INDUSTRY News
The Mars helicopter makes history - with Maxon motors onboard
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has successfully completed its pioneering fl ight on Mars. This is the fi rst time in the history of powered, unmanned spacefl ight that a device has fl own in a controlled manner on another planet – also thanks to DC motors that have been modifi ed for this challenge. NASA’s Mars helicopter fl ew over the surface of the Red Planet for about 40s on Monday, April 19, and landed back on four legs. “Ingenuity” is about to complete several fl ight units over a period of 30 days, lasting up to 90 seconds and bringing it to a maximum altitude of fi ve meters. The fl ight is also a great success for the drive specialist Maxon, which provided the helicopter’s six brushed DC motors that have been specifi cally modifi ed for the project. The DCX series of drives, with diameters of 10mm, control the
pitch of the rotor blades and therefore the course of the helicopter, which weighs only 1.8kg and is solar-powered. The lightweight design is a prerequisite for a successful fl ight on the Red Planet, where there is hardly any atmosphere, making conditions similar to those at an altitude of 30km on Earth.
“The biggest challenge in developing the motors was the extreme weight requirement,” says Aiko Stenzel, design engineer at Maxon. “Every tenth of a gram had to be saved to make the helicopter fl y. What’s great is that despite the weight savings, we found a drive solution that has enough power to adjust the rotor blades, and this in the face of high vibrations and temperature fl uctuations.” Eugen Elmiger, CEO of the Maxon
Group, watched the NASA transmission of the fi rst fl ight data live: “It is a fantastic
NASA’s Mars helicopter
feeling to know that our precision drives worked as planned, and that we were able to make our contribution to this historic event. I am proud of our employees and look forward to the next milestones on Mars.”
Maxon’s drives are also used in the Perseverance rover, on the underside of which the helicopter that landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. These are ten BLDC motors and a special gearbox that will be used to handle the soil samples inside the rover, and other tasks.
Smart lampposts in cities will keep Covid-19 at bay
A new generation of smart lampposts that can read body temperatures and detect overcrowding could stop the spread of Covid-19 and regenerate cities, states a new report. The 21st-century lamp columns (see image right) go beyond street lighting by incorporating sensors that can receive and transmit information about crowd density, and even the body temperature of individuals. They can also incorporate CCTV, air quality sensors, flooding monitors, digital signage, and 5G Wi-Fi hotspots. The “Shining a Global Light” report, commissioned by city transformation experts UrbanDNA, Hydro, Itron, Lucy Zodion, Signify and the Smart City Infrastructure Fund, draws on case experiences from Barcelona (image top right), Copenhagen, LA, London, Munich and Singapore, to demonstrate how smart lampposts are being used to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. “The pandemic has been highly
revealing regarding smart city infrastructure, and the need to improve our way of working to drive further efficiencies. The key takeaway from the report is the amount of untapped potential that exists,” said Richard Perry, Lucy Zodion’s Smart Cities Head of Business Development.
6 May 2021 | Automation [Image credit: Barcelona Council]
“We have seen forward-thinking cities such as London, Barcelona and Copenhagen leading the way, and individually they are only accessing a small proportion of what the humble lamppost can offer. Imagine the potential for other cities. With this new alliance, we are learning all the time and discovering new initiatives in which the lamppost can play a role in our recovery.” In Barcelona, the City Council uses a camera-based solution attached to lampposts in the Las Ramblas area to ensure public health on beaches and implement crowd control measures to help tackle Covid. “We used scanning devices to get the images and artificial intelligence to analyse them, to find out what portion of the beach had no people on it. We analysed the proportion of sand
rather than identify people’s faces. This enabled us to look at the capacity that was free. Due to privacy concerns we anonymised the images,” said Marc Perez-Batlle, innovation manager at Municipal Institute of Information and Technology at Barcelona City Council. Westminster City Council in London is looking at ways of using lighting to usher people away from potentially crowded tube exits around Oxford Street, to help with crowd safety management. Los Angeles already has more than 400 smart street lights, equipped with electronic vehicle chargers, and the city is looking to pilot air-quality sensors, fire spotters, gunshot locators and earthquake sensors. Although LA is not yet using smart lampposts to tackle Covid, its street lighting department maintains that smart lampposts could help them detect if someone has a high temperature.
“By using their existing infrastructure, local authorities can smarten their lighting assets, making their public spaces safer, healthier and create bankable financial savings that result from smart lighting upgrades – which typically exceed 50%,” said Lucy Zodion’s Perry.
automationmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46
