Maybe the camera is powered by the solar system.
Or it was just FREAKIN' out.
Well, looks like one tile is dead at the moment.
Unfortunately, there are excessive amounts of journalism that fail in the accuracy metric.
Some hope here:
http://interestingengineering.com/solar-roadways-engineering-failure/Maverick Baker names at least some of the shortcomings.
Edit:
Scott Brusaw's "Behind the scenes" article can be found here
http://www.solarroadways.com/Blog/Show?b=8It gives some interesting insights (PCB of a controller shown, discussion of LEDs used, bus, light sensor, heating etc) and ... well ... I must admit that it is even more complex and expensive than expected.
Seems that electronics and computing power in each single tile alone is an issue to address - can't imagine to bury such an incredible amount of micro-controllers in the ground
Edit:
Scott Brusaw's "Behind the scenes" article can be found here http://www.solarroadways.com/Blog/Show?b=8
It gives some interesting insights (PCB of a controller shown, discussion of LEDs used, bus, light sensor, heating etc) and ... well ... I must admit that it is even more complex and expensive than expected.
Complex? It reads like a (bad) school project to me! I mean, a micro, reading a light sensor and driving a small LED array, hardly going to need a 100MHz ARM processor now is it?? lol
No the real issue is that it is still pointless. Cars have lights on, and we don't have, and never have had, a need for configurable road markings (even if you could see them) and soon, peer-to-peer vehicle networking is going to make all that existing stuff obsolete, and as mentioned a million times before, all that pointless feature content actually renders the primary function (generating electricity) null and void as well.........
Scott Brusaw's "Behind the scenes" article can be found here http://www.solarroadways.com/Blog/Show?b=8
From the article:
We experimented with a true RGB LED, but experienced some problems: to make white, you illuminate all three (red, green, and blue). That requires three times the power of illuminating a single dedicated white LED.
This doesn't make sense. Is it only full on or full off? If it is PWM controlled, then you would drive each LED with only 1/3 the duty cycle and it would need the same power and would have the same brightness as a white LED which is on all the time.
No the real issue is that it is still pointless. Cars have lights on, and we don't have, and never have had, a need for configurable road markings
No adverts on the roads??? Just think of the revenue!!!
Also: All the roads could turn red to warn people in the event of a nuclear war.
Or ... change a whole lane to blue to tell people to clear it whenever an important person needs to get somewhere.
The uses for video displays on roads are limitless.
The uses for video displays on roads are limitless.
Gran Turismo ... real races with competitors from all over the world - and nobody has to travel abroad. Just set out a piece of track which is the same for each player and drive your real car down the road with your competitors displayed around you!
(Would be better if they could do 3D.)
[...]
No the real issue is that it is still pointless. Cars have lights on, and we don't have, and never have had, a need for configurable road markings (even if you could see them) [...]
There is a need for reconfigureable road markings, e.g. around convention centers and sport places. I know one example in Germany (Messe Hannover) where a 4-lane-road can be reconfigured, giving 3 lanes toward the convention center in the morning and 2 or 3 outwards in the afternoon to reduce traffic jams. This solution is done by moveable barriers, which requires a lot of work to reconfigure ...
Another maybe useful case could be a dynamic display of speed limits (which is also done on some german highways with overhead led signs).
Don't get me wrong, i think solar roadways or LEDs in road surfaces is a waste of resources, but there are use cases of configureable road markings
There is a need for reconfigureable road markings, e.g. around convention centers and sport places. I know one example in Germany (Messe Hannover) where a 4-lane-road can be reconfigured, giving 3 lanes toward the convention center in the morning and 2 or 3 outwards in the afternoon to reduce traffic jams. This solution is done by moveable barriers, which requires a lot of work to reconfigure
I like this solution. It's in a couple of places in the USA, one of which is the Golden Gate.
There is a need for reconfigureable road markings, e.g. around convention centers and sport places. I know one example in Germany (Messe Hannover) where a 4-lane-road can be reconfigured, giving 3 lanes toward the convention center in the morning and 2 or 3 outwards in the afternoon to reduce traffic jams. This solution is done by moveable barriers, which requires a lot of work to reconfigure
I like this solution. It's in a couple of places in the USA, one of which is the Golden Gate.
That's gold.
Classic nice engineering solution to a problem.
That's gold.
Classic nice engineering solution to a problem.
We (in Holland) have lanes in the middle of the road that can be assigned either way by signs and barriers. Not that flexible because you can only enter/exit at the ends but a lot faster to assign.
That's brilliant, and you don't even have to stop the traffic.
The way it works means there's no danger to anybody* - neither side of the road gets narrower at any time, you just get an extra lane as you go past the machine.
(*) Apart from people gawking at the machine as they go past it.
In a few years with self driving cars, all barriers, markers etc. will become obsolete, and some more years and we don't need to drive to work at all anymore, meeting all inside VR from home.
I like this solution. It's in a couple of places in the USA, one of which is the Golden Gate.
Similar/Same system used on the Auckland Harbour Bridge here in NZ.
Similar/Same system used on the Auckland Harbour Bridge here in NZ.
Indeed, and has been in use since 1990.
National Geographic just published an interview with Solar Roadways founders Scott and Julie Brusaw:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/chasing-genius-solar-roadways/According to Scott in the interview, all the problems brought up by the skeptics have been address except for the price and massive manufacturing will solve that. Hmmm... I don't think they are fully disclosing
all the issues other than price that have not yet been addressed.
When I'm bored, I'll plot the Solar aroadways data versus the PVWatt predictions. What appears to be happening is what everyone predicted is that the output would tank as the panels aged and became soiled. It's been nothing but bluebird days here and the output of those panels is worse now than it was in late spring. The peak daily output since startup has been 1.3kWh with the last two weeks running in the 0.8x kWh range.
The roadway markings trial was such a train wreck that they set it back to disco mode.
Nothing has been solved. Absolutely nothing.
National Geographic just published an interview with Solar Roadways founders Scott and Julie Brusaw...
Came here to mention this, but got ninja'd.
The author Christina Nunez, while acknowledging the existence of criticism, fails to make an effort and actually include some of that criticism in the article, (and one would assume) research that criticism, which makes for quite dishonest journalism, if you ask me.
Perhaps the editor should be made aware of the practice and asked to include some of that criticism.
NatGeo site
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/corrections/ says:
"To send us feedback, email us at editor@natgeo.com"
Dave, don't you have that shirt that says something about feedback?
Dave, don't you have that shirt that says something about feedback?
That talks about negative feedback... You know, when part of the output of an electrical or control system is used to affect the input in such a way as to reduce error and for the output to be a more faithful representation of the input...
Hey! That still works for this case ... ... in theory, anyway.
I was bored. Here's the daily output over time. Next, I'll add daily peak output. Things are not going well. It looks like part of the system failed in early July.
A system with 1320W nameplate capacity has been so poorly implemented that it's peak power output is
42W 168W.
(correction due to the fact that the inverters report on 15 minute intervals, not hourly.)
^^
Can you show us how you worked out the peak(?) power output of 45W please?
I'm a bit confused - the peak that I see is 1.3kWh on one day during week starting May 7th. This implied a total energy output of 4680000J Divide this by (24hours x 60mins x 60s) brings an average wattage of 54W that day??
^^
Can you show us how you worked out the peak(?) power output of 45W please?
I'm a bit confused - the peak that I see is 1.3kWh on one day during week starting May 7th. This implied a total energy output of 4680000J Divide this by (24hours x 60mins x 60s) brings an average wattage of 54W that day??
Good catch, the system reports in 15 minute increments it turns out. Peak output was 42*4= 168W, *NOT* 42W.
Still, that's 12% of the rated output at noon. I would expect normal solar panels laid flat on the ground to product at least 3-4X that number.
It really looks like the system is failing. The attached images are from today. There is full sunlight, no shading at all, but the output is about 100W right now. The max output is down about 25% from the spring peak of 130W.
One could have simply bought a $250 panel and a $200 micro inverter, laid them flat on the ground and done as well or better than this project.
OMG, Solar freaking disco walkways is a fail !!
Somebody has news about the french 1km test road ?
OMG, Solar freaking disco walkways is a fail !!
History is bound to repeat itself, so somebody has to graph the numbers ...