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Makani source code released

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Re: Makani source code released

#71

Post by tobinfricke »

grizzles wrote: post #66
elromulous wrote: post #26

Former Makanite, and current abc employee here. Happy to answer questions.

why wasn't the turbine hung off an airship?

This is actually a good question as it addresses the common misconception that the purpose of the kite was just to hold the propeller blades high up in the sky. In fact, having the kite fly like an airplane is a crucial part of the principle of operation. The documenary film (https://makanifilm.com/) might help make this clear.

There are airborne wind turbine concepts that use an aerostat (blimp/balloon). However, these suffer from at least two effects: (1) the largest practical turbine aperture is quite limited, and (2) the drag of the turbine will push the whole balloon/turbine contraption downwind and downward.

Re: Makani source code released

#72

Post by ladberg »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #37
jefftk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ve never seen anyone from my company disclose, which has way more engineers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24266369

Re: Makani source code released

#73

Post by sleavey »

elromulous wrote: post #26

Former Makanite, and current abc employee here. Happy to answer questions.

What sort of control methodologies were you using for the autopilot? Classic linear negative feedback or more modern techniques? How much of the autopilot problem was novel? Could you use existing designs from other aircraft or do these tend to be kept secret?

Re: Makani source code released

#74

Post by nikitaga »

cloudwalking wrote: post #56
jlgaddis wrote: post #48

From https://x.company/projects/makani/ : > In 2020 Makani’s journey as a company came to an end [0]. To share the lessons and insights the Makani team gained from their 13 year journey developing an entirely new kind of wind energy technology, the team created The Energy Kite Collection, a portfolio of resources including a technical report, Makani’s entire avionics, flight controls and simulation code repositories…

X is what Google used to be.

X is still X and Google is still Google.

Outside of X, Google was never known for crazy moonshots. Google was always an ad platform with a search engine.

Re: Makani source code released

#75

Post by TaylorAlexander »

tobinfricke wrote: post #65
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #51

I ran the code and took some screenshots of the really nice web UI. Simple and inspiring since I've been working on a robot web UI recently. Here's some screenshots of the Makani interface: https://imgur.com/gallery/NMjBJSY

Awesome! You might be the first outside of Makani to run the code. :-) I'm glad you were able to get it up and running. Please let us know if you have any questions or run into any trouble.

Hah cool! Yeah I was hoping the simulator was a 3D sim environment I could use with my off road robot, but it was actually still really helpful even though it wasn’t that. I have been making a robot web UI and all your graphs and debug data give me ideas on more data I want to pipe up to the UI, and some improvements I can make to allow automatic UI elements from certain data structures. :)

Here’s one of my robots: https://reboot.love/t/new-cameras-on-rover/

Re: Makani source code released

#76

Post by rubicon33 »

Incredibly ambitious project. I watched the whole documentary.

I'm surprised they were 'unable to secure additional funding'.

Considering how many crackpot app-of-the-month companies have gotten cash thrown at them over the last decade, you would think a company doing real engineering would be drowning in money. It's a bummer to hear that they folded.

Speculation abounds, I suppose, as to why investors started (or kept) saying "no."

Re: Makani source code released

#77

Post by londons_explore »

tobinfricke wrote: post #34
UncleOxidant wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google stopped funding Makani several months back. I'm not sure how applicable most of this code will be for other kite power companies. The Makani "kite" turbine was 2000 lbs. It definitely required Google-level funding to develop which is now gone. None of the remaining kite power companies that I'm aware of have the kind of significant funding required to develop this - ours ran out of money late last year.

> The Makani "kite" turbine was 2000 lbs. Essentially the same code could run Makani's smaller machine, the 20 kilowatt "Wing 7", with a 7.8 meter wingspan and a mass of 60 kg. Many of the existing kite power companies are working on machines of this scale. But we did have the luxury to design and build the system from the ground up, whereas scrappier startups might have to cobble together existing components. Hopefu…

So what's to stop me cobbling together something like the Wing 7 and just leaving it unattended in a field to launch and generate whenever the wind conditions are suitable?

If I did, and I got typical government subsidies for wind power, I might earn $10k/year. That ought to pay for all the machines parts if I buy everything hobby grade from AliExpress. The 2nd year is pure profit assuming the craft lasts that long.

So that leads me to suspect the key issue is the various control algorithms can't be made reliable enough to run for years and years without crashing under any combination of gusts and wind conditions. Am I along the right lines of the issues?

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