ROBOTS To inspect the transmission Line:

ROBO INSPECTION IN TRANSMISSION LINE...

Times sure have changed. robots used to be the only effective way to

inspect an overhead transmission line was by flying around in a helicopter with a pair of binoculars. But using choppers isn’t cheap when you’ve got thousands of kilometres of high-voltage equipment to watch. Faced with tight budgets and an aging workforce, utilities are increasingly experimenting with line-crawling robots as a safer, less expensive way to inspect their transmissioninfrastructure, much of it installed during the 1970s and showing its age. “There have been accidents over the years of people flying in helicopters, so the first issue here is safety,” says Andrew Phillips, director of power transmission studies at the Electric Power Research Institute. Phillips says the average industry worker’s age is 48 and many of the most skilled linemen are nearing retirement. “We just don’t have those people anymore.” He adds that robot line inspectors will help bridge the coming skills gap, improve worker safety and be less costly in the long run compared with conventional approaches to line inspection. “The expectation is that it will be at least less than 70 per cent of the cost.” It’s a trend that Hydro One — which has about 29,000 circuit kilometres of high-voltage transmission lines to monitor throughout Ontario — is closely following. “We’re definitely tracking the progress,” says George Juhn, director of investment planning and asset managing at the utility. “It looks like the future . . . but we’re not there yet.” Québec-Hydro is being proactive. It began researching robotic inspection devices after the 1998 ice storm, in which rain froze on transmission lines, adding weight that led to the collapse of lines and towers, leaving more than 4 million people in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick without electricity – many for several weeks. So the utility developed a small, remotely controlled robot called LineRover and in 2000 began using it as a way to de-ice live transmission wires. It worked well, and the LineRover evolved as more sensors and cameras were added, allowing it to perform more detailed inspections as well as spot trees and other vegetation that could short out lines. It was an overgrown tree, for example, that triggered the massive Northeast Blackout of 2003. “But the LineRover can’t cross obstacles,” says Montambault, referring to the robots’ inability to move past transmission towers and hop on and off different lines. So he and his research team developed a more advanced model, called LineScout, which has been used by Hydro-Québec since 2006 and B.C. Hydro since 2008. The battery-powered LineScout is waterproof, equipped with four cameras, packed with sensors that can detect problems such as corrosion, and capable of working in extreme temperatures. It hangs from the line like a mechanical sloth on roller skates, travelling at about four kilometres an hour. Each battery charge allows it to perform six or seven hours of work. “The main challenge was to develop this robotic platform to be reliable, cross obstacles and really reach almost any place on our circuit in harsh environments,” says Montambault. He said it used to be that lines were de-energized —disconnected temporarily from the grid – so workers could inspect them safely. But rising demand for electricity is making it more difficult to take lines out of service, requiring that work be done on live wires. “Now they can send the robot to do the live-line inspection, bring back high-quality images and data, then let an engineer on the ground decide if repairs are necessary,” he says. over at the Electric Power Research Institute, efforts are being made to develop an even more sophisticated robot, one that can be put up on a line and left alone for long periods with little human intervention.

Such a device would be autonomous and capable of charging itself, likely by harnessing ambient energy from the transmission lines themselves. The institute has already developed a 64-kilogram, two-metre prototype that is being tested for the first time at an outdoor lab. It is equipped with solar cells that provide a small amount of backup emergency power, can hunt for connections that may be faulty as a result of overheating and can detect electromagnetic noises in equipment that could suggest problems. All the data that’s collected, including high-quality digital images, can be transmitted in populated areas through cellphone signals or, in more remote areas, via satellite link to a central office. Robots that not only inspect but also repair faulty lines are also a  “That would be the beginning of what we call intervention or manipulation tasks,” Montambault says. “It’s a challenge, because the robot has to be stable, precise and have enough dexterity.” It’s an area where we can shine, he adds dproudly. “Canada is truly a leader in this.”

FAN With out blade !!!

Dyson.the name that has always been associated with vacuum cleaners, now have come up with a revolutionized table fan that comes with no blades and friendly to the fingers of children.

The Dyson bladeless fan is called Air Multiplier which takes table fan to a new level, able to keep you cool even it has no blades. How does it do that?

WORKING: Actually the Air Multiplier has blades in it, but they are hidden inside the lower canister. Dyson simply borrows the same concept of how a vacuum cleaner is setup to make this bladeless fan. The hidden blades produce air which will then get re-routed through the ring, which sounds like an amplifier for the air.Since the Air Multiplier fan comes with no blades, it’s definitely one that families with kids should own which it can be much safer to the fingers of your kids. And some more it should produce less noise as no air-chopping.

COST:

Dyson is asking for $300 for the 10-inch model of the Air Multiplier, and a 12-inch model costs $329.99. These are all you have to pay to ensure your kids’ fingers intact.

Kiwi device to make broadband Internet 50 times faster at no extra cost .

                                     A company in New Zealand has created a device that promises to increase the speed of broadband Internet by 50 times. Manufacture by Remote Management Systems, the system looks like a modem, and connects with homes' existing wiring to boost broadband speeds without having to pay the more than 800 dollar fee for re-wiring a home with fibre-optic cables to get such fast internet.
It's called a service delivery point and has been designed by operations manager Alan Jacks, production design engineer Hayden Short, and development engineer Chris Johnston.
          Telecom's infrastructure division, Chorus, has already taken orders for the product. The company is also marketing to Australia, and has received interest from Britain, Singapore, Taiwan and France.
An additional advantage to those who already have fibre optic cabling and still wish to use the device - it will act as a backup electricity system.
The firm is also in discussions with banks and government departments to keep eftpos machines, security cameras operating and alarms running.
"This is going to make us big," Stuff.co.nz quoted Feygan as saying.

"We have invested millions of investors' money, worked weekends and long hours and it's finally paying off," he added.

Development of Wireless Power Transmission System by MURATA

Following the foot step of Sony’s and like, Murata Manufacturing has made an announcement on development of a wireless power transfer technology ,namely field-coupled wireless power transmission system capable of supplying power to devices wirelessly, where the devices can be charged by simply placing them on the charger without any needs for power cords or other physical connections.


The filed-coupled system is a wireless power transmission method, where the electrodes are positioned at the power-sending and power-receiving ends, where the energy can be transmitted through the electric filed that has been generated between these electrodes. Due to the fact that capacitance is generated between two electrodes, the system is also called a capacitance coupling system. The system has been developed based on Murata’s circuit design know how and the power transmission technology of TMMS. The new system can be targeted for various applications such as charging of cell phones, mobile music players, digital still cameras, notebook PCs, light fixtures, decorations, etc. Also by incorporating the new charger into an office desk, the desk will turn into a “smart” desk capable of charging notebook PCs, and other such devices. That’s not all, by incorporating the system throughout transportation and accommodation facilities, devices can be charged anywhere without any needs for AC adaptors. The new system comes with transmitted power of 1 to 10 W. Murata is planning a mass production by 2011, with a monthly production of 10,000 units. The target price for pair power-sending and receiving module is 980 JPY. There are 10 patents pending relating to this transmission method.

UHVDC Transmission

A new transformer developed for the world’s first ultra high-voltage DC transmission systems (UHVDC) has successfully completed final testing. It is the first transformer for the new 800 kilovolts (kV) HVDC in China. Today’s HVDC transmission systems normally operate at a standard transmission voltage of 500 kilovolts. HVDC systems can transmit power over much greater distances and at considerably reduced loss than is possible with AC systems.

To achieve this 60-percent increase in peak voltage capacity, Siemens had to develop a range of entirely new technical solutions for the new 800-kilovolt HVDC transmission system. One of several major challenges facing the company’s development engineers in Nuremberg was a lack of any defined standards for this scale of system. Due to the very high operating voltage, for example, they had to design exceptionally effective insulation systems. Therefore, in order to achieve the needed insulating clearances in air, the two valve bushings through which the current flows from inside the transformer to the converters are 14 meters in length. To construct the 800 kV transformers, a new, specially air-conditioned production hall had to be built to prevent the insulation from absorbing moisture from the atmosphere during final assembly. Similarly, the test facility in the Nuremberg factory had to be adapted to accommodate the tremendous increase in voltage when carrying out final acceptance testing on the new transformer.(CAN U ABLE TO FIND OUT TWO PERSONS ARE STANDING NEAR TO IT...IMAGINE ITS SIZE)

INTEL core i9

                                     Immediate obsolescence is an age old problem in the computer industry, but it doesn't look like the upcoming Core i9 "Gulftown" processor is going to do anything to solve it. Word is from early benchmarks of the upcoming Intel processor is that it bests the current Core i7 at the top of the heap with speed gains as large as 50% -- directly in line with its addition of two cores on top of the Core i7's existing four. Of course, six 2.8GHz cores aren't quite as exponentially helpful when applied to non-optimized tasks, but with most major modern software development aimed at better utilizing multiple cores, the core overkill of Core i9 will likely prove increasingly useful over time. At the start, however, Core i9's improvements will come at a premium: 130W power consumption instead of 95W in Core i7, and of course a high-end only price tag to match.