Scientific Science and Technology

Combat-Master

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This article gives an overview related to stealth submarine propulsion system, in particular recently being developed by IdeaLab, closed loop Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO2) Brayton power cycle based Air Independent Propulsion (AIP).

AIP allows a submarine to run its electric motor and other electrical systems without using the batteries. It reduces the frequency with which the submarine has to put its mast above the surface to suck in air for the diesel engines to recharge the batteries. The submarine still has to snort for brief periods on most days in order to ventilate, but is much less exposed than conventional diesel-electric submarines. During operations, if the tactical situation prohibits ventilation then the submarine can delay snorting for much longer than normal. And it can revert to lighting oxygen candles (or equivalent) in dire situations. Therefore the submarine can remain submerged for much longer, giving the submarine commander much greater flexibility. There are currently over 50 AIP submarines in service around the world, with the number likely to double in the coming decade.

Let’s discuss and compare IdeaLab’s new sCO2 Brayton power cycle AIP with existing technologies. We will describe sCO2 Brayton power cycle based AIP system in detail and provide brief discussion on existing technologies.

What is Supercritical CO2?
Supercritical CO2 is a fluid state of carbon dioxide where it is held above its critical point (i.e., critical pressure and temperature). The density at that point is similar to that of a liquid and allows for the pumping power needed in a compressor to be significantly reduced, thus significantly increasing the thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency.

The IdeaLab Solution
Basically, IdeaLab is developing a thermal-to-electric power conversion technology in a configuration called the recompression closed Brayton cycle (RCBC) that uses supercritical carbon dioxide as the working fluid, rather than steam, thereby dramatically increasing conversion efficiency compared to the steam Rankine cycle.

The primary reason for improved power conversion efficiency is simply that the use of sCO2 as the working fluid in a Brayton cycle requires less work to convert a given thermal input to electricity. In general, increased efficiency represents increased output for the same thermal input, regardless of the thermal source (natural gas, nuclear, solar or coal). Where fuel costs are a significant portion of overall costs (coal and natural gas fired plants), the benefit is reduced fuel costs. Where capital investments are high (nuclear and concentrating solar power), the benefit is increased output for the initial investment.

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IdeaLab sCO2 Power Cycle Benefits as AIP
IdeaLab sCO2 AIP power conversion technology offers a number of benefits over competing AIP Technologies. Most important of all is having 25% higher volume power density (Figure 1) makes IdeaLab AIP power system a strong candidate while the weight stays half of the competing AIP technologies such Fuel Cell and Stirling (Figure 2).

Other benefit is increased efficiency (resulting in increased electricity/power production for same thermal input) due to using sCO2 that provides extra 7 points compared to close challenger fuel cells (Figure 3).

IdeaLab sCO2 AIP system consists of high pressure piping loop that allows depths of 1200 m without any other CO2 disposal pump system on board. Excess CO2 can be stored in vessel if desired.

IdeaLab sCO2 AIP power module is capable of providing up to 4MW electric power. Traction system could be configured so that 4MW burst of energy can be directed to drive system. This is serious advantage over other existing AIP technologies that has limited low speeds due to maximum power drainage problems.

Due to innovative hybrid catalytic combustion chamber; diesel, JP-8 or liquefied natural gas can be used as fuel. Based on conceptual mission analysis, with 100 tons of diesel fuel, sCO2 AIP system could potentially stay submerged 90 days and provide 20,000 km mission range between refuels. This unsurpassed capability compared to existing AIP technologies gives a conventional submarine nuclear-submarine like potency and stealth. Also having high speed turbomachinery as an inherent design future mutes all the noise concerns that a diesel or stirling engine has.

Challenges
All these benefits brings up new challenges as well. Before the benefits of sCO2 AIP power cycle can be realized, it must be shown to be ready and reliable. In concert with the Undersecretaries for Defence Industries (SSM), IdeaLab has been conducting research and development to deliver a technology that is ready for field implementation. In fact, IdeaLab has adopted the following mission statement “By the end of FY 2018, IdeaLab shall develop a fully operational up to 1 MWe R&D Demonstration sCO2 Brayton Power Conversion System that will allow the systematic identification and retirement of technical risks and testing of components for the marine application of this technology.” Ongoing activities in support of that mission include:

  • Confirm viability of existing components (bearings and gas seals) and suitability of materials,
  • Accommodate a wide range of operating parameters and applications,
  • Integrate and scale up existing technologies into a new application, and
  • Develop robust operating procedures for operating at critical point.
Future Applications
sCO2 power cycles are potentially applicable to a wide variety of power-generation applications. Nuclear power, concentrated solar thermal, fossil fuel boilers, geothermal, and floating shipboard propulsion systems have all been identified as favourable applications for sCO2 cycles and would replace traditional steam Rankine cycles.

We will end this article by discussing briefly competing existing technologies.

Stirling Engines
The original Stirling Engine was patented in 1816 by British engineer Robert Stirling as a rival to the steam engine. Although successful, it was largely replaced by the electric motor in the early 1900s and almost forgotten, until the Swedes looked for clever ways to propel a submarine. The engine’s heat is produced in a combustion chamber but it is separated from the actual engine. The heat is transferred to the engine’s working gas (e.g. oxygen), operating in a completely closed system. The working gas forces the pistons in the engine to move, thus producing mechanical energy. Although Stirling engines are well tested and simple, they are relatively bulky, comparatively noisy due to moving parts. Limits the submarine’s operating depth to about 200 m when in use.

Fuel Cells
Fuel cells mix oxygen with a hydrogen-rich chemical to produce an electric current. Fuel cells use an electrochemical reaction in which oxygen and a hydrogen-rich fuel combine to form water, and electricity. Unlike internal combustion engines, the fuel is not combusted. Instead the energy is released electrocatalytically. Fuel Cell AIP was developed in the 1980s for the German Navy. The main system in use today is the German designed Seimens PEM (Polymer Electrolyte Module), but Indian and American firms also supply them for AIP submarines. Fuel cells have a high power density and generally provide the longest endurance of current AIP systems. They are very quiet and the technology is seen as offering further potential. Major downside is Fuel cells are being expensive and complex.

MESMA
MESMA is a French system which runs a steam turbine off the chemical reaction between ethanol and oxygen. In many respects the system is based on the nuclear propulsion but with an alternative heat source. Only Pakistan fields this type of AIP currently. MESMA has a high power output potentially allowing greatest underwater speed but it is relatively thirsty, noisy and has complex plumbing.

Power to Volume;
Most important of all is having 25% higher volume power density (Figure 1)
Q7PWaA.jpg



Power to weight;
Weight half of the competing AIP technologies such Fuel Cell and Stirling (Figure 2).
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Power production efficiency;
Other benefit is increased efficiency (resulting in increased electricity/power production for same thermal input) due to using sCO2 that provides extra 7 points compared to close challenger fuel cells (Figure 3).
bGvYrY.jpg



Size comparison
AAOZLFOTO_11816716_040520171144250000_D_GEN_20170504000000_aa-picture-20170504-11816716.jpg



Model
aL6yP4.jpg
 

Nilgiri

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^^^ Published in 1985, this summary captures the basic snapshot of the US space program up to that year...an interesting style of presentation not found in the modern documentaries we have today.

The program (mostly NASA) was/is the gold reference for comparing/contrasting with other countries at the same time (notably USSR) and also after (China, India, Japan, EU etc) by looking at the development and deployment and re-development and maturity stages of involved systems and technologies. The apex in my opinion was the apollo 11 mission.

It must be said that one must also account for the raw monetary+intellectual availability and assignment involved from the get go when comparing across countries though.
 

Nilgiri

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I know bunch of members dont like this vlogger, but I had to post this given the sheer level of old school engineering concentrated in one area.

I mean steam powered + belt-driven system (you can see all the mechanical analogues to electrical stuff we take for granted today to source and distribute power)....and what I'm going to call a cam-controlled saw lathe and dremel lathe lol....for the actual production side of the item.


I've always been super fascinated with this kind of stuff.
 

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Two women scientists win Nobel Chemistry Prize for gene-editing tool​



Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer Doudna of the US won the Nobel Prize for developing “molecular scissors” to edit genes, offering the promise of one day curing a host of inherited diseases.​

French researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry Emmanuelle Charpentier attends a press conference in Berlin, on October 7, 2020.
French researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry Emmanuelle Charpentier attends a press conference in Berlin, on October 7, 2020. (AFP)
Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer Doudna of the US have won the Nobel Chemistry Prize for the gene-editing technique known as the CRISPR-Cas9 DNA snipping "scissors," the first time a Nobel science prize has gone to a women-only team.

Using the tool, "researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision," the Nobel jury said.

"This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true."

READ MORE: Nobel Prize week commences amid pandemic

The technique has been tipped for a Nobel nod several times in the past, but speaking to reporters in Stockholm via telephone link Charpentier said the call was still a surprise.

"Strangely enough I was told a number of times (it might happen) but when it happens you are very surprised and you feel that it's not real," she said.

Charpentier, 51, and Doudna, 56, are just the sixth and seventh women to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Speaking at a Berlin press conference later in the day, Charpentier said the fact that women were being honoured reflected a changing field with more female scientists.

"Science, fundamental science, becomes slowly, but hopefully surely, a world of female scientists as leaders, and it reflects what is happening in our days," she said.

READ MORE: Trio wins 2020 Nobel physics award for black hole research

Rewriting 'the code of life'

While researching a common harmful bacteria, Charpentier discovered a previously unknown molecule – part of the bacteria's ancient immune system that disarms viruses by snipping off parts of their DNA.

After publishing her research in 2011, Charpentier worked with Doudna to recreate the bacteria's genetic scissors, simplifying the tool so it was easier to use and apply to other genetic material.

They then reprogrammed the scissors to cut any DNA molecule at a predetermined site – paving the way for scientists to rewrite the code of life where the DNA is snipped.

The CRISPR/Cas9 tool has already contributed to significant gains in crop resilience, altering their genetic code to better withstand drought and pests, and led to innovative cancer treatments.

READ MORE: Three win Nobel in Chemistry for work on lithium-ion batteries

Professor Pernilla Wittung Stafshede (L) and Goran K Hansson, secretary general of the Academy of Sciences announce the winners of the 2020 Nobel prize in Chemistry shown on the screen French researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry Emmanuelle Charpentier (L) and US professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology, Jennifer Doudna at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, on October 7, 2020.
Professor Pernilla Wittung Stafshede (L) and Goran K Hansson, secretary general of the Academy of Sciences announce the winners of the 2020 Nobel prize in Chemistry shown on the screen French researcher in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry Emmanuelle Charpentier (L) and US professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology, Jennifer Doudna at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, on October 7, 2020. (AFP)
'Enormous power'

"There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all. It has not only revolutionised basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to ground-breaking new medical treatments," Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a statement.

Charpentier currently works as the director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, Germany, while Doudna is a professor of biochemistry at the University of California.

"Only imagination sets the limit for what this chemical tool, that's too small to be visible to our eyes, can be used for in the future," Pernilla Wittung Stafshede of the Nobel Committee told reporters.

The professor of chemical biology also noted that it had been widely adopted even though it had only been around for eight years.

Rogue practice

It is not uncommon for scientists to have to wait for decades for their work to be recognised for a Nobel Prize.

"I think the implications of this new technique of CRISPR are so obvious that they are going to really have an impact in the long range that you don't really need to wait," Luis Echegoyen, president of the American Chemical Society, told AFP.

Another question has been whether the CRISPR technique perhaps was a better fit for the medicine prize.

Echegoyen said that the discoveries could have been deserving in both categories, but added that the technique was "really very chemistry centric."

"At the end of the day, all of these things distill down to hydrogen bonding and pi stacking interactions, so it's all chemistry, and that's what made this whole thing possible," he said.

CRISPR's relative simplicity and widespread applicability has however triggered the imaginations of rogue practitioners.

In 2018 in China, scientist He Jiankui caused an international scandal – and his excommunication from the scientific community – when he used CRISPR to create what he called the first gene-edited humans.

READ MORE: Why the Nobel Prize is no longer noble

The biophysicist said he had altered the DNA of human embryos that became twin girls Lulu and Nana.

His goal was to create a mutation that would prevent the girls from contracting HIV, even though there was no specific reason to put them through the process.

"Ethics, laws and regulations are extremely important here as well," Wittung Stafshede said.

$1.1 million prize

The first time a woman was honoured with the chemistry prize was in 1911, when Marie Curie, who also took the physics prize in 1903, won after discovering the elements radium and polonium.

Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie won in 1935 and later winners included Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1964), Ada Yonath (2009) and Frances Arnold (2018).

Charpentier and Doudna will share the prize sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million, 950,000 euros).

They would normally receive their Nobel from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, but the pandemic means it has been replaced by a televised ceremony showing the laureates receiving their awards in their home countries.

READ MORE: Donald Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize
 

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NVIDIA Announces ‘Cambridge-1’: UK’s Most Powerful Supercomputer For AI Healthcare Research​

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Source: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/...mputer-dedicated-to-ai-research-in-healthcare
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NVIDIA announces that it is building a supercomputer named “Cambridge-1,” claiming to be the United Kingdom’s most powerful supercomputer. It aims to help healthcare researchers to solve current medical challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
It will be an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD™ system with the capacity to deliver 400 petaflops of AI performance and 8 petaflops of Linpack performance. Usually, traditional supercomputers may take years to deploy, but the modular DGX SuperPOD architecture enables the system to be installed and operate in as little as a few weeks. Because of this, it would rank No. 29 on the latest TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Moreover, it is expected to become one of the top 3 most energy-efficient supercomputers on the current Green500 list.
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NVIDIA has previously announced that it will create an AI Center of Excellence in Cambridge that will feature a new Arm-based supercomputer, a good platform for AI researchers, scientists, and start-ups to collaborate and work across the UK. With the progress of these plans, Cambridge-1 will become a part of this center. NVIDIA plans to invest around £40 million ($51.7 million) in Cambridge-1.
Four key focus areas
This system’s main motive is to support the UK ecosystem and healthcare researchers in finding solutions to the pressing challenges and developing further. Thus, it focuses on typically four points mentioned as follows:
  • Joint industry research: It focuses on solving large-scale healthcare and data-science problems, which are not solvable because of their size.
  • University-granted computer time: Access to NVIDIA GPU time will be donated as a resource to specific studies to contribute to the hunt for cures.
  • Support AI start-ups: NVIDIA will allow opportunities to learn and collaborate with start-ups to develop innovative changes.
  • Educate future AI practitioners: It will provide a platform for the upcoming generations to gain hands-on experience.
GSK and AstraZeneca are among the very first pharmaceutical companies to harness Cambridge-1 for research. Other top companies, tech start-ups, and academia and research members are planning to use this for solo and joint projects concerned about better patient care, diagnosis, and delivery of critical medicines and vaccines around the world.

 

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The world’s first room-temperature superconductor​



For the first time, engineers and physicists from the University of Rochester have synthesized new superconducting material at room temperature. They also developed a process that may help ‘break down barriers and open the door to many potential applications.’

This superconducting material seems to conduct electricity without any resistance at temperatures of about 15 °C. That’s a new record for superconductivity, a phenomenon usually associated with very cold temperatures.

Ranga Dias, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and physics and astronomy, said, “Developing materials that are superconducting—without electrical resistance and expulsion of a magnetic field at room temperature—is the “holy grail” of condensed matter physics. Sought for more than a century, such materials can change the world as we know it.”

In establishing the new precedent, scientists combined hydrogen with carbon and sulfur to photochemically synthesize simple-organic derived carbonaceous sulfur hydride in a diamond anvil cell, an examination gadget used to inspect minuscule measures of materials under extraordinarily high pressure.

The carbonaceous sulfur hydride exhibited superconductivity at around 58 degrees Fahrenheit and a weight of around 39 million pounds for each square inch (psi).

Dias said, “Because of the limits of low temperature, materials with such extraordinary properties have not quite transformed the world in the way that many might have imagined. However, our discovery will break down these barriers and open the door to many potential applications.”

According to scientists, the applications for this new superconducting material includes:

  • Power grids transmit electricity without the loss of up to 200 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of the energy that now occurs due to resistance in the wires.
  • A new way to propel levitated trains and other forms of transportation.
  • Medical imaging and scanning techniques, such as MRI and magnetocardiography.
  • Faster, more efficient electronics for digital logic and memory device technology.
Dias says, “The next challenge is finding ways to create the room-temperature superconducting materials at lower pressures, so they will be economical to produce in greater volume. In comparison to the millions of pounds of pressure created in diamond anvil cells, the atmospheric pressure of Earth at sea level is about 15 psi.”

 

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Nvidia will supply hardware for Leonardo, a 10-exaflop supercomputer​


@Kyle_L_Wiggers
October 15, 2020 9:00 AMAI
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In January, Italy’s Ministry of Education, University, and Research (MUIR), National Institute of Nuclear Physics, and International School of Advanced Studies unveiled Leonardo, a new supercomputer to be constructed at CINECA capable of “exascale” computing for research and innovation. The hardware partners for the project, which was approved by the European Joint Undertaking EuroHPC, a joint supercomputing collaboration between national governments and the European Union, weren’t initially revealed. But Nvidia today confirmed that it will supply Ampere-based graphics cards and Mellanox HDR 200GB/s Infiniband networking to Leonardo to deliver up to 10 exaflops of half-precision floating-point (FP16) performance.
Leonardo, which will be funded through MUIR, is expected to handle computing workloads involving drug discovery, space exploration, and weather modeling. Scientists will be provided access to Leonardo to identify proteins that can be targeted with specific drugs and to predict extreme weather conditions, as well as to analyze data from electromagnetic waves, gravitational waves, and neutrinos.
Leonardo will be built from Atos Sequana nodes, each with four Nvidia Tensor Core graphics cards and a single Intel processor of an unknown architecture. (Atos is an Nvidia systems partner headquartered in France.) The Mellanox HDR InfiniBand Dragonfly+ connectivity will feature in-network computing engines that enable low latency and high throughput, while the Ampere graphics cards will be capable of accelerating over 1,800 commonly used applications by up to 70 times, including Quantum Espresso for material science, SPECFEM3D for geoscience, and MILC for quantum physics. On the operating system side, Nvidia says Leonardo will run the same CUDA software as CINECA’s existing Nvidia-powered system.

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Leonardo will join a network of supercomputers — EuroHPC — planned for the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, and Slovenia. The Luxembourg-based MelaXina system, which will focus on financial services, manufacturing, and health care applications, will connect 800 Nvidia A100 graphics cards on HDR 200Gbps InfiniBand links for up to 500 petaflops of performance. As for the new Vega supercomputer at the Institute of Information Science in Maribor, Slovenia, it will include 240 A100 graphics cards and 1,800 HDR 200Gbps InfiniBand endpoints. Lastly, The IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center will host what’s expected to become the most powerful supercomputer in the Czech Republic: an Apollo 6500-based system with 560 A100 graphics cards to deliver nearly 350 petaflops of performance for academic and industrial simulations, data analytics, and AI.

Leonardo, MelaXina, Vega, and the IT4Innovations machine are the latest in a series of supercomputing wins for Nvidia. In October at its annual GPU Technology Conference, the company revealed it will contribute hardware and expertise to what is expected to be the U.K.’s fastest supercomputer, Cambridge-1. And in July, Nvidia announced plans to build what it claims will be the fastest supercomputer in academia by enhancing the capabilities of the University of Florida’s HiPerGator supercomputer with the company’s DGX SuperPod architecture.

“The EuroHPC technology roadmap for exascale in Europe is opening doors for rapid growth and innovation in HPC and AI,” Marc Hamilton, Nvidia VP of solutions architecture and engineering, said. “We’re working with CINECA and Atos to accelerate scientific discovery across a broad range of application domains, providing a platform to usher in the era of exascale computing.”

 

Nilgiri

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Many years back I took apart my parent's cuckoo clock to fix it given time it spent in storage (long story) that took its toll (at their request because they couldn't easily find someone to do that and figured I was an "Engineer").....

All somewhat unsuccessfully but boy did I learn a lot in the exploratory careful surgery. (Happy ending it did get fixed in the end by a refurbisher we found later).

All those interested in such intricate mechanics (and/or classic westerns) might find this interesting.

Probably greatest ending to a western (IMO) has the pocketwatch chimes scene (spoiler alert if you haven't watched this movie and plan to etc):


Obviously the chimes in the movie are representative...given actual watch chimes (mechanical) of this compact size... won't sound anything like that or be that long (or have orchestral accompaniment heh)...

So I got around to looking up what such might actually sound like and what their mechanism is etc and I found this guy:



Absolutely fascinating stuff I must say. Here is a really intricate one:


I am going to look into getting one for my dad for his next birthday.
 

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Drillship Fatih gets its robot.
The robot named Kaşif (pathfinder) will provide video feed from a depth of down to 3000 meters.
Also has a gripping arm to manipulate things.

 
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Zafer

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eSIM technology locally developed in Turkey

 

Nilgiri

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In my opinion Yamato/Musashi deserves a thread.

Should I create a dedicated naval design thread and merge the yamato posts there?

We can also archive other notable ship designs and discuss etc.
 

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CSC: One of the world’s mightiest supercomputers LUMI will lift European research and competitiveness to a new level​

By Communication from CSC

One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, LUMI, will start it's operations in CSC’s data center in Kajaani, Finland, next year. The peak performance of LUMI is an astonishing 552 petaflop/s. To date, the world’s fastest computer, Fugaku in Japan, reaches peak performance of 513 petaflop/s. When LUMI's operations start next year, it will be one of the world's fastest supercomputers.
HPE%20Cray%20EX%20supercomputer_1.png

A sketch image of LUMI, a HPC Cray EX supercomputer. Copyright: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
LUMI is a unique European supercomputer endeavor, with ten European countries and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) investing in one joint system. It is set to boost research, employment and competitiveness throughout Europe. The procurement process of LUMI is now complete, and the system supplier is Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), providing an HPE Cray EX supercomputer with next generation AMD EPYC™ CPUs and AMD Instinct™ GPUs. In addition to the remarkable computing power, LUMI is also one of the world’s most advanced platforms for artificial intelligence and it will be one of the world’s best known scientific instruments throughout its lifetime.
– Today we mark an important step forward in the realisation of the European High-Performance Computing strategy. The pre-exascale supercomputer hosted by the LUMI consortium will be among the top 5 in the world. Together with the other EuroHPC pre-exascale and petascale supercomputers that will be deployed in 2021, LUMI supercomputer will help Europe’s public and private users address many daunting research and innovation problems across different areas from weather and climate change through cybersecurity to drug discovery and personalised medicine. LUMI supercomputer aligns the Digital and Green Deal policies of the European Commission, using 100% renewable carbon neutral energy. Moreover, the heat generated will provide 20 percent of the district heat of the area, being one of the most efficient supercomputers in the world, says Khalil Rouhana, Deputy Director-General of the Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect) of the European Commission.
– Once operational in mid-2021, the LUMI supercomputer will be one of the most competitive and green supercomputers in the world! Such leadership-class system will support European researchers, industry and public sector, in better understanding and responding to complex challenges and transforming them into innovation opportunities in sectors like health, weather forecasting or urban and rural planning, says the Executive Director of EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, Anders Dam Jensen.
– We are committed to supporting the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) to seize opportunities in next-generation supercomputing and bolster R&D in science, advance innovation and unlock economic growth. We are honored to continue collaborating with EuroHPC JU, and through our partnership with AMD, build one of the world’s fastest pre-exascale supercomputers for Europe.”, says Peter Ungaro, senior vice president and general manager, high-performance computing (HPC) and mission critical solutions (MCS), HPE.
– The reliability of CSC and Finland made the European Commission and ten partner countries to invest in one pan-European high-performance computing and data management infrastructure in Finland. We have to keep up the excellent collaboration in order to maximize this investment to benefit society on a larger scale, says Permanent Secretary Anita Lehikoinen from Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland
LUMI is an investment of over 200 million euros, covering the whole lifecycle of the system. It will lift Europe to the forefront of high-performance computing (HPC) and research. Exploiting the potential of the data economy is a crucial for Europe’s competitiveness.

– The investment will make CSC data center one of the world’s largest players in the field of HPC. The joint procurement process with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and ten European countries has proceeded on schedule despite the global pandemic, thanks to the vast know-how of the LUMI consortium and the excellent collaboration. LUMI's astonishing computing power combined with a highly modern artificial intelligence platform and data management infrastructure will help European researchers tackle unforeseen research challenges, says CSC's Managing Director Kimmo Koski.
The uptake of HPC will remarkably increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe remarkably. Up to one-fifth of LUMI’s resources will be available for industry and SMEs.
– The technology we are using is strongly based on mathematical modelling: analyses, artificial intelligence, simulations and optimization. Therefore, powerful computing capacity and data management infrastructure are of the utmost importance for us. The LUMI infrastructure will open up entirely new possibilities for us, which we may exploit, says Anna-Maria Henell, CEO of Disior Ltd. Disior is a Finnish company developing software for analysing medical images in 3D.
Data center CSC
This is how the LUMI data center will look like. Copyright: Synopsis Architects Ltd. and Geometria Architecture Ltd

 

Anmdt

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Should I create a dedicated naval design thread and merge the yamato posts there?

We can also archive other notable ship designs and discuss etc.
Or even better if it is made under name of a general historical ship designs?
We can even make modern ship designs thread to discuss newer or future to be designs.
I have a few notes on these 2 ships, and there might be some other from past. I can contribute some to a particular thread.
 
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Tesla is adding a new ‘4D’ radar with twice the range for self-driving

Fred Lambert
- Oct. 22nd 2020 4:05 pm ET

@FredericLambert



Tesla-Autopilot-Radar-e1603395743425.jpg

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We learn that Tesla is looking to add a new “4D” radar with twice the range of its current radar in order to help its self-driving effort.

Tesla Loves cameras and radar, hates lidar​

Early on its Autopilot and self-driving effort, Tesla made a clear decision to bet on computer vision powered by camera and complemented with radar.
CEO Elon Musk famously hates the use of lidar sensors for autonomous driving systems.
Yesterday, he even told an analyst that Tesla wouldn’t use lidar sensors. Early ones were known to be expensive but have come down in price in recent years, even if they were free:
I mean totally free, well, I think even if it was free, we wouldn’t put it on.
Instead, Tesla is using eight surround cameras around its vehicles complemented by 12 ultrasonic sensors and a front-facing radar.
Tesla-Autopilot-sensors.jpg

All Tesla vehicles since 2016 have been equipped with this suit of sensors or at least similar versions of it, as some hardware updates have been introduced over the years.
But the sensors might be getting their biggest update since the introduction of Autopilot 2.0.

Tesla updating its radar​

For the radar, Tesla has been Continental’s ARS410 automotive radar with a range of 160 meters (525 ft), according to the automaker.
Now we learn that Tesla is looking to update the radar with a new 4D sensor technology from an Israeli startup called Arbe Robotics.

We have two different indications that Tesla is preparing to move to the new radar technology.
Firstly, the Tesla software hacker known as “green,” who has reliably been finding hints of new features by sleuthing in Tesla’s software updates, alerted us that the automaker added a new radar option called ‘Phoenix” in a recent software update:


Phoenix is the name of Arbe’s radar system. From the company’s website:
Phoenix, Arbe’s radar chipset solution, services real-world driving needs by identifying, assessing, and responding to challenging scenarios from the common to the exceptional with 4D ultra-high resolution real-time imaging. No matter the speed, elevation, proximity, size, or surrounding weather and lighting conditions, Phoenix differentiates true threats from false alarms to ensure a safe road ahead for drivers, pedestrians, and other vulnerable road users.
Electrek has contacted Arbe for a comment, but the company is not answering inquiries.
Secondly, a source told Electrek that Tesla is preparing to update the Model 3 fascia and new sensors would be part of that update.
Of note, we recently reported on a new Tesla prototype spotted in rare camouflage with a possibly updated fascia in Los Angeles earlier this week.

The Arbe Phoenix 4D radar​

The company describes its technology as a breakthrough for radar:
Arbe’s proprietary baseband processing chip integrates radar processing unit (RPU) architecture with embedded radar signal processing algorithms to convert massive amounts of raw data in real-time while maintaining low silicon power consumption. Arbe’s patent pending processing chip manages up to 48 Rx channels in combination with 48 Tx channels in real-time, generating 30 frames per second of full 4D image, with equivalent processing throughput of 3 Tb/sec.
According to the specs, it would almost double the range of Tesla’s current radar to 300 meters (984 feet).
Tesla-phoenix-arbe-radar.gif

They describe their technology as enabling the production of a full 4D image, which is something Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been talking about doing with Tesla’s Autopilot rewrite.
Musk recently said:
We are moving from things like isolated pictures and doing image recognition on pictures that are harshly correlated in time but not very well and transitioning to a kind of 4D, where it’s like video essentially. You’re thinking about the world in three dimensions and the fourth dimension being time. So that architectural change, which has been under way for some time but has not really been rolled out to anyone in the production fleet, is what really matters for Full Self-Driving.
Arbe’s radar could help Tesla to add the “time” dimension to its recognition system.

The company says that its system enables “distance, height, depth, and speed to simultaneously be assessed in high resolution.”

Electrek’s Take​

Now the big question is what the rollout is going to look like, and does Tesla actually need the new radar technology to deliver a full self-driving system?
My guess is that it will certainly help, but Tesla has been adamant that they can deliver FSD on the current hardware.
Now the next question is that even if it’s not essential and it’s just Tesla improving their system with the latest technology, are they going to allow retrofits?
Based on Tesla’s history, I think that’s not really likely.
Tesla hasn’t been very open to that other than for its FSD computer, but it really had to do that to deliver the promised capabilities.
We will keep a close eye on the rollout and keep you updated as we learn more.

 

Saithan

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