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Category: transportation

Robotics ground controllers in NASA’s Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston successfully replaced a failed Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) on the International Space Station with a spare using robotic operations on Thursday, May 2. The operation to replace the failed unit was conducted using the station’s Canadarm2 and Dextre, both part of Canada’s contribution to the International Space Station.

Using complex robotic work to perform critical maintenance allows astronauts to spend more time working on scientific experiments and helps develop better technologies and procedures for future human and robotic exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

“Developing new robotic systems is extremely important to get our astronauts back to the Moon by 2024,” Robotics Operations Systems Officer Mike Ferullo said. “The techniques and methods that we are developing with Dextre and Canadarm2 are directly applicable to future missions, and the construction and repair of any Moon-based mission will be done with robotics wherever possible. It’s an extremely exciting time to be involved in space robotics.

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New Features

The car is lower to the ground, with large, narrow wheels closer to the front and back ends of the car, all of which are expected to improve the car’s range, per The Guardian.

Dyson CEO and namesake James Dyson sent an email out to all the staff members urging secrecy around the project, but defended the decision to file these new patents, writing that the car would “include fundamentally new technologies and make some inventive leaps,” according to the Guardian.

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  • Bus manufacturer New Flyer has launched an autonomous technology program to develop and deploy self-driving and driver-assist technology for public transit agencies.
  • In a release, New Flyer said it will focus on building connectivity and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology into public roadways. The company also said it will coordinate its efforts with federal agencies and industry groups working on automation, including the Society of Automotive Engineers.
  • “Transit agencies across North America have been asking for progressive technology, regulators have shown commitment and support to technology advancement, and passenger confidence has been increasing as they experience autonomous technology firsthand,” New Flyer president Chris Stoddart said in a statement.

Most major technology research has focused on smaller autonomous vehicles (AVs), with companies eyeing shared autonomous fleets or ride-hailing services. But applying self-driving technology to public transit could hold huge potential, making bus service more energy efficient and safer. Buses travel on defined routes and can be coordinated with connected infrastructure, making them a potentially appealing option for cities fearful of further congestion from autonomous fleets.

Governments have already been exploring driverless shuttles, which carry fewer people than a full-size bus and run on shorter routes. Cities like Detroit, Las Vegas and Austin, TX have all run autonomous shuttle trials. Autonomous buses have gathered more research abroad, with pilots in China and the Netherlands. Volvo recently ran trials for an 85-passenger autonomous, electric bus at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

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Fans of science fiction and related genres have always been disappointed by real life. The future holds so much promise on paper, yet millions were disappointed upon reaching 2015 to find that hoverboard technology still eluded us. It’s not all bad, though – [abetusk] has developed a cyberpunk jacket so you can live out your grungy hacker fantasies in real life.

The effect is achieved with specially designed jacket patches. Nylon fabric is lasercut with artwork or lettering, and then placed over an electroluminescent panel. The fabric acts as a mask and is glued onto the EL panel, and the assembly is then attached to the back of the jacket with velcro.

It’s a build that focuses on more than just a cool visual effect. The attention to detail pays off in robustness and usability – wires are neatly fed through the lining of the jacket, and special strain relief devices are used to avoid wires breaking off the EL panels. The extra effort means this is a jacket that can withstand real-world use, rather than falling apart in the middle of a posed photo shoot.

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In a significant step toward large-scale hydrogen production, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a low-cost catalyst that can speed up the splitting of water to produce hydrogen gas.

Splitting water using electricity is a widely-explored method to generate hydrogen gas, a long sought-after clean power source for fuel cells, batteries and zero-emission vehicles. One of two major reactions involved in this process—called the Oxygen Evolution Reaction—is notoriously slow, restricting the overall efficiency. Researchers have focused on developing better catalysts — materials that can speed up the reaction while remaining neutral. The most efficient catalysts today are made from such as ruthenium and platinum, which are both expensive and rare.

An IISc team has now developed a low-cost catalyst by combining cobalt oxide with phosphate salts of sodium. The material cost is over two hundred times less expensive than the current state-of-the-art ruthenium dioxide catalyst, and the reaction rate is also faster, says Ritambhara Gond, PhD student at the Materials Research Centre (MRC), IISc, who is the first author of the paper published in Angewandte Chemie.

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Innolith AG, a world leader in rechargeable inorganic battery technology, has announces that it is developing world’s first 1,000 Wh/kg rechargeable battery. Under development in the company’s German laboratory, the new Innolith Energy Battery would be capable of powering an electric vehicle for over 1,000 km on a single charge. The new Innolith battery would also radically reduce costs due to the avoidance of exotic and expensive materials combined with the very high energy density of the system.

In addition to its range and cost advantages, the Innolith battery will be the first non-flammable lithium-based battery for use in electric vehicles. This battery uses a non-flammable inorganic electrolyte, unlike conventional EV batteries that use a flammable organic electrolyte. The switch to non-flammable batteries removes the primary cause of battery fires that have beset the manufacturers of EVs.

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