Perpetual flight: The incredible technology behind nonstop drones
Modern life hinges on satellite connectivity. President of Kraus Aerospace Fatema Hamdani explains how the science of perpetual flight is unfolding, and how to defend satellites and drones from enemy fire.
03 October, 2018
- How far can a drone fly? Kraus Aerospace is developing nonstop drones powered by cutting edge technology, like A.I. that recognizes thermal columns so drones can soar like birds rather than actively expending thrust energy.
- Watch drone footage in the video above to see this technology in action! These drones can also be hand-launched.
- Fatema Hamdani, cofounder and president of Kraus Aerospace, explains the enormous cost of landing and relaunching drones and satellites, and why nonstop performance is a desirable alternative. It also has applications in national security and disaster relief: "[With this tech] we would have been able to bring up Puerto Rico from them not having connectivity for months or a whole year, to days," she says.
How Conducting Galileo's Classic Experiment In Space Proved Einstein Right
A groundbreaking experiment proves a key tenet of Einstein's theory of gravity.
04 December, 2017
Credit: CNES/VIRTUAL-IT 2017
<p></p><p class="p1">An experiment designed by the legendary Italian astronomer<strong> Galileo Galilei </strong>(1564 - 1642) was recreated in space and proved another famous scientist right, confirming a part of <strong>Einstein’s</strong> theory of gravity with unprecedented precision.<span> </span></p> <p></p><p class="p1">The original experiment allegedly involved Galileo dropping two balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Doing that proved that they fell at the same rate, regardless of what they were made of. While it’s still debated if Galileo actually carried out such an experiment, scientists performed a similar one in an Earth-orbiting satellite.</p> <p></p><p class="p1">Instead of balls, however, the researchers from the French-led MICROSCOPE satellite science team had two hollow cylinders free-falling inside a satellite for over <strong>120 orbits</strong> or eight days worth of time. What they found is that accelerations exhibited by the cylinders matched to a <strong>two-trillionths of a percent.</strong> So pretty well. </p> <p></p><p class="p1">The results support the <strong>equivalence principle </strong>of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. It states that an object’s <strong>inertial mass</strong>, which determines the amount of force needed for acceleration, is equal to the <strong>gravitational mass</strong> - an indication of how the object is affected by the gravitational field. This idea proposes that things fall at the same rate in a vacuum (without air resistance), even if they are made of different stuff and have varying masses.</p> <p></p><p class="p1">Here's more on how the equivalence principle works:</p> <p></p><p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="98e2ec241e31ed40dc24ede8a43b18f2"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eU2hGIrBULA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p> <p></p><p class="p1">To conduct the experiment, the scientists put a hollow cylinder made of platinum alloy into another hollow cylinder made of titanium alloy. The satellite used electrical forces to keep the two aligned as the objects fell in orbit around Earth. <span>A difference in the amounts of applied forces would have potentially indicated a violation of the equivalence principle. </span>No such differences were observed between them, achieving <strong>10</strong> times the precision of previous tests.</p> <p></p><p class="p1">The scientists hope to achieve precision that’s <strong>100</strong> times better than what others have been able to pull off. Why? Because even though the equivalence principle has held so far, there have been predictions that violations of the principle could be observed at some level that’s not been detected yet. Understanding if that’s true could hold the key to reconciling general relativity with quantum physics. </p> <p></p><p class="p1">You can read the study <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.231101" target="_blank">here</a>, in <em>Physical Review Letters.</em></p>
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Scientists Make a Breakthrough in Teleportation
Chinese scientists accomplish the feat of teleporting a photon to a satellite hundreds of miles above Earth.
12 July, 2017
Mir space station. 1996. (Photo by NASA/Newsmakers)
Chinese researchers teleported a photon from Earth to a satellite in orbit more than 500 kilometers above. While this isn’t quite in the realm of “beam me up, Scotty,” and we are not teleporting humans just yet, the scientific breakthrough is a significant step forward in developing quantum technology.
<p>The team working on the <strong>Micius</strong> satellite, launched in 2016, managed to create a satellite-to-ground quantum network, which it utilized in the feat. The satellite is a very sensitive photon receiver, useful for testing such quantum techniques as entanglement, cryptography and teleportation. </p> <p>How was the teleportation accomplished? Other quantum labs have managed to accomplish it in lab settings but the current teleportation of the photon established the longest distance over which entanglement has been ever measured. <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object-teleported-from-earth-to-orbit/" target="_blank">As MIT Technology Review explains,</a> the somewhat amazing thing about entanglement is that when two quantum objects like photons are formed at the same place and time, they become linked, described by the same wave function and sharing a connection even when separated by giant distances. A measurement of one immediately influences the state of the other quantum object. </p> <p>Quantum teleportation in this case means not physically moving the object but changing the information content in such a way that allows you to move to space the same information that you had on Earth. The photon in space takes on the identity of the one on the ground.</p> <blockquote>
<p>“How it works is really communicating information in a way that harnesses quantum mechanics,” <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-40573621/first-object-teleported-to-earth-s-orbit" target="_blank">explained</a> Oxford University professor Ian Walmsley to BBC. “So they have information in one photon that they have on Earth. And the second photon that is up in the satellite. And they are able to transfer information from one to another.”</p>
</blockquote> <p>The Chinese team’s accomplishment dramatically increases the distance of possible teleportation, with the team pointing to long-distance teleportation as “<span>a fundamental element in protocols such as large-scale quantum networks and distributed quantum computation</span>.”</p> <blockquote>
<p>“Previous teleportation experiments between distant locations were limited to a distance on the order of 100 kilometers, due to photon loss in optical fibers or terrestrial free-space channels,” <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object-teleported-from-earth-to-orbit/" target="_blank">states the team.</a> </p>
</blockquote> <p>Check out this video on quantum teleportation:</p> <p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dcb8a87370118cc3095a1bfa569ccf88"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dAaHHGHuy1c?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p> <p>The useful thing about teleporting to a satellite is that photons trying to reach it have to travel through a vacuum. To further reduce the amount of interference from the atmosphere, the Chinese team also set up a ground station in Tibet at an altitude of 4,000 meters.</p> <p>The specifics of the experiment involved creating an entangled pair of photons on the ground, with the rate of 4,000 per second. One of these photons was then beamed to the satellite passing overhead, while the other one remained on the ground. The photons in both locations were measured to ensure that they were still entangled. In the course of 32 days, <strong>millions</strong> of photons were sent that way, with positive results achieved in <strong>911 cases. </strong></p> <p>The uses of this technology could have a number of applications, from secure long-distance communications to cloud-based quantum computer networks. </p> <blockquote>
<p>“This work establishes the first ground-to-satellite up-link for faithful and ultra-long-distance quantum teleportation, an essential step toward global-scale quantum internet,” <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object-teleported-from-earth-to-orbit/" target="_blank">says the team.</a></p>
</blockquote> <p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00934" target="_blank">You can check out the new study yourself here.</a></p>
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AI Can See America's Wealth Inequality From Space
Just by looking at satellite images, AI can predict your income bracket, and tell us what wealth and poverty look like from space.
07 July, 2017
Image: NASA
<p class="p1">What does wealth look like… from space? This is the question researchers from Carnegie Mellon University wanted to answer when they built Penny. Penny is an AI built on machine learning using neural networks. Through an <a href="http://penny.digitalglobe.com/" target="_blank">interactive website</a> Penny lets you browse satellite images of New York City and St. Louis and see how different kinds of features make an area look wealthy or poor to the AI. </p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">To build Penny, the researchers used household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau, mapped it, and overlaid it with satellite imagery. They color-coded areas to represent different income brackets. In the picture below, </span><span class="s2">green represents areas with the highest quartile of annual income (averaging $71,876 and above), red represents areas with the lowest annual income (averaging $34,176 and below) and orange and yellow represent the middle levels of income (averaging between $34,176 and $49,904, and $49,904 and $71,876, respectively).</span></p> <p class="p2"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODMzOTkwNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTk5OTgyOH0.5BglqrfdwavejR-Gw3UdvQOMYeR8FOY1ytXUsjiay50/img.jpg?width=980" id="32d6a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6e9ffc85202253b3f9e9d67bd07d5568" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br><em><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">Census data mapped and color coded / penny.digitalglobe.com</span></em></p> <p><span class="s1">The two layers of data — the color-coded map and the satellite images — were then given to a neural network which was trained to predict the average household incomes in any area in the city. </span><span class="s2">The AI looks for patterns in the imagery that correlate with census data. Over time, the neural network learns what patterns best predict high and low income levels. The model can then be used to predict income levels for a place, just by looking at a satellite image. </span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s2">So, what do wealth and poverty look like from space? Some of the correlations that Penny found were that lower income areas, for example, tend to </span><span class="s3">have baseball diamonds, parking lots, and large similarly shaped buildings (such as housing projects). In middle income areas there were more single-family homes and apartment buildings. Higher income areas tend to have greener spaces, tall shiny buildings, and single-family homes with lush backyards.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s3"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODMzOTkwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2ODA3OTAxM30.a8LbCWprWvhQ1j3XhXwU1Xp1PPevQfo0xW8RhGgDmoQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="41dc0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e7c621f4a9e9c019f6baba9387b00536" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br><em><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">Patterns of low-income areas / </span><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">penny.digitalglobe.com</span></em></span></p> <p class="p3"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODMzOTkwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0Njg5NzYxMH0.yL_jU3iUn6-QbCCVnyoueF6amdvwqK4eza9dwQdHqpU/img.jpg?width=980" id="ab62f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7fc2593c35d1469a364baeec130d7433" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br><em><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">Patterns of high-income areas / </span><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">penny.digitalglobe.com</span></em></p> <p><span class="s4">There has also been other research concerned with estimating wealth from satellite data. Scientists from the </span><span class="s5">University of Konstanz <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170425102808.htm" target="_blank">found that</a> </span><span class="s2">it is possible to make inferences about the wealth of a region, as well as individual settlements, by measuring the amount of nighttime illumination.</span></p> <p class="p6"><span class="s7">An interesting feature of Penny is that the tool </span><span class="s8">lets you play around with the landscape of the city, by adding and removing urban features like buildings, parks, and freeways. After making the changes, Penny makes a new estimate on the income bracket of the block.</span></p> <p class="p8"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODMzOTkxMC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3NTExNTY4N30._agbQHhanaIlG4Is9pCfnrIdbO9GP5YwpLpNDmmHgkY/img.png?width=980" id="95e82" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5ed4707b97c7d73f12a2e155cb36c3e1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"><br><em><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">Penny's interface allows the users to drag and drop urban features on the map. / </span><span style="color: #737d83; font-size: 13px;">penny.digitalglobe.com</span></em></p> <p class="p10"><span class="s2">The researchers are hoping to spark a conversation about artificial intelligence, machine learning, cities, infrastructure, satellite imagery, and big data. The way machines understand these things has increasingly important implications for how we understand patterns of urbanization, wealth, and the human condition.</span></p>
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