Lean, Mean, & Green

Contents | Zoom in | Zoom outFor navigation instructions please click here Search Issue | Next Page

THE MAGAZINE OF TECHNOLOGY INSIDERS

LEAN, MEAN, & GREEN CAN AN ULTRA- PERFORMANCE CAR BE SUPERCLEAN? CHECK OUT THE SPECS ON THESE FOUR SUPERCARS

Porsche Spyder 918

WHY GOVERNMENT REGULATORS MAKE A MESS OF ALLOCATING RADIO SPECTRUM

CAUGHT! SOFTWARE THAT DETECTS STOLEN SOFTWARE

U.S.A. $3.99 CANADA $4.99 DISPLAY UNTIL 3 NOVEMBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

The force is with you Use the power of CST STUDIO SUITE, the No 1 technology for electromagnetic simulation.

Y Get equipped with leading edge The extensive range of tools integrated in EM technology. CST’s tools enable you CST STUDIO SUITE enables numerous to characterize, design and optimize applications to be analyzed without leaving electromagnetic devices all before going into the familiar CST design environment. This the lab or measurement chamber. This can complete technology approach enables help save substantial costs especially for new unprecedented simulation reliability and or cutting edge products, and also reduce additional security through cross verification. design risk and improve overall performance and profitability. Y Grab the latest in simulation technology. Choose the accuracy and speed offered by Involved in mobile phone development? You CST STUDIO SUITE. can read about how CST technology was used to simulate this handset’s antenna performance at www.cst.com/handset. If you’re more interested in filters, couplers, planar and multi-layer structures, we’ve a wide variety of worked application examples live on our website at www.cst.com/apps. CHANGING THE STANDARDS

CST of America®, Inc. | To request literature, call (508) 665 4400 | www.cst.com

UPDATE 11 LASER URANIUM ENRICHMENT MAKES A COMEBACK Some say the controversial technology poses proliferation risks. By Sandra Upson

13 PAINLESS SMART-GRID SAVINGS

16 THE UAV DATA GLUT

17 ASIMO-KICKING ROBOTS

18 THE BIG PICTURE Computer scientists convert algebra into works of art.

26 36 OPINION 7 SPECTRAL LINES Taste the magic of one extraordinary Web server. By David Schneider

10 FORUM A reader reminds us of the advantages of molten-salt nuclear reactors.

25 TECHNICALLY SPEAKING Wherein a wordsmith tracks, inventories, and records the words we use for tracking, inventorying, and recording. By Paul McFedries

DEPARTMENTS 4 BACK STORY 42 How a close encounter with the Goodyear Blimp launched a career. COVER: TAVIS COVER STORY COBURN THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE 6 CONTRIBUTORS FROM TOP LEFT: DAN PAGE; TAVIS COBURN; LOCKHEED MARTIN 20 HANDS ON 36 GREEN SUPERCARS Your boss won’t spring for a Frugal with fuel, gentle on the greenhouse gases, and brimming with US $15 000 telepresence robot? power: Meet the new beasts of the autobahn. By Lawrence Ulrich Neither will ours. Make one yourself— for about $1000. By David Schneider

26 THE GREAT SPECTRUM FAMINE 22 TOOLS & TOYS The hunger for wireless links to the Internet is fast exceeding what The wait for inexpensive, easy-to-use e-readers is over. By Joshua J. Romero the airwaves can provide. By Mitchell Lazarus 23 PROFILE 32 SOFTWARE V. SOFTWARE In a bomb-damaged city, a bioengineer creates new visualizations of damaged Computer forensics tools can help sort out even the toughest cases of arteries. By Michael Dumiak software copyright infringement. By Bob Zeidman 24 GEEK LIFE 42 AIRSHIPS AHOY It’s getting harder to ﬁ nd work in virtual The oldest aviation technology is reborn in new designs for high- worlds. By Mark Anderson altitude, long-endurance, and heavy-lift airships. By Ron Hochstetler 68 THE DATA The long recession hasn’t put a damper on wind energy. By Steven Cherry

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 1

Drivers for hundreds of sensors FPGA-based embedded from LIDAR to GPS hardware for drive-by-wire systems

Image processing and acquisition libraries

Multicore algorithms Standard communication for real-time navigation including JAUS and control and Ethernet support

RF LabVIEW graphical programming PRODUCT PLATFORM

software and modular NI hardware, such NI LabVIEW graphical Medical as CompactRIO and PXI, are helping and textual programming engineers develop fully autonomous NI CompactRIO embedded control hardware Robotics robotics systems, including unmanned NI LabVIEW Real-Time Module vehicles designed to compete in DARPA NI LabVIEW FPGA Module Multicore Grand Challenge events.

>> Find out what else LabVIEW can do at ni.com/imagine/robotics 866 337 5041

©2009 National Instruments. All rights reserved. CompactRIO, LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 0177

SPECTRUM.______GREEN TECH PATENT SCORECARDS IEEE.ORG______IEEE SPECTRUM has partnered AVAILABLE 1 OCTOBER with 1790 Analytics to bring you Video: Searching for our annual patent scorecards. On 15 October, we’ll debut our patent Europe’s Banned Bulbs scorecards for green tech. We’ll Across Europe, nighttime looks a tell you who has the most valuable patent portfolios in batteries, clean coal, fuel cells, and little different these days. That’s more. Some companies, like General Electric and Siemens, because the European Union will be familiar. Others like ThioSolv and Quallion may be is phasing out incandescent new, but they’ve shown some impressive R&D chops. lightbulbs in favor of more energy- efficient compact ﬂuores- GADGETS ARE A CAT’S cent models. Not everyone is BEST FRIEND happy with the change. Before CATS AND TECHNOLOGY— the 2009 ban on 100-watt and two things that go great together. frosted incandescent bulbs went Spectrum searched the Web to into effect, many consumers bring you some of the cutest complained, and there were even photos of cats and their favorite devices. Pictured here is Dai-chan, some reports of hoarding. IEEE who proclaims, “You will obey my wishes.” (And dog Spectrum investigates whether lovers, fear not! E-mail your favorite dog-and-tech photos the ban has worked by scouring to [email protected]______for a chance to be featured in an Berlin for the forbidden bulbs. upcoming slideshow.)

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: THOMAS KIENZLE/AP PHOTO; TECH INSIDER WEBINARS IEEE.ORG/THEINSTITUTE______iSTOCKPHOTO; ANDREEAINJAPAN/ Check out all webinars, including these below, AVAILABLE 6 OCTOBER USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO FLICKR; DAVID MCNEW/ GETTY IMAGES at http://spectrum.ieee.org/webinar ATTRACT NEW CLIENTS Social media is the new ONLINE WEBINARS ■ The Top Three business referral engine, & RESOURCES Prototyping Challenges and IEEE members who in Robotics are consultants need ■ 5 OCTOBER: Engage Sponsored by National to know how to take Students Using Instruments advantage of this popular Interactive Modeling medium. Learn the tips and Simulation Tools ■ White paper: A Practical given by an expert at a Sponsored by Mathworks Approach for Developing recent IEEE Consultants Multicore Systems Network gathering. ■ Parametric Execution: Sponsored by IBM Driving Systems http://spectrum.ieee. NEW IEEE XPLORE Engineering Value Through org/whitepapers SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGE Advanced Trade Studies IEEE RELEASES NEW ■ Learn about the new IEEE Sponsored by IBM Check out the design BLACK BOX STANDARD resource library by Maxim: Member Digital Library FOR CARS ■ Introducing Ansoft http://spectrum.ieee. Basic subscription package, As millions of drivers ______Designer 6.0 ______org/static/maxim- which offers users a less face ongoing automotive Sponsored by Ansys ______resource-library expensive option to access recalls for electrical and full-text articles from the ■ Hall Effect ■ Check out the design onboard computer issues, IEEE Xplore digital library. Measurements for resource library by motor vehicle event data Semiconductor and Other Texas Instruments: recorders, also called Materials Characterization http://spectrum.ieee.org/ black boxes, are becoming Contains over 25% Renewable Resources Sponsored by Keithley ______static/ti-resource-library increasingly important.

IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2010 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent official positions of the IEEE or its organizational units.anadian C Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40013087. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, Box 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Cable address: ITRIPLEE. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INTERNET: [email protected]. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: IEEE Members: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $399. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to IEEE Spectrum, c/o Coding Department, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canadian GST #125634188. Printed at W224-N3322 Duplainville Rd., Pewaukee, WI 53072-4195, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America, and Association Media & Publishing. IEEE prohibits discrimination, harassment, and bullying. For more information, visit http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/whatis/policies/p9-26.html.

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 3

back story

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Susan Hassler, [email protected]______EXECUTIVE EDITOR Glenn Zorpette,[email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected] SENIOR EDITORS Harry Goldstein (Online), [email protected]; Jean Kumagai,[email protected]; Samuel K. Moore (News), [email protected]; Tekla S. Perry, [email protected]; Philip E. Ross, [email protected]; David Schneider, [email protected] SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Cherry (Resources), [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sally Adee, [email protected]; Erico Guizzo, [email protected]; Joshua J. Romero (Online), [email protected]; Sandra Upson, [email protected]

ASSISTANT EDITOR Willie D. Jones, [email protected] SENIOR COPY EDITOR Joseph N. Levine, [email protected] COPY EDITOR Michele Kogon,[email protected] EDITORIAL RESEARCHER Alan Gardner,[email protected]

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Sharon Basco

ASSISTANT PRODUCER, SPECTRUM RADIO Francesco Ferorelli, [email protected] the Helistat [see photo]. “We’d take ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Ramona Gordon,[email protected]; Up in the Air it out on the tarmac, and the sun Nancy T. Hantman,[email protected] would heat it and the helium inside IEEE SPECTRUM JOURNALISM INTERN Ariel Bleicher, [email protected] uring Ron Hochstetler’s would expand, which would cause CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Blau, Robert N. Charette, sophomore year at Purdue these huge air valves to crack open Peter Fairley, David Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, D Paul McFedries, Prachi Patel, Carl Selinger, University, the Goodyear a little,” he says. “As the air escaped, Seema Singh, William Sweet, John Voelcker Blimp came to campus. “The lights it was like the reed of a clarinet were shining up on this big silvery vibrating, and the ship would sing.” ART & PRODUCTION airship, ﬂoating just 2 feet off the Sadly, the Helistat was doomed. SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Mark Montgomery ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Michael Solita ground,” he recalls. “I thought, During a 1986 ﬂight test, it crashed ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Brandon Palacio

Oh, my gosh, this thing is ﬂying shortly after takeoff, killing one of PHOTO EDITOR Randi Silberman Klett

all the time! Unlike an airplane or the pilots. By then Hochstetler was DIRECTOR, PERIODICALS PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Tuohy

helicopter, which has to exert all no longer working for Piasecki, EDITORIAL & WEB PRODUCTION MANAGER Roy Carubia this effort to clamber into the clouds, but he’s spent much of his career SENIOR ELECTRONIC LAYOUT SPECIALIST Bonnie Nani an airship is always ﬂying, as if it since then in the airship industry. WEB PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jacqueline L. Parker belongs in the sky.” Currently, he is director of lighter- MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION SPECIALIST Michael Spector Hochstetler, who describes than-air programs for Science EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD recent advances in airship technol- Applications International Corp., Susan Hassler, Chair; Marc T. Apter, Francine D. Berman, Jan Brown, Raffaello D’Andrea, Hiromichi Fujisawa, Kenneth ogy in “Airships Ahoy” in this issue, in McLean, Va. Y. Goldberg, Susan Hackwood, Bin He, Erik Heijne, Charles H. went on to get a B.S. in aviation tech- Having witnessed several boom- House, Christopher J. James, Ronald G. Jensen, Ruby B. Lee, Tak Ming Mak, David A. Mindell, C. Mohan, Fritz Morgan, Andrew nology as well as a Federal Aviation and-bust cycles in the airship M. Odlyzko, Barry L. Shoop, Curtis A. Siller Jr., Larry L. Smarr, Administration aircraft mechanic’s business, he admits it’s not for the Harry L. Tredennick III, Sergio Verdú, William Weihl, Bas¸ak Yüksel

license. “I knew I didn’t want to go risk averse or the easily discouraged. EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE work in a big airplane factory,” he “I know people who’ve wrecked their IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 says. Airships, on the other hand, lives because they can’t get airships Attn: Editorial Dept. Tel: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 Bureau: Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 328 7570 “looked like the last unexploited out of their systems,” he says. Responsibility for the substance of articles rests upon the aviation arena,” but jobs in that The last few years, though, have authors, not IEEE or its members. Articles published do not represent official positions of IEEE. Letters to the editor may be industry are always scarce. seen the kind of “slow and steady excerpted for publication. He got his ﬁrst big break when growth that builds a solid base,” he ADVERTISING CORRESPONDENCE he went to work as a mechanic for says. The technology has vastly IEEE Spectrum, 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997 aviation pioneer Frank Piasecki, improved, he notes, and “there are Attn: Advertising Dept. +1 212 419 7760 inventor of the tandem rotor sober people in serious positions The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising. helicopter. Piasecki was leading who don’t laugh at using lighter- REPRINT PERMISSION a project in New Jersey to build than-air vehicles for applications LIBRARIES: Articles may be photocopied for private use of patrons. A per-copy fee must be paid to the Copyright an experimental 105-meter-long where their capabilities exceed those Clearance Center, 29 Congress St., Salem, MA 01970. hybrid airship-helicopter, called of airplanes and helicopters.” ❏ For other copying or republication, contact Business Manager, IEEE Spectrum.

CITING ARTICLES IN IEEE SPECTRUM COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS: IEEE Spectrum is a registered IEEE Spectrum publishes two editions. In the international edition, the abbreviation INT appears at the trademark owned by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics foot of each page. The North American edition is identiﬁed with the letters NA. Both have the same Engineers Inc. Careers, EEs’ Tools & Toys, EV Watch, Progress, editorial content, but because of differences in advertising, page numbers may differ. In citations, you Reﬂections, Spectral Lines, and Technically Speaking are should include the issue designation. For example, The Data is in IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 47, no. 10 (INT), trademarks of IEEE. IEEE Spectrum October 2010, p. 60, or in , Vol. 47, no. 10 (NA), October 2010, p. 68. HOCHSTETLER OF RON COURTESY

4 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG______

______

IEEE MEDIA STAFF DIRECTOR; PUBLISHER, IEEE SPECTRUM James A. Vick, [email protected] ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, SALES & ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Marion Delaney, [email protected] RECRUITMENT SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER TAVIS COBURN, MITCHELL Michael Buryk, [email protected] based in Toronto, LAZARUS is a BUSINESS MANAGER Robert T. Ross IEEE MEDIA/SPECTRUM GROUP MARKETING MANAGER draws inspiration partner in the Blanche McGurr, [email protected] from printed Washington, INTERACTIVE MARKETING MANAGER Ruchika Anand, [email protected] LIST SALES & RECRUITMENT SERVICES PRODUCT/MARKETING MANAGER materials of the D.C.–area law firm of Ilia Rodriguez, [email protected] 1920s to the 1960s, including Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, which REPRINT SALES +1 212 221 9595, EXT. 319 Russian avant-garde posters and specializes in telecommunications MARKETING & PROMOTION SPECIALIST Faith H. Jeanty, [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES +1 212 419 7760 classic comic books. He began law and regulation. In addition to a SALES ADVISOR John Restchack +1 212 419 7578 creating illustrations by hand with law degree, he holds two degrees in ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Felicia Spagnoli paint and silk screen. Now he electrical engineering and a SENIOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Nicole Evans ADVERTISING PRODUCTION +1 732 562 6334 achieves similar effects with doctorate in experimental psychol- IEEE STAFF EXECUTIVE, PUBLICATIONS Anthony Durniak digital tools. For the retro-style ogy. During the 1970s, while IEEE BOARD OF DIRECTORS images of classy cars accompany- working on mathematics education PRESIDENT & CEO Pedro A. Ray +1 732 562 3928 FAX: +1 732 465 6444 [email protected] ing this month’s cover story, “The reform, he wrote on the subject of PRESIDENT-ELECT Moshe Kam Greening of the Supercar” [p. 36], math anxiety. His article on the TREASURER Peter W. Staecker Coburn says he strove to “exude looming crisis in wireless broad- SECRETARY David G. Green PAST PRESIDENT John R. Vig the excitement and optimism of the band, “The Great Spectrum Famine” VICE PRESIDENTS auto industry’s golden era” using a [p. 26], nevertheless takes an Tariq S. Durrani, Educational Activities; Jon G. Rokne, Publication Services & Products; Barry L. Shoop, Member & digital process “that’s very similar unblinking look at the numbers. Geographic Activities; W. Charlton Adams, President, Standards to old-school low-fi printing.” Association; Roger D. Pollard, Technical Activities; Evelyn H. Hirt, President, IEEE-USA LAWRENCE DIVISION DIRECTORS MICHAEL ULRICH explores Hiroshi Iwai (I); Robert E. Hebner Jr. (II); DUMIAK Nim K. Cheung (III); Roger W. Sudbury (IV); is a an unorthodox trend Michael R. Williams (V); Mark I. Montrose (VI); science and in high-end power Enrique A. Tejera M. (VII); Stephen L. Diamond (VIII); Alfred O. Hero III (IX); Richard A. Volz (X) technology reporter cars in “The REGION DIRECTORS based in Berlin. Greening of the Supercar” [p. 36]. Charles P. Rubenstein (1); William P. Walsh Jr. (2); Clarence This summer, in Belgrade to And he came to auto journalism by L. Stogner (3); Don C. Bramlett (4); Sandra L. Robinson (5); Leonard J. Bond (6); Om P. Malik (7); Jozef W. Modelski (8); interview heart-imaging engineer an unorthodox route: rock music. Tania L. Quiel (9); Yong Jin Park (10) Nenad Filipovic for the profile The native Detroiter worked in the DIRECTORS EMERITUS “Coronary Calculus” [p. 23], he 1980s as a rock musician, playing Eric Herz, Theodore W. Hissey wondered how this corner of keyboard as far afield as Europe IEEE STAFF Europe became a source of before becoming a business writer EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & COO James Prendergast +1 732 502 5400, [email protected] predictive software that visual- in the early 1990s, then a car writer. HUMAN RESOURCES Betsy Davis, SPHR +1 732 465 6434 ______izes the plaques that cause heart He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and , [email protected] PUBLICATIONS Anthony Durniak attacks. But, he says, it all made regularly writes for The New York +1 732 562 3998, [email protected] EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES Douglas Gorham sense after a few meals. “Serbian Times and Automobile. +1 732 562 5483, [email protected] cooking is...robust. This guy’s STANDARDS ACTIVITIES Judith Gorman +1 732 562 3820, [email protected] going to have a lot of patients.” BOB ZEIDMAN, MEMBER & GEOGRAPHIC ACTIVITIES Cecelia Jankowski who wrote “Software +1 732 562 5504, [email protected] CORPORATE STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS Matthew Loeb, CAE CHAD HAGEN, v. Software” [p. 32], is +1 732 562 5320, [email protected] CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Patrick D. Mahoney who illustrated the the president of +1 732 562 5596, [email protected] futuristic concept of Software Analysis CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Alexander J. Pasik, Ph.D. +1 732 562 6017, [email protected] “spimes” for and Forensic Engineering Corp., the CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Thomas R. Siegert Technically leading provider of intellectual- +1 732 562 6843, [email protected] TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES Mary Ward-Callan Speaking [p. 25], has been a property analysis software. He +1 732 562 3850, [email protected]______graphic designer and art director holds seven patents, two bachelor’s MANAGING DIRECTOR, IEEE-USA Chris Brantley +1 202 530 8349, [email protected]______for 16 years. Based in Minneapolis, degrees—in physics and electrical IEEE PUBLICATION SERVICES & PRODUCTS BOARD he has created infographics for engineering—from Cornell, and a Jon G. Rokne, Chair; Tayfun Akgul, John Baillieul, Silvio E. Barbin, Deborah M. Cooper, Celia L. Desmond, Tariq S. Durrani, popular magazines, including master’s in EE from Stanford. He is Mohamed E. El-Hawary, Gerald L. Engel, David A. Grier, Fortune More Jens Hannemann, Lajos Hanzo, Hirohisa Kawamoto, and . Recently, he took also the inventor of the Silicon Valley Russell J. Lefevre, Michael R. Lightner, Steve M. Mills, on a creative challenge, joining the Napkin, a cocktail napkin printed Pradeep Misra, Saifur Rahman, Edward A. Rezek, Curtis A. Siller Jr., W. Ross Stone, Ravi M. Todi, Robert J. Trew, Flickr group “Make Something with a simple form for creating a Karl R. Varian, Timothy T. Wong, Jacek Zurada Cool Every Day,” for which he business plan, which when IEEE OPERATIONS CENTER created an original image each day completed can be presented to a 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08854-1331 U.S.A. Tel: +1 732 981 0060 Fax: +1 732 981 1721

for a year. venture capitalist as a funding pitch. RANDI LAZARUS; MITCHELL COBURN; TAVIS LEFT: TOP FROM CLOCKWISE MARTIN SARAH DIXON; ZEIDMAN; SHELLY CARRIE SILBERMAN KLETT;

6 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

spectral lines

DIY as an Extreme Sport

FLASHBACK: The front panel of Bill Buzbee’s handcrafted Web server [left] evokes the late 1960s or early ’70s. Residing within it are some two hundred 74-series ICs, painstakingly wire-wrapped together [right].

ots of people know or slice the silicon into the damn thing runs for the entertainment Lthat you can construct wafers. But he did construct at all, much less runs and educational value— a Web server at home his home-built CPU, called as well as it does.” must inspire anyone’s without great difficulty. Get Magic-1, by meticulously That one person could admiration. And it warms a PC, load it with Apache, wire-wrapping together construct a Web server the hearts of us middle- do some port forwarding some two hundred 74-series starting from little more aged technophiles to see on your router, and you’re TTL chips. They reside on than stone knives and bear this tribute to the kind of good to go. Or if you think five printed-circuit boards, skins—and doing it all technology that got us first that’s too mundane, you which are housed in a in his spare time—is just acquainted with computers. could build a tiny Web cabinet whose front panel is stunning. But Buzbee’s I’d urge other geeks of the server out of an Arduino replete with dozens of LEDs accomplishment doesn’t baby-boom generation microcontroller by adding and paddle switches. It thus end with putting together who want a good soaking an Ethernet accessory board. has, as he intended, the the hardware. “I’ve had in nostalgia to drop in on Thousands of people, I’m distinctive look of the mini- to write an assembler and Magic-1 over the Internet. sure, have hacked systems and microcomputers of the linker from scratch, retarget If browsing Buzbee’s Web like that together for various late 1960s and early 1970s. a C compiler, write and port site seems too modern for purposes. But I’ve recently Buzbee claims that it sports the standard C libraries, you, Telnet in and play the discovered, much to my the performance of an Intel write a simplified operating original Adventure game pleasure and amazement, 8086 (a close cousin of the system, and then port a or perhaps have a soothing that one home brewer has 8088, the CPU found in the more sophisticated one,” he session of ELIZA. Consider set up a DIY Web server original IBM PC) making says. It helps that Buzbee it therapy for dealing with that’s far more impressive it a decade or so ahead of develops software for a the frustrations of modern than any of those. Indeed, its nonchronological time. living. “It also helps that computing hardware. You

BILL BUZBEE/HOMEBREWCPU.COM he’s taken “do it yourself” to It’s a DIY masterpiece. But as far as my wife knows, can also take pleasure in a whole other level. Buzbee is self-deprecating I’m actually doing paying knowing that the signals Bill Buzbee, of Half Moon in advertising his creation: work on the laptop and you’re creating in the depths Bay, Calif., has built himself On his Web site, at ____http:// not just screwing around of Magic-1’s circuitry will a Web server entirely from homebrewcpu.com, which with my hobby projects.” be ﬂowing through wires scratch. Scratch is, of course, is served up, of course, Still, that somebody lovingly connected by a relative term. No, he didn’t by Magic-1, he says, “I’m would take on such a one pair of human hands. draw the copper into wires continually amazed that challenge—and purely —David Schneider

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 7

TURBINE STATOR BLADE. A stator blade in the turbine stage of a jet engine is heated by the combustion gases. To prevent the stator from melting, air is passed through a cooling duct in the blade. The resulting temperature gradients introduce signiﬁ cant stresses.

© 2010 COMSOL, INC. COMSOL, COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF COMSOL AB. CAPTURE THE CONCEPT IS A TRADEMARK OF COMSOL AB. OTHER PRODUCT OR BRAND NAMES ARE TRADEMARKS OR REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE HOLDERS.

Capture the Concept.

COMSOL Multiphysics gives you the power to capture the concept—that is to analyze all physically relevant aspects of your design—and to do so quickly and efﬁ ciently. Its unique combination of an easy-to-use interface and a ﬂ exible simulation engine allows every level of engineer to simulate just how their design will operate in reality. This approach delivers tangible results that save precious development time and spark innovation.

WATCH TUTORIAL Joule Heating of a Circuit Board Fuse www.comsol.com/showcase

while we’ve Conference on the strangely, in the IEEE "W3?JJW!BCC%PGAM'SGXXM GJJSQRP?RGMLQ@W@PW?LAFPGQRGCBCQGEL been snoozing remote control of Spectrum article he states, for 40 years. black boxes. I also “For the record, I never Combining spoke at the National pad expense reports.” an MSR with Transportation Joel Huizenga fl uorinated Safety Board’s Inter- CEO, No Lie MRI thorium as the national Sympo sium San Diego input fuel leads to on Transportation a liquid fl uoride Recorders in May 1999. The editors reply: thorium reactor, Both of these papers We thank Joel Huizenga which solves most are available online, for pointing out the Reactors Redux nonproliferation as are a number of contradiction. After .SAJC?P PC?ARMPBCQGELGQNMGQCBDMP?BCQNCP?RCJWLCCBCBPCTGT?J(CPC?PCQCTCLAMLRCLBCPQ and waste other IEEE papers and consulting with Mark more than half a century ago, the fi rst commercial nuclear power reactors went critical in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the decades since, technology has brought us 3-billion-transistor issues and uses presentations I have Harris, however, we chips, manned spacefl ight, and violin-playing robots. Nevertheless, the basic design of commercial nuclear power reactors has changed not a whit. They seem to be trapped in a land that technology forgot. Yes, conservatism can be a good thing, perhaps nowhere more so than in the design of nuclear reactors. 100 percent of written on this subject stand by the statement Electric utilities aren’t known for daring, and you can’t reasonably expect them to risk several billion dollars on a reactor without a track record. On the other hand, you can’t pin hopes for a nuclear renaissance on designs that were fresh back when color TV and transatlantic jet travel were novelties. You need the promise its input fuel, over the last 12 years. he made to us and to of something much better, and no fewer than a dozen advanced reactor designs are in the running to off er it. The backers of these designs are eyeing potentially enormous businesses , as “waking giant” countries as opposed to The Safelander our readers that he China and India pursue major electrifi cation schemes. In the United States and Europe, a signifi cant shift to nuclear is far from assured, but several factors seem to be pushing that option, including climate change concerns and awareness of the hidden costs of fossil fuels. current solid- remote piloting system hadn’t overstated The new reactor designs fall into three categories. First, there are the new light-water reactors, which aren’t radically diff erent from what’s out there right now but add better safety features. Then there are the small modular reactors that produce less than 300 megawatts but can be scaled up. Need more power? Just add more fueled reactors, (U.S. Patent No. business expenses, modules to your plant. Finally, there are the really-out-there designs, known in the industry as Generation IV. There are too many worthy, intriguing designs for us to describe here. So, after talking to a dozen nuclear experts, we simply chose seven reactor designs that struck us as the most innovative and interesting. We which use less 7099752) was the result which means that No picked reactors of diff erent kinds and at diff erent development stages, including those that are only a hair’s breadth from regulatory approval and others that are literally still on the drawing board. than 10 percent of a paper I presented Lie MRI’s fi ndings on Did we leave out a new reactor design that you think beats all these here? Will new reactors reenergize the nuclear industry? Go to http://spectrum.ieee.org/newnuclear and tell us what you think. of their supply of at a symposium of the that particular question ___ SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG AUGUST 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 25 enriched uranium. International Aviation were indeed wrong. All fi ssionable Safety Association elements are in New York City in NO ROSE- LETTERS do not TIME FOR maintained in the November 2000. There, COLORED represent opinions THORIUM? molten salt until approximately a year GLASSES of IEEE. Short, he article s a member concise letters are T destroyed; there is before 9/11, I spoke A preferred. They “Reactors Redux” no refueling and no on the remote aircraft of the Theatre may be edited [August] on possible spent fuel to store fl ight recorder and how Historical Society of for space and “new” nuclear power for millennia. to use the data in real America, I note that clarity. To post your comments reactors is interesting, Alexander Cannara time in order to prevent Mark Anderson’s online, go to but it left out an entire IEEE Life Member terrorist and hijacking special report, “3-D spectrum.ieee.org. class—the molten-salt Menlo Park, Calif. attacks as well as in the Home” [Tools Or write to Forum, reactors. MSRs were decompression crashes. & Toys, August], IEEE Spectrum , developed between 1954 SAFETY BY perpetuates the myth 3 Park Ave., Seymour Levine 17th Floor, New York, and 1974 by Eugene REMOTE IEEE Life Senior Member that theatergoers of NY 10016-5997, Wigner, Edward Teller, found the article Culver City, Calif. the 1950s viewed 3-D U.S.A.; fax, and Alvin Weinberg of I “Beyond the Black Box” movies using glasses +1 212 419 7570; Manhattan Project fame. [August] interesting TO TELL with anaglyphic e-mail, n.hantman _____ The Oak Ridge National but severely lacking in THE TRUTH (colored) lenses. With @ieee.org._____ Laboratory actually ran information, history, read with interest rare exceptions, 3-D a 7.4-megawatt MSR and references on the IMark Harris’s article movies of that era were for fi ve years. MSRs use of real-time remote [“Liar!,” August] about projected using linear were designed to be safe, black boxes on aircraft. my company’s MRI- polarized light onto nonexplosive, effi cient, I have U.S. Patent based lie-detection silver screens, hence and compact. However, No. 5890079 for the technology and requiring glasses with the government stopped remote aircraft fl ight compared this account polarized (colorless) funding them because recorder, or RAFT. The with Harris’s earlier story lenses, the same MSRs couldn’t make patent was awarded to for The Sunday Times of principle used by some plutonium for Cold me in 1999. While the London. There Harris of today’s theatrical War bombs. Now patent was pending, admitted we were correct 3-D systems. we need them, and I presented a paper on our fi ndings that he Joseph Zollner other countries are at the 1998 Digital lied about overclaiming IEEE Member doing R&D on them Avionics Systems on his expenses. Yet, West Allis, Wis.

10 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

more online at spectrum.ieee.org

GE has called the laser method DANGEROUS a “game-changing technology” DEVICE? Laser Uranium Enrichment Lawrence and along with Hitachi and Livermore Cameco Corp., a Canadian National Makes a Comeback nuclear fuel provider in Saskatoon, Laboratory’s plan was among The controversial technology poses proliferation Sask., is devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to developing many doomed risks, but nuclear ﬁrms press on laser uranium it and building the plant near enrichment Wilmington, N.C. The technology schemes. Will wo technology giants, pursuing a controversial technique in question was licensed from GE and Hitachi GE and Hitachi, are for making nuclear fuel using Silex Systems, an Australian succeed where T so many others company that’s been quietly betting big on a nuclear lasers, a method they hope to have not? renaissance. The companies commercialize by building the conducting enrichment research PHOTO: LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL formed an alliance in 2006 to world’s ﬁrst industrial-scale pilot at a small facility near Sydney LABORATORY push for a global expansion of plant in 2012. Regulatory agencies for the last quarter century. nuclear power. But selling new are worried that laser enrichment But many experts are skeptical. reactors is only half the game. The of uranium could lead to the Allan Krass, a retired U.S. State joint venture is also aggressively proliferation of nuclear weapons. Department official and a physicist

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 11

U-235 gas

U-238 gas

who visited Silex’s laboratory in 2000, says GE and Hitachi Uranium “are betting that there will be hexafluoride gas an upsurge of nuclear power plant construction—that’s a huge and extremely risky bet.” He adds that laser enrichment ISOLATING ISOTOPES: Many countries have sought to has been held back by Laser separate uranium-235 from uranium-238 with lasers. In one substantial technical hurdles. possible approach, uranium hexafluoride gas shoots into If approved, the pilot a chamber at supersonic speeds. A precisely tuned laser intercepts the stream, causing the molecules containing U-235 plant will be the first large- to absorb a photon. Those molecules then undergo a series scale attempt to use photons of brief events that propel the U-235 to the outside of the to separate the desirable IAEA wouldn’t say. But gas stream. A barrier separates the core of the stream from uranium-235 isotopes from some hints can be found in the rim, which now has a higher concentration of U-235. SOURCE: JEFF W. EERKENS AND JAEWOO KIM the more abundant but the technology’s history. nonfissile U-238 isotopes Of the many government- found in natural uranium. sponsored laser enrichment Experts generally believe programs, most were shut an inert gas that dilutes the repeatedly forcing it through that a laser facility would down in anticipation of a uranium. The gas is cryogen- a porous membrane. be both smaller in size and 1993 agreement between the ically cooled and shot out of a At least that’s the theory. have much lower energy United States and Russia, nozzle at supersonic speeds. In practice, several obstacles demands than existing known as the Megatons to Rapid-fire pulses from an have kept the technology enrichment plants. Those Megawatts Program, which infrared laser penetrate the in the lab. “These lasers features are excellent from the flooded the market with gas, increasing the vibra- are unlike any other in the perspective of improving the cheap uranium scavenged tional energy in the U-235 world—basically, if you need economics of nuclear power from Russia’s nuclear molecules’ chemical bonds. a laser, you’ve got to go invent plants, but they also present arsenal. The engineers That higher vibrational one,” says Bruce Warner, a major headache for the and physicists working in energy causes each U-235 a laser physicist who led International Atomic Energy those laboratories tend to molecule to react more Lawrence Livermore National Agency (IAEA) and other argue that they were on the quickly with a third sub- Laboratory’s enrichment nuclear watchdog groups verge of success when their stance in the gas stream, program, in Livermore, attempting to spot clandestine projects were discontinued. explains Garratt. In one Calif., until the program’s enrichment plants, largely In essence, all those version of the process, a new demise in the late 1990s. from satellite imagery. programs made use of molecule forms around the According to several laser At least 20 countries the unique frequencies at U-235. The new molecule lasts enrichment experts, Silex’s have attempted—and, at one which atoms and molecules for less than a microsecond approach likely begins with point or another, failed— vibrate. A laser tuned to before breaking apart, and a 10.8-micrometer carbon to use lasers to economically the precise vibrational the repelling force from that dioxide laser that pulses separate uranium isotopes frequency of a U-235 atom event pushes the U-235 to the hundreds of times per second. since the 1970s. “Everyone or a molecule containing edges of the stream, where The infrared pulses travel was looking for this magical U-235 can cause that isotope it can then be siphoned off. through elaborate optics that elixir, the best way to do to behave differently from Though the precise tune their wavelengths to the this,” recalls Dennis Garratt, the heavier U-238. mechanics of Silex’s process needed 16 μm. Each pulse who was director of R&D for Broadly, in the method may differ, the underlying must contain about one joule Cameco from 1989 to 1996. that Silex explored, called logic is that illuminating of energy and be repeated So what’s different this molecular laser isotope sep- a gas with a laser would fast enough to expose as time? And will this version aration, enrichment begins require only a fraction of the much gas as possible. And of laser enrichment somehow with uranium hexafluoride energy needed by the two if the laser doesn’t pulse fast be proliferation proof? When gas—in which each uranium methods used now to enrich enough? Add more lasers! contacted by IEEE Spectrum, atom is surrounded by six uranium—spinning the gas In short order you can wind

GE-Hitachi, Silex, and the ﬂuorine atoms—mixed with in a series of centrifuges or up with an expensive and COOPER EMILY

12 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

° The temperature increase needed to rescue computers controlling the GOCE gravity-mapping satellite. The troubled 7 C €350 million (US $455 million) satellite was unable to send data down to Earth from 8 July until the fix in September.

complex assembly new technologies. of staggered pulsing The extent of this lasers, each with its own particular risk, of set of tuning optics. course, is open to debate. The optics themselves Jeff W. Eerkens, an are also difficult to independent physicist engineer, says Einar who has worked on Ronander, the CEO laser enrichment as long of Klydon, a South as lasers have existed, African firm that grew recognizes the threat out of that country’s and suggests tracking laser enrichment pro- sales of the optics, gram and sold Silex its which are uncommon. lasers. The laser-tuning Other experts think process uses a hydro- there’s no imminent gen gas whose aerody- danger; they say that namics can be finicky. countries interested in Bouncing shock waves clandestine enrichment in the gas can disrupt will continue building the beam, diminishing centrifuges because the laser’s overall effi- that technology’s ciency. And that’s no comparatively simpler good, says Ronander, designs have already because the energy cost eluded proliferation of photons adds up fast. controls. But Charles The difficulties don’t Ferguson, the president end there. Skimming off of the Federation of An Easy Smart- the enriched material is American Scientists, troublesome too. In the cautions that as more Grid Upgrade system Cameco built in niche laser applications the early 1990s, the entire emerge, laser enrichment laser apparatus had to will eventually seem Saves Power be shut down to collect less exotic. Trimming voltage trims power consumption, the enriched uranium. The NRC is expected and consumers needn’t lift a finger “We had ideas of how to to rule on GE-Hitachi’s solve this, but we never building license by the had the chance to try end of 2011. Should it ess is more when it comes an August 2010 analysis from them,” Garratt says. deny the license, though, L to beef on the bun (at least the Department of Energy’s GE-Hitachi wouldn’t laser enrichment is according to your doctor), Pacific Northwest National say if it has solved these unlikely to disappear. and the same now appears to be Laboratory (PNNL). issues—or has faced As Krass, the state true for AC voltage. Research Some utilities are facing entirely different ones. department physicist, by the Electric Power Research push-back from consumers Either way, whether wrote in a 1977 review Institute (EPRI), in Palo Alto, disenchanted with smart meters the venture even gets of laser enrichment Calif., is confirming that many and riled by real-time pricing to work out the kinks in the journal Science electrical devices work equally for electricity. So the best in laser enrichment is (paraphrasing J. Robert well and use less energy at lower news for utilities is that such now a question for the Oppenheimer), “It voltages, and that offers utilities conservation voltage reduction, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory would be a mistake a big conservation opportunity. or CVR, should cut energy use Commission (NRC). That to underestimate the By trimming the voltage they without asking consumers agency is charged with great desire of scientists deliver, distribution utilities to change their behavior.

DANIEL HERTZBERG assessing the safety to achieve something in the United States could slim CVR operates within the of nuclear facilities ‘technically sweet’… the nation’s power appetite by wiggle room offered by electrical but is unaccustomed and worry about the 3 percent—the equivalent of standards. The standard for the to weighing the consequences later.” unplugging every refrigerator nominally 120-volt AC power in proliferation risk of —Sandra Upson in the country—according to the United States and Canada,

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 13

New top speed for a graphene transistor. UCLA engineers say 300 gigahertz such devices should be able to reach terahertz speeds soon.

for example, calls for 114 to Powered-Down Appliances low, many smart meters 126 V. The range is practical, can send an alert back to 118 VOLTS VS. 122 VOLTS given the ever-shifting power the utility. However, even demand on a distribution with smart meters, utilities system. Utilities generally Conserved Conserved will be adjusting the voltage measure and control voltage power power feeder by feeder, not at the at their substations and aim Appliance (watts) (percent) level of the individual house. for the higher end of the INDUCTION MOTOR Uluski says EPRI is devel- range to avoid browning Fan 4.2 6% oping more precise tools to out customers at the ends help utilities predict how DISPLAY of the lines. The result much energy CVR can save is that, on average, U.S. CRT TV 2.1 4% them on each feeder. That customers get 122.5-V power. LCD TV 0 0% should help focus CVR invest- Until recently, most ments, according to the PNNL Plasma TV –2 0% utilities saw no need to report. The report’s model operate differently, assuming Desktop LCD –0.6 –2% suggests that using CVR on that voltage had a negligible LIGHTING the 40 percent of feeders most effect on power demand. And responsive to it nationwide 13-W compact indeed that assumption is ﬂuorescent would capture 80 percent of true for some loads. Electric lamp (CFL) 0.9 8% the technique’s energy-saving heaters on a lower voltage potential. EPRI is also quan- 20-W CFL 1 6% simply run longer to deliver tifying how emerging loads the same heat, resulting LED such as plasma TVs and elec- in no savings. But other (low quality) 0.2 6% tric cars will respond to CVR. appliances can get by at 75-W The biggest obstacle to lower voltages by doing less incandescent 3.4 5% CVR, however, remains the work. For example, at the classic lost-revenue problem 42-W CFL 0.8 2% low end of the voltage range, that has long stiﬂed utilities’ lights dim imperceptibly. LED conservation impulse. The big-ticket item for (high quality) 0.1 1% Utilities that succeed at CVR CVR appears to be the LED (medium will sell less power. Tom induction motors in fans, quality) –0.1 –1% Wilson, president of CVR sys- refrigerators, and dozens tem developer PCS UtiliData, SERIOUS SAVINGS: Reducing the voltage feeding a variety of other appliances. Motors of appliances from the 122 volts typical at wall plugs in the based in Spokane, Wash., tend to operate at a lower United States down to 118 V saves power in most cases. says this lost revenue prob-

mechanical load than they SOURCE: PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY lem has made selling utilities are rated to handle. As on CVR an “uphill struggle.” a result, higher voltages Wilson says change generate stronger magnetic neighborhood. An influential many utilities are exploring is coming, as regulators fields than the motors can 2008 study by the Northwest CVR through pilot projects get more creative about use, throwing energy away. Energy Efficiency Alliance, financed with economic rewarding utilities for the Utilities in the U.S. Pacific based in Portland, Ore., recovery funds, and a few, “nega-watts” of energy saved Northwest began testing analyzed the experience of six such as Progress Energy, in through conservation pro- CVR’s potential in the 1990s. CVR pioneers and found that Raleigh, N.C., are pushing grams. Rather than wait, he They minimized the voltage on average every 1 percent into full-scale implementation. says PCS is marketing CVR to delivered by measuring it drop in voltage delivered For those installing smart large power consumers such close to the consumer and a 0.7 to 0.8 percent drop in meters, CVR is a natural, as industrial firms and uni- adjusting frequently. Voltage power. And most feeders because smart meters versities. They have the clout is controlled at substations could safely drop 3 to 4 V. provide the real-time voltage to press utilities to implement for each feeder line, which Bob Uluski, a distribution readings to guide the voltage CVR on their feeders, says generally serves a whole specialist with EPRI, says trimming: If levels dip too Wilson. —Peter Fairley

14 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

______

with the military’s high- under the direction of the Instead, Shah proposes using Eyes in the tech hardware. Defense Advance Research some basic geometry tricks There were some Projects Agency, called to find a person, based on glimmers of hope, however, ARGUS-IS, succeeds, a single the relationship between Sky That See at August’s 7th IEEE drone-mounted video sensor the height of an object and International Conference and processor could easily the length of its shadow. He Too Much on Advanced Video and “capture one and a half to admits, though, that this Signal-Based Surveillance, 2 million vehicles [within a strategy wouldn’t work so Military analysts are in Boston. Mubarak Shah, 40-kilometer radius] during well on video shot on cloudy buried in video from director of the Computer one mission,” says Rush. days or using infrared light. surveillance drones. Visions Lab at the University Shah’s solution depends The final challenge Shah Some software of Central Florida, in Orlando, on keeping track of all the addressed is how to map tricks could help identified three computer possible paths a vehicle may the movement patterns of surveillance tasks that have taken, then weeding many things at once. Say, are notoriously difficult. out the poor choices. The for example, you have some n 2009 alone, the U.S. The first task involves computer does that by aerial footage of a city and IAir Force shot 24 years’ you want to figure out how it’s worth of video over Iraq laid out—where the roads are, and Afghanistan using spy the bridges, the intersections, drones. The trouble is, there where people regularly travel, aren’t enough human eyes to the areas they avoid, where watch it all. they gather. What a computer The deluge of video sees in a surveillance video data from these unmanned is “very noisy optical flow,” aerial vehicles, or UAVs, is Shah says—lots of motion but likely to get worse. By next not much order. But, using year, a single new Reaper mathematical noise-reducing drone will record 10 video tools called Gaussian filters, feeds at once, and the Air Shah can find order in the Force plans to eventually noise and get his software to upgrade that number to 65. draw a picture of the city in John Rush, chief of the motion. “We can basically Intelligence, Surveillance and WATCHING YOU: The MQ-9 Reaper drone is on the prowl. discover the road networks PHOTO: LT. COL. LESLIE PRATT/U.S. AIR FORCE Reconnaissance Division of without knowing anything the U.S. National Geospatial- about a city,” he says. Intelligence Agency, projects tracking big swarms using some common sense: But it may be a while that it would take an untena- of objects, such as cars, It knows two vehicles before such technologies ble 16 000 analysts to study traveling over a wide area, probably won’t choose a are accurate and usable the video footage from like an expressway. When collision course, for example. enough to be adopted broadly. UAVs and other airborne shot from above, cars are And it uses a bit of modern Military intelligence analysts surveillance systems. exceedingly small (usually transportation theory as well: “will use systems put in front The best—and perhaps no more than 30 pixels), and If one car is behind another, of them now, then turn them only—way forward is to there are often thousands the two cars are probably off because it just makes have a computer watch it of them. Plus, the plane accelerating at a similar rate. their job harder,” Rush told all. But programming a that’s shooting footage is Finding a person can be engineers in Boston. “Getting system to automatically moving faster than the even harder than keeping them to accept the results search video and pick out vehicles it’s capturing, so track of cars. In aerial video, [of automatic video-search noteworthy information is a tracking algorithm has typical statistics-based software] without going back not an easy problem. And only a few frames to work algorithms mistake quite a lot and checking all the data— so far, no one has developed with for each car. And if a of things—trees, mailboxes, that’s a long time coming.” software that can keep up new technology developed traffic lights—for people. —Ariel Bleicher

16 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

tech in sight These Humanoid Robots Could Kick Your CHARLI Virginia Tech’s Robotics & Asimo Mechanisms Laboratory, BLACKSBURG, VA. CHARLI (Cognitive Humanoid Autonomous apan has long held Robot with Learning Intelligence) is the ﬁrst world dominance untethered, autonomous, full-size walking J humanoid robot built in the United States, when it comes to walking humanoid according to Virginia Tech roboticist Dennis ASIMO Hong. He and his team are now upgrading robots, its most it with custom-made linear actuators that famous emissary help mimic how human limbs move. In a being the charismatic, child- soccer match against Asimo, Hong’s team size, astronaut-like Asimo, is conﬁdent that CHARLI would prevail. PHOTO: VIRGINIA TECH which ambles, runs, and climbs stairs. Until recently, only South Korea had demonstrated full- size humanoids with legs as impressive as those of their Japanese counterparts. Now other countries are trying to catch up. Here’s how four robots might take on Asimo in a future robot race. —Erico Guizzo

REEM-B Pal Robotics, BARCELONA

Reem-B was designed to assist humans with everyday tasks, says Davide Faconti, founder of Pal Robotics. The 1.47-meter-high robot can walk at a relatively slow speed of 1.5 kilometers per hour, but thanks to powerful actuators in its legs and arms, Reem-B “is probably the strongest humanoid in the world,” says Faconti, boasting that his robot can carry a 12-kilogram payload—say, a big watermelon. Try that, Asimo. PHOTO: PAL ROBOTICS

JUSTIN German Aerospace Center’s SURENA 2 University of Tehran’s Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Advanced Vehicles Center, TEHRAN OBERPFAFFENHOFEN-WESSLING, GERMANY This 1.45-meter-high humanoid was developed Justin is currently a four-wheeled robot with a head to help researchers explore aspects of bipedal and two dexterous arms, but researchers have locomotion, says Tehran University professor demonstrated a pair of legs [right] that may become Aghil Youseﬁ-Koma. His team is working on a its lower body. The legs use powerful yet lightweight feedback control system that yields a much motors to explore joint torque-based control concepts more humanlike motion. Surena 2 might be for biped balancing and walking, according to a slow walker, but it has its tricks: It can bow,

HONDA engineer Christian Ott. If Justin’s legs turn out to be as stand on one leg, and according to some nimble as its arms, Asimo might not stand a chance. news reports, dance. Dance-off, Asimo? IMAGE: INSTITUTE OF ROBOTICS AND MECHATRONICS/DLR PHOTO: ALIREZA SOTAKBAR/ISNA/AP PHOTO

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 17

18 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

the big picture

PRETTY MATH PROBLEM You’re looking at the solution to a computational ﬂ uid dynamics problem. It is one of thousands of math-based artistic renderings stored in a database maintained by computer scientists from the University of Florida, in Gainesville, and AT&T Labs Research, in Florham Park, N.J. But what you don’t see makes all the diff erence. The matrix, or table of values, is sparse, meaning that the number of zeros it contains far outweighs the number of nonzero values. This sparsity allows for a type of data compression that lets engineers working on a simulation store the data without taking up too big a chunk of memory. IMAGE: YIFAN HU/ AT&T LABS VISUALIZATION GROUP

hands on

MAJOR COMPONENTS I, OFFICE + MSI Wind L1300 netbook WORKER CompUSA; $285 Build your own + Motor mount and wheel kit Parallax; $280 telepresence robot + HB-25 motor drivers Parallax; $50 (x 2) n last month’s issue, my + fellow IEEE Spectrum editor Ping ultrasonic sensor I Parallax; $30 Erico Guizzo investigated + SLA-12V18 lead-acid battery the up-and-coming universe Battery Mart; $35 of telepresence robots— + ACC-1206S charger electromechanical proxies for lead-acid battery that allow you to be there Battery Mart; $33 without actually being there. + In-car adapter to power netbook As a telecommuter, I was eBay; $18 intrigued by the possibility + Arduino Duemilanove of being able to “walk” over microcontroller to a colleague’s office, just Sparkfun Electronics; $30 as if I were working down + Logitech C905 webcam the hall. The problem is that Staples; $80 commercial telepresence + S PT-50 pan-and-tilt mechanism Servocity.com; $20 robots are pricey. The one Erico tested, made by the Note: This list reflects prices at the time the project was built. company Anybot, will sell for close to US $15 000. I’m casters to keep things level. too sheepish to ask the boss The nice thing about such to shell out for something an arrangement is that the like that. robot can rotate in place. But I’m not too sheepish I was set to arrange mine to try to build one. the same way, but a friend So with Erico’s help I with considerable experience cobbled together a simple advised me otherwise. The telepresence robot for about DROPPING BY: Casually these motors with nice problem with four wheels, strolling over to a colleague’s $1000 in parts. Initially, aluminum mounts, axles, he explained, was that an office to chat is something most we thought about copying telecommuters miss. But robot and wheels. Each kit also irregularity in the floor could Sparky Jr., a telepresence technology now makes this includes an optical encoder cause one of the drive wheels robot built on an iRobot possible—even on the cheap. and a position-controller to lift, sending the robot off Create base. Construction PHOTO: RANDI SILBERMAN KLETT board, providing closed-loop in an unintended direction. is detailed at the Sparky Jr. instead I rolled a robotic control of wheel movements. With three wheels, that Web site, which is “dedicated base of my own design. But the kit doesn’t contain can’t happen. So I mounted to DIY, open-source mobile To propel it, I used the any motor-driver circuitry, the two driven wheels telepresence.” But this motor mount and wheel so I purchased separate forward on each side and robot’s cat-size stature kit ($280) from Parallax, 25-amp units ($50 each), put just one swiveling wouldn’t be adequate of Rocklin, Calif. The kit also from Parallax. caster in the rear. In truth, for office life; I’d need includes a pair of 12-volt Many mobile robots, I incorporated five wheels something taller to gossip DC motors with worm- including the iRobot Create, in all, if you include the two with others around the screw reduction gearing have four wheels spaced small casters I added to the water cooler and Xerox that were surely designed around a circle at 90-degree very front. These don’t touch machine. And the iRobot for automobile electric intervals. Only the two the floor: I added them only Create is too small and windows. The gearing has wheels at either side are to prevent the robot from light to support much more play than I would have driven, the two at front and tipping over if it stopped of a superstructure. So liked, but Parallax integrated back merely being swiveling suddenly or was bumped

20 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG______

from behind. To be sure, with software that operates it modified Wiguna’s code so to Skype. It’s a bit like a heavy 18-ampere-hour lead- all is, however, reasonably that in addition to controlling maneuvering a Mars rover: acid battery ($35) mounted complicated. And for that, the remote webcam, I Send a command, wait for on the base, there’s really not I must credit Hari Wiguna could also command the the response, send the next much chance that this robot and the good people who gave robot to rotate in place or command, and so forth. But could topple anywhere. us Skype. Let me explain. move forward and back by with practice, even my 7-year- An MSI Wind L1300 Before purchasing any of given amounts, all while old son could manage it. netbook ($285) provides most the hardware, I wanted to conducting a Skype video More problematic was of the robot’s smarts, along be sure that I could turn this call. I also added some a nasty software bug. I with a screen that shows collection of components into code so that the robot could eventually traced the problem my face when I operate it. a functioning robot without communicate information to the way that the SkyDuino Running it from the lead-acid months of programming. back to its master. If the robot code handled communication battery required an “in-car” with the Arduino: For each adapter ($18). The netbook command sent to that board, sits atop a salvaged camera a virtual serial port is opened tripod, which is affixed to the and closed. But my Arduino base with hinges, making reset each time this serial it easy to adjust the screen port was opened, creating position to shoulder height. havoc. The remedy was At a lower level, literally simple—have the C# code 1 2 and figuratively, sits an open that port only once, at Arduino Duemilanove the beginning of the session. microcontroller ($30), a This system is admittedly device that regular readers a bit fragile—it requires the of this column will surely interaction of three separate recognize. The netbook computer processes, one communicates over a USB running on the Arduino, cable with the Arduino, another on the netbook, which in turn talks to the plus the Skype application— 3 4 two motor-controller boards and they must be started in via 5-V serial lines. The SKYPE ON WHEELS: A set of plywood parts [1] forms the basic sequence or else errors occur. Arduino is also hooked up robot platform. Drive hardware [2] is attached on the bottom, And Skype suffers from to two small limit switches along with a swiveling caster in the back and two tip-prevention dropped calls, which means casters up front [3]. An Arduino single-board computer mounted that a person familiar with attached for right and left on the base handles low-level tasks [4] while a netbook fixed bumpers. And this little to a camera tripod runs a Skype session. PHOTOS: DAVID SCHNEIDER the robot needs to be available computer operates two radio- to nurse it back to life from control servos I had on hand, That’s when I stumbled on bumps into something, it time to time. But judging which I rigged into a simple Hari Wiguna’s SkyDuino halts and tells the operator from Erico’s experience pan-and-tilt mechanism for project, a DIY pan-and- whether the right or left test-driving Anybot’s the robot’s webcam. (You tilt webcam that’s remotely bumper hit. Also, with robot, such problems dog could purchase a much operated. Wiguna’s code each command sent to the commercial models too. better engineered unit for as for SkyDuino, written in robot, the ultrasonic sensor My sense is that these little as $20.) In addition, the C#, makes use of Skype’s sends out an inaudible machines are a bit like early Arduino runs a Parallax Ping application programming ping and listens for the personal computers—cool ultrasonic distance sensor interface to send one- echo. The Arduino then for hackers but not quite ($30), which is mounted to character messages to a gauges the distance to the ready for prime time. Still, the tripod at waist height. remote Arduino. I’d just have nearest obstacle and relays exploring the practicality As mobile telepresence to expand the repertoire of that information back to of a telepresence robot is a robots go, I suspect that messages to include a set of the person driving. lot of fun when you’ve laid this collection of hardware robot-motion commands. It took a while to get the out only a small fraction is about as simple as you I downloaded Microsoft’s hang of steering, mostly of what it costs to buy one. could get by with. The (free) Visual C# package and because of the delays inherent —David Schneider

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 21

tools & toys

applications processor and activate unintentionally. the display controller, and And what about Sony, partly due to scale: Reportedly, the company that pioneered large manufacturers have the e-reader? Although reached quotas that qualify many Spectrum readers them for discounts. But both have vouched their love Barnes & Noble and Amazon for the Sony e-readers in have the added advantage online comments, it’s hard of being in the book to recommend them now. business. Just as Microsoft Sony has announced a new lost money on Xboxes and line of readers but says it made it up in game sales, doesn’t intend to compete these two booksellers can on price. In this market, survive, and thrive, even that’s a lot like giving up. if they have to offer their To the extent that the hardware below cost. price wars remain limited to In fact, the race to control the United States, there’s still the biggest slice of room for lesser- THE IPAD, success. Although the many the e-book-buying known companies. e-readers introduced there public may bring PocketBook’s THE KINDLE, all shared the same E Ink even greater price tiny, stripped- AND THE screen technology, each cuts. It’s not hard down e-reader IMMUTABLE offered its own combination to imagine a future made a positive LAWS OF THE of trade-offs, and it seemed as where you get an impression on if there might be a different e-reader free with Spectrum testers, MARKETPLACE ideal e-reader for each user. a pledge to buy a and the company A culling of the But after months of wild book every month. currently has herd of e-readers is proliferation, the list of viable But now is still a commanding already under way, e-reader manufacturers the time to buy. The hold on the as prices plummet is now shrinking, even current Kindle Russian market. as the market expands. and Nook greatly The next f you’ve considered It’s largely a matter of improve on their big change for Ibuying an e-reader but price. When the Apple’s iPad initial designs. Our e-readers will be haven’t yet taken the hit the market in an explosion recommendation the addition of plunge, there’s no longer a of hype and hysteria for just is to stick with color displays that need to wait. It’s only been US $500, it suddenly seemed one of these major can be viewed in three years since Amazon ludicrous that anyone would models, if only for E-SURVIVORS: direct sunlight. jump-started the market pay more for a dedicated their vast, easy- The $139 Nook But don’t let that with its Kindle [above], but reader with a monochrome to-use bookstores. [top] and the keep your wallet in the technology has improved display. To stay viable, The convenience lightweight your pocket: Mass PocketBook manufacturers needed to of shopping for production of color greatly since then. And as [bottom] may this summer’s price wars in slash their e-reader prices. At books directly be rare survivors displays has only the United States carry over the end of June, the Barnes & on your device in the harsh recently begun, to the holiday season and the Noble Nook went from $259 to only becomes e-reader market. so there’s plenty rest of the world, e-readers $149 for a Wi-Fi version ($199 clear when you’re of time to enjoy a are ﬁnally ready for a for the 3G model). Amazon forced to try the frustrating black-and-white e-reader mainstream audience. countered by announcing alternative. The IEEE that doesn’t break the bank. Back in January, at the that the next version of the Spectrum staff generally —Joshua J. Romero annual Consumer Elec- Kindle would start at $139. prefers the Kindle, ﬁnding the tronics Show, it seemed like The price drops are partly Nook’s separate navigation A version of this article appeared every company wanted to due to more sophisticated screen an inefficient use of on IEEE Spectrum Online

ride in the wake of Amazon’s chip sets that integrate the space and a little too easy to in August. SILBERMAN KLETT & NOBLE; RANDI BARNES AMAZON; TOP: FROM

22 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

proﬁle CORONARY CALCULUS Serbian engineer Nenad Filipovic’s equations model blood ﬂow and could predict heart attacks

he red and blue glow of computer Tanimations fills a lab in the Insti- tute for Basic and Physical Chemistry in Belgrade. It’s a warm BLOOD CENTER: Five years ago, Serbian- born and Harvard-trained bioengineer Nenad summer day in Serbia. That we are only Filipovic [above] returned to his war-torn 5 minutes from a spot where U.S. cruise homeland [below] to develop software that missiles once slammed into ministry visualizes the vascular system [left] and buildings doesn’t much register with predicts heart attacks. PHOTOS: MICHAEL DUMIAK Nenad Filipovic. To be sure, like most Serbians, he hopes to put the past behind him and forge a bright future for this rapidly changing heart of the Balkans. But at the moment, he’s hunched over his computer, trying to create a new kind of imaging for cardiologists. The NATO bombs that rained on Serbia during its 1999 conflict with the breakaway province of Kosovo led to the collapse of the Miloševic´ government, sending Belgrade into chaos and Filipovic to Harvard. Five years ago, BioIRC is doing clinical trials with he came back as a bioengineering 100 patients in Serbia. “We collect data, professor at the University of and we simulate,” Filipovic says. “And Kragujevac. At the Institute for Basic we compare results over time.” He says and Physical Chemistry, he helped BioIRC can already predict plaque start BioIRC, a spin-off that creates growth—not position, but growth— predictive software for visualizing the with 70 to 80 percent accuracy. plaques that cause heart attacks and Predictive medicine could also greatly charting their future growth. improve the placement of medicated “We deal with small plaques,” precision. The data is crunched on the stents, drug-delivering mesh tubes that Filipovic says. “The point is, when does SEE-GRID (Southeastern European reinforce weak artery walls. this plaque develop, and how much Grid), a computer network consortium Other centers for predictive time does a patient need—one month, of 13 countries. As yet, there is no one medicine include Stanford, the two months, six months, 10 years?” tool that measures all of these factors. University of Texas, and Worcester BioIRC is an interdisciplinary mashup It’s a little bit like writing new software Polytechnic. Filipovic is still a of informatics and hemo dynamics. CT for each heart. Harvard associate, but he has seen his and MRI imaging and catheter cameras Predictive medicine is a growing department suffer tough cutbacks. “It’s build a precise geographic image of but sometimes controversial field. hard to be a scientist now. There’s no the individual patient’s heart. Blood The practice of modeling in itself can money,” he says. “It’s hard here, too. But analysis shows lipids, hemoglobin, be controversial—after all, it didn’t I see a chance for young people. The albumin, and cholesterol factors. Data- always work on Wall Street. But the best students come to me, and they want mining tools plumb genetic profiles, results are already promising and to work. It’s changed completely here. patient history, and lifestyle statistics. may eventually affect more than just There’s a vision. Not just here. I see Vascular shear stress analysis adds coronary plaque analysis. changes in Europe.” —Michael Dumiak

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 23

geek life

REAL MONEY: The ﬁlm inﬂation that makes gold Play Money explores the thin less scarce and therefore line between virtual gold and less valuable when real dollars. PHOTO: NAMELESS FILMS exchanged for real dollars. increasing their demand for In some ways, gold virtual goods. Eventually, farming has become more players with more money entrenched: Sony, for than time sought ways to example, created its Station buy those virtual goods with Exchange (now called Live their real-world credit cards. Gamer Exchange), an auction Gold farming, in other site that the company says words, was as natural lets players trade avatars, a market response as items, and currency among putting up a lemonade each other for real money. stand on a hot day. Yet in other ways, gold “Teens are cash poor and farming appears to be a time rich,” says novelist temporary phenomenon, THE END OF GOLD FARMING? and celebrated blogger Cory Castronova says. Virtual- Real-world laborers make real-world money Doctorow. Adult gamers world designers are now in virtual worlds. But maybe not for long are often the other way adding features that can around. So long as youth in cut gold farmers out of the developing nations can make picture. For example, rather ight now, thousands gold farmers generating quick cash playing games than paying a third-party pro Rof gamers are doing more than $10 billion in they play for fun anyway, to ratchet up your character’s menial jobs in their annual, real-money revenue. online “gray” markets will level (“leveling”), a 2009 patch virtual worlds. And they’re Yet the future of gold crop up that can compensate to World of Warcraft now earning a living. farming is uncertain. Some them—however meagerly, by enables players to teleport The process of contracting observers see it as a classic developed-world standards. directly to battles that allow out a game’s drudge work market inefficiency—a blip Doctorow’s latest thriller, them to advance within the for real money is called “gold in the history of online For the Win (Tor, 2010), game faster. “Just press a farming.” This happens games—that game designers imagines gold farmers button and boom, you’re in the games that involve can and should eliminate across the planet rising up in a dungeon,” Castronova thousands of characters at a from their virtual worlds. to unionize and collectively says. “You can rapidly get time, interacting in an online Edward Castronova, a improve the conditions of everything you need to get a universe that players inhabit virtual worlds economist at their labor. Researching character up at a high level.” over the course of months or Indiana University, says it the book—which is aimed Virtual economies even years. Some tasks, such was Blizzard Entertainment’s at youngsters—Doctorow scholar Vili Lehdonvirta as gathering up virtual gold 2004 hit game World of went to China, where an of the Helsinki Institute for pieces, swords, and magic Warcraft that turned the estimated 85 percent of the Information Technology wands, can be done by any gaming industry on its world’s gold farms are based. says that Castronova is novice player who puts in head. Previous games had Doctorow found “a gray- undoubtedly right that new the time. In other cases, you presumed their big attraction market activity [in which] massively multiplayer online can hire a master player to was their battles—seeking out everybody does it differently.” games will indeed avoid surmount a game’s challenges monsters and killing them. Yet though these gray the inefficiencies that give and raise your character But in World of Warcraft, markets are undoubtedly rise to gold farming. But, he to a higher skill level. Castronova says, monster complex, they also still obey says, “the overall digital By any standard, gold hunting was almost simple textbook laws of economy will grow. So even farming is big business. incidental to the larger real-world economics. For if individual opportunities Estimates range from a global quest, which made a player’s example, when Blizzard are closed down by new workforce of 400 000 earning status more important, increases the number of game designs, there are US $1 billion a year to a labor pulling people deeper into rewards, it adds more gold always gaps that will be pool exceeding a million the virtual world and thus to the system, a sort of exploited.” —Mark Anderson

24 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

technically speaking BY PAUL McFEDRIES

purposes it’s also a fount of cradle-to-gate refers to every- new words and phrases. thing that happens with a Life cycle practitioners product until it’s ready to ship. usually start by coming up If the product gets with a life cycle inventory, shipped to another link in the which tots up the materials production chain, then that used, the energy consumed, portion of the product’s life and the emissions produced cycle is called gate-to-gate during a product’s life, or with or gate-to-site (for example, a technoeconomic analysis, a construction site). If the which considers a product’s product is edible, then the technology in terms of its portion of its life cycle from economic costs and benefits. the time it leaves the producer They might then work on to the time the consumer is impact assessment and life ready to eat it is called gate- cycle improvement, which to-plate. If the producer is look at the actual or potential a farmer, then that portion environmental consequences of the life cycle is known as of producing the product farm-to-fork. If the producer and at ways to reduce them. is a fisherman or seafood Some practitioners use life processor, you can describe cycle energy analysis that stage as boat-to-throat. (LCEA) to examine not only As you might imagine, the direct energy used in the fossil-fuels consumption is a production, distribution, and huge part of LCA. The cradle- use of a product but also the to-grave equivalent here is indirect energy used to create called well-to-wheel, where and maintain the services, the “well” is the place where components, and systems that the unprocessed fossil fuel The Age are used to manufacture and is extracted from the ground distribute the product. and the “wheel” is the vehicle The fundamental unit of burning the processed fuel. of Spimes LCA is the whole-life cost, The segments in between are Spimes have identities; they are protagonists of a documented which refers to the environ- well-to-station, the costs of process. They are searchable, like Google. You can think of spimes mental cost accumulated processing the raw fuel and as being auto-Googling objects. —Bruce Sterling during a product’s entire life its delivery to the gas station cycle. This is also called the (or similar distributor); few years ago, the we can and will make the cradle-to-grave cost. In this station-to-tank, the costs of Awriter Bruce Sterling right decisions about what to age of avid and expanding storing and pumping the fuel; envisioned a future purchase and produce.” recycling programs, a more and tank-to-wheel, the costs generation of products that This “age of spimes” isn’t recent idea is cradle-to- and impacts of burning the were, he said, “precisely quite here yet, but we’re cradle, which adds in as well fuel while driving. located in space and time. getting closer, thanks to an the recycling of the product LCA practitioners are the They have histories. They increasingly sophisticated into something new. first to benefit from the coming are recorded, tracked, discipline called life cycle LCA practitioners seem age of spimes, but we’re not far inventoried, and always assessment (or LCA), inordinately fond of breaking off from the day when we can associated with a story.” which attempts to quantify down a product’s life cycle all make smart and informed He dubbed this new kind of the total environmental into smaller and smaller decisions on products. As thing a spime, a blend of space impact of all the inputs and segments, usually in an effort Sterling said in the speech and time. In the Los Angeles processes used to take a to apportion life cycle costs where he coined the word Times a couple of years later, product from raw materials appropriately. In the cradle- spime: “At the moment, you the writer and critic Susan to its final form. LCA (which to-gate segment, the “gate” is are end-using gizmos. My CHAD HAGEN Salter Reynolds wrote, “In can also stand for life cycle the factory (or farm or mill thesis here, my prophecy to an age of spimes—products analysis ) is an important or whatever) gate (or door or you, is that, pretty soon, you with Web sites and bar codes— idea, for sure, but for our loading dock or whatever), so will be wrangling spimes.” ❏

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 25

The Great Spectrum Famine

MOBILE BROADBAND IS CONSUMING THE AVAILABLE RADIO SPECTRUM. SERVING UP MORE WON’T BE EASY By Mitchell Lazarus

26 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

Not even sci-fi writers foresaw what much of the world. Finding ways that use less radio bandwidth to carry out we’d be doing with our phones once these communications is not impossi- ble, but it requires the adoption of some new technologies. technology put color screens and a lot Telecommunications regulators try to anticipate such developments, and of computing power in our pockets. sometimes they even help to bring them about. But much of their work consists Now we know: We use them to stream nections. The spread of faster connections simply of codifying and institutional- YouTube and Facebook videos; we in turn spurred Web designers to load up izing established ways of doing things, watch TV shows; we download and their sites with multimedia. Technology which can interfere with efforts to use store songs and movies; we take pictures and content each drove the other. the airwaves in better ways. of everything going on around us; we Now we are seeing an equally vicious Two-way radio is a good example. It read (and some of us even write) novels; cycle in the wireless realm. Smartphones, became popular in the 1960s with the we play video games; we surf the Web. along with fully mobile laptops and appearance of compact transistor-based Sometimes we even talk to each other. tablets, are spreading fast, and people gear. Back then, a one-way FM voice These days you can unleash a gusher of are using them ever more hours of the channel required 25 or 30 kilohertz. bits over the air that would have choked day. Estimates show the amounts of That’s a gluttonous use of spectral even a wired connection to the Internet such wireless data doubling or tripling bandwidth by today’s standards. not so long ago. annually. We can expect a hundredfold Actually, it was inefficient even then: These transmissions consume radio expansion in just a few years. Amateur radio equipment in those bandwidth—lots of it. And days routinely squeezed they will take increasing a voice signal into 5 kHz. amounts of this precious Nevertheless, when the commodity as the iPad and Federal Communications its Androidgenous kin pro- Commission set aside por- liferate. People are already tions of the spectrum for feeling the pinch. two-way radios, it sub- Regulators have few divided the bands into options to head off the com- 25-kHz channels. The FCC ing bandwidth crisis. They then made things worse by can’t realistically expect to assigning blocks of chan- reduce demand. Nor can nels to particular industries, they expand the overall sup- including subdivisions as ply. That leaves the daunting small as “Motion Picture” chore of squeezing today’s and “Forest Products.” The users into narrower slices of result, a decade or two later, the radio spectrum, thereby was a huge embedded base eking out more space for other things. Where will all the new capacity come of inefficient radios, spread unevenly That’s sometimes possible, but it’s not from? Addressing this issue demands over dozens of channel blocks. easy. To reengineer existing radio sys- first an understanding of why all radio The FCC has since merged the chan- tems—or their users—is a bit like trying spectrum is not created equal. nel blocks across all industries, keep- to overhaul a car’s engine while it’s bar- ing only public safety separate. But reling down the highway. Every application of radio works narrowing the channels proved more Policymakers, at least in private, best within a certain range of frequen- difficult. Not until 1992 did the FCC sometimes hold out hope for a fourth cies, and mobile broadband is no excep- launch a “refarming” program to cut option: that some game-changing tech- tion. Its sweet spot is relatively narrow, the standard 25-kHz bandwidth to nical breakthrough will save the day at roughly in the range of 300 to 3500 mega- 12.5 kHz, with plans for a further trim- the 11th hour. But nothing now on the hertz. That’s because radio waves that ming to 6.25 kHz. Twenty years later a drawing board suggests that technology are much above 3500 MHz (shorter than lot of 25-kHz equipment is still in use, alone can get us out of this predicament. about 9 centimeters) do not penetrate well and the FCC-required implementation In a sense, history is just repeat- into buildings or through rugged terrain, of 6.25-kHz equipment is still years ing itself. Two decades ago, people who leading to frustrating dead spots. Lower away. Users, happy with their inefficient accessed the Internet typically did so frequencies are better in this regard, but radios, resist government efforts to take with phone-line modems chugging along they require awkwardly large antennas them away. In the meantime, the goals at 14.4 kilobits per second. That was fine for efficient transmission; 300 MHz is of the program have been overtaken by for the largely static, text-based Internet roughly the lowest frequency compatible technology. Doubling and quadrupling of the day. But as the use of graphics and with a reasonably efficient antenna that’s capacity may have been worth the effort sound, and then video, expanded, so did small enough to fit in a handheld device. in 1992, but such a target seems almost the bandwidth needed, prompting more Not surprisingly, this swath of pointless today. Cellphone systems can

people to obtain broadband Internet con- the spectrum is already staked out in carry 10 to 100 times the amount of voice PAGE DAN AND ABOVE: PAGE PRECEDING

28 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

traffic in the same amount of spectrum ries were the U.S. Treasury, which auc- for telegraph lines in 1928. Restoring by using a dense network of towers and tioned just under half that spectrum for the original throughput of that radio taking advantage of digital encoding and US $19 billion, and public-safety person- channel without changing anything data compression. nel, who received some badly needed else risks increasing the bit error rate. Sometimes the problematic conse- additional capacity without charge. But To keep the rate level, the designer can quences of outdated regulations are less to make those gains possible, U.S. TV increase the power, which impairs bat- obvious. For example, all radio commu- stations had to replace much of their tery life. Or he can limit the range— nications services have power limits, equipment, and consumers had to shell or perhaps compress the data to reduce typically chosen to provide for reliable out cash for new receivers. (The gov- the bit payload. But that delays the sig- communications under near-worst-case ernment subsidized digital-to-analog nal and may reduce how accurately it conditions. But even when conditions converter boxes, but for only 10 per- can be reconstructed at the receiver. The are good, transmitters can still blast cent or so of the sets in use.) Similarly, bottom line is, making more efficient use away at the same high power, tying up the FCC’s refarming program requires of spectrum usually means something their frequencies over a wide geographic those now using two-way radios to else has to give. area. The old rules ignore the fact that replace their equipment at their own modern equipment can be designed to expense for the benefit of others. Regulators sometimes try to automatically adjust power levels to the The government sometimes does boost spectrum efficiency by fiat. In minimum needed, varying its output better and puts the costs where they the United States, fixed-location micro- from moment to moment. Cellphones belong. In the United States, for example, wave equipment for some bands cannot do this routinely. Most of the time the 1.9-GHz cellphones operate in spectrum legally be sold unless it can transmit at transmitter in your phone runs at well formerly used for fixed point-to-point least 2.5 to 4.5 bits per second per hertz, under its full power rating, facilitat- microwave communications. The FCC the exact value depending on its band- ing reuse of the same frequency nearby auctioned the spectrum for mobile use width. Two-way radios in some bands (and prolonging battery life to boot). But but warned bidders they would have to also have a minimum, although it is only a few kinds of radios, such as those pay the costs of “relocating” the fixed much more lenient. used for wireless Internet access in the users to other bands. Predictably, dis- Often more effective, though, is a reg- 5-gigahertz band, are required to have putes broke out over the details. But the ulatory environment that gives licens- this spectrum-saving feature. principle made sense: The party that ees both the motive and the means Why are such improvements not benefits from a change should pay for it. to improve efficiency on their own. more readily adopted? One reason is Money is not the only problem; prac- Wireless-phone carriers in the United that they cost money, and often those tical considerations impose limits, too. States must bid at auction for exclusive who must pay and those who will Suppose, for example, a designer wants use of a frequency band over a specified benefit are not the same. The recent to modify a system to operate in half the geographic area. Nationwide, the auc- shift to digital television in the United radio bandwidth it currently uses. Other tion prices have totaled many billions of States, for example, freed up 108 MHz things being equal, that halves the data dollars. Writing big checks powerfully of prime spectrum. Obvious beneficia- throughput, as Harry Nyquist proved motivates the licensees to generate the

Limited Spectrum for Mobile Broadband

Best for mobile broadband (300 MHz–3.5 GHz)

Bounces from the sky Bounces inside rooms

Penetrates buildings and terrain Reflects from buildings

Follows Earth’s curvature Travels in a straight line

Fades in the rain

1 MHz 10 MHz 100 MHz 1 GHz 10 GHz

75 meters 7.5 meters 0.75 meters 7.5 cm 7.5 mm Size of efficient antenna

OPPORTUNITY WINDOW: The best frequencies for mobile broadband are high enough that the antenna can be made conveniently compact, yet not so high that signals will fail to penetrate buildings. This leaves a relatively narrow range of frequencies available for use [red band].

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 29

most possible revenue from the avail- case, subscribers were mostly unaware WORLD WIDE able spectrum, which in turn encourages of it—people just kept on talking, with WORRIES the adoption of equipment that can serve no significant interruptions or inconve- the maximum number of subscribers. nience (although a few analog-only hold- The growing popularity Licensees are free to choose whatever outs had to be urged to upgrade their forms of radio technology they think handsets). Second, the changeover need of mobile broadband is will work best. not be forced from on high. The analog- a global phenomenon, With that kind of financial incen- to-digital switch required essentially no and the laws of physics tive, coupled with minimal regulatory government involvement. Carriers made that limit the frequencies constraints, wireless-service providers the change on their own, for their own available for it are the have achieved dramatic improvements benefit, and on their own timetables. in spectrum efficiency. They’ve done Contrast that with the transition same everywhere. So it that by being clever about the modula- from analog to digital television, which is no surprise that many tion schemes, data encoding, and tower was mostly completed in the United other countries are facing configurations they adopt. Back in the States by June 2009. That job was only the same spectrum famine 1970s the early mobile telephony pro- a little bigger—today the United States as the United States. viders used one transmitter to serve an has just a few more TV receivers than entire city, typically with all users shar- cellphones—but it proved much harder. All regions have large ing just one or two dozen voice channels. The digital-TV conversion took amounts of spectrum The service was expensive, required a lot 22 years and cost broadcasters, viewers, dedicated to TV, most of of heavy equipment stowed in the trunk and the U.S. government billions of dol- it in the frequency range of your car, and it often entailed long lars. One key difference was that in the suitable for wireless waits to make a call. TV switchover none of the broadcast- Cellular carriers in the 1980s ers stood to cash in, at least not imme- broadband. Most countries vastly improved mobile services using diately. Most of the money that changed have targeted a conversion 832 pairs of 30-kHz-spaced analog FM hands went the other way, to buy new to digital broadcast TV channels in the 800-MHz band. The studio and transmission equipment. as their best bet for cellular layout reused the same frequen- Consumers paid for new home TVs obtaining more wireless cies at different locations across a city to and converter boxes. With prodding support many thousands of conversa- from the government, the broadcast- spectrum—what the tions. But charges for wireless minutes ing and consumer- electronics indus- European Union calls a remained high, geared mostly to busi- tries mounted a massive publicity cam- “digital dividend.” Several ness customers. paign to prepare viewers for the coming have already completed The next iteration, in the 1990s, was sea change. Cable and satellite-TV com- the transition, including 1.9-GHz “2G” voice service, among the panies ran their own campaigns, pro- first to make use of auctioned spec- moting their services as a way to keep Belgium, Denmark, Finland, trum in the United States. Although old sets working. The government Germany, Luxembourg the FCC’s rules do not require it, all of offered free vouchers for converter (the first anywhere), the the licensees opted for digital transmis- boxes (then ran out of money to distrib- Netherlands, Norway, sion, which yielded a big improvement. ute them). Still, in the end, on the morn- Spain, Sweden, and Digital modulation is not inherently ing of 13 June 2009, many viewers were more spectrum efficient than analog, shocked to find that their beloved analog Switzerland. Other but it allows much better compression TV sets showed only snow. countries have transitions and offers more ways to combine mul- Compared with the wireless-phone in progress, most tiple communications onto one channel. conversion, the shift to digital TV scheduled for completion Those advantages were enough was slow and painful. Whereas the wireless-phone changeover was an between 2011 and 2013 to persuade the companies operating older, analog cellphone systems to inside job, one largely driven by the (China in 2015). The go digital. In the late 1980s, the car- market’s invisible hand, digital TV was amounts of spectrum riers had begun shipping dual-mode directed by the government at every harvested vary from about analog/digital handsets and converting stage: adopting technical standards, 100 up to 130 megahertz. their base stations to digital. The hand- setting required start-up dates for digi- set automatically switched to whichever tal broadcasting, even imposing fines on Many countries are mode suited the equipment installed at electronics distributors who trafficked also experimenting the nearest tower. The conversion took in analog-only TVs. Market forces and with spectrum auctions, about a decade, although carriers kept incentives played little part. And the TV some with a minimum some analog service in place until 2008. transition required the participation of of regulation of the The outcome was a tenfold increase in consumers in ways the wireless-phone the capacity of these wireless networks. conversion did not. technologies, as a way The regulators learned some valu- On the positive side, though, the of fostering efficient use. able lessons from that transition. First, switch to digital TV did work: It enabled —M.L. it can be done pretty painlessly. In this the FCC to repack transmissions from

30 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

22% Source: Federal Communications Commission 3 600 000 4% 20 6% Over-the-Air TV 8% Viewing Drops 17% in the U.S.

2 700 000 17% 15 Mobile Broadband 15% Skyrockets Globally 14% th 12%

1 800 000 ■ Voice over Internet Protocol 10 10% es per mon es

t ■ Gaming y b ■ Peer-to-peer

era 66% T ■ Web/data of households Percent ■ Video 900 000 5 Source: Cisco

0 0 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2000 200220042006 2008 2010

CHANGING TASTES: The amount of data being sent wirelessly over the Internet has shot up globally [left], while the small fraction of television-owning households that rely on over-the-air broadcasts has been steadily diminishing in the United States [right].

digital TV stations more tightly than capacity taken from a fellow broadcaster on their present frequencies, beyond the their analog predecessors. That freed whose station stays on the air long-awaited halving of their bandwidth. up 108 MHz of spectrum, over a quar- Not surprisingly, broadcasters as We need to offer these people a more ter of the total bandwidth allotted to a group vehemently oppose any such efficient alternative while making it broadcast TV before the transition. And reorganization of the airwaves, although more costly for them to use their old thanks to data compression, each digital some individual station owners would equipment. Suppose the FCC gave a non- channel accommodates about four ana- likely be happy to take the money and proﬁt industry group a few megahertz in log-quality video signals, and digital close shop. Others favor keeping their which to provide efficient, digital, two- TV also offers new options for high-def- channels but renting out bandwidth way radio service on an at-cost basis. To inition programming and data services. for wireless use. Maybe that would be sure, many users would prefer to keep The overall result is about a fivefold be less disruptive to these businesses. their existing radio gear. But the FCC improvement in spectrum efficiency—a And it does seem a little soon to require could make their licenses more expen- success by any measure. American TV watchers to relearn how to sive and equipment requirements more Or maybe not. The United States orient their antennas and tune their sets. demanding, while pointing users to the still has 294 MHz of spectrum set aside new collective service as a better option. primarily for TV. But the vast major- That we’re even talking about Eventually, enough will have ity of U.S. TV-owning households sub- revamping the U.S. TV bands barely migrated out of the original band to allow scribe to cable or satellite television. Just a year after the last reorganization the FCC to take it back and re allocate it 10 percent watch only transmissions suggests how thorny spectrum issues for other purposes. The result would be sent over the air. And the over-the-air have become. two-way radio use that is 10 to 100 times fraction has declined steadily over the Any solution ultimately has to identify as spectrum efficient as today’s with lit- decades. So the 294 MHz of TV spec- the least efficient or least critical services tle disruption along the way. trum—much of it in a frequency range and redesign them to use less spectrum. Other bands may require different ideal for mobile broadband—serves a Consider, for example, the current situa- approaches. For example, the FCC is small and shrinking number of viewers. tion with two-way radios: 12.5 kHz for a considering ways to convert underused Noting this fact, some policymakers one-way voice channel, with many chan- mobile satellite bands to a primarily ter- have proposed to divert still more of the nels vacant at any given moment. Such restrial cellphone-type service. And the TV broadcast spectrum to mobile broad- radios are indispensable to police, fire- U.S. government occupies large swaths band. One such plan in the United States ﬁghters, and other emergency responders, of valuable spectrum that Congress could would reallocate and auction 120 MHz, as well as utility workers, taxi drivers, help to make available for private use. or about 41 percent of the postanalog TV plumbers, construction crews, and many True, any such reorganization of the capacity. Broadcasters who lose their others. But their collective traffic could airwaves would take years. But what channels could receive part of the auc- be handled in far less spectrum than is solution wouldn’t? Given the growing tion revenues. Or they might be allowed being used today. Unfortunately, there’s hunger for mobile broadband, we ought a share of the newly expanded channel no practical way to improve these devices to get cracking. ❏

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 31

32 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

(+55:::55 + = = + = 9++ = +== ++ + ==+ =9 =++= 9++ +++ ++ + ++ ++ 9+ =+ +++ =+ + ++ =+ ++ ++ 2+9 Just a few years ago, the experts’ testimony would have been the only technical evidence the judge would have considered. But now a third point of view is available: that of a sophisticated software forensics program. By interpreting the program’s results, an expert computer scientist can give a deﬁnitive, quantitative answer.

(+55:::55

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 33

Software Source-Code Elements

In recent years, litigation over software in the United vinced a judge that there was reason to believe its software States and elsewhere has skyrocketed. Partly that’s due to copyright had been infringed. the 1998 case State Street Bank & Trust v. Signature Financial Avanti had a lot of financial backing, though, and so it was Group, which established that most kinds of software are able to delay the trial for some years. By the time the case reached patentable. Partly it’s due to the fact that you can easily the discovery phase, during which attorneys turned over rel- and surreptitiously make a copy of copyrighted source code evant documents, including source code, to the opposing side, and put it on a flash drive or send it by e-mail. And partly Avanti’s software had gone through many revisions. it’s due to our increasing reliance on computers and the At that time, no sophisticated forensics software yet increasing value of the software that runs our businesses existed that could spot illegal copying. Teams of experts spent and our equipment. months manually poring over the code, but they found few Clearly, it’s in society’s best interest to resolve these law- signs of copying. Eventually, though, they turned up one curi- suits as efficiently and equitably as possible. But settling such ous comment in both programs. The comment was a descrip- disputes can get exceedingly technical, and few people have tion in which a single word was spelled incorrectly. It was the expertise to parse source code—the human-readable form known that some of the same programmers had worked on of a program—to determine what, if anything, has been ille- both programs, which is completely legal as long as the pro- gally reproduced. A program that runs something as simple grammers don’t literally copy the code. Perhaps one of them as a clock radio can have thousands of lines of code; a more wasn’t a very good speller. complicated device, such as an airplane, can have millions. But this comment stood out. What were the chances that That’s why automatic software forensics tools are so useful. the same misspelling would show up in the same comment in Just as software for analyzing DNA has become crucial in nearly identical positions in both programs? Practically zero. resolving criminal cases and paternity suits, tools that can Based largely on that seemingly tiny concurrence, Avanti lost quickly and accurately uncover illicit software copying are both the civil and criminal lawsuits, and several of its execu- becoming key to copyright infringement litigation. tives went to jail. After paying fines that effectively put it out of business, what was left of Avanti was bought by a Cadence etecting illegal copying without the aid of forensics rival, Synopsys. software can be like finding the proverbial needle in In that case, justice prevailed, but much of the time and a haystack. In one high-profile case that some col- expense involved in trying the case could have been avoided leagues of mine worked on, Cadence Design Systems, with forensics software. one of the largest developers of software for electronic design automation, sued Avanti Corp., a much smaller com- omputer scientists have studied software copying petitor. As is common in the tech business, Avanti had been since at least the late 1970s. In 1987, J.A.W. Faidhi and founded by high-level engineers and executives who’d previ- S.K. Robinson of Brunel University, in England, pub- ously worked for Cadence. lished a paper in the journal Computers & Education on In the mid-1980s Cadence introduced a product called detecting plagiarism in students’ programming proj- Symbad for laying out the physical structure of integrated ects. The paper characterized six types of source-code modifi- circuits. In a surprisingly short time Avanti came out with cations that students tended to make, but it didn’t really define its own circuit-layout program, called ArcCell. Not only did what constituted plagiarism or provide useful measurements the product development time seem too short, but a Cadence for determining whether or not it had occurred. engineer noticed that ArcCell exhibited a very strange bug Later research sought to fill that gap. Many of these that was identical to a bug in Symbad. Given these suspicious efforts were based on the earlier work of computer scientist circumstances, Cadence filed a motion with the court and con- Maurice H. Halstead. Halstead wasn’t interested in plagia-

34 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

rism but in ways of measuring the complexity of code and Algorithms of this kind refl ect their creator’s aim: They are writ- the “mental eff ort” required to create it. He devised quan- ten by university professors trying to spot plagiarism in student titative measurements, later called Halstead metrics, that projects, and so they are mainly concerned with fl agrant inci- counted the number of unique operators and operands as dents of cheating. well as the number of operator and operand occurrences in Investigating illegal copying in commercial software is source code. quite diff erent. Copied code is not necessarily there illegally; Starting in the late 1970s, various researchers used the it may have been purchased from a third-party vendor, or Halstead metrics to create more sophisticated metrics that it may be open-source code. So an algorithm that assumes were intended to detect plagiarism. If two computer programs that any instance of copying is illegal—that is, plagiarized— produced similar values for these metrics, the conclusion was ignores the fact that sometimes the copying was authorized. that plagiarism was likely to have taken place. In 1989, Alan There can be many other reasons that one source-code fi le is Parker and James Hamblen of Georgia Tech documented at similar to another, most of which are not due to copying. More least seven plagiarism-detection algorithms that relied on about that later. Halstead metrics. The other key difference between plagiarism-detection Although these algorithms vary somewhat, they are similar software and forensics software is that the former is designed in that they all yield a single score. If the score exceeds a cer- to execute quickly, and that by design, it favors false negatives tain threshold value, it indicates that plagiarism has probably over false positives. In other words, a professor would rather occurred. But having one score for an entire program means miss a few cheaters than falsely accuse a student of cheat- that small sections of plagiarized code could be missed entirely. ing. One professor explained to me that Continued on page 48

PARTIALLY MATCHING IDENTIFIERS (highlighted BLANK LINES (highlighted in yellow) in red) may be signs of copying may also be signs of copying

A SIDE-BY-SIDE comparison of two snippets is also identical. But the fact that many that the comments in fi le 1 at lines 1, 8, and 19 of source code reveals some of the telltale of the identifi ers match or partially match correspond to blank lines in fi le 2. There’s no signs of copied code. A forensics program (__INT_MAX__ , main, ieee, negative and neg, reason to have blank lines in those locations. that measures source-code correlation exponent and exp, mantissa and mant) isn’t Comments are typically removed for only two would note that many of the statements are necessarily due to illegal copying, because they reasons: because they are wrong—which is not identical and that the sequence of instructions are commonly used identifi ers. Finally, note the case here—or to hide signs of copying.

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 35

The GREENING of the SUPERCAR

Ferraris, just By like Fords, Lawrence must now Ulrich conform to environmental regulations

someday soon there will be an affordable and clever electric vehicle that will conquer the world, as the Model T and Volkswagen Beetle did in their day. In the meantime, there’s the Tesla Roadster, a US $109 000, 300-horsepower, two-seat toy for rich, environmentally conscious gadget hounds. Yes, for every Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt with mainstream pre- tensions, there’s a battery-powered land rocket that’s way more Bugatti than Beetle. Makers of automobiles more associated with tearing up the earth than with saving it are suddenly rushing to outdo each other in the automotive industry’s next big battleground: electric and plug-in hybrid cars. Their pitch is the familiar best of all worlds: cars that look hot, go fast, run clean, and consume either no gasoline or very little. But really now, does a man who buys a six-figure missile on wheels really fret over fuel bills or global warming? Probably not, but carmakers say that afflu- ent buyers increasingly want to make a green statement anyway. In a world where a fuel-sucking V-12 engine

seems not just passé but nearly pathological, an electric COBURN TAVIS

36 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010

AUDI e-TRON In the movie Iron Man, billionaire guzzling from a premium nozzle, adventurer Tony Stark drives an the e-Tron can draw from Audi R8 supercar. But even Iron its 53-kilowatt-hour battery Man has yet to get his metal to cover 248 km (154 miles) mitts on the e-Tron, which Audi on a charge. will bring to market around 2012 Like other EV sports cars, the at an estimated US $150 000. Audi is limited to a modest top Looking like a scaled-down speed—in this case, 200 km/h R8 but sharing its aluminum (120 mph)—because of how Audi Space Frame construction, quickly precious electrons are the e-Tron takes advantage of used up at autobahn speeds. four electric motors—two each “You could take out the high- at the front and rear axles— speed limiter, but you’d only to offer a torque-vectoring travel a few miles,” Audi head take on its trusty Quattro of electromobility strategy all-wheel-drive system. Frank Van Meel says; at high Those motors send a total of speed, “the electric motor has 230 kilowatts (313 horsepower) a tendency to suck the battery and 681 newton meters dry.” Weight is another enemy of (502 foot-pounds) of torque EV range and performance: At to all four wheels, urging the 2000 kilograms (4400 pounds), Audi from 0 to 100 kilometers the e-Tron prototype weighs as per hour (62 miles per hour) much as a full-size luxury sedan. in 4.8 seconds—not quite as Audi insists it will chop up to quick as the V-10 powered R8 408 kg (900 pounds) from the but impressively swift for an ﬁnished product. But it won’t electron-enabled sports car. be easy: the lithium-ion battery, And while the standard R8 is Continued on next page

OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 37

sports car marks its owner as not just loaded but also progres- ily than a Citroën? For years, sports-car makers have offered sive, ahead of the curve in both auto technology and fashion. precisely that defense of their guzzling: These exclusive cars Auto execs, of course, are only too happy to propagate this per- sell in such tiny quantities—and are driven so lightly, as week- ception. “In the long run, we’re either going to run out of oil or end toys—that their environmental impact is negligible. Ferrari the price will go up dramatically,” says Frank Van Meel, head sells fewer than 10 000 new cars a year around the world, com- of electromobility strategy for Audi. pared to the millions of a GM or Toyota. Ferrari officials say “There’s a need to act right now.” their exotic baubles tend to be driven less than 10 000 km a year And yet, it’s not really the warm- on average, about half as much as a typical passenger car. Even ing planet that’s spurring the super- Continued from so, regulations may limit the free passes and no longer allow car makers. It’s the heated rhetoric, previous page major companies to buy indulgences for green sins. and the forging of new government power inverter, and Colin Peachey, Lotus’s chief engineer, frankly allows that regulations. This is quite a change control electronics saddle political and social forces are driving the industry. “In an for a niche market that has obsessed the Audi with more than ideal world, where burning fuel didn’t damage the planet, over miles per hour while largely 470 kg (1040 pounds). there wouldn’t be a case for electric cars. We’d carry on with ignoring miles per gallon. To boost efficiency, our V-8s and V-12s and have all the performance and conve- Audi adds an automotive Under a controversial European ﬁrst: A heat pump, nience that gas gives you.” Commission plan, new cars in typically used in buildings, It’s hard to imagine a world in which wealthy car buyers Europe may be required by 2015 that can scavenge heat or can’t have the cars they want—or one in which carmakers to meet a strict fleetwide average cold from one part of the can’t even make the cars they want. Peachey insists that of 130 grams of carbon dioxide per car and send it to another, sports-car builders could be effectively legislated out of exis- kilometer driven. The United States without the energy- tence if they don’t hybridize or otherwise green their lineups. sapping electric climate is expected to adopt similar CO “The emissions may be a relative drop in the ocean, yet leg- 2 control found in other standards and has already man- hybrids and EVs. Audi cites islators are saying we’re going to tax you until it hurts, and dated a 22 percent improvement in a 2.5-hour waiting time above a certain emissions level, you just won’t be able to sell ﬂeet average fuel economy, to about for a high-voltage charger, the car,” he says. 35 miles per gallon (6.7 liters per or up to 8 hours on The writing on the wall is even being translated into Italian: 100 kilometers) by 2016. Because household current. Audi is Ferrari has unveiled the 599 HY-KERS hybrid supercar con- also developing a wireless CO emissions are a remorseless cept, which combines a V-12 engine with an 80-kilowatt 2 inductive charger, akin function of how much fuel you burn, to an electric toothbrush (107-horsepower) electric motor—and a 3-kilowatt-hour lith- the EU target means that a gasoline setup, that can begin ium battery said to be just 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) thick— car would need to consume just charging as soon as the boosting fuel efficiency to as much as 9.4 L/100 km (25 mpg)

5.1 L/100 km, or achieve 46 mpg. car is parked, no plug and reducing CO2 emissions to 270 g/km. There’s just one problem: No required. Owners can use The car adopts energy-capturing regenerative-braking conventional sports car in the a smartphone to manage technology from Ferrari’s KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery and monitor charging world today achieves that kind of remotely, including System, used in Formula One race cars), delivering an esti- fuel economy or squeaky-clean preheating or precooling mated 1.5 percent gain in fuel efficiency. And as if that weren’t emissions, let alone supercars the cabin and drive system surprising enough to traditionalists, Ferrari chairman Luca like the 21.4 L/100 km (11 mpg) using juice from the grid di Montezemolo said recently that every car in Ferrari’s Lamborghini Murciélago, among instead of drawing from lineup will adopt hybrid technology within three to ﬁve years. the industry’s worst offenders, the car’s battery. (Note to collectors: Now’s the time to buy up the soon-to-be

belching 480 grams of CO2 per kilo- “classic” gas-burning models.) meter. Even Lotus’s tiny Elise, soon to be equipped with a Colin Chapman, the engineer, Formula One genius, and shrimpy new 1.6-L four-banger, will emit 155 g/km. That’s founder of Lotus, created the most enduring mantra of sports- less than any current gas-driven sports car but still above and racing-car design: Add lightness. And for today’s perfor- the proposed target. mance geniuses, electrified cars pose a tremendous challenge: Small-scale sports-car builders such as Ferrari and how to reduce emissions and keep cars fast and razor sharp Porsche have long been excused from meeting the United in handling—as customers demand—even as batteries and States’ Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules. Other pur- electric motors add weight and greatly complicate the pur- veyors of power and luxury have paid fines for missing fuel- suit of perfectly balanced (roughly 50-50) weight distribution consumption standards, with Mercedes shelling out nearly between front and rear axles. $300 million since 1983—a practice the company has vowed In a briefing on Ferrari’s environmental issues, technical to end by boosting efficiency. director Roberto Fedeli expressed confidence that the com-

Yet a fast-car fan might ask: In a world steaming with emis- pany would dramatically reduce CO2 emissions while “keeping sions from coal-ﬁred power plants and hundreds of millions of its soul” and honoring all its performance and fun-to-drive tra- cars, who cares if a Lamborghini guzzles gasoline more greed- ditions. Yet further gains in engine efficiency won’t be enough,

38 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

he said. Ferraris and other models will begin to adopt the start- MERCEDES SLS AMG eDRIVE stop functions of hybrids, shutting engines down automatically at stoplights to save fuel. From its shape to its fanciful gull-wing doors, the Ferrari’s performance strategy is to add 1 additional US $186 000 Mercedes SLS AMG harks back to the classic horsepower for every kilogram of mass added to its hybrid SL gull-wing of the ’50s. But the zero-emissions version of the cars. In fact, its recently unveiled hybrid concept car actually SLS casts an eye toward a distant gas-free future, even as accelerates more quickly than the standard 599 GTB Fiorano Mercedes readies its lithium-ion supercar for sale around 2013. model. Critically, that extra weight must be distributed in a Using the same lightweight aluminum body as the standard way that doesn’t spoil a car’s handling balance or intrude model, the Mercedes ditches its massive V-8 in favor of four unduly on passenger and cargo space. Virtually every electric motors with a total of 392 kilowatts and 880 newton sports-car maker is designing batteries and hybrid compo- meters of torque. It thus loses 7 percent of the power (420 to nents to fit into a thin “skateboard” entirely under the car’s 392 kW) but more than makes up for it by adding 35 percent floor, lowering the vehicle’s center of gravity. more torque (649 to 880 Nm). Mercedes is targeting the The Tesla Roadster, which is based on the gasoline- powered same 3.8-second squirt from 0 to 100 kilometers (62 miles per Lotus Elise, proved that EVs can be fast and fun. But they still hour) achieved by the fossil-fueled version—albeit with the don’t outperform comparable gasoline models, especially in far lower top speed of roughly 200 km/h (125 mph), versus handling. That goes for hybrids, too. Much has been made of 317 km/h (197 mph) for the gas burner. A 48-kW modular an electric motor’s ability to deliver its full monty of torque battery is divided into three 16-kW units, one mounted below the instant you mash the gas—er, throttle. But for pure EVs, the elegantly stretched hood, another along the center those motors must counteract hundreds of kilograms in bat- tunnel, and the third behind the passenger compartment. teries, cooling systems, and electronic controls. Take the Elise, a An intelligent all-wheel-drive system features the torque- featherweight at less than 910 kilograms (2000 pounds). It gains vectoring capability of other sports-car EVs. Mercedes figures more than 300 kg (660 pounds) of electric fat in its transforma- the electric SLS will cover from 150 to 180 km (93 to 112 miles) TAVIS COBURN tion to the electric Tesla Roadster. And because batteries run out of energy so quickly, especially at higher speeds—a single gallon on a charge, with 8 hours required to juice the batteries on of gasoline contains 33 kWh of energy, about two-thirds of the household current, or 5 hours on a high-density charger— energy stored in the entire battery pack of a typical EV—electric plenty of time for its owner to chat up admirers.

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 39

cars are generally limited to 200 km/h PORSCHE 918 SPYDER vectoring to their gasoline-powered (125 mph) or less; your mom’s Toyota When Porsche designs a concept car, it’s not fooling all-wheel-drive cars). Camry can go faster. around—the company reliably follows through with a Next up will be electric wheel-hub Fortunately, electric motors them- production model. And that’s what makes the 918 Spyder motors, which will push the perfor- selves are much more efficient than such catnip for speed demons and green demons alike. mance envelope even farther. Michelin, internal combustion engines, losing This heart-stopping, roughly US $630 000 successor to for example, has been developing its the Carrera GT ditches that supercar’s V-10 guzzler for the much less power between the motor one-two punch of a plug-in hybrid. Active Wheel system for over a decade. and pavement. That’s why an elec- The all-wheel-drive Spyder starts with the small- It puts a motor, a brake, and suspension tric vehicle can travel 25 or more but-mighty 3.4-liter V-8 from the RS Spyder racer, with control in each of a car’s four wheels, kilometers on the energy equivalent— 367 kilowatts (500 horsepower) and a symphonic eliminating the need for an engine, 9200-rpm redline. That midmounted engine is mated to a from its batteries—of barely a liter of ﬂuid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack and a pair of electric traditional suspension, gearbox, and gas. Of course, those batteries are motors—one for the front wheels, one for the rears—that transmission. This offers formida- heavy and can’t store nearly as much spool up another 160 kW (218 hp). It’s an extravaganza ble performance: A typical sports car energy per cubic centimeter as gaso- of thrust, good for a 3.2-second trip from 0 to 100 km/h takes roughly 6 seconds to stop from line does. “If you’re carrying enough (that’s 62 mph), a 319-km/h top speed, and a Porsche- 100 km/h; Michelin’s concept system tested lap time that breaks 7 minutes, 30 seconds around battery for a 200-mile range, a lot of the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany’s can do it in 2.8 seconds. the time you’re dragging that battery Black Forest—faster than the Carrera GT. Gearheads may worry that today’s as deadweight and actually hurting But—and here’s the change from yesteryear— speed merchants will be shackled by your handling and fuel economy,” if you drive the 918 Spyder more economically, it can environmental demands, just as the sip as little as 3 liters of petrol per 100 kilometers on says Peachey, the Lotus engineer. So the latest European Driving Cycle—or 78 miles per original ’60s muscle cars were driven

in real life, your choice comes down gallon. That puts the Porsche’s CO2 emissions at just to extinction by the first-ever emis- to limited range or a hybrid drive- 70 grams per kilometer. By way of comparison, the sions rules. Yet a modern sports car train. Lotus, Porsche, and Ferrari Toyota Prius, among the greenest cars sold around the like the Corvette Z06 somehow man- are all going the hybrid route. They world, emits 89 g/km. (As for gas-powered supercars, ages to combine an impressive 26 mpg the Lamborghini Murciélago, among the worst CO2 can travel, say, 55 km (about 34 miles), offenders, blows out 480 g/km). with 505 hp and a 198-mph top speed, on electricity alone. A supplementary One reason for the economy is a diet of carbon fiber, figures that shame any car of the ’60s. engine eliminates the “range anxi- magnesium, and aluminum that keeps the Porsche (For those of you in the metric realm, ety” of a pure EV, allowing smaller, light on its toes, at just 1490 kilograms (3300 pounds). that translates as 9 L/100 km, 377 kW, Another is the Spyder’s good-cop, bad-cop personality, lighter batteries and a less-powerful enabled by four driver-selectable modes: Toggle up to and 319 km/h.) electric motor. E-Drive and the Porsche can travel up to 25 km (16 miles) An optimist might gather that But electrics hold intriguing advan- on electricity alone, drawing juice from its battery, there’s nothing to fear: Ferraris and tages as well. Multiple electric motors supplied in part by the regenerative brakes. The Hybrid Corvettes will still be duking it out, allow “torque vectoring”—indepen- mode mixes and matches power as needed from the going faster and handling better than electric motors and gas engine. Sport Hybrid employs dent control of the drive speed of each both drive systems but sends more power to the rear ever. This time, though, the drivers individual wheel to improve cornering, wheels, with a torque-vectoring unit to boost handling by will have a new metric to brag about: stability, and safety—with no need of speeding or slowing individual wheels. Finally, the Race fuel efficiency. ❏ complex mechanical or hydraulic dif- Hybrid setting kicks performance to warp-speed limits, including the push-to-pass E Boost, which feeds a jolt of ferentials to divvy the power among current to shoot past competitors. It’s the equivalent of To buy reprints of the artwork the wheels (BMW and other manu- a nitrous oxide tank from the 2001 film The Fast and the featured in this article, go to Furious, facturers are already applying torque but without the environmental baggage. http://shop.taviscoburn.com. (2) COBURN TAVIS

40 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

Coming from Lotus—the British through paddle-selected gears to LOTUS 414E HYBRID CONCEPT company dedicated to sports cars in slow the vehicle without using the Lotus’s tiny, two-seat Elise provided the backbone for the their purest form—the 414E plug-in brakes—a key technique when heading groundbreaking Tesla Roadster EV. Yet with the concept 414E, hybrid is also a rolling rejection of the into corners on road or track—with the idea that electric cars can’t be fun. For electric motors varying their electrical Lotus has adopted the plug-in hybrid approach of the Chevy one thing, it lets the driver shift gears, resistance to do so. And the more Volt and Fisker Karma: pairing a smaller, lighter, and less- as all true sports cars should. Most regenerative braking you engage in, powerful battery pack with a tiny, range-extending gasoline EVs deprive you of that connection the more electricity there’ll be to pour engine—which Lotus insists will deliver a smaller carbon because they don’t need a multigeared back into rpm’s. transmission to maximize power; The Lotus also gains a big edge in footprint over the vehicle’s life than a full Tesla-type EV. Lotus that’s because an electric motor traction and handling from its motors’ reaches that conclusion by taking into account not simply delivers explosive, instant-on torque ability to power individual wheels. By energy consumption and emissions but also the energy used no matter how fast it’s turning. (That’s speeding up the outside rear wheel why EVs like the Tesla Roadster can in a turn, the Lotus is able to pivot to manufacture the vehicle and, above all, the battery. get away with a mere single-speed through the corner at a higher speed. Based on the slinky new two-plus-two Evora, the 414E gets transmission.) In the Lotus, though, the Such torque vectoring also allows 306 kilowatts (408 horsepower) and 800 newton meters gearbox can mimic the driver-selected sophisticated control of the car to (590 foot-pounds) of torque from lithium-polymer batteries, gears of a conventional transmission, boost stability in emergency situa- heightening the fun. tions. And it’s all done without the dual electric motors, and a 1.2-liter midmounted engine that Lotus also designed its regenerative weighty clutches and differentials burns either gasoline or alcohol. Lotus ﬁgures the 414E will travel braking—which captures kinetic energy used by torque-vectoring gasoline 56 kilometers (35 miles) on electricity alone and more than and converts it into electricity to charge cars, such as the Porsche Panamera. the battery—to mimic the “engine “The car becomes even more like 480 km (300 miles) once its gas engine kicks in, while hitting 96 braking” effect of a conventional six- a go-kart,” Lotus chief engineer Colin kilometers per hour (60 miles per hour) in less than four seconds. speed gearbox. Drivers can downshift Peachey says.

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 41

42 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG______

Specialized ESIDENTS OFCARIBOU, MAINE, WHO HAPPENED designs breathe R to glance up at the skies over the former Loring Air Force Base recently got a glimpse of the future— new life into although they might have thought they were looking the world’s at something out of the past. Engineers from my company, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), in oldest aircraft McLean, Va., have been conducting test fl ights of a new technology type of lighter-than-air vehicle. In appearance, the Skybus 80K bears the same oblong RON HOCHSTETLER By shape as the Goodyear Blimp, and it’s based on the same fl ight principles that have governed airships since the 1800s. But this airship, one of a number of commercial and military vehicles now under development, repre- sents a distinct break from tradition. Unlike their diri- gible cousins of past centuries, these new vehicles are being designed to lift heavy payloads, remain aloft for weeks or even months at a time, and fl y without pilots— all while expending far less energy than a conventional airplane or unmanned aerial vehicle. The Predator UAV, for instance, can carry a payload of 340 kilograms on a typical mission of up to 40 hours. SAIC’s Skybus 1500E pilot-optional airship is being designed to carry a payload three times that size and stay aloft for up to 21 days.

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 43

HE RENEWED INVESTMENT IN AIRSHIPS comes at a time when the energy footprint of all modes of transportation is being scru- tinized. Some aviation visionaries now argue that we can’t continue using exclu- sively petroleum-based fuels to power our T aircraft. Such concerns have prompted new research into jet biofuels and energy- efficient jet engines. We’ve also begun to understand that not every flight has to be made at eight-tenths the speed of sound. For certain tasks, airplanes just can’t compete with airships. Modern airship designers are targeting two press- ing needs: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions and the transporting of multiton payloads to locations unreachable by conventional transport. For example, airships are ideal for con- tinuously monitoring sites where improvised explosive devices or rocket launchers may be deployed. They also excel at scanning for distant airborne threats. That’s why, in June, the U.S. Army awarded a US $517 million contract to Northrop Grumman and British firm Hybrid Air Vehicles to build three airships, each as long as a football field, to monitor trouble spots in Afghanistan. Cargo airships, meanwhile, are especially attractive for places that have poor roads and for remote regions that have no roads at all. At a transportation conference I recently attended in Canada’s Northwest Territories, mining company executives and community leaders expressed strong support for using airships to shuttle equipment and supplies to distant mining outposts and villages. Such needs are driving the reinvention of the airship.

N AIRSHIP FLIES PRIMARILY BY ARCHIMEDES’S A principle, which describes the buoyancy of a body submerged in a denser fluid. That is, an airship operates more like a submarine than an airplane or a helicopter. Those aircraft have to generate 100 percent of their lift from the flow of air over their wings or rotor blades. An airship, however, employs a lighter- than-air nonflammable gas such as helium to give it buoyancy. When the lifting gas displaces a volume of air that weighs more than the entire airship (including fuel and payload), the airship floats. That resul- tant lift is what’s known as the airship’s static buoyancy. For instance, to lift 1 kilogram at sea level, the airship needs approximately 1 cubic meter of helium gas. Airships weigh considerably more than that, of course; the Skybus that recently flew in Maine tipped the scales at 1600 kg unfilled. The lifting gas is contained within the airship’s outer skin, a large fabric bag or envelope that is aerodynamic, lightweight, and rugged. Inside the envelope are one or more smaller bags, called ballonets, which hold ordinary air. On the ground, electric fans pump air into the ballonets until the pressure of the helium surrounding the ballonets exceeds atmo-

44 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

THE FLYING AIRCRAFT CARRIER Back in the 1930s, the USS Akron and USS Macon, two U.S. Navy airships, supported a small squadron of scout biplanes from internal aircraft hangars in their huge bellies. A modern version of this concept would be an airship designed to carry dozens of small, low-cost, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), each equipped with miniaturized sensors, antisubmarine warfare systems, or even lightweight precision weapons. This pilot-optional airship could serve as a sky base from which the UAVs would launch, refuel, and relaunch. The airship itself could also be designed to be refueled in flight, meaning that the entire system could serve as an almost permanent airborne platform. To minimize its vulnerability to attack, the airship would be positioned away from any areas of conflict into which the UAVs would be deployed. Equipped with its own lightweight self- defense systems, this flying aircraft carrier could be a game-changing military system.

spheric pressure by a very slight margin ﬁlled lifting bags. Those days also saw the of about 480 pascals. The ballonets occupy development of semirigid designs, which between 25 and 50 percent of the airship’s typically had a stout aluminum keel run- total gas volume. Bleeding off a measured ning lengthwise from the nose to the tail, amount of air through valves in the bal- providing a convenient mounting point lonets provides room inside the envelope for the individual gas cells and distrib- for the helium to expand as the ship rises. uting the lift of each cell evenly. The only As the airship ascends, the decreasing semirigid airships flying today are the atmospheric pressure causes the helium Zeppelin NT series, which began oper- inside the airship to expand steadily. Once ations in the late 1990s and are used pri- all the air in the ballonets is gone, the air- marily for sightseeing and advertising. ship cannot ascend higher without either Although nonrigid airships aren’t bursting or venting its helium. This point is known as the airship’s pressure altitude. To descend, the airship uses its electric fans to blow air back into the ballonets. This gas-management system must con- stantly keep the helium at a pressure that’s slightly higher than the surrounding atmosphere, to preserve the aerodynamic shape of the envelope. If ascending and descending were all an airship did, this combination of gases and ballonets would be sufficient. But an airship also needs a certain amount of power and propulsion, to run the onboard navigation and communications systems and any electronics in the payload, and to maneuver to different locations. Most EMILY COOPER (2); PREVIOUS PAGES: SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP. current airships use traditional gasoline engines, but increasingly designers are looking at alternative power and propulsion systems. One idea is a regenerative system incorporating photovoltaics and fuel cells, in which hydrogen fuel cells THE SAILING AIRSHIP produce water vapor. The solar power In 1940 the noted American airship could be used to separate the water back engineer Charles P. Burgess speculated into its component gases; the hydrogen that it might be possible to sail an airship at sea. He proposed lowering from an would then be fed back into the fuel cells. airship by cables a hydrodynamic body Almost all airships flying today are that would serve as an underwater wing, of a nonrigid design, which means the translating the force of the wind blowing on the airship into controllable motion ship’s shape comes only from the pressure through the water. The airship’s great of the gases inside. By contrast, the giant surface area, he suggested, would capture airships of the 1930s, the Hindenburg being enough wind to allow it to be used for the most iconic example, had rigid inter- dedicated transoceanic airships. To date, nobody has realized Burgess’s vision, but nal skeletons made of aluminum or wood. it would surely represent the greenest of Inside this cage were a dozen or more gas- air- transportation systems.

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 45

weighed down by an internal framework, they still have to support the gases, fabric, and other components, as well as any payload. Obviously, the greater the airship’s weight, the larger the volume of lifting gas needed and the bigger the envelope size. As the size increases, so does the vehicle’s surface area and consequently the amount of aerodynamic drag during ﬂight. These and other factors dictate the amount of power required to propel the airship through the sky.

LTHOUGH PEOPLE PILOT MOST OF TODAY’S A airships, the newer designs are increasingly pilot optional, meaning that a crew can fly them during tests or initial deployments and then quickly switch them to remote operation. Several fully remotely operated airships are also in development. One of their chief uses right now is for bat- tlefield surveillance. These airships carry various imagers and detectors to altitudes of 1500 to 5500 meters on missions last- UP THERE: The SkyHook [above] will ing 24 hours or more. Guardian Flight haul oil-drilling equipment in northern Systems, based in North Carolina, devel- Canada. The U.S. Army’s pilot-optional Long oped the pilot-optional Polar 400 for the Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle [left] U.S. Department of Defense. In the fully will conduct surveillance in Afghanistan. TOP: BOEING; BOTTOM: NORTHROP GRUMMAN pilotless category is SAIC’s Skybus 80K airship, which so far has conducted more than and southern borders of the continen- 62 hours of flight tests in Maine. To date, the tal United States, according to the North Skybus 80K is the only unmanned airship American Aerospace Defense Command. to hold an experimental designation from If that sounds ambitious, consider the the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. proposed high-altitude airship known as It has a gas volume of 2300 m3 (80 000 cubic almost always have the familiar ellip- the Integrated Sensor Is Structure, or ISIS. feet) and is designed to carry a 230-kg sur- soidal shape. Among the power sources Under this $400 million program jointly veillance payload as high as 3000 meters being considered for high-altitude air- funded by the Defense Advanced Research for up to 24 hours. ships are electric motors coupled with Projects Agency and the U.S. Air Force, More ambitious is the U.S. Army’s lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, Lockheed’s Skunk Works is building an Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence and flexible-film photovoltaics, which unmanned stratospheric airship powered Vehicle. The LEMV will carry a 1100-kg would blanket the upper parts of the air- by solar cells and fuel cells that would be payload up to 6000 meters for as long ship’s huge surface. Any of these options capable of operating at 21 kilometers’ alti- as 21 days without refueling. Its first would need to weigh less and be more tude for up to 10 years at a time. A one- deployment is to be in Afghanistan efficient than standard engines. third-scale prototype, itself longer than a in late 2011 or early 2012. A number of To fly even higher and longer with football field, is scheduled to fly in 2013. defense companies considered vying heavier sensor payloads is the ultimate What makes ISIS unique is the inte- for the LEMV contract. But two months goal of military leaders who see the gration of its mission sensors—a UHF ago, the five-year contract—one of the modern airship as an unblinking, ever- radar for monitoring vehicles and sol- largest airship contracts to be awarded present eye in the sky. Under the Defense diers on the ground and an X-band since World War II—went to Northrop Department’s $149 million High Altitude radar for tracking cruise missiles up to Grumman and Hybrid Air Vehicles. Airship program, Lockheed’s Maritime 600 km away—into the body of the air- To operate in the thin atmosphere at Systems & Sensors Division in Akron, ship. According to Raytheon, which is such high altitudes for extended periods Ohio, is now exploring ways to build an building the radars, the radar antennas of time, an airship needs to be light (at airship capable of carrying a 230-kg sen- form a cylinder in the center of the air- least compared with lower-flying coun- sor package into the stratosphere, as much ship. By integrating the sensor system terparts) and have an efficient propul- as 18 kilometers up, where it would remain into the structural supports, the design sion system that can function with little for a month at a time. At that altitude, one reduces the airship’s overall weight and or no oxygen. Also essential is a design airship would be able to monitor a patch adds structural stiffness. Even so, the that minimizes aerodynamic drag, of ground 1200 km across. Just 11 of them demands of a 10-year high-altitude mis- which is why high-altitude airships could provide radar coverage of the coastal sion mean that the full-scale ISIS will

46 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

need to be made of extremely durable, yet efficiently as air, so a multi-lobed hybrid lightweight materials—materials that may may tend to list toward the side that’s not not yet exist. In addition, its power system exposed to the sun. will need advanced photovoltaics and fuel Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is cells capable of generating enough power the hybrid’s potential to pitch nose up or to operate the radars, navigation system, down and to roll from side to side. A con- communications gear, and the electric ventional, single-hulled airship avoids motors that will turn the airship’s giant this problem because the majority of its propellers. A lot of extreme engineering gas volume is positioned well above its is going into today’s airship designs. center of gravity, imparting what’s known as pendulum stability. The higher up the HILE THE UPCOMING STRATOSPHERIC center of lift is, the more stable the airship W surveillance airships will carry rela- is; conversely, the closer the center of lift is tively small payloads, some airships to the center of gravity, the greater the ten- now in development will lift a great deal dency of pitching from wind gusts. more—payloads of hundreds of tons, To get around these problems, Boeing albeit at lower altitudes. That presents and the Canadian company SkyHook an entirely different set of challenges. International are collaborating on a dif- An airship designed to carry 50 metric ferent approach: a rotary-airship hybrid. tons of cargo would be hundreds of meters It combines a conventional ellipsoidal long and weigh tens of tons lying empty of envelope with four powerful helicopter helium on the factory floor. The sheer size AIRSHIPS IN SPACE rotor units, which are installed below the would make its assembly a daunting task. Earth isn’t the only place where airships helium envelope. The helium is sufficient could find a home. A number of off- These new vehicles would likely be built world destinations have enough of an to support the weight of the vehicle itself, in smaller subsections that would later be atmosphere to support airships, including leaving the full power of the rotors to lift joined together in immense hangars. Mars, Venus, and Saturn’s largest moon, a 36-metric-ton payload. One of the first A more critical issue is how to com- Titan. Compared with robotic rovers, applications of the SkyHook is moving airships would be able to survey far more pensate for the sudden increase in the air- ground. And they don’t require much equipment and supplies for oil- drilling ship’s static lift that occurs when a heavy power, which is always at a premium operations in northern Canada. payload is unloaded. The most straight- on planetary missions. So far, the only To spur further progress in heavy-lift successful extraterrestrial deployment forward remedy is to add onto the airship was the Soviet Union’s 1984 Vega mission designs, I and several other airship enthu- an amount of weight equal to the payload to Venus, which sent two balloons to float siasts are setting up an international con- as the payload is removed. 54 kilometers above the planet’s surface test to promote the development of air- Some heavy-lift designers are also for nearly two days. ships as a green, low-carbon form of cargo More recently, NASA has funded a developing hybrid vehicles. These incor- number of balloon and airship projects for transport for commercial operations. The porate the static lift of helium along solar system exploration. Researchers at Zero Emissions Transport Airship Prize, with some form of dynamic lift, such the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, or Z-Prize, similar to the more familiar Calif., have developed several lighter-than- as helicopter-style rotors or airplane- air designs for use on a possible follow-up X-Prize, will offer a large cash award for like wings. In most of these designs, the mission to Titan and Venus. They’ve also the successful development and flight test helium is sufficient to lift the vehicle’s conducted extensive flight tests over of a heavy-lift airship that meets the com- the Mojave Desert with an 11-meter-long weight, while the dynamic lift is devoted autonomous airship. There’s even talk of petition’s criteria. We hope to entice air- to the payload’s weight. This produces sending entire fleets of rovers and airships ship developers to focus their efforts on an aircraft that is slightly heavier than to scout out new planetary frontiers. designing cost-effective cargo airships air and so is much less buoyant during that will have their greatest applications in cargo unloading. While these hybrids hold promise, they developing regions—places where moving Lockheed’s Skunk Works first test- also have some inherent technical chal- freight by conventional transport is diffi- flew its P-791 proof-of-concept hybrid air- lenges. For one, the additional dynamic lift cult and hugely expensive or subject to dis- ship in 2006. The aircraft has two propul- increases aerodynamic drag. To help with ruption by criminals or terrorists. And by sion motors on the exterior of its envelope generating dynamic lift, they also typically emphasizing airship designs with low car- and two attached to its tail. This generates have a flatter profile than conventional air- bon emissions, we hope also to encourage about 20 percent of the dynamic lift when ships, but this shape gives them a higher the creation of the first environmentally the vehicle is flying forward. Other hybrid ratio of envelope fabric to gas volume, sustainable air-transport system. airships under development include increasing the airship’s empty weight. It’s an exciting time to be an airship Hybrid Air Vehicles’ SkyCat, which will Higher weight and drag, of course, mean engineer. These vehicles represent both be the basis for the U.S. Army’s LEMV; more propulsive power and more fuel, the oldest and now the latest forms of air- the Worldwide Aeros Corp.’s Aeroscraft, both of which make the ship even heavier. craft. They’re also an aviation technology

EMILY COOPER which was recently submitted to the FAA And some hybrids employ multiple lobes that has yet to be fully exploited. While for design certiﬁcation; and the proof-of- in their design, which can create problems some naysayers may think the time of concept Dynalifter, being readied for test as the gases inside heat up from the sun’s these leviathans is long past, in fact their ﬂight by Ohio Airships. rays. Helium conducts heat six times as day is just dawning. ❏

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 47

age, rather than unique features, such as the number of tail fi ns. Software v. Software And rather than rendering a defi nitive verdict that illegal copy- Continued from page 35 ing has or hasn’t occurred, CodeMatch relies on measurable quantities that can be used to judge the likelihood of copying. just the threat of a plagiarism-detection program, whether it CodeMatch works by gauging the statistical correlation of worked or not, was enough to discourage cheating. two variables. A correlation of 0 indicates that the two varia- The goals of a software forensics tool used in intellectual- bles are unrelated. A correlation of 1 indicates that a change in property litigation have to be very diff erent. In these cases, there one variable always causes a similar change in the other. And may be hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. The tool must –1 indicates a completely opposite correspondence between favor false positives over false negatives so that it does not miss their variations. For source-code fi les that have no similari- any cases of copying; an expert can then examine the results and ties, the correlation is 0; for identical fi les, it’s 1. eliminate those false positives. And it must be fast, but not at the expense of accuracy; in these high-stakes cases, it’s fine to dedicate a com- ( GY+RGQRNG+JCXG+VJG+GZRGTVKUG+VQ+RCTUG+ puter or set of computers to analyze the code ( UQWTEG+EQFG88VJG+JWOCP8TGCFCDNG+HQTO+ for a day, a week, or even a month if necessary. ( QH+C+RTQITCO88VQ+FGVGTOKPG+YJCV7+KH+ o how do you go about creating such a ( CP[VJKPI7+JCU+DGGP+KNNGICNN[+TGRTQFWEGF software forensics tool? I spent about a year developing CodeMatch, for use in copyright infringement cases. My company released CodeMatch looks for such correlations by examining and the fi rst version in 2003, and the program has been comparing two collections of source-code fi les. Source code evolving ever since. Here are the basic principles I followed in consists of statements, which include the instructions and developing CodeMatch. First, the tool can analyze source code in identifi ers that guide the program, as well as comments and a way that’s independent of the programming language. That’s strings that serve to document the code but cause no action extremely important, given the wide variety of software cases to occur. A single line of source code may include one or more in which the program is used. To be able to do that, CodeMatch statements and one or more comments. focuses on characteristics in the code that are generic to all CodeMatch spots correlations in four places: statements, types of source code. If the program were comparing automobile comments/strings, identifiers, and instruction sequences. designs instead, it might look at characteristics such as gas mile- Each type of correlation offers a clue to plagiarism that the The Exact Lens you need, The Expert Support you want

Custom Lens Designer and Manufacturer. Thousands of Lens Sizes in Stock. Universe Kogaku America designs Most Lenses Ship Same Day. Lens Assemblies for Every Application... Medical Imaging Lenses Focus on Medical Lenses Microscope Objectives & Eyepieces Photographic Lenses from Prototype to Production Lens Mounting Accessories Lens Filters and Accessories Lens assemblies for medical imaging and diagnostic cameras Image and Barcode Lenses from Universe Kogaku are available off-the-shelf in a wide variety of sizes and styles designed for use with today’s high- UV Quartz Lenses resolution diagnostic cameras. Our design capability and 60 CCD and CMOS Lenses years of manufacturing experience allow us to produce any CCTV Lenses special lens.... in any quantity! Applications include Endoscope Diode Laser Lenses and ﬁber scope couplers, diagnostic camera hand pieces, and High Resolution Lenses medical X-ray scanning. Contact Universe for drawings, full performance data, and pricing. Your Custom Lens Assembly www.UKAoptics.com

48 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

______

others may miss. Statement correlation finds the percentage of matching statements. Comment/string correlation finds the ( WUV+CU+UQHVYCTG+HQT+CPCN[\KPI+ percentage of matching comments and strings. Identifier cor- ( =+JCU+DGEQOG+ETWEKCN+KP+ relation finds the percentage of matching or partially match- ( TGUQNXKPI+ETKOKPCN+ECUGU+CPF+ ing identifiers. Identifier names in copied code are often changed to disguise the copying, but because they contain ( RCVGTPKV[+UWKVU7+VQQNU+VJCV+ useful information for debugging and maintaining the code, ( ECP+SWKEMN[+CPF+CEEWTCVGN[+ the new names are usually similar to the original names. For ( WPEQXGT+KNNKEKV+UQHVYCTG+EQR[KPI+ example, the identifier “count” may be renamed “count5” or “cnt.” CodeMatch flags such similarities. ( CTG+DGEQOKPI+MG[+VQ+EQR[TKIJV+ Instruction-sequence correlation compares long ( KPHTKPIGOGPV+NKVKICVKQP sequences of instructions. Even if the identifiers, comments, strings, labels, and operators are completely different, the sequence of instructions will likely be pre- nce these four correlations have been determined, served to maintain the functionality of the original code. CodeMatch combines them into a single overall cor- For instance, an unscrupulous programmer may decide to relation value. Even then, the work is not done. A soft- use another party’s copyrighted code as a reference, per- ware expert must still go through the results and rule haps even rewriting the code in a different programming out any reasons for the correlation other than copy- language to evade detection. If the programmer duplicates right infringement. only the program concepts, that’s not copyright infringe- As mentioned earlier, a correlation may occur when two ment. But if he takes anything literal, like a sequence of programs use the same widely available open-source code instructions, and converts it directly into the new language, or code purchased from a third-party vendor. Correlations that could be infringement, because the programmer is can also spring from automatic code-generation tools making an unauthorized derivative of the work, which is like Microsoft’s Visual Studio and Adobe Dreamweaver, protected by the copyright. CodeMatch can spot such simi- which use standard identifiers for many variables, classes, larities in code, even when they’re written in different lan- methods, and properties. The structure of the code gener- guages. Copyright infringement can also involve copying ated by these tools also tends to fit into a certain template nonliteral elements like software architecture or organi- with an identifiable pattern. So it’s common for two pro- zation, but CodeMatch is not as useful in detecting these grams developed using the same code-generation tool to forms of copyright infringement. have a correlation. Download free white papers on

Expert Information from Experts. Download a free white paper today!

______www.spectrum.ieee.org/whitepapers

______

50 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

Are you keeping up with technology— Or falling behind?

With Proceedings of the IEEE, it’s easy to stay up- to-date with cutting-edge technology breakthroughs, from new uses for existing technology to innovations in a variety of disciplines.

______

Proceedings of the IEEE. ______Subscribe today. www.ieee.org/proceedings

______

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 51

A correlation may happen simply because the programmers which was quickly bought by a large competitor for a hefty who created the software studied at the same school or work in sum of money. The large company, unsurprisingly, incor- the same industry and therefore rely on the same identifier names. porated the acquired company’s code into its own program. For example, many programmers like to use the identifier “result” I was hired in late 2003 by the bankrupt start-up’s investors, to designate the result of an operation, so that identifier appears because they believed their start-up’s code had been illegally in lots of unrelated programs. A search on the Internet can deter- copied and that they were entitled to some money. The large mine whether an identifier is widely used or relatively rare. company, again unsurprisingly, insisted that the software it Similarly, the same algorithm may show up in unrelated pro- had acquired did not infringe on the bankrupt start-up’s work. grams. An algorithm is a set of instructions for accomplishing a To begin, I used CodeMatch to examine and compare the given task—say, calculating the square root of a number. In one source code of the bankrupt company’s program and the large programming language there may be an easy or well- understood company’s program. I found a strong correlation between way of writing that algorithm. If it’s taught in programming the two. I then checked whether each instance of correla- classes at universities or appears in a popular programming text- tion might have a legitimate explanation. Ultimately, I found book, then it’s likely to show up in many programs, too. matching statements, comments, and identifier names that What about two blocks of code written by the same person? seemed to be unique to the two programs; searching online, Just as books by the same author may have a similar style, even I could find no use of them anywhere else. I concluded that when the subject matter is completely different, software written the code had been copied. by the same programmer may also have a telltale style. He might The next step was the deposition, the pretrial process dur- repeatedly use a unique identifier name, for instance. ing which the opposing side’s lawyers question witnesses For these reasons, a software forensics expert must exam- and experts in an attempt to uncover new information. I pre- ine each instance where CodeMatch finds a strong correlation. sented a report comparing sample snippets of copied code, and If all of the benign reasons can be ruled out, the correlation I included CD-ROMs containing the results of the complete must be due to unauthorized copying. In that case, the owner CodeMatch analysis of the code. of the copyrighted software has a strong legal case. The defendant’s lawyer showed me a slide with three snippets of code. Two of the snippets were ones I’d included in my ere’s how CodeMatch worked in one real-world case. report as evidence of copying. But it was the third snippet that A small start-up had developed software for viewing nearly tripped me up. It was identical to the other two snippets. e-mail attachments on handheld devices; the soft- “Did you know that this third snippet of code is open-source ware was good, but the company went out of business. code that is freely available on the Web, accessible to anyone?” The founders then started a new software company, the lawyer asked.

ATTENTION IEEE MEMBERS: Free e-Newsletter News and opinions on sustainable Energy experts energy, cars and climate. speak out!

Alternative fuel for thought from the editors of IEEE Spectrum.

Subscribe at www.spectrum.ieee.org/energywise

52 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

( WUV+CU+DQQMU+D[+VJG+UCOG+CWVJQT+OC[+JCXG+C+UKOKNCT+UV[NG7+GXGP+ ( YJGP+VJG+UWDLGEV+OCVVGT+KU+EQORNGVGN[+FKHHGTGPV7+UQHVYCTG+YTKVVGP+ ( D[+VJG+UCOG+RTQITCOOGT+OC[+CNUQ+JCXG+C+VGNNVCNG+UV[NG

I didn’t in fact know that, and I began to feel really ner- disputes over that software are also likely to escalate. You may vous. Had I overlooked something? Had I not done a com- consider all that litigation a good thing, righting a wrong, or a plete search? If both programs contained code from a third bad thing, draining valuable resources. But software forensics party that allows its code to be copied, then there was no tools that automate, quantify, and standardize such disputes copyright infringement. I told the lawyer that I would need can only be beneficial, in that they leave less room for mis- to know more about the third-party code. He assured me understanding and get to the important results and help resolve that the expert hired by his client would provide the nec- disputes much faster than ever before. ❏ essary information in his own report. A few days later I received the opposing expert’s report. Sure enough, it contained snippets of open-source code that were identical to snippets from both par- Massachusetts Institute of Technology ties’ code. But I noticed something else. Whereas in my report I had included PUT MIT TO WORK FOR YOU dozens of lines of code in each snippet, the other expert gave only a few lines. I then searched the Internet and found the open-source code that both programs had obviously relied on. Comparing the snippets again, I discov- ADVANCED STUDY PROGRAM ered that while maybe 10 to 20 percent of the lines matched exactly in all Enroll in MIT classes over one or three sets of code, the vast majority of more semesters, full or part time. the lines were different. I concluded that the original company’s programmers had taken open-source code and made signiﬁcant functional changes to it. The defendant had tried to make it As an ASP Fellow, you will: appear that the open-source code had simply been copied without alteration, › investigate the latest advances in your field but in actuality proprietary changes › design a curriculum to meet individual had been made by my clients’ company and company goals and then copied by the defendant’s company. After my discovery, the two sides › access the full range of MIT courses reached a settlement, and there was and resources no courtroom trial. My clients didn’t divulge the terms, but they told me they › build a lifelong network of colleagues were pleased with the result.

Knce CodeMatch came out seven years ago, it’s become an accepted Accepting applications for Spring 2011 tool for sorting out cases of soft- Classes begin February 1 ware copyright infringement. CodeMatch has evolved into http://advancedstudy.mit.edu/spring CodeSuite, a set of tools for comparing, mea- [email protected] suring, and ﬁltering the results of a source- 617.253.6128 code comparison, not only for copyright See web site for upcoming infringement but also trade-secret theft information session dates. and even tax cases. CodeSuite can run on a standalone computer, a multiproces- sor machine, or a network of computers; my company trains lawyers and other consultants to run and interpret the results so that they can effectively use the software. As the importance of software in our daily lives grows, intellectual property

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 53

2-3 Senior Lecturers in Media technology The Department of Media Technology at the School of Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics at Linnaeus University in Sweden invites applications and nominations for tenured faculty positions at a senior lecturer level, to begin August 2011. We are interested in strong candidates in a number of teaching and research areas of media technology – including digital media and interactive systems, collaborative technologies and Web 2.0 applications, mobile media and services, advanced interface and interaction design, 3D modelling/animation – as well as interdisciplinary areas such as interactive media and learning and Internet technologies and their social implications. The department is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty, and we strongly encourage applications from women. A successful candidate must have a solid disciplinary foundation and demonstrate promise of outstanding scholarship in every respect, including teaching and research. Please refer to http://www.celekt.info for information about the department’s current research focus. A PhD in media technology, computer science, interaction design or related area is required. To guarantee full consideration, applications, scientiﬁ c publications and letters of reference should be received by November 22, 2010. Detailed information about the application process can be found at: http://lnu.se/about-lnu/jobs-and-vacancies?l=en

Linnaeus University is an afﬁ rmative action, equal opportunity employer. Requirements: A successful candidate must have a solid disciplinary foundation and demonstrate promise of outstanding scholarship in every respect, including research and teaching.

______

54 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

a great place to work

Exciting Overseas Opportunities in Vienna, Austria with the International Atomic Energy Agency Visit www.bnl.gov/ispo Be part of the NEXT GENERATION SAFEGUARDS INITIATIVE

Cost Free Experts Regular Staff Junior Professional Officers The U.S. Support Program to IAEA The IAEA Department of Safeguards Safeguards positions are available for Safeguards funds supplemental technical seeks outstanding, mid-career recent graduates in the area of software positions, called Cost Free Experts, to engineers and scientists for three to development, engineering, technical writ- assist the IAEA with short-term, technical seven year appointments. Vacancies ing, information collection and analysis, projects for which the IAEA lacks expertise are posted at www.iaea.org. Interested information security and instrumentation or manpower. Available CFE positions are parties should apply directly to support. Positions provide valuable profes- advertised at http://www.bnl.gov/ISPO/ the IAEA, but can also contact the sional experience and can lead to future ______CFE/cfe.asp. Send applications or requests International Safeguards Project Office opportunities in the national laboratories for information to [email protected]. (ISPO) for information and assistance and U.S. government. Visit www.bnl.gov/ with application status. ______ispo/jpo/jpo.asp for additional informa- ISPO Recruitment Program tion and application materials. 4QPOTPSFECZUIF*OUFSOBUJPOBM4BGFHVBSET1SPKFDU0ċDFt#SPPLIBWFO/BUJPOBM-BCPSBUPSZ

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 55

______

a great place to work

______

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 57

______

a great place to work

Carnegie Mellon University departments (Information is embarking on an exciting Networking Institute and opportunity to transform Carnegie Mellon Silicon graduate education in East Valley Campus), 2 institutes Africa by introducing new (Carnegie Mellon CyLab and models of education, research Institute for Complex and development, and the Engineered Systems), commercialization of information and many multidisciplinary and communication technologies research centers. (ICT). With programs from Europe Opportunity—Carnegie to Asia, Carnegie Mellon’s College Mellon is seeking exceptional of Engineering is establishing a candidates in the areas of regional ICT Centre of Excellence Networking, Communications, (CoE) in Kigali, Rwanda that Security, Software Engineering, will provide ﬁrst-class graduate Image and Signal Processing, education in a region booming Entrepreneurship, and Innovation with opportunities for technology and Technology Management, who innovation. Striving to become can deliver innovative, interdisciplinary the technology hub for East Africa, graduate programs. Candidates should Rwanda is investing heavily in possess a Ph.D. in a related discipline infrastructure and capacity and an outstanding record in research, building in the critical areas of teaching and leadership. Applications ICT and engineering. should include a comprehensive The Programs—With a history of resume including a complete list excellence in higher education, of publications, 3-5 professional Carnegie Mellon will address references, a statement of research Rwanda’s and the regions’ skill and teaching interests (less than 2 needs by offering Master of Science pages each), and copies of 2 research APPLICATIONS SHOULD degree programs in Information papers (journal or conference papers). BE ADDRESSED TO: Technology and Electrical and Schedule—Students will enroll at the Computer Engineering. Carnegie CoE in Kigali starting Summer/Fall 2011. Dean, College of Engineering Mellon’s College of Engineering is Successful applicants are expected consistently ranked amongst the Carnegie Mellon University to spend one academic semester at top ten in the USA and the world. 5000 Forbes Ave Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh starting The College includes 7 departments spring 2011 before assuming their granting BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees, Ofﬁce: 110 Scaife Hall position in Kigali in summer 2011. 2 graduate-only degree granting Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890

[email protected] COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING www.cit.cmu.edu

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 59

______

a great place to work

Work for Vestas and make a difference

Our wind turbines generate CO2-free electricity to millions of households worldwide.

Your career with Vestas we all need to be focused on the same goal; the global success of wind energy. Joining Vestas, you’ll be joining an organization with business units and colleagues in practically every corner Immediate opportunities of the world. For you, this means unique opportunities for international experience. We provide our employees Right now we’re recruiting for more than 150 challenging with the best possible framework in which to thrive and positions globally within electrical and develop, both professionally and personally. power plant engineering, quality engineering, materials, project management, products and design engineering, A job at Vestas means a lot of interesting challenges and mechanics, systems engineering, construction manage- opportunities. Our goal is to attract and develop the most ment and various other specialist fields. talented and well-qualified people in their fields. As a result, we offer attractive terms of employment, a good salary and advantageous conditions that include:

t $BSFFSQMBOOJOH Read more and apply at vestas.com/jobs t "CSPBEQSPHSBNNFPGDPVSTFTBOEUSBJOJOH t (MPCBMKPCPQQPSUVOJUJFTBOEBIJHIMFWFMPGNPCJMJUZ Power your life - Vestas offers you challenging career opportunities t #POVT1SPHSBNNF within a global organisation. As the world’s leading supplier of wind power solutions, we have delivered more than 41,000 wind turbi- At Vestas, it is vital that all our employees are skilled and nes in 65 countries. Over 20,000 employees are eager to welcome committed, and enjoy a high level of well-being. Within new, dedicated colleagues on our journey to a more sustainable Vestas there is a huge diversity of skills, and ultimately future. Would you like to join us?

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 61

______

64 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Drexel University is seeking outstanding candidates at any rank in all areas of computer engineering for tenure-track positions. Areas of special emphasis include high-performance computing, bio-informatics, computer and network security, embedded systems and multimedia. Candidates must have a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering or computer science with outstanding academic creden- tials that clearly demonstrate their ability to conduct independent and successful research in their areas of expertise and develop a graduate research program leading to peer-reviewed publications and external funding. Candidates must have excellent communication skills with a commitment to engage in high-quality undergraduate and graduate education in areas of computer engineering. The ECE department offers both undergraduate and graduate programs in computer engineering with several areas of specialization including computer networks, computer architecture, computer-aided design, VLSI systems and operating systems (see http://www.ece.drexel.edu). The department also has a very active PhD program with many outstanding students enrolled in it. Applications should include a cover letter, complete resume, research and teaching statements and the names and addresses of three references. Copies of key publications may also be submitted. All application materials should be submitted electronically as a single pdf document via e-mail to: Moshe Kam, Department Head, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, at the following e-mail address: [email protected]. Only online applications will be accepted. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the positions are ﬁ lled.

______Drexel University is a private, urban university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA and is recognized for its traditionally strong technological focus and career-integrated education. Eligibility to work in the United States at the time of appointment is required. Drexel University is an equal opportunity/afﬁ rmative action employer.

______

______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG OCTOBER 2010 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 65

______

the data

UNITED STATES

CHINA CUMULATIVE WIND CAPACITY GERMANY Megawatts

SPAIN

INDIA

ITALY PER CAPITA WIND CAPACITY Megawatts per million people FRANCE

UNITED KINGDOM

PORTUGAL

DENMARK UNITED STATES GERMANY PORTUGAL SPAIN DENMARK

The Long and Windy Road ccording to a new U.S. Department The United States and China are at of Energy report, 2009 was a banner the top of the lists in large part because Ayear for wind power. China led the they’re so large. According to the study, way, adding almost 14 gigawatts of new written by researchers from Lawrence capacity for a total of 26 GW in cumulative Berkeley National Laboratory, if Texas capacity. The United States kept its overall were a separate nation, its 9.4 GW of total lead in cumulative capacity by adding capacity would rank sixth, after India. 10 GW, representing a 40 percent increase. But other countries are doing even better By a coincidence, 40 percent was also on a per capita basis. Last year, Portugal the share of new U.S. electric generating added 60 megawatts per million people, capacity from wind installations—“the while Denmark still comfortably leads in largest single form of [newly on-line] cumulative capacity per capita at 618 MW.

power production,” the report said. —Steven Cherry JUDE BUFFUM

68 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • OCTOBER 2010 ______SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

You create a brighter future.

Let us help ﬁ nd the right Long-Term Care insurance plan for you, so you can spend time on things that matter the most. Long-Term Care Resources Network People are living longer these days, but as life expectancies increase, so does the risk of serious health problems that could require long-term To learn more, call 1.800.588.7421 or care. In fact, at retirement age, 70% of Americans will need long-term visit www.ieeeinsurance.com/ieeeltc. care and 40% will enter a nursing home.1 And with the average cost for nursing home care in a semiprivate room equating to more than $67,500 per year, that could literally cost most or all of your life’s savings.2

Long-Term Care Insurance plays a very important role when it comes to asset protection by helping fund your care later in life – rather than withdrawing money from your personal assets to pay for it. IEEE Member Group Insurance Program: Long-Term Care Insurance may not be for everyone. But with soaring For peace of mind beyond calculation. healthcare costs, insurance restrictions and the need to stretch retirement savings through more years ... it’s a good idea to seriously consider this valuable coverage.

To learn more about how you can help protect your assets from the rising cost of long-term care, call us or go online today.3 Call 1.800.588.7421 or visit www.ieeeinsurance.com/ieeeltc.

1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information, October 2008, www.longtermcare.gov. 2 Genworth 2010 Cost of Care Survey, April 2010, www.genworth.com/content/genworth/us/en/products/long_term_care/long_term_care/cost_of_care.html. 3 The Long-Term Care Resources Network is only available for residents of the United States. Coverage may vary or may not be available in all states. This program is administered by Marsh U.S. Consumer, a service of Seabury & Smith, Inc. d/b/a in CA Seabury & Smith Insurance Program Management. CA Ins. Lic. #0633005. AR Ins. Lic. #245544. IEEE prohibits discrimination, harassment and bullying. For more information, ©Seabury & Smith, Inc. 2010 visit www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/whatis/policies/p9-26.html. 46108 (10/10)

5IF.BUI8PSLT *OD

'JOEJUBU NBUIXPSLTDPNBDDFMFSBUF______EBUBTIFFU WJEFPFYBNQMF MODEL USJBMSFRVFTU PHYSICAL SYSTEMS JO Simulink

XJUI4JNTDBQF

&MFDUSJDBM .FDIBOJDBM )ZESBVMJD BOENPSF

6TF4*.4$"1&XJUI4*.6-*/, UPNPEFMBOETJNVMBUFUIFQMBOU BOEDPOUSPMMFSPGBOFNCFEEFE TZTUFN"TTFNCMFZPVSNPEFMXJUIB HSBQIJDBMJOUFSGBDF PSJNQPSUQIZTJDBM NPEFMTGSPN$"%TZTUFNT6TFCVJMUJO DPNQPOFOUTPSDSFBUFZPVSPXOXJUI UIF4JNTDBQFMBOHVBHF