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Witness the future of transport. And discover how we can enjoy low operating costs while helping save the environment.

As 2008 draws to a close we stand on the edge of a revolution in transport. The signs are obvious. Petrol prices are rising, and inevitably one day the supply of petrol will start to dry up. Also, we need to find ways of getting around that don’t produce as much carbon. Something has to change. Something big. The New Inventors: Re-inventing the wheel presents inventors who are answering these challenges in revolutionary ways.

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TREV

Video: Trev

The University of South Australia's lovable electric car is named TREV which stands for “Two-seater Renewable Energy Vehicle.” TREV uses less than a fifth of the energy of a conventional car.

Our modern cities developed on the promise of cheap oil when climate change was not on the radar. Now, the suburban dream is turning out to be an environmental nightmare. So how will we turn this around?

TREV is the ideal way to get around town. Staff and students at the University of South Australia designed and built Trev. Its features include:

• two comfortable seats, since more than 90% of urban trips have only one or two people in the car;
• enough luggage space for at least two overnight bags;
• 300 kg mass-because using a 2.5 tonne vehicle for commuting is ridiculous;
• energy-efficient tyres, brakes and suspension;
• a clean, quiet and efficient electric drive system;
• compliance with road safety and worthiness regulations;
• good performance, with a top speed of 120 km/h; and
• Design range of 150 km of city driving before the car must be recharged.

Most importantly, it uses less than 1/5 of the energy required by a conventional car, and can be recharged using electricity from clean, renewable sources such as solar and wind.

CONTACTS
Email: peter.pudney@unisa.edu.au
Website: http://www.unisa.edu.au/solarcar/Trev/default.asp

Renewable Hydrogen Boat

Video: Renewable Hydrogen Boat

These days the disadvantages of fossil fuels are clearly evident. The supply of oil we have been relying on for transport for the last 100 or so years is running out. And even if we could find enough oil to supply our growing demands, we would then have to suffer the consequences of all the carbon pollution it would produce.

And in the short term, as oil becomes more expensive, large heavy vessels such as ships which require enormous amounts of fuel to run will become less financially viable.

Colin Salmond's company hopes to create a sustainable and safe method to power a boat using hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels.

While hydrogen powered boats exist, the difference with this design is that it is a system to use renewable energy (solar, wind or hydro) to produce electricity which then runs a hydrogen generator to power the vessel. By using the available green energy supplies - either the abundant wind available at sea or solar power to generate the electricity, and then using purified sea water to generate the hydrogen, it should be possible for the boat to create its own energy supply. This power would be free (once you had paid for the infrastructure) and also, because the only by-product of the process is water, it would create zero carbon emissions.

His company are devising a system for linking all these technologies together and the key to this is their programmable operating system which manages the pathways of the drive system safety and efficiency through a programmable logic controller.

So it's a drive system for a drive system if you like!

CONTACTS
Email: csalmond@electrygen.com
Website: www.electrygen.com

Co-axial Rotor Helicopter

Video: Co-axial Rotor Helicopter

Helicopters are handy little vehicles, they can hover and they can land in difficult to reach places and in congested areas. However there are a lot of disadvantages with current helicopter design.

They are noisy, and they are enormous gas guzzlers (a Bell 206 L4 helicopter travels just 1.47 km per litre - a family car travels 10-13kms per litre.) When their tail rotors fail the chopper goes out of control usually resulting in a crash landing. They're complex to control, extensive training is required. It is easier to learn to fly an aeroplane than a helicopter. Helicopters vibrate. An unadjusted helicopter can easily vibrate so much that it will shake itself apart.

Coaxial rotor helicopters can solve a lot of these problems but up till now they've been so expensive and technical that only the military has been able to afford them. Coaxial rotors are a pair of rotors turning in opposite directions, but mounted on a mast, with the same axis of rotation.

The Co-axial counter rotating helicopter offers considerable advantages over traditional models:

The absence of a tail rotor with the inclusion of a coaxial main rotor makes these craft more stable, more manoeuvrable, quieter, safer and provides a better power to weight ratio. The rotor system has greater lift and is much more efficient than traditional helicopters.

Technological advances and a lot of research and development have allowed the Wieland Helicopter Company to build a coaxial counter rotating helicopter that is competitive in the civilian market. Running costs, particularly with the electric motor version, are significantly lower than traditional helicopters.

Since the WHT range of helicopters are much easier to control and to fly, pilot training is much simpler and therefore takes a lot less time and money to complete.

The electric version of the helicopter will be powered by batteries that run an electric motor to turn the co-axial rotors

CONTACTS
Email: sean@wielandhelicopters.com.au
Website: http://www.wielandhelitech.com

Extras

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EPOC HEADSET

The brain is the centre of our every thought and feeling, and yet at the same time it is tremendously remote. We use words and pens, keyboards and joysticks to translate what is in our brains to what we want to communicate and achieve in the world around us. Isn’t there some kind of … short cut? Something to turn us from John Citizen to Yoda?

The EPOC™ headset reads what is inside our head and translates it into virtual reality. Using EEG technology and sophisticated algorithms the headset can read your emotions, facial expressions and conscious thoughts, and then translate them into actions in a virtual reality world inside a computer.

A large team has been responsible for developing this technology at a research facility in Pyrmont, Sydney. These people include physicist and neurobiologist Professor Allan Snyder of Sydney University, technology entrepreneurs Nam Do and Tan Le, and electronics engineer and entrepreneur Dr Neil Weste.

The inspiration came from discussions between Tan, Nam and Allan; they were bemoaning the current state of computer interfaces. Why couldn’t you bring the person closer to the virtual world by reading what was actually happening inside their brain?

They brought into the team star electronics engineer Neil Weste, who, along with a team of young engineers and researchers from signal processing and machine learning, made the EPOC headset a reality.

www.emotiv.com

DRIVER ASSIST TECHNOLOGIES

Driving is a complex and dangerous task. According to the World Health Organisation, 1.2 million people die on roads around the world: that’s one in four injury related deaths. In 2007, 1616 of these were Australians. Despite this death toll, driving is not becoming any less important –there is simply no alternative that offers people the independence that they need. So how can we extend the capabilities of the driver to give them a better chance of surviving the roads?

Researchers from the National Information and Communications Technology Australia and the Australian National University are developing several technologies that it hopes will be the basis for new early-warning systems for motorists, even enabling older or visually-impaired drivers stay safely on the road for longer. The two systems featured on Reinventing the Body can identify and warn of approaching objects, and identify and warn of road signs.

The team includes Dr Niklas Pettersson, Dr Lars Petersson, Dr Nick Barnes and Chris McCarthy. The project began at ANU and has since become part of NICTA’s research and development. Their aim has always been to design systems that will make driving safer by observing the surroundings, the car and the driver, as well as creating low-vision mobility aids.

http://nicta.com.au/

http://nicta.com.au/research/business_areas/intelligent_transport_systems

MICROVALVE

Babies are lovely, but you don’t want too many of them. Sex is also lovely, and you want as much of that as you can get. Anyone see the conflict? People wanting lots of sexual intercourse but not so many babies have for many years reached into a bag of tricks called contraception. From early withdrawal to the rhythm method to condoms to the vasectomy, male contraceptives have lagged behind the high-tech implants and chemical options designed for women.

The MicroValve is being developed by a team of engineers with expertise in electronics and biomedicine. Using a piezoelectric polymer that will deform when exposed to a specific electric field broadcast from a key fob (like a car alarm) the valve will open or close, preventing the passage of sperm, but not seminal fluid.

Professor Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide is a physicist and electronics engineer who’s work encompasses contributions toT-ray imaging, stochastic resonance and Parrondo's paradox. Dr Said Al-Sarawi has worked with Derek for some years, since being a PhD student under his supervision. He’s now pushing the project ahead with two PhD students of his own.

Derek began to develop the idea about 10 years ago when a good friend of his had a vasectomy. It seemed to Derek that male contraception was really in the dark ages, and so started to think about ways in which you could bring it into the 20th, or ideally, the 21st century.

http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/

FOAM BONE

Full metal titanium implants wear down other bones nearby – although they have plenty of strength, they don’t allow other bones to share the load.

The new ‘foam bone’ material twins the properties of the metal to that of the bone and means more evenly distributed weight-bearing properties. This keeps other bones connected to the artificial bone healthy.

Professor Peter Hodgson is the senior partner investigator on this new project. He brings biomedical skills and expertise to complement Dr Wen's materials knowledge and Dr Wenji Yan's mechanical engineering approach to give a really multidisciplinary approach to this important problem.

The materials that Cui'e and Hodgson are developing will be porous and have mechanical properties very close to those of natural bone.

http://www.deakin.edu.au/scitech/cmfi/index.php

DNA IDENTIKIT

In the event of a crime, witnesses are a vital asset for law enforcement – but what if there are no witnesses? Using DNA found at a scene has for many years been a method for identifying criminals, but at the moment it does little beyond identifying a specific person. Yet many secrets of our identity are locked up in our DNA … what if we could unlock them for the public good?

Dr Angela van Daal and her team at Bond University are demonstrating DNA markers for individual physical traits that relate directly to an actual person. They aim soon to be able to establish methods to not only identify someone’s pigmentation (hair, eye, skin colour) but also characteristics like height, frame and facial features.

http://www.bond.edu.au/about/faculties/hsm/

A special snap shot of the future from cutting edge thinkers and innovators with ideas and prototypes for our homes, cities and lives.

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Where will we be in the year 2020? What will our homes look like? How and where will we work and what will be the tools of our trade? What will the world look like in 2020 and how will we sustain ourselves, communities and cities? From what we can gauge so far big changes loom in the way Australians will live, work, play and interact with technology. This week, The New Inventors: Destination 2020 special, future thinkers and innovators explore and explain what may lie ahead.

Adjunct Prof Alan Pears (RMIT, Melbourne)

Australians are finally learning to cut water consumption but there’s still a long way to go. There’s increasingly less fossil fuels for manufacturing and transport and the price of food and materials is increasing rapidly. So what does this all mean for the way we live and our relationship with our homes in the future?

Adjunct Professor Alan Pears (RMIT, Melbourne) takes a glance at what could await the average three-bedroom house in 2020 and beyond...!

Materials and construction of houses will be very different. Aerogels will replace both sections of walls and windows to let in light but achieve amazing insulation performance. Buildings will be super insulated and will require very little heating or cooling.

Smart energy demand management controls in homes will rule the roost. During times of high demand or expensive pricing, things will automatically shut down or cycle on and off to manage the problem through pre-programmed preferences.

Interaction with appliances will also be a lot more intimate! Australians will be able to manage them remotely and they will be able to tell where a fault is. In other words, they will 'self heal' and repairers will know what parts to bring and what they need to do before they reach their destination. And in the backyard, natural energy sinks and micro-labourers will be actively employed in solid waste removal.

Professor Elmars Krausz and Dr Warwick Hillier

Sustaining our communities? Molecular bio-fuels

We need more power. For centuries we’ve used fossil fuels to drive our global economy. These have been so cheap and plentiful that consumers have grossly misused it.

Power is the new gold! Now Australians are facing not only post-peak oil production, but suffering the consequences of all that carbon dioxide and assorted pollutants that have been dispersed into the atmosphere

Powering the future will play a key role in 2020. Photosynthesis oxygenates the world and Australian National University’s Professor Elmars Krausz and Dr Warwick Hillier believe that artificial photosynthesis could use plants’ extraordinary potential to create a truly renewable fuel as well as suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it into food!

Dr Peter Corke, Research Director, CSIRO Autonomous Systems Laboratory and Dr Dave Henry Principal Researcher, CSIRO Livestock

How will we work? Smart Farms

Dr Corke is working towards the 'Smart Farm' of the future with research focusing on Wireless Sensor Networks and their potential to transform the Australian agriculture industry.

‘Pastures From Space’ provides farmers with a suite of tools to enable them to literally farm from their home computer! The system comprises groups of ‘nodes’ each measuring a variable, such as soil moisture in a given paddock, which gather information from their immediate surroundings. This information is then sent via satellite to the base computer. The nodes could also be attached to an animal to monitor their welfare, such as provide information on heart rate, hormone level, and location of the animal.

But this is just the start. Researchers are also looking at ways the system could get accurate estimates of the amount of feed in pastures, how quickly the pastures are growing and the pasture quality. The same technology could play a role in computer activated dosing, controlling a ‘virtual fence’ which could move herds from paddock to paddock via the home computer and in a future world enable the farm to be self-managing!

Farming land is increasingly moving across from smaller independent ownership into the hands of large corporations and the appeal of this kind of system in this context is immeasurable. Large farms would find significant efficiencies of scale; smaller farms would be able access niche markets and create a customised market. Their produce can be tracked and traced by people for example who want guaranteed ‘organic’ or other niche foods.

Professor of Biological Sciences Andy Beattie Biomimicry
The inspiration for future inventions are spinning webs, clinging upside down from smooth walls, and building homes from mud with natural air conditioning. Welcome to Professor Andy Beattie’s world and work. For billions of years wild animals and plants have solved their own engineering problems using only their own bodies and the resources of nature.

Biomimicry explores how animals, plants, even bacteria have solved problems of building homes, finding food and fuel, moving from place to place - exactly the same problems faced by humans. By understanding their solutions biomimicry offers technological fixes for the modern world. Evolution is not a 19th century Darwinian curiosity but at the cutting edge of industrial R&D.

Professor Beattie talks through some amazing possibilities for 2020 and beyond - things like architects replicating termite nests for its natural ventilation and heating principles; examining the Venus Flower basket with its beautiful sponge that makes glass-like silica fibres which have an uncanny resemblance to industrial optical fibres telecommunications industries use; cockroaches, centipedes and crabs are all subject to research for stable, multi-jointed and multi-legged robotics for adaptable use in rugged terrain; and bees and dragon flies are under investigation as engineers seek to mimic their aerodynamic qualities.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that Australia is in the middle of a severe water crisis. This episode of The New Inventors dives into the world of water-saving to discover how Australian inventors are taking action to conserve this precious resource. Plus, we exposed the "Water Diaries" kept by host James O'Loghlin and the panel to find out who is the most conservative when it comes to water usage.

We also took a walk through a sustainable house in Sydney; looked at an invention that used condensation and kinetic energy to make water out of thin air; and caught up with some previous inventors from the program to see how they've come along with their water-saving devices.

SUSTAINABLE HOME DEMO - by Michael Mobbs

Ten years ago, Michael Mobbs told the water board to turn off the mains of his inner-city, 19th century terrace, as he had transformed it into an entirely self-sufficient home. He no longer draws water from the mains and no sewage leaves his 5mx35m property. Michael takes us on a tour to follow the journey of a drop of water in his house.

WATERWALL - by Gail Davidson and Mitch O'Sullivan

The waterwall is a slim-line, above-ground, modular water storage system for collection of rainwater in urban settings. More »

PERPETUAL WATER - by John Grimes and Dr Marilyn Karaman

The Perpetual Water system is a fully automated urban grey-water treatment system that treats shower, bath and laundry water to the highest standard. It makes it safe for long term garden watering, toilet flushing, and clothes washing. More »

MAX WATER - Max Whisson

Perth's Dr Max Whisson set out four years ago to do something about Australia's lack of water. The result is Max Water, a simple way of harvesting pure water from an unlimited source - the atmosphere. Designed to have minimal impact on the environment, be space efficient and use zero fossil fuels, Max Water uses condensation and the kinetic energy of a wind turbine to literally make water out of thin air.

WATER DIARIES

James O'Loghlin and the Saving Water Special panellists have kept "Water Diaries" for 1 week and on the show, we'll reveal who was the wisest water user. Was it host James O'Loghlin? Science journalist and environmentalist Bernie Hobbs? Inventor and architect Sally Dominguez? Or Agricultural scientist Chris Russell? PLUS viewers can get involved by downloading the Water Diary template (PDF), and measure their own water usage.

MICHAEL MOBBS - TURNING OFF THE MAINS »