March 1, 2018

Autonomous Transit Technology to Transform Jacksonville’s Urban Landscape

Posted on March 1, 2018September 21, 2021 by Staff Writer

Cities are quickly adapting future technology to improve the daily life of its citizens. One such city is Jacksonville, FL which is planning to use the bold idea of emerging tech to improve its traffic situation.

Jacksonville’s Commitment to the Future

Jacksonville is one of the most populated cities in Florida with almost one million residents. With this many people, traffic situation is bound to worsen even more. This is why the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) has decided to test its autonomous vehicle or AV test track and showcase its new Ultimate Urban Circulator or U2C. The main goal of this project is to make use of steadily growing autonomous transit technology and use it to help connect the people of Jacksonville by making travel between places quick and easy.

The JTA created a track that spans from Intuition to Daily’s Place and will be the test site for various autonomous vehicles in the next two years. The first AV ride to be utilized on the new track is a Transdev Vehicle; a 12-passenger ride that can accommodate six seated, and six standing passengers.

CEO Nat Ford says Jacksonville is planning to stay ahead when it comes to providing quality transportation. Various autonomous vehicles will be rotated on the track every six months to test out different variables such as speed, size, and even functionality. Afterwards, they will decide on whether or not the specific AV will be adapted by the U2C.

The U2C project, on the other hand, is a plan to retrofit the 2.5 mile Skyway infrastructure as well as the building of available off-ramps to extend this transit system to other areas. The project is currently under the Skyway Modernization Program (SMP) and they’ve started structural assessment, converting infrastructure, developing vehicles, expanding the system, and engaging with their stakeholders. This new system targets to expand the current Skyway system and revitalize it by adding more connections to both sides of the St. Johns River.

Redefining Transportation

There are various projects which are all ongoing in Florida and in other parts of the country. In Gainesville, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and the University of Florida are working on autonomous vehicles co-existing with other types of transportation, as well as with pedestrians, transport hubs, bicycles and mopeds. A separate FDOT project, driverless vehicles are being tested on a $90-million Suntrax facility which is located 40 miles southwest of Orlando, covering 400 acres with an eight-lane track.

The main goal of JTA is to connect people of Jacksonville through autonomous transit technology

At the same time, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in California’s Bay Area is studying how it can expand with the use of autonomous vehicles. These plans include vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X), also called vehicle-to-infrastructure, internet-of-things (IoT) implementation. This would allow autonomous vehicles to communicate with one another, and also with the road and infrastructure. To have the best engagement or implementation of autonomous driving, the vehicles must be aware of other vehicles and the signals from the road infrastructure providing information about the weather, the road ahead, traffic flow, and other information.

The MTC recently granted the Bay Area cities with $5 million in total grants for research and pilot programs for driverless vehicles as well as for other real-world traffic problems.

In Toronto, the smart city concept is starting from scratch with its Quayside project. Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs has been chosen as a partner to initially develop part of the 800-acre Quayside area. Besides the use of driverless vehicles, other initiatives for the Sidewalk project include traffic management using integrated intelligent signals, thereby improving traffic flow. Pedestrian and vehicle traffic will be monitored by a digital layer which includes cameras and smart sensors. Besides improving traffic flow and mobility, the information will also provide researchers, managers and administrators measurement of environmental data crucial to a “superior quality of life.”

Testing Ground for Autonomous Vehicles

Various autonomous vehicles are under development. Although lesser known, the following are already in the implementation stage or have already signed up with a customer for driverless vehicle:

It was founded in 2014 and has offices in Toulouse in France, Singapore, and in Denver, Colorado. It has a total 60 employees. The name comes from the concept of delivering on the last mile. Their EZ10 electric vehicle is an autonomously driven shuttle which has a capacity of 12 passengers. It has been deployed in more than 50 locations in 14 countries across the world. As a driverless vehicle company, it also has a cooperative agreement with Continental AG, an automobile parts supplier which is also developing their own independent driverless software.
Arguably the leading driverless electric vehicle company in the world. It has testing sites all over the world, and has deployed their vehicles in Australia and New Zealand, Asia, and in Europe. Walt Disney World in Florida has plans to use Navya vehicles for their shuttle requirements.
Recently, the Dutch firm was awarded a contract in Dubai for automated/driverless vehicle system to service Bluewaters with the city’s metro station network. The stations will be approximately 2.5 km apart. The project is expected to transport around 5,000 people per hour in both directions. There will be 25 driverless group rapid transit (GRT) units. Each vehicle will carry 24 passengers.
Local Motors. The innovative car company manufactures the modern way: by 3D printing. Its vehicles are made via carbon composite monocoque construction very much like high-end sports cars. The current model Local Motors Stratti is 75% 3D printed, and the company plans to have its next car to be 90% 3D printed. What sets the company apart is that the raw materials can be pelletized and then returned to the owner, allow parts to be replaced or repaired using the old damaged part’s carbon pellets.
Ultra Global. Quietly working with Heathrow Airport is UK based Ultra Global with its Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). The Ultra Global PRT is a pod which is like a small bus. It can carry up to six people and their luggage. It has a top speed of 25 mph. These are driverless shuttle vehicles which can intelligently pop up at station stops for a quick charging if the opportunity arises. Since 2011, there have been 21 pods servicing Heathrow and ferrying up to 1,000 passengers a day. Since they were instituted, the pods have logged in more than a million miles of autonomous driving.

Jacksonville’s Nod to the Future

The new Jacksonville test track is a big learning and testing facility for the city. Brad Thoburn, the Vice President of the JTA, adds that the U2C project is the result of years and years of study. It required taking a long hard look at the current Skyway system and projecting what it needs to be in the future. The project proponents are banking on autonomous vehicle technology as the future and expect U2C to will be their contribution to the future of transportation.

The test track will be opened to the public to help more residents become more familiar with this new transport technology. Actual trials will also provide the JTA vital feedback on areas and systems they can improve on. The track will be used for maneuver testing and special events for the month of February and will have a new vehicle installed and available for use 30 hours a week. This bold move is certainly the beginning of something great for Jacksonville.

Waymo Gets Approval for Driverless Ride-Hailing Service

Posted on March 1, 2018February 18, 2024 by Staff Writer

Alphabet’s Waymo is out of the gates. The company recently received approval as the first driverless ride-hailing company from the Arizona Department of Transportation. It will operate as a Transportation Network Company (TNC) with headquarters at Phoenix, Arizona. The Alphabet company itself does not design cars; instead, it will be using Fiat-Chrysler Pacifica minivans. It already has 600 of the vehicles which are used in testing the driverless modules. The company plans to buy “thousands” more of the minivans to fully roll out the service.

Waymo and Uber and Driverless Ride-Hailing

Waymo has been testing driverless vehicles in 25 cities across America. The test cities included San Francisco, Detroit, Atlanta and Washington, DC with most of the testing done in Phoenix. Google has logged more than four million miles public roads while testing self-driving cars, of which more than 325,000 miles were in California alone. Passengers use an app to hail a car, and when the passenger is on board, he simply presses a button when he is ready to go.

The approval as a TNC means that the company can now offer the rides for a fee. Before the approval was handed down, Waymo was offering free rides across the city in order to test the system. The ride’s fee structure has not yet been announced, but it is expected to be lower than Uber and Lyft due to the absence of a human driver. Initially, the service will have an engineer riding shotgun while it services passengers. Waymo will remove them from the service once the ride-hailing system has stabilized.

Uber is also working on their own driverless technologies, along with other companies, like Ford and General Motors, Bosch, Continental AG, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, and Audi to name a few. Alphabet is the umbrella company which includes Google, and when Uber found out that Alphabet was testing driverless cars, they knew that they also had to compete using driverless vehicles of their own. The company rolled out self-driving car services in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania earlier this year to raise the ante.

Potential Earnings and Impact on Other Industries

The self-driving ride-hailing service would greatly help Uber in its current financial standing. In 2017, it had gross earnings of $37 billion with net losses of $4.5 billion. In the fourth quarter alone, it paid $8 billion to drivers as earnings and bonuses, which is equivalent to 72% of its quarterly gross revenues. Without the drivers, the rates would go lower, along with the gross revenues, but the net earnings might increase.

Besides Uber, other technology and industries are expected to be impacted by the Waymo approval. Uber would have another direct competitor. Taxis would also be affected by the additional volume of driverless cars which can be fielded. Waymo can also compete against logistics, delivery and courier companies. In the same manner, the company can talk directly with cities and help them address their transportation problems.

The situation of Waymo having approval to service passengers is one example where technology is outpacing legislation. So far there is yet no standardized law regarding driverless cars. There are only guidelines for the development of the car. It may take a while before legislators can address this issue. In the meantime, it is a race to see which company would be second in the driverless ride-hailing services.

Sulfuric Acid Plant that Uses WSA Process Is Now Ready and Operational!

Posted on March 1, 2018March 14, 2024 by Staff Writer

Bestgrand Chemical Group has recently announced that its wet gas sulfuric acid plant (WSA plant) was successfully launched and is ready for use. The Chinese company has commissioned the plant to treat over-the-fence acid gas coming from the nearby China National Offshore Oil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. This plant is the biggest WSA plant—a sulfuric acid plant that uses the WSA process—in the world to date, as it has a 300,000 tons capacity and is able to treat 131,000 tons of acid gas per year.

This said sulfuric acid plant uses the Haldor Topsoe AS, which is a proprietary WSA catalytic process tech and equipment originating from Denmark. Haldor Topsoe is the company that provided the licensing tech as well as tech services, engineering design and hardware. It is also providing the performance catalysts for the project.

This wet gas sulfuric acid plant will be the company’s 54^th plant in the country to be online since 2000—and it has 14 more plants still under construction. Interestingly, the companies didn’t disclose the cost of the new plant.

Impact on the Environment

Bestgrand Chemical Group is putting a lot of focus on the environmental benefits that it can provide by making use of the wet gas sulfuric acid plant. They plan to use the plant to get gas sulfur and convert it to a commercial grade sulfuric acid (H2SO4). They are predicting that the wet gas sulfuric acid plant will help reduce the carbon dioxide emission of the site by 220,000 tons per unit as well as reducing sulfur dioxide levels to less than 50 percent to meet the regulations set by China when it comes to the H2SO4 industry.

The wet gas sulfuric acid plant used by Haldor Topsoe removes the sulfur from off-gas streams produced by the refining industry, steel production and chemical production from coal. The plant transforms these sulfur gases into a concentrated form of H2SO4 which can then be sold as commercial-grade H2SO4 or to be reused in the plant. This bold technology was developed and made available for commercial use back in the 1980s and was originally conceived to make the process of removing sulfur compounds more cost-effective. However, as legislation regarding environmental protection increases, the use of this proprietary technology has advanced to other applications as well.

On the Matter of Sulfur Emissions

Sulfur dioxide is a gas which is harmful to humans. It hinders proper breathing and can be fatal for those with asthma, emphysema or other lung problems. Sulfur dioxide reacts with other chemicals and gases to form sulfate particulates associated with PM2.5 or particulate matters with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers.

Sulfur dioxide can also form with other naturally occurring chemicals as well as pollutants to form acids, which in turn contribute to acid rain. Acid rain is the term used for rain with a high acidic level or high acidity which can damage plant life—especially food crops—and the soil. Also acid rain can make bodies of water acidic and detrimental to fish life.

Oil and gas mines and refineries, as well as coal mines, produce large amounts of sulfur dioxide. Other sources of this pollutant are gas, coal and diesel-powered vehicles—such as cars, trucks, buses and trains.

A Solution from A Wet gas Sulfuric Acid Plant (WSA Plant)

Sulfur recovery units are utilized to recover sulfur at the time of production. One of the methods used to recover sulfur dioxide is the Claus reaction. This method is a catalytic process that converts hydrogen sulfide in gas form from natural gas and other petroleum extraction processes, into elemental sulfur. (Hydrogen sulfide is also a by-product of refining crude oil.)

Notably, the method used in a wet gas sulfuric plant cleans up sulfur as a byproduct of oil and gas production and in refineries. The advantage of this method is that it can produce heat during the conversion process, as well as produce industrial H2SO4 for the industry. Thus, Bestgrand Chemical Group’s successfully launched wet gas sulfuric acid plant may also prove to be a good, bold idea for the environment in the long run.

The Nvidia Self-Driving Car Will Soon Become a Reality

Posted on March 1, 2018February 18, 2024 by Staff Writer

The competition for autonomous vehicles just heated up with news from Nvidia at the recently concluded International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2018), that they were partnering with Continental AG in the development of self-driving vehicles.

Nvidia is well-known globally as a graphics chipmaker that controls about 72% of the market for discrete GPUs for desktops. Continental is most well known for being a German tire manufacturer. However, their complete product line includes sensors, brakes, car electronics, car safety, powertrain, chassis components, instrumentation, and other parts for the automotive and truck manufacturing industry.

The Nvidia announcement was considered a challenge to the industry as they stated that they were ahead of the competition by more than two years.

Consortiums and Partnerships

Continental is already in an alliance to bring autonomous driving to the market. The consortium they are working with also includes Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Intel and Intel’s Mobileye vision systems subsidiary, Aptiv. Continental handles component and software integration while Aptiv is an automotive parts company with its own plans for self-driving vehicles. At the same time, Continental has a separate development program in partnership with Chinese company Baidu.

Besides Continental, Nvidia has also partnered with Uber Technologies and Volkswagen. Tesla’s self-driving components use Nvidia processors. At CES, Nvidia also announced new partnerships with Uber Technologies and Volkswagen. They stated that they have spent more than 8,000 man hours in engineering work, at a cost of $2 billion for their development.

Called the Drive Xavier, it uses a new processor with embedded hardware, high-performance graphics, eight processor cores, separate processors for image and videos and networking, along with a deep learning accelerator and a programmable vision accelerator. The aim of the processor is to be a machine learning platform able to drive a car and learn along the way.

Other companies are in the race for the autonomous vehicle of the future. Google started their self-driving car program in 2009. In recent years, Intel has been buying technology providers and development companies to speed up their own development efforts and still has to show any significant development. AMD is also developing their own self-driving vehicle initiative based on their strength as a CPU and GPU manufacturer. Cellphone processor manufacturers Qualcomm and Arm Holdings have their own self-driving vehicle programs, but since they are using processors based on those used in mobile devices, they are at a disadvantage against Nvidia.

GPUs and CPUs

Nvidia has an inherent advantage due to their being a graphical processor company. A CPU, like those manufactured by Intel (Xeon, i5 and i7) and AMD (Raizen and Opteron), have a few cores, with plenty of cache memory. This enables the processor to handle multiple software threads at the same time. In contrast a GPU contains hundreds of cores which can handle thousands of software threads at the same time. This GPU ability can accelerate software more than a hundred-fold compared to a CPU, and does this with less power consumption and better cost-efficiency. The capability of GPUs to work on thousands of threads at the same time is also the reason for its use in bitcoin mining, as well as the main processor for some supercomputers.

Although the majority of desktop PCs have integrated chips, Nvidia has been able to increase its sales of GPU boards. For quarter on quarter growth, Nvidia registered a 29.5% increase in shipments between the second and third quarter of 2017. In contrast, AMD’s GPU sales registered a much lower 7.6%. Further comparing this with Intel’s integrated chip shipment growth of only 5%, and PC shipments increasing by 10.3% over the same period, it is obvious that Nvidia is capitalizing on the surge in sales of gaming computer and high-end graphics requirements.

The distinction is important when considering the computing power of an autonomous vehicle. The self-driving car reads the road via sensors, including images and video. These are processed for clues all at the same time. A single image or video frame may contain multiple signs and clues. These include road signs, traffic lights, roads, headlights, car signal lights, and other data.

When vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure or vehicle-to-everything (V2X) comes along, there would be even more data streaming to the processor for analysis. All of these signals and data are processed at the same time, and the GPU is better suited to this task compared to a CPU. In this instance, Intel, Qualcomm and Arm Holdings are at a disadvantage.

Strengths Moving Forward

As a supplier of internal car computing components and sensors, Continental is a good fit for partnership with Nvidia. Uber is in a position to test for driverless cars, as this is in their roadmap. Volkswagen, as one of the biggest car companies in the world, would want to have help with their self-driving programs.

Audi is a Volkswagen company which introduced a self-driving car in 2017. The Audi A8 was equipped with a Level 3 autonomy. Level 3 driving autonomy allows for a car to drive on its own at slow speeds. The Audi A8 can take charge of driving in slow moving traffic of up to 60 kph or 38 mph.

Along with Audi, another German car manufacturer is also leading the charge for autonomous vehicles. The Mercedes Benz F 015 is a self-driving car which is also capable of Level 3 autonomy. It was released in 2017 and was roundly accepted at the 2018 CES.

Tesla has also been very visible with their self-driving car. Tesla uses Nvidia processors for its self-driving modules.

The Race for Self-Driving Cars

The race for self-driving cars is not limited to Level 3 autonomy, but ultimately, to Level 5. Current generation of self-driving cars are capable of Level 3, which is called “Conditional Automation”. An example of this is the Audi Traffic Jam Pilot. Under the right conditions, the car can manage the driving, but prompts the driver to take the wheel under specific circumstances. The driver is required to be alert and available to handle the wheel at any time. Level 4 is “High Automation” where the car can run on certain road conditions or geographic areas. The driver becomes a passenger when running on the highway. Level 5 is “Full Automation” where the only human intervention is entering the destination.

Multiple companies are developing their own self-driving car solutions. These range from processor manufacturers, car makers, large software companies, car component manufacturers and others. The goal is to be among the first, if not the first, to offer full autonomous driving capability. These companies are investing a lot of money on their own, and in partnership with strategic partners. Nvidia with their strength in GPU, is doing more work with car manufacturer Volkswagen, ride sharing company Uber, and car component manufacturer and integrator Continental. Nvidia is not content as the largest GPU manufacturer in the world, their attempt to capture the market in autonomous vehicles would also increase the demand for their GPUs.

Nvidia is the largest manufacturer of discrete GPU boards and chips. The growth of crypto mining has a positive impact on the sales of their GPU chips. Although supercomputers are a small segment of their revenue stream, this is another segment where Nvidia is the frontrunner. With Nvidia’s claims that they are two years ahead of everyone else in autonomous driving technology, they are opening up this segment of technology and claiming it as their own. The stakes that Nvidia is fighting for is to have a processor chip in every self-driving car sold in the near future.

Day: March 1, 2018

Autonomous Transit Technology to Transform Jacksonville’s Urban Landscape

Waymo Gets Approval for Driverless Ride-Hailing Service

Waymo and Uber and Driverless Ride-Hailing

Potential Earnings and Impact on Other Industries