They Let Brands Alter the Ingredients Used

 

A great idea that bio-based products are already helping the manufacturing industry is by giving brands more options when they choose ingredients to use for their products. Like for example, BASF announced that it now uses sustainable feedstocks for its chelating agents. In the chemical industry, a feedstock is a chemical containing other substances to extract and synthesize.

 

Chelating agents are common ingredients used to improve the cleansing power of cleaning products like detergents and dishwasher tabs. BASF also displays a certification that customers can see. It certifies that the products use renewable feedstocks from the start. If manufacturers gradually enhance the number of bio-based chemicals they make or use, they'll show efforts to make positive distinctions. Also, developing bio-based possibilities improves the assortment of ingredients available to use. That perk could lead to improved product formulations that help more than the environment.

 

They Could Help Manufacturers Get Lucrative Contracts With Bio-Focused Brands

 

The manufacturers that show a persistent commitment to producing bio-based products could find they're well-positioned to enter brand partnerships, as well. More exclusively, some enterprises are doubling down on their plant-based offerings. As an example, Tide offers a laundry detergent with 75% plant-based ingredients. Plenty of companies find it difficult to release exclusively bio-based products immediately. But, as manufacturers come up with new ideas, it may become more likely that they'll connect with brands like Tide and enter into contractual agreements for being sole producers of certain bio-based ingredients.

 

Moreover, the United Kingdom's first all-vegan hotel recently opened. It takes a plant-focused and animal-friendly approach to everything from the food menus to the textiles to the cleaning products. Not all bio-based products are vegan-friendly, but this highlights how things are changing. Bio-based manufacturers could find that the trends propel their businesses.

 

They Could Enable Manufacturers to Help Solve Known Environmental Issues

 

As manufacturers continue to make progress in the realm of bio-based products, they'll assist in the fight to remedy the problems that plague our planet. For illustration, 275 million tons of plastic waste get produced each year around the world, and 8 million of those tons end up in the ocean. People love the convenience of plastic bottles, but they often don't consider the environmental impact. There are also other issues associated with polyethylene terephthalate, or PET — the material used to make most plastic water bottles. Recycling it is cost-intensive and technologically complex. It's also problematic that some of the raw materials for PET come from crude oil.

 

On a positive note, scientists are investigating bio-based plastics to replace PET. One seemingly promising option is polyethylene furanoate (PEF). Researchers say that PEF looks the same as PET on the outside. But, this bioplastic is lighter, more stable and requires less material than its counterpart. Downsides exist, though. For example, PEF is not biodegradable. It's also time and energy-intensive to produce, and those factors hindered its marketability. Last year, scientists came up with a better method that shortens the production time to a few hours.

 

This is simply one example of an environmental conundrum that could get resolved due to bio-based materials. The manufacturers that successfully find solutions can then assert themselves as incredibly committed to sustainability. Press releases and blog posts could help get the word out to stakeholders.

 

Challenges on the Horizons

 

Regardless these positive effects for manufacturers, brands must remember that they could still run into obstacles — some of them insurmountable. A recent case involved a manufacturer of bio-based n-butanol and acetone, which are petroleum replacements. Green Biologics, based in the United Kingdom, had to shut down its U.S. facility after failing to secure the funding necessary to keep things running.

 

Plus, even when companies have the financial resources required, they'll surely encounter unforeseen circumstances that could derail their plans to create or use bio-based chemicals.

 

Success Could Give Manufacturers More Options

 

The possibilities of problems should never deter manufacturers working to make bio-based chemicals. Some of the advantages offered by those solutions are mentioned above, and they're only a sample. Although it's true that bio-based products are not automatically more sustainable than non-bio-based ones, they're usually superior concerning reductions in emissions and fossil fuel dependence. Those things make them well worth pursuing.

 

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BOE's entry into one of the world's greatest demanding smartphone supply chains would mark a leap forward for the Chinese display panel industry, which has been the recipient of billions of dollars of state and public support within the last decade. The sector has been nurtured by Beijing with grants and subsidies in a bid to move its industry up the consumer electronics value chain. The OLED market is also likely to expand dramatically in the near future, rising from last year's $25.5 billion to more than $30 billion this year, according to IDTechEx Research.

 

These advanced displays use an electric current passing through thin films of organic materials to generate light, and so consume less power. They not merely allow for better contrast and color, thinner smartphones and foldable screens, but additionally could be used in wearable and other electronic devices. Neither U.S. nor Japanese display makers have been able to provide sufficiently high-quality OLED technology to Apple. The iPhone maker presently buys OLEDs from Samsung, which dominates the premium screen market globally with a more than 90% share, and LG Display.

 

The entry of BOE as an OLED supplier could threaten Samsung Display's position and give Apple more bargaining power to win price cuts from the South Korean suppliers. BOE, which began producing flexible OLED screens at the end of 2017, also supplies the advanced displays to Huawei Technologies' revolutionary Mate X foldable smartphone, a rival to Samsung's Galaxy Fold. Nevertheless, BOE is still vulnerable to a potential crackdown from the U.S., where companies such as Corning, 3M and Applied Materials provide the most essential materials and equipment to make those screens. Any endeavor by the U.S. to clamp down on supplies to BOE - as Washington did to Huawei - could hit the Chinese display champion significantly.

 

Apple is at this time testing BOE's flexible OLED displays from the company's facility in the Sichuan Province city of Chengdu, China's first site to produce such advanced displays, two sources informed Nikkei. BOE is also constructing another facility in Sichuan Province, which would be allocated to Apple if it places orders, the people said. Apple is anticipated to produce at least two iPhones with OLED displays in 2020, sources said. The California tech titan is also contemplating OLED screens for all the new models due to be revealed in September of next year, three sources said.

 

Two sources with knowledge of the situation said BOE was most likely to supply the new iPhones next year if it wins certification. But it might first be asked to offer displays for repair objectives, as well as panels for older models of iPhones, one source suggested. That would still mark a milestone for BOE, the source said, as it would be Apple's first-ever purchase of Chinese-made OLED displays. OLED display is the most high priced component in the iPhone. It accounted for $110, or basically 30%, of the total $370.25 cost of the iPhone X, the first OLED iPhone, in 2017, according to IHS Markit's teardown. The cost of the OLED display rose to $120 the following year on the iPhone XS Max due to the larger screen. BOE-made OLED displays could be 20% cheaper than Samsung's products, one of the sources familiar with the discussions said.

 

The high cost of OLED panels is due to the heavy capital investment required. Compared with a standardized liquid crystal display production line for smartphones, an OLED panel facility could be twice as expensive at about $6.5 billion. Samsung has ruled the segment since it began to use OLED in its own smartphones in 2009. LG Display, a key Apple supplier of OLED, has suffered widening losses in its panel business, and there are questions about whether it would be prepared to invest further, which would leave Samsung as Apple's only option. Most Taiwanese and Japanese suppliers have halted investing in OLED displays.

 

'Apple has the incentive to qualify a new supplier for OLED display as [others] are a bit reluctant to invest too much to expand capacity,' said Eric Chiou, a veteran display analyst at Taipei-based research company WitsView. 'That gives BOE a good opportunity to break into the new market while the Chinese display company has already proven it has capability to supply to MacBooks, iPads, HP and Dell screens. It should not be too unexpected if Apple eventually buys OLEDs from BOE too.'

 

BOE was founded in 1993 in Beijing as a previous military and defense supplier. In its early years it suffered to match the quality of LCD leaders in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Still, generous government subsidies have helped it and the rest of the display industry. Based upon research by the Nikkei Asian Review, BOE received over 2 billion yuan ($283 million at current rates) in subsidies last year. As a result of this strong support, the little-known BOE has slowly emerged as an aggressive rival to other Asian suppliers in the past 10 years.

 

The Beijing-based company in 2018 started the world's first production line for 10.5-generation liquid crystal display - the largest available during that time. It also became the world's largest LCD display supplier by shipments the same year. Its revenue surged about tenfold to 97.1 billion yuan between 2008 and 2018, and today it is a supplier to lots of leading tech companies including Chinese TV brand Hisense, Lenovo Group, HP and Dell. BOE since 2017 has supplied LCD panels to Apple for its MacBook and iPad, increasing pressure on established players such as Samsung Display, LG Display, Japan Display, Sharp and Taiwan's AU Optronics. Apple and BOE did not respond to the Nikkei Asian Review's request for comment.

 

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The going up customer demand for innovations, cleaner, lighter, and safer designs, as well as lower prices across customized products, is also encouraging the automotive 3D printing market. Along with offering benefits such as reduced weight, energy-efficient cars, and reduced CO2 emissions of vehicles, Zimlon assesses the impact 3D printing has on the car insurance market. 3D printing is a game-changer in the spare parts industry with as much as 85% of spare parts suppliers looking at embracing 3D printing. From reduced inventory and logistics costs, with the help of 3D printing, manufacturers can store these spare-parts digitally and produce them on-demand.

 

Cost Savings:

3D printing can cut costs for prototyping and production. Tucci Hot Rods estimate they save about $500 per part using 3D printing methods as an alternative to using machine-made, aftermarket solutions while car manufacturer Opel reported a tooling cost decrease of 90% for the assembly process. 

 

Faster Prototyping:

Productivity and speed have boosted three-fold because 3D printing eradicates the time and effort needed to create prototypes and test materials. According to BMW, 3D printed customized tools helped save 58% in general costs and minimize project time by 92%.

 

Reduced Wastage:

3D printing uses material only where it’s needed, getting rid of wastage by 95%. Avoiding extra costs for wasted material can revamp production processes.

 

Customized Cars:

With 3D printing, creating many variants of a model can be done without much trouble. In a new service offered by MINI, customers can use 3D printing to create and order accessories to modify their MINI. 

 

Improved Materials:

A variety of 3D printing processes offer materials that can withstand temperatures well above the average 105 °C sustained engine compartment temperatures such as SLS nylon and photo-cured polymers. 

 

Restoring Vintage Cars:

3D printing can also help restore vintage cars. Porsche is currently using SLM 3D printing for metal parts and SLS 3D printing for plastic parts and tooling, making a more extensive range of rare components available for collectors.

 

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Now researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed an optical waveguide that consists of just three layers of atoms. This means that the new waveguide is just six angstroms thick. With one nanometer equal to 10 angstroms, and today’s optical waveguides generally around 200-300 nm, that means these new waveguides are 500 times thinner than what is in use today.

 

“This might potentially lead to a higher density of waveguides or optical elements on an optoelectronic chip,” said Ertugrul Cubukcu, associate professor at UC San Diego. “Think about how a smaller transistor leads to a higher density of those on an electronic chip.” To reach what is the theoretical limit in the thinness of an optical waveguide the researchers transformed to transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), chiefly tungsten disulfide.

 

TMDs are materials that combine one of 15 transition metals with one of three members of the chalcogen family: sulfur, selenium, or tellurium. Five years ago, simulations indicated that these materials could enable the thinning of the channel gates in transistors to below 1 nanometer. The thinness of tungsten disulfide crystal is just one of the special properties of the material. The monolayer crystal also supports the formation of electron-hole pairs—also known as excitons—at room temperature.

 

Aside from operating at room temperature, tungsten disulfide can channel light in the visible spectrum. Graphene has been shown to serve as a waveguide. Nevertheless, it can only operate at infrared wavelengths. This device serves as the first time that a material this thin can operate in the visible wavelengths. Of course, actually trying to fashion a device out of a material only three-atoms thick may have been the largest hurdle of all for the researchers. “While these materials are very robust, macroscopic forces could have still damaged them,” explained Cubukcu.

 

In the research described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers devised a way to handle this fragility by making use of a sacrificial template that was removed at the very last stage of the processing. The sacrificial template is a thin silicon nitride membrane supported by a silicon frame. This structure more or less serves as the substrate on which the waveguide is constructed. An array of nanosized holes is then patterned into this membrane so that it can serve as a kind of template. At this point the tungsten disulfide crystal is pushed into the membrane. By sending ions through the membrane, the nanoholes create a pattern in the crystal. Finally, the silicon nitride membrane is etched away, leaving the tungsten disulfide crystal suspended in the silicon frame.

 

This periodic array of holes in the crystal also addresses another fundamental problem: measuring the performance of the waveguide mode. By their very nature, a waveguide directs light in the plane of the material. However, at this ultimate limit the researchers found that it was very difficult to distinguish the guided light from the light propagating freely in space. The array of holes scatters a small amount of light out of the plane of the material so it can be more easily detected. While this device is the thinnest optical waveguide, reliably producing tungsten disulfide for large areas at high quality remains a challenge, potentially hindering these devices quickly finding their way into commercial optoelectronic devices.

 

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Announced in 2015 by China's cabinet with President Xi Jinping's blessing, Made In China 2025 is the country's road map for upgrading its industries from the world's factory for low cost goods to a global power on par with the U.S. and Germany. But, since trade tensions flared up with the U.S. last year, China has eliminated references to the initiative. These targets were 'predictive,' 'nonbinding' and 'not a government action,' stated Miao Yu, a minister in China's Industry and Information Technology department in 2017. But the West has interpreted Made In China 2025 as factual evidence of China's ambition and - even more important - capacity to dominate the global tech sector with brute government force.

 

As trade tensions escalate, not only will China miss the targets, but the country may take decades longer - or may indeed never - fulfill these lofty objectives. The U.S., on the contrary, will need to reevaluate if it has been fearing a tech 'paper tiger' all along. Similarly as the perceived threat from the Soviet Union was pumped during the Cold War era, the U.S. is likely to realize that China's threat to its technology dominance has been grossly exaggerated.

 

Missed targets will come from so many sectors. Beijing aspired that domestically made industrial robots would meet 50% of Chinese market demand by 2020. In 2018, the market share of Chinese domestic industrial robot makers stood at 32.2%. This included a 5.5 percentage point jump from last year after one segment of the market, automobile industrial robots, dominated by foreign companies, shrank, according to China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA).

 

'We are facing a high degree of difficulty in reaching the objective set for 2020,' Qu Daokui, chairman of CRIA, declared at the World Robot Conference in Beijing last year. In aerospace, China aspired to complete the research, production and delivery of self-developed 150-seat single-aisle mainline passenger aircraft by 2020. More over, it hoped domestically-made mainline passenger aircraft would meet 5% of Chinese demand by next year.

 

But the Comac C919, China's flagship effort to develop such an aircraft, is suffering delays and is still carrying out test flights. It will take three to five years to get crucial approvals in China before the C919 can begin production and delivery, according to a Chinese news report pointing out government officials. That means meeting this goal will be tremendously delayed. By 2020, China also hoped to notably expand its rail equipment sector overseas, with 30% of business generated outside its borders. Industrywide figures are unavailable, but China's leading rolling stock manufacturer, CRRC Corporation, made 9.5% of its revenue from outside of China in 2018, roughly unchanged for the past three years, according to its annual report.

 

Looking at Beijing placed its hopes on CRRC as the main vehicle for internationalization, the country is unlikely to meet the 30% target next year. The less tangible goals in Made In China 2025 are becoming almost impossible to meet given the intensifying trade frictions with the U.S. 'Becoming one of the leaders in 5G international standards, technology and industry,' for example, is definitely questionable since Huawei Technology's 5G systems have been or are being banned by major countries around the world.

 

Other aspirations will take much longer for China to attain after international cooperation tends destined to decline. These include 'reaching internationally leading levels in critical core systems in new energy cars' and 'in integrated circuits' and 'realizing breakthroughs in core technology in new generation robots.' What does this mean?

 

First, widespread misinformation must be cleared up. Chinese government and media created these lofty policy documents and self-aggrandizing reports to rally the population and generate national pride. The West unknowingly took it all at face value. Much is lost in translation in this process and has led to unsound policymaking in the West to 'contain' China now.

 

Second, we must caution against elevating current grievances relating to trade and economic issues to an ideological divide that amounts to a new cold war. Today, 60% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of China, up from 47% in 2018 and the highest level since the Pew Research Center began asking the question. A new cold war will lead the world to unprecedented turmoil and hurt all of us.

 

Finally, the world should find incremental improvements, not one-shot solutions. The worldwide economy and financial markets are in uncharted waters, and so are China's reforms. Structural issues such as reforming state-owned enterprises and corporate deleveraging are incredibly hard to solve after years, sometimes decades, of kicking the can down the road. As we look at 2020 and beyond, China may not be the only country that faces disappointing outcomes in national policy. The U.S. and others need to reassess their own policies if we want to return our future to international cooperation and collective advances.

 

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1. Cable assembly with quality assurance

 

At 12 state-of-the-art facilities throughout the world, including the U.S., highly-skilled technicians customize around 20,000 ready-to-connect chainflex® cables every week. Each cable is put together similar to 24 manufacturers’ standards, including Siemens, Allen-Bradley and FANUC, and come equipped with industrial connectors from the biggest names in the industry, such as Intercontec, Harting and Yamaichi. Plus, igus® has created a 90-degree cable adapter called ibow® for connections in tight spaces.

 

Our technicians electrically try every cable, visually check out every connection, and measure crimp heights and all essential dimensions precisely to make certain our assembled cables will function perfectly upon delivery and every day during the life of your machine. More than 1,200 cable types are available for customization.

 

2. Cable design features for an extended service life

 

Compared with traditional cables that tend to fail prematurely, chainflex® continuous-flex cables are engineered for optimal effectiveness and can considerably increase the service life and productivity of dynamic applications. chainflex® cables are designed with the following features:

 

- A high-quality, high-tensile strength center element for strain relief

- A medium-to-fine conductor strand diameter to prevent the strand from kinking while being subjected to a high number of cycles

- The highest quality high-pressure extruded PVC or TPE materials that support the individual strands of the conductor and prevent the cable’s insulation from adhering to one another

- Individual conductors bundled into groups, which are cabled together in a single layer surrounding the cable core, enable pulling and compressive forces in the bending motion to balance and cancel out torsional forces

- A pressure-extruded inner jacket that ensures the insulated conductors are guided efficiently

- A high-quality braided shield that provides electromagnetic interference (EMI) protection for the cable

- A cost-effective outer jacket material that is resistant to UV radiation, abrasion, oils and chemicals

- CFRIP technology that allows users to open the cable’s jacket like a zipper, saving you time and eliminating the need for additional tools

 

3. Extensively tested under real-world conditions

 

In essence, continuous-flex cables should be tested in configurations and environments that replicate real-world applications. The 41,200-square-foot igus® testing area is the most extensive of its kind in the industry. Our engineers run 2 billion different bend tests to ensure cables created for specific types of movement have the strength and longevity to maintain their structure over millions of linear, tick-tock, torsional or multi-axis cycles. Engineers also use a climate chamber to test the long-term effects of extreme temperatures, chemicals and more.

 

Results show that in most situations, chainflex® cables can endure temperatures between minus 40 C and 100 C. They are also flame retardant, UV resilient and really oil resistant. All chainflex® cables have a predictable service life and come with a 36-month guarantee.

 

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Facebook, it said, already has started using the product. Intel said its first AI product comes subsequently it had invested in Israeli AI startups, like Habana Labs and NeuroBlade.

 

“In order to reach a future situation of ‘AI everywhere’, we have to deal with huge amounts of data generated and make sure organizations are equipped with what they need to make effective use of the data and process them where they are collected,” said Naveen Rao, general manager of Intel’s artificial intelligence products group.

 

“These computers need acceleration for complex AI applications.” It said the new hardware chip will assist Intel Xeon processors in large companies as the need for advanced computations in the AI field increases.

 

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Researchers from IBM Zurich and the University of Oxford have produced a stable version of a carbon allotrope that has long been reviewed and theorized, but which remained elusive until now. It’s known as a cyclocarbon. The carbon atoms in cyclocarbons have just two neighbors, and, when linked together, take the shape of a ring. This is unique than other types of carbon allotropes, like fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene, which have three neighboring carbon atoms. The team’s work is described today in the journal Science. 

 

No one knew for certain if a cyclocarbon could be made or exactly what kind of structure it would take. There was some published evidence of their existence in gas form, but because of their extreme reactivity, cyclocarbons did not remain stable enough to be isolated and characterized. Now that a cyclocarbon has been isolated and imaged, scientists can begin to characterize its properties and determine its usefulness. “We will see what applications the molecule can be used for in the future,” said Leo Gross, a researcher at IBM Zurich and one of the coauthors of the paper. At the moment, what the researchers know about the cyclocarbon is that it has a relatively high electric conductivity, according to Gross.

 

“What makes the molecule appealing to us is that we can use it to create larger carbon-rich structures by atom manipulation on insulating films,” said Gross. “In the future, we aim to build molecular devices that function based on single electron transfer. Such devices could be used for computations with extremely low power dissipation, possibly as devices for neuromorphic computing.” Before discussions of potential applications in neuromorphic computing could begin in earnest, the researchers had to work for three years to get to the point where they could isolate a stabilized version of the molecule.

 

“The cyclocarbon oxide molecules are unstable compounds as they are light- and temperature-sensitive and can explode on heating, which we observed on sublimation,” said Lorel Scriven, a doctoral student at Oxford. “We had to coordinate closely with the IBM team to synthesize and ship the cyclocarbon oxides to Zurich immediately before they were to be measured so that they could be sublimed before they decomposed.”

 

The researchers were able to stabilize the molecule at low temperatures (5 kelvins) on an especially inert substrate (sodium chloride). This eliminated the ingredients necessary for the molecule to react and rendered it relatively stable. Still, the key to making it all work was to find a precursor molecule that was stable enough to be prepared and that can be converted by atom manipulation into the desired cyclocarbon, according to Katharina Kaiser,  a researcher at IBM Zurich. The Oxford and IBM researchers intend to continue looking for new carbon allotropes related to cyclocarbons. Eventually, they aim to use these structures to create new materials.

 

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The logic behind going big is straight forward, according to founder Andrew Feldman. Artificial intelligence software requires huge amounts of information to improve, so processors need to be as fast as possible to crunch all this data - even if that means the components get truly chunky. The company’s Wafer Scale Engine chip is large because it has 1.2 trillion transistors, 400,000 computing cores and 18 gigabytes of memory. (A typical PC processor will have about 2 billion transistors, four to six cores and a fraction of the memory).

 

“Every square millimeter is optimized for this work,” Feldman said. “AI work is growing like crazy. Our customers are in pain.” The biggest limitation of current AI systems is that it takes too long to train software, he added. Feldman has experience and industry backing that’s very important to tackling an engineering problem of this magnitude, he said. He co-founded server maker SeaMicro Inc. and sold it to chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. for more than $300 million in 2012. Cerebras has raised over $100 million from Silicon Valley investors including Benchmark, Andy Bechtolsheim and Sam Altman. Feldman has a team of 174 engineers and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. - Apple Inc.’s chipmaker of choice - is manufacturing the massive Cerebras processor.

 

Cerebras will definitely not sell the chips because it’s very complicated to connect and cool such a huge piece of silicon. On the other hand, the product will be offered as part of a new server that will be installed in data centers. The company said it has test systems working at a range of large potential customers and will start shipping the machines commercially in October. The AI chip market includes Nvidia Corp., Intel Corp. and U.K. startup Graphcore Ltd. Google has been so keen to speed up AI progress that the internet giant developed its own special chips called Tensor Processing Units.

 

Nvidia was the last company to adequately bring new semiconductor technology into servers, the machines that run data centers that Google, Facebook Inc. and others use to run internet services. Nvidia now gets almost $3 billion a year in revenue from the business, which took years and thousands of engineers to build, according to Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang. “It takes a long time to be successful in data center,” he said in an interview last week.

 

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The Ft. Worth, Tx.-based company has invented what it calls the Hunstable Electric Turbine, or HET. The patented HET, the company claims, can generate two to five times the torque of existing motors or generators, in the same-size package. Torque is the volume of work that a motor or engine produces, frequently measured on a per-revolution basis. “We believe we’ve built an entirely new class of electric motors, and that hasn’t happened in maybe 30 years,” says Brad Hunstable, the company’s founder and chairman.  

 

Hunstable was formerly CEO of UStream, a video streaming and hosting company (now known as IBM Cloud Video) that IBM acquired for US $150 million in 2016. Brad’s father and company CTO Fred Hunstable is an inventor and electrical engineer, who worked in the nuclear power industry for Raytheon and Ebasco. And Linear Labs began about five years ago as a father-and-son project. One of its approximately 20 full-time employees, the company counts former employees of Tesla, Daimler, and Faraday Future. 

 

The Hunstables tick off myriad design and technical benefits for their HET, which they define as a 3D circumferential flux, four-rotor permanent magnet motor. Contrary to typical designs, the synchronous DC motors have no superfluous end windings, so 100 percent of their copper material goes into energy conversion. An ordinary motor’s copper content could be reduced by 30 percent, while generating equivalent torque, they say. So for a given torque level, the HET consumes significantly less energy than competing designs. 

 

Company studies of present automotive platforms, particularly Teslas and the Toyota Prius, show that the motors could boost driving range by more than 10 percent; or allow those cars to carry fairly smaller battery packs to deliver equivalent range. The HET itself is spectacularly efficient, generating up to a claimed 150 newton meters (Nm) of torque at just 3,000 revolutions per minute (rpm), in a Prius-sized packaging envelope.

 

The company’s permanent-magnet tech needs no rare-earth metals. The motors generate such robust torque that, in some applications, no gearbox reduction is necessary. The system incorporates a totally electronic transmission, which reduces energy losses and, at production scale, could trim at least 45 kilograms (100 pounds) from vehicle weight. Complexity and costs for engineering and manufacturing drop along with it.

 

Many electrified vehicles must also integrate a DC-to-DC converter—which boosts or chops voltage to varying levels—to enable a full range of driving speeds under various loads. But because the HET can generate such robust torque at lower rpms, it could also remove the boost convertor that’s found on every car. Which means that, the motors could deliver a domino effect that’s another Holy Grail of transportation engineers: A smaller, more effective motor with no geared reduction or DC/DC converter would allow for smaller and lighter batteries, simplified and less-costly controls, and lighter suspensions and other chassis components that underpin those systems.

 

“The electronics to power motors are often more expensive than the motors themselves,” Brad says. Linear Labs has started working with customers, as yet unnamed, to mutually develop applications in electric and micromobility vehicles, robotics, and for HVAC systems. The company says a ride-sharing scooter company asked it to evaluate a Segway Ninebot ES4 motor. The resulting Segway enjoyed a 50-percent boost in range, and four times the torque, which boosted the vehicle’s top speed and allowed it to climb a steep 20-percent grade. “You’ll see us in a micromobility application, with air-cooled motors, within one year,” Fred Hunstable says.

 

The Hunstables add that with 45 percent of the world’s electricity at some point flowing through an electric motor, decisive gains in power and proficiency could have untold benefits in energy savings and performance. One example: The company estimates that, in a large, 8-megawatt wind turbine, the HET could save 90 tons of weight, millions of dollars in costs, and lift efficiency by 3 percent. “We feel we’re part of a smarter, cleaner energy movement, with applications way beyond mobility,” Brad says.

 

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Satellite-based positioning systems are the bedrock upon which an enormous array of location services is built - everything from smartphone games to emergency notification systems makes use of location data. These systems also enable aircraft and ships to navigate and enable remote operation of huge agricultural and mining machines with pinpoint precision. The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency estimates the market for devices and location data services will reach 180 billion euros ($199 billion) by 2020, with 8 billion receivers in operation, getting satellites an important part of a country's industrial competitiveness.

 

A Nikkei analysis of satellite orbit data from leading U.S. receiver maker Trimble highlighted BeiDou's rapid growth. China launched 18 satellites for the system in 2018 only. As of the end of June, there were 35 BeiDou satellites in operation, compared with 31 for GPS. The EU, meanwhile, has 22 positioning satellites and Russia 24. Japan operates four 'quasi-zenith' satellites, which are limited to regional use, while India has six.

 

As of June 28, Chinese satellites were observed more continually than GPS satellites in 130 of 195 countries (U.N. member states plus the Vatican and Palestine). More than 20 BeiDou satellites were observed over mainland China. China is using its Belt and Road Initiative to promote the BeiDou navigation system. BeiDou satellites were the most frequently observed in more than 100 of the 137 countries that have signed on to the massive infrastructure project. Most were in Southeast Asia and Africa.

 

The Pakistani military depends on BeiDou for positioning data, and in April there was a test run of self-driving tractors in Tunisia using the system. More than 30 countries in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere use the Chinese navigation system. If it becomes the standard in these countries, China will have an advantage in introducing new technologies and products.

 

BeiDou is also making inroads in Japan, the U.S. and Europe. About 10 Chinese satellites were seen over New York and London, fewer than in Asia. However there were almost as many Chinese satellites overhead in the two cities as American and European ones during certain hours. Japan's four quasi-zenith satellites frequently operate in conjunction with around 10 GPS satellites. But more than 20 BeiDou satellites could be observed daily over Japan.

 

A report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. congressional panel, guesses that Beijing will invest up to $10.6 billion on its satellite positioning system between 1994 and 2020. The country plans to launch about 10 satellites by 2020. The bigger the constellation of satellites, the more accurate the positioning. Nobuaki Kubo, a professor at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, believes BeiDou will be as precise as the satellite systems of advanced economies within a few years.

 

The growth of China's satellite data positioning industry has deep implications. Chinese smartphones and car navigation systems are BeiDou-compatible by default; foreign manufacturers are following suit because products and services that use BeiDou are available in many other countries. U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm was the first to supply chips for BeiDou-capable smartphones. Leading American smartphone makers other than Apple use the chips in their devices. STMicroelectronics of Switzerland obtained the BeiDou system for its automotive semiconductors in 2015.

 

'We need to be compatible with positioning satellites around the world with a single type of semiconductor,' said Yuji Motohashi, who heads the automotive digital product division at STMicroelectronics Japan unit. For companies with global ambitions, making BeiDou-compatible products is a must. Chinese tech companies are using BeiDou to sharpen their edge. Lenovo Group Vice President Chang Cheng revealed in May that the location function of its new Z6 smartphone is accurate to within 1 meter. The handset has a chip that receives signals of varying frequencies from BeiDou satellites to enhance accuracy, which for most smartphones is about 3 to 5 meters.

 

Qianxun SI, a location services provider funded by Alibaba Group Holding and others, is using BeiDou signals and data from more than 2,000 ground stations to create a positioning service for self-driving vehicles with an accuracy in the centimeter range. Just as the U.S. became the leader in positioning services with GPS, China is working to develop new satellite-based technology and promote it around the world using BeiDou. The rise of BeiDou has raised alerts in the U.S. national security establishment. Compared with GPS, which only sends signals, and cannot identify the location of receivers, BeiDou's communications with the ground are two-way. When using BeiDou for car navigation, the receiver could theoretically transmit the car's location to a satellite in orbit, said Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. He also believes Chinese satellites can jam signals in specific areas. The U.S. government is worried that such capabilities could be used in cyberattacks.

 

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