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Makani source code released
21–30 of 127 posts
Re: Makani source code released
#22Why this failed? I would love to learn more if anyone has more insider knowledge
I highly recommend watching the documentary they produced, https://t.co/y70yeZ3ZjY?amp=1 . My takeaway is that it took 14 years to produce a working kite and in that time conventional wind turbines became much more economical and efficient. After realizing this, they pivoted to doing off-shore wind generation because the cost for competitor products was higher. They had one somewhat successful test but were out of money and couldn't find any other investors.
Re: Makani source code released
#23Blog post from February when Alphabet withdrew funding: https://blog.x.company/a-long-and-windy-road-f8e09d02c9e1 (Disclosure: I work for Google)
Was the "disclosure" necessary, or are you just flexing?
Like half of all people on this site are at FAANG+MS so it's not a flex but some people always flip out when you're at one of the big ones and you don't say so when linking to company media.
Re: Makani source code released
#24Blog post from February when Alphabet withdrew funding: https://blog.x.company/a-long-and-windy-road-f8e09d02c9e1 (Disclosure: I work for Google)
Was the "disclosure" necessary, or are you just flexing?
Maybe not? But I've seen people here get mad at other employees for not disclosing, so I do it to be on the safe side.
Re: Makani source code released
#25Neat! If I'm reading the repository right, it looks like the avionics firmware ran on a TMS570 Cortex-R microcontroller made by TI:
https://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Category:TMS570
I'm pleasantly surprised to see that instead of a big Cortex-A or x86/64 chip. It's cool to read well-funded code for a small realtime SoC.
you don't see them too often outside of things like memory controllers and safety-critical products, but Cortex-R chips can have some cool features like ECC memories and mirrored CPUs:
https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/processors/cortex-r/co...
Apparently the next generation Cortex-R82s will also have 64-bit options with an MMU, which should make it easy to run a "real" OS.
Too bad that the company didn't work out, but it was nice of them to publish this stuff.
Re: Makani source code released
#26Former Makanite, and current abc employee here. Happy to answer questions.
Re: Makani source code released
#27Neat! If I'm reading the repository right, it looks like the avionics firmware ran on a TMS570 Cortex-R microcontroller made by TI: https://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Category:TMS570 I'm pleasantly surprised to see that instead of a big Cortex-A or x86/64 chip. It's cool to read well-funded code for a small realtime SoC. you don't see them too often outside of things like memory controllers and safety-critical…
Not entirely true. The actual autopilot (the controller + estimator) runs on an imx6. The tms570 are the sensor / actuator nodes.
Edit: just to add some detail. The autopilot and aio (avionics io, i.e. the tmd570s) communicate over a ring ethernet topology.
Re: Makani source code released
#28It's cool that they open sourced this, but as someone who worked at a kite power company (a much smaller company with a much smaller kite) I'm not sure much here will be transferable to other companies. Makani was making a huge 2000 lb "kite" turbine. That requires the kind of money that Google could back them with - and since Google isn't funding this anymore I just don't see where this can go as none of the remaini…
That's not totally true. While there are certainly custom control laws and gains, almost everything is parameterized in terms of the kite's configuration.
Edit: to clarify, I was responding to: "I'm not sure much here will be transferable to other companies"
Re: Makani source code released
#29Former Makanite, and current abc employee here. Happy to answer questions.
How did you feel about the project being shut down? Did you feel like you still had work to be done or was there a feeling that this just isn't going to work?
Re: Makani source code released
#30Former Makanite, and current abc employee here. Happy to answer questions.
How did you feel about the project being shut down? Did you feel like you still had work to be done or was there a feeling that this just isn't going to work?
The usual disclaimer: these views are my own, and do not represent Makani, abc, etc.
I was terribly disappointed the project was shutdown. The engineering problems were unique and challenging. And the team was absolutely world class.
I felt like we could do it. And I wish we were still at it. But that's purely from the technical side. I wasn't involved in things like budget, and whether it would be economically viable.