The road transportation systems that we use to shuttle people and goods are on the verge of becoming “smart.” At the heart of this smart transportation transformation is the convergence of internet-of-things (IoT) technologies and transportation systems, Dr. Steve Griffiths, Vice President for Research and Interim Associate Provost at Masdar Institute, highlighted while addressing the IoT in Transportation Conference in Abu Dhabi earlier this week.

IoT technologies – which utilize sensors, communication networks and data analytics to transform information from cars, phones, packages, traffic lights and other objects into actionable insights – are empowering drivers and transit operators with the information they need to make transportation more efficient, sustainable and safe.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi have already begun implementing smart transportation solutions – which can improve safety, sustainability, on-road communications, and transportation system monitoring and management – but further research and development of the critical technologies that will allow the full potential of a smart transportation system to be realized is required, Dr. Griffiths explained.

That is why a growing number of research projects at Masdar Institute are focused on advancing smart transportation solutions, including a project that leverages IoT technologies to create a smart lighting system, a feasibility study on the potential uptake of electric vehicles in the UAE, and the development of sensors that can improve a plug-in hybrid vehicle’s energy efficiency.

IOT FOR SMART STREET LIGHTING

Dr. Mihai Sanduleanu, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Masdar Institute is leading an innovative IoT project that aims to turn Abu Dhabi’s street lights into smart devices that will reduce streetlights’ energy demand, aid in traffic speed monitoring, and provide safer lighting during extreme weather events, like fog or dust storms.

To make the streetlights smart, Dr. Sanduleanu will develop radio frequency (RF) sensors that will be fixed to the streetlight poles, which will collect and transmit data about weather – such as fog, humidity, wind and dust conditions – and traffic – such as vehicle speed – that will help authorities in weather monitoring and in the planning and speed monitoring of traffic. The RF sensors will also enable adaptive dimming of street lighting, so that the light intensity of the streetlight will increase gradually as an object approaches and fade away quickly as the object moves away. This adaptive capability will improve energy efficiency while also promoting driver safety.

The proposed system will further improve the street lighting system’s energy-efficiency by replacing the high power consuming metal halide lamps typically used in streetlights with LED lamps, which require significantly less power to produce the same amount of brightness, resulting in an energy saving of 30% to 50%. LEDs also have a longer lifetime – between 10-15 years longer than halide lamps – which would result in a 50-70% saving in re-lamping and maintenance costs. Another feature of the smart lighting system that will reduce operating costs is its automatic lamp failure diagnostic system, which will detect any total or partial lamp failures and notify authorities right away for replacement.

The collaborative project, which includes support from du – Emirates Telecommunications Company,  the American University of Ras Al Khaimah and Khalifa University, has a two year timeframe once initiated. The research conducted through the project will position the UAE as a global leader in the development of IoT systems, which is estimated to be worth as much as US$6.2 trillion by 2025, and smart transportation systems, which is set to exceed US$138 billion by 2020.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES IN THE UAE

Reducing fuel consumption is a key component of a smart transportation system, as smart transportation does not only incorporate more intelligent solutions, but also “greener” solutions. The transportation sector accounts for nearly 30% of global final energy consumption – over two-thirds of which is consumed by road transportation alone – underscoring the critical link between smart transportation and energy system innovations.

As electric vehicle adoption and smart transportation share a common focus on efficiency and sustainability, experts say the growing popularity of electric vehicles – sales of electric vehicles have increased 70% from 2014 to 2015 – can be leveraged to advance smart transport goals.

To facilitate the effective adoption of electric vehicles in the UAE, Dr. Sgouris Sgouridis, Associate Professor of Engineering Systems Management at Masdar Institute, has been investigating the benefits and obstacles to electric vehicle adoption in the UAE. His research examines both the economic and technological potential for adoption in Abu Dhabi, with research implications that can be extrapolated across the Gulf.

“We have conducted the first survey in the region to investigate the public willingness to adopt electric vehicles and conducted a techno-economic assessment of how the use of electric vehicles could impact the state- and private-use financing as they interact in the context of fuel subsidies. This interaction suggests that the state is a primary beneficiary when domestic fuel consumption is reduced and therefore should be able to support their adoption through cross-subsidies rather than additional fiscal cost,” he explained.

His research findings asserted that effective electric vehicle adoption in the UAE and other Gulf urban centers would depend on the perception of opportunity costs for fossil fuel use, external cost of pollution and the desire to boost the public profile of these societies.

Dr. Sgouridis advised that if the government decides to subsidize electric vehicles, then it would be better to initially support vehicles that see high utilization, such as those that drive more kilometers on an average day like taxis and commercial fleet vehicles. This method would promote adoption of electric vehicles while ensuring the UAE government is able to derive the greatest benefit from this sustainable transport shift.

“SMART” HYBRIDS

Another Masdar Institute project that focuses directly on the convergence between smart transportation and energy innovation is being led by Assistant Professor of Computing and Information Science Dr. Sid Chi-Kin Chau and PhD student Chien-Ming Tseng to improve the efficient use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and roadways in general.

Dr. Chau and Tseng have developed an app that will promote the more efficient use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and also enhance driver confidence by helping map routes to charging stations and providing ‘distance to empty’ information.

“Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles have a large rechargeable battery and can be plugged-in and recharged from an outlet, allowing them to drive long distances using just electricity. However, many plug-in hybrids adopt a kind of straightforward strategy in a way that they likely run on the electrical battery until reaches its minimal state of charge, and then they switch to the fossil fuel tank. But in some types of driving situations, the electric energy is more efficient, while in other situations, the petrol energy is more efficient. So to make plug-in hybrids more efficient energy consumers overall, we are developing an app that is integrated with a cloud transport system to recommend the ideal driving mode given the driving environment,” Tseng explained. The team tested their research on a Chevrolet Volt.

The problem is that most current plug-in hybrids’ energy systems mainly focus on the car systems, and not as much on human factors, such as driving behavior or traffic conditions. This research aims to optimize a plug-in hybrid vehicle’s energy consumption considering these human factors.

“We estimate that our app could potentially save approximately 20% of fuel consumption if utilized correctly,” Tseng revealed.

The app the team developed can also be used to predict ‘point to empty’ for electric vehicles, which is very useful information as charging stations are not yet plentiful and users have to be careful not to run out of battery charge before reaching the next station. It can also help car users chart the most efficient route for their journeys to reduce idling and city travel, which tends to waste more energy.

The app, which is expected to be released on the Google Play and Apple Store by next year, exemplifies the leveraging of capabilities and expertise in data analytics and cloud computing to develop new technologies that support the UAE’s smart transportation transformation.

CONCLUSION

Transportation is one of the UAE’s targeted National Innovation Strategy sectors for a reason – it is a system on which we all rely to get to our places of work, schools and homes, yet it can pose severe health risks and reduce overall productivity, and is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. To help make the UAE’s transportation system one of the most innovative in the world, researchers at Masdar Institute are leveraging their expertise in IoT technologies and energy system innovations to support the research and development of the technologies needed to transform the current transportation system into one that is smarter, greener and safer.

Zarina Khan, Senior Editor and Erica Solomon, News and Features Writer
30 October 2016

 

This year the UAE has joined more than 100 countries in committing to limit and mitigate climate change by ratifying the Paris Agreement, which is the first universal climate change agreement. The UAE has further delivered on its commitment to environmental sustainability through a new agreement signed in October 2016 that aims to reduce the use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to global warming.

HFCs are gases found in air conditioners, chillers and refrigerators and have a strong impact on global warming, which is why phasing them out has become a top priority in the global efforts to limit HFCs impact on climate change. Unfortunately, the use of HFCs are on the rise, as their even more harmful predecessors, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), are being phased out globally under the Montreal Protocol, which banned their use in 1992.

In support of the UAE’s ambitious efforts to freeze HFC consumption from 2028 as per the recently signed Kigali Amendment, which modifies the Montreal Protocol to preserve the ozone layer, Masdar Institute is conducting several research projects aimed at finding alternative solutions for more environmentally-friendly refrigerants.

“The use of HFCs is rising rapidly as demand for cooling increases, particularly in countries like the UAE, which is experiencing rapid development and a growing population. This is a significant problem as HFCs trap far more heat in the Earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide,” explained Dr. Steve Griffiths, Vice President for Research, Masdar Institute. “This is why the sustainability-focused research at Masdar Institute has set as a priority the development of alternative refrigerants that can help reduce the current and future impacts of cooling systems.”

Air conditioners, chillers and refrigerators exploit the natural cooling process that occurs when a liquid evaporates and withdraws heat from the air. This process is achieved by forcing a liquid to evaporate and condense over and over again, typically in a closed vapor compression system.

A vapor compression cooling system has four main components; the compressor, expansion valve, evaporator and compressor. A liquid refrigerant absorbs heat from the environment, causing it to boil and transform from a liquid to a gas in the evaporator. This evaporative process decreases the temperature of the evaporator coils and a fan blows air over the cooled evaporator coils, which is blown through the air ducts that are connected to different rooms in a home or building. Vapor compression cooling is a closed loop system, so after the refrigerant evaporates, it is circulated to a compressor, which pressurizes the refrigerant vapor and converts it back into a high pressure, high temperature liquid that is fed into the condenser. Here, the refrigerant becomes very hot and heat is rejected to the ambient environment. Then the hot, high pressure refrigerant is fed through an expansion valve, where its pressure and temperature is reduced and is cycled back to the evaporator. The refrigerant flows back and forth until the building reaches the temperature set by the thermostat.

Refrigerants like HFCs evaporate at relatively low temperatures, making them ideally suited for the job of cooling. But scientists and government officials have realized that the benefits of these substances definitely do not outweigh the environmental costs from their potent GHG properties.

When HFCs are released into atmosphere, which happens when equipment gets old or damaged, or at the end of the product’s lifetime, they damage the ozone that protects our planet from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun. When HFCs enter the upper layers of the atmosphere and are struck by the sun’s ultraviolet rays, a chemical reaction occurs, producing chlorine atoms, which then deplete the ozone layer. Thus, finding alternative refrigerants that work as well as HFCs but are also nontoxic and nonflammable is the challenge facing chemists around the world.
Hydrocarbons are one type of environmentally-friendly refrigerant alternative available in great abundance in the hydrocarbon-rich UAE, but due to their flammable nature they must be carefully handled when used as refrigerants. Hydrocarbon refrigerants are actually safe if used within their flammability limits and within closed refrigeration systems, as there is no oxygen present to ignite the fluid.

That is why Dr. TieJun Zhang, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Masdar Institute, is working to find solutions to ensure that hydrocarbon refrigerants can be used safely and effectively through novel vapor compression systems.

“A mechanical compressor is a moving component, which means that safety considerations and reliability are mandatory in order to use flammable hydrocarbon refrigerants,” Dr. Zhang explained. “Ejectors, which are a type of thermal compressor, could provide another option for HVAC systems as they are passive devices that do not require much maintenance.”

UAE National PhD student Saleh Mohamed, under the supervision of Dr. Zhang and Dr. Youssef Shatilla, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Dean of Academic Programs, focused his Master’s thesis on developing a novel ejector cooling system that would enable the use of liquid hydrocarbon refrigerants with low risk. The simple ejector system enables greater flexibility of potential refrigerants (such as those that are flammable) that can be used in compact HVAC systems by significantly reducing the risk of leakage.

Another project to reduce the impact of the UAE’s chiller dependence and resulting HFC emissions was led by Masdar Institute Associate Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Dr. Peter Armstrong. He and his team developed an optimal chiller design for the UAE that offers high performance, energy-efficiency and a reduced life-cycle cost. The project, which was sponsored by the Executive Affairs Authority of Abu Dhabi, proposed a performance level 40% above the minimum energy performance standard (MEPS) prevalent in temperate climates.
“The new MEPS will ensure that cooling equipment built in or imported to the UAE is the most energy-efficient in the world,” Dr. Armstrong remarked.

Through their research, the team assessed the efficiency of heat pumps and cooling equipment using different refrigerants. Their findings indicate that using propane or ammonia – a second type of environmentally-friendly and cost-effective refrigerant – instead of HFCs, leads to better cooling efficiency. Ammonia and propane evaporate at lower temperatures than HFCs and require lower compression pressure, making them significantly more energy-efficient.

Although ammonia is one of the first refrigerants ever used, and is still a common refrigerant for industrial applications, including cold storage warehouses, it can be toxic if leaked from the chiller system. However, Dr. Armstrong believes the risks associated with an ammonia leak are minimal compared to the benefits they offer as an energy-efficient, low-cost and environmentally friendly refrigerant.

“The hazards of ammonia and propane do not pose great risks in rooftop chiller applications, which represent about half of cooling energy consumed in dense urban areas of UAE. The amounts of gas released in even a complete and abrupt rooftop loss of charge are quickly and harmlessly dissipated,” Dr. Armstrong explained. A new project has been developed in collaboration with the UAE Ministry of Energy aimed at demonstrating the potential for new regional MEPS based on the work done at Masdar Institute.

Some studies report that a freeze on HFCs could help prevent the earth from heating up by up to 0.5° Celsius in the long run. This extra half-a-degree in global temperature could have detrimental consequences, including higher global sea-levels, longer heat waves, and more damaging impacts on tropical coral reefs. That is why Masdar Institute is working to provide the critical solutions needed to avoid such adverse climate change through research and development of advanced chiller technologies and environmentally-friendly refrigerants that will support more sustainable cooling in the UAE and across the world.

Erica Solomon
News and Features Writer
20 December 2016

In the ten years since Masdar Institute (MI) was established through presidential decree in 2007, the research-focused graduate institute that recently became part of the new Khalifa University of Science and Technology, has steadily pursued its founding mandate to ‘support scientific research and technology in the emirate’ within Abu Dhabi and across the UAE, by evolving with the country’s rapidly developing national goals and needs.

The MI management has worked closely with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the UAE government to develop a university that nurtures the innovation ecosystem required for the country’s targeted knowledge economy transformation. The resulting institute has set many precedents in its efforts to develop the intellectual and human capital required to fuel the country’s continuing progress and prosperity, both in the UAE and the region at large.

RESPONSIVE ACADEMIC PROGRAMS

One obvious example of this focus are MI’s academic programs. When the Institute first began classes in 2009 it had just five degree programs. Today it has more than doubled that, with nine Master’s degree programs, a PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering, a Practicing Professionals Program, and the region’s first Master’s concentration in space systems and technology. This rollout of academic programs has reflected the UAE’s evolving economic strategies and needs.

For example, MI launched the UAE’s first Master’s in Microsystems in 2010 following the establishment of Mubadala’s semiconductor-focused Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) in 2008, which later rebranded as Mubadala Technology. The program’s research focus was then strengthened with the creation of the ATIC-SRC Center of Excellence for Energy Efficient Electronic Systems (ACE4S) in 2013, followed by the launch of the Institute Center for Microsystems (iMicro) in 2014. This focus on semiconductors resulted in student Aaesha Al Nuaimi becoming the first UAE national to fabricate thin-film crystalline Si-solar cells in the MI cleanroom in 2012, and fellow Emirati student Mejd Alsari Almheiri becoming the first to fabricate a polymer-based organic photovoltaic solar cell (OPV) in the UAE a year later.

The launch of MI’s latest academic offering, its Master’s concentration in space systems and technology, is a continuation of that effort to support the UAE’s national goals and needs through world-class academics and research. The concentration was developed in response to the UAE’s goal of establishing of becoming the first Arab nation to send an unmanned probe to Mars in 2020 and the targeted development of its aerospace sectors. As such, the concentration aims to educate some of the 150 Emirati scientists and engineers estimated to be required to complete the mission. The concentration was developed in collaboration with UAE satellite operator Yahsat and Orbital ATK and includes student-led design of a mini-satellite, called a CubeSat. The upcoming MI Commencement 2017 in May will introduce the first graduates of the space concentration to the UAE, many of whom will collect their diplomas and race off to join the country’s growing aerospace sector.

TARGETED EMIRATI EDUCATION

Ensuring that Masdar Institute’s education empowers and enriches the UAE’s people so that they can go on to become the country’s new value-added product in its post-oil future, as targeted in the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 and UAE Vision 2021, has always been a central focus of the Institute. That is why the Institute has targeted increasing enrollment of UAE Nationals, which has grown from 11% in its inaugural student intake in 2009, to reach 52% in 2017.

“Masdar Institute was always about giving the best back to the UAE. And for us, that has meant ensuring that we are also educating the UAE’s people to enhance the country’s resources. Thankfully, we have always managed to find ambitious, talented and driven Emirati women and men to take on the challenge. We count among our alumni some of the country’s pioneering Emirati scientists and engineers,” said Dr. Behjat Al Yousuf, Interim Provost, MI.

FEMALE EMPOWERMENT

MI’s student numbers also tell a story of dedication to female empowerment, capitalizing on the talent and determination demonstrated by women in the UAE. Emirati women are estimated to make up 60-70% of graduates in the UAE public sector and 59% of the UAE National workforce. This high level of educational achievement and workforce participation reveals the important role Emirati women are playing and will continue to play in the UAE. Ensuring that the education they achieve is of high quality and relevant to the country’s targeted sectors will ensure that their economic potential is fully leveraged.

Masdar Institute’s general student population is 51% female, and among the UAE National student body the number is 68%. These figures are particularly impressive given traditionally low enrollment and graduation rates for women in the sciences and engineering disciplines. For instance, the US average for enrollment of women in engineering graduate programs is a mere 23.1%.

“MI has continued with the legacy of Sheikh Zayed to meaningfully integrate the UAE’s women into the activities of the country. That is why we proactively engage in outreach to female students and faculty, and are proud to have a heavily female senior management,” revealed Dr. Lamya N. Fawwaz, Interim Vice President for Communications, Khalifa University of Science and Technology.

One student who embodies MI’s commitment to select and develop the best female talent is Nazek El-Atab, who is set to graduate with her PhD in May. El-Atab received the L’Oreal-Unesco For Women in Science Middle East Fellowship in 2015 for her thesis research, which is focused on lowering power consumption in nano-memory devices, and has followed up that honor with another this year. She was recently awarded the 2017 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science (FWIS) Rising Talent Award for the African and Arab region in honor of her outstanding potential and contribution to the creation of innovative solutions in field of research.

RESEARCH WITH REAL-WORLD IMPACT

Through the collaborative research and academic activities and local enrollment taking place at MI, the Institute intends to advance the UAE’s strategic national goals. This includes development of a strong diversified economy, balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability, developing an energy master plan for a diverse energy supply, and ensuring sustainable energy and water supply.

One collaborative research project that is already working to help achieve the goal of sustainable water supply is the UAE’s first renewable-energy powered desalination facility in Ghantoot, to which MI has been a key contributor. The goal of the project is to have full-scale renewable energy powered desalination operational in Abu Dhabi by 2020, for which it has integrated a Renewable Energy Desalination Pilot Plant. One of the five projects in the plant is a collaboration between Masdar, MI and Laborelec and Suez Environment, to research the feasibility of a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant using innovative desalination and powered by solar technologies.

Corporations have also recognized the value that Masdar Institute’s cutting-edge research can offer them to achieve their own performance goals. One such collaboration that has rolled out with great success is the Etihad fog detection system. MI’s researchers developed a software system for Etihad Airways that uses satellite data and other information to allow the airline to know in advance when fog events are likely to impact the Abu Dhabi Airport, thus helping officials to plan ahead to minimize disruption.

“This project will allow Etihad to detect in advance the type of fog incidents that caused significant and costly disruptions in 2014-15, and allow for planning to mitigate those disruptions. The system developed by MI researchers benefits not only Etihad, but the international community that vitally depends on Abu Dhabi as an air transportation hub,” Dr. Al Yousuf explained.

HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT

The 585 graduates MI has produced in its eight years of academic operations are a measure of the value and impact the Institute has had on the UAE and the wider world. Over 90% of the Institute’s graduates are employed or pursuing further education and some have already become pioneering innovators and celebrated scientists, carrying forward the ripples of the Institute’s impact.

MI’s first female PhD graduate Dr. Aamena Ali Alshamsi defended the UAE’s first doctorate thesis in the field of data science and computational social science while the first overall PhD program graduate Dr. Faisal AlMarzooqi became the first UAE national to disclose an invention for a novel technology to enhance desalination techniques using nanotechnology. Dr. Al Marzooqi, who joined Masdar Institute as an assistant professor following his graduation, has also worked with fellow alum and trailblazer Mejd Alsari Almheiri, a Class of 2014 MSc in Microsystems Engineering graduate and current PhD student at Cambridge University, to establish the first UAE Synchrotron Users Association. The group they established aims to bring together the UAE’s scientists and synchrotron experts to explore how fields of relevance to the UAE can be advanced through synchrotron science and to develop the synchrotron memberships and associations that will provide access to the limited and highly restricted research facilities.

Some of MI’s international alumni have also helped take the Institute’s impact far beyond the UAE’s borders. Class of 2011 graduate Laura Stupin is applying the skills she developed at MI to provide an innovative sanitation, health and renewable energy solution in Africa. She is a Senior Process Engineer at an organization called Pivot, which delivers city-scale sanitation solutions to low-income communities while providing access to renewable energy. Pivot coverts human waste into a solid fuel that is sold to industry for use in cement and brick factories to burn in their furnaces, which has contributed to reduced contamination of groundwater supplies and resulting diseases and malnutrition.

CONCLUSION

The Institute is now gearing up for its seventh commencement in May, which will be its last stand-alone graduation. Its graduates, and the work they go on to do, will further expand the Institute’s impact on the UAE and the world at large, advancing sustainability and innovative problem-solving. And with the announcement of MI’s merger with two other leading technical universities — the Petroleum Institute and the Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research — to create the Khalifa University of Science and Technology as a unified world-class, research-intensive institution, MI is planning for its next ten years of expansion, growth and responsive evolution. The new university will carry forward and enrich MI’s founding aim to support Abu Dhabi and the wider UAE’s transformation into an innovative knowledge economy, empowering the country’s people to become high-tech innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers.

Zarina Khan
Senior Editor
16 April 2017

 

 

Robotics and autonomous systems will play a key role in the UAE’s Fourth Industrial Revolution—indeed, the UAE plans to send a robot to Mars by 2030—and there’s plenty going on at KU to address some of the cutting-edge R&D challenges in robotics. The KU Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS) focuses on three frontier robotics application themes: Robotics for Extreme Environments, Robotics for Industrial Applications, and Robotics for Infrastructure Inspection; but it’s the final frontier that’s interesting researchers in the wake of the death of the Mars Rover Opportunity.

“Certainly, a mission that had to last only three months and successfully operated for 14 years is a great achievement by itself. It is a great victory against atmospheric weather and the radiation environment,” said Dr. Elena Fantino, Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering. “However, the technological success of these missions has to be seen as step-by-step progress made by the several programs that NASA has designed and launched since the early years of interplanetary exploration.”

Getting there in the first place

NASA is still the only agency that has been capable of landing a spacecraft on Mars—all attempts by the European Space Agency have dramatically failed, with the recent crash of the Schiaparelli probe a fine example. The lessons learnt from this are that entry, descent and a soft landing on Mars are the components of the most critical phase in a spacecraft’s journey, and uncertainty as to atmospheric density and navigation errors make it even more strenuous.

“Landing on Mars is super hard,” explained Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Science Mission Director at NASA. “On average, 50 percent of the missions that go to Mars fail. We have the worst of both worlds on Mars: if you come into the Earth from the space station, the atmosphere slows you down. We have a massive atmosphere and we know how to handle this. If you land on the moon, that’s easy because there’s no atmosphere, and we use retro boosters to handle that. If you want to land on Mars, you can’t ignore the atmosphere, but it’s not going to help you. You have to use a shell, a supersonic parachute, and then the retro rockets—all autonomously—to get your spacecraft to the surface. If any of this fails, you’ll make a new crater.”

Powering exploration

“We know that dust storms on Mars affect the efficiency of the solar cells, and this is the mostly likely cause of the termination of the Opportunity mission. The Rover was unable to produce sufficient electrical power to operate or even survive in the cold atmosphere of Mars,” explained Dr. Fantino. “This is why the Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory) Rover carries a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) as its primary source of electrical power, rather than relying on photovoltaics.”

Navigating the unknown

The surface of Mars is rough terrain. “It’s rough to navigate and it causes stress to the robot,” said Dr. Lakmal Seneviratne, Professor of Robotics and Director of KUCARS. “One of the problems with navigating rough terrain is traction. When we walk, we know instinctively what we are walking on; but walking is very difficult, and you only realize this when you’re trying to create robots that can walk. If we have sensors, we can identify what the soil properties are, feed that back to the controller, and then they can adjust the robot’s movements to make it more effective.”

Opportunity needed a team of mission engineers, drivers and scientists on Earth to collaborate on its movements from one site to the next. The rover needed to maneuver around rocks and boulders, climb rocky slopes as steep as 32-degrees, probe crater floors and find its way across dry riverbeds—it had been designed to travel just 1,000 meters. Instead, it travelled more than 45 kilometers. But with another 144,798,455 square kilometers to explore, future rovers need to rugged enough to handle the journey.

Communications

The vast majority of space missions never return to Earth. After launch, a spacecraft’s tracking and communications system is the only means with which to interact with it. Without a consistently effective and efficient communications system between the spacecraft and the Earth, there would be no successful mission.

The demands placed on deep space communications systems are continuously increasing. According to NASA, as of March 2016, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) had returned more than 298 terabits of data, but NASA estimates the deep space communications capability will need to grow by a factor of 10 each of the next three decades—to an astonishing 298,000 terabits. As we ask more detailed scientific questions, more sophisticated instruments are needed to answer them—and more data is required. Even at its maximum speed of 5.2 megabits per second (Mbps), it takes 90 minutes for MRO to send a single high-resolution image back to Earth. Understandably, the biggest obstacle to overcome is the enormous distance between us and space-faring robots. The two Voyager spacecraft are more than 15 billion kilometers away from home, and updates to the communications capability need to be extremely reliable and versatile to handle trips to (comparatively) nearby Mars and the far-flung corners of the galaxy.

The system needs to be reliable as any issues with the spacecraft can only be diagnosed, repaired, and mitigated via the communications system once it has left terra firmaon Earth. It needs to be hardy and versatile to accommodate the long system lifetime of a planetary mission. And it needs to be no heavier than a few kilograms and only consume just enough power to illuminate a refrigerator light bulb.

Much of the communication difficulty could be solved if the robots sent to Mars were autonomous. Behind many robotic systems operating today there’s a person controlling them. “They’re remote-controlled or semi-remote-controlled because autonomy is very hard,” said Prof. Seneviratne. “Robots can do three things: they move, they sense, and they intervene. They have legs, eyes, and arms. When you have a remote-controlled robot, you’ve also got the time delay. But achieving autonomy is very difficult. It’s a sensory issue—it’s both software and hardware as they form a continuum. We don’t have the feedback going into the sensors, and we don’t have the processing methods to interpret the feedback.”

The challenges are enormous.

The next step for mankind

Landing on Mars is one thing, having thriving robots is another: but the real challenge is living on Mars.

“The reason we’re talking about sending people to Mars is because sending robots there is very difficult to do,” explained Dr. Seneviratne.

Space agencies and aerospace companies around the world continue to address the challenges of living in space, such as using existing resources, options for disposing of trash, and more. Missions to the moon are about 1,000 times farther from Earth than missions to the International Space Station, requiring systems that can reliably operate far from home, supporting all the needs of human life. Then, there’s the 34 million mile trip to Mars to consider.

“Between sending robots to Mars and sending humans to Mars is a huge step. You just need to think about the amount of resources needed to facilitate human life—all the water, for example,” said Dr. Fantino.

The atmosphere on Mars is mostly carbon dioxide, the planetary surface is too cold to sustain human life, and the gravity there is just 38 percent of Earth’s. Innovative companies have been designing habitat prototypes that are self-sustaining, sealed against the uninhabitable atmosphere, and capable of supporting life for extended periods without support from Earth. Environmental control and life support systems are nothing new—thanks to the International Space Station—and crew are used to air locks and docking ports. But ISS crew members and astronauts are used to short missions in space.

Spaceflight of any kind presents unique stressors, from high G forces, increased radiation and microgravity, to sleep deprivation and nutritional complications. A mission to Mars and back would take a minimum of 520 days and see the crew journey around 360 million kilometers from home—that’s 520 days experiencing microgravity, confinement, stress from high expectations and risk of equipment failure, and microgravity-induced changes such as alterations in body fluid distribution.

“This is a fascinating topic—combining advanced machines and bioengineering healthcare solutions in pursuit of one goal: human presence in space,” explained Dr. Cesare Stefanini, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center. “With robots, we can remotely­—but physically—access space and other planets, and with bioengineering, we can make human life in space possible. This has happened already, and the goal now is to extend our reach in terms of distance and ‘sojourn’ time.”

From Dr. Stefanini’s point of view, there are two primary factors conflicting with life in space: microgravity and the presence of radiation. Other aspects, such as circadian rhythm, absence of atmosphere and extreme temperature ranges can be addressed and compensated with engineering solutions in a relatively easy way, but the two main aspects are less easy to tackle, with potentially severe consequences.

Microgravity

“Microgravity is the word used to refer to a whole set of physical phenomena that occur in a vehicle in orbit—it is not the lack of gravity,” explained Dr. Fantino, “In low-earth orbit, the gravity (or better, the gravitational acceleration) is still more than 90 percent of the gravity on the surface. And gravity is the only reason a satellite can be in orbit around Earth, around Mars, or in interplanetary space (around the Sun). What causes ‘microgravity’ is the fact that in the frame of reference of the vehicle (spacecraft, or platform, or satellite), people and objects feel the same acceleration towards the Earth and this acceleration is the cause of the orbital motion. Gravity is not felt as force that pulls downwards, but as a force that pulls an object in a circle. An astronaut floats inside the ISS because both the astronaut and the ISS move on the same circle around the Earth—it’s a different experience of gravity. But this enables all sorts of chemical and physical phenomena (such as the fact that particles don’t settle in a solution because they are not pulled downwards) that has paved the way to a new branch of scientific research.”

What effects then does microgravity have on the human body?

“Microgravity impacts on the properties of bone, making them less dense and strong; cardiovascular physiology (heart atrophy); and vision due to damage to the eye from increased intracranial pressure,” said Dr Stefanini. Equally, there’s a risk to immune health as studies have demonstrated a key role for microgravity in microbial physiology: bacteria can proliferate more readily in space, which suggests that this environment is better able to initiate growth that could lead to contamination, colonization and infection. A total of 234 species of bacteria and microscopic fungi were identified in the Mir space station environment between March 1995 and June 1998, and if these bacteria can survive the extreme conditions of spaceflight, they pose a considerable risk of contaminating not just the crew on board, but also wherever they may land. “To counteract this,” said Dr. Stefanini, “we need to restore gravity, and solutions can be developed by implementing artificially-generated inertial forces, for example via rotating systems.”

Radiation

Since Yuri Gargarin, over 450 people have travelled into space, but only those on Apollo missions have ventured beyond the first 500km of the low-Earth orbit. Low-earth orbit has a protective measure for humans planet-side and in space: the Earth’s magnetic field deflects a significant amount of radiation, but beyond the Van Allen radiation belt, where charged particles are trapped in this magnetic field, astronauts are exposed to solar and cosmic radiation. A 520-day round-trip to Mars would mean an astronomical amount of exposure for the crew on board.

“Radiation in space is characterized by high energy and carcinogenicity, especially for long missions such as the one for reaching Mars. Shielding is more difficult than in terrestrial applications, but the development of new materials opens the door to potential solutions,” explained Dr. Stefanini.

Exploration of the moon and Mars is intertwined: the moon provides the opportunity to test new tools, instruments and equipment that could be used on Mars to build self-sustaining life-support systems away from Earth. Sending humans far from Earth raises another intriguing problem: the one of space medical treatment and how to intervene on a patient by remote presence. Again, robots can be of great help (e.g. tele-operated surgical systems), allowing for surgeons on Earth to operate at very long distances. “This is already a reality,” said Dr. Stefanini, “The technology is there.”

NASA plans to send someone to Mars by 2040 but there’s a lot of work to be done in the meantime. The Mars Rover Opportunity lies in its most appropriate final resting place in Perseverance Valley—a symbolic end for the first robot on Mars.

Jade Sterling
News and Features Writer
26 March 2019