Early Commercial Applications Research Articles

Early commercial demonstration of space solar power using ultra-lightweight arrays

Space solar power shows great promise for future energy sources worldwide. Most central power stations operate with power capacity of 1000 MW or greater. Due to launch size limitations and specific power of current, rigid solar arrays, the largest solar arrays that have flown in space are around 50 kW. Thin-film arrays offer the promise of much higher specific power and deployment of array sizes up to several MW with current launch vehicles. An approach to early commercial applications for space solar power to distribute power to charge hand-held, mobile battery systems by wireless power transmission (WPT) from thin-film solar arrays in quasi-stationary orbits will be presented. Four key elements to this prototype will be discussed: (1) Space and near-space testing of prototype wireless power transmission by laser and microwave components including WPT space to space and WPT space to near-space HAA transmission demonstrations; (2) distributed power source for recharging hand-held batteries by wireless power transmission from MW space solar power systems; (3) use of quasi-geostationary satellites to generate electricity and distribute it to targeted areas; and (4) architecture and technology for ultra-lightweight thin-film solar arrays with specific energy exceeding 1 kW/kg. This approach would yield flight demonstration of space solar power and wireless power transmission of 1.2 MW. This prototype system will be described, and a roadmap will be presented that will lead to still higher power levels.

Commercial plasma source ion implantation facility

Empire Hard Chrome, in cooperation with Los Alamos National Laboratory, has recently installed commercial plasma source ion implantation (PSII) equipment built by North Star Research Corporation. The PSII system consists of a 1 × 1 m cylindrical vacuum chamber with a pulsed RF plasma source which generates plasma densities on the order of 1 × 10 10 cm −3 while drawing only a few hundred watts of power. The high-voltage pulse modulator is capable of delivering pulses with peak voltages of 100 kV and peak currents of 300 A at maximum repetition rate of 400 Hz. The pulse modulator uses a thyratron tube to switch a pulse forming network which is tailored to match the dynamic PSII load. In this paper, we discuss the PSII system and early commercial applications to production tooling.

The EXTRACT database at the University of Exeter

Work towards the development of a specialist information resource on herbal remedies is described. After piloting and early commercial applications, there are prospects for a role in illuminating the issues of herb safety.

A perspective on early commercial applications of voice-processing technology for telecommunications and aids for the handicapped.

The Colloquium on Human-Machine Communication by Voice highlighted the global technical community's focus on the problems and promise of voice-processing technology, particularly, speech recognition and speech synthesis. Clearly, there are many areas in both the research and development of these technologies that can be advanced significantly. However, it is also true that there are many applications of these technologies that are capable of commercialization now. Early successful commercialization of new technology is vital to ensure continuing interest in its development. This paper addresses efforts to commercialize speech technologies in two markets: telecommunications and aids for the handicapped.