81–90 of 107 posts
Am I missing the breakthrough? This just reads like boilerplate tech marketing, replete with questionable ai usage. I suspect without its well known backer anyone would notice.
Kinda like back when everyone started moving to the web...
Another interesting problem this might solve is birds. Yes, domestic cats kill orders of magnitudes more birds, but that argument a. depends on relative scale that people don't grok, and b. coming from an energy company reinforces the preconception that they're callous. Add radar and a sufficiently smart AI, and they could turn a PR problem into a marketing pitch by showing birds flying through unscathed while the mi…
See: https://newatlas.com/optical-illusion-raptors-airplanes/5675...
Another interesting problem this might solve is birds. Yes, domestic cats kill orders of magnitudes more birds, but that argument a. depends on relative scale that people don't grok, and b. coming from an energy company reinforces the preconception that they're callous. Add radar and a sufficiently smart AI, and they could turn a PR problem into a marketing pitch by showing birds flying through unscathed while the mi…
This is frankly a stupid problem caused by people who can't multiply, but I guess a stupid problem deserves a stupid solution.
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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.
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?
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Closed loop enables higher temperature. I doubt material saving is worth it.
Pointing hundreds of mirrors is expensive. Requiring a lot less rigidity for the motion system is notable. I don't doubt you could have done this open loop with a very rigid (expensive) platform before (including solving problems of ground subsidence). But now you can do it with a reasonably priced platform closed loop, which is what makes it actually possible.
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Pointing hundreds of mirrors is expensive. Requiring a lot less rigidity for the motion system is notable. I don't doubt you could have done this open loop with a very rigid (expensive) platform before (including solving problems of ground subsidence). But now you can do it with a reasonably priced platform closed loop, which is what makes it actually possible.
Could you expand on what closed/open loop mean in this context?
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Cement is 8% of global CO2 emission. 40% of that is still greater than air travel (about 2.5%).
I thought that the problem with air travel is not (just) the amount of CO2 emitted, but also the altitude, which makes the green house effect bigger per ton of CO2.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...
I think the article is overplaying the promise of CO reductions. Around 60% of CO2 (see 1) emissions during cement manufacturing are just a byproduct of the chemical process converting calcium carbonate to lime (see 2) - nothing that solar power can help with. 1) https://precast.org/2013/05/concrete-and-co2/ 2) https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gp/bgp/3_1_Cement_P...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pointing hundreds of mirrors is expensive. Requiring a lot less rigidity for the motion system is notable. I don't doubt you could have done this open loop with a very rigid (expensive) platform before (including solving problems of ground subsidence). But now you can do it with a reasonably priced platform closed loop, which is what makes it actually possible.
Could you expand on what closed/open loop mean in this context?
Open/closed loop basically means whether you check the result of an actuation. What we're really talking about is the point at which the loop is closed.
A completely open loop would run the motor for the predicted time.
A simple closed loop would run the motor until the mirror is pointing at the predicted angle, using an encoder to know where the mirror is pointing. The control loop encompasses a mechanical part of the system, but not the end-thing we want controlled. Or put another way, the loop is closed for actuator angle but is not closed for where reflected light goes.
A better closed loop would run the motor until the mirror is reflecting sunlight exactly where we want it-- using magic to know where the light from this mirror is going.