Paul Dille

Active management of a heterogeneous energy store for electric vehicles

The successful introduction of electric vehicles continues to be stifled by the high cost and limited performance life of battery technology. We assert that a disruptive improvement in systems-level cost-of-performance is possible by employing a rate-heterogeneous energy storage system, combining low-rate batteries and high-rate supercapacitors, that is mated to a predictive control system that optimizes power management by exploiting topographic information, traffic history, and specific driver performance. Such predictive power management, optimizing energy storage throughout episodes of vehicle acceleration and regenerative braking, has the potential to significantly decrease the total energy duty on the vehicles batteries.

Terapixel Imaging of Cosmological Simulations

The increasing size of cosmological simulations has led to the need for new visualization techniques. We focus on smoothed particle hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations run with the GADGET code and describe methods for visually accessing the entire simulation at full resolution. The simulation snapshots are rastered and processed on supercomputers into images that are ready to be accessed through a Web interface (GigaPan). This allows any scientist with a Web browser to interactively explore simulation data sets in both spatial and temporal dimensions and data sets which in their native format can be hundreds of terabytes in size or more. We present two examples, the first a static terapixel image of the MassiveBlack simulation, a P-GADGET SPH simulation with 65 billion particles, and the second an interactively zoomable animation of a different simulation with more than 1000 frames, each a gigapixel in size. Both are available for public access through the GigaPan Web interface. We also make our imaging software publicly available.

Community-Empowered Air Quality Monitoring System

Developing information technology to democratize scientific knowledge and support citizen empowerment is a challenging task. In our case, a local community suffered from air pollution caused by industrial activity. The residents lacked the technological fluency to gather and curate diverse scientific data to advocate for regulatory change. We collaborated with the community in developing an air quality monitoring system which integrated heterogeneous data over a large spatial and temporal scale. The system afforded strong scientific evidence by using animated smoke images, air quality data, crowdsourced smell reports, and wind data. In our evaluation, we report patterns of sharing smoke images among stakeholders. Our survey study shows that the scientific knowledge provided by the system encourages agonistic discussions with regulators, empowers the community to support policy making, and rebalances the power relationship between stakeholders.

Visualization Tool for Environmental Sensing and Public Health Data

To assist residents affected by oil and gas development, public health professionals in a non-profit organization have collected community data, including symptoms, air quality, and personal stories. However, the organization was unable to aggregate and visualize these data computationally. We present the Environmental Health Channel, an interactive web-based tool for visualizing environmental sensing and public health data. This tool enables discussing and disseminating scientific evidence to reveal local environmental and health impacts of industrial activities.

Very-High-Resolution Time-Lapse Photography for Plant and Ecosystems Research

Premise of the study: Traditional photography is a compromise between image detail and area covered. We report a new method for creating time-lapse sequences of very-high-resolution photographs to produce zoomable images that facilitate observation across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Methods and Results: A robotic camera mount and software were used to capture images of the growth and movement in Brassica rapa every 15 s in the laboratory. The resultant time-lapse sequence (http://timemachine.gigapan.org/wiki/Plant_Growth) captures growth detail such as circumnutation. A modified, solar-powered system was deployed at a remote field site in southern Arizona. Images were collected every 2 h over a 3-mo period to capture the response of vegetation to monsoon season rainfall (http://timemachine.gigapan.org/wiki/Arizona_Grasslands). Conclusions: A technique for observing time sequences of both individual plant and ecosystem response at a range of spatial scales is available for use in the laboratory and in the field.

ChargeCar community conversions: Practical, electric commuter vehicles now!

The technology for practical, short-range electric commuter vehicles (EVs) is here now! The ChargeCar project at Carnegie Mellon University aims to exploit todays technology to make efficient, clean, quiet, commuter electric vehicles available to the public, while providing a basis for local economic development and increasing public awareness of EVs. We have developed a “kit” of modular components that can be used to convert a conventional gasoline-powered car to 100% electric power in a matter of a few days, utilizing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, along with existing manufacturing facilities and automotive garages. This kit has been installed and tested in two Honda Civics, and has performed well in over 3500 miles of driving. The prototype vehicles have a range of 40+ miles, top speed in excess of 70 mph, and charge overnight on any 120 VAC receptacle. Present efforts are toward commercializing the manufacturing and conversion process, while continuing related research in compound energy sytems - e.g. battery plus ultracapacitor - and pursuing educational efforts with the public and local schools.