known to us as electronic schematic symbols. As you can see, the result is nothing short of spectacular. Jakewrites:

The electrolytically etched brass plate on top of the box depicts symbols used in science, engineering, and alchemy. An Icelandic Vegvísir is featured prominently surrounded by the components of a modern magnetron microwave transmitting tube. The background features the schematic diagram for a vintage Heathkit oscilloscope.

The  Vegvísir is often thought of as a mystical symbol but it is in fact a very practical mnemonic device for mastering navigational rules of thumb.

Opening the box, the seeker will discover that it is lined with with pages from the 1935 edition of “Modern Radio Servicing.” as well as a “Junior Electronics Lab.”  Interacting with said lab via the instruction manual will de-mystify the very nature of radio itself for the engaged participant.

Fantastic work!

Happy Friday!

EMO: A Plug-in Emission Monitor For Vehicles

Using the EMO device from Logica, drivers can reduce their vehicle emissions by up to 15 per cent simply by improving the way they drive. Apart from reduced emissions, they also benefit from fuel savings since better driving habits lead to improved vehicle mileage

The EMO measures carbon emissions from a vehicle and transmits the information to a central server (Image courtesy: http://business.outlookindia.com)

JULY 2012: Pollution, in particular, vehicular pollution, is a major concern today. There are over 600 million passenger vehicles in the world accounting for thousands of tonnes of carbon emission every single day. However, most of the solutions to combat vehicle pollution, such as electric cars and bio-fuels, require either drastic changes in social infrastructure or major investment from vehicle owners. As a result, their adoption is slow.

Another way to counter pollution would be to target its source. One major reason for vehicular pollution is not just the vehicles we drive but how we drive them. Poor driving habits like aggressive driving, engine idling and over-speeding have a large impact on fuel efficiency and thus harmful gas emissions from the vehicle. This is where Logica’s EMO comes in. The device helps reduce vehicle emissions by monitoring how people drive and then providing inputs to them to improve their driving styles.

What is it?
The device is installed in the vehicle and connected to the vehicle’s onboard computer. It connects to the OBD-II port, which is available in most vehicles today, and allows access to the data from the engine control unit (ECU).

Once connected, the device monitors in real time various driving behaviour related parameters such as speed, accelerations and braking. Using the data gained, the on-board computer determines the vehicle’s carbon emissions. The device has a SIM card inside which is used to send all the computed data to Logica backend servers using GPRS, where it is analysed and a report is generated.

The report thus made is shared with the driver through numerous ways such as a Web interface, SMS alerts, smartphone apps and e-mail reports. The analysis from the report helps him understand how he is currently driving versus how he should be driving and thus improve his driving habits.

Sanjoy Ghosh, product manager at Logica, claims that by using the EMO, drivers can reduce their vehicle emissions by up to 15 per cent simply by improving the way they drive. Apart from reduced emissions, drivers also benefit from fuel savings since better driving habits lead to improved vehicle mileage.

Hardware design challenges
It took the team about three years to develop the Logica EMO. “We needed to create a safe, efficient and reliable system to measure emissions in real time. This required understanding of the technology used in latest vehicles and how to extract data from them in a safe and reliable way. In addition, the device had to undergo extensive testing and certification before it could be offered to clients. The solution today is CE certified and has also been independently audited by a leading carbon footprint company, Zerofootprint, for accuracy,” says Sanjoy.

The hardware of the device is compliant with all the latest models of vehicles having a standard OBD-II protocol port. Moreover, it has telephony for GPRS-based wireless data transmission. The total power consumption of the device is 1000 mW during average use and 60 mW while the device is sleeping.

Logica has applied for multiple patents of the solution. These include technology patents for how the solution works, calculation of the carbon emissions, and the Green Index scores and their end-to-end usage. In addition, business patents for the concept of differential fuel pricing based on emissions have been filed.

Plug-’n-play. The EMO has a variety of innovative aspects starting from the device to how the entire solution works seamlessly as a service. The device is extremely easy to use. Simply plug it into the appropriate port of the vehicle and it automatically starts working.

As all the data is wirelessly sent to backend servers, there is no need to manually download any data from the device. The reports are designed keeping in mind the needs of the vehicle drivers and also fleet owners.

“For example, we have developed a unique rating scale called the Logica EMO Green Index score. The Green Index score is an easy-to-understand, quantitative rating scale from 0 to 10 that helps drivers compare their driving with other people’s driving as well as chart their progress over time,” explains Sanjoy.

Expense control. The device has an inbuilt small computer that does most of the calculations on the device. This helps to keep telecommunication costs (data charges) low by transmitting only the final results to the servers instead of all the data collected. Also, the device is completely self-installable, thus avoiding high installation costs. The device design is also cost-saving as it avoids the use of expensive unnecessary technology and focuses on the core solution of calculating carbon footprint.

The EMO has a SIM card inside which is used to send all the computed data to Logica backend servers using GPRS, where it is analysed and a report is generated (Image courtesy: http://business.outlookindia.com)

Recognitions

The EMO has been extensively recognised for its innovation. Recognitions have come in from: 1. The Economist: Top 10 Game Changing Innovations in Climate Change 2. NASSCOM: Top 6 Innovations Toward Advancement of New Technology 3. Golden Peacock Awards: Innovative Product/Service 2011 4. Institute of Engineering and Technology (UK): Top 5 Innovations in Transportation 2011 5. MIT Technology Review TR35 India 2011

What lies ahead
The EMO is also a business platform that provides incentives to drivers to reduce their vehicle emissions. For example, Logica EMO can be used by governments to provide differential fuel pricing. Differential fuel pricing is a unique concept that helps promote eco-friendly driving by passing the incentive of reduced emissions to drivers through lower fuel prices. Data from the EMO device can be transferred to readers at a petrol pump, which can then be used to calculate the price of fuel in real time based on the carbon footprint of the vehicle.

Governments, through progressive policy making, can introduce laws to charge a lower fuel tax for vehicles with lower carbon footprint, thus providing a monetary incentive to drivers to improve their driving habits. The same concept can also be extended to other types of taxes such as toll tax and road tax and parking fees.

Sanjoy adds, “We are working on bringing in new features such as remote vehicle tracking, theft tracking and geofencing. Geofencing is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area.” 

The article from "Electronics for you ".....
The author is a tech correspondent at EFY Bengaluru

Robot snake learns to tackle sandy hills by copying sidewinder

     Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does.

 

The sidewinder rattlesnake is well known for being able to undulate with ease over the sands surface in a sideways motion, hence its name. Now the snake robot of the Carnegie Mellon University can too. In the past, the robot snake has struggled when it comes to sandy terrains as it failed tests in the Red Sea in 2011. - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

The sidewinder rattlesnake is well known for being able to undulate with ease over the sands surface in a sideways motion, hence its name. Now the snake robot of the Carnegie Mellon University can too. In the past, the robot snake has struggled when it comes to sandy terrains as it failed tests in the Red Sea in 2011.

 Georgia Institute of Technology researchers along with the Oregon State University became interested in the robot when they wanted to find out how the sidewinder rattlesnake could deal so easily with sandy terrains. They filled up an enclosure with sand at a zoo in Atlanta and watched six sidewinder snakes make their way from the bottom up to the top. They then watched videos of the snakes and carefully analysed the subtleties in their movement.

They realised that the snakes climbed up the sandy terrain by moving their bodies in two types of independently controlled waves. When the aspect ratios of the waves were continually adjusted, over the vertical and horizontal, the snakes controlled the part of their body that remained in contact with the sandy terrain. As the slope become steeper, there was more total contact area.

This pattern was then transferred to the robot snake and this allowed it to climb up sandy slopes that it would otherwise been impossible for it to manage.

The Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon, Howie Choset said “In this study, we got biology and robotics, mediated by physics, to work together in a way not previously seen.”

"This type of robot often is described as biologically inspired, but too often the inspiration doesn't extend beyond a casual observation of the biological system," Choset said. "In this study, we got biology and robotics, mediated by physics, to work together in a way not previously seen."

Choset's robots appear well suited for urban search-and-rescue operations in which robots need to make their way through the rubble of collapsed structures, as well as archaeological explorations. Able to readily move through pipes, the robots also have been tested to evaluate their potential for inspecting nuclear power plants from the inside out.

For the Goldman's team, the work builds on earlier research studying how turtle hatchlings, crabs, sandfish lizards, and other animals move about on complex surfaces such as sand, leaves and loose material. The team tests what it learns from the animals on robots, often gaining additional insights into how the animals move. "We are interested in how animals move on different types of granular and complex surfaces," Goldman said. "The idea of moving on flowing materials like sand can be useful in a broad sense. This is one of the nicest examples of collaboration between biology and robotics."
 

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Robots offer a way of entering dangerous places where humans cannot venture unassisted such as nuclear disasters. However in the past they have sometimes been thwarted by terrains such as sand. In the future this should be less likely to occur as scientists have been studying one of the few animals in the world that can tackle sandy terrains with ease, the sidewinder rattlesnake. They conducted research and analysed the patterns of movement of the sidewinder and then copied them over to the robot snake. Now the robot snake is able to deal with sandy inclines in the same way as the rattlesnake does - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/robot-snake-learns-to-tackle-sandy-hills-by-copying-sidewinder/#sthash.WsZx0RVh.dpuf

Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline

Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat — the device that purports to use cold fusion to generate massive amounts of cheap, green energy – has been verified by third-party researchers, according to a new 54-page report. The researchers observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, or “far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume.” The researchers were also allowed to analyze the fuel before and after the 32-day run, noting that the isotopes in the spent fuel could only have been obtained by “nuclear reactions” — a conclusion that boggles the researchers: “… It is of course very hard to comprehend how these fusion processes can take place in the fuel compound at low energies.”

This new report [PDF] on the E-Cat was carried out by six (reputable) researchers from Italy and Sweden. While the new E-Cat looks very different from previous iterations, the researchers say that it uses the same “hydrogen-loaded nickel” and additives (most notably lithium) as a fuel. The device’s inventor, Andrea Rossi, claims that the E-Cat uses cold fusion — low-energy nuclear reactions, LENR — to fuse nickel and hydrogen atoms into copper, releasing oodles of energy. The researchers, analyzing the fuel before and after the 32-day burn, note that there is an isotope shift from a “natural” mix of Nickel-58/Nickel-60 to almost entirely Nickel-62 — a reaction that, the researchers say, cannot occur without nuclear reactions (i.e. fusion). The researchers say there is just 1 gram of fuel inside the E-Cat. For more info about the science/chemistry behind LENR, read our previous story about Rossi’s E-Cat.

New style E-Cat device being weighed

The E-Cat test setup

The researchers are very careful about not actually saying that cold fusion/LENR is the source of the E-Cat’s energy, instead merely saying that an “unknown reaction” is at work. In serious scientific circles, LENR is still a bit of a joke/taboo topic. The paper is actually somewhat comical in this regard: The researchers really try to work out how the E-Cat produces so much darn energy — and they conclude that fusion is the only answer — but then they reel it all back in by adding: “The reaction speculation above should only be considered as an example of reasoning and not a serious conjecture.”

Anyway, now that we’ve got the necessary cynicism/scrutiny out of the way, let’s get down to what everyone’s really interested in: The utterly insane amounts of energy produced by the E-Cat. In the table below you can see some figures from the 32-day test. The most important figures are on the right hand side: a COP (coefficient of performance) of up to 3.74, and net power production of 2,373 watts. Remember that this is a small device that produced these kinds of figures for 32 days straight. Total energy obtained over 32 days was 1.5 MWh.

To put this into perspective, the E-Cat tested by the researchers has an energy density of 1.6×10⁹ Wh/kg and power density of 2.1×10⁶ W/kg. This is orders (plural) of magnitude higher than anything else ever tested — somewhere in the region of 100 times more power than the best supercapacitors, and maybe a million times more energy than gasoline. In the words of the researchers, “These values place the E-Cat beyond any other known conventional source of energy.”

Read: NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane

This is what a commercialized E-Cat will apparently look like, when Rossi finally gets around to changing the world.

Obviously, if these third-party findings are to be believed — if the E-Cat really is performing cold fusion — then this is rather exciting. We are talking about an extremely cheap, green, and dense power source that could quite literally change the world.

Before the world can be changed, however, there will now be a very extensive period of scrutiny from the scientific community at large. The previous third-party analysis of the E-Cat device, published in March 2013, was attacked and debunked very rapidly. It seems this new report has been intentionally designed so that there are fewer plot holes and logical leaps. The research paper has reportedly been submitted to the Arxiv pre-print server, with the hope of eventually being published in the Journal of Nuclear Physics.

The next few weeks could be very interesting indeed. According to one report at Sifferkoll, a big bank downloaded the new E-Cat report just minutes after it was made available online — and “oil futures have stayed volatile since.” And of course this morning Glasgow University announced that it would be selling its fossil fuel investments. Hmm…