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This project seems like it could be a good fit for developing but urban settings where there is fairly high population density, a budget for deploying infrastructure, and enough community support to limit problems with vandalism or theft of the equipment.

Starsight (Starsightproject.com) is a project designed to supercharge street lighting and power in developing counties. Essentially it is a network of pylons, each with a solar panel, linked not by cables but by antennae which use wireless internet protocol.

The Starsight idea came out of the involvement of London-based sustainable development specialist the Kolam Partnership in an urban street lighting initiative in Cameroon.

Reliable street lighting can help a country to develop – a study by the Kenyan government recently found that street lighting reduced crime by 65 per cent. The benefits are even more widespread – aid workers and foreign businesses are more likely to stay on in a country if they feel secure.

One of the project partners is a Next-G, a Singapore-based wireless manufacturer which is building the pylons. If the project scales up, perhaps they can find a way to set up in-country fabrication of the poles, rather than importing them.

As an aside, solar panels are commonly seen at road intersections in Bangalore. If you look carefully at the top right of this photo, you’ll see one on the street sign pylon behind the tree branches.

Links:

• StarSight project web site
• StarSight (WorldChanging)
• Lamp posts are leap from dark, Financial Times, November 22, 2005

This ultrasound imaging system is designed as a peripheral to a standard notebook computer. The prototype unit has been developed by a group at the Japan National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, working with the Hiroshima Institute of Technology.

The unit can be used in health care or beauty facilities, or even in the home, to visualize the key components of the body (muscles, bones, subcutaneous fat) and give fat and muscle measurements. It is hoped that this technology will help to prevent elderly people from being confined to their beds.

Users connect Ubiquitous Echo to their personal computers and use the included software to collect detailed information about specific parts of the body. The ultrasonic echography equipment traditionally used in medical examinations is prohibitively expensive and too large to be used by health care and beauty facilities or in the home. This new machine is small, lightweight, and inexpensive and can even be put into a bag along with a laptop computer and carried around.

No pricing estimates are stated, but it is likely to be much less expensive than standalone ultrasound systems, in addition to being much more portable.

This might be a good addition to a mobile health unit or a field health center.

A newly created business called Global Health will work to bring it to market.

Links:

• AIST press release
• Global Health website (Japanese)
• GH site translated to English via Google)

via Medgadget

There are many applications for remote sensors and other small electronic devices in remote locations without access to the electrical grid, and where batteries may be unsuitable. A group from the University of Texas, Arlington has built a miniature windmill is 10cm (a little less than 4 inches) in diameter and can provide a power output of 7.5 milliwatts in a breeze of 16 km/hour (10 mph).

The novel aspect of this design is in its use of piezoelectric crystals rather than a conventional generator. Piezo crystals generate a voltage when they are deformed, and are commonly found in cigarette lighters and barbeque ignitions. This piezoelectric windmill brushes a series of cymbal-shaped transducers as it rotates to generate electricity.

A conventional generator that used a 10-centimetre turbine would convert only 1% of the available wind energy directly into electricity. A piezoelectric generator ups that to 18%, which is comparable to the average efficiency of the best large-scale windmills, says Priya.

Details are published in

(via Nature)

Check out the Skybuilt MPS (Mobile Power System). These transportable (not exactly “portable”) power systems fit inside a standard shipping container, which means it can be moved using standard rail, ship, and trucking systems. It can also be dropped by parachute. Power output depends on the configuration, but ranges from 1KW up to 50+ KW. It looks like their basic configuration uses wind and solar power, the higher power systems would probably require fuel-powered (diesel or gas) generators.

From the Skybuilt web site:

The MPS is a complete power station in a standard shipping container. It can be transported by truck, train, ship or plane.

At the site, you can deploy solar panels or wind turbines in just a few hours, for self-generated power. Or, use diesel, propane, natural gas or gasoline-powered generators.

The interior of the MPS can be used for anything—air-conditioned office space, telecommunications, medical center, emergency operations/command center or storage.

It reminds me of the shipping containers used for buildng rural telecenters in the LINCOS program. Also some prototype mobile command centers at the Future Battle Lab back in the late 80’s, which were containers stuffed full of computers and electronic equipment in shock mounts that could be dropped out of a C-130 and unfolded into a working field command post.

Looks expensive, but would be great for setting up a remote facility somewhere in a hurry.

via alarm:clock

Came across a couple of posts which prompted me to dig up some of my backlog of material from the Kuppam program.

Voltage stabilizers are uncommon and almost unknown in the US, but in India, voltage stabilizers are household equipment. Although the electrical service is nominally 240 VAC, in many rural areas the grid is underpowered, with priority given to agricultural users. This leads to scheduled power outages and wildly varying line voltages. While it is possible to run computers and other IT equipment directly from the AC line, this commonly leads to rapid equipment failure due to repeated undervoltage and overvoltage conditions.

The Kuppam i-Community program office is equipped with rooftop solar panels, diesel generator backup, and a voltage stablizer system. This site houses a computer training center, network servers, wired and wireless network routers, and various desktop computers for staff use. There are classes and activities there throughout the day, and the servers support network traffic from the entire region, so there is a premium on keeping the facility running as much as possible.

Although the cost of the IT equipment continues to decline rapidly, the cost of power systems has remained fairly constant. Fortunately, the general trend is for lower power consumption devices in the developed markes, which leads to trickle-down availability for the developing markets.

While most rural IT installations will not be as elaborate as this one, the indirect cost of providing power is an important consideration in building and sustaining information utilities for rural developing areas.

A sarcastic look at stabilizers sales boosting India’s GDP

But think some more: why do we need stabilizers in the first place? Because the voltage of the electricity that’s supplied to us fluctuates wildly. That happens because of inefficiencies in the generation and transmission of electricity. In India, we are so used to these fluctuations that we don’t even think they are abnormal: we simply buy stabilizers and use them like any other consumer product. Hell, they are just another consumer product.

We likely also don’t think, as we buy stabilizers, that we are pumping up the GDP of the country, which we are. But if we did think of that, we might find a small perversity here. Since we tolerate inefficiency in one part of our economy — the generation of electricity — we need devices whose production and purchase shore up another part of our economy.

One person’s recollection of life with stabilizers When Stabilizers Don’t Suffice

Around 1988, what we had was farm that needed lots of power, a tube-well that needed lots of power, and a house that needed a little power. We also had an authorized three-phase line, which used to supply some electricity everyday. It was another matter that for the few hours a day that we had it, we needed an ammeter to figure out whether we had power or not. When the rest of the city was moaning about power cuts, we felt blessed to have any power. We also had local generators, that could run for nine or ten hours, producing electricity at four times the cost, and consuming precious diesel, before requiring a mechanic, but those were needed to run the farm. Get us our daily bread, butter and cup of water.

See also: Ethan Zuckerman’s post from PopTech on Negroponte and the $100 Laptop

A group at University of Pennsylvania has come up with the “Suspended Load Backpack”, intended to capture electrical power as a side effect of human walking movements while carrying a backpack.

Their project was aimed towards military applications in which soldiers routinely carry 80 pounds of equipment, including up to 20 pounds of spare batteries. They claim that an 80 pound suspended load backpack can generate around 7.4 watts while moving at “a steady clip”. They also tested with smaller loads, presumably with reduced power output.

For comparison, a typical pack of 4 rechargable NiMH AA batteries might put out 1800mAH, or a total power capacity of around 8-9 watt-hours. The 80 pound test load reported in the UPenn press release is much heavier than most people would be willing to carry at all, let alone while traveling at a “steady clip”, but even a lower power output of 3 to 4 watts would be adequate for powering and/or charging small devices.

I wonder how the backpack actually performs as a backpack. The frame suspension and generator look a bit heavy already, and it sounds like the load moves up and down a couple of inches, which might be ok or might be enough to throw off your stride.

via BoingBoing, CNN

See also: Solar Power Backpack, Solar Backpack Wireless Hotspot

Update 09-24-2005 10:15 PDT: Article at National Geographic, article with video at MSNBC

Obtaining clean drinking water can be a major problem in many parts of the world. UV disinfection systems can work well if power is available, either from the grid or from locally generated power. This particular project has conducted some field trials in Mexico, with good results. The primary contaminant in the wells was organic, mostly fecal matter, not mineral or chemical contaminants.

The UV-Tube Project is part of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) at University of California at Berkeley. The project focuses on improving water quality for people in developing areas where other water treatment methods are not applied consistently because of their cost, inconvenience, complexity, or energy requirements. The goal of the UV-Tube Project is to design and promote the UV-Tube—an affordable, simple, and easy to use household water disinfection device that uses ultraviolet (UV-C) light to inactivate pathogens. UV-Tubes can be built from materials available in developing areas and thus can be disseminated easily through community workshops hosted by local non-governmental organizations or sold by small-scale entrepreneurs

The home-built system costs around $41, plus $4 per month in operating costs, compared with $300 and $26 per month for a commercial UV water disinfection system.

UV Disinfection Basics (from the UV-Tube project site)

via Engadget and News.com

Now that the 2.4GHz spectrum is approved for unlicensed outdoor use in India, a number of projects based on WiFi, 802.11, and related commodity wireless data networking technologies are emerging.

The Kuppam i-Community program in Andhra Pradesh, which I was involved with, also has a network based on 2.4GHz wireless radios. At the time we had to get experimental licenses, after many meetings and much paperwork, because the 2.4GHz band wasn’t approved for outdoor use in 2002 when the project was started.

From Times Of India (via ContentSutra):

Rural India has now some serious chances to go Wi-Fi, and that can be for as cheap as Rs 50 per person a year. United Villages Inc (UV), a US-based low-cost internet service provider, has asked the government for permission (foreign direct investment or FDI) to set up base in India. It will provide rural WiFi broadband, which has the potential to reach out to about 30 crore people living in the villages.

UV has developed a communication technology that provides internet access using mobile vehicles that connect to already set up hubs. As the vehicles drive through rural areas, wireless communication equipment within them automatically exchange data with access devices in each village. This unique low-cost communication concept for the developing countries is often called “internet-on-wheels”.

Using UV’s mobile internet technology, acronymed VAN (Village Area Network), people in the rural area can send and receive email and voicemail, and can also browse through cached information from the web and local intranets, the company said in its FIPB application.

Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, is one of the investors in United Villages.

See also: Cantennas deployed in Kuppam

A couple of interesting rural technology nuggets on BoingBoing:

From the PlayPump web site:

The Play-Pump is capable of producing 1400 litres per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40m, and is effective up to a depth of 100m. A typical hand pump installation cannot compete with this delivery rate, even with substantial effort.

The Playpumps are specifically designed and patented roundabouts (1) that drive conventional borehole pumps (2), while entertaining children. The revolutionary pump design converts rotational movement to reciprocating linear movement by a driving mechanism consisting of only two working parts.
…
To date OVER SIX HUNDRED installations have been completed, a large percentage of these installations are at primary schools. A partnership has been formed with the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry; Minister Buyelwa Sonjica has been vocal in her support and encouragement for the continued installation of this system in rural Africa.

Another link from the same post highlights the Gaviota eco-community project in Colombia, South America:

A techno-tour of the llanos shows how Gaviotas has revolutionized life here. The most significant invention is a simple hand pump capable of tapping aquifers six times deeper than conventional models, but requiring so little effort that children can operate it. In normal pumps a heavy piston must be raised and lowered inside a pipe. Gaviotas engineers realized they could do the reverse; leave the piston stationary and lift an outer sleeve of lightweight, inexpensive PVC tubing instead.

In the open-air Gaviotas preschool, the children’s see-saw is actually a pump in disguise. As they rise and descend, water gushes from a vertical pipe into an open cement tank. Over the years Gaviotas technicians have installed these in thousands of school yards, using kid power to provide villages with clean water.

Here’s a wireless hotspot based on the Voltaic solar backpack: article link (Popular Science), blog link (Mike Outmesguine)

What if you could marry the short-range power of Wi-Fi with the huge coverage areas of high-speed cellular services such as EV-DO to create a portable hotspot?

Parts List
• Junxion Box wireless gateway $700; junxionbox.com
• Verizon Wireless EV-DO PCMCIA card $100; verizonwireless.com
• Voltaic Systems solar-charging backpack $230; voltaicsystems.com