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Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

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Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#11

Post by amelius »

splittingTimes wrote: post #6
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fundamentally cannot perceive where AI plays a role. Isn't it just a solvable geometry problem?

"Heliogen uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technology to train a field of mirrors to reflect solar beams to one single spot." In principle I think you are right, but that would mean for each plant you build you need the exact position of each mirror, the oven chamber and the motion of the sun through the day and year. I think the "AI" approach scales better, as it is rat…

Can't you then solve this by having a bunch of photodiodes under the edge of each panel, indicating if the panel is placed correctly?

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#12

Post by maxerickson »

Waterluvian wrote: post #3
solarengineer wrote: post #2

Excerpt: A secretive startup backed by Bill Gates has achieved a solar breakthrough aimed at saving the planet. Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius. ===== The article describes a bit about the role the AI is pl…

I fundamentally cannot perceive where AI plays a role. Isn't it just a solvable geometry problem?

The website is a brochure, but it implies that they find and implement the solution to the geometry problem very quickly (like 1 day vs weeks/months).

https://heliogen.com/

I'm just going by the HelioMax blurb, where it talks about the calibration time. It makes sense that a system that automatically achieved accurate mirror aiming would also be able to maintain higher temperatures across varying conditions (and recover from disturbances and so on).

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#13

Post by throwawayhhakdl »

dunmalg wrote: post #8
Macuyiko wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Later in the article computer vision and edge detection is mentioned... But I also feel this is more like a traditional control problem rather than ai.

Yeah, the use of "AI" terminology is dubious here. They've replaced aiming via a pre-loaded ephemeris with a system that actually aims the reflected light by looking at where the light is ending up after being reflected and adjusting accordingly. There may be some machine learning going on in the sensing, but this feels an awful lot like basic feedback loop automation.

My biggest pet peeve is when AI is used to describe optimization models, and then people complain of black box algorithms, when the optimization is, in fact, perfectly transparent.

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#14

Post by JshWright »

splittingTimes wrote: post #6
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fundamentally cannot perceive where AI plays a role. Isn't it just a solvable geometry problem?

"Heliogen uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technology to train a field of mirrors to reflect solar beams to one single spot." In principle I think you are right, but that would mean for each plant you build you need the exact position of each mirror, the oven chamber and the motion of the sun through the day and year. I think the "AI" approach scales better, as it is rat…

>or each plant you build you need the exact position of each mirror, the oven chamber and the motion of the sun through the day and year

Yeah, depending on the level of precision required, there are _tons_ of variables that could have an impact here. Year to year the angle of the sun changes slightly on any given solar date, as various components of the Earth's orbit "wobble" (axial tilt, eccentricity, precession, etc). Even on an hour by hour basis, thermal expansion could have a significant impact. Any significant structure is going to settle to some extent over time, etc...

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#15

Post by jws »

One of my discarded project ideas was exactly this, but on a smaller scale. A steerable mirror on a mount with a camera for targeting. The idea was to place one on the ground outside a north facing window. The device would then busy itself reflecting the sun up into the room making a nice sunny patch on the ceiling to light the room. They could also be used to deliver extra light to windows with plants in them to grow plants which require more light than is available or to modulate the daily light to fake a different season.

Sitting in 2020 the technology is near trivial. The problem is that some knucklehead would point a bunch of them at the same window and set curtains and pigeons on fire. (You’d do this because you had a large room with few windows, so dispersed mirrors would give you multiple dispersed lighting spots in the room… and incinerated pigeons.)

I was unable to make the leap to what happens if you are a deliberate and well reasoned knucklehead! In a controlled situation a megawatt of light might be just the thing.

Addendum: The mass field of mirrors introduces a lot more work. Some of the immediately interesting problems:

• you need a “everyone stop shining at the target” mode for emergency stop, but the mirrors need to move away from the target in such a way that they don’t create convergences elsewhere. Obviously sweeping your portal to hell down the tower would be a bad idea. So you have a collection of autonomous, free thinking mirrors, but when commanded to stop hitting the target they need to not make the same decisions.

• your camera probably needs to be able to stare into the heart of a thousand suns (literally). But it also needs to see in ordinary daylight. Maybe a pinhole filter that moves over the lens would be appropriate.

• with 999 mirrors shining on the target, you will not be able to see your own contribution to aim. There probably needs to be a “hey! Everyone else look away for a second” command for unit to aim and calibrate itself. See complexities from the first bullet and not incinerating things you like.

So yeah, they could have started with my garden heliostats, but then it would be a crack the knuckles, bring in the eggheads, and get to work operation to solve all the hard problems.

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#16

Post by stinky613 »

gonzo41 wrote: post #10
splittingTimes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Heliogen uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technology to train a field of mirrors to reflect solar beams to one single spot." In principle I think you are right, but that would mean for each plant you build you need the exact position of each mirror, the oven chamber and the motion of the sun through the day and year. I think the "AI" approach scales better, as it is rat…

wouldn't just giving all of the mirrors survey quality GPS do the same. you'd be able to then just have them work out the angles as it relates to them and the target. It doesn't really seems like and AI problem.

I think that would depend on how precisely they need to be calibrated, right? IIRC even military GPS is still only accurate to within a few feet.

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#17

Post by sansnomme »

amelius wrote: post #11
splittingTimes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Heliogen uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technology to train a field of mirrors to reflect solar beams to one single spot." In principle I think you are right, but that would mean for each plant you build you need the exact position of each mirror, the oven chamber and the motion of the sun through the day and year. I think the "AI" approach scales better, as it is rat…

Can't you then solve this by having a bunch of photodiodes under the edge of each panel, indicating if the panel is placed correctly?

Ssh, hacker news hates simple solutions like fiducial markers. I wonder if HN would dare to ride a spaceship that uses neural network to perform docking alignment.

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#18

Post by gonzo41 »

stinky613 wrote: post #16
gonzo41 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't just giving all of the mirrors survey quality GPS do the same. you'd be able to then just have them work out the angles as it relates to them and the target. It doesn't really seems like and AI problem.

I think that would depend on how precisely they need to be calibrated, right? IIRC even military GPS is still only accurate to within a few feet.

Survey quality GPS is able to have centimeter accuracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_kinematic

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#19

Post by analognoise »

Again, we've been able to do this with four photodiodes for something like 30 years.

Of course it worked the first time they turned it on - they were using 4 photodiodes. The "AI" and "computer vision" is just to get funding and hype.

I'm going to start taking solved problems and applying BS "AI" to them to get funding, sheesh.

Re: Heliogen, backed by Gates, says it has achieved a solar breakthrough

#20

Post by yetihehe »

jws wrote: post #15

One of my discarded project ideas was exactly this, but on a smaller scale. A steerable mirror on a mount with a camera for targeting. The idea was to place one on the ground outside a north facing window. The device would then busy itself reflecting the sun up into the room making a nice sunny patch on the ceiling to light the room. They could also be used to deliver extra light to windows with plants in them to gro…

Ok, considering someone had such good idea which is rather obvious in hindsight, but no one had it yet, what would you do to get at least some good money from that, when you don't have enough money to invest in it yourself?
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