Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists at the University of Washington have developed flying robots that change shape in mid-air, all without batteries, as originally published in the research journal Science Robotics. These miniature Transformers snap into a folded position during flight to stabilize descent. They weigh just 400 milligrams and feature an on-board battery-free actuator complete with a solar power-harvesting circuit.

Here’s how they work. These robots actually mimic the flight of different leaf types in mid-air once they’re dropped from a drone at an approximate height of 130 feet. The origami-inspired design allows them to transform quickly from an unfolded to a folded state, a process that takes just 25 milliseconds. This transformation allows for different descent trajectories, with the unfolded position floating around on the breeze and the folded one falling more directly. Small robots are nothing new, but this is the first solar-powered microflier that allows for control over the descent, thanks to an onboard pressure sensor to estimate altitude, an onboard timer and a simple Bluetooth receiver.

For the first time, Stanford researchers have found a way to create and stabilize an extremely rare form of gold that has lost two negatively charged electrons, denoted Au²⁺. The material stabilizing this elusive version of the valued element is a halide perovskite—a class of crystalline materials that holds great promise for various applications including more-efficient solar cells, light sources, and electronics components.

Surprisingly, the Au²⁺ perovskite is also quick and simple to make using off-the-shelf ingredients at room temperature.

“It was a real surprise that we were able to synthesize a stable material containing Au²⁺ —I didn’t even believe it at first,” said Hemamala Karunadasa, associate professor of chemistry at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences and senior author of the study published Aug. 28 in Nature Chemistry. “Creating this first-of-its-kind Au²⁺ perovskite is exciting. The gold atoms in the perovskite bear strong similarities to the copper atoms in high-temperature superconductors, and heavy atoms with unpaired electrons, like Au²⁺, show cool magnetic effects not seen in lighter atoms.”

University of Washington researchers are rolling out another tiny robotic breakthrough, this time in the form of an autonomous device that relies on surrounding light or radio waves to move in short bursts.

The robot, dubbed MilliMobile, is about the size of a penny and weighs as much as a raisin, and a typical power source, such as a battery, has been kicked to the curb in favor of more environmentally friendly approach.

MilliMobile has a solar panel-like energy harvester that sits above four tiny wheels, enabling the robot to roll — in incremental steps — about the 30 feet in an hour across surfaces such as concrete or packed soil.

Material used in organic solar cells can also be used as light sensors in electronics. This has been shown by researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, who have developed a type of sensor able to detect circularly polarized red light. Their study, published in Nature Photonics, paves the way for more reliable self-driving vehicles and other uses where night vision is important.

Some beetles with shiny wings, firefly larvae and colorful mantis shrimps reflect a particular kind of light known as circularly polarized light. This is due to microscopic structures in their shell that reflect the electromagnetic light waves in a particular way.

Circularly polarized light also has many technical uses, such as satellite communication, bioimaging and other sensing technologies. This is because circularly polarizing light carries a vast amount of information, due to the fact that the electromagnetic field around the light beam spirals either to the right or to the left.

Norway has installed the world’s northernmost solar farm and battery storage in the Svalbard archipelago, just south of the North Pole.

State-owned energy company Store Norske Energi installed the solar and storage at Isfjord Radio on the island of Spitsbergen, the largest and the only permanently populated island in the archipelago, and the solar farm is expected to come online tomorrow.

Isfjord was built as a radio station in 1933 to provide a communication link between the Svalbard archipelago and Norway’s mainland. It’s still a radio station and a weather station, and now there’s a hotel for tourists and researchers.

“If you can get up to a watt per square meter, it would be very attractive from a cost perspective,” Assawaworrarit says.

The invention taps into a source of energy that’s easily overlooked

The Earth is constantly receiving a tremendous amount of energy from the Sun, to the tune of 173,000 terrawatts. Clouds, particles in the atmosphere, and reflective surfaces like snow-covered mountains immediately reflect 30 percent of that energy out into space. The rest of it ends up warming the land, oceans, clouds, atmosphere, and everything else on the planet.

A new study modeled the behavior of solar vehicles in 100 locations around the world.

According to a new study, solar energy can provide a range of between 6 and 18 miles (11 and 29 kilometers) for electric vehicles each day, cutting down on the requirement for charging by half. The study took into account the capabilities of solar-powered vehicles in urban settings in 100 locations across the world, modeling the behavior of the cars in busy cities.

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In the first and second parts of this series, pv magazine reviewed the productive lifespan of residential solar panels and inverters. Here, we examine home batteries, how well they perform over time, and how long they last.

Residential energy storage has become an increasingly popular feature of home solar. A recent SunPower survey of more than 1,500 households found that about 40% of Americans worry about power outages on a regular basis. Of the survey respondents actively considering solar for their homes, 70% said they planned to include a battery energy storage system.

Besides providing backup power during outages, many batteries are integrated with technology that allows for intelligent scheduling of the import and export of energy. The goal is to maximize the value of the home’s solar system. And, some batteries are optimized to integrate an electric vehicle charger.

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The news was first reported by Reuters on Friday.