Drives & Controls September 2022

TECHNOLOGY n 19 www.drivesncontrols.com September 2022 A US COMPANY called Regent is pioneering a new category of electrically-powered vehicle called the seaglider that uses the ground effect to fly on a cushion of air a few metres above bodies of water. Regent says that the vehicle will dramatically cut the time and cost of moving people and goods between coastal locations. With 40% of the world’s population living in coastal communities, it adds that the seagliders will be the first vehicles to offer safe, low-cost, high-speed, zero-emission transport for this segment. Regent claims that it already has orders from aviation and ferry customers for more than 325 seagliders, representing an order book worth $6bn. “We are focused on bringing a revolutionary new vehicle to the transportation market with the potential to change how both people and freight move over the water,” says Regent’s co-founder and CTO, Mike Klinker. The seaglider operates on or above water in one of three modes – floating when it is near docks, on hydrofoils at speeds of up to 40 knots as it enters or leaves a port, and flying above the waves at 160 kts. It will be powered by eight 120kW motors. The seaglider is said to combine the high speed and comfort of an plane with the low operating costs of an electric vehicle, and can use existing dock infrastructures. It is also 30dB quieter than a plane or helicopter. The seagliders differ from previous wing- in-ground (WIG) effect vehicles in three ways: their use of hydrofoils; their distributed electric propulsion; and their fly-by-wire controls. These allow safe operation in harbours, good wave tolerance, and a comfortable ride. Regent's flagship seaglider, the 12- passenger Viceroy, will service routes of up to 290km using existing battery technologies, and up to 800km using next-generation batteries. Its operation as a WIG effect vehicle that rides above the water means that it can be tested and certified to maritime requirements, rather than aviation standards. This should allow it to obtain approval faster than electric aircraft, while maintaining similar levels of safety. Regent has started trials using remotely- controlled scaled-down prototypes. Full-size prototypes are due to start testing next year. Commercial services are planned for 2025. A New Zealand consortium has announced a $700m plan to buy 15 of the Viceroy aircraft and ten of the larger 100- seater Monarch seagliders that Regent is also developing. Two Hawaiian airlines are planning to bring the seagliders to the Pacific islands. • Regent is developing the seagliders using Siemens’ Xcelerator design, engineering and development platform, which incorporates digital twins. “As our seagliders approach certification and full-scale commercial production, we need a robust, modern digital tools platform that supports the pace of our innovation cycles with the rigor to encompass a product as complex as ours,” says Regent CTO, Mike Klinker. “Siemens Xcelerator as a Service was a perfect fit for a digital-first start-up like ours.” www.regentcraft.com Electric craft will ‘fly’ a few metres above the waves A CALIFORNIAN COMPANY has announced a machine vision sensor that, it claims, can operate over a range of more than 1km – further than any other device of its type. SiLC Technologies says that its“4D+” Eyeonic vision sensor can perceive, identify and avoid objects over long distances. Potential applications include robots, autonomous vehicles, security, industrial automation, warehousing and drones. The company, formed in 2018, has already attracted more than $30m of funding from backers including Dell, Sony and Epson. It says that its mission is to enable machines to see like humans. Most current 3D vision systems rely on high-power lasers operating on the 905nmwavelength, used with sensitive detectors in time-of- flight (ToF) systems. Although they perform“adequately”, according to SiLC, their costly assembly limits their resolution and cost-effective scaling. In addition, worries over eye safety have restricted their range, while crosstalk between applications hampers their wider use. To overcome the eye safety issues and to allow large-scale use with minimal interference between nearby applications, SiLC is advocating moving to a LiDar technology known as frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW), that operates on the 1550nmwavelength. However, widespread use of this technology has been limited to date by its high cost and the large number of components that it needs. SiLC believes it has solved these issues by integrating all of the components – including lasers and detectors – onto a single silicon chip, resulting in a compact, low-cost and low-power vision technology. It says that it represents the future of LiDar technology in which safety, performance and range are improved“dramatically”, and results in a compact, low-cost machine vision systems. The technology’s ability to measure velocity instantaneously will allow it to diagnose objects in motion, as well as to detect and analyse the movements of humans. The sensors are claimed to work without interference under any lighting conditions, or where there are multiple applications operating in the same area. “The detailed, accurate instantaneous velocity and ultra-long-range information that our Eyeonic vision sensor is the key to helping robots classify and predict their environment – in the same way that the human eye and brain work together,”says SiLC CEO, Dr Mehdi Asghari. Vision sensor’s 1km range is ‘the world’s longest’ Regent’s Viceroy seaglider will“fly”on a cushion of air a few metres above the sea surface